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> ‘Radpour ruled over most of the Horselords of the Cofol Steppe. He pushed away many of the Horselords of the Central Steppe up to Eikenport, conquered the Rohir of Stallion’s Rest and forced almost all of the Forya-Rochir to bend the knee but only Prince Nout had ever gotten them to fight for him. Still oh great Prince, you won’t find peace on these plains unless all of them bow to you. This cannot happen, so peace you shall not have.’
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> Advisor and close friend Lemus-On of Wotcheki Castle speaking to Prince Atpa in early 194 NC in Sadofort.
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Sid, of the Halla-Tar
‘Soaring Scimitar’
Part I
-A dawn at Ta-Ne and the howls of the Forya Rochir-
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[https://i.postimg.cc/jtmwnT85/Torbal-Forya-Rochir-Gaetes-The-Fast-Nest.jpg]
Sid had the bitter acidic taste of vomit in his throat. His eyes were burning, face soaked in brine and the waves of the large open port splashing at his feet. The morning chill fading. A great roar came from all about him, but mostly from the second large landing craft travelling side by side with theirs. The Forya-Rochir packed in there smelling the approaching land and reacting. The Jang-Lu detachment on his other side remained silent, the three bigger forty-oar crafts creating the center of the landing force. Sumir and Dureca stared at him under the drenched steel helms, white and black dotted snow leopard hide covering their shoulder guards.
The screaming of the tower machines firing at the warships securing the flanks cut through the sound of the sea. The waves were high for the season, difficult to navigate in the pitch black especially after they made the turn at Whale’s Head to approach Ani Ta-Ne. Each shot fired creating an explosion that illuminated the dark port’s waters, the burning oil sizzling at the surface, and two of the warships already set alight.
It was a darn spectacular sight.
One could hear the large city waking up. A distant roar increasing with every passing minute just like the lights on the houses nearest to the port. Fifty meters from the shores and the docks, the port defenders spotted the slow-moving transports and released everything they had available on them. Arrows started rattling the raised bow ramp or landing amongst them. Most had lit oiled cloth attached but several were without or weren’t lit at all. The sound of Scorpios firing soon followed.
“TEN METERS!” A naval sergeant from Shao Na-Lan boomed at the rower handlers, himself hanging dangerously from the left corner of the bow, body half-in half-out. The sergeant added with gawking eyes “LOWER RAMP!” afore an iron bolt cut him in half and doused the side of the ship, Sid and those standing next to him in gore.
“SHIELDS!” Dureca growled clamping a bloody mouth and Sid spat down cracking his numb neck right and left.
Vile perfumed-skin smooth-tongued creatures carry a snake’s breath, he thought.
Then the bow ramp dropped, a huge amount of water splashing inside just a second before the moving fast craft soared ashore.
> Late on the third month of summer, the year of the New Calendar 193, around forty heavily laden ships, a mixture of merchant transports, a few warships and fishing vessels, along eight landing crafts Prince Nout’s engineers had built in six weeks forced a surprise landing in Ani Ta-Ne.
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> Nout had given the task to his friend Lord Har Khemet of Yin Hi-Yan, as Aquila-Dor wasn’t trusted enough for this sensitive operation. Lord Khemet took with him around a thousand versatile horse archers led by his son Sept Khemet, five hundred marines from Shao Na-Lan led by Ravan, a man working for Aquila-Dor who was drafted into the Prince’s army, and around seven hundred mounted infantry. Two hundred retired but elite Jang-Lu left behind by the Khan and five hundred Forya-Rochir (the Northern Horselords), a heavy mounted infantry force from the clans of the distant northern territories of the Khanate, extending from the frozen Abe Era Fort at the delta of Heartmouth River to the Cofol Steppe town of Torbal near the military city called Xuski Fort.
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> The latter were led by the loyal Sid Halla-Tar, born around Xuski Fort near the Luz-et-Eriel Lagoon and river. A place the nigh difficult to get your hands on Zilan maps give today the more esoteric name Aelrindel’s Rest. The Prince had met him in 186 upon arriving at Xuski Fort and they had struck an unlikely friendship despite their huge difference in status.
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> The ships managed to slip through the patrols Lord Letakin had around the massive gulf and landed at the edge of Tani River’s mouth just outside the expansive docks. The defenders were slow to react as the bulk of the guards and soldiers inside the city were gathered at the supply camps built near the Great Market, the latter on the city’s east gates. Letakin was about to send reinforcements towards the weakened army of Thalion and the embattled settlement of Rohir. He had decided to release the troops guarding the city as he had in turn gotten word of help arriving from Fu De-Gar soon.
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> Thalion had sent a part of his engaged force to Sir Emerson Lennox and to the port of Rihtur for two reasons. The first being that they anticipated Price Nout to strike there and the second, was the need to reinforce the Chiliad that was besieging Que Ki-La and was very close to winning.
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> For whatever reason the landing didn’t go smoothly. The hastily constructed landing crafts and ships found rough seas. They struggled to approach the shores and the alerted soldiers rushed across the city towards the docks. The number of casualties suffered during the landings is impossible to gauge given the many different engagements that were fought those months in a short period. The scenes inside the port, with the catapults firing shots of flaming pottery or even barrels of oil and then setting ships alight with flaming arrows gruesome. The fires boiled the waters, then spread on the docks buildings and the produce stands. They leaped irrepressibly after a while penetrating the city as deep as the Dates Forest, with the engaged in heavy fighting local authorities unable to control them.
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> The Horselords attacking force managed to rush one of the five markets (near the river) and the docks before dawn. There is no record of the battles that were fought afterward but for the oral recollections of the survivors.
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> The name of the multi-pronged operation has survived through the Prince’s many admirers today and its missing detailed records are one of the most sought-after documents in the military academia circles. More so, perhaps unfairly, due to its shocking conclusion.
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> The Zilan of Wetull and the Cofols of the Peninsula call it Amaveil Hathel in Imperial but it is commonly known as the ‘Soaring Scimitar’.
The Forya warriors had surged out of the landing crafts and got immediately bogged down, boots splashing in the shallow waters knee-deep and swarms of angry arrows, rocks, bolts, and lead shots pelting them. It was better the further you were from the docks but far from peaceful or absent danger. Eyes were gouged out, arms shattered and heads exploded. Soldiers lost legs and got skewered by arrows at the most unlikely places even through armour. Now and then multiple times.
Sid skated on the fine gravel in the blind covered in seaweed, faltered forward trying to hold on to his scimitar, and went down when part of a burning torso appeared under him in the semi-darkness. He turned mid-air and mitigated the fall, rolled on a shoulder through the gore, and found a severed head at the end of it.
His ears ringing and with eyes swollen from the brines making everything appear through a red-blurry hue the murky warrior leader found his footing and roared for his Foryans to rush the defenders.
“SUMIR MOVE ‘EM!” Sid barked and turned hearing the stifled roar of a burly Cofol coming at him with a cleaver. He slashed and nailed Sid’s shield-covered chest, a piece of it detaching and clanging on his helm. Sid responded with a diagonal slash of his own, the curved blade ever rising until it stopped abruptly. It had connected right under the man’s jaw and cleaved him upwards, breaking many teeth, and severing his tongue until it parked in the palate.
The cleaver came back despite the shock but Sid put a hand on it and tried to get the blade out of the man’s disfigured face. For a moment the two of them twirled around in the edges of the market but Sid wasn’t the one bleeding down his neck and he only lost time.
“Sid!” Dureca grunted running back to get him. “We need to get the men out of the beach!”
“Your words are an empty wind,” Sid replied angrily cleaning the gore from his blade and unclasping the round shield they had worn on their chest. “Where are the Jang-Lu?”
“Making their square,” Dureca replied and wiped some of the gory sludge from his helm and stern face.
“Leave them to follow after us,” Sid decided and clanged his blade once on the shield. “Let’s hurry this up Dureca, son of Furvor of the Halla-Tar. I want to get my hands on them horses.”
The Leopard had them make the journey without mounts to give the hardened warriors of the frozen steppe even more incentive to run across the city.
Sid, son of Bardas of the Halla-Tar clan, respected him for it.
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Sumir charged the guards coming from the docks and stopped their advance to his left, so Sid moved with Dureca and the warriors following them out of the market, near the gates of the port. People were coming out of their houses hearing the roar of battle but seeing the flames lighting up the still-dark skies some returned inside and locked their doors, whilst others ran away towards the center of the city.
“Dureca you shall hold the street and block the port’s gates until Kindar’s Jang-Lu arrive, or Ravan’s marines break out of the docks,” Sid ordered his second in command and Dureca nodded. “I’ll try to reach the stables around the central market,” he added and split the men into two groups of about a hundred each.
“What about Letakin’s palace?” Dureca asked.
“Khemet will unload the archers with the rest of the ships once the beach is secure,” Sid rustled and seeing a group of civilians trying to slip by their lines barked at the closest warriors. “Cut them down! NO ONE GOES THROUGH!”
He didn’t want their numbers revealed.
Sid turned to the waiting Dureca and added hoarsely knowing they were on a tight window. “You keep an eye for reinforcements coming that way. Don’t lose the street!”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
> While a force of Foryans put the fleeing civilians to the blade Sid Halla-Tar rushed the wide avenue connecting the Tani River Gates with the East Gates and the Great Market outside of it, the almost straight road running parallel to the port. Near the Slave Bazaar and the stables of the Livestock Market adjoined to it the guards returning from the Great Market collided with assaulting Forya-Rochir following him. The battle amidst the wooden stalls, carts, and market buildings was brutal.
The Forya Warrior took a spear thrust in the chest and stumbled back, gurgling up frothy blood, the end of the shaft breaking but the blade buried in his lungs. The wound critical. Sid stepped forward, a sword clanging on the raised shield numbing his shoulder, and hacked an arm off at the elbow joint. He cursed, scalding blood in his eyes, and jolted his head aside, another spear thrust punching through his shield and stabbing him below fourth and third rib.
Sid groaned and faltered backward turning the shield this way and that to dislodge the spear, the sharp pain fueling his resolve but the wound not that deep. The spear blade came out with a gush of blood and he let go of the shield when his opponent yanked the spear back to gore him. Sid grunted and slashed wildly to keep him away then reached for his long dagger, before advancing at the Cofol guard trying to remove the shield still stuck on his longer weapon.
The guard swung the spear wildly, the shield still attached to it, but Sid managed to duck under it. He got smacked at the back of the helm by the heavy shield’s bottom part, lost his footing for a tense moment, recovered just as the guard let go of the spear after the missed swing, and plunged his dagger at the dip of the man’s neck.
The Cofol pulled away, right hand on his bloody collar and Sid hacked him once more using the scimitar going through the wrist to get at the neck again. Once and the injured man went down on his knees with a desperate groan, severed hand spraying blood all over the place. Twice and the scimitar came down again to find the half-chopped off neck and finish the job.
Sid went to suck a deep breath in but stopped halfway as another guard came at him with a sabre. He dodged and found a wooden wall, banged on it, and then jerked away, the blade digging in the wood. Sid slashed at his opponent while jumping away, a diagonal low to high arc, and cut the nose-guard off along the tip of the man’s nose. Sid made to sidestep thinking he’d a bit of time but got ambushed by a low stand with empty pottery and the Cofol instead of stepping away charged him infuriated.
Down all the stacked-up amphorae-type jars went, sharp shards cracking and turning into an unrecognizable pile and the wooden stand caved under his weight. Sid rolled on it as it came apart, almost made it but the Cofol bodied him over it again and the whole structure collapsed.
A wooden beam smacked him on the right shoulder, the canvas cloth used for the shade coming between Sid and his furious opponent. The Cofol slashed at it, the blade appearing through the torn fabric and cutting him below the right eye at the cheekbone. Sid twisted away, rolling on sharp broken pottery and sharp pieces of shattered wood managing not to accumulate any more injuries.
Realizing he’d missed his helm in the brawl at some point, Sid looked about for it leaving the Cofol still tangled up in the destroyed market stall. The Forya leader didn’t find his helm, but found another that sort of fitted on his head and put it on. No sooner had he done that, a group of Ta-Ne guards marched on him and Sid had to retreat towards Dureca who was in the process of reforming their men.
“Sid, we need to retreat towards the port!” Dureca grunted and Sid cursed glancing at the approaching soldiers. The helm fell from his head as its bindings came loose and clanged down on the nice cobblestone now covered with slain bodies, debris and discarded weaponry.
Darn defective equipment!
“Run back to Sumir. Tell him to bring Kindar’s Jang-Lu here!” A heavy breathing and bleeding from a couple of wounds Sid ordered raspingly.
“Kindar might not take kindly to yer orders son of Bardas!”
“I won’t take kindly to him refusing ‘em! I wager ye he’ll reconsider!”
“Fuck’s sake, that’s the whole darn guard Sid!” Dureca hissed and Sid showed him two rows of bloody teeth.
If yer in the right, then you feel no fear.
“Even better! Now we don’t have to hunt them rats in the dark!” He boasted loud enough for the men to hear over the sounds of mayhem coming from all over the city. They responded with a series of loud guttural howls slamming their scimitars on their shields and soon more howls came from different parts of the assaulted city.
If they are here, Sid thought pleased at the bravery displayed, then the port is ours.
> Sept Khemet arriving with the second wave of landing vessels managed to secure the port bringing his archers (now unmounted) along. A special unit closer to Jelin’s rangers than the typical Khan’s Horse Archers, the lightly armoured soldiers could move swiftly on land and were also proficient in close combat since Prince Nout had them trained to be used unconventionally.
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> Khemet’s ranger/archers secured the port and left the marines under Ravan (an officer from Shao Na-Lan) to assault the tower. Sept Khemet moved towards the center of Ani Ta-Ne after breaking out of the port but was informed that Kindar and Sid Halla-Tar had been bogged down near the Animal and Slave markets (Ani Ta-Ne famously had five big markets) by the returning army Lord Letakin had stationed to the east outside the city. Sept Khemet looped around in the narrower streets surrounding the main avenue but a lot of his men were lost in the dark alleys, or got preoccupied with heavy plundering. The waking up city’s riches too enticing to cast aside even for veteran troops.
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> Amidst all the killing, raping and pillaging spreading from neighborhood to neighborhood, Khemet managed to flank the guards with around five hundred men slipping behind their lines. His assault on the east gates wasn’t perfect or immediately successful but it rattled the defenders.
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> With the scrap raging in the markets two kilometers away and with flames approaching, Lord Letakin attempted to strike at the rear of the engaged Forya-Rochir and open the road towards the port again whilst severing their foothold on the river side of the beach. His bodyguards and loyal mercenaries fell on the advancing Jang-Lu of Kindar instead in the pandemonium. The small but well-trained and bloodied force of professional soldiers created a shieldwall Lord Letakin’s men just couldn’t break.
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> Still they attempted to push them aside valiantly.
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> They got butchered mercilessly in the process by the halberd-wielding Jang-Lu. Letakin decided to retreat towards his palace, but the roads were beset by the chaos of fleeing civilians, raiding parties of invaders and even criminals, along a very large number of slaves (amongst them gladiators) that attempted to escape in the confusion. A city that more than half its population were slaves (Ani Ta-Ne had around two hundred and fifty thousand people living there which made for a very large number of enslaved souls) couldn’t exist without its guards and whip-induced order. With the slavers, mercenaries and local guards engaged with the invaders a big number of slaves rebelled.
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> The new day found three distinct groups fighting for control of the city. Lord Letakin’s army, Sept Khemet’s troops and the now armed slaves. It must be noted here that there were slaves fighting for their masters amidst the general turmoil.
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> Lord Letakin’s battered entourage failed to make it back to the palace and got ambushed or cornered by a marauding force of Northern Horselords now on foot. The latter while mainly fighting near or with Sid at the markets were one of many splintered groups that penetrated deep inside the city. In the savage fight that followed the mercenaries and officials with the Khan’s former Master of Sea were cut down without quarter.
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> The fate of Letakin himself not known in the great chaos and heavy looting that followed on their corpses but he’s presumed killed. The raiders reached his palace an hour later but they were pulled back by a rider sent by Sid who had broken through at the battle of the Slave Market and got his hands on mounts.
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> By the time Khemet managed to regroup his ranger/archers for another assault at the East Gates the overwhelmed guards –assaulted by multiple sides and opponents- still loyal to Lord Letakin were routed and tried to escape north beyond the Desert Gates inside the Dates Forest oasis.
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> The rebelling slaves (anywhere between two to three thousand lightly armed men and women, but the number has been cited by other sources as high as ten thousand) tried in their turn to escape out of the East Gates (the port was burning for hours by this point and the fire was spreading inside the city.) This ragtag ever-growing crowd fell on the men Sept Khemet had gathered there trying to prepare for an assault on the mostly empty camps near the Great Market and almost wiped them out. Sept lost almost two hundred soldiers in the confusing melee with some getting killed by butter knives, tools or even pieces of broken pottery.
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> Sid’s partially scattered warriors charged at the backs of the rebelling slaves and saved the noble scion from an embarrassing defeat or even death.
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> While it seems shocking today around fifteen thousand people were killed in less than six hours in Ani Ta-Ne that morning. A third of the large city port was fully burned, which is something no one really wanted, the port facilities ruined to such an extend Sept was forced to send the fleet back in Shao Na-Lan days later. Another five thousand people would be dead in the month that followed as the leaderless city was left to govern itself (Lord Letakin’s family was lost and his palace thoroughly looted, then torched probably not from Khemet’s soldiers. From a huge family of three wives, two slave mistresses and fourteen children there is only one offspring remaining today that can be tied back to the Letakin patriarch. A daughter.)
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> In the shock that followed Sept Khemet’s sacking of Ani Ta-Ne, Thalion was forced to stop fighting with Nancin who had been left with less than five hundred troops at this point. They had been living off the land, following the groups of Rohir Horselords around and making random raids against Thalion’s gladiators occupying the thrice burned settlement. Thalion sent an urgent message to Rihtur and the men stationed there for help, then moved on the road leading back to Ani Ta-Ne intending to strike at Khemet’s presumed still regrouping force, then toss them back into the sea.
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> Sir Emerson Lennox who was preparing an attack at Small Bridge in Que Ki-La went ahead with it despite learning of the catastrophe at Ani Ta-Ne. Several units of the Chiliad pushed the force Arik Sartak had left there beyond the river and got control of the bridge, effectively closing the noose on the besieged for almost three months city. With the city completely surrounded and partially occupied Sir Emerson hoped Lord Elur Sol’s starving (cases of disease had been mentioned as well, probably typhus) soldiers would finally capitulate. To secure his rear he ordered Lord Phon’s mercenary force to relocate south while keeping control of the desert road and assist the men left near the Chiliad’s camp at the South Gates.
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> While Thalion hard-marched his gladiators down the coastal road back towards Ani Ta-Ne, Khemet was busy trying to get the sacked city under control. Quickly realizing this was a lost cause and with the fires still burning a day later and various groups engaging in atrocities Sept ordered his own force to prepare to defend the camps built near the Great Market, having learned of the approaching Thalion and left the hapless city to its fate.
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> Thalion’s gladiators would reach the outskirts of Ani Ta-Ne eight days later with the smokes still visible from the distance and attack the waiting army of Sept Khemet four days after that. That same week a flotilla sporting red, gold and black dragon banners, the few ships in the small flotilla ranging from Lesia-constructed heavy transports to Zilan war-galleys of exotic design, entered the distressed at the news of Ta-Ne’s fate port of Fu De-Gar almost two hundred kilometers away. At about the same time three kilometers from Rihtur and on its desolate arid shores in the middle of nowhere, the answer on where Prince Nout’s remaining fleet had disappeared to, was to be answered.
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> While the Prince had to be carried ashore on a stretcher after collapsing from exertion or illness, the bulk of his best veteran (of two campaigns, numerous small and at least three significant engagements at Rida, Sadofort and Hellfort) mounted forces, two hundred scythed war Chariots and five hundred heavy cavalry (250 Cataphracts and 250 heavy lancers) along two hundred mounted scouts made it ashore alongside his sledge.
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> The rumor is the Prince had at least two horses issued for each man under him, having stripped every mount available from Khemet. Miraculously a day later while Thalion was still ten kilometers from Ani Ta-Ne’s camps Prince Nout’s small mobile force had already smashed through Rihtur’s defenders taking no prisoners and was moving fast towards Que Ki-La.
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> It is said Lord Phon and Sir Emerson were informed of the seemingly weak force in total numbers (though it was anything but that) rushing towards them, half a day before the first group of four-horsed chariots came out of the plains. Prince Nout’s supply train formed in Rihtur where his fleet had anchored a day after they made their landing, was still three days away.
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> Embellished by
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> Lord Sirio Veturius
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> Assembled from notes, oral memoirs, and the vulgar, unreliable but famed plays of the slave merchant turned writer Asmudius, who traveled with the Chiliad
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> Circa 206 NC
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> The Fall of Heroes
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> Chapter XXIV
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> (Sir Emerson Lennox, Ballard of Lesia, Mista Savar)
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> Tales of Greenwhale Peninsula,
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> Volume V
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> ‘Three Sisters Rebellion’
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> -
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> 8th month
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> -A slain Ram, Scythed Devils and the ‘Battle of the Simun Gates’*-
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> *the name describing a series of engagements fought around Que Ki-La and not the penultimate battle of the campaign.
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> Last month of summer of 193 to early Fall of 193 NC
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> (mainly third and fourth week, with sources giving much later dates)
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