10th Day of the High Flower Moon, Year 1241 of the Third Age of Kythia
[…] First marched the Khrysaorians, Men of fierce countenance and tall of build, their left sides protected by long shields which shone with remarkable brightness. White cloaks draped their shoulders, and on their right they brandished fearsome swords. Next to the Khrysaorians stood the other Mannish auxiliaries, their armour and costume diversiform according to their respective nations; and among these were some Lyaronians but also Men of the outlands of Tol-Antioc and Tol-Nilethos; filai these were called by Elves, Alonians by themselves, and these were for the most part armed with great bows given to them by the Elves.
Next came a formation of the Elves themselves, which they called the phalanx of the Phoinospidai. These were selected for their strength and valour and were more conspicuous, shining in gilded armour and scarlet cloaks, and armed in the Elven manner: this was the middle of the army. These were succeeded by those whom they called Haimaspidai, for their blood-red shields. This phalanx was placed next to the other on the right wing. Besides these two phalanxes, which constituted the chief strengths of the Seldonian army, the knights, who were also Elves, and carried lances not very unlike those of the phalanx, but in other respects more heavily armed and draped, were distributed on the wings advanced, and projected beyond the left of the line. The plain was illuminated with the brightness of their arms, the neighbouring hills echoed with their shouts, as they mutually cheered each other on, and the music of their war instruments was thunderous.
History of the Old Continent in the Third Age. Book XXV.13-16.
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It proved easy enough to find where Diarkhon Valiodoros had chosen to form his battle, since the low incline where he and his personal retinue was placed was awash with a veritable forest of banners and standards, flying a hundred and one different heraldic symbols. As soon as Selenike, Lyssa, and Rhylin cleared the perimeter of the army’s camp, rode past the series of ditches and sharpened stakes –dug and set up by the astoi infantry two days ago, when the camp was pitched–, they simply followed the few straggler groups of men-at-arms and herald-knights headed for the diarkhon’s position. The ride gave Selenike an opportunity to actually appreciate the field where the Prince’s host was assembling on. She did not know the name of the vast plain, nor the low mountains far to the east, but she could recognise it was superb ground to wage war on. It stretched on for several miles in all directions, verdant and virginal green grasslands that had never seen a ploughman’s tool, only the flat teeth of livestock and wild grazers. There were a few undulating rises here and there, but none big enough to be called even a low hill, and a few small streams just barely large enough to carve out a path through the greenery. The grass was summer-grown, smelling beautifully fresh, and the water that trickled down the small becks was as clear as the skies above.
Boots splashed into the water, sending up silt from the bottom to cloud the stream. To the steady rhythm of the drums and pipes, the helikiai and thymai phalangites found their formations, hundreds forming into rectangles of armoured warriors, led by their First Spears and First Shields. Tall Helms and Picked shouted orders for the formations to form in specific locations and in relation to each other, with trumpeters and standard-bearers communicating those orders down the lines, the argent single-winged bleeding crescent on a field purpure banners of Seldonia waving everywhere along the rows of armoured pikemen. Bands of drummers kept beating the same cadence over and over, their music so persistent and mesmerizingly repetitive that the phalangites marched to the tune without thinking, pipers joining in intermittedly with jaunty, martial melodies. Behind the forming phalanxes, archers –both eulaoi and thyfilai– were ordering themselves into lines, the taller and stronger thymai standing behind the smaller thyfilai, all armed with longbows made of strong aster-oak. Eschewing their mounts, many plate-armoured men-at-arms formed into smaller units between the phalanx synados, favouring heavy poleaxes, halberds, and long-bladed two-handed swords called lakhairos. Selenike could barely make out a huge figure standing a bit clear of the Saiphaforoi, the “Swordbearers”, a plate-clad giant of a thymai with no helmet, a massive long-ax resting on their pauldron.
“How many do you think we have mustered here?” Lyssa asked, her voice struggling to be heard over the din of the marching infantry, the drums and the pipes.
“Hard to tell,” Rhylin answered, struggling a bit with Pixie’s reins as the horse jittered, scared by all the unfamiliar noises, “a phalanx is normally supposed to be around 4,000 strong, but there appears to be more than one here. Look at the shields and the officers.” He pointed towards two synadoi of phalangites who had crossed a nearby stream and had come to a halt, planting the steel counterweights of their pikes in the grassy soil.
Selenike squinted to make out what Rhylin was pointing at. The phalangites were all eulaoi, and for the most part seemed to be almost exclusively helikiai, with only the odd thymai among their ordered ranks. Mostly clad in linen cuirasses and long scale armour hauberks –though not uniformly–, the phalangites carried on their left arms long leafshields, shaped like upturned ebonrose leaves, the form of the leaf lending it naturally to adoption as a shield, with grooves that could hold the shafts of their pikes. The pikes themselves were twenty-one feet long, composed of two halves of aster-oak slotted together before the battle in a steel band, and the spearpoint was a full foot long, shaped like a leaf to be able to both stab and slice; once the order was given, the soldiers would wield the pikes with two hands, the shield held upright by leather straps that looped around the left arm and neck of the phalangites. The phalangites favoured steel helmets decorated with plumes of dyed feathers or horsehair with large chin-guards that protected the face, without the need for a visor that restricted vision. Many of their chin-guards resembled mesmerising facemasks when tied together, and with sharp angles that deflected enemy spear-tips or slashes from blades away from the wearer. But Selenike noticed the differences Rhylin was pointing out; one of the synados –formations of around two-hundred and fifty warriors– had their shields painted in a deep red, with either the likeness of the masque-wearing Blood Prince or his bleeding single-winged crescent argent painted on their shields. The shields of the other synados were painted a lighter scarlet, with the winged moon of Seldonia in cream the most frequently recurring symbol.
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“The Haimaispidai and the Phoinospidai then,” Selenike said a last, “the full strength of foot from Tol-Antioc, plus auxiliaries and arestratoi, the Blood Prince isn’t taking any chances.”
She pulled the skin of strongwine from her saddle bag and took a long draught, wiped her mouth absentmindedly with her blue half-cape and handed the skin over to Rhylin who accepted it with a grateful nod and took a swig.
“Ju-hallo!” a voice suddenly shouted from behind them, and the trio turned in their saddles in confusion. A party of men-at-arms (it was risible that the Eulaoi had adopted a Mannish term for mounted warriors, a distant part of Selenike’s brain surmised) came riding up behind them, mounted on white korseiroi, tall and strong warhorses that hailed from the sacred island of Chor-Hieras. The party were mostly armoured in long ringmail hauberks, demi-plate and armoured feather-skirts, and had long linen streamers of red adorned by numerous small white dragons instead of tabards or surcoats. However, their leader wore full plate of shining theostali, and held a helmet fashioned in the shape of a snarling jaguar under her arm, complete with a painted band of yellow and black spots along the upper half of the helmet, in addition to the red streamers of the others.
“I say,” the tall helikiai leader said as she pulled up alongside Selenike, “good day for it, is it not?”
Surprised by the nonchalant comment, Selenike’s jaw worked.
“I suppose it is,” she managed to eke out, flummoxed, “though I’m entirely sure what ‘it’ you’re referring to, Kyra…?”
The helikiai knight was taller than Selenike, with extremely pale skin, much sharper facial features, and long unbound pale blonde hair only fractionally darker than Selenike’s own. Her eyes were a strange hue of brown that seemed to Selenike’s to cross over into red. The knight held her truelance upright in her right hand, the banner showing a drake salient argent overlaid a fountain on a field sanguine.
“Where are my manners,” the knight said, smiling lopsidedly, and tossed her head to make her long hair fall back over her shoulders, “truly you must think me raised in a peasant’s hut. Aïkan Aliastheira Drakesblood, of the Most Serene Order of the Ivory Dragon, First Sword to Our Sacred Lady Stratodōra.”
She managed a bow in the saddle of her barded and caparisoned korseroi, even while wearing full plate, which impressed Selenike, though she hoped she didn’t show it outwardly.
“And by it,” Aliastheira continued, “I refer to the honourable glory about to take place on this field. You wouldn’t per chance happen to catch the name of this place? My squires seem to have concentrated more on lightening the load of our baggage train’s supplies of liquor last night, rather than gather battlefield knowledge.”
The words might have been judged as insulting, but Aliastheira’s tone was jovial, and the six accompanying riders simply smiled sheepishly, or chuckled softly at their knight’s light barb. Selenike sat a bit straighter in her own saddle.
“I only know the Blood Prince’s host crossed into the duchy Men call Lys-Tyras three nights ago, but I sadly do not know the name of this valley, I only arrived this night. My party was waylaid on our route here by a rampaging beast which we had to deal with.”
One pale eyebrow hiked up a bit, and Selenike was starting to think this Aliastheira never stopped smiling, at least one corner of her mouth was always ever so slightly pulling up.
“Oh? Well, you seem to have come away from it handsomely, if judging by the state of your armour…” Aliastheira’s voice tapered off and Selenike could feel her cheeks warm up.
“Though what matters,” the red-liveried knight said after a brief moment to spectate a company of thyfilai archers taking their places behind a phalanx synados, “is that you made it here in time. By your disposition, I trust you’re to be in Diarkhon Valiodoros’ battle?”
“That was where we headed towards, Kyra,” Lyssa said on her knight’s behalf, and Aliastheira’s smile grew larger.
“Excellent, let us make our way over there together, Kyra…?”
“Aïs Selenike Startears, daughter of Antyakhos of House Starborn.” Selenike waved her truelance to make her banner flutter, and Aliastheira’s smile gave way to pursed lips and a low whistle.
“Then my apologies, Kyra, I was unaware that someone as youthful in appearance like yourself could be a full Aïs already, if you can forgive me for saying so. I would rather not make an enemy of a scion from an arestratoi house right before battle is joined.”
Again, this Aliastheira’s tone was laden with good-natured humour and Selenike found herself warming to the knight she had known for all of four minutes.
“No offence taken, Kyra,” she replied with a small smile of her own, “and we will gladly accompany you to the Diarkhon’s battle.”
Aliastheira beamed.
“Why, excellent, and if we find the time, I’ll even introduce you.”
“You know the Diarkhon?” Rhylin blurted out in surprise and Aliastheira’s squires laughed.
“Why of course, young one, this isn’t my first Glory, and by reputation alone the Diarkhon should know my bearing and name. Come along, and you’ll see.”
With that, the dragon-knight gently nudged her horse with her spurs and she rode off at the trot, the half dozen squires following close behind. A synados of phalangites marching in steady rhythm stopped at the shouted order from the Tall Helm leading the formation as Aliastheira’s party rode right past them, and at another shouted order they presented arms by holding their shields over their chests and slammed their pikes into the shields. Lyssa and Rhylin looked at each other in slight apprehension before looking at Selenike. The scion of House Starborn tried to push back a sudden sense of dread, quickly brought the wine-skin back up to her lips and swallowed a big mouthful, before spurring Ghost to follow her newly acquired “friend”, riding quickly past the phalangites, wordlessly watching her ride by behind their helmet face-masks.