War of the Veld

"They say when the slaughter was finished the waters of Black Knife Bay were so tainted with the blood of men that fish washed up on the beaches for weeks." - Husayn Qabili, Keeper of Histories

The War of the Veld started three hundred and forty years ago as an investigation into the razing of a village called Ein Kaban, and quickly grew into a large scale conflict between the kingdom of Traia, and the largest Unbowed Nomad tribe to ever exist. The war lasted for a full decade before coming to a bloody close at the Black Knife where Untaran the Sky, the leader of the Unbowed horde, was captured and executed.
Untaran the Sky's was believed to be the avatar of the Sky, sent by the heavens and gods to help the Unbowed take revenge on their Traian enemies and retake lands they had held sacred for centuries. He lead a horde two hundred thousand strong and rode that horde rode down on Ein Kaban, and razed it. Everyone in the town was slaughtered. Worse, their bodies were staked and tied upright, with a hand pointing east, in the direction of Dashia, as a warning to the Traians to turn back, or face death. When the commander of the closest fortress, Olantin, heard tale of the atrocity he mobilized his forces and set out to investigate. They marched hard for five days before being overwhelmed on the road by a large group of Untaran's horde.
When word of both slaughters reached King Kolkim I Wazida he rallied the entirety of the Traian army, its cavalry, its archers, and its footmen and began the long march to the frontier. During all of this Untaran continued to march his tribe up and down the frontier, sacking, looting, and razing towns, and even well defended fortresses. However these hit and runs became impossible to sustain once Kolkim I's forces came upon a quarter of Untaran's horde as they laid siege to the fortress, Amara's Hill. The besieging force was entirely outmatched without Untaran's guile and prowess to carry them through, and it is said a third of the Unbowed died in the volleys of Traian archers. Another third was cut down by the charging Traian cavalry, and the siege was broken completely when Kolkim sent footmen in to finish off any remaining Unbowed. During the cavalry charges the force inside the fortress sallied out to face the Unbowed, further destroying their resolve and combat effectiveness. Of the fifty-thousand Unbowed who had besieged the fortress, only a thousand survived, and of those only a few hundred made it back to Untaran's main force. Unfortunately for Untaran scouts had followed the survivors even as they scattered to the winds. Some scouts died in the veld of wounds and exposure, but many found their way to Untaran, and several others made it back to other columns the Nomad-King had broken off from the main tribe. This would end up being a devastating blow for Traians.
King Kolkim I spent the next four years playing a game of chess with Untaran. Since he knew where all the tribes were in the area he systematically isolated the tribes from one another by keeping his every growing force between them them and keeping them on the move. He also strengthened his defenses and supply lines. Simultaneously, Kolkim began the largest civil engineering project the kingdom had seen in generations: the Sun Wall, so named due to its location east of Dashia. The Sun Wall was often little more than wooden palisades in the beginning, but would soon become a miles log structure dotted with towers, and protected on one side by extensive earthworks and traps.Kolkim also used mercenaries in the north to prevent Untaran from fleeing with his horde into the Pashtu.
Once the battlefield was set Kolkim's generals were ordered into the final phase of the war. With the cells of Untaran's tribe now isolated from each other by, in many instances, hundreds of miles, Kolkim began maneuvering his forces around and drawing them into fights. One by one Kolkim took down each piece of the whole. Twice Untaran and his hordes tried to march back north and both times they were turned back by the mercenaries. Once the last splinter tribes had fallen Kolkim turned his attention to the biggest portion: Untaran's main army.
It took another year and a half before Kolkim had Untaran's force pushed back into the Black Knife. There had been a dozen skirmishes between the armies in the meantime. Each one had taken a heavy toll on Untaran's tribe and the Traians alike. Unfortunately for Untaran the Kolkim had what seemed like a never ending stream of soldiers arriving on the front, each better supplied than the last. Eventually Untaran was forced to make a hard decision. Unbowed were nomads. Their entire tribe traveled with the warriors. Faced with what was increasingly turning into certain death, and saving some of his tribe, Untaran and his warriors had ridden away from the women, children, and infirm, hoping to draw Kolkim's forces away from them. It worked, in part. By this time Kolkim's forces had grown so numerous he dispatched five thousand men to ride down the tribe. Many of the women and children were taken and enslaved. Untaran's own wife was granted to the general leading these men as a reward for service. She was treated well, became his favorite concubine, and eventually a powerful force in his household.
Eventually Kolkim's forces moved in on Untaran's on the Black Knife. Kolkim had his men quickly build a palisade along both beaches running along the neck of the cape. During this time Untaran's Unbowed sallied out from behind the hill they had been sheltering and tried to break through the palisade, but both times they were turned back by Kolkim's archers and cavalry. Once the palisade was done a messenger was sent to to Untaran offering peace on the grounds that Untaran disperse his tribe and surrender to Kolkim for justice. The messenger was killed, his tongue, hands, and head were placed in a sack and thrown over the palisade by a lone rider.
Kolkim positioned his forces so that the only way for the Unbowed to leave the Cape was by charging a steep hill, into the waiting polearms his footman. His archers were positioned in such a way that there was little on the far end of the cape they could reach with their arrows, and Kolkim's cavalry was held in close reserve along the north and south beaches, protecting the palisade that had been erected. Arrows rained down on the Unbowed for three days. Four times they tried to sally out and break through the palisades. The first time they charged straight up the hill, and suffered devastating losses. The next attempt came at the southern palisade and nearly broke through it. The following, the same day, targeted the northern one.
Kolkim was shrewd though, and had a huge volume of men in reserve. He marched more footmen in, reinforced both palisades against further attack, and rode through another column of cavalry. The last attack, as Kolkim had predicted, landed on the southern palisade. As soon as the main force of the Unbowed hit it Kolkim's archers let loose with a vicious rain of arrows. After the third volley the attack began to break up, which is when Kolkim sent in most of his cavalry.
At the same time all of this was happening the column of cavalry Kolkim had marched in night before swept around the cape and fell on the tribal camp from the north western edge of the camp. With most of his warriors penned in on the beach and against the palisade those that had remained at the camp were quickly slain or captured. Among them was Untaran himself, who had been injured the second day of battle by an arrow.
Shortly after Untaran's capture the rest of the tribe collapsed. Some ran into the sea to drown, others fought to the death, and others fought until they were stripped of weapons and held down. None of their ferocity would matter. Every Unbowed captured on the Black Knife that day was beheaded. All of them, except Untaran, were left on top of the hill as an offering to the birds and the Sky so their souls could return to the heavens. Untaran's body was stuffed into a leather sack with stones, rowed into the bay, and dumped, condeming his soul to an eternity on the cape.

The Conflict

Outcome

Untaran the Sky's Unbowed tribes were splintered, and scattered across Traia. Many ended up enslaved or dead. There are still two tribes roaming the veld and Pashtu whose King's claim direct lineage to Untaran, but their claims are dubious, and their tribes aren't even a shadow of what Untaran's had been at its height.

Aftermath

Traia's dominance over the southwestern veld was fully established. While there are still Unbowed who roam those areas they are a largely peaceful people more inclined to trade than raid.

Conflict Type

War

Battlefield Type

Land

Start Date

791

Ending Date

802