Pacifist46
King
XIV - The Continent Ablaze
Part II
Part II
1720AD
Jun announces another technological breakthrough
GENGHIS: And this time, it had better be something worth hearing.
JUN: Why, sire, I like to think all of my announcements are worth hearing.
GENGHIS: You do, do you? Well youre kidding yourself Im afraid. Get on with it, Im not sitting here all day.
JUN: You arent, sire, right you are. Well, you might be of the opinion, as I was, that Cannons are pretty outdated by now.
GENGHIS: Yeah, I suppose youre right. They do suck a bit.
GRIZNAKH: I miss the old days. Technological improvements that had to do with FOOD. We havent had one of those for ages!
GENGHIS: Shut up Griznakh, dont interrupt. So?
JUN: So I created this beauty.
he whisks the cloth from a scale model of an Artillery.
GENGHIS: Now Im no technological expert, well, actually Im not bad, its a figure of speech, BUT, THAT couldnt blow a hole in the table.
JUN: Its a scale model, sire. The real things are much, much larger. And they can easily blow holes in this table, and in walls too.
GENGHIS: Good. Hows their accuracy?
JUN: Far better than the cannons, in fact, you can hit a dartboard 100 metres away every time.
GENGHIS: Lush!
JUN: The reason that these are so much better than Cannons, sire, is that the shells they fire are far more destructive as well. Add in the increased range, and youve got a unit that is half as strong again as a Cannon.
GENGHIS: Good advancement. Youve done well for once.
JUN: Thank you sire.
GENGHIS: Stop being cocky, though. One decent thing isnt going to make you my favourite guy. Now scoot.
Jun scoots
GENGHIS: Right, losers, what else is happening?
Montezuma enters
MONTEZUMA: Genghis. You seem to be a little trouble, over here.
GENGHIS: As if! Im just making sure this continent gets taken as quickly as possible! Multiple wars, you can take multiple empires simultaneously.
MONTEZUMA: Well duh. But you you cant manage it. So Im going to declare war on you! Mwa-ha-ha-ha-HA!
GENGHIS: Great. Ok then. See ya.
MONTEZUMA: Erm but WAIT! There is one thing you can do one thing which might persuade the Aztec supremo to change-i-change his mind.
GENGHIS: I couldnt care less.
MONTEZUMA: You know, of course, of the English. Well these rats have started to settle across on MY continent! Up in the north-east corner, where they thought Monty wouldnt notice! BUT, dayum! They were wrong. Wrong, see? Monty noticed, and Monty squashed them with his army like he would a beating heart on the altars with his fist! Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!
GENGHIS: Oh well done Monty. What a brilliant guy. Its about the only action you get over there, isnt it?
MONTEZUMA: Quiet. Now, I could reach across the Pacificap and do the same to you. Easily. Napaj would be MINE, before you even got word! But if you accede to my reasonable request, you can rely on me to relinquish my grip. Understand?
GENGHIS: That was a mildly entertaining little narrative. Now scram, before I decide to bother crushing you.
MONTEZUMA: Youre REALLY not going to cancel your deals? Remember, it would ahem, could mean WAR!
GENGHIS: I like war. I dont like giving in to outlandish orders. So the obvious choice is to ignore you.
MONTEZUMA: Fine! You MAY hear from me. And you MAY not. It will come down to the flip of a coin back in my palace.
Montezuma exits
GENGHIS: What an irritation. Now get lost. This meetings over.
KOLAI: Sire, Bactra is waiting.
GENGHIS: Haha! Lets go!
Kolai and the Khan arrive at the fortress city of Bactra, recently retaken by the Greeks. A Mongolian army had lain siege, and bombarded the defences. Genghis assessed the situation.
GENGHIS: It wasnt THAT bloody long ago we were stood here, and Cyrus was stood up there. And now we have to do it all bloody over again.
KOLAI: It shouldnt be too hard though.
GENGHIS: Not at all! Cavalry, advance!
The Mongol cavalry started up the steep hill towards the remnants of the Bactran walls. Looking ahead, the cavalry captain saw a line of men, silhouetted against the fierce mountain sun; the horses kept going, and the captain was now able to make out the faces of the Greek Macemen, stern concentration on their faces, as they prepared to receive the Mongol cavalrymen.
The captain was having none of that.
He bellowed an order, and the cavalrymen drew their pistols and, at full gallop, shot six rounds at the Greeks. The Macemen howled as they fell to the invisible arrows. The few survivors managed to stagger back to their feet, only to be grounded once more by the cavalry as they reached the city.
Watching the maces fall, Genghis raised his fist, made a gun, and pumped his thumb repeatedly in a trigger motion.
GENGHIS: Boom! Boom! Boom! That level was easier that time.
KOLAI: Damn right! Back to court then.
GENGHIS: Yep. Lets assess the situation.
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SENTRY AKEDAI: Please sir! I beg you; spare me!
The Lord Kachiun gave him a withering look, then turned to his second-in-command.
KACHIUN: Vice-general Nacer, what is your assessment of this incident?
The burly vice-general bit back on a sharp reply as he turned to face his superior.
NACER: It could have led to an enemy army surprising the fort, leading to a massacre of us all, and setting the war effort back by many years. In light of this consideration, I would rank this neglection of duty at the highest level.
KACHIUN: And I agree. Powderbreath, shoot him.
SENTRY AKEDAI: No! Sir!
Powderbreath grinned, showing yellowed, uneven teeth. The gangly trooper unslung his rifle and took aim at the sentrys neck.
AKEDAI: Sir, please
Powderbreath fired, the bullet slicing into Akedais neck. As a waterfall of blood gushed out, and Akedais head slumped forward, his body collapsing on the dusty ground, Vice-General Nacer Ombolgu watched a small smile play upon the lips of the Lord Kachiun, as he watched the man die. His superior was clearly enjoying the mans demise, thought Nacer. Another shred of proof that the Khans brother was developing a merciless and sadistic streak that greatly unnerved the bull-necked warrior from the Taklamaklan, hard as he was.
Nacer had known Kachiun for some time. The man was intelligent beyond all measure, and a great military commander, and Nacer had enjoyed working under him. Having a competent, harmless superior made life in the army much, much easier. Nacer had even begun to joke and dine with him on occasion, in the years before Pasargardae happened, cultivating a friendship with his superior in a way seldom seen in military practice.
But then, of course, Pasargardae HAD happened. Kachiun had been through hell and back during the months before the betrayal and death of his wife, and, as the generals detachment left the new sentries and the signal box behind, few men went through Hell and returned a better person, thought Nacer. He began to trudge back down the hill path towards camp.
When Kachiun had returned after Pasargardae, having seen his brother the Khan, he had never again invited Nacer or any of the other senior military commanders to his tent for a dinner or a drink again. Instead, the Lord had treated Nacer in a completely formal manner, in a detached, professional tone. As he would any common trooper in the army.
Then the order had come from the Khan; Kachiun was to take his tuman and ride north, settling in and around Ghulamann, to conduct a guerrilla war against the superior Russian army, based now at Kassite, discouraging them for further advancement, whilst building up his forces. And so Kachiun had marched them all up north, at an unrelenting pace. That was when Nacer had first observed the change in the general.
During the Arabian campaign, Kachiun had treated his soldiers kindly, greeting them with first names, promising donatives for hard work. But during the march he drove them north so fast that, before the column had even reached Tarsus, men had started to drop out of column.
Kachiuns response to these troopers had been to strip them naked, tie them to rocks in the desert, flog them 100 times, and then leave them. Tied, with no supplies, the troopers were left to the vultures. This incredibly harsh punishment left the men reeling, the first time it had been meted out. Nacer had protested lightly to the Khans brother, who had promptly replied that the vice-general was welcome to join his men. Stunned, Nacer had kept his mouth shut, and endured the torturous march up to Ghulamann in silence.
Once they had arrived in the region, there was no respite. Kachiun ordered his men to dig a permanent fort. The path to the fort was well hidden, through a nasty patch of thorny brakes, leading steeply up to the fort. Cliffs surrounded it on all sides, it afforded terrific views of the surrounding valleys, and there were only two exits, the entrance and the back exit, which led only up to the signal post from which the column was now descending. The ground had been chosen well.
So the men built the fort. Since then, the army had been skirmishing lightly with Russian patrols, knocking them out in systematic fashion. It was progressing well. But Kachiun kept up hard drills for any soldier who wasnt skirmishing, made them sleep practically on rugs on the floor of the barracks, and also punished the slightest offences with death.
Nacer shuddered, thinking back to the latest incident. Every hour, the sentry in the signal box was supposed to raise the all clear pennant, just to reassure Kachiun that no enemy was near the fort. But Akedai had been late with the pennant. A full twenty-six seconds after Kachiun had judged the hour to have passed, the all-clear pennant had been raised. Twenty-six seconds late.
Whether Akedai had been caught short, whether he had marked the sundial slightly incorrectly, whether a bird had attacked him at the crucial moment even, Nacer would never know. Kachiun had never given him a chance to explain. He had just told Powderbreath to shoot him. And from what Nacer could see, the Lord had enjoyed the mans death greatly. Veteran though he was, Nacer never delighted in the death of a fellow human; it was something which he felt set humankind apart from animals and demons. And he himself despised heartless men as such.
That was another irritation to the Vice-General; his new choice of companions. Kachiun now seemed to surround himself with the biggest, crudest thugs he could find, men totally without morals. Powderbreath was just one example.
The column arrived back in camp, and, to a barked order from Kachiun, Nacer set off to inspect the gate sentries. The Vice-General set off without complaint. Secretly, though, he was deeply disturbed with the situation, and passing through the camp to the surly glances of his disgruntled comrades, he was just beginning to get fed up with the situation.
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