The Conflict
Prelude
The last battle of the second Imperial-Elesh war. Ares, the God Emperor of the Elesh once tried to invade the Elesh Polis, when they still were fighting against each other, but quickly was driven home thanks to bad health, when he subsequently died from carcinoma. After that, its son Ares the Second, invaded the Greek mainland to fulfill the wishes of his father.
After that, the Elesh Polis rose up in rebellion, uniting in a single League, like in the past, to combat the invaders, were the king Antigonus of Aelepolis crowned himself as “The Last Golden King”, swearing that if the gods granted the League victory, he will disband the institution of monarchy and accept democracy as the ruling political process in the League.
The Imperial Grand Army was recuperating from their loses from ten years of war. Guerrilla tactics had not been kind to a formal standing army, and after ten years of avoiding set piece battles, the army of the Kalermanian League gathered the manpower to launch a counter attack against the army of the Edekhan Empire, to finish it up once and for all.
The Oasis citys of the League were under Edekhan rule, and after ten years its enemy had adapted against the desert hazards. And so, as time went on, the difficulties of the Elesh Campaign were turning into strengths for the Edekhan.
The siege of Asakusa and Sirakusa left the Grand Army in disarray in the desert, after losing two big port cities reinforcements could not be easily drafted from the mainland, but as time went on the Edekhans were reinforcing the small cities that they held. Waiting there for attrition would have mean suicide, with the enemy left to reinforce and entrench waiting for reinforcements and with the Elesh men tired after ten years of constant war. After two big wins it appeared that it wasn’t enough to satiate the talks of peace. The people still needed a more definitive battle to quell the dissent. Maybe the Elesh were wining on the battlefield, but the scare tactics of the Edekhans were winning the minds of the people. After ten years of invasion from a foreign army, after ten years of guerrillas and wining the hearts and minds of the people, the tables had turned and now the enemy was using Elesh tactics and the Elesh were using Edekhan tactics. Indeed the war makes monsters of us all.
After the a small sea battle were the Edekhan Warlocks conjured a great Sea Elemental to crush the Leagues blockage reinforcements from non-slaver Edekhan colonies arrived to resupply the large imperial army, but a great amount of its forces were lost in the desert.
Antigonus and its generals quickly adapted to the situation and move its forces as quickly as they can to force a set piece battle against the much larger army. Centaur scouts were dispatched to rout and kill foragers and the Pearl Archers were given a expeditionary force to evacuate or destroy the cities in the way of the army, using scorched earth tactics to slow its way to reinforcements. After that, the centaur mercenaries united with the expeditionary force spearheaded by the Pearl archers and later were ambushed by the reinforcements themselves.
The expeditionary force was quickly routed and later joined the main army, being discovered by the Edekhan Army and were given chase at the Iron Hills, the hills where a small community of minotaur’s was given place 100 years ago.
The Edekhan Army, overflowing with confidence, didn’t wait its reinforcements and deploy ready for battle
Antigonus smiled after the site of the entire army. But its scouts told him two things:
- The Emperor himself leaded the forces.
- And second, that the reinforcements were still on its way, so the battle must be now and they must win. Nothing less than a perfect victory would give the Edekhan Army enough time to gather with the reinforcements and launch a counter attack.
- The Edekhan Army deployed in a checkerboard pattern with a rectangle form to grasp a large amount of territory when the army walked, with the hoplites in the sides to shield the army from the enemy cavalry after the Seer dictated that the enemy had cavalry on the sides and were planning a heavy use of it.
At the front of the army the heavy Briton warriors were located to smash the fortified hoplites with their might and then retreat from the gaps to rest as later support troops.
Behind the Britons, laid in wait the legionaries, armed with short swords and pilum, waiting for them to soften them up so they can close in for the kill.
The skirmishers, like the glauch slingers, were located within the Briton war bands to aid the marauding heavy mountain warriors in their attack of harassment, before the main army could strike.
Finally, at the center of the formation, the God-Emperor Ares the Second was located with his personal entourage of 600 war-born Minotaur’s, far from the other cavalry knights because he was more a soldiers than a cavalry commander.
- The Kalermanina League was heavily outnumbered and the amount of territory held by the enemy army was vastly superior to theirs.
They put the Thracian swordsmen and the Hrismarian hill men in the back rear of the army, as support troops for the hoplites that were put in the front. The center was held by a weak line of the most experienced hoplites, with no support on the back to make them an enticing target.
Half of the hrismarian skirmishers laid in wait with the main army, and the other half accompanied the archers aboard the chariots, overcrowding them to make them even more combat effective.
The rest of the archers that could not fit in the chariots were led into the middle of the formation, along with the rest of the tusken skirmishers and the Pearl Archers to hide in the valleys and hills of the Iron Hills, making use of stealth tactics to surprise the enemy with a barrage of missiles.
The chariots and Tusken and Elesh light cavalry was deployed in the sides to engage and quickly dispose of the vastly inferior Edekhan cavalry. They outnumbered the cavalry at least 3-1, but still the heavy armored knights were dangerous.
The battlefield was a mess. No army could properly fight in such conditions. The Iron Hills were, of course, hills, with valleys and other such treacherous terrains. The hoplite phalanx formation could not fight properly in that kind of land, and the legions maniples could not maintain cohesion too. The two main advantages of most of the fighting units were cancelled out from the get go. And so, weird tactics grew.
The Edekhans stretched out to encompass most of the territory because that way they would swallow most of the usable territory. Because said land was also the same that the hoplites use to fight in optimal conditions, that way they could out maneuvered them faster.
Also, there was a river on the rigth.
Both armies meet at dawn, with the full moon retiring at their backs now and letting the morning sun come after to swallow the world full.
Finally Antigonus saw the lands and awakened smelling the scent of a new world. The armies deployed and saw each other face to face.
Quickly, without wasting time, the cavalry and chariots of the Kalermenian League charged to face the knights and light cavalry of the Edekhans. The knights obliged and charged forward to meet the advancing forces. They were confident in their superior tactics and weapons. The battle was bloody, with horse and rider meeting each other in a furious melee like two waves of a steel ocean meeting each other. In the end, the superior numbers of the League overwhelmed the enemy and left them to retreat from the battle. The right flank had it easier defending from the league thanks to the prowess of the warlock Peleus the Second, brother to Ares the Second and next in line to the imperial throne should his brother died without an heir. Of course, witchcraft could not save the day, and no matter how many chaos elementals did he summoned, all failed against the might of an army of chariots with ballista’s and skirmishers, and abled body riders.
No matter the odds, Ares charged forward with his army, confident to strike against the hoplites and with his flanks secured against a charge thanks to his own hoplites and triarii. The march forward was meet with a barrage of missile fire from the chariots, and the loses were piling up, but on he marched.
The army of king Antigonus also marched, doubling their efforts and pushing forward their center to make it a more enticing target, having a crescent moon formation in the end. During the march forward the rest of the skirmishers, archers and Pearl Archers hid in the valleys and hills of the battlefield.
The two armies clashed in the combat that would dictate the end of an era of expansion, with both King Antigonus and God-Emperor Ares in the front of their respective army. The two pushing each other to the limits and at the front of the sea of humanity, blood and gore that this battle was. The flanks of the League held strong, even managing to push back the legions at one time to another, while the center was failing accordingly and slowly giving up ground, with each step for the hoplites being more difficult than the next, but only if they make it harder on themselves the ruse could be completed.
The hoplites retreated slowly to the hills, were they started to crack and separate loosing cohesion and order. They started a tactical retreat, falling into the valleys and routing. The legionaries followed them with what little cavalry had left from the massacre at the flanks, falling in the trap and putting a third of their army in the center of the main force and shoving it against the “routing” center.
When the maniples lost cohesion and the legions were no more than twenty or forty men’s fighting near each other the valleys were starting to close in, the back rear facing forward of the flanks of the army of the League did a 90 degree spin and started charging against the rough terrain. Because that section of the army was composed of mostly hrismarian shied walls and Thracian swordsmen they could afford to fight in weird terrains. At the same time the archers and skirmishers attacked the army and catching it by surprise, using it to its advantage to kill a great number of legionaries and Minotaur’s as the God-emperor himself was closing in on the valley to take mater into his own hand.
That’s where the real fight begun. King Antigonus, the Last Golden King faced against the God-Emperor Ares the Second, son of the Conqueror. In a furious fight that shattered the heavens and melted the iron on the hills those two fought each other to the death, grinding the tower and crushing the universe as both the golden sickle of Antigonus and the mighty war hammer of Ares faced each other. Antigonus, the golden king spit Ares in the face, he gleamed like a star and the sound of his horn sounded like a raging storm. Proudly the high lord challenges his doom, “Lord of Slaves!” he cries, mocking the emperor, seeing him only fit to rule weak slaves, not real and free humanity. Antigonus rode his horse and Ares his battle demon, a large hulking monster made of rocks and lava. He rode into battle alone like a star in the night and a bearer of hope.
Most of the Emperor´s entourage laid dead with only the two of them facing against each other in the valley. Time stand still at the iron hills at that same moment when all soldiers faced their respective leaders fighting atop of the hills, one swinging his hammer like a thunderstorm, crushing the most proud king of the Elesh. Ares set a foot on the face of his almost dead enemy, “under my foot so hopeless you seem” he said, “you troubled my day, now feel the pain”.
But Antigonus kept on fighting, facing doom once again and disarming Ares, using the natural Elesh claws to rip his left arm in a single maneuver, dripping the blood of a God-Emperor in the sands of a people that would not be his slaves. And then, the King blew his horn, and the fate of the Edekhan Invasion was forever sealed.
By that time the center of Ares army was pretty much gone, with the bulk of the battle now in the thin flanks of the League´s army’s. They were starting to fall apart now that they didn’t had any support on the back. But at the sound of Antigonus horn the cavalry and chariots formed into one cohesive unit and crashed into the left flank of the legions, destroying it after ten minutes of bloody battle, continuing charging and retreating, charging and retreating. Finally, after the hammer and anvil the right flank made a daring push to the center to defend their ailing emperor, taking him out of harm’s way and managing to smuggle him out of the combat zone, to the camp, where he was informed that his brother Peleus died in the battle. The rest of the legionaries died fighting against the cavalry to make an opening for the emperor to escape. He used the last of his warlock abilities to conjure a River Elemental and using it to sail away to his homeland.
And when the battle was ending the Eleshking was broken, his chest was destroyed by the war hammer and his body was burned by the demon. The Elesh king was broken, he stumbled and fall. The most proud and most valiant, but his spirit survived as his souls left his body.
O gods, praise our king.
The office of king in the Elesh culture was outlawed, bringing forth to Greek democracy were before they were none and plutocracy as new forms of governments. Of course, many polis did have those kind of goverments, but after that it became the standard.
The Edekhan Empire did not dare to wage war against the Elesh culture after 1000 years later.
Ares and many of his cousins died during or in the aftermach of the battle, causing a crisis of succession in the empire.
The succession crisis was ended 90 years after the war with the crowning of the nephew of Ares the thirds in the Imperial Throne after a war that was later known as the First Old War. Nonetheless the empire had shown a first dent that later would cause seven more civil wars and ended in the separation of the Eastern Edekhan Empire and the Western Edekhan Empire.
The Kalermenian League now had a firm grasp on the Eonian Continent and a great deal of credit and respect from other cultures to assure a cultural dominance that help them secure a talasocratic empire years later.
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