The Striking of the Falcon (Medieval RP)

[Dashret]

(OOC: From Froz' wonderful and excellent Medieval RP, sign up in the thread yo.)

1650 YA, 2nd month of Akhet
Ma-Ten-Set Province

The Army of Ra, the first of the four divisions of the Dashreti force now marching northwards, was composed of the elite soldiers of the Dashreti 'punitive expedition' which had been dispatched to deal with the barbarians who had, inconceivably, failed to submit to the great Pharaoh Ramesses II, Lord of the Two Lands and just about everywhere else. This had, naturally, angered the Pharaoh somewhat and he had promptly declared that his nobles should assemble an army to set forth and apply some suitable amount of smiting to all those who stood before him.

The core of this army was the Horus Division. The best soldiers of the Dashreti army, originally formed from the corps of bodyguards set to protect the Pharaoh Thutmose III, they had been reformed into a unique organization of professional soldiers, paid men loyal to the state, equipped from the royal armories and trained to fight as a unit. Each was equipped with a bronze cuirass and helm, featuring motifs of falcons, each helm had been ornately formed into the shape of the royal bird, it's wings curved around the soldiers face to meet under the chin, it's head bent to form a nose guard. Practicality had not been sacrificed for aesthetics, however, the bird's tail tapered off somewhat, forming a wide protective shield for the soldier's neck. The cuirass, formed from a mix of plates and chain for flexibility, was overlayed with a linen robe which varied in color by unit, but provided protection from dust and sand in Dashret and here, further north, a measure of warmth.

Unlike the rest of the Dashreti army, the Horus Division's weaponry had also been standardized. Each man carried a slightly longer version of the standard Dashreti spear, made with hardwoods from the Western nomens, much more resilient than native Dashreti trees, and equipped with iron tips, they were deadly weapons against almost any opponent. Iron swords had also begun to make an appearance amoung the various units, although there was still some debate as to whether bronze or iron was superior in this particular application. The Pharaoh had opted to use this expedition as a trial for the new swords, spreading them out in specific units in each particular company.

Every two companies of the Horus troops had a company of archers attached to it, these, equipped with the famed and deadly Dashreti composite bows. Not organized quite as thoroughly as the Horus infantry, they were still professional soldiers, experienced from the campaigns of conquest in the northwestern nomens only last season.

The three remaining armies, the Set, Ptah and Bast, were mostly composed of either native Dashreti levy troops and militia, or auxiliaries from across the empire. The Dashreti were fond of their chariots and had not taken well to the new trend of using horses on their own, and thus had employed cavalry from many locations across a number of campaigns, where they had proven their usefulness to the point where Dashreti heavy chariots had virtually vanished from the battlefield, replaced by armored horsemen.

Each army was seperated by some five kilometers, kept in line by the use of huge portable firepits carried by a number of soldiers, one at the head and the rear of each force. The armies followed a column of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night.

Ahead of this force, the Pharaoh had sent messengers. Spreading out in front of the armies, they all carried the same message, written by scribes of the Pharaoh and bearing the royal seal. It was a simple ultimatum written out in several tongues, to ensure comprehension:

This is the decree of the Pharaoh (Ramasses II), Son of Ra, Bearer of Fire, who shall strike down all that stand before him! Slayer of barbarians, tamer of the north, all-powerful and all-knowing, who shall bring down the sky itself upon the heads of his foes!

You barbarians who have not seen fit to submit to (his) majesty, you shall now know the wroth of the Pharaoh, mighty in war! For now (his) army marches upon you, bearing fire and swords, armed with the anger of the gods of Dashret, with the haste of the ostrich, they shall strike down upon your pitiful armies as the falcon strikes a rabbit! Know you of the fate of the people of the north who failed to submit to (he) who writes to you now!

For (I) have burned their villages, and enslaved their women. (I) have despoiled their countryside of all things, and made their earth as dust! (My) wrath has rendered their flesh into food for the worms and crawling things, and (I) have pulled down their great cities until not a single brick is left whole. The fingers of (my) anger, the armies which now march upon you, shall inflict ten times this upon your settlements. We shall crush that is before us and make your bones into mortar for our roads. Your women will be made prostitutes in the lowest districts of our cities. Your children will become sand-haulers for the glass makers. And for ten generations all that is left of your land will be naught but slaves to the greater glory of the Dashreti Empire, even the donkeys and oxen of your land will lament the choice of those who fail to submit now.

Those who wish to avoid (my) wrath shall present themselves before my army and shall swear an oath of loyalty to (myself) and all my descendants, to never revolt and to pay tribute to (myself) and the great Empire of Dashret.

Know the fate of those who resist (my) will!

Included with each message was a basket, containing the head of some raider or, where possible, a well known leader who had been captured, his eyes put out, his tongue ripped from his mouth, and his ears and nose cut off. This was, where possible, to be hurled dramatically at the feet of the village elders, town leaders or local rulers, at the end of the speech. Presuming the messenger had not yet been stoned to death or eaten.

And so the Army of the Pharaoh marched on, closing with the North day by day.

[Angermanland]

Ooc: the Romulan Republic hasn't actually given much geography, so gets to live with what we give him in this instance. It's only one battlefield and it's approaches anyway.

IC:

In the far north, a new threat had arisen. The barbarian tribes had been crushed or driven into the Buho`xu't, where they joined the local forces or raided until put down by local soldiers. All to the good, it was thought. Eliminating such raiders brought peace and thus greater prosperity to the region.

Then the first of the Buho`xu't fell.


Satiday, High Prince of Angermanland, upon hearing this convened a council of the nobility, those lesser rulers charged with the rule of various parts of the principality. It took a week for the nobles to arrive, and but a day to decide what must be done. An army must be sent to the north of the Buho`xu't, calling forth the fighting men of those lesser states it passed through on the way.

Then came the first sign that this campagin would not go as smoothly as it might. For three weeks the nobles first argued back and forth about who should supply what men and materials, none wanting to risk more than they must, then about who should lead the armies, all wanting the honour and glory that went with such a role.

Finally, Satiday became so incensed by their bickering that he had three of the worst offenders executed. Weights were tied to their feet, and their arms tied by long rope to a beam. they were then each lowered into a deep stone pit near the river, so that the beam sat across the mouth of the pit and they could not help but stand upright at the bottom. a small channel was opened to allow the river water to, oh so very slowly, pour down into the pit, directly on the men's heads. It was an unpleasant way to die. Arguments quickly ceased.

Satiday appointed Wegujik as general of the army. The man was renowned both for his skill with the lance and for his education, but he was little more than a commoner. With most of his under officers nobility of one stripe or another, this became a source of resentment and dissatisfaction.

Still, the companies were raised in each region, resources found, supply lines established, and Wegujik crossed the northern border of Angermanland into the Buho`xu't a year later with four thousand horsemen, mostly wealthy men armoured in the finest bronze and mostly carrying spears who's heads were made from the best imported iron, and their retainers who's equipment was barely inferior. As for footmen, he had ten regiments, each one thousand men strong.

Each regiment of foot contained three companies of the line, armed with a lance and a large shield. The shield had a semicircular top, and tapered to a point at it's base, covering a man's body from nose to toe, provided he stood with his left shoulder towards the enemy and in the proper stance. The remaining two companies were armed with javelins and broadswords, and smaller, more squared off shields. All wore scale mail made of Angerman iron. It's quality was inferior, but it was vastly cheaper than bronze would have been. Swords, spearheads, and javelin tips were made of like material, though it hardly mattered for the javelins.

Not one man in two hundred could rightly claim to be a veterans, and only three regiments more than well drilled militia. Another five could not even claim to be that. The army moved slowly, marching only half the distance it might have each day, and using the remaining time in constant drills and maneuvers. Incessant politicking caused disruption which lead to five dismissals from amongst the officers, and three executions, before the army even reached the Angerman border. An additional five regiments never arrived, apparently kept by sundry coastal lords to 'secure their lands from pirate raids'.

The common soldiers had no problem with Wegujik, but the constant disruption amongst the officers quickly lead to discontent in the lower ranks as well.


In addition to this force, Wegujik intended to gather auxiliaries from each of the Buho`xu't he passed.

Again, problems rapidly showed themselves. In the intervening time, a further three of the seventeen states which existed in the Buho`xu't in those days had been conquered or otherwise capitulated. The first two states they passed through, known by the Angermani as Navibu't and Yurobu't, contributed another five hundred horsemen, armed mostly with long-handled axes, and three thousand infantry, eight hundred of which were armed with two handed iron swords of great length, which in the hands of a skilled and powerful man might carve through two men and into a third in one swing. Another four states sent footmen, clearly hastily assembled peasantry, save five hundred from Nvimabu't, who carried heavy, iron reinforced, two handed lances, used as much for beating an opponent into the ground with repeated, powerful, arcing blows to the head and body as for actually stabbing him to death, and wore iron scale armour reinforced by bronze chest and back plates, helmets, grieves, and bracers.

The rest claimed that trouble in the north east prevented them sending troops they needed to guard their own borders, or that fighting the remnants of the north-western barbarians had sapped their strength. From those next in the path of the Daseret, for such was the Angerman rendering of the name those folk reportedly gave to themselves, nothing was heard. It was assumed that they either looked to their own defenses, or had already fallen.

Still attempting to train his army on the march, with less men at his disposal than had been planned for even without taking the inevitable illness and injury that rendered anywhere from one man in twenty to one man in five unfit on any given day, his officers constantly maneuvering for their own aggrandisment, and many for his downfall, Wegujik slowly moved his force north west, to face the Daseret. The Angermani had lost battles before, it was true, but never a campaign. Never a war.

Privetly, Wegujik admitted to himself that this was largely because they didn't fight many, geography having granted them an element of protection and the actions of learned men having made good use of it.

Consiquently, and finally, four months later, seventeen months after the decision was made to march, the Angerman army made camp on the southern face of a hill in the north west of the Buho`xu't, the Deshreti army not five day's march west in their most recently acquired territory. Another four states lost to the Deshreti, leaving eight under their control and nine still free. Of those nine, only six could be said to truly oppose the Deshreti, and of them only three to truly support the Angermani.

To make things worse, Wegujik's officers had grown impatient. If he did not engage the enemy, soon, individual regiments and fragmentary parts of his cavalry would begin heading out on their own, or back home.

Mounted scouts were sent out to find the enemy, that the army might engage before it disintegrated. Wegujik estimated he had two weeks, no more, before his entire force started to come apart, enemy or no.

[Dashret]

1650 YA, 3rd month of Akhet
Ra-Ma'at-En Province

Pharaoh Ramesses stood on his palanquin, a group of old men cowering before him. By now the Pharaoh was no youngster himself, having reached his mid 40's, but he had remained spry and kept his good figure by means of fresh air, exercise and healthy eating. True, the fresh air was mostly other peoples, and the exercise generally involved decapitating something, and the healthy food was usually looted, but nobody's perfect. His father had done it too, and the Dashreti liked tradition.

The men were village elders from every town within fifty miles. Some had walked days to get here. The alternative, of course, was making the Dashreti walk days to get to them, which, it had been implied, would cause the Pharaoh to get Upset. Pharaoh Ramesses got upset with capital letters.

Mostly it was ceremony. The elders payed their respects to the Pharaoh, gave him some minor tribute and then went home with the warning that if they misbehaved in any way whatsoever that they would learn an entirely new definition of Upset. One involving swords. And fire. And impalement.

The final elder had just presented his 'gift', a gold idol of some sort which probably represented several years saving by an entire village, when a frantic messenger scrambled through the crowd, waving an ironwood token frantically.

"My lord! My lord Pharaoh! Our..." huff "Scouts have encountered the enemy! Apuff enemy scouting party of some sort! They ran off when we" huff "challenged them!" The messenger had elbowed his way through the Pharaohs outer ring of guards and was now prostrate in front of the palanquin, puffs of dust erupted as he spoke, which set him coughing. Ramesses, previously looking rather bored, had gradually shifted expressions to annoyance at the messengers shouting, to something like glee. He glanced at the old men, and the crowd of villagers which had gathered in the square, then spoke.

"It would appear that you are doubly fortunate, O new subjects of Dashret. Not only are you led by wise men, which has saved your lives,you are able to bear witness to my army as it crushes yet another foe." He raised a hand with three fingers extended and, behind him, his personal division's band promptly engaged a martial-sounding tune. Ramesses was possibly the only ruler in the world at this point with a numbered soundtrack. "You will see, as have many before you, the army of Horus as it breaks all foes. I am Ramesses! I am Horus! Son of Ra! I have conquered north, east, south and west! Behind me are a million souls of the Empire of the Red Land and in front of me is naught but a barbarian rabble! Come and see the fate of those who defy the will of the Pharaohs!"

The resulting cheer was deafening, albeit chiefly from the soldiery. The townspeople managed a cheer as well, mostly because when a bunch of men with sharp things are cheering it's generally a good idea to cheer along, regardless of your opinion on the subject at hand. The Pharaoh tapped his foot, the palanquin bearers lifted the platform to their shoulders and performed the complex task of turning around to bear the Ramesses back to the camp.

Within the hour, the Army of Ra had deployed into battle formation. The pillar of smoke that marked the position of the Army of Set was still several miles away, although a cloud of dust was visible marking it's progress. A runner had been sent commanding the force to make double pace, which meant they would arrive within an hour or so. The two further pillars were roughly equal distances back, and a double-pace march would result in their arriving exhausted and useless, so the Pharaoh had ordered their cavalry detachments separated and brought forward, a slight gamble which could be quite bad for the armies of Ptah and Bast if they encountered a significant enemy force. If they advanced at a rapid pace, the cavalry from those two forces would probably arrive at about the same time as the Army of Set, although the heavy cavalry would require some minutes to equip.

Several messengers had been dispatched, searching for the enemy force which the scouts, presumably, proceeded. As with the messengers sent to the villages, all bore the same message, armed chiefly with the hope that these barbarians were at least civilized enough to know of the concept of not shooting the messenger. Just in case, however, the message had been written out in several tongues with the aid of translators from the village.

The Pharaoh, (Ramesses II), the Exceptionally Well Endowed, greets his foes, saluting those who are about to die.

It is (His) will that any such force as you can muster shall meet (Him) on the field of battle. (He) therefore invites you to come and die at his feet, O ye unbathed barbarians. (His) surveyors have noted a suitable location some three miles east of a large village. Rather than march for days, the Pharaoh has graciously extended to you an invitation to meet at this location, with whatever force you wish to bring.

Come, O sons of Set! The Pharaoh wishes you to show courage, that your hearts may be lighter after death! Come forth and face your doom bravely, lest the jaws of Ammit close on you! Be brave, and you may yet see Aaru!

[Angermanland]

four days later, the armies met on the proposed field.

Wegujik had not wanted to meet the enemy with his forces tired after a half day of marching, and thus had attempted to deliberately slow the army to arrive at sunset. Of course, the noble officers objected, and argued, and some attempted to race ahead, but their own disorganisation ended up slowing them down just as much, and the resulting pace was still not too great.

Sgonhrm, Prince of Nfemebe (Nvimabu't), who's name was rendered by the Angermani as Sonerem, stood with his men, armed and armoured much as they, on the left flank of the southerners' line. As the sun rose, he rammed his lance-point into the ground and lent on the guard, looking out over the field, and at the assembled armies, considering.

When the letter from this northern Pharaoh, a word none assembled could quite figure out how to pronounce, was read in Wegujik's tent, the first question on every man's lips was 'who's Set?'. Sgonhrm smiled grimly as he thought of this once more. It really did show quite well the attitude of most of the Angermani officers.

He turned his attention back to the lines. The army had deployed on the slightest rise, which would allow the commanders to see over the heads of any units fighting at it's base, but little else. On each flank, far out in the distance, were two thousand Angermani horsemen. Not that he could see them from his position. Low hills blocked his line of sight a little way out from the left flank, and trees a distance from the right. Supposedly they would circle round behind the enemy and drive them forwards into the waiting javelins and lances of the infantry. Sgonhrm had little hope they would actually do so, but Wegujik had put them there anyway. Presumably so that, at the very least, whatever stupidity came into their heads would surprise the enemy at least as much as it did the southerners.

The Angermani made up the center of the line, each regiment forming a block that would have been one hundred men wide and five deep, each rank a company with the rear two being those with javelins, were it not for the inevitable disease, desertion, and other problems. In practice it was closer to eighty by five, and the type of the third and fourth ranks tended to be somewhat mixed as a result. Their formation consisted of four regiments lined up at the base of the ridge, with gaps between them, and behind them another three, on the slope, positioned so as to cover the gaps and overlap at their ends. The remaining three were lined up behind the ridge, sitting on the ground, resting and out of sight. They were to be a reserve. Not that their officers were terribly happy about that. Wegujik seemd confident that putting them there was a good idea. Sgonhrm doubted they would wait for orders to join the battle, but again, at least their erratic actions would be allowed for and surprise the enemy at least as much as their allies.

The Navibu't and Yurobu't contingents, judged by Wegujik to be at least as reliable as Sgonhrm's men, and thus most likely to actually follow orders, had been placed on the right flank. The men with the great swords further in than those armed with more usual equipment. Their cavalry stood behind them, and slightly to the left. A gap had been left between the soldiers on the right flank and the center, to allow for those horsemen to rapidly charge forward if given the order, though it wasn't a large gap. Assorted other Buho`xu't infantry were lined up behind this cavalry, ready to move forward to fill the gap if the horsemen went elsewhere, or to reinforce engagements as needed, but no one really expected them to amount to much if the battle was not already being won anyway.

Across the open field, Sgonhrm could see the enemy army. The army of the Pharaoh. He straightened, pulled his lance from the ground with a jerk, and slung it over his shoulder. Right hand wrapped around the hilt, he spat in the direction of the enemy, then spun on his heel to face his troops “Soldiers of Nfemebe! Today we fight an enemy about whom we know nothing but that they would enslave us. We fight by the side of men who have at times been enemies and at other times friends, but we know them. Put aside your grudges this day, for compared to those we face, the men arrayed on our flank are as our Brothers! And we shall show them what it means to be a soldier for Nfemebe!” with a jerk of his arm, he thrust his lance into the air as he finished, the sun glinting off its iron tip.

The soldiers of Nfemebe let out a roared agreement, and all down the angermani lines, soldiers turned to see what the noise was about, and saw the sun rising, and dancing off the upraised lance.

A sign, some said, an omen...

but none could really agree what it was a sign or omen of.

Wegujik, being something of a realist and having no great care for the divine, privately considered it little more than the natural consequence of a dramatic gesture, with no further meaning. He had spent most of his life studying war, and his every instinct screamed that this battle was a bad idea.

But no thought or council had provided him with a better one.

[Dashret]

It had been something of a march, for this was not exactly familiar territory to the Dashreti, but their combination of local guides and scouts had proved successful, bringing them to the two armies within sight of the enemy. Marching in battle order, the central core of the Dashreti army was quite a sight.

Since before anybody could remember, the Dashreti had been fond of organizing things. It was possibly what had driven them to build cities in the first place. The army was no exception. Each man belonged to a squad of ten, which was part of a platoon of fifty, and each platoon belonged to a company of 250, with each company a part of a regiment of 5,000. Armies were generally composed of two regiments, although the Pharaoh had declared that his own personal force would be composed only of the Horus soldiers, which had reduced his own army to a single regiment.

Approaching the field, the companies split off from their marching columns and fanned out in good order, each maintaining a proper distance from its neighbor in case of a sneak attack or sudden shower of projectiles. Long experience had taught the Dashreti that sometimes the natives got up to nasty tricks if you told them where to fight ahead of time, and so the initial Dashreti forming up was slow and measured. Comparisons had been drawn to a desert lion, sizing up a foe before the leap.

As they closed with the Angermani force, the Dashreti bands became audible. The initial booming of drums, more felt than heard, was quickly accompanied by the piercing Dashreti reed pipes, picking out a jaunty tune which made marching somewhat less dull. Each companies band seemed to be vying with the others for noise level, and, indeed, each company was apparently trying to out-shout the others as they pounded their way through the lyrics. Overall Dashreti marching song was by no means the most beautiful music in the world, but it was not meant to be. As the first companies began spreading out to, it became apparent that many of the soldiers were accompanying the bands by means of banging swords, spears or axes on their shields, so each percussion interlude was a thunderous cacophony of notes which generally went on several seconds longer than it should have. Rhythm was not a requirement to join the army in Dashret.

At the head of each company an officer, visible by his elaborate gold and blue headdress, was accompanied by a standard bearer. Between the various companies, little was standard about them. Gods, animals, famous persons, slogans, each banner, idol or sign was different. Generally they represented a regiments patron, whether earthly or divine, or some aspect of that regiments personality. The Rhino company, for instance, claimed to be unstoppable in the charge, and inevitably attempted to snatch the largest men from recruiting campaigns in order to keep their ability up. In practice this seemed to make little difference.

The initial ranks of the Horus regiments formed up five deep and fifty long, the first two ranks with their spears held horizontally, typically resting on their shields when not actually engaged, while the third rank kept their spearpoints level with the heads of those marching in front, providing an unpleasant welcome for any cavalryman who's horse made it past the first two ranks. The formation was quite flexible, with Dashreti doctrine allowing for varying densities, from marching shoulder to shoulder with shields overlapping to having as much as a pace between soldiers. In this case it had been noted that archery was not well practiced in this region, at least by Dashreti standards where a bow wasn't considered a REAL bow unless it could fire an arrow through three thick, ironwood planks. So a more open formation was being used, with each soldier marching so that the edges of his round shield barely touched his neighbors.

Behind this formation came the more loosely organized archers, marching in open order behind the densely packed Horus troops.

Initially flanking each side of this force was a half-regiment from the Set army. These soldiers were less organized than the Horus companies, but still marched in similar units of 250 each. They, for the most part, wore leather armor with bronze plates or mail integrated at key points, or scraps of looted armor of different sorts. Between them they carried a variety of weapons, although spears were common. After those came the large, long-bladed axes, basically a razorblade tied to a roughly meter long pole. Secondary weapons were generally smaller 'piercing' axes, which had been honed down over the centuries into essentially a weighted spike. Many soldiers carried less official weapons, slings and throwsticks being popular. Such weapons were often underestimated by those who had yet to encounter them in battle or witness their use in hunting, but, as the ancient proverb goes, "An unexpected stone to the eye is twice as painful as an arrow in the arm." As with most proverbs, this one has its detractors. Regardless, many a soldier has met his fate stunned by the impact of several pounds of ironwood on the side of his metal helmet, or wondering what exactly it was that just left a serious dent in his skull. More traditional javelins were present as well.

Archer companies were rarer here, forming about one in four companies as opposed to one in three among the Horus troops. They formed up similarly, although their equipment was less polished, being mostly traditional hunting bows, as opposed to the vaunted composite weapons of the state troops. They were still, however, quite skilled in their use and although they lacked the range and power of their counterparts, they were still more than able to shoot a man in the eye from a fifty yards.

The modest cavalry force had been placed on the left flank, to watch the distant stand of trees, about seven hundred in total, they were composed mostly of the Dashreti 'heavy' cavalry, chain mail armored riders recruited from the 'civilized' nomad tribes. Each of these typically carried a composite bow, lance and sword or mace. The initial conquest of these men had been something of an experience for the Dashreti, for they had yet to encounter armored horses at that point, but these riders cared well for their beasts, each horse wore a chain and cloth set of armor, providing holes of the ears and eyes, but which otherwise rendered their mounts into apparitions from nightmare, clanking, snorting, beasts which intimidated even the allied soldiers near them. It was the Pharaoh Ramesses who had come up with the idea of red glass coverings for the eyes. The riders had been issued with full-face masks as well, generally formed in the shape of a face. Owing to the Dashreti climate the backs were chain, however, allowing for some measure of ventilation.

In front of the army a range of skirmishers had been deployed, lightly armored men carrying javelins and slings whose job was mostly to bother the enemy and then get the hell out of the way before the infantry clashed. Ont he right flank the light chariots of the Dashreti elite were ranged. Little more than a wicker basket with a wooden shield strapped to a set of wheels and horses, they were fast, agile and provided a fairly stable platform for the archers. Adopting the idea of the Northern riders, they had armored their horses as well, although they preferred cloth and leather, which didn't reduce speed as much. Their horses were, however, far more heavily decorated. After all, what was the point of going to battle if you didn't get noticed? Plumes were popular for horses, along with exaggerated primary colors on the barding and chariots, while the riders themselves, generally two to a chariot, wore high quality bronze and leather armor.

The Pharaoh had opted for a chariot of his own in this battle, of the old heavy sort with four horses, made with iron and wood and inlaid with gold, it would have been quite a work of art if not for all the dents, scrapes, patches and stains. The Pharaoh was particularly fond of a large hole directly in front of his station on the chariots right, where a barbarian spear had quite neatly taken off his little toe at the same moment he had inserted a javelin into the unwary man's eye. Ramesses himself was decked out in full war gear, having some time ago donned the blue war crown, the traditional garment of a Pharaoh at war, and had refused to take it off except to wash his scalp. The royal armor was something of a work of art in its own right, polished leather and bronze had been worked into a physique which the Pharaoh could, in reality, almost match, with a chainmail undershirt. As was typical with charioteers, the Pharaoh and his fellow charioteers wore little in the way of leg armor, since the chariot itself provided a shield.

After their initial formation, the Dashreti army took a moment to survey their foe. Still well out of bowshot, there was yet time to do a bit of sizing up. It seemed that the Dashreti outnumbered their foe, to say the least. And the Pharaoh wanted to capitalize on that in terms of morale. He had sent runners back earlier, informing the commanders of the two armies behind to use more fuel on their signals, creating bigger pillars of smoke which would, in turn, make them appear closer than they were.

Ramesses made a wide gesture with his sword arm, signaling that his chariot should advance. The crowd of soldiers parted, allowing the Pharaoh through. Advancing a few paces beyond the front skirmish line, Ramesses turned and stood on the rear lip of the chariot, addressing the army at large.

"Soldiers of The Red Land! Men of the Great Sand Sea! Warriors from the far corners of the Empire! Today, Sons of Montu! Conquerors of the far corners of the world! We have assembled here today to face yet another foe in a long, LONG, list of foes! But what is this I see? It seems that our foe has sought not to fight us, but to insult us! What legends we have heard of this land, of fierce barbarians with swords the size of a man! Of men who wear armor like rhinoceroses and stand 4 cubits tall! They come in limitless hordes, it is said! But what do I see before us but a band of unbathed barbarians! Their reek reaches me from across the field! I can only hope, my men, that you are strong enough to reach them before being overcome by their odor!" This brought laughter. Even on the cusp of a battle, the Dashreti were prepared to laugh at barbarians. It was something of a national pasttime. The Pharaoh went on, "And remember, should you find yourself suddenly in the fresh air of the Delta, with the cry of the gulls in your ears and the fine sun of Dashret on your face, do not worry! For you are already dead, and have found the Field of Reeds!"

This got another huge cheer. Ramesses' father had ordered the modification of religion whereby any who died courageously in battle were granted some favor from Set, who might see fit to place his thumb on the scales of Ma'at after death thus granting the unwashed masses, who mostly had little chance of entering the Afterlife, some chance of an eternity in paradise.

Once the speech was accomplished, the Pharaoh returned to his station at the rear of the lines, circling around the army to inspect the cavalry first.

[Angermanland]

Wegujik had ordered that the army would wait for two hours for the cavalry to get into position before taking any further action, unless the enemy's behaviour necessitated his giving orders to the contrary.

The cavalry themselves were not to attack before that time, even if they reached their positions.

Naturally, this went horribly wrong.

Nvozelam, cavalry commander of the left, had his men ride hard through the gentle hills and reached his position half an hour early. Young, arrogant, and in command of some two thousand horsemen, he saw no reason to wait when he found himself presented with the flanks of the enemy's chariots.

Sweeping around the last of the hills, and down from amongst them, they charged the chariots from behind and to the right. The high pitched cry of fa`f“aqak would be the only warning the charioteers had of the threat.

Meanwhile, on the left, the forest had proved more difficult to traverse than expected, and the cavalry there were delayed by nearly an hour.

Wegujik had expected something of the sort to happen, at least in the most general sense, but it was still highly annoying. More competent commanders, concerned with victory rather than glory, would have avoided the charioteers and carved a swath through the enemy's archers before disappearing into the woods on the far side, or fleeing into the hills, before the enemy's own cavalry could engage them.

None the less, outnumbered four to one as they were, it was unlikely that the charioteers would be victorious. Hopefully Nvozelam would be intelligent and aware enough, or at least his men would be, to withdraw if the Pharaoh's heavy cavalry came to the charioteers' assistance. If they could draw them off into the hills and away from the battle, the situation would at least be salvageable.