* * * * * * * * *
A decade ago, the climactic battle of Karhat had seemed like the defining battle of the era, bringing long Satar domination of the Sesh to an abrupt end. At long last, the Moti drove their main rival from the valley, securing their continental empire in all directions. With the last remnants of the Satar hidden behind the Tashal and Kotir, it stood to reason to think that the War of the Three Gods would simply peter out.
But the Uggor, it seems, had a long memory. The last time they had expelled an Exatai from the Sesh, a new Redeemer had returned, cementing two more centuries of Satar rule. Fourth-Frei would not make the same mistake as his ancestors he would continue the war.
The wide open spaces of the Karapeshai had defended them as well as any wall in the immediate aftermath of Karhat. Attacks into the Tashal and against Arastephaion had met with quiet logistical failure, and any expedition of the anti-Satar alliance would need to surmount these problems to make any real headway. For that reason, the commanders of the Carohan military decided to play to their strengths, proposing a largely amphibious campaign to their Motian allies, who accepted it with some modifications.
The less ambitious of the two prongs would be under the command of the rising Cow Family chief Twelfth-Frono, a relatively simple march along the coastline to attack the Satar garrison city of Onesca, supported from the seaside by their Aitahist friends.
Meanwhile, another expedition, an almost incredible eighty thousand in number, with a hundred and fifty vessels as an escort, was planned to strike directly at the city of Acca, regarded as the heart of the Exatai and a potential base for operations further north. This, under the joint command of the successful Helsian general Folonui Aramsafaya and an Aitahist admiral by the name of Pa'esh, needed some time to assemble the hulls of over a hundred new warships were laid down in preparation, while the allied armies gathered in the Delta.
Before the campaign began, the Aitahists busied themselves throughout the Kern Sea, dispatching envoys and sending enormous subsidies to their allies in Tarena. Soon, Aitahist agents had even penetrated into Cyve, attempting to foment a rebellion there against the new Satar ally. Unfortunately for their spies, support on the ground for revolt against a highly successful wartime monarch proved limited at best especially when much of the elite in Cyve had already put to sea to participate in the Evyni campaign. Without any concrete Aitahist military support, the movement failed utterly.
What it did do, as we have seen, was to push the Gallassans into the arms of the Satar and worse still, to bring the Bhari Rosh into the circles of the League, both setting aside their differences in fear of the Aitahist threat. Their combined power would hand the Tarenans a series of reverses on land, and freed up the Gallassene fleet for combat in the Kern Sea something that had already cost the Evyni dearly.
But by the time of the Accan Expedition, none of this seemed to matter. The Gallasene fleet had barely seen action in the past few decades, and indeed had failed miserably against the Aitahists in the last decade, while the Karapeshai navy sounded like an oxymoron. Even on land, the forces involved slightly outnumbered the armies under the direct command of the Redeemer Jahan.
Twelfth-Frono set out first, an army of nearly 60,000 behind him. Their march up the coast of the Kotir, scattered with the ruins of ancient cities and broken monuments saw action almost immediately, meeting Satar raiders as soon as they left the well-fortified Delta. The Moti had more than enough cavalry to ward off any real threat the raiders posed to their army, but had difficulty pinning them down as well they could simply vanish into the Desert when the tide turned. As a result, supplies had to be funneled almost entirely through the ocean, and though this initially posed no problem, the march itself became an arduous, rather painful process.
At the same time, the monumental Accan Expedition set sail in the late spring of 525 SR, proceeding first to Mahid and then to the captured city of Aldina before striking out across the ocean to Acca.
Such an undertaking could hardly be kept secret. The Satar knew before the allies had set forth on the last leg of their journey, and sent word to Arto Rutarri near Cândyr of the impending attack. Arto set sail at once, his entire fleet in tow; so, too, came the fleet at Onesca under the command of a young Teto Etteru, aside from a few raiding ships left to strain the supply lines of the Uggor army even further.
Skilled in seamanship, the Seshweay made good time across the Kern, collecting themselves in the bays east of Alma before continuing onto the heavily guarded city of Acca itself. Unbeknownst to them, however, the allied Satar and Maninist fleet had assembled in Alma itself, and when warning reached them of their foe's arrival, they issued forth to trap the Aitahists in the bay, ending the Expedition before it ever had the chance to reach Acca.
Still somewhat disorganized from the long voyage, the Aitahists didn't find out about the attack until it was almost too late. With the allied fleet's sails coming into view, the Aitahist navy arrayed itself for battle, and almost at once were set upon by Rutarri's fleet.
While the Moti and Seshweay had stationed several thousands of soldiers on their vessels to act as marines, these soldiers found themselves flummoxed by the dedicated and stunningly experienced crews that the Accans could bring to bear. Running almost literal circles around ships that had expected to face only token resistance, Rutarri's men rammed and sank dozens of vessels before the Aitahists had the chance to really regroup. The center of the Aitahist fleet remained relatively stout, and could better bring their marines into ship-to-ship combat, but the wings simply collapsed against better-piloted ships.
The initial gains had been entirely one-sided, but Pa'esh bought time by redeploying some of his reserves to the wings. But even as he did this, other parts of the line began to crumble. Rutarri's own ship, meanwhile, darted in and out of the gaps in the clash, sinking or capturing seven vessels itself, and encouraging his followers as well. The Aitahists had counted on some defections or incompetence to swing the battle in their favor, but the crews of an overwhelmingly Maninist or Accan fleet fought relentlessly, shredding what remained of the Aitahist force.
In only a few hours, Rutarri's fleet had little to do besides mopping up, capturing over two dozen vessels to replace their own losses, and soon preyed on the numerous transport vessels, many of which had not yet offloaded their soldiers to the shore. Dozens of boats surrendered rather than face the prospect of sinking, while dozens more simply never got the chance to surrender. Thousands drowned, and the Accans continued to intercept new arrivals for weeks after the Battle of the Bays.
A good portion of the absurdly large force had managed to land in some fashion or another, but they remained a foreign army trapped in a surprisingly hostile landscape. Meanwhile, rumor had it that the new Redeemer Avetas marched from Allusille with more than enough soldiers to sweep aside what remained of the allied army. Aramsafaya and Pa'esh had both died in the chaos, and the remaining commanders debated whether to fortify themselves, hoping for some kind of relief from whatever Aitahist navy remained in the Kern Sea, or to attempt a desperate march through Oscadia to Onesca.
In short, it had been an utter catastrophe.
* * * * * * * * *
The much better organized and supplied Onescan attack, by contrast, had managed to more headway, pushing aside the Satar raiders, and capturing the city from its fairly minor garrison. From here, on, however, the troubles began.
The Battle of the Bays had not completely eliminated the Aitahist navy from the picture, but it had left it quite literally decimated barely more than a dozen of the original vessels remained in any fighting shape, and they had mostly turned tail and fled to Aldina after the fiasco. With control over the Kern given over almost entirely to Rutarri's cunning band of sailors, the raids recommenced from both landward and seaward directions, cutting off the supplies from the Sesh almost entirely.
Twelfth-Frono did not panic, and began to secure alternative chains of supply. First, he began to launch a series of raids of his own into the countryside north of Onesca. While the fairly barren scrubland there would not support an army of their size, what farms did lay there could certainly help. At the same time, his more immobile infantry began to construct a series of fortifications down the Kotir coast. While they still faced a good deal of pressure from the much more mobile Satar raiders, these blockhouses could at least keep the army at Onesca from outright starvation.
A much smaller Uggor force had been devoted to continuing attacks on the Tashal region. Naturally, they found it difficult to extend their reach over such a barren terrain, securing only a few oasis towns larger plans to secure the entirety of the Kotir and Rath Tephas between the two armies had to be postponed for a later date, especially with the imminent prospect of Avetas' return looming over them all.
* * * * * * * * *
Jahan's death had put the Evyni conquest on hold, while Avetas' campaign to the south with well over half the available Satar forces stalled it even further. All the same, the war looked unlikely to be reversed any time soon the great bulk of the Evyni quem and the slowly accumulated professional military had been slaughtered at Allusille. Zys' treachery went unpunished, for the Avaimi lay divided among themselves. At first, no man dared claim the title of Lawgiver, as Isathmæyer's widow, Ashar, still remained alive, and rumor had it that she was with child. When she fled from the capital with Zys' army on her heels, though, the path to empire lay open.
A dozen quem proclaimed themselves Lawgiver at once, each with a fairly large force under their banner. Satar raids began shortly thereafter, pushing the boundaries of Karapeshai control still further north. Meanwhile, an Evyni defector by the name of Dvræsyn was named Tarkhana and Lord of the Evyni for his troubles, amassing a number of like-minded individuals under him and attempting to carve out his own patrimony with the blessing of Avetas.
In this rather chaotic environment, Zys remained the biggest player, but even he proved unable to control things. Much of his conscript army withered away at the first winter, and soon only a rather small (admittedly more professional) core stayed. As such, he could scarcely extend his control farther than he already had.
While the false Lawgivers, Zys, and Dvræsyn scrabbled for purchase in the narrow arena of the dying empire, the rest of the northern powers began to nibble at the edges. Xieni incursions in the southwest met with welcoming feasts by the oppressed Oscadians; Luskan launched overland raids against the old city of Ëtama; the Taudo rebellion gained momentum. All awaited with some trepidation the results of the battles in the south that might decide the fate of the Karapeshai.
Avetas arrived in Acca bare weeks after the Battle of the Bays, easily turning aside some halfhearted allied probes. His approach brought new urgency into the talks of those allies that remained near Alma; at long last the Uggor general Perei took the Moti contingent and a few thousand Aitahists, striking out to the southwest, hoping to outpace the Redeemer. The remaining Seshweay and Faron wavered still; Avetas' host caught them on the peninsula, defeated them easily, forced their surrender, and continued on to try and catch Perei.
Despite the traditional Satar mobility and the hostile countryside, Perei made surprisingly good time, keeping his army together and forcing long marches. Hundreds of Seshweay and even a few Uggor melted away into the west as deserters, finding homes with the Aitahist Oscadians there; a few of them would even keep on the fight against Avetas for a few years afterward before finally being extinguished by a minor Satar contingent towards the end of the decade. The rest continued onward, finally coming to the River Markha deep in Oscadia.
Unfortunately, here they stalled for a few days while trying to secure a crossing, and Avetas finally caught up with them. Perei managed to get half of his forces across the river before the Satar fell upon their rearguard, slaughtering ten thousand more of the allied army and enslaving what few remained.
Even so, the wily Perei managed to distract the Satar, and arrived in Onesca with nearly ten thousand of his men in tow, embracing his Uncle Twelfth-Frono and being hailed as a hero for his daring escape. The Moti prepared for battle with the Satar army, a somewhat smaller but by far the better quality force, and fell back after a few inconclusive battles to their garrison.
Through this, Ashar's flight had brought her to lands in the distant west, finding refuge with her father in the Xieni court before being expelled at the prospect of bringing further vengeance down on his head.
On the other side of the Kern Sea, the Gallassene armies nearly matched their navy in accolades. After the annexation of the Bhari Roshate, the combined armies of the League, the Bhari, and the Sirasonans met the Tarenan despot in pitched battle. Even with support from the Aitahists, internal factions and messy communications played havoc with the Tarenan defensive efforts quite rapidly the Maninists won a string of victories, arriving at the gates of the enemy capital of Pamala.
Raiders from Occara, with subtle prods from the Savirai monarch, began to cross into their new Galassene neighbors' borderlands, but these functioned more as a symbol of Eastern Aitahist unity than a meaningful military intervention.
* * * * * * * * *
The governor sat on a lavender cushion, his face a mask of mild boredom. Above and all around him stood rows and rows of benches arrayed in their thousands; before him, the wide circle of the arena sands. They were covered up today; a tarp had been laid down, and some canvas backdrops had been hung, dividing the arena in two. If there had been enough people to fill the amphitheater, half the audience would never see the play. But it was irrelevant: he had invited only his closest friends to this private production.
Torono was starting to wish he hadn't.
It had been his wife's idea, of course. She had heard of the play's brilliance from one of the friends she had made in the Seshweay elite, and she thought bringing actors all the way from Caroha would provide a welcome distraction. Torono had agreed, for whatever reason possibly to get out of the field for once, for the campaign against the Arrow-Family's armies had proven harder than he liked to admit, and possibly too because he had thought holding the play in an arena where the Satar used to kill one another would prove amusing.
It had been a gross miscalculation.
Certainly, the Den of Wolves did not make for a bad theater. The players' voices rung out across the seats, and he had no difficulty seeing the action of the play. And he admired the architecture: the fancifully decorated columns, the thousand square arches. He had half a mind to try and acquire some artwork of the wind-serpents the Satar used for decorations. Ironic, really, how the men who had burned half the world built perhaps the most impressive buildings.
In any case, it was not the building. It was the play. Tonoro's wife seemed to be enraptured, so presumably it made for good drama. He, on the other hand, had seen that there existed two characters, one a Faronun... warrior? and one a Satar woman. He, appropriately enough, not-so-subtly made disapproving sounds every time the masked woman took the stage (actors are not the only ones who are masters of the stage whisper), but other than that, he had little investment in the plot. Something about them coming to face one another in battle, with the Satar losing (he applauded that), and then a several minutes long speech by one of the main characters.
His mind wandered during this last soliloquy, of which he heard maybe one word in a hundred. Never before had he noticed what a pure blue the sky made against the red stone of the Den.
At long, merciful last, he did not need to listen to more culture to please his wife. The players bowed to applause both dutiful and enthusiastic, and began to strike the set. Torono clapped his hands, and called over a servant, who poured a tall glass of lemon-water, mixed with crushed snow from the southern mountains. After taking a long draught, he looked around for his wife, who had mysteriously vanished.
It transpired that she had engaged a few of the players in conversation, talking animatedly about their work. He made his way down, and cleared his throat importantly; they immediately bowed and uttered their sincerest thanks for his presence.
Yes, yes, quite. Truly a moving rendition. He cast around for some comment that would make them all believe he had been paying even cursory attention. I must say I was partial to the scene you know the one where they come together and fight. Even as a seasoned warrior, watching men play at war is always entertaining. But it could have done with less talking. Dialogue interrupts the build-up of stories such as these.
They graciously assured him that they would communicate this criticism to the playwright, and he in turn invited them to the palace complex, where he would shortly have Vithana musicians playing some western songs, and a feast of roast pheasant was to be had. He would at least enjoy the food, and perhaps the players would continue to engage his wife for some time more...
* * * * * * * * *
Aside from being woefully misinformed as to the nature of Farubaidan theater, Torono's main contribution to the governate of the Upper Sesh was to continue the campaign against Satores' raiders. The Moti had made little headway in this matter for some years now, as their foes had the lay of the land, and a certain mobility, not to mention the mind of one of the better generals that the Sesh had seen in quite some time. Torono had been charged with bringing this matter to a close, one way or another, and he diligently began to set a trap for the raiders.
Withdrawing back into the cities, the Moti almost conceded the countryside to the Satar for a while, allowing crops to be pillaged and the nascent Irraliamite and Aitahist communities to live in fear for a while. This, of course, lured the Satar into overcommitment. But only the less competently commanded Satar bands managed to get fooled so easily the rest had to be careful to preserve every soldier they had in the face of present difficulties.
Shifting his tactics somewhat, Torono began to attack their mountain strongholds one by one, hoping to beat them at their own game. Indeed, eventually the Moti eliminated nearly half of the partisans, but those under the direct command of Satores near the city of Yashidim in particular remained entirely beyond his grasp, and continued to weaken his control over the region, though at least his attacks had shifted their base of power even further into the western mountains and in so doing, likely cut them off from the greater part of their manpower base.
In the center of the Holy Empire itself, the tensions at court had become rather dangerous; in an attempt to defuse the situation, Ayasi Fourth-Frei granted certain bureaucratic offices to various important members of the Godlike families. This proved rather successful for a time, anyway. At the same time, however, his relaxed policies tempted the Godlikes to revive some of their older, pre-Iralliam religious ancestor worship practices. This did not sit well with the Grandpatriarch, who took a rather hardline stance; the threat of holy anger brought errant nobility back into line.
(The Ayasi himself, it should be noted, did much to sponsor the activities of the clergy as well; mysteriously he also avoided the wrath of the Grandpatriarch.)
Simultaneously, the Patriarchy of Magha complained heavily at the Imperial policy that allowed Aitahist settlers in the Upper Sesh. Naturally, the Emperor ignored them, and very little of consequence took place Aitahist communities, especially merchants and artisans, started to take root in Tisatar and Nikros. Combined with the elimination of the easternmost Satar partisans, and a resulting spike in settlement by Bysrians, the latter city finally started to revive from the hefty beating it had taken in the War of the Three Gods.
With the focus of the war shifting northward, the general economic and cultural flowering of the cradle continued, especially in the Farubaida.
Haiaoda, a play by Shaeuli Pirof, while perhaps not holding the attention of certain Uggor governors, was remarkable for representing something of an outlier in a culture that otherwise subscribed to a utopian vision of the future. Shaeuli's play, by contrast, showed a deeply philosophical bent one that actually treated the Satar as people, for one.
Naturally, such an argument fell mostly on deaf ears.
In any case, Caroha continued its odd path from reviled city to one of the crowning jewels of the region. Neruss, funding its reconstruction with funds from across the Federation, followed suit, and possibly coming as a bit of surprise to some so, too, did Dremai, benefiting from its position near the cultural powerhouses in the northeast of the Lovi Sea, and serving as a point of travel and trade for the nearby Faerouhaiaouans.
Of course, this time of peace and plenty might well have come to a close already but that is a story we have yet to begin...
* * * * * * * * *
The Clan of Kogur had finally succeeded in its most righteous of tasks the conquest of the upstart people of Putra, and the extension of Uggor power further south than it had ever come before. Naturally, it soon transpired that their victory hadn't really solved anything, as they soon found out. Encouraging immigration into Anzai was one thing; they actually controlled Anzai. But when the settlement of farmers in the border regions started to infringe on the territory of the native peoples whom they had co-opted for so long, they quickly remembered exactly why they had enlisted native allies in the first place the natives knew their business when it came to fighting on their home ground.
The Clan of Kogur found their most trusted native allies, the Aihnaz, turning on them. Precisely because of the recent victory of the two allies over the Putrans, the Aihnaz happened to be among the most powerful of the local tribes, and they became the focal point of an anti-Uggor coalition. Pushed back onto a thin strip along the coastline, the Kogur once again found themselves conducting what seemed like it had turned into an endless series of wars.
Across the Nakalani, the Ilfolk had swelled greatly in numbers and prominence soon the entire island fell under the sway of one or the other of their chiefs and priests, and Ilfolk fishermen swarmed around its coasts in droves. A dark spot, perhaps, had appeared on the horizon Baribai raiders had begun to prod at its northern coasts but their numbers remained small and their activities disorganized. The island was safe.
For now.
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Old rivalries still ruled in Parthe. The northern Terror, the Zarcasen, still raided the frontier with ruthless efficiency, striking down hundreds of settlers in the inland hills and driving still more out. The Partheans, in return, pushed still deeper into the forest. Neither side had gained the upper hand, though Parthe's position of dominance on the island had been clear for some time now.
More happily, the natives to the west seemed much more amicable to the Partheans, possibly because the Parthean plans for them involved far less wanton killing and rather more intermarriage and bribery. Regardless, the expansion of the plantation economy across the south of the island restarted, helped along by the new lands and a treaty with Leun to monopolize indigo production, and a newly founded port in the west, Tarwa.
Less happily, an expedition to the north met with apparent failure as it vanished into the mists, two ships, half a hundred men, and all.
Meanwhile, under Leunan direction, the Acayan city states founded a new forum for the discussion of regional issues, particularly those involving trade or political developments. However, with the distraction of the Empire due to their southern imbroglio, the forum's implicit goal a check on Iolhan expansion had little chance of success. Indeed, once the Leunans' gaze was completely averted, the Iolhans happily continued their expansion, conquering two more city states and easily taking on the rest in a series of lopsided battles.
On the other side of the continent, the Rihnit, ever a quiet people who did not particularly concern themselves with the goings-on of the world around them, seemed to shake themselves awake a little. The king, a man with a thousand curiosities, ordered the construction of a university, called the Jagarakasoan Grasitak, with the charge to investigate such diverse subjects as botany, architecture, chemistry, and engineering. Of course, with a fairly limited budget they could only make a little headway into any of those fields, and most of their actual progress was stolen from neighboring peoples.
Other government policies including an attempt to try and take a cast of every citizen's foot and thumbprint proved completely unrealistic and were quickly abandoned.