[BTS] Wars of the Gods: Carthage

Awesome. :)
 
UPDATE 12A: THE BATTLE FOR MADRID (PART 1)​

The Spanish were good at constructing roads - Hannibal would give them that much - and so the Carthaginian army had reached the capital territory of Spain within three days of the Sacking of Barcelona. Only a few men had been lost in the battle for that small Spanish city, still leaving the Carthaginian force at a rather formidable size. He raised his fist at his side. "Halt."

And so the army halted, stopping in place. Pulling on his horse's reins, Hannibal turned to his army, gazing down the ranks with something close to pride. "Men of Carthage," he called. "This will be a day long remembered. We leave legions of Spaniards dead in our wake, and now prepare to strike at the very heart of their kingdom." His men cheered, until Hannibal raised a hand to quiet them. "This battle will forever decide whether we will go down in history as a nation of great conquerors," he continued, "or just another empire that rose and then fell. For it is this battle which will see Madrid burn... and for our own grand nation to rise from its ashes, like a phoenix! For this reason we will be Phoenician! For the Phoenician Empire!" He raised his sword up into the air, and his men let out a great roar as they cheered. Danel and Hiram, both at Hannibal's sides, looked upon their men, grinning.

Hannibal wheeled his horse around yet again, facing towards Madrid. The Carthaginians stood on a hill looking over the capital of Spain, where he could see even now a number of archers rushing to the city's walls. Beyond the walls, the various tall buildings of polished marble and sandstone seemed gold in the evening light, and the dome of the holiest shrine of Buddhism, the Mahabodhi, towered near the city center.

Upon the field outside the city was a force of axemen, who stood ready to confront Hannibal's men as they headed to the walls. A good defense, he supposed, but it would fall in time. "Phalanx!" he shouted. "March!" He'd adopted the idea of the phalanx from his days ruling the Greeks, some time ago. The spearmen advanced forward with their weapons lowered, within their ranks a number of large siege towers. Within the towers waited countless axemen, who would pour onto the city's walls and overwhelm the archers.

Hannibal waited for a moment, then glanced to Danel and Hiram. "Danel, you and I will take some of the chariots to attack their left flank. Hiram, take your chariots to the right flank." Both men nodded. Danel called half of the army's chariots over to follow him and Hannibal, as Hiram galloped over to the other half to take lead of them. Hannibal pointed forward with his sword. "Charge!" He and Danel sped their horses down the hills, the chariots thundering after them. It took less than a minute for the chariots to reach the axemen, and slammed into their flank even as Hiram's chariots took the other flank. The axemen on both sides fell quickly before the attack, but the center still managed to hold. Until the towers and their phalanx escorts reached them, at any rate.

As the phalanges pushed into the axemen, the force began to dwindle, backing up almost to the city's gates. Once the siege towers reached the city's walls, they opened up, and Carthaginian axemen poured onto the battlements, shouting war cries as they cut down archers left and right. A pair of shaman on the hill where Carthage's forces had begun their attack chanted in some ancient Canaanite language and called fire down upon the defenders of the city, allowing the axemen to take the city's eastern wall. Glancing back up, Hannibal gave the signal, and the shaman set a boulder aflame, casting it directly into the city's gates. The old oak of the gates was strong, but it was shattered by the force of the attack, and Carthaginian soldiers surged in.

The city instantly fell into a state of utter chaos, as civilians ran screaming from the invaders. Windows were smashed and fires started as the soldiers set to pillaging, taking whatever they could carry with them. The various fineries, wealth, and spices of Spain were quickly looted, and the sparingly few defenders of the city were quickly taken care of by Hannibal's men. Smoke filled the air, and Hannibal knew he was winning.

In all the confusion though, Hannibal quickly found himself separated from his honor guard and Danel, and slowed his horse down as he trotted into some abandoned street which had not yet seen the battle. The distant shouts attested to the presence of his troops, but which way were they?

His thoughts were interrupted as his horse took an arrow to the throat, collapsing with a gurgle. Years of experience on the saddle spared Hannibal from being crushed beneath the beast as he tumbled to the ground, quickly righting himself and peering about for the source of the arrow.

Further down the street, he saw Isabella, the queen of Spain, flanked by two archers.

"Hannibal. What an unpleasant surprise..."

((My first attempt at writing a battle scene. Was it any good?))
 
It was fine :D
 
UPDATE 12B: THE BATTLE FOR MADRID (PART 2)​

Hannibal rose to his feet, readjusting his helmet. "I doubt that you're as surprised as you say you are, Isabella... although that's probably not your real name."

"Hah!" Isabella exclaimed. "So you are the Exile. I knew you were an Immortal when I first heard of your nation's founding, but I could never have guessed your true identity."

Hannibal scowled. "And I suppose you expect to imprison me and take me back to the Council of Elders."

"No, Hannibal, I expect you do die." Isabella drew her sword. Hannibal had never feared any mortal. But Isabella was not mortal. He drew his own blade.

Hannibal stamped a foot on the ground, and twin columns of earth surged up from beneath the street, launching both of the archers dozens of feet through the air, putting them out of the fight for good. "Disposable," Isabella muttered dismissively. She then dashed towards Hannibal, bringing her blade down at him, only for the attack to be parried.

The battle went on for what seemed like hours, with both spells and blades flying back and forth, leaving both combatants drained. As Madrid burned around them, and more of the shamans' burning projectiles struck the dome of the Mahabodhi, the sky took on an almost unearthly red tone. Immortals do not often quarrel, but the results of their conflicts tend to invite strange forces into mortal realms. The ground quaked and lightning lashed from the sky.

And then Isabella fell to the ground. Hannibal lifted his blade, putting its point to her neck.

Isabella spat out blood. "D-... damn you..."

Hannibal glared icily down at his defeated foe. "You lose, Isabella. Your mortal shell is dying, and your true form cannot exist here."

Isabella winced as her body wracked with pain, returning Hannibal's glare with far greater animosity. "You fool. I was sent here by... the Elders... to stop him. You've ruined everything!"

Hannibal blinked. "Who? Who were you sent here to kill?"

Isabella coughed up more blood. "I think you... already know..."

Her eyes closed, and her breathing ceased. Isabella's mortal form had perished, and now her Immortal one would return to the ethereal plane. Hannibal peered down at the corpse, before sheathing his blade. Turning his gaze up to the shrine of the Buddhist religion, he watched as its dome finally collapsed, and smoke billowed out into the air, further darkening the capital of Spain as its nation finally reached its twilight.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hannibal stood atop the hill again, peering down at the burning city of Madrid. Hiram approached him from behind. "Sire, the city is not yet a lost cause. If we were to stop the fires now, most of the infrastructure would remain intact."

Spoiler :
​

Hannibal shook his head. "No. Let it burn." He turned his back on the ruined city, as the flames rose higher into the night. Hiram and Danel both looked back upon it for a moment or two, and followed their leader. They led their army to the north towards Hippo, leaving Madrid to its fate.

Spoiler :
​
 
I love the "You've ruined everything..." :)

Great update.
 
UPDATE 13: IN DREAMS​

When the hours of long, Carthaginian night are the darkest, so too are the dreams of those who live there.

In his mind, Hannibal stood in a burning city. It was Madrid, then it was Dublin. Perhaps it was both. As the flames danced around him, he faced down his opponent. Isabella. And then it was him. The battle raged on, sword clashing with bullet, boulders and artillery rounds crashing to the ground. Until at last he disarmed his opponent, who fell to the ground, helmet removed.

And it was Irene.

Until at last the world ended around him in a cloud of nuclear fire, the cackling of a maniac the last thing he heard before he awoke.

He rose from bed in a cold sweat, breathing heavily. Taking a moment to gain his bearings, he rose from his bed and pulled on a nightrobe, leaving his chambers to stand on the balcony. It was winter in Phoenicia, and the moon had remained in the sky of the city for the past twenty hours. Hannibal ignored the bitter cold, gazing out at the moonlit northern harbor of Carthage, which was presently filled with ice floes and unusable.

Elisha walked up to Hannibal from behind, holding his left arm. "What's wrong?" she asked. Elisha, in addition to holding the position of foreign advisor, had also acted as a companion for Hannibal. But she still wasn't Irene.

"Nothing," Hannibal replied.
 
gr8 story
love how you use names from phoenician folklore
keep it up
jana
 
I wants update! RAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

...

I've calmed down now. I'm now waiting for the next update with mild patience :)
 
I'm not. :(
 
UPDATE 14: HERESY​

"... Christianity?" Hannibal pressed with a glower on his face.

"Aye, sir," the messenger confirmed.

Spoiler :
​

Hannibal rubbed his forehead. Not that he really cared about religion at all, being an Immortal, but heretical sects of the state religion could really cause huge headaches. "I suppose I should have expected something like this from Telkhia. The Indian populace has never been very happy with our rule." Recently, a man in the former capital of India had been executed at the behest of some of his rivals, and afterwards a devoted group of followers claimed to have seen him risen from the dead. This, they claimed, affirmed their leader's position as the Messiah spoken of in the books of the prophets.

"What should we do, sire?"

"Tell Hadrubal and his priests to keep this cult contained in Telkhia. We're going theocratic."
 
UPDATE 15: IMPERATOR PHOENICIORUM​

The sound of thousands of cheering Phoenicians greeted Hannibal's ears as he stepped onto the balcony of his palace. It was in the middle of the summer, and the sun was in the sky, as it was most of the time at this time of year, giving a pleasant balmy air to the capital. He was dressed in full regalia for what was sure to be one of the most important days in his young nation's life.

A few moments after him, Hadrubal, the head priest of the Jewish faith, also stepped onto the balcony to great applause, albeit not quite that which had been accorded to Hannibal himself.

The past fifty years had been almost a golden age for the new Phoenician Empire. With Madrid and Barcelona (Matrit and Salunah, respectively) rebuilt on the sites of the razed cities only recently, as well as further settling occurring inland of the Carthaginian heartland, Phoenicia now held inimitable dominion over the northern half of the continent. Hannibal knew that with such territory and resources, Phoenicia would soon come to dominate all of this world. The Jewish faith had also propagated, as Hannibal saw when he glanced to the Sioux, Mongolian, and Japanese ambassadors to his right, whose nations had also accepted the faith of Phoenicia.

With that, he turned to the head priest, and kneeled. Hadrubal intoned, loud enough that all the crowd could hear him, "I crown you, Hannibal, Emperor of Phoenicia, of Carthage, India, Rhomania, and Spain King, Lord of the North, and Guardian of the Jewish Faith!" Hadrubal placed the crown upon Hannibal's head, and Hannibal rose from his feet. The high priest now bowed to his Emperor, and stood to the side as Hannibal faced the crowd yet again.

A great roar erupted from the crowd all at once. Men and women from Carthage, Utica, Qoshtant, Matrit, and beyond had all come to see the rise of their new Emperor.

The rise of their new Empire.

Spoiler :
​
 
Woohoo!
 
Nice update (very well written). But I'm wondering what's going on with all those "contained" Christians you had. How were they showing up in the year 1300 BC? :lol:
 
I discovered Theology, obviously. :p The in-character explanation is that it's a heretical sect of Judaism containing pieces of the local Indian mythology. I seem to recall that Christianity has expanded into at least one foreign city. Other than that, nothing of note is happening with the Christians. I'll keep such things in mind in the future, though.
 
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