Kings and Commanders
"Veritas will not stand for defeat."
-Stratikrator Cendrian's actual last words
"Tellus certainly will not remember me as the successor to Cendrian. The world will remember Cendrian as the precursor to Delagani."
-Stratikrator Ancelius Delagani, Memoirs of a Commander
Epilogue:
Before we begin, a small description of Takrau. Normally the Upper City is a peaceful place, with a small stone palisade surrounding it. There is a harbor on the south side, but only dignitaries and wealthy merchants use it. It is a quiet green place, with parks dotting the entire area for strolling nobility, and well-kept villas and an embassy or two surrounding the moderately sized Castle of the Shield.
Then the Lower City, towards the west of the hilled upper areas, was a typical Bronze Age slum. Small hovels sprawled across the landscape, roads were small and cramped, crime was high, and the King was hated. The Shield on White had shoved the poor into these slums like a wealthy man trapped rats in his home...or so the poor told you.
Soloxau was always called the "real" capital of Kehexou. The city's bustling port, thriving markets, and historic connections to the mainland made it an interesting place to be. Takrau was never that way...until the fall of the Shield.
The first guards standing in the Eastern Tower saw it first. For days, the nobility and the bureaucracy had been eagerly anticipating the arrival of the 6,000 man strong army that the Loyalists had raised, Deras triumphantly at their head. They expected him to be carrying the slain body of Gayanax, or even better, a ridiculed and captured Gayanax.
What a surprise when the bewildered guards saw a group of five-hundred dirty stragglers retreating (if it could even be called that) back to the city. At this point the guards started slipping away, and several Shield on White flags began to vanish throughout Takrau.
The poor, who never liked Deras in the first place, began to riot. As the remnants of Mayanas' honor guard limped into the city, even the most staunch loyalists started to pack their bags. Of course, there was nowhere to go. The merchant-pirates prowled the shipping lanes, and the Southern Islands were held by the Tenali-lords, who always acted like their own nation anyways.
Any guards that were still left began to burn their livery as soon as they saw the approaching banners of the Spear on Green.
---
"The tyrant's people on both sides do fight..."
-Macbeth
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Excerpt from The Army of the Early Republic
Salvation was beautiful, as always. But the army was marching, and redeploying. It was always said that the army grew younger in the wake of the disaster at Netsihasko. And it was true. There was barely a Septilion over five and twenty, and most of the regulars were much younger. This was simultaneously good and bad for the Legions of Veritas. Much experience was lost with Cendrian and his officer corps, but the rigid doctrines of the past were fading away as well.
Veritas was a power of the sea, everyone knew that...but it had been a lack of interdependence between Army and Navy that had let the Biremes founder at the Battles of the Wardash. The new Combined Strategy, as it was being called, would ensure that no element of the military could be left isolated and destroyed. The army dispatched Phoenix Archers to complement the Biremes...and a mysterious new ship being built in Copenholm called the Trireme, and drills were held in Salvation, for perfecting the Veritasan tradition of amphibious assault.
In the Combined Strategy, an army would no longer need a supply line via land, if fast-moving Biremes could supply it from the sea. And the navy would no longer need to recruit mercenaries to defend the sailors, because the army could simply garrison fighters on board. As the young generation of new commanders experimented with this, they slowly developed an enthusiasm for a fast moving, nontraditional attack style. The decade-long wars of the past weren't something to repeat. Veritas, in order to remain dominant, would transition into a new era. They would shift their tactics from a War of Attrition to a War of Maneuver.
In this way, the Veritasan tactical genius could exploit their advantage over a larger, more traditional spear and axe force.
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"Stratikrator Delagani, it is a pleasure."
"I seem to have that effect on people."
"Yes, yes. Do you know why I've asked to meet with you?"
"No idea, High Elder Dominius."
"You were right about Kehexou. Terias has taken control of the majority of the country, and defeated the Shield on White at Soloxau. Reports indicate he used a Veritasan style of attack, which I'm sure he learned from you. The entire country is either for him, or in revolt for him."
"Apparently my spies are more effective than yours, because I knew last week. So what's your point, my lord? Not to be rude, but I have a staff meeting soon."
"Khemri, my point is Khemri, as it has always been. If you can manipulate Kehexou into our control in under a year, imagine what you could do with Khemri in five!"
"Your lordship, are you representing the Assemblum in saying this, or merely yourself? For if the Assemblum orders me to invade Khemri, I have no choice. In fact, I will make it a masterpiece of skilled tactics, and raise an army like the world has never seen before."
"Well I..."
"I'm not finished, High Elder. If the Assemblum does not order me to invade Khemri, and it is merely you, I will not. In fact, I would rather be ripped open by a Ramid than force my aging body to command another campaign, no matter how glorious. And I know this, my old rival. The Assemblum will never, and I repeat never, ask me to invade Khemri again."
"The peace lobby, I know."
"My point exactly."
"So what you're saying is, if something forces the Assemblum to ask you to invade Khemri, you will?"
"Knowing full well that they'll never, ever, EVER do that."
"Have a nice day, Stratikrator."
The aging High Elder turned, black cloak rustling behind him, and walked out of the monastery where the secret meeting was held.
"What could he be up to," Delagani wondered. He turned and looked out the window, his eyes following the departing leader of the Assemblum. Right before he opened the gate and left, he turned to look at a huge rose bush blooming to the side of the path. It was a white rose bush.
Dominius III, High Elder of the High Assemblum of Veritas, Guardian of the One's Will, and Supreme Protector of the Church, reached out a withered hand. Twisting it to the side, he pulled one beautiful rose off the stem, even as the thorns cut into his skin.
And there he dropped it in the path, to die.
Is it directed to someone particularily? 
Quite sad though...
