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Sir Emerson Lennox
Mista Savar
‘Pale Jackal’
‘War Leader’
‘Soaring Scimitar’
Part III
-Bladed wheels-
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There was a stillness in the air, the two moons appearing larger in the sky. A pale white for Oras Eye and the ring of washed-out blue visible right behind it for Nesande’s Moon. While it was a hot evening Emerson thought there was a difference with the night before.
The absence of sound and the deceptively similar flavor of the night were simply unable to conceal.
A change was coming.
He rubbed his eyes and stepped out of the gate’s captain building, the ransacked place adjoining the gaping south gates and the cracked walls. With no gates and several holes on the walls Que Ki-La was more a trap than a defensive position. Especially with thousands of the local populace still remaining inside, the streams of refugees heading north and west packing the roads not yet able to empty the city.
“That’s it then,” Phon-Iv said behind him coming out as well, followed by the slave master Bohor, Serebus with Foreal remaining inside with his young wife Mesi-Nasar. “I showed her the city and Sol’s palace. A sad sight admittedly. There was a corpse floating inside a pond for crying out loud! Poor thing got sick and just now recovered.”
“You need to find a way to negotiate,” Emerson rustled not bothering with his mundane problems. “We can’t attack beyond Lu-Kela with the force we have here.”
“Lord Tsuparin has received reinforcements and he’s raising more men,” Phon replied. “Myself as well. This is generational wealth I’m spending here Ballard.”
“You expect me to cry over yer lost coin? An upset stomach? Heaps of dead are blocking the streets, along with people too sick to walk away!”
“Listen, I get it. I’m not favoring what’s happening,” Pho-Iv replied with a grimace of distaste. “What’s the alternative?”
“You ask for a treaty concerning the three cities,” Emerson suggested. “Something akin to what Sovya did. A better contract than the one you had.”
“He won’t accept.”
“If Nout fails he’ll have no choice but look to buy time.”
Mirka, the freed Lorian woman approached them with a carafe of tea. “Will you sit outside milords?”
“I don’t need servants’ lass,” Emerson grunted, Phon pointing at a small table Bohor had brought outside. The main street leading to Sol’s palace cleaned and empty now but still showing signs of the fight and the damage from weeks of siege.
“It’s the least I can do Milord Ballard,” Mirka replied and placed the carafe and cups on the table.
“You could leave.”
“There’s nowhere to go and I tried it once already,” Mirka argued with a tired smile. “I feel safer here.”
“That’s a nice tea,” Phon commented and Emerson glared at him. “I could offer to take you both to my camp,” the Cofol continued afore noticing the knight’s expression. “My wife could do with a couple of more servants is all I’m saying, goodness me Ballard! Fine, her daughter is worth a pretty penny. Then you won’t have to worry about anything!”
By being his slaves was the rich scion’s meaning.
Emerson couldn’t believe Phon was looking to make a profit out of the situation. The man’s way of thinking alien to him.
“You have over a thousand slaves in your camp!” He growled.
“Who earn their food and lodging opening the road Sartak build through the Dates forest? Bringing supplies in the city and your camp. So calm down, we’re not savages mister Ballard. By the way why leave the camp?”
“Neither Palar nor the camp could be defended in the plains.”
Too much open ground.
Phon frowned, his embroidered with gold details silk robes matching his fancy bronze and silver armour vest. The light armour thin enough to be pierced with Emerson’s index finger. “Nout could bypass it, cut us off, you claimed earlier.”
“He will.”
“We can’t allow him to reclaim the city.”
“The city is useless.”
“I get it, I heard your reasoning,” Phon argued. “But whatever he’s bringing with him can’t be more than what we have here. This is a chance to kill the leopard Ballard.”
Emerson had the leopard cornered in Hellfort and he slipped through. While the knight didn’t have the numbers then it was an excellent position. Men with numbers had tried to corner Nout since then and the leopard had still gotten around them.
Lured them into a trap instead.
Again and again.
“If he had committed all his force in Ani Ta-Ne he would have taken the city. He didn’t, the army moved out per yer message and is only controlling the east gates, the markets road and the port.”
“Still he doesn’t have enough.”
“What has Glenavon sent?” Emerson asked.
“Reeves sent six ships. Big, but no one can approach to learn on the number of troops. Trust me, the Zilan are brutal in their discipline on army matters. On other stuff they could make a whore blush, but I digress. This was a force he’d stationed near Elauthin and then sent on an expeditionary mission to Rain-Minas.”
“Thalion shouldn’t attack until reinforcements reach him.”
“It’s impossible to control the local troops,” Phon replied with a pained grimace and Emerson saw the stunned look on Mirka’s face. “He can order his gladiators around but the rest just won’t listen to him. They’ll head for Ta-Ne.”
“Mmm,” Emerson grunted.
A man can only control what he can.
It is what it is.
“Even if they make it in time, we are left on our own Ballard. I’m not sure young Reeves has a mind for war.”
“Don’t underestimate Glenavon. He’ll see it, look for a solution. He won’t cower,” Emerson replied gruffly.
“Lord Reeves is still alive?” Mirka intervened. “Apologies milords for the interruption.”
“You know him?” Emerson asked her and she nodded.
“He helped us out of the city,” she explained. “I thought he perished when it burned,” Mirka answered. “I’ll never forget the young lord.”
“He survived obviously,” Phon-Iv replied. “Almost gotten my sister killed but I guess it wasn’t totally his fault. Sen believes he’ll help us. Believed…” Phon corrected himself gulping down and placed the cup on the table his appetite lost. “Notify my wife we’re heading back Bohor,” he said hoarsely. “I want out of this darn city.”
Emerson waited for Bohor to leave them.
“The gap between the west walls and the forest is the best position to fight him,” he told the gloomy Sopat headman. “Long narrow and deep front that leads into another cauldron between the lake’s east banks and the river.”
“What if he enters the city and drives through it instead?”
Let him fight amidst the ruins and the streets then.
“We control the city to an extent, it favors us for him to make the mistake. Same way as we can’t allow ourselves to be cut off trying to defend in here. Reinforcements will pour at our rear, the moment we lose control of the bridge.”
Phon-Iv sighed deeply and rubbed his stomach. “I loved following the caravan around,” he admitted reminiscing. “I really did. The peacefulness, small smart deals on every stop. Open country and camaraderie. War is scaring me Ballard because I don’t understand it.”
“No one knows of war. People think they do, but war doesn’t care about what you or I believe. It’s a beast that will do its own thing and look to kill us given the chance.”
“Let us see, what Samir’s scouts will say on the morrow,” a worried Phon said just as his young Cofol wife exited the building. A pretty girl with dark gold skin, covered in intricate tattoos, light caramel-colored hair and expressive same color eyes, the outline penciled black.
“Bohor stay,” Emerson said gruffly. “I’ll have word wit you.”
> Either the last week of summer or the first of Fall of 193 NC, a patrol of mercenary horse archers’ leader Samir of Ani Ta-Ne, a man whose employer was already dead, discovered while on a scouting mission part of Prince Nout’s advanced units approaching the rich village of Palar and the Chiliad’s camp twenty kilometers from Que Ki-La. The riders turned around and went to inform Sir Emerson that the enemy was there but found the camp empty as the knight had evacuated the men and supplies bringing everything behind Que Ki-La.
>
> So the scouts informed Bohor in its place, a slave-master under whom Asmudius was serving and he in turn messaged Lord Phon-Iv Sopat and Sir Emerson. Bohor was now leading a very large force of mounted-slavers infantry and caravan guards (probably over eight hundred men) stationed a kilometer before the walls of Que Ki-La and its south gates. The Three Sisters army leaders had talked for long the previous days on the right strategy to deal with Prince Nout but there was a deep disagreement between them and even in minor officers’ ranks.
>
> Lord Phon believed they could knock the Prince out given their numbers (it must be noted here that the Lai Zel-Ka army was split in two uneven portions). Bohor’s force covered the south approach and road, while Lord Phon’s camp that numbered around two thousand five hundred(?) soldiers (and a thousand slaves – Asmudius is unclear whether they were included in the total numbers or not) stationed some kilometers west of the city.
>
> Nevertheless Phon had at least one thousand five hundred men covering the desert roads and the city’s west gates or Simun (Simoom) Gates. It was named after the strong hot and dry wind blasting occasionally Que Ki-La’s west neighborhoods creating dust storms that stopped at the Clear Lake but reached the city’s walls.
>
> Emerson had taken control of the west gates after securing the bridge at Small River and then the north gates days prior, but had kept the Chiliad between the city and the river wanting to force Prince Nout to come to him. He didn’t want to attack Nout first and had ordered the camp evacuated and the half-ruined settlement left to Prince’s army. A battle on the plains would have been a battle of cavalry and while they had the numbers, Sir Emerson didn’t believe they had the quality. He preferred an infantry-heavy bogged down engagement on worse terrain, but there was no such terrain available.
>
> The land was dominated by the Palms and Dates forest west of Que Ki-La, with the woods thinning out near the Sopat and Simun roads, however leaving relatively empty corn fields at the boundary hugging the west side of the city’s walls.
>
> At the northwest corner of the city it created a small bottleneck between the walls and the south banks of Clear Lake and the ground turned softer heading towards Small River through a dominated with old fig trees area.
>
> Emerson wanted to draw Prince Nout there which was a risk, as it would bring him closer to the bridge potentially and put Emerson between two forces, but likewise it could entangle Nout between the knight’s and Lord Phon’s army controlling the roads if Arik Sartak’s attacks remained ineffective following the pattern of the previous week.
>
> It was a matter of coordination and trickery.
>
> A compromise was reached with Bohor left on the south flank to test Prince Nout and if overwhelmed to fall back towards the cut through the Palms Forest road (near the Dates Plantations) and either lure the prince there for an engagement in narrow terrain or rope him towards Lord Phon’s camp away from his supply line. The Chiliad could advance then and catch the Prince in a deadly vise. Velox with Citata’s platoons were deployed near the Simun Gates –a flank hugging the walls- right at the junction to anchor both of Bohor’s avenues of retreat (the other being west towards the parallel-running Palms Forest path), with Phon’s army under Serebus and Merehor tasked with blocking the deserts roads.
>
> This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
>
> Bohor placed his slaver-guards at the center and had Samir’s riders acting as a safety valve with Turcus’ smaller force staying inside the city (the latter part of Thalion’s reinforcement that had reached Que Ki-La.) Asmudius who served under Nertor at the center of Bohor’s army gives the numbers as following.
>
> Over a hundred gladiators under Turcus inside Que Ki-La. Around eight hundred Slavers/caravan guards with Bohor. About two hundred and seventy horse archers with Samir of Ani Ta-Ne. One thousand five hundred men split in two groups one near the junction, the other less than two kilometers behind guarding the camp and desert northern approach from any flanking movements (the latter a mixture of mercenaries, slaver-guards and the Sopat Lai Zel-Ka soldiers etc.) The Chiliad was numbering around eight hundred and fifty gladiators (minus the injured), the majority kept between the Small River (to control the bridge) and the lake north of Que Ki-La.
>
> Prince Nout’s men appeared on the plains near the abandoned Chiliad’s camp a couple of hours after sunrise the next day. Instead of attacking Bohor’s force he waited seemingly for his supply train to arrive showcasing extreme patience. One day and then another which brought nervousness on the Three Sisters armies facing him.
>
> Nout was patient because events unfolding hundreds of kilometers away dictated he should wait for another part of his offensive to conclude afore engaging. Thalion’s force attacked Khemet’s invasion army in a bloody battle three kilometers east of Ani Ta-Ne. The gladiators pushed Khemet’s weaker center back (defended by Rava’s Marines and Jang-Lu fighters) but they got hit hard in the flanks from Khemet’s horse archers and the fast moving Forya-Rochir. The latter broke through to the rear of Thalion’s large front (at least two thousand gladiators and mercenaries) attacked his supply train and camp, and defeated the reserve stationed there.
>
> Thalion had to pull men from the line to take back his camp and while it didn’t immediately caused him problems it slowed down his advance. He led the attack himself on horseback against the outnumbered Forya-Rochir which turned out to be a fatal mistake. Against all odds, Sid Halla-Tar’s Horselords cut down their opponents’ one after the other, killing Thalion in the process.
>
> The Three Sisters army disengaged upon receiving the news of the famed champion’s fate and the disaster to its rear. It intended to abandon the field and retreat through the badly mauled Forya-Rochir and partially it succeeded with over a thousand warriors escaping. Half a day later and on the road back to Rohir, Nancin’s also weakened force and two groups of about eighty Rohir Horselords attacked them on the road.
>
> In this second savage engagement Thalion’s demoralized force won through the skin of their teeth pushing Nancin back, but dissolved soon after when the first horse archer units of Khemet caught up with them. It was a massacre with few survivors mainly from amongst the mercenaries. Since no gladiator run away they were killed to the last with volleys of arrows as Khemet wanted to avoid needless casualties. That night Nancin who had been left with less than a hundred men after fighting desperately for months collapsed on his knees and wept like a child upon witnessing Khemet’s white warhorse approaching.
>
> The two generals had opened the road and secured the Prince’s land avenue of retreat but after they had messaged Prince Nout of their success, word reached them later that night from spies living in Fu De Gar that a new army was marching towards Ani Ta-Ne.
>
> The coded message described this sprouted out of thin air force with the cryptic words ‘the Phalanx’.
>
> Khemet and Nancin were unwilling to abandon the port of Ani Ta-Ne, even at its ruined state, since his father Lord Khemet (who was leading the fleet) was bound to return with fresh men and supplies to properly occupy the city. So the two generals turned around and marched towards Ani Ta-Ne again sending another message to Prince Nout to hold.
>
> But the leopard who was in contact with Arik Sartak looking for other options had already moved.
Third day of fall 193
Outskirts of Que Ki-La
‘Great bales of hay’ or
2nd Clash at Dor O’ Cofol plains
Emerson heard the roar of many men and animals moving and brought the spyglass on his eye again. A thick smoke had risen from the field beyond Bohor’s stirring lines of warriors. Many smaller columns of smoke, he decided after a brief examination of the happenings. It blends with the clouds of dust raised from the horses.
“Nout is moving,” he told Velox and the aged gladiator stopped oiling the shaven tanned skin of his skull. He wiped his hands with a cloth before asking the frowning knight gruffly.
“Cataphracts?”
“Scouts more like. Looking to approach behind the smokes.”
“What’s he burning?”
“Hay. Lots of it,” Emerson grunted. “They roll it forward with poles.”
“Brought it wit the supply train ye think?” Velox queried.
“Aye. Picked the warehouses clean.”
The Prince’s supply train had arrived during the night.
“Not much declination,” the gladiator leader and trainer noted.
“He isn’t looking to attack with it,” Emerson replied spotting the familiar large wooden-walls or big field-shields amidst the rear lines of Nout’s main force. Pure Cavalry. You rushed here, he thought. “He wants to approach and provoke Bohor.”
Emerson went to his horse and climbed up the saddle.
“Should I move the lads?” Velox asked.
“I’ll sent a runner. Balfor with me. Toros you get back to Troy. Notify Turcus and Merehor on your way there.”
“Don’t trust that cunt. Rumor is he worked for Esugen back in Nasar,” Velox rustled speaking of Phon’s new general under Serebus.
“Phon’s gold is a better mistress,” Emerson retorted tying the Jackal’s Helm bindings under his chin.
“The proficient whore parts her thighs easily,” Velox countered with a grimace and spat down. “Give me that spyglass and watch yer back.”
Emerson arrived east of the Dates Plantation and Bohor’s west flank five minutes later. A group of horse archers galloped away in front of him reacting to Nout’s scouts that were roaming the field getting in and out of bow-shot range.
“This could take a while,” Balfor commented, square jaw protruding under his full-face helm.
Emerson smacked his lips and followed the movement of the many smaller groups of cavalry repositioning on the flat terrain. It was difficult to discern one from the other in the haze, with the prince’s riders thankfully sporting their pale-white cotton robes to Samir’s darker and of many different colors hemp ones.
The thundering of hooves coming and going, with men crying out orders or animals neighing disturbed at the pandemonium.
“Samir is going to hit them. Charge to close the distance and fire a volley,” he told the mounted gladiator just as Asmudius approached on his horse clad in his leather and mail slaver armour.
“This is it for me Mista Savar,” Asmudius yelled to be heard stopping his horse. He worked his tongue over his teeth and then spat the gathered material down. “I woke up at early dawn, been eating grass, and shit-flavored dirt since then. Fuck it I say!”
“Notify Nertor, I can see he’s bringing the Cataphacts closer!” Emerson growled.
“They’ll never catch Samir’s boys,” Asmudius replied turning on the saddle to watch what was happening. The enemy appeared and then disappeared behind the acrid smokes. “Bohor wants to attack them while they are bunched up in front of what’s left of our palisade.”
Emerson removed his helm and wiped his tearing eyes with a cloth. “How many chariots?” he asked hoarsely.
“Scores probably, but he keeps them hidden not to scratch the paint, ha-ha. Whoa, yer not in the mood. Well then to keep it real, they can’t be more than four-five hundred heavies out there. Half of them Cataphracts. I counted them to pass the time.”
“Plus the chariots,” Emerson said raspingly. “That’s a lot of heavies to punch us with. You can’t bring a Cataphract down without a long lance. Having said that, have you ever fought against chariots Asmudius?”
The Prince hadn’t used them at Hellfort.
“For real? Eh, can’t say I have.”
“I fought a charioteer in the arena,” Balfor said. “But it was a smaller vehicle.”
“How did it go?” Emerson grunted and slotted the helm on his sweaty head again.
“I killed the driver with a hurled trident,” Balfor replied with a frown.
“Whoa, that’s some ballsy shite mate!” Asmudius bawled with enthusiasm to be heard over the shouting of the archers making their move. “Let’s hear the full story!”
“I ain’t yer mate slaver,” Balfor grunted eyeing him like a rat covered with boils. “And the darn thing ripped through us. I had to hug a charging horse to save myself and still have pieces of broken bones moving at my ribcage.”
“Naossis’ nipple rings,” Asmudius retorted nigh impressed. “I can now see what caused yer unprovoked outburst!”
Emerson turned his head to admonish the smart-mouthed slaver but didn’t as Nout’s Cataphracts moved en masse about twenty meters out of their lines and then stopped moving in a solid block, swiftly getting covered again from thick smoke coming from the burning bales of hay.
What are you doing? Emerson thought and Samir’s archers roared in their turn starting their attack at the Prince’s scouts three hundred meters away.
> Samir of Ani Ta-Ne attacked the provoking scouts of Prince Nout an hour into the engagement. He’d split his force in two large groups to attack from two directions, the first group pushing the scouts towards the other. When the scouts moved into range, the confusing chaos of the expansive hazy battlefield not helping anyone, his riders fired a volley bringing some of their horses down. The scouts turned around releasing their arrows as well and tried to move away but Samir’s archers danced with them in the flat area between the two forces hitting them again and again from both sides.
>
> It was a slow grind that caused a steady stream of casualties to the scouts that slowly retreated towards their lines without disengaging. Nout, who had brought his Cataphracts forward under Hora-Se of Rin An-Pur, ordered them to fire on the approaching horse archers. The Cataphracts did using their crossbows. In the panic that followed that first lethal volley, the bulk of the heavy three-men carrying war-chariots under Ramen-Toka, the Prince’s only wife Tamun-Toka’s brother and son of Lord Kosey-Toka of the distant rich city of Dinar, repositioned closer to the front and opened fire using their crossbows and bows.
>
> A multipurpose war vehicle, the famed Imperial Chariot was drawn by four large horses and was faster than the heavy cavalry but more difficult to maneuver. It could deploy three palm-size in width twin-edged blades protruding from its large wheels, the two smaller of them rotating counter to the wheels motion with the help of a disk-shaped bearing, with the longer center blade remaining stationary and parallel to the ground like a scythe. The driver was standing in the middle and could fire arrow shots when the chariot was heading straight, while the other two fighters had a variety of weapons to use but mainly javelins or throwing axes, crossbows and swords. They were heavily armoured like the Cataphracts and could fight on foot if needed.
>
> To put it in perspective, two hundred war Chariots were in reality six hundred men.
>
> The massive volley melted Samir’s horse archers and they retreated in disarray followed by the Prince’s scouts who had endured the punishment to entice them within range of the crossbow bolts. Bohor seeing Samir’s force getting mauled, as the hundreds of bolts fired brought the unarmoured horses down even if they missed their riders, ordered Nertor to smack the scouts away with his mounted infantry. Nertor charged his flank (that was the west one) on the scouts that were firing arrow after arrow at Samir’s retreating men, but Hora-Se ordered his lancers (the large group of medium/heavy cavalry hadn’t involved itself in the fight yet) to counter-charge the slavers.
>
> Sir Emerson who saw the disaster coming sent Asmudius (the writer describes the scene colorfully failing to mention why he wasn’t with his comrades and Nertor but instead was loitering near Sir Emerson) to order Bohor to pull back his men and retreat towards the forest or the city.
>
> Effectively that would have left Nertor on his own but Sir Emerson feared Nout would hit Bohor’s east flank (now unprotected and angling towards Nertor) from the direction of the coast and cut him off. A pressured Bohor hesitated in the chaos of the fast developing cavalry engagement (which was what the knight wanted to avoid from the start) and by the time he ordered his mounted force back a wall of chariots came out of the smokes and hit his east flank.
>
> The surging war-machines –making a characteristic rattling metallic sound that unnerved those on the receiving end- butchered or dismembered horses and men like a hot knife cuts butter, coming in four waves with each following chariot widening the gap. The slavers broke away in disarray but they were hit hard by bolts and javelins hurled at them from the charioteers and probably lost more men from that than the scythed wheels.
>
> Bohor managed to disengage but got attacked by the Cataphracts next and while he survived that engagement with heavy casualties and minus an arm, his friend Nertor didn’t and his force got wiped out in less than thirty minutes.
>
> Asmudius who lost an ear and got partially blinded from a throwing axe that ‘sort of bounced off of his helm’ per his own words, described the surreal scene ‘as nightmarish’ and the bladed wheels carrying the malevolent smirking masked charioteers ‘as demons out of Oras hells’.
>
>
>
> -
>
>
>
> Embellished by
>
> Lord Sirio Veturius
>
> Assembled from notes, oral memoirs, and the vulgar, unreliable but famed plays of the slave merchant turned writer Asmudius, who traveled with the Chiliad
>
> Circa 206 NC
>
> The Fall of Heroes
>
> Chapter XXIV
>
> (Sir Emerson Lennox, Ballard of Lesia, Mista Savar)
>
> Tales of Greenwhale Peninsula,
>
> Volume V
>
> ‘Three Sisters Rebellion’
>
> -
>
> 8th – 9th month
>
> -‘Disaster at Simun Road junction & the unbroken Chiliad’*-
>
> Early Fall of 193 NC?**
>
>
>
> -
>
>
>
> *The title of Asmudius most historically accurate play following various characters, with the more famous, vulgar and highly embellished ‘the Titan of Novesium’ being a rehash of the same events and their aftermath through the eyes of a single gladiator.
>
> **No official details of the battle survive but Asmudius’ version –glorifying the Three Sisters side of the battle. The playwriter had been seriously injured, wasn’t present in the final days and gathered information later from the survivors. The Khanate’s version is very brief and rather undetailed due to the sensitive nature of the topic today and the Prince’s –usually extremely meticulous and well-documented- records of the campaign are completely missing or are secreted away for political reasons, giving rise to wild speculation.
>
>
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