>
> The sun had turned the sky red above the desert. A soft breeze made the dust raised by so many horses and chariots billow over the large force that slowly came to a halt. Ramen-Toka jumped from his chariot before it parked next to the Prince’s, leaving his driver in command and approached Beon-Mau and Ibn-Robet that were conversing with the Heir at the top of the small dune.
>
> Prince Nout lowered the gilded spyglass he was using and looked at him.
>
> “Closed my eyes for an hour and I’ve dreamed of a dry lagoon, the desert sands hide,” the Prince said ruminating. “Its flat bottom made out of solid quartz. A vision or do you think it’s the medicine?”
>
> Ramen paused unsure.
>
> “The rebels caravan,” Nout continued, tired voice crackling. “Slow as a snail and still on the road.”
>
> Ramen-Toka wiped the grime from his face after removing his mask and took the spyglass to examine the large column of men, animals and wagons.
>
> “It’s a big force,” he commented.
>
> “Tired and half-defeated,” Nout argued. “Leaderless.”
>
> “That’s the Capricorn banner raised,” Ramen countered.
>
> The Prince’s gold mask looked at him, eyes feverish underneath it. “Say Phon is alive, what of it? He can’t escape. Yes, they’ll spot us the moment we climb over the dune but we’ll spread out and go through their unprepared lines.”
>
> “They could throw the wagons at us.”
>
> “The wagons will stay where they are,” Nout assured him. He cleared his throat and used a hankie to wipe the moisture from his neck. “We just need to get rid of the mercenaries at the front and rear. By the time we return to Que Ki-La Sartak would be there with fresh troops. We’ll take ships to Ani Ta-Ne. Deal with Tsuparin next.”
>
> Ramen didn’t understand why they should rush so much. But Nout’s campaigns were always like that as if the Prince feared he’d run out of time and tried to do as much as he could before his spirit returned to the steppe.
>
> “We had no word of Sept Khemet,” he noted, wondering whether Nout’s illness had taken a turn for the worse with all the hardships they had to endure.
>
> “He’s probably deep in the Rohir plains out of reach,” Nout replied. “Who would stop him? Even if Tsuparin wins there, you’ll think they’ll march on us? They won’t…” he started coughing and one of his aides gave him a goblet of water. Nout refused it. “...but we will.”
>
> “What of Que Ki-La?” Ramen asked and Ibn-Robet replied for the Prince who took the spyglass back to spy on the distant caravan. The desert terrain flat towards the road that had the Lord of Lai Zel-Ka’s name.
>
> “The stores caught fire,” the architect assured him. “The crowd lost control of it with no authority present. Old city, after a dry summer. Flammable materials. Disorder. It matters not. We can build a new one.”
>
> “What of the wyvern?” Ramen asked, the desert bringing them the murmurs of the men resting under the dune’s shade and the sound of many animals.
>
> Ibn-Robet started laughing, a ring-adorned hand caressing his trimmed goatee.
>
> “You don’t actually believe that nonsense Ramen,” he told him chuckling. “I’m a man of science—”
>
> The Prince had placed his hand on his shoulder stopping him. Nout was still scanning the horizon with his spyglass but instead of the caravan to their southwest, the prince had the field-glasses turned southeast almost behind them.
>
> Pointed to the sky.
>
> “What do you know,” Nout commented simply. “An unforeseen development makes a nebulous vision actually make sense.”
>
> “My Prince?” The architect asked not understanding what the Heir of the Khanate was talking about. Ramen frowned not liking the Prince’s tone and scanned the rapidly turning bright sky, as the sun was coming fully up.
>
> “Here, gaze carefully Ibn and expand your horizons,” Nout advised giving him the spyglass afore turning towards Ramen, a strange look in his eyes. “The night birds flock for cover, darkness gives way to a glorious sun but its light hides the shade of a wyvern in the sky.”
>
> Ramen blinked trying to see what the Prince had spotted.
>
> And then he did.
>
> “Get on a horse, forget your chariot,” Nout told him soberly, Ibn-Robet heard gasping in shock spotting the flying monstrosity descending. “Ride hard, ride fast. Don’t look back. Get your sister and Sitamun out of Shao Na-Lan.”
>
> “What… I can’t,” Ramen croaked too stunned at the unexpected development. Nout stared at him once austerely and then waved him away.
>
> “Beon order everyone to switch to steel bolts, no arrows,” Nout ordered and he sounded reinvigorated as he turned around to get on his chariot. The Prince paused after stepping inside and Ramen noticed his driver was different. Beon climbed next to him with an aide and that left the architect still looking through the spyglass bewildered at the growing fast flying predator. “Tell my father to abandon the campaign! Mind the serpents Ramen!” Nout yelled to be heard over the ruckus of the wheels as the chariot started rolling down from the top of the dune towards their gathered forces. He waved his arm at him once, the rest of his words drowned in the rising ruckus. The same happening to the Prince’s skinny figure.
>
> Lost inside the raised clouds of white dust.
>
> “Sire?” His aide asked nervously and a tensed Ramen grunted without looking his way, both his eyes set on the now clearly visible descending beast.
>
> A black ever growing stain coming out of the brilliant yellow disk.
>
> “Cut the horses out,” he ordered hoarsely. “Leave everything else.”
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
Arguen Garth
Hardir O’ Fardor
Lord of Morn Taras
Monarch of Wetull
King beyond the Pale Mountains
Aniculo Rokae
Tales of the Peninsula | Firestorm
Part II
-A shade in the sky-
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
“Don’t know,” a burly Issir Gladiator argued, as Glen approached their group that was standing ten meters away from the Wyvern. “Looks like a Basilisk to me.”
“Don’t they resemble a bird?” a wiry younger half-breed insisted.
“That’ll be a Cockatrice,” a third one insisted knowledgeable of his bestiary, a pure Cofol build like a gorilla. “And this thing is a fucking wyvern fer sure.”
Uvrycres perked up, he had lowered to a resting position after exerting himself and Glen waved for him to calm down.
“It is,” Glen told them coming to a stop near the armed group, the sword’s point touching his boot and the Jackal’s helm in his other hand. “Which begs the question. Why are you guys not scared?”
The burly Issir eyed Glen as if to measure him up.
“We’re gladiators,” his wiry colleague replied. “We fight all manner of beasts ‘n men in the arena.”
“They have wyverns too?” Glen asked mockingly.
“Nimra lions, giant snakes, hyenas, the occasional Chimera,” the gladiator retorted. “All beasts can be killed.”
Glen was of the same opinion.
“How would you kill a wyvern?” He asked them.
“A very big spear,” the ‘gorilla’ replied.
“A heavy Scorpio,” the young gladiator said.
A surly Glen casted a meaningful stare at the frowning wyvern.
“Catapult shot to the face,” a third suggested with the rest giving their opinion and Uvrycres getting up growling menacingly at the invested on the topic group. The burly Issir had remained silent. He sported a heavily bandaged leg and was staring at Glen still.
“Is there an officer among you? I assume you’re with the Chiliad,” Glen asked.
“No officers,” the wiry half-breed Lorian replied. “Leaders.”
“Any of those around?”
“Asper. But he’s gathering those left across the road, near the west woods,” the ‘gorilla’ replied.
“Troy came here to find the Jackal,” the wiry one added and a gladiator wearing a Hoplite-type armour nodded. “Toros is also with Asper.”
“Toros took Sylia’s spear and went to the lake,” the burly Issir rustled. “We won’t see him again Fluke.”
“You don’t know that Janot,” the Hoplite told him.
Glen had no idea who any of them were.
“The reason I asked,” he started and glanced back to Kelly mourning next to Emerson’s body. “The reason as I said, is that I wanted to be apprised of the situation, since I’m a friend.”
Janot frowned.
“Nout came and Sartak attacked across the bridge,” Fluke said.
“Your name is…” Glen asked.
“Fin-Lu, but they call me Fluke milord,” Fluke replied.
“I’m Lord Garth,” Glen told them. “An ally.”
“The battle is over Lord Garth,” Janot said.
“Nout won?”
Janot shrugged his shoulders. “I can see Que Ki-La burning from here. So I don’t know about that.”
You don’t win wars destroying cities. Sure, it’s a nice touch.
But helps not if yer enemy is still breathing, the dagger whispered.
Welcome back. Now shut the fuck up, Glen retorted.
“Any of you were with Emerson?” Glen probed getting blank stares from everyone. He crooked his mouth in an annoyed grimace, remembered the helm in his hand. “The Jackal.”
“Kelly was. Ran across to bring us here,” the Hoplite explained.
“You are?”
“Beskar.”
Glen puffed his cheeks out and stared at the opening in silence. His face hardened and turned to listen at the distant gongs still ringing in the burning city.
“The road back is clear,” he finally said.
“Back where?” Janot grunted.
“Ani Ta-Ne. I cleared it.”
“Ta-Ne is burned.”
“It is,” Glen agreed. “But the road is clear.”
“What about Nout and Sartak?” Fluke asked. “His men crossed over the bridge and the Prince ordered them in the city.”
Glen grimaced remembering the manned tower. “Que Ki-La is cleared too.”
Beskar let out a grunt. “What about the Sopat?”
“Where are they?” Glen asked perking up.
“Where the Prince is heading, I reckon,” Janot replied and added with a hint of razz. “But ye might be late for that too.”
Glen stood back a vein throbbing on his left temple.
“I’ll take care of the knight,” he rustled hoarsely. “Then see about Phon,” Glen turned to the listening wyvern but caught the silent exchange between the gladiators and twisted around to glare at them.
What?
“We’ll take Mista Savar,” Janot declared. “His weapons and Kelly.”
Ah, you lads are stupid as fuck if ye believe I’m going to get pushed over.
“Why do you want him?” Glen asked through his teeth, giving them the benefit of the doubt for diplomatic reasons.
“The Lords owe us, they won’t deny it if we have his body.”
“We should bring him back to the Three Sisters,” Fluke added and Glen eyed him. “Keep the rebellion alive.”
Glen raised the dented steel helm to look at it. Turned it one way and then the other, the light going away inside the opening.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
“No,” he finally said in a sober tone. “I’ll take the weapons and bury the old man in the spot he has chosen for himself. Bring the girl to Wetull.”
He pointed at the Lotus tree with the knight’s blade. “It’s a good place,” Glen added and looked at them one by one. “You’ve fought in the arena and I respect that a bit, but Emerson wanted to help you and the girl. Now that’s important to me and not all the stuff you said. To be frank, I don’t really care about any of it but I’ll finish the war for you. One way, or another.”
----------------------------------------
The gladiators helped him bury the knight under the Lotus tree. They put Citata and Kelly’s mother on either side of him but on different graves. The soil was soft and dark brown, easy to dig but they went deep and it was well into the night afore they finished. Glen retrieved the steel armour and tied it on his large supply haversack, looping the rope around the wyvern’s neck. It was a sober affair. Then they crossed over and reached the site where Asper’s remaining warriors had gathered. Since the woods were thicker there, Glen broke bread with them, then left early after they agreed to head towards the Sopat road bypassing the junction and away from the still burning city.
> Sartak claimed after the war that the Prince’s men reached the bridge with orders for him to send everything he’d available towards Que Ki-La. Given we have no other way to verify what Prince Nout did after he broke out of Lotus Lane, the general’s words are valuable to piece a route together. Arik Sartak obeyed and returned to Lukela in order to get more reinforcements and then head to Que Ki-La himself and wait for further instructions. Prince Nout was to hurry after the rest of his force that had been blocked at Simun Road.
>
> That’s the last sort of ‘official’ record detailing what happened next from the Khanate’s side. Ramen-Toka’s account is disputed as it came years after the fact through third parties, mainly Lord Khemet of Yin Xi-Yan.
>
> According to Ramen-Toka who was leading the Prince’s dispatched war chariot force, another battle was fought late that afternoon well after the battle at Lotus Lane had finished. He led Nis-Belu against Bohor’s and Serebus disengaging men and smashed through the north flank. Nis-Belu wanted to finish off the Sopat force but Ramen-Toka saw that Lord Phon-Iv’s gigantic caravan was still loitering near the two armies and charged out of the Simun Road after them.
>
> Lord Phon who had made a remarkable recovery, though he must have been still injured had stalled his departure wanting to follow the battle and will his men to continue fighting. The caravan guards with him upon seeing the chariots breaking out of the woods turned and attacked the fast approaching war machines (Phon’s caravan couldn’t have been more than a kilometer from the battle site, more likely much closer than that near the edge of the forest).
>
> The chariots brushed them aside in the open desert terrain but couldn’t finish them off, the camel-riding guards bringing much disorder to Ramen’s horse-drawn elite force. While his closest advisors pleaded with Lord Phon to depart, he refused as they couldn’t escape anyway. An unknown number of slaves present (sources and tales give the number as high as two thousand but it probably was half that) offered again to assist and while the details here are fuzzy they marched against the still fighting the caravan hands charioteers.
>
> They threw themselves on the chariots and in front of the horses with fanaticism creating a chaos in the dwindling light.
>
> It was a massacre of epic proportions with an unknown number of casualties but it slowed Ramen-Toka down even more and with his force exhausted (he’d been fighting and traveling with brief stops for more than a week) the chariot general ordered a halt not even two hundred meters from the immobilized caravan.
>
> He returned to help out Nis-Belu who had been killed in the meantime as the chariots departure had turned the battle against him. Prince Nout’s arrival hours into the engagement had saved his battered and depleted mercenary force (these were Merehor’s men who had also been killed fighting Sir Emerson late that morning.)
>
> Bohor retreated during the night towards the desert and Lord Phon, but he’d lost Serebus and had been wounded again. The slave-master of Lai Zel-Ka died from his wounds during the night and Asmudius writes Phon at last was convinced to retreat while he still had the semblance of an army.
>
> Prince Nout allowed his two separate armies to reunite during the night, while his scouts brought him several reports and missives according to Ramen-Toka. The first was that Phon was on the move as he’d opted not to rest or pick up the dead. The second was that Que Ki-La was burning and the third that a wyvern had done it. While news of a flying beast laying waste from Palar to the city itself and beyond had circulated immediately, in the mayhem that had ensued and with so many moving back and forth armies, refugees or deserters it is probable the Prince didn’t believe it.
>
> Ramen says he ordered the slower moving parts of his army to keep following after Phon as fast as they could and he took his most mobile units after allowing for a brief rest on a wide flanking maneuver. He intended to surprise the caravan and the remaining warriors Phon had with him with an attack that would block their return to friendly territory. In order to achieve it Prince Nout left with his chariots and cavalry well before dawn heading north inside the desert. All in the effort to avoid being spotted and deny Phon’s men the opportunity to set up a defense against him. The gold leopard leaped in the dead of the night the legend goes and was never seen or heard from again.
“What’s that?” Glen asked as the wyvern flew over the much more visible west road coming from the desert. “Another battlefield?”
There were signs of heavy fighting from the junction and through the palm forest road, with looters working overtime to strip the dead from their valuables and flocks of birds gathered to feast on their remains.
A large black spot could be seen spreading out after the mouth of the forest and the abandoned camp at its edges. A part of the woods cut down and flattened there creating a strange inverted square the size of a village. The field of corpses was about a kilometer or two away and was also littered with broken chariots, wagons, dead horses, camels and discarded weapons.
Hundreds of vultures had gathered here as well and they flew away when the wyvern passed over them and returned to circle over the corpses. The desert sands were slowly covering them, even those at the large raised gravel road.
“You think that’s Phon?” Glen asked wearily as they landed. The sun was coming up again slowly, giving the sands and the uncovered now quiet graveyard a sinister hue. He hadn’t slept in days.
Glen touched the dagger’s pommel when the wyvern didn’t answer and repeated the query.
Heard ye the first time, Uvrycres replied with a snarling hiss. I don’t know.
Glen furrowed his brows and stared further west and the long straight road traveling towards the expansive desolate terrain. A fat white lane amidst the golden sands. Tall dark dunes visible at the distance.
“You see any tracks?” He asked.
Not from the ground, Uvrycres replied a little pissed. Your endurance is surprising for a human.
“You learn that on the job,” Glen replied and jumped down. “No rest until we clean out the place.”
Can I eat?
Glen groaned. “Seriously?”
I’ve been using spells for a while. Usually I eat food in between sessions.
“Got some biscuits in the sack,” Glen offered. “Hardtack and smoked ham.”
Welp, I’ll have a couple of legs as well, the wyvern decided. Was nervous-eating while ye guys were digging and I might have worked through yer supplies. He turned his large head around and grinned toothily at that.
Trying to be cute but it was mostly hideous.
“Anything left for me?” Glen asked dryly and approached to check on the sack.
Water, the wyvern replied quickly. So you’re good on that, but the place is cleaned out.
Glen went to answer him with some choice words but spotted clear signs of people and animals moving west on the road, so he walked there to have a closer look.
----------------------------------------
The desert brought him memories of Lebesos. They could clearly see the tracks heading west. Two sets of tracks. One staying close to the road or on it and the other following half a kilometer or more away in a parallel course further to their north. The road reached a valley between soft dunes and not even twenty minutes later they spotted the slow-moving caravan. Wagons, animals and men stirring like a fat snake on the golden sands.
A couple of kilometers behind them a smaller group following it mostly on foot.
Three sets of tracks, he decided, since the one heading into the desert away from the road was still visible.
Un-friendlies?
“Leave the smaller group,” Glen yelled, the wind blowing his cheeks back as they flew over them and banked north towards the dunes.
----------------------------------------
Glen’s eyes scanned the flashing under them terrain and saw the massing of cavalry and chariots that had shot ahead of both groups as if to flank them.
“THERE!” He barked and Uvrycres gained height immediately flying with the sun on its back. “AARGH!” Glen roared trying to hold on and not tumble back.
If you fall I’ll catch you, Uvrycres assured him and a gawking his eyes snarling Glen glanced over his shoulder at the over three hundred meter drop.
Then the Wyvern dipped its head, long nimble body almost folding in two as it turned direction and dived for the ground.
“NAARLHHH!” Glen bellowed, a drawn-out ineligible cry, tears rolling backwards as they plunged towards the enemy force, the wyvern’s neck swelling between his legs spreading them apart and its onyx scales glowing a black-crimson bathed in sunlight.
A barrel of sticky fucks, he cursed seeing the ground and the riders under them growing from ants, to cockroaches and then small people.
Yeeaaah! An inspired Uvrycres replied drawing it out to mimic his reaction, not exactly catching Glen’s meaning.
A shudder run through Glen, teeth rattling afore locking up and then a torrent of fire poured out of Uvrycres’ gapping jaws, the fat and fiery, three meter wide column creating a wall of exploding inferno when it touched the gold sands. It turned into a scorching road that followed rapidly the wyvern’s movement and carved the scattering army in two.
“HELLS!” Glen cried as they flew through the leaping flames not even ten meters from the ground. His innards and bones almost bursting out of his skin from the abrupt change in momentum as the Wyvern leveled from the dive. Horses and people blowing up, burning body parts all but reaching them. The Wyvern shrieked thunderously, its whole body vibrating from snout to zig-zagging tail. Riders trying to get away galloping wild, horses breaking legs in their panic and tossing them on the ground, men fully engulfed in flames walking on the burning sands like automatons.
Glen spotted thirty chariots coming down the dunes in front of them while Uvrycres turned to carve another huge line of fire on the sands, then another connected to the other two, corralling most riders behind fiery walls.
“The chariots!” Glen growled just as the Wyvern fired a timely fireball inside the packed with men and animals fiery square it had created on the ground. Each side at least a hundred meters long. The burning sand turned a bright red liquid like lava under their feet and they sunk in it burning like torches.
Booms away! Uvrycres guffawed, terribly excited with the opportunity to burn stuff with impunity and then banked the other way, a wing pointing towards the burning sands underneath them, Glen almost blinded from the putrid fumes. It then leveled itself and headed straight for the spreading out in an inverted letter ‘V’ chariots.
Glen blinked trying to see the enemy through his blurring eyes, but the Wyvern spat another fireball out and fully blinded him this time. The next, the blast of a fiery detonation came and Glen caught and felt bits and pieces rattling the Wyvern’s body as it flew over the exploding chariots.
“FLAK-IU!” Glen groaned, a burning bolt sticking out of his left wrist, another sprouting out of his shoulder, as the steel tip had punched through his plate pads.
Stopping at the thin gambeson he had underneath.
What was that? Uvrycres asked going at a wide circle to get at the remaining chariots that had skirted around the destroyed ones and reformed.
“Fuck you! Idiot!” Glen roared, eyes swollen colored a dark pink and pressed his throbbing wrist on the scales to sort of push the bolt out. “Slovenly fuck’s sake! GO HIGHER!” He shrieked in agony when that failed.
The Wyvern gained ten meters more in altitude and leveled to fire again at the chariots racing towards them. A groaning Glen stared at the smiling charioteers and their machines in disbelief, the one leading them shining as if made out of gold.
Its passengers unloaded their crossbows on them again.
They missed everything.
The wyvern turned its head around momentarily, gave Glen a wink and then released another fireball from less than twenty meters away. The man with the golden mask stood back on his racing chariot and gave a slight nod with his covered head as if he’d figured out something.
Whatever it was he’d found out Uvrycres’ fireball swallowed them up. The explosion liquefying animals, men and armours, instantly charring the wooden carriages and then breaking them apart. A burning wheel rolling out of the inferno as they soared over the smoke-covered terrain and the Wyvern trumpeted with excitement at the blazing destruction it had left behind.
The landing botched as it hit the top of a dune, a wagon’s load worth of scorching sand blasting on them and Glen found himself sliding down the soft slope next to the huge ditch Uvrycres had dug out with his body.
A blinded Glen spat sand out of his mouth, it had turned to bitter mud that covered his teeth so he didn’t get everything out at once and then coughed up trying to open his eyes. After he did, Glen reached feeling thoroughly battered but not injured –too much- and pulled the bolt out of his wrist.
The pain waking him up for good.
“Argh!” He groaned twirling about, trying to stop the bleeding.
Shit, Uvrycres said trying to dust himself off some meters away, the fires still raging behind the dune. I’ve emptied the tank there. Ha-ha!
“It scraped the bone ye cretin!” Glen growled irate and forced himself upright as he’d fallen backwards. Stumbled and went back down again cursing, his boots sinking in the soft terrain. “Almost killed us both!”
The Wyvern found a bolt sticking out of its smoking nostril and yanked it out using his talons as fingers.
This is but a minor nuisance, he assured a livid Glen. Don’t worry about it. I’m fine.
Glen had to rip the shirt he had underneath his armour to make a bandage for his wrist.
“You do realize that a bolt to my face is fatal right?” He said pressing at the smarting wound to get the foul blood out. “I can’t use the hand now. I need a healing potion!”
It’s in the bag.
“I know. I plaguing put it there!” Glen snapped and saw riders approaching from the road. “What did you do to fool them afore?” He asked the Wyvern, his blurring eyes on the camel-riders galloping towards them.
An illusion. I had to improvise fast.
“It won’t always work,” Glen hissed trying to calm himself down and provide guidance. “People are not stupid Uvry nor as easy to deal with as animals.”
The Wyvern stared at him with its rubicund eyes thoughtfully for a moment.
Glen has a point, he finally acquiesced, then glanced at the group of riders that had stopped realizing the large black creature that had landed on the dune was in fact a Wyvern. Round three?
“No,” Glen grunted hoarsely and put a finger in his mouth to get all the muddy grit out of his teeth. “That’s the Capricorn banner,” adding when Uvrycres snorted thoroughly unimpressed. “Sen’s people.”
And that did it.
> The Gold Leopard, Prince Nout Radpur, Heir to the Khanate and the Khan’s favorite son, died from the strange illness he carried since the campaign in Raoz sometime during the first or second week of Fall, in the year 193. Failing to see his campaign through to the end. He would have been thirty at the end of that year. This is the official story, but no one really believes it. His blitzkrieg campaign the ‘Soaring Scimitar’ blasted across the Peninsula winning most of the battles spectacularly and pushing aside the Three Sisters armies but it amounted to nothing in the end.
>
> Most believe King Garth’s intervention stopped the Prince somewhere to the north and deep in the Dry Sea desert. The tale is that there’s a ‘lake’ of glass there under the sands and if one digs deep enough he’ll find it along with pieces of armour and strange shapes fused at its surface.
>
> At the end of the drawn out Battle for the Simun Road the Sopat’s retreating army routed the force shadowing them in a brief engagement with few survivors. Sartak who had been ordered, according to the general, to return and gather a new force in Lukela was blamed for abandoning the Prince and sentenced to death. The general refused to surrender himself and barricaded with his followers inside the small city with many of the recruits sent to apprehend them siding with him. Ramen-Toka who survived according to some sources was spotted escaping Shao Na-Lan a month later as the news of the Prince’s demise slowly spread over the vast steppes and far cities of the Khanate.
>
> This is another story.
>
> The Three Sisters bloody rebellion never officially ended.
>
> It did and it didn’t.
>
> It left behind several ruined cities and ports across the east coast of the Peninsula and the Khanate Gulf. Around sixty thousand civilian casualties, three thousand gladiators mostly from the Chiliad, almost five thousand mercenaries killed from both sides, over four thousand cavalry, two hundred and fifty war-chariots and over two thousand Jang-Lu recruits. The number of slaves that lost their lives is counted around fifteen thousand at its highest estimation but it could have been half that.
>
> Lord Elur Sol’s and Lord Letakin’s families were all but wiped out with Letakin left with the daughter he’d sold to Prince Radin over an arena debt. Lord Baryal’s was. Aside from Prince Nout, Ibn-Robet a famed architect and academic was also killed. Ben-Mau an engineer, inventor and the Khanate’s biggest ‘chariot’ proponent. Hora-Se one of the Khanate’s most accomplished Cataphracts. Nis-Belu, a hero of the Threeriver Bridge in Rida and the battle of Hellfort’s Pass. Many generals and the whole of Nout’s elite modern army.
>
> Sir Emerson Lennox, the errant knight of Ballard, former Lord of Ballard, a champion of the Pits, one of Jelin’s most respected knights, simply called Mista Savar by the locals was killed during the battle somewhere in Lotus Lane. He was forty six years old. With him a number of arena champions were also killed. Thalion, Qathor, Velox, Telos and Toros ‘the Black’ and the majority of the Chiliad warriors. Bohor and Serebus, Nertor, Sim Ibn-Lud of Fu De-Gar and Samir of Ani Tan-Ne some of the mercenaries, horse archers and slavers names. Asper survived but would never return to the sands again and of course Troy who is rumored that he did under a cracked Cataphract mask.
>
> A realistic marble sculpture of Sir Emerson as a knight graces the Garden of Statues in Wetull today. But if one wants to see a cruder depiction of him since visiting Taras isn’t the easiest thing, there’s a large shrine with a stone relief depicting the Pale Jackal crowned in the Pits before the gates of the walled farm village of Savar (Jackal in Old Cofol). The rather new settlement is built in the lands of the High Barony of Ballard and at the nearby castle-city resides his full set of steel Jackal armour that Sir Emerson wore in the Games.
>
> Strangely, it is perhaps the only place in the notoriously prejudiced Lesia one would find himself in the company of Cofols as the village is populated today by former slaves, gladiators and refugees from the distant Ani Ta-Ne.
>
>
>
> -
>
> 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 VI
>
> ‘Three Sisters Rebellion’
>
> Conclusion
>
> -
>
>
>
> -An uneasy stalemate-
>
> -Prelude to the rise of the ‘Lurking Asp’-
>
> Early Fall of 193-Winter of 194 NC
>