The Chronicles of Eriuna

[Ayzek]

Near Orenhold, Kingdom of Phortain
12 Zechyr, 301 BCE

Prince Lyrn was only twenty-three when he first stepped foot in Zanaro. He was still quite baby-faced, albeit tall by the day's standards and certainly built to wear his unblemished bronze cuirass and swing a sword properly. A descendant of the Feryn the Glorious, Lyrn still had Florinthian features, as opposed to the largely ethnic Geinic and Syorid he commanded. His thick black hair, kept short and swept back from face, shined a dark mahogany under the sun, while his green eyes had the softness only one who grew up in the comfort of royal society could have. That would change soon.

On his mother's, Archking Hilfrid, order, he lead the 17th, 18th, and 19th Hosts and their auxiliaries across the Bastion river and into the Zanarite Kingdom of Phortain. His mother had told him much of the Phortainese: they were a vile pagan people, who persecuted and massacred Rune-fearing Messanites. They'd killed his grandfather, Lyrn I, and were obstructing Lanlania's Just Labor: the liberation of Azreae, as decided by Rune and decreed by his great-great-grandfather, Feryn the Glorious. He'd heard of how, after defeating his grandfather, they'd degraded his body and threw it in a ditch with the other Lanlanians they'd massacred. They were truly a barbarian people, and it was his duty, by Rune's Will, to punish them.

"Prince."

Lyrn finishing tying his boots and glanced towards the entrance to his tent. "Ordinskarl?"

"Aye, Prince."

Lyrn's second-in-command was a Syorid man, perhaps three-tens in age, with black, curly hair reaching his neck matted under his bronze officer's helmet. He carried a short sword at his waist, much like Lyrn did as he pushed aside the leather flap and stepped outside. "Scouts report the Phortainese army has exited Orenhold and is marching to meet us. They are reported four leagues away."

"How soon can we march?" Lyrn asked. He walked past his deputy, Doren, and accepted the bowl of breakfast handed to him by an aid near the campfire. The area ahead of him was a sprawling grid of tents, surrounded by hastily erected log walls. It had an unpleasant male smell, though it was somewhat drowned out by the stew the cooks had made. At least until the two smells mixed and it again became disagreeable.

Lyrn could see that the troops had already been roused, many gathered around their fires, sharing jokes and stories over breakfast. A few had donned their armor, but most were still in their tunics. Wasn't it too relaxed?

"Aren't we too leisurely?" He asked as Doren joined him on the log by the campfire. He'd accepted a bowl too.

"Nay, Prince," the man answered, after a spoonful of potato and meat stew. "The Phortainese are still four hours away. It's best to let them do the marching."

Lyrn nodded. It was his first campaign and he had no reason to doubt the judgement of a professional hostmen.

"Even at double time, we've at least three hours to ready up."

"Ah," Lyrn replied, taking a spoonful himself. It was surprisingly good, for marching food. Salt made just about everything edible.

"The vanguard is already in position anyway," Doren continued.

Doren and Lyrn had spent several hours back in Freesna choosing ideal battlegrounds. When they crossed the Bastion river the day before, crushing what meager garrison Phortain called its border guard in a swift battle, they'd noticed that the Phortainese weren't using guerilla tactics as they'd done the last time the Archkingdom attacked. They'd instead attempted to defeat the Lanlanians in a pitched battle, where they were simply massacred by the Lanlanian hostmen, the Archkingdom's elite heavy infantry. He hoped the Phortainese would continue to make it that easy.

"I've heard their current king is a child," Lyrn thought aloud.

"Aye," Doren replied. "Around ten-and-five. Maybe he's let their last victory get to his head."

"That'd be fortunate."

Doren nodded. The hostmen formed the core of the kingdom's army, organized into Hosts of eight hundred men companies. Professional heavy infantrymen who served in the army for a term of twenty years, the hostmen were well-trained and equipped with the best equipment in southern Brigidna. While their auxiliary troops wore mail hauberks, the hostmen used expensive laminar armor which offered exceptional protection against blows, cuts, and even arrows. With their tower shields protecting them from javelins and other heavy missiles and the auxiliaries covering their flanks, the hostmen were the nigh-unstoppable hammer of the kingdom.

Lyrn would not make the same mistakes his grandfather had. His troops were to be well-rested, would not engage after a long march, and he would certainly not recklessly pursue a fleeing enemy into the forest without scouting it first. And if the Phortainese were to throw themselves into the meat-grinder that was his three Hosts, all the better!

[Ayzek]

The two armies met in a valley. While one day the city of Orenburg and its suburbs would expand to be visible from there, back in the 301 BCE, the valley was still a lush, natural haven a little over ten kilometers from the walls of Orenburg. Forests stretched down from the mountains to the north, a small brook in between the two smooth slopes that rose to the opposing hills the armies had taken position on. Though small, the brook still formed a natural obstacle that would work against whichever side aimed to cross it, especially the Lanlanians and their heavier armor.

Indeed, watching from the crest of the western hill, Doren at his side, Prince Lyrn could see that much of the Phortainese army was wearing no armor at all. "Are they mad?" he questioned, glancing at Doren. Now on the battlefield, the Prince had donned his full uniform. Springing from his shoulders, fastened together by a golden ring clipped to a hoop on his cuirass, was an indigo cape that flowed to the back of his knees. It had always been the color of the Lanlanian Royal Family. His bronze helmet was decorated with a bear's open maw above the brow and a Messanic cross on each cheek-guard.

"It certainly seems so, Prince," Doren replied. The Ordinskarl's cape was crimson and only extended to his lower back. His helmet had the addition of several large blue feathers—one for each of his successful campaigns, a tradition in ancient Lanlania.

The Phortainese center was formed of armored heavy infantry, though it was much smaller than the Kingdom's three Hosts. In fact, the entire Phortainese army was smaller than Lyrn's. They must have marched out to meet them without managing to round together their entire force. Coupled with the apparent lousy discipline that was visible in the Phortainese's poor formations and haphazard line, and it looked to be a slaughter. "This will be too easy."

"Don't get overconfident," said Doren, glancing at his Prince. "They might still have a few tricks up their sleeves. And their moral is high." Their chanting echoed across the valley. Admittedly, it made an impressive incantation that Lyrn would be pleased to hear, were it not from barbarians.

"I doubt it," Lyrn replied. "Our cavalry has already scouted the battlefield. The forest is empty and the brook flows straight to the ocean. They've no way to sneak up on us. In fact, we're set to flank them."

The Ordinskarl chuckled. "That may be right, but if you let down your guard and try to coast to victory, they'll take you by surprise and slice your throat from behind. Like they did to your grandfather."

Lyrn scowled but nodded nonetheless. The sun was still high overhead and there was not a cloud in sight. They would clash today. But who would make the first move?

"We have no choice but to attack, do we?" Lyrn questioned. The more they delayed, the more Phortainese crawled out of the woods and more supplies were consumed. Though it was right across the border, feeding his nearly 40,000 men wasn't cheap by any means.

"Indeed," Doren answered. "It'd be best to take Orenhold before the rest of their levies gather or they fortify their position."

Lyrn sighed. "The cavalry will flank them, right?"

"Dag is a competent commander, and I have faith he will seize any opportunities we present him."

The scowl returned. Lyrn suppressed it with a thin smile and glanced at his band a few feet to his right. The rank and file wore no capes, of course. Instead, the soldiers assigned to the band wore cloaks made of bearskin, like the standard-bearers, to make them more visible on the battlefield. "Signal the advance," Lyrn ordered.

"Aye," replied the six men.

Being right next to them, Lyrn winced slightly as they tune began. But with instruments was the only way to communicate with his entire army, spread out neatly on the hill's crest. His entire line stretched quite a distance in both directions. The Hosts were quite an empowering sight viewed from the back: lines and lines of soldiers, clad in red and iron, javelins piercing the sky from then back, and large, rectangular shields forming a wall in front of them. All of it at his command.

From the front, the well-drilled, well-uniformed infantry, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, shields at the ready and two-weighed javelin at each hostman's back likely drove despair into weaker men. And when it advanced, each formation moving in unison under the thundering and recognizable call to march...well, the Phortaineses' chanting stopped.

[Ayzek]

"Lanlanian dogs," muttered Sinead Murchalha, King of the Phortainese. He was a young man, just entering adulthood. He still seemed a child, however, in the tunic and bearskin coat he wore for clothes. A leather band wrapped around his head, over his forehead, signaled his status as King, though served as little protection. At least he'd a sword, though it was questionable if he knew how to wield it.

The men around him were far more intimidating, clad it mail and leather and carrying sword, axe, or spear. They were his private guard, the elites of the his Kingdom. Confident in their might and their previous victory over the Lanlanians,  they were certain they'd again defeat the Lanlanian invaders. They had the homefield advantage after all, and even the advantage of the crest of a hill. With mountains to the north and an ocean to the south, the Lanlanians had little choice but to fight them here, at the site of their choosing.

Their army may be smaller, but their spirit was far greater. And their ancestors were at their side. "The Lanlanians dogs 'ave come here to again water our fields!" Sinead shouted. Surprisingly, his voice carried. The winds too were on their side. "Their infidel blood will nourish the earth, pleasing our gods and bring them to bless us with a great harvest for years to come! With the gods on our side, we 'ave nothing to fear. The godless bastards will die here, impaled on our blades, forever to rot in the underside, while we go home to enjoy fine ale and finer women! Aye! Whoever brings me the head of their commander will 'ave their choice of woman from mine harem!"

The Phortainese army erupted into an uproar, cheering their king's name and death to the Lanlanians. It was at that moment that the Lanlanians sounded their advance with a deep blown of their horn. It was faint at first, though as the Lanlanian Hosts marched closer, their footsteps echoed through the valley: a steady, beating, unforgiving pounding. Their golden lions, glaring down from the three Hosts' standards, gleamed in the afternoon sun.

"Archers, ready!" Sinead called, drawing his sword and thrusting it forward.

[Ayzek]

"Hostmen, turtle formation!"

"Yah!"

The front line of Hostmen tightened their grip on their shields as the three lines behind them raised theirs above their heads. Sage Lukasson, Leadman of the 17th's Host 3rd Company's Iron Troop, was positioned in the head of the formation and fixed his shield below his eyes. They'd made it across the small, ankle-deep brook without too much trouble. He'd seen a the odd fool or two slip on the rocks that formed its bed, though his own troops had managed to cross without significant delay. They were lucky that the brook was outside the Phortaineses' bow range. But now, as they approached the rising slope of the eastern hill, to march unprotected would be suicide.

Indeed, though Sage couldn't see them, he could feel and hear the arrows behind to pound on their shields, a thick rain.

"Hold formation!" he commanded. Not that he needed to remind his men.

The march up the hill was slow, but steady. With arrows bouncing off or sticking to their shields, his own troop was taking no casualties. The Phortainese line, at the crest, was growing more and more distinguishable. Soon they were likely to charge, and their formation was not ideal for close combat. Was against a hill really the best battlefield their commands could find?

Through the gap between shields, Sage saw black streaks flying into the Phortainese, rather than out of them. Their archers had began to return fire. He chuckled, a grin coming onto his face. The Phortainese were no good at defending themselves from the arrows. He could see their lines start to dim, their fire dwindle, the glean of their blades—the whites of their eyes.

"Prepare javelin!"

He tightened the grip on his. Lanlanian javelins were made for both thrusting and throwing, and though the iron edge was thin, the rear was a thick wood to assist in stability and penetration.

"BAS DON MADA!" the Phortainese line cried. It charged, the men roaring as they sprinted down the hill.

"Fire javelin! Revert formation!" The reassuring sight of a volley of Lanlanian javelin in flight filled the gap between his shield—though the gap quickly expanded into a view of the full sky, as the shields came down and his troop returned to a square formation. "Fire javelin!" He and his men released their second javelins and another group of Phortainese warriors fell. Two heartbeats later, the rest crashed into the Lanlanian shield wall and the melee began. As Sage thrust his sword through the gap between his troop's shield, he could see arrows continue to fly overhead.

[Ayzek]

"Dogs!" Sinead barked. He'd heard stories of the Lanlanians' turtle formation, but didn't expect it to be this effective. Despite holding a defensive position on higher ground, his army had barely made a dent in the Lanlanians, who were slowly but certainly making their way up the slope. The Lanlanian formations, each an individual block marching side by side nearly in sync, were distributed into three waves and covered much of the valley. He needed only to survive the three waves and the Lanlanians were likely to retreat.

"Keep pressing!" he commanded. With their momentum, his lighter troops were nonetheless pushing the heavy Lanlanians back. "Give them not a single moment's respite!" His troops responded, letting free another piercing battle cry as they smashed again, shields-first, into the Hostmen. The Lanlanians buckled beneath them and steadily backed down the hill.

In some parts of the battlefield, the Lanlanian front line had already began to disappear, fatigued Hostmen slipping through gaps in the second wave's formation. The second wave, composed of more experienced troops, was fresh and turned the tides somewhat, slowing the Phortainese advance. Their tactical retreat still continued and the Phortainese followed, emboldened by their apparent victory over the Lanlanian Hosts.

And that's when another horn echoed down the valley, this time from the direction of the mountains.

Sinead spun to face it immediately, identifying it easily as the same tune the Lanlanians used to first order an advance. And, indeed, weaving out of the forest to his right and making a beeline for his position was a band of Lanlanian light cavalry. "You!" Sinead shouted, at the commander of his cavalry. "Stop them!"

"Aye!" the commander responded, "horsemen, with me!" He urged his horse into a quick gallop and rushed towards the wedge thundering towards his king.

"Oooaahh!" The Phortainese cavalry shouted, storming after their commander.

"King!" Sinead whirled around again and saw an officer pointing over the mass of men and blood in the valley. "Another cavalry detachment has left the Lanlanian line. They're trying to flank us." Sinead watched for a moment, tracking the new formation as it trotted towards the edge of the Lanlanian formations to go around it. How did the Lanlanians have so many horses? He'd committed his entire cavalry to the right, and it was clear he was still outnumbered.

"Take half the reserves and hold them back," Sinead commanded. "Their center is weak, and if we can break it, we've won."

"Aye! Spears, with me!" The commander and half of the men that still remained behind the Phortainese main line jogged towards the left, following the slope down to the edge of the formation. Though on their feet, their spears would give them some chance against the horsemen. If they could keep the cavalry back long enough, victory was theirs.

The sound of another horn, its deep rumbling originating from behind the Lanlanian center, made their spirits fall. It was immediately followed by crescendoing chants from the Lanlanian line. "Røn vel. Røn vel! Røn vel! RØN VEL!! RRØØNN VEELLL!! FR DAN KÏN!!"

As the Lanlanian second wave completely smashed into the fray, the Phortainese began to gave way. To make matters worse, both detachments Sinead sent to intercept the Lanlanian cavalry were being overwhelmed. There were simply too many of them.

"King!"

The very last sound Sinead heard was a steady pounding of the earth quickly become deafening.

[Ayzek]

"Barbarian fool," Lyrn spat. "Rot in hell. Throw that head away. Someone give this man his piece."

"Ah ha, thank you, Prince." The cavalryman threw Sinead's head into the pit of bodies his fellows had dug and wandered after the soldier who signaled to him. While the Lanlanians didn't collect the heads of their enemies, they did use them as proof of their death. If a commander was gracious enough, he rewarded whoever brought him the head of the enemy general.

"Did he have an heir?" Lyrn questioned, continuing his walk with Doren. The Lanlanians had won the battle and were now cleaning up the field. After their cavalry outmaneuvered the Phortainese and killed their king, the Phortainese collapsed. Many resisted to the very end, but knowledge of their fate was quite demoralizing. The Lanlanian infantry steadily surrounded and pressured the Phortainese. They were killed almost to the man, with very few making it through the Lanlanian cavalry that covered their rear.

"No," Doren answered, giving a final glance to one of the many mass graves his army had dug for the Phortainese. The Lanlanians did not want the dead rotting on land they would soon own. "He killed his rivals for the throne and had yet to sire any heirs. There is no one the Phortainese to rally around."

The prince nodded, smiling gleefully. "They should disintegrate, then."

"Their army might scatter. But I don't expect their cities to simply surrender."

"I've'd an itch to raze their capital since we departed Halvadag. That would certainly encourage them, no?"

"I would say it would encourage many things, yes," Doren replied, a frown on his face.

Lyrn raised an eyebrow. The walk from the mass graves to their new camp wasn't long. The battle had taken most of the afternoon, and collecting the bodies took the rest of it. Marching simply wasn't an option. Instead, as a quarter of the soldiers dug and filled graves and another kept guard, the remainder built a camp a little north of where the battle had taken place. They would rest for the night and march on Orenhold in the morning.

"I don't think the Phortainese would be happy to serve masters who set their people to the torch," Doren explained, having noticed the quizzing look on his Prince's face. The walked down one of the four main roads of the camp, flanked by rows and rows of tents and campfires. Many of the soldiers had already removed their armor and were sitting around their Troop's campfire, the day's cook making dinner for the team as the lot of them laughed over a joke or reminisced of days gone.

"And I can't say I'd be happy with subjects who desecrated my grandfather and butchered his Hosts." The two stopped near the crossroads of the camp. "One city for the lives of an Archking and thirty-thousand Lanlanians is more than fair, I would say."

Doren scowled. "As you will, Prince."

"Wonderful," Lyrn replied. "I will quarter will the troops tonight. You may return to yours."

The Ordinskarl watched his commander disappeared into a network of tents, before wandering off in a different direction.

[Ayzek]

Orenhold, Kingdom of Phortain
19 Septum 301 BCE

"Fire."

With a thwack and a swoosh, broken by a sudden crack and quickly followed by several more, the Lanlanians unleashed a volley of flaming stone that tumbled through the air. They flew down a stretch of dying grass, towards the center of the sprawling palisade the Lanlanians had built around the Phortainese capital. Of the over two dozen stones lobbed by the Lanlanian trebuchet, a few went over Orenhold's walls and set aflame the wooden city. Others crashed into the low, stone-brick wall itself, smashing holes and splashing defenders with the burning tar brought from Florinthus.

Lyrn smiled as he heard the city begin to panic. The shrieks of the population were overwhelming the orders barked by the defenders on the walls and, at points, even the howls of the flames that were spreading across the city.

"Reload!" resounded down the Lanlanian lines.

Lyrn had given them a chance to surrender, of course. Maybe if they had, he'd have reconsidered setting their city ablaze. But they hadn't, instead stalling until reinforcements from the rest of the kingdom had arrived. Lyrn's Hosts had managed to defeat the stragglers without too much of a challenge. Only a few bands had engaged the Lanlanians, the others withdrawing when they noticed the siege fortifications the Lanlanians had built so quickly around the capital. Lyrn would chase them later and force them to their knees.

"Fire when ready," Lyrn commanded. While their first volley had failed to make a breach, the sun was still high overhead.

[Ayzek]

"Have you found the standards?"

"Nay, Prince."

"Tch." Lyrn spat, sinking back into his seat. The Phortainese's king's armchair was a rather simple thing, made of wood and engraved in Phortainese cultural and religious symbols. A hawk's head took up the bulk of the backrest, an iron crown on its head and a horizontal endless knot above that. The leather seat was simple and worn. The armrests's ends too were in the shape of the hawk's face, which made them uncomfortable to grip.  It matched the Phortainese keep well: simple and less than comfortable. The throne room, which seemed to double as the council room, was stone and undecorated. The large wooden table and the even-simpler chairs around it were the only other furniture, discounting the lit torches that dotted the walls.

Doren, standing by the doors to the room, watched his prince silently. The Lanlanians officers had taken over the keep with a few guards and were in the process of searching it for anything of value. The standards of Lyrn's grandfather were the key treasure they were after—they were quite valuable to army, and not simply cause they were made of gold. The golden lion, standing triumphantly at the top of the Archking's banner, was a symbol of Lanlanian might and to have one lost was a major blow to the Archkingdom's prestige. Though the destruction of the Phortainese state certainly restored some of it, Lanlanians would never consider the victory complete until they recovered the standards.

Yet no one they captured knew were they were.

"We will keep searching," Doren said, nodding his head as he withdrew from the room.

Lyrn watched him go from the corner of his eyes. When the door closed, he sighed and glanced out the windows. The sky was auburn as the city still burned. The keep's outer walls and the open space in between was not enough to keep the crackles of the flames or the cries of the population completely at bay.

The Raze of Orenhold would last for a week and of the city's sixty-thousand inhabitants, only five-thousand would survive to be enslaved. In the end, only the stone buildings and walls would still stand, charred black with soot from the surrounding field of ash. But the Archkingdom would have avenged the lost Archking Lyrn I and his three Hosts, and sent a clear ultimatum to the rest of the Phortainese cities: surrender or suffer the same fate.

[Ayzek]

Eriuna
10 Fein 282 BCE

Lyrn was older now. At forty years old, and now the High King of the sprawling, multinational realm, he certainly looked like it. His face had lost its youth and his hair its vibrant color ages ago, even before he began his invasion of the Zanarite petty kingdoms. A martial man, his body still had a certain vitality to it, leaving him more than capable of defeating less disciplined youngsters. With this confidence, he lead the Lanlanian landing on Eriuna from the lead galley, his prize growing slowly larger with each crested wave.

It was early afternoon and the salty sea breeze was a comfort to the Lanlanian. He'd spent the last few years campaigning in central Zanaro, after all. Though Phortain had fallen almost two decades ago, Lyrn had been forced to return to Halvadag by his mother and had been unable to continue the conquest of Zanaro until 287, when he crossed into central Zanaro. Those years had been quite tolling on him, leading to this short detour to the islands off Zanaro's coast.

The sea breeze reminded him off home.

[Ayzek]

Margrënamunn, Eriuna
12 Fein 282 BCE

Margrënamunn was the residence of the local lord who claimed to rule the island, a pirate by the name of Asmund. While Eriuna had an estimated two thousand residents, the Lanlanians doubted he could mobilize even a tenth of them. The island was largely a den for pirates, and Lyrn expected his thousand Hostmen to make short work of any resistance they could muster. While he'd sent a few of them in bands to seize control of nearby villages, the bulk of them marched on Asmund's hillfort at his side.

Asmund's hillfort was built a short distance from the coast, overlooking a modest village. Though the sun was still high, the villagers were nowhere to be found. Lyrn's host had combed it earlier in the day to prevent being flanked while laying siege to the fort. They'd likely either fled or taken shelter behind the log walls at the crest of the hill. The fort wasn't large by any means, but it was nonetheless an obstacle. The land around it had been cleared, though at least there was no moat. Still, it'd take time to prepare for an assault. And an assault was the second-best option--Lyrn had no time to carry out a full siege.

The first option was negotiation, of course. While the Hostman had made camp and were staking out the lands nearby for supplies, a small team had approaching bearing a white flag and an offer of surrender. It did not surprise Lyrn that the defenders--pirates and outlaws--had opened fire on them.

The assault would happen Monday.