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Shields of the Empire

Shields of the Empire

Troopers of the Saleri

Zoe - Tetrarch and Commander of Scouts

Eudoxia - Tetrarch and Pilus Primarch

Iona - Tetrarch - Fair skinned with freckles and red hair

Alkmini - Phaedra's Bodyguard

Thalia - Phaedra's short tempered bodyguard

Organization of Saleri

Divided into 4 Tetra or fourths. Each 500 woman 'tet' is commanded by a Tetrach.

Further subdivided into hekatarchs of 100 women, each commanded by a tribune.

Shields of the Empire

Phaedra encouraged her horse forward with cries and a soft shaking of the reigns. It was not the Miravet way to spur horses except in the gravest of necessity, and they trained their mounts from birth to respond to a riders touch. They had raced through the night as fast as could be managed. The force of Khareeds behind them might be following but Phaedra rather doubted it. It wasn't the way of an Atvari nobleman to press home an attack. In their minds a battle was decided and the desert would finish off the loser. It was also possible that the ragged survivors of their abortive ambush, many bearing wounds from spatha strokes or pierced with heavy cataphract arrows, had convinced them that following a superior force was folly. Twice during the night Phaedra had detached her rearward Tets to take positions on the periodic rises along the river banks, giving the enemy a chance to overhaul them while the main body of her force slowed to a gentle canter, resting the horses. On both occasions the Tets had come galloping up an hour later with no sign of puruit. Had the Khareeds followed, she would have wheeled around and driven them up against her rearguards. It would have been over quickly unless they had significantly more men than her scouts had reported to her.

It worried her somewhat that the enemy didn't appear to be in strength. The further east into the Atvari heartlands they pressed, the stiffer resistance should have been. After all the Atvari had started this conflict by raiding Keylara in the spring. Both sides had paused over the hot summer before the campaigning season began again in the autumn. There should have been whole armies coming west from the central plateau that formed the heartland of Atvari. Phaedra scratched at her neck, the fine mix of sand a grit irritating where her armor rubbed against her collar. Somehow she felt that Gregorius's desertion was linked with the unusual behavior of the Atvari, but she couldn't figure out how. Not yet anyway.

"Protos!" Zoe called, her own horse galloping down the column. Like Phaedra she was dressed in full armor despite the fact that her Tet were serving as the scouts and flankers today. Zoe was unusually fair for a Miraveti, probably as a result of a foreign marriage but unlike many other peoples in the Empire, such details of birth were irrelevant among the horsewomen of that distant kingdom. A woman derived her status from her mother, fathers were incidental, though they may be important parts of the family unit, it was decent from the maternal line which determined a place in the Saleri, or hereditary regiments, which made up the forces Miravet tithed to the Emperor. Not that one had to be born into to belong. Long experience of campaigning across the length and breath of the Empire meant that a Saleri had to recruit as it went to maintain its numbers. Recruits from more patriachal socites were few, but there were always a few women who were willing to submit themselves to the often brutal training regimes. Once accepted a woman was considered as much a Miravet as if she had been born to it, and would be welcomed if she lived to take her pension and decided to return their. While the bulk of her Saleri were Miravet natives, she had under her command women from Chalcedon, Kumar, Trebzana, Tylis and other provinces of the Empire and beyond. THeir daughters would be Saleri and Miraveti also, if they lived long enough to have them.

"The outriders have reached the hills outside Arbela," Zoe said, wheeling her horse around in a spray of grit to ride alongside her commander. Her smile would have done very well for a wolf that had just discovered a flock of unprotected sheep.

"Several thousand Khareem are attacking the place, maybe six thousand with as many infantry in support. Armored ones, maybe from the Satraps army," Zoe reported wiping muddy sweat from her brow. Wearing armor in this heat was a bit like standing too close to a blacksmiths furnace, an experience made more miserable by the constant dust that was blowing up from the west.

"Brasidas and his men are still holding the place then?" she asked quickly, discomfort and heat forgotten by the prospect of action. Zoe nodded vigorously. Like most of the riders her long hair was braided tightly then coiled an pinned so it stayed under her helmet. She wasn't wearing the helmet yet, none of them would done it until they were ready to join the battle, so the braids bobbed as though agreeing with her assessment.

"Looks like they just repulsed an attack," the enemy is falling back and looks to be settling in for a siege," Zoe reported. Phaedra scowled, like most cavalry she disliked siege warfare, preferring the cut and thrust of battle where she could maneuver.

"Pass the word for Eudoxia and Iona," she called to a nearby trooper. There was no need, both women along with their subordinate tribunes were making their way towards her having seen Zoe make her report.

"Should we halt," Zoe asked, but Phaedra was nodding her head before she finished speaking. Brasidas was holding for now, and the enemy wasn't yet engaged. It was a shame they hadn't arrived a half hour sooner to take the engaged Atvari in the rear.

"Do they have scouts out?" she asked quickly. Zoe shook her head.

"Sorry bastards don't even have pickets," she said with a tone that combined delight and disgust. The column slowed to a canter and then halted. Cataphracts slid from their saddles and pulled open feed bags for their mounts, others began to lead their horses to the water, slaking their thirst alongside their mounts.

"Water the horses quick as you can, an hours rest," she declared, taking her water skin and pouring some of the precious contents over her face before tossing the skin to another trooper to refill.

"Zoe," she said to the scout commander, who knew from long exposure what her Protos Kapetanos wanted. Quickly and succinctly she laid out the terrain ahead for the command group. When she was done Phaedra nodded.

"If they don't send out scouts before then we are going to wait till either night falls or they try another frontal attack. The any fortifications they build will be facing the village so it shouldn't be a problem." As a group they all looked at the sky, gauging sunset to be perhaps an hour and a half away.

"Doxy, I want you to send have your Tet back to that ford we passed a mile or so back, have them cross and come up on the south bank. There is a ford at Arbela and I don't want the Atvari to be able to cross and use it as a strong point.

"Iona and I will take our tets up the center, Zoe, take your scouts, we haven't got time to put them in armor and seize the high ground north of the city. Drive in once we have them stired up, but don't press, I want them to be able to slip out to the north east, force them away from the river.

"We are going to ride through their camp and if any woman stops to loot I'll have them whipped," Phaedra went on sternly. That was the real risk, that her troops would get caught up in pillage rather than pressing home the attack.

"Plenty of time to pick the bastards clean once they are supping with Old Lady Winter," she cautioned, getting nods from her commanders also. Speed and shock were essential here and these were veterans, they knew the danger as well as she did.

"Questions?" she demanded.

"Are we going to warn Brasidas that we are here?" Eudoxia asked, clearly feeling that a coordinated attack had a better chance of success.

"How are we going to get word to him? He is under siege for the sake of the Huntress?" Iona demanded, she was the only one of the senior commanders not from Miravet but rather from the island of Patryia, her hair was red and her skin had once been pale before the sun had baked it a light tan. Dark freckles could still be seen across her nose. Phaedra's answering grin would have done for a wolf. Done very well indeed.

__________

The Atvari sentries noticed the body as it floated passed their siege line. It hadn't yet begun to bloat, but even in the moonlight they could tell the black skin of a several days dead corpse. It was dressed in what might have been Atvari desert clothing, another corpse floating down from the fighting further up river. Both of the sentries made quick prayers to Gathal'anan, the Great God, wishing the soul well in its journey to the Lavender Kingdom. It was a shame that the body was too far from the shore to be retrived, but eventually some fisherman would find it and see to the rites.

The Imperial sentries noticed the body too. They could hardly miss it infact as they were witness to a bonafide miracle. The bloateded black corpse, still with death, suddenly seemed to sit up, even more astonishingly it seemed to break into two pieces, one of which began to swim towards the bank of the river. To their utter astonishment, a woman, dressed in soaking black clothes and with skin which appeared to have been blacked with boot polish splashed ashore holding her hands up to show she meant them no harm.

"I have a message for General Brasidas," she said in accented Imperial, wiping uselessly at the boot blacking on her face.

Shields of the Empire

Encyclopedia
Imperial Provinces

Miravet - A semi barbarous province in the west of the Empire. Known for its female cavalry soldiers. Miraveti burn their dead with yew wood and carry a twig of yew on a cord around their throat in case they die far from home. The current Emperor has Miraveti wife.

Keylara - The eastern most province of the Empire which borders with the Ashvari homeland. The Empire really only controls the coast and particularly the great cities of Kestos and Pravis. Its lucrative in terms of trade and mining and produces valuable sugar on the costal floodplains.

Ashvari Empire

Sidris - The capital of the western Satrapy of Ashvari.

Kitri - Great river running westward into the Ashvari heartland

Zaldai - A largish town along the River Kitri

Imperial Military Organization

Miravet - Miraveti troops are usually bregaded together as integrated formations of heavy cavalry and armored horse archers. A Saleri (literally a tithe) consists of about 2000 troops. Each Saleri is commanded by a Protos Kapetanos (First Captain). Each Saleri is divided into four 'Tets' of 500, each commanded by a Tetrarch.

Ashvari Military Organization

Border troops - Light desert troops are the mainstay of infantry forces in the area. Little more than tribesmen with wicker shields.

Kahreeds- The core of the actual Ashvari army Kahreeds are heavily armored noble cavalry organized into units around a great lord and his retainers. They often employ lesser local units as support.

Shields of the Empire

A hot wind blew down from the distant ridge bringing with it the smell of warm sand and desert flowers. The night was clear and as chill as the next day would be hot. The cavalry were encamped on one of the small rocky rises which rose from the floor of the desert at intervals, ancient mountains which had been ground down by millennia of grit blowing in off the Atvari plateau. Several hundred tents were pitched in rows as net as the terrain permitted. Horses were picketed in neat rows beside small fires, kindled on the scant fuel the cavalry could scavenge in such inhospitable country.

Phaedra Comnemnos sat on a boulder staring out into the night. A small dagger in her hand whittled slivers of iron hard trail jerky which she popped into her mouth and chewed with soldierly determination. Like most of the natives of Miravet, a distant province on the other side of the Empire, Phaedra was a trim woman with wiry muscles, olive skin and dark, slightly almond shaped, eyes. Miravet was a barbaric place on the borderland of great Kajari steppe and it bred cavalry soldiers that were prized by the Empire. The Miravet wore heavy coats of scale mail and were equally adept with long swords, lances and powerful compound bows which they fired accurately from horseback. Peculiarly all Miravet cavalry were female, the lighter weight allowing them to carry more armor and equipment than their male equivalents. This oddity of Miravet culture as well as the excellent quality of the riders made them a popular choice by Emperors and Empresses who would worried perpetually about generals making a claim with their swords. Women, it was thought, did not have the same kind of dynastic ambitions as men and the Miravet, like other semi-barbarians tended to view their oaths somewhat more seriously than the cosmopolitan Imperial heartlanders did. The current Emperor had a Miravet wife in point of fact, though she had only produced a daughter and it seemed unlikely that the Empress would present him with a son.

Like most Imperial officers, Phaedra had been inducted into the lowest rank of nobility, though she lacked land or income beyond her army pay and booty. Neither she nor her two thousand lances had seen much of either. The Atavari were an ancient enemy of the Empire and they were tough and canny foes. The latest war was a challenge to an aging and rather feckless Emperor, started on some pretext. As was their custom, the Atvari had come over the desert to pillage and raid the costal province of Keylara, falling back when Imperial forces had struck back from the their forts around the great cities of of Kestos and Pravis, driving the proud Atvari back into the perrenially contested borderlands and then into the desert. Phaedra, who had campagined in this part of the world before, was surprised at how quickly the enemy had been beaten back, even as the Imperials sacked several of the smaller towns the followed the river Kitri through the desert. There was even talk that they might capture Sidris, the capital of the western most Satrapy, though it was still more than three weeks march from the most advanced elements of the Imperial force.

"Phaedra," a voice called and she turned to see Eudoxia, one of her officers, crossing quickly towards her. Recognizing the posture Phaedra came to her feet, her hand straying to her spatha.

"What is it Doxy?" she asked, using the diminutive of her old friends name.

"Something is moving out their captain," Eudoxia said urgently. The cavalry commander turned her eyes to the darkness, she was about to to dismiss Eudoxia concern when she caught sight of something in the moonlight. Focusing her attention she thought she picked up a glint of moonlight on metal. She stiffened at once.

“How is that possible, Georgius and his men are out scouting?” Phaedra began but she shook her head before Eudoxia could respond. It didn’t matter how it had happened, she had no doubt the enemy was sneaking through the dark towards them, there were enough dry creekbeds in this cracked desert landscape to conceal several thousand men if they were cunningly used, and while the ruling caste of the Atavri were a haughty lot, they didn’t lack for desert auxiliaries.

“Pass the word, quickly and quietly as you can, when the horn blows, out fires and stand to,” she told Eudoxia quietly, slipping the jerked meat into a pouch and standing up as casually as she could.

“This might get interesting.”

When the horn blared, Miraveti reacted instantly. Blankets were tossed over fires and burning timbers, grasped from the fires with hands wrapped in damp cloth were hurled outwards in all directions. The result was that the center of the camp, went dark and a ring of illumination sprang up around it. Women grabbed weapons and shields and faced outwards in a loose circle. There was a sudden cry from one of the nearby creek beds and a flight of arrows fell from the darkness. Women screamed as the light Atvari arrows fell among them, but far more of the missiles thunked into their metal bound shields than pierced flesh. Warcries ripped the nights as a mass of Atvari infantry broked from the shelter of the creekbed. There were fierce looking men, bearded and wearing clothing of knotted linen. They carried light wicker shields and curved scimitars and triangular axes which had been blacked with charcoal to aid in their stealthy approach.

“Shields!” Phaedra shouted, shoving her troops into position to meet the oncoming rush. The burning brands were stuttering out now and the smothered fires were gone, leaving only the half illumination of desert moonlight. It was still better than having her cohort backlit by their own campfires and the moment of perilous night blindness was quickly passing.

“Zoe!” Phadrea shouted over the din of shouting troops and clattering equipment.

“Get your Tet mounted! Forget the armor,” she roared, ducking as an arrow shattered against her shield. Zoe, an abnormally short Miravet who served as one of the Tetrarchs, the four principle subcommanders of her legion, shouted something that was lost in the din, but held up her fist in an affirmative sign. There was no time for further orders as the charging Atvari were almost on the ragged line of dismounted cavalry women. A ragged volley of arrows ripped into the onrushing enemy, the heavy compound bows punching through light shields and men alike, hewing down a score of them in an instant. Phaedra would much rather her troops had focused on getting their shields locked, but no was no time for micro management. The Atvari hit the shields like a tide, axes and swords chopping down. The Miraveti formation bowed dangerously under the impact. Their smaller frames were an advantage in the saddle, but on foot and without their armor, they were dangerously out massed by the enemy. Men and women screamed as the they clashed. Long spathas stabbed from behind cavalry shields and scimitars arched down with brutal hacking cuts. Phaedra caught an axe on her battered oak shield and thrust up into her opponents belly from beneath the rim. The tribesman squealed and staggered back, intestines and blood pouring from his chest. She turned in time to see the woman next to her take a spear to the throat, dropping her in a spray of arterial blood, her hands still clawing at the terrible wound.

“Hold!” she roared over the din of battle and her troops closed up stabbing and striking as they struggled to maintain their formation. If they hadn’t been on the upslope of the hill, the weight of the enemy would have driven them under in a few moments. Phaedra pushed forward slightly, spatha cutting down another opponent as he reeled from a shield smash, a blow to her own shield numbed her arm and a scimitar point cut a long gash across her cheek. She felled the swordsman with an inelegant backhand blow that almost decapitated him. The press of shields and blades was intense, almost crushing, but they held, by The Huntress they held. With a shocking suddenness that made the Miraveti stagger, the pressure slackened. A volley of arrows, fired high over the front ranks from the increasingly organized Miravet riders, fell among the enemies rear ranks. The indirect fire robbed the arrows of most of their force, but it was still enough to kill or disable an unarmored man. Moments later the thunder of hooves announced that Zoe had managed to get at least some of her Tet mounted and the fine horses galloped into the night peeling out around the flank of the would be ambushers. The screams grew in intensity as Zoe’s contingent began to rake the Atvari from the flanks. No force of light infantry could stand against that murderous fusilade for long. Under normal circumstances the Atvari would have used their own horse archers or light cavalry to nullify their opponents, but their horses had been left behind in order to aid in their stealthy approach. They held for perhaps another thirty seconds before the panic that the scything arrows induced on the flank spread. The enemy broke and fled for the shelter of the creekbed.

“Pursue?” Zoe yelled as she reigned her horse in twenty yards from Phaedra, not pausing from the mechanical act of drawing and firing her bow at the retreating backs of the Atvari.

“Drive ‘em! But ware in case they have another ambush in the rocks,” Phaedra called, pausing to drive her weapon down into one of the badly wounded tribesmen. Zoe shouted a Miraveti hunting call and her troops wheeled and tore off after the retreating enemy, leaving Phaedra dismounted among the dead and dying.

There was no further ambush. Zoe’s troops ran the survivors for most of a mile, before they spotted the dust of onrushing enemy cavalry on the horizon. By that point there were perhaps two hundred of the thousand or so infantry left, a trail of arrow and sword pierced bodies leading back to the knoll.

“No chance it was Gerogicus?” Phaedra asked as the exultant Zoe dismounted, her horse lathered in sweat from the pursuit.

“None, we could see the moonlight winking off those damned pointed helmets of there,” Zoe said.

“Probably only six hundred of them or so, but more than I wanted to mix with with only half my Tet, and all of us naked,” Zoe explained. The riders had not been literally naked of course, but they tended to refer to themselves that way when they were not wearing their scale mail. The pointed helmets were a unique piece of equipment worn by Atvari heavy cavalry or Kahreeds. The peasantry might be wiley desert foxes but the nobility fought on horseback and in full armor, each noble with his own body guard of retainers. They were among the best heavy cavalry in the world and even the Miraveti respected them. A force of six hundred Kharreeds would have made short work of a hundred unarmored Miraveti.

“Are they closing?” Phaedra asked, fiddling with her scalemale to settle it properly. Zoe shook her head.

“Looks like they are turning of northwards, towards Zaldai, but I left a picket of scouts to watch them.”

“Speaking of scouts,” Eudoxia interjected as she walked over to them, the reigns of her horse in her hands and her full battle gear strapped on.

“The tents of Georgicus and his men were empty, took everything they owned with them,” she sneered.

“They deserted?” Zoe asked incredulously. Phaedra shared her puzzlement. Georgicus was an ass, and a top lofty noble to boot, but to desert? No that didn’t make sense.

“No they left us here, left us here where the Atvari could attack us,” Phaedra said, her mind working through the information in her mind, trying to make some sense of it. They had been sent out a week ago to reinforce Brasidas and his forces, Georgicus had been in overall command even though his own troops were only a quarter the size of hers. She thought back to her interactions with the man. He had been sneeringly superior, but she had taken that for his normal state. Could he have really sent her troops out here to die? Conspired with the Atvari? Why would he do that.

“How many did we lose,” Phaedra asked in a cold voice. Eudoxia, who doubtlessly had been coming to give her the butchers bill looked grim.

“Sixty seven dead, about as many wounded but able to ride,” she returned, her normally pretty features drawn back to make her face look like a skull. It could have been much worse, Phadera’s eyes tracked to the circling buzzards already descending to feed upon the Atvari. One way or another she would see that Georgicus paid for every one of those sixty seven dead.

“Do we have horses to carry the bodies?” Phaedra asked quietly. Miraveti funeral customs called for cremation. In theory it was supposed to be done with wood from the sacred yew trees of their homeland. Military expediency made this impossible, so as a compromise each soldier carried a twig of yew on a cord around their neck, to be used as kindling for their funeral pyre.

“Barely,” Phaedra responded, “alot of arrows fell among the horses.”

“Put the wounded in the supply wagons then, have the dead strapped to their horses,” she decided.

“Serve a cold breakfast then get the girls mounted up, we will strike east and join up with Brasidus, maybe he knows what in the name of the Huntress is going on…”

@POOHEAD189

The Black of Night - Urban Shadows

You still have a debt to Yuki as she didn't need to compel you to follow her. If you had refused she would have called in the debt to attempt to persuade you.

Blades of the Blood Coast

Also let the records show that I am pro Migi and just kind of astonished Lorcan can turn into a tree.

Gold & Glory: AU thread

The enforcer looked around at his goons with superior smile. It wasn't quite as convincing as he thought it was and Emmaline could understand why. On the one hand he might believe he could take Markus in a fight. That might or, more likely, might not be true, but even if he did, having murdered the captain of the vessel whose cargo he was supposed to secure wasn't likely to gain his employer what he wanted. Realistically the sensible choice would be to take the lashes, but the Norscans were a warrior culture and facing that kind of humiliation wasn't something this though could afford to do and still maintain his position.

"I don't think you quite understand who gives the orders around here but I..." the Norseman's bluster trailed off in a sudden piglike squeal. He dropped his sword and staggered forward towards Markus, clutching at his side. Dark blood throbbed from between his fingertips.

"There seems to be alot of that going around," another Norscan warrior who had apparently just joined the party, sneered. The newcomer was naked from the waist up save for the pelt of what must have been a massive white bear when it had been alive. A golden chain fastented its two claws together around his neck. His hair was a blonde nearly as bright as Emmaline's own and he held a curved bloodstained dagger in his left hand, having just driven it into his minions side.

"If you want to kill him on your sword Captain, you had best get to it," the stranger advised, gesturing with the dagger to the thug who was now writing on the ground, blood spilling from between his fingers.

Blades of the Blood Coast

Give it time. Either we find mutual respect for each other through the blood of the covenant, or we literally sell each other out as soon as the opportunity presents itself. It could go either way!

@Lucius Cypher

Or both ways!

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