NationStates Jolt Archive

This is an ancient empire in decline. A cradle of civilisation so far as a dozen cultures are concerned, increasingly likely to be outmatched by its maturing children. The immediate concern: will the off-spring respect their father, or seek revenge for his earlier domination?

History

Around the year three-thousand BC there was founded in Asia Minor a dynasty bound for greatness. Called Ralish [rah-lish], it was initially no more than a wealthy household in a primitive land, though soon its heads would be village lords and tribal chieftains. Histories of the period may be as much offical-mythology as fact, and little is known of the dynasty's formative years and its early rise. In the year 2,500bc, however, a people known as The Ralish struck out from their already ancient homeland, Alshor.

Constructing a small and primitive navy they sailed west, where an expert mastery of bronze and of horse saw them win victory after victory against the little city-states in what they called Agentia, birthing the Ralish Empire.

In the years that followed the Empire grew wealthier and more advanced, and the glory of conquest combined with frequent barbarian raids fostered in the people of the empire a warrior culture. Membership in the Alshorian Guard became a hugely desirable trait, and many dedicated their lives and their families to the institution, based in the capital, Azaria.

Soon, the ruling dynasty declared The Eternal Alshorian Empire of The Ralish, having extended their influence across thousands of miles, establishing vassals and building ships, roads, watchtowers, and granaries, and breeding horses and camels in great numbers and quality in order to connect the far-flung reaches of their domain.

http://www.nationstates.net/images/flags/uploads/the_ralish.jpg

'Woe to the Conquered' The Empire's banner flies across thousands of miles and back through thousands of years... but for how much longer?

Society

The Empire is home to a well-developed society and regional mother culture: the Alshorians are part of the first so advanced and structured civilisation in their part of the world, and have protected it for an amazingly long time. Loyalty to the Ralish dynasty is almost natural to the Alshorian citizen, who scarcely can imagine another way of life.

The subject peoples of the Empire, however, are increasingly independent in their cultural make-up. After years of Alshorian administration and exploitation, the outer provinces have been allowed to exercise a higher degree of local law-making based upon their own pre-imperial traditions, and provincial governors increasingly tend to be local kings and chieftains vowing fealty to King Ralish or paying tribute in return for internal self-rule.

In Alshor especially, religious life is tied in with the King, who gives up his name on taking the throne and becomes the sacred embodiment of King Ralish, an empire in one man. Loyal subjects of the Empire look upon King Ralish as a fanatical patriot elsewhere regards his flag, and protects him like that patriot defends his nation's borders, for the King is something held in common by all Alshorians, a possession as much as a master.

Alshorian skies, winds, waters, and lands are regarded in a similarly hallowed manner, and believed to be fundamentally different to those outside the Empire. There are in Alshorian belief no gods in the traditional sense, but the various aspects of the Alshorian environment are almost personified in native belief, each element having its own intangible essence that is not present beyond the Empire's borders. People make offerings to the wind, the sunlight and the moonlight, the clouds and the sky, the mountains and the rivers, just as they pay taxes to King Ralish. This is generally done with the understanding that it is an act of cherishing the subject as a beloved dependent and so, in a sense, the Alshorians almost view themselves as superior to nature, in as much as that they feel it must be -at least, so much of it as is Alshorian- fed and cared for.

It is notable that Alshorians will often modify their own appearance as they modify that of their lands. Body painting, tattooing, piercing, hair dying and dressing, jewelry, and clothing can often be seen to change when, for example, a new dam is raised locally, or a road cut through the countryside. This is seen as a celebration of Alshorian unity and development: as people appear genuinely excited by infrastructure projects that shape their dear Alshor, so they mark themselves to identify their bodies with their lands, and prove that they would do nothing to Alshor that they would not do to themselves.

The Alshorians are famous for their love of two colours: golden-yellow and sky-blue, and these appear with great frequency across the Ralish Empire. Make-up often tints the skin of well to do Alshorians almost to resemble these colours, in pale form.

Part of the Empire's success is down to a noted Alshorian commitment to detail and to rationality. Much Ralish technology has been acquired through conquest and assimilation, and it would be easy to accuse the Alshorians of wanting for creativity, for they seem to invent little. They have, instead, a clear tradition of developing other people's ideas through tireless trial and error, and rational assessment. The Alshorian people go to great pains to find-out the exact mechanism by which absorbed technologies pursue their purpose, and to refine them to the upmost. For example, the Alshorians are thought to have first encountered the principle of the composite bow several centuries BC, and soon, by trialing locally-available materials and experimenting with their arrangement and the size and shape of the bow, had a weapon with which to utterly outclass the armies of their neighbours, and, as the Empire expanded, more new materials were tested in the crafting of such weapons.

Military

King Ralish calls upon the resources of his subject provinces to raise armies for campaign, and ends-up with a wonderful assortment of men, beasts, and weapons. Most of his armies are raised only as required, around small cores of standing forces in each province, and disbanded come the end of a campaign. Giant forces have been raised from time to time, calling on those who would not normally be first to volunteer or be sought by the officers of standing units, but these must surrender a large part of their strength when it comes time to gather the harvest, and men return to their homes lest the Empire face starvation.

The standing armies in each province maintain chariots, skilled archers, elite cavalry, camelry, and elephantry, and siege engineers, though few of these in full strength.
The armies raised to campaign add partially experienced or semi-trained men to each of these core units, along with skirmishers and supporting infantry furnished with second-hand weapons remaining from past campaigns or taken as prizes from fallen enemies and then horded by the state.
When really massive forces are raised in time of dire crisis, the rank and file are obliged usually to arm and armour themselves, and so turn up generally in a poor state of readiness and with little training.

In Alshor itself, at the capital, Azaria, the standing force is quite different, the remains of the original Alshorian armies that built the Empire. The Alshorian Guard is a fanatical army of not inconsiderable size, and membership in its ranks prized as a way into high society, and the best place to live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful battle-scarred corpse. Alshorian Guardsmen are heroes, obsessives, career soldiers, and, if they could be examined by modern doctors, it would be found that the majority of them are sociopaths, perfectly civil in day to day encounters but somehow snapped and merciless in combat- without this ruthless streak, appearing to be a killer instinct, one is unlikely to remain long in the Guard.

In short, the ordinary regular soldier rides a horse, a chariot, a camel, or an elephant in the service, or else launches spears or carries a sling, and works for half of his life. A peasant conscript fights with tools-cum-weapons when he absolutely must, and abandons the field of battle for the field he farms come the season for it. An Alshorian Guardsman joins the palace as an infant, and dedicates himself to King and Empire, having a slim chance of graduating to the elite service, where he shall fight as perhaps the world's best bowman or mounted-archer with secondary talent as short-swordsman or light-cavalier... no ordinary man can even draw a Guardsman's bow, let alone operate it with speed and accuracy.

The Alshorian Guard is 15,000 strong, and forms the elite core of a Ralish army in the field, surrounded by fighting men from around the empire, and peasant hordes raised on the way to campaign.

Ralish armies at the peak of imperial expansion numbered typically a few tens of thousands in elite and common troops, irregular auxiliaries, mercenaries, and servants. In a large army raised to fight a major enemy, perhaps ten or twelve thousand Alshorian Guardsmen on foot and ahorse would be joined by two or three thousand imperial and mercenary cavalry and twenty-thousand assorted infantry. A force of this nature might expect to be followed by four thousand servants. In some cases there would be camels instead of cavalry, and the King's armies several times employed war elephants from the east, though never had access to large numbers of these.

Numbering over twenty thousand and less than fifty thousand, typical Alshorian armies attempted to maintain a powerful and enduring level of force while preserving flexibility and mobility. Today this tradition is welcomed by an empire with ever more stretched resources, but some worry that the legacy is being used to justify weak forces that are the same size of those of old, but in fact are comprised partly of inferior troops who would only be effective in more intimidating quantity.


1) The Alshorian Guard
15,000 men of Alshor (Anatolia, more or less), all of citizen status.

Most are prepared from childhood, and, even so, some do not end up in the AG when they mature. Those who do are religious fanatics and hard-core nationalists with four thousand years of tradition, which they now are starting to see as under the greatest threat in more than three millenia.

Most of them are spearmen and skilled archers, and may be deployed in either function as the generals require it. Famously they carry large baskets containing kit and weapons, which can be placed down on little folding legs and used as sort of pavise shields.

Though most fight as spearmen with secondary short swords, they are perhaps most impressive as archers. Training from childhood is the only way by which a man can draw an Alshorian bow, which is a compound weapon evolved over several centuries and using materials gathered from across the Empire to find the perfect balance. Unlike the famous Hunnic horn bow, this weapon is full-length, like, well, an Anglo-Welsh longbow. The Hun, of course, couldn't have a full-length bow and expect to weild it effectively from horseback, so the lower portion was shortened, making the bow less powerful and less accurate than the Alshorian equivalent. However, one of the most deadly Alshorian weapons is the mounted archer- using stirrups and a ridiculous degree of practice, the Alshorian Guard's mounted warriors can use full-length bows in the saddle, standing-up to operate the weapon. An Alshorian Guardsman can reliably hit a man-sized target from hundreds of yards, and need not -visibility allowing- operate as a mere skirmisher or artillery component. Frankly, if this RP continues to the C19th, Alshor will still be using these foot and mounted archers to wipe-out musketeers and the like, and, at the moment, they're the men known to most nations as the ones they couldn't resist.

Since conquests stopped, they rarely leave Alshor/Anatolia.

2) The Imperial Guard
Non-Alshorian citizens of the Empire who, by immitation of the Alshorian Guard, wish to elevate themselves in the provinces. These too tend to train from infancy, but increasingly the Empire accepts proven veterans and heroes of past battles, even foreign mercenaries who wish to become Imperial citizens. Everyone looks up to them... except for the Alshorian Guard, who are actually beginning to feel moral problems as the Imperial Guardsmen seem to deminish the value of the title Guardsman. You might equate it to the SS Divisions raised towards the end of WWII, which included first non-Germans and then those who would be considered racially unpure according to hardline Nazi doctrine maintained in the core of the SS. Still undeniably hardcore, but the first visible crack in the previously total confidence and unity of the once-unstoppable Imperial military.

These units exist in every province of the Empire, but their size depends on the wealth of the area and the size of its population and citizen population. For example, 800 faced the Osteians, and that meant the whole strengh of Guardsmen in what might now be known as Switzerland, Slovenia, and extreme southeast France. Far less than that many are ready in what we call Pyrennia, probably more than a thousand are in the Balkans, a couple of thousand in Germany and Denmark combined, hundreds more in the rest of the Eastern European territories and south of Anatolia, several thousand in Persia and such, and not much more than a couple of hundred north of Aridiris.

Maybe 25,000 men in all.

That's 40,000 elite and semi-elite standing forces in an Empire that certainly contains tens of millions of subjects and over 10% of the world's population.

3) Militia and men-at-arms
The Empire maintains large granaries and armouries defended by palisades and other moderate static defences along its trunk roads. Weapons kept here are below the quality of the Guardsmen's own, and may include captured weapons and others made by subject craftsmen from whom the Empire periodically decides to buy arms in order to modernise stocks- lately this has happened rarely, due to financial constraints, and the weapons are starting to date against extensive platemail and such armours.

Militia and men at arms are semi-active, and supposed to receive tax-breaks for their service, which has allowed some enterprising sorts to achieve business success when off-duty... or, as Azarian control slips, even in underhanded fashion when on-duty.

These forces are across the Empire, and are larger than the Guard. They can be raised quickly, but only a minority amongst them are on-duty at any given time: a small district may have two hundred militia/men-at-arms, and perhaps 8, 10, 12 will be at the granary/armoury/message-post, one or two on each of a couple of signal fires, and the rest off-duty, doing their ordinary business, called-upon when there's a disturbance or a message comes through to ready for war.

They tend to be professionals rather than subsistence farmers, and so are also lacking in areas like Pyrennia, which remains under-developed. There are tens of thousands across the Empire: almost every artisan wants in, because he gets a tax break (not total exemption, but corruption is growing) and -since we've had generations of stability- doesn't usually expect to have to do much for it!

Peasants, bandits, angry-mobs, unwilling conscripts and the like are rightly afraid of the militias, who have much to lose -so much to protect by fighting when the need arises- and semi-decent equipment. Their training is vastly inferior to that of the Guardsmen or even to the knights of Osteia and so on and so forth. So far they've been reliable medium infantry and the richer of them have provided some light cavalry, but their breaking-point is bound to be short of the Guard's.

4) Peasant levees
Almost every man has a sling, a hunting bow, a wood-axe, an old/improvised spear, maybe a sword-like weapon used in reaping, or at least some tool that can be turned to fighting. Skill in combat varies from region to region, man to man. Some peasants know how to handle themselves, some would sooner wet themselves in public than be on the field of battle.

So far, the peasants have been fairly willing to fight for the Empire, because it has brought them relative stability and security, and they really aren't badly treated, though they are clearly on the bottom rung of mainstream society.

This is changing as order starts to break-down, and will change further once the Ralish start losing battles: people don't mind so much being asked to fight when they expect to win, but when the outcome is less certain in advance, these amatures are more likely to run.

Potentially, the Empire can raise hundreds of thousands of these men... it just can't put them all in the same place at the same time, and it has to let some of them go in certain seasons. Usually, they take longer to raise than the previously described types.

In the Osteian battle, a lot of peasants were brought in from surrounding country, which is fairly well peopled, and was close to the scene of battle from north, east,and west. In the attacks on Pyrennia, far fewer peasant levees are available, and putting together an army of them won't happen over night, nor will bringing it to the scene of battle across a thinner strip of Empire in harder terrain with worse roads and less impressive granaries.

5) Differences in the Rus (the northern territories)
Here, the people are more independent. They accept Imperial rule partly because the King doesn't often countermand the orders of their minor Khans. They call King Ralish Khagan Ralish, and consider him the figurehead that units their tribes and keeps from from having to fight with one another all the time.

These are people who live in the saddle, wandering about with their livestock, happy that the Empire supports them in maintaining large borders relative to a small population, which they need to live semi-nomadic lifestyles (there are cities, such as Kresh on the Crimean peninsula, which is a major trading port across the Black Sea from Alshor, and brings in many goods destined for Angermanland and Scandinavia).

The nomadic portions of these populations have men who're all skilled riders and archers, and all have their own spears and/or swords. Some in the Empire actually think that the effort spent subduing these hardy people was a defeat for Alshor relative to the ultimate prize. Still, they're good soldiers with no particular animosity towards the Empire at this time, so long as they aren't pused-around too much.

Once the Khans receive word via Kresh, they will indeed be trying to attack Angermanland in its southwest, just picking up and riding like a good horde should.

6) Mercenaries
Mercenaries wander the Empire. Some hire themselves out as assassins, heavies to assist local tax collectors, and other dastardly things while no war is on.

Most are from the Empire, but a minority are foreigners trying their luck.

The Madnestians have a large contingent of mercenaries in the Empire's pay, though they too are increasingly able to hire-out their services locally to settle... labour disputes, old scores, or just to provide protection to rich men.

Over-all
In an army of the scale such as that gathered against Osteia's rebellion, the breakdown may be roughly as such (rounding off from the specific example, a general example of that sort of size):

1,000 Imperial Guardsmen provided the core, some marching with the lesser troops to encourage them against breaking while most waited to strike as shock-troops to force a breakthrough once the enemy was engaged.

4,000 mercenaries, allowed to do as they wish. Potentially out of keeping with any grand strategy in the battle, their freedom is considered a wild-card element... and if they dash off into a trap, in pursuit of spoils, then at least the trap falls on them and not on any part of the strategic army, revealing it, and, as a bonus, ensuring that those who do not survive need not be paid!

5,000 militia/men-at-arms supporting Guard-lead assaults, holding the line, generally doing most of the work.

10,000 peasants to give better forces something to play-off, and to follow-up and exploit break-throughs and such created by plan of Guardsmen and militia, or by chance of mercenary action.

Lion, Akralon [Cyprus]

The island of Akralon was a moderately affluent province, once the seat of an even more wealthy maritime trading empire in its own right, famous for figs, olives, and fine pottery in addition to its shipwrites and sailors and the excellent fishing waters they controlled. Populated now by just a few hundred thousand people, with above eighty thousand of those in the capital, Lion (lee-on), Akralon was probably important beyond its proportional share of the empire's size. It was close to Alshor, and generations ago, as an independent kingdom, had almost crippled the rising Empire by a naval blockade against newly conquered Agentia, the Akralonians bitter at Alshorian control of their traditional markets abroad. Defeating the islanders' fast ships had not been easy, and, unfortunately, Alshorian fear of the Akralonian sailor lead after the conquest to great purges of seamen and shipwrites, and the destruction of much shipbuilding capability.

Still, Ralish Kings had not forgotten the island's importance, and its defence was seen as greatly important to Alshor's own security.

The Empire was so big that it was difficult to defend, and in being so it became impossible to further expand it. No expansion meant no glory to be had in the military, and recruitment became more difficult as moral sank. The Ralish were attempting to refine their existing military until its current units were the best of their type, dismissing the idea of getting new ones, and ultimately further limiting the value of a typical citizen in the military: most men, even strong workers and those who could be soldiers in any other nation, were physically incapable of drawing an Alshorian heavy bow, and certainly few could draw it and hold it steady for long enough to take aim. As it pushed the limits of existing technology, so the army pushed the limits of human ability.

The Empire was undeniably troubled, its armies over-stretched and treasury likewise, and the coming of outsiders weilding weapons that would previously have been dismissed as wizardry provoked a liberalisation of Ralish science as once ridiculed ideas were examined in more detail by an empire suddenly frightened. Along with clever advances came, of course, laughable disasters, with some Ralish inventors attempting to take to the wing or concoct magical strength potions, and ending up quite dead for their troubles. The Alshorians just weren't brought-up to innovate. They worked with what they had, and refined it until it worked better than everyone else's... but they didn't make new things.

Akralon, however, was awash with promising ideas. Rich merchants often took to sponsoring ideas and sometimes even establishing themselves as long-term patrons of promising inventors, hoping to be associated with Akralon's salvation, or perhaps by extension even with the resuce of empire! Such a success may even make a respectable fellow into one of the King's three Sutruah (his highest advisors), or get him a royal wife and continental fame sufficient to make him even wealthier, able perhaps to command burial rites enough to make him immortal. It was no wonder, then, that men like Barbumbari could find support for as many wild ideas as their nimble imaginations could conceive.

The island began to see new and much improved walls built around its forts and defences at its numerous harbours, many supposedly designed to resist increasingly formidable foreign siege engines. Walls were thick, built of new materials, and strangely angled so a man could almost walk up their faces, which seemed to many rather counter productive in a defensive perimeter! Spikes and traps built into walls certainly discouraged this sort of pursuit, in truth.

Today there was a display promised. At the walls, the people gathered. An affluant merchant, who made a fortune selling imperial timber to the Egyptians, had posted notices telling citizens to observe the fruits of the fertile brain in the head of Barbumbari, the radical young inventor in his charge.

A rack of pipes seemed to be the new item to which curious eyes were drawn. Barbumbari and his patrol shouted for a while at the crowd below, making claims and promises that few people understood. In time they were compelled to get on with it, noticing that the pipes -they looked more like a musical instrument than a weapon that would protect the island from invasion as the merchant claimed- weren't holding the crowd's attention. The display seemed to be illuminated from below, inside the wall itself, which, after all, was several yards thick and did contain void spaces. Some people thought that the pipes were glowing, too.

Then there was a pop, a hissing sound, another pop, and some high pitched whistling. Some people were concerned, thinking the sound somehow unnatural, maybe supernatural. A white cloud rushed out over the wall. It seemed fairly pointless. A great crack. One of the pipes split and burst, a few shards of metal flew off, spattering the face of the inventor's patron. He was scratched and burned by them, but not fatally hurt. Some loud cursing and shrieks, and one of the pipes jolted forwards a few inches and then fell from its rail mounting, clattering over the ramparts and rolling down the sloped wall towards the crowd. Some people fled in panic, but most simply stepped back a little and watched as one man approached the fallen metal tube and lent forwards to pick it up. It was sized like a short but unusually thick javelin.

The man screamed in agony: the pipe was red hot.

Barbumbari lost his patron, that day. His iron archers had failed. The inventor had tried by heating a small quantity of water in a sealed tube and fixing the rear with a weaker material than the rest of the tub to cause the build-up of pressure within, producing a propulsive force when the seal eventually broke. In most cases, it just didn't work, as the tubes were not sufficiently air tight and pressure escaped gradually. In others, the mix of water and air was no good. In one, the seal -made by hand, of course, and not uniform in strength- did not break before the equally unreliable metal body of the missile, causing the dangerous fragmentation that wounded Barbumbari's patron. In others, the seal failed too soon with only a little pressure built-up, and the steam rushed out without moving the missile at all. In one case it almost worked, but the force produced by the heating of a bit of water was totally insufficient to give flight to a primitive tube of heavy metal alloy, and caused it only to move enough that it fell from its mounting and rolled down the walls.

Barbumbari was ahead of his peers by too far, and had no help, no teaching to match his visions, and no faith from potential patrons after wounding two people in his first demonstration.

Alshorians don't invent things!

Praetor Gerlan Silfar, a diplomat of the Imperial Republic of Caladonn, has arrived in the capital of the Ralish. He seeks an audience with the Alshorians, to discuss relations between the two nations.

OOC: Well, I'm going to hijack this visit as an excuse to introduce my capital, home of the Alshorians!

Azaria, Alshor

The Praetor, at the end of his long journey, had witnessed many wonders, and yet these experienced eyes and the travel-aged spirit behind them could not save him from a dazzling. Azaria had been visible on the horizon for miles, even shining from behind it as he approached along a road of incredible length, winding through the foothills and across the plains, now scores of miles from the sea and, apparently, some distance even from a river. In fact, the great imperial road seemed to represent the only way in or out, for the mountains around were not forgiving to those stupid enough to attempt a crossing away from the beaten path.

On his way through the Empire, Silfar encountered use of the number zero, though it was anyone's guess as to whether this island-dwelling northman understood its significance. It had come out of Tudkaha, the Imperial east. He'd seen glassblowers plying their beautiful trade and would see statues, jewels, and windows made of the stuff once he reached the capital. He'd seen camels, Gershan stallions, and even an elephant. The road had been lined with great silos, granaries at which a marching Alshorian army fed itself and stations at which recruits rallied behind a defensive palisade; and the way had been shared with striking people of olive skin and black hair, but a variety of eye colours.

And the Praetor had seen the capital reflect the sun itself. It couldn't really be made of gold, could it?

As he approached, sky-blue flags fluttered in numbers greater than the birds flocking above, and the walls of Azaria rose up before him. The city was build on a wide, low hill, but the inner city could be seen from beyond the outskirts, for it was hoisted on an artificial rise, built by hand with millions of buckets of earth carried by thousands of workers who died hundreds of years before today.

The great outer walls, reinforced over no less than four thousand years, were now of impressive height, and topped with ornate ramparts of mudbrick. When the man from Caladonn passed through the main gateway, which was atop a large earthen rampart coated in smooth stone, he had to walk under cover for quite a number of paces. The walls here were no less than eight yards thick! The limited attempts against Azaria in its long history had come to nothing: siege weapons and their missiles had splintered, shattered, bounced, and never so much as dented the outer defences.

The passage through the gateway became quite dark towards the middle, and Silfar descended into a shallow tunnel that would open in the city at the centre of civilisation. This was illuminated with oil lamps, and its huge surface was covered with artwork. Inside, the Praetor joined a city of forty-seven thousand permanent residents, swelled by diplomats, pilgrims, and traders. The place was large, with buildings quite well spread-out: in the past, only the central city had been Azaria-proper, but over-crowding, fires, and disease had forced it to expand greatly.

Finding his way, eventually, to a public office staffed by a funny little man from the east, the visitor was directed to the Temple of Alshor, and given a clay tablet with a large seal on one side and a little cuneiform script on the other. It would, apparently, identify him as a guest of the Sutruah- one of three advisors to King Ralish.

The Temple of Alshor

Climbing the steps to the inner city, Silfar passed through another wall, only a little less impressive than the outer fortifications. Astonishingly, this wall seemed to be topped with gold for its entire length!

Within stood the Temple, the navel of the world. It was an epic monolith of a building, and, the foreigner now realised, it was the source of that glint over the horizon. The entire thing was golden. Silfar was obliged to wait. The gates to the temple itself would open of their own accord, apparently. Nobody is inside, he was told, but the Sutruah will come once the gate is open, and you can meet with him.

The wait was long, but, eventually, the large guilded gates did swing open, and, on passing inside as part of a large crowd of worshippers and officials, the Praetor could not see that anyone was there before these arrivals, nor could he see the mechanism by which the gate had opened. In fact it was all ropes and boiling water and fire and waterclocks, but so far as the ordinary Alshorian could see, it was nothing short of the supernatural.

Inside, once again, everything was of gold. It appeared that many times more gold existed in Azaria alone than in all the rest of the world combined, more than anyone thought could be found in the earth. A good reason for those walls to be so thick, and the city so remote?

Priests -perhaps scholars was a better term, scientists, engineers, alchemists, wizards?- wandered about, dressed in robes of pretty sky-blue. They put on a display that awed Alshorians, and those imperial subjects who'd made the pilgrimage. Inside the temple buildings, golden pipes ran around the walls, the ceiling, across the floors, all engraved with great skill. There seemed to be music, though no people were playing instruments. Then the visitor's eyes would be drawn to shrines around the place... because they were moving. Wheels span, little golden dancers twisted around and around, representations of birds and other animals raced from one wall to the next along golden tracks, and a terrific whistling sound could be heard throughout.

The Alshorian elite had understood the power of steam for many generations, and had dazzled millions, using it for incredible propaganda potential in their religion based around the worship of Alshor itself. It was just a shame that their other sciences were not sufficiently advanced for the great discoveries to be applied in any more practical format, and they had long since given-up trying to make steam drive anything more than toys and tricks. Still, for centuries it had allowed them to command the awe and loyalty of their subjects, who took it for magic.

"Greetings."

The Praetor was suddenly pulled out of any wonderment that he may have been lost within. Sutruah Donid introduced himself, appearing flanked by two elite warriors of the Alshorian Guard, fanatical men of Alshor, who could draw bows with a pull-weight greater than the weight of a man, march tens of miles in a day, tens of days in succession, and stand against weapons of terror.

"You may speak with me as the ear of the Great King Ralish CLXXV. We welcome this opportunity to discuss the relationship between The Eternal Alshorian Empire of The Ralish and the people of Caladonn."

The Praetor was, he could not deny it, quite impressed with the wealth of Azaria. Still, he was resolved to carry out his mission, and reminded himself of his mission.

He approached the Sutruah, and bowed slightly, hte plain white pragmatism of his Caladonnian garb standing out against the decadent finery of the Alshorians. "Greetings," he began. "Let me start by complimenting you on the magnificent empire that you and your kind have built here. It is truly an example in finery to the other nations of the world.

However, let me be blunt. We both know that your Empire stands on the edge of a precipice- one wrong move by any and a great culture could fall, to be replaced by backward barbarism. This is a bad course of events for both of us, and thus, I have for you a proposition.

The Imperial Republic of Caladonn is a rising power. We have expanded our naval and commercial power until we dominate the Atlantic ocean, and are already establishing colonies to the north and south. We have built a fortress in the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, but, as people originally from the north, we wish to expand our influence there as well.

Therefore, Caladonn requires that you cede the islands of Frisia (the Danish islands) to the Imperial Republic, and vacate the nearby penninsula of Jutland. We wish to establish control over Frisia, but will keep Jutland as a buffer state between our Empires.

Should you fail to meet this reasonable requirement, I fear that the consequences will not be beneficial. As you know, the lords of the south and the horsemen of the northeast both hunger for the Ralish; surely the Alshorians do not wish to be hemmed in by enemies all at once, instead preferring to establish a benevolent neutrality and trading relation with Caladonn."

The Temple of Alshor, Azaria

Donid's countenance turned to a sort of quiet almost slate grey. He waited for the northerner to finish, and then waited some more.

"Reasonable, is it?" He said, eventually. "You hail from a land in which it would be reasonable for a foreign people to demand not only the ceeding of territory to their king, but also the creation of a buffer zone in which some third party would emerge to take power?

"Presumably you are requiring of such a buffer owing to your awareness of the immeasurable superiority of the warriors of King Ralish in opposition to your own dirty band of thugs!"

The Sutruah made a small gesture towards Gerlan, and the two Guardsmen on his flanks drew foot-long khukri-like blades and advanced on the man from Caladonn, declaring their intention to detain him at the pleasure of the King Ralish. Provided that he wasn't killed while trying to resist, the Praetor was in for a period of harsh interrogation by an Empire suddenly keen to learn about the politics and military of his island nation. There was also much curiosity relating to the northerner's apparent knowledge of trouble in other far-flung corners of the Empire, and as to whether or not a grand conspiracy was in action. The Praetor would, of course, be sent back home, probably within a few days, but it would of course be impossible for his masters to know that he was coming back in pieces until he actually arrived.

Meanwhile, word was already being carried to the Cassirs -men ranking directly below Sutruah- of the northwestern reaches of the Empire, warning them to prepare arms.

With tens of millions of subjects even discounting the semi-autonomous regions of Osteia and Aridiris, the Empire had the theoretical potential to raise armies larger than the population of most of its potential enemies. Only politics and practicalities prevented this. In the event, just a few thousands of auxiliaries and hundreds of Guardsmen would end-up mobilising in the contested territories in the days and weeks between the Praetor's arrival in Azaria... and his piecemeal return to Caladonn.

When he did return, it would be with a note indicating that, as was the fate of his body, so should be the fate of Caladonn if it carried-through his affront to the Empire.

Sorry, the Empire's not being co-operative with *anyone* just yet. So far we've not lost any major battles in centuries, but, as they say, pride comes before... something

the nature of the house of shadows and it's spy network precluded the events in the temple from being imidiatly reported... however, it ahd been knowen that an ambasidor from the north had arived in the city, and made his way to the temple to meet with a high ranking member of the government of the empire.

this in it's own right was not significant enough to report unless the information was requested... what soon followed, however, certainly Was.

ooc: yeah, you don't need to reply to this... basicly, if your responce becomes public knowledge by any method, my guys are going to know about it as quickly as the messeges can travel. ahh, the posibilitys.

The Praetor nodded. That was the danger of his mission; it was something he could accept. He would not endanger the greatness of Caladonn, and he would make a bold gesture to start the downfall of the Ralish.

"You have made the wrong decision, and on it hangs your doom. I bid you farewell, and would like to give you a demonstration of Caladonnian courage and honor."

He pulled out a knife from beneath his robe, and plunged it into his heart. A red stain rapidly spread across the dying man's chest, but with a massive act of fortitude, he withdraws the knife and throws it at the foot of the Sutruah.

"This will be the fate of your Empire, barbarian."

Praetor Gerlan Silfar of the Imperial Republic of Caladonn collapsed, dead.

"The most commendable end for any man little enough to accept a fool's errand as his own."

Donid swept out of the Temple, his robes casting a little wind out across the polished floor, disturbing a spider in one far corner.

The Caladonnian's body was taken apart by priests, etched with a cuneiform warning in the Alshorian tongue, and shipped back to the island nation. In the days and weeks that followed, during which the Caladonnians should have been awaiting the possible peaceful handover of the territory they desired, thousands of men were being raised across the empire, and the peninsula and islands in question were alerted with time to spare, word arriving there many days before Caladonn ever knew that its proposal had been rejected.

The Empire could likely not beat the islanders at sea, but, on land, it certainly wouldn't give up without trying.

The army was tiring of facing ignorant tribes. An empire to the south had long been rumoured (The Pyreneean territories), but they had seen no sign of it yet.
However, the last spy-fleck village had said that yes, there was an empire - it still existed - and the first outposts were only two days march to the south.
Waltheof turned to his earls and thanes, commanders of the army.

"We take the local scouts. We find the nearest outpost of this 'empire'. We either persuade them to hand it over, or we sack the place.
Good plan?"
"AYE"

(He's a better general than he seems here, just he keeps the plan simple til he knows enough)
((Any details you can provide on a likely border-fort on the edge of your French/Spanish territories welcome))

Looking to the Pyrennians, as the Ralish called their western-most subjects, one would, today, see massive military activity.

Hundreds of medium infantry were moving east. This was due to the Osteian revolt.

Still, the mountainous region was one of the most fortified in the Empire. Ralish forts were largely of wood and earth. Ramparts and ditches, spikes and palisades. They were very large, but not a match for modern siege weapons. However, they tended to house whole communities, including hundreds of well-equipped warriors.

Mountain life was not too hard, not too easy. Lots of goat herding, some mining. Tough people, prepared for a fight, but not overly loyal to anyone. Independent, and happy so long as the Empire left them to their business. The only sign of Empire were the forts, the Alshorian temples that wowed peasants with their gold and gizzmos, and the markets run by merchants with connections to Alshor. Nothing was exported from the Empire until it had passed into Alshorian hands.

But, the region was not heavily peopled, and activity was only moderate in any regard.

"What news?"
Scouts were returning. They might have been spotted, though they were good, but shortly that wouldn't matter.
"It's a town. Earthen ramparts, wooden palisades, but it's mostly townsmen not armsmen inside. Still, at need there might be several hundred fighters."
Waltheof grinned. Big enough to count, small enough to take swiftly.
"Deploy the horse to watch for messengers out. Then bring up all the men in view of the outer walls...and we send them a message. Meanwhile I want axemen making me a nice big ram and some ladders, in case they refuse our generous offer."
A party of three rode for the gate, bearing this message.
I am Waltheof, King of Incognitia. I offer you one chance to swear fealty to me as your lord and king, joining this land to our kingdom, with all the pertaining rights and freedoms. If you refuse, this town shall fall by fire and sword. You have one hour to decide.

Pyrennia, The Eternal Alshorian Empire of The Ralish

The mountain folk responded. They had Alshorian governors.

"Our settlement resides under the protection of King Ralish CLXXV. Any aggression against this community shall result in Imperial reaction. Bear in mind that each of your citizens is answered in Alshor by two trained men at arms. Attack Pyrennia and accept Azaria's governance."

The blue and gold banners of the Empire began to fly over the forts and villages. Towers light torches that would carry the alert east: north of Osteia, towers would light two torches, indicating that trouble was afoot beyond that domain. In a few hours, Alshor would know. This obstinate continental hold-out would face the Empire that almost surrounded it. Attack the Pyrennians if you will: your capital will face more than its populace in men-at-arms before the month is out.

"I take it that's a no. Oh well, and it would have been such a nice addition to my kingdom.
So, first - Cedric, send despatch riders back to every shire between here and Nescia. Call a full harvest muster of the fyrd. (OOC: Everyone not required for farming etc).
In Nescia they are to inform the Witan that we are at war with Alshor, and that the fyrd is to be called throughout the land. What is more, longboats are to be sent to all lands of which we know, looking for those who might join us.
Got all that?"
"Yes sir."
"Ok, new message to these townsmen - all who leave the town, not under arms, before we first attack, will live as free men. Wait on no reply.
Then I want men with ladders by every wall, the ram by the gate, archers behind. Then it's simple - we attack from every direction at once, and send the rest of the men to support a successful break.
What news from the building party?"
"We have a ram, four score ladders, and some of the men have made the parts for a catapult."
"Ah, excellent. Have them erect it in range of the main gate, and send men round nearby farms looking for haybales and the like."
(OOC:This army is 10,000 men. A few hundred are housecarls, true professionals, the rest are fyrd - varying between well-equipped veterans and raw recruits with a leaher vest and grandad's spear.)

Azaria, Alshor

Though King Ralish and his Alshorian Sutruah did not reside in the world's largest city, it was widely agreed to be the finest... an imperfect measure, perhaps, but this only made the Alshorians think of it as more civilised than a mere issue of scale. Azaria was kept deliberately small, lying far from major trade routes, for the sake of its security and the safety of the King, the Empire judging a smaller population more able to withstand siege than might be one of the giant cities seen elsewhere under Alshorian sway and in the rising world beyond.

These things, finery and security, built on centuries of experience that had become tradition, now seemed to handicap the Ralish. Somehow, for some reason, all of Alshor's neighbours were rising at once. The Osteian revolt, the Rustican invasion, these could have been handled, and such things had happened in the past and been relegated to history without harming the Empire. But, now, they came with aggression from Caladonn, Incognitia, and the Kalmaar, too... Okolor, as the Alshorians usually called these ice-men.

Azaria was not built to deal and negotiate. For thousands of years its armies had crushed all before them and made the bow and spear their tools of diplomacy. King Ralish CLXXV simply did not think of seeking peace, seeing only the encroachment of enemies of unusual strength and the need to reach with uncommon force.

Pyrennia

Riders had been sent-out to chase the men marching on Osteia and call them back, but the men were far away and there was no certainty that they should even be allowed to turn, being perhaps required just as keenly in the east.

In the small province that the Ralish called Pyrennia there would be little initial opposition to the invasion's early movement. Villagers tried to hide as much of their property as possible against the threat of looting, women tried to make themselves look ugly, and men to look harmless or to flee to the fortified settlements around which an army might be organised. Many fenced villages shut their gates and hoped that the invaders would pass by, seeking battle, and could defend themselves only with slings and tools.

The whole province hadn't much more than one hundred thousand residents. With so many men marching east, little remained to fight.

The first fortified settlement assaulted by Waltheof's men contained just over three thousand people, only two families of Citizens, and one tiny detachment of Guardsmen who happened to be here as part of a tour of the provincial defences and the raising of men to fight in Osteia. As the hostile army mustered, these Guardsmen made sure of the gates' security, guarding them against any attempt to flee the settlement, and directed townspeople to the walls, where javelins and arrows were lined-up between heaps of shaped stones and lead shot.

Men of all ages took bows -not true war bows but shorter and simpler weapons normally used in sport and hunting-, slings, and spear-throwers while women prepared buckets around the well and children waited to run messages and ammunition around the walls.

Signal fires burned atop the watchtowers, and the Imperial colours were raised.

The defenders looked out, watching the construction of the catapult and the foraging upon their lands. Such a vast army. The Guardsmen mused on holding it here for as long as possible, starving it on the under-cultivated lands of this province and sucking the treasury of the inferior kingdom, but the townsfolk thought only of the horizon and the return of their warriors to lift this siege.

The wooden walls of this place might not stand catapults and rams, but the earthen ramparts and ditches would be unchanged by their attacks, and, indeed, bearing the ram up the slopes of the earthworks would not be merry work for the invaders.

Ten men were detached from the Incognitian horsemen watching near the city. Led by Aelfbald, they were charged with chasing riders down and killing them. If that failed, as was likely, they were to follow them, find out where they were going, and shadow any force that they called upon, to give warning of it's approach.
The rest of the 300 horse waited. They had no part in an assault, but would chase down those who ran afterwards.
With the catapult set up, some of those foraging for flammable objects had returned with hay, and a small quantity of lamp-oil. The first shot, flaming nicely, overshot the target of just behind the gate.
Meanwhile mixed parties of bows, axes and spears were gathering around ladders. When all was ready, they advanced at a jog, twenty ladders at each side of the town, each group of ladders accompanied by 2,000 men.
In front of the gate, these men were split in two, one party on each side, to allow the ram to come through. The ladders would, however, hit first.
"Incognitia, forward!"
A cheer rose, turning into a deepthroated chant of the old battle-song.
"Our axes fell enemies like trees; our bows shoot them like deer; we spear them like fish; our swords are the slaughtering knife; let them pray forgiveness while life remains to them."
(The rhythm, however, works better in the original.)

The riders may catch Pyrennian horsemen: the Empire had its best horses and its cavalry tradition hundreds of miles to the east, and this place did not breed the best of either horses or horsemen. However, this was an Empire, not just a barbarian settlement. Ten minutes ride for a Pyrennian -perhaps nine for a possibly superior Incognitian horseman- would lead the involved parties to a small outpost. A wooden palisade around a stone granary, guarded by country militia.

Here, the Pyrennian riders handed small clay tablets to men waiting -alerted by the signal fires- and these men took to fresh horses and rode at a gallop on to the next such outpost. The pace of the Ralish riders never dropped off over a couple of thousand miles, day and night. No horse in the world could keep up, and the pursuers had no hope of catching the message, though they did catch the origianal riders.

However, as ten foreign horsemen approached, the militia waited. A rope flew up between two trees, unhorsing the last Incognitian, who was quickly set upon by women and children with improvised maces. His death would be by beating.

One of the nine ahead would be struck by an arrow flying with such force, from a full-length compound bow, that it passed clean through him, armour or no, and struck the horse of the man behind him. Then, a lead shot, shaped for the task and hurled by a practiced sling, struck a fourth horse and dashed its brains out, sending the rider to earth. Bola -weighted rope- wrapped around the legs of another horse pursuing the Pyrennians on a predictable course, and another rider had no choice but to fall hard. Then, a wooden sword, of all things, would unseat another rider.

Pursuing Imperials into the Empire was still the quickest way to end one's life.

The message got away, but it would take a miracle for any Incognitian pursuit riders to survive past quarter of an hour of chase.

The Town

Here, things looked worse. So many attackers. The townspeople were afraid, but they had no way to escape, and so no choice but to fight. And fight they would- husbands defending wives, mothers defending sons, brothers in front of sisters.

This was a stable imperial community that did not know what to fear from conquest. It had been Ralish for years, and nobody knew what suffering may be associated with conquest. It was not a gamble that a lover, a parent, a friend could take when the stake was their beloved.

The attack was intimidating, but what could one do but resist?

Ladders approached with large groups of men. Climbing up the ramparts, they moved slowly. "Hooold! Hoooold! Hooold!" Bellowed one of only eight Guardsmen inside.

"Hollllld!" and then... "Let fly!"

Hunting arrows, large barbs designed to kill or bleed-out a stag, flew at the attackers. They would not fare well against metal armour, but any men lacking mail would be fair game for these missiles, designed to punch-through animal hide. Stones and lead shot was sufficient -as demonstrated on the chase- to kill a horse, and would smash a man's head beyond recognition, or deliver a crippling blow to his body or limbs. Javelins from the spear-throwers could easily fly past a hundred yards, and came with a low, 'whoooomp!' before splitting open anything they hit, be it man, armour, or just the dirt.

The rate of fire from the defenders was not prolific. Even if every projectile scored a direct hit, it would not stop all of the ladders. The best hope was that it would shatter the attacker's moral and make men flee at the thought of being split-open, and that it would at least take something away from his present numerical advantage. These were -largely- not professional soldiers. It took time to reload and aim the next volley.

But the outer earthworks slowed the enemy. He could run up and down ditches, falling on to pungee sticks and suffering horribly, or he could follow the townspeople's path into the town, which wound left and right on its way, and exposed the attackers to volley after volley of fire.

The invaders seemed to have made no real provision for the earthen ramparts and ditches of the defences, and countless of them were floundering, having come over a crest only to be hit by missiles and then charge into a ditch full of spikes and thorns. Those on the west and south suffered especially, as there was no clear path into the town from there. The north and east attacks could at least follow the civilian paths towards the gates, but these paths wound and wove this way and that as missiles fell upon the attackers.

However, in contrast, the flaming shot from the catapult was causing problems. Women and children frantically fought to put out each shot as it landed, but it was an exercise that tired the people of the town, and drained their vital water supply faster than might otherwise have been the case.

OOC: If you have the time don't forget to reply to my thread aswell, Madestan won't move untill you do....

Thank you...

Sorry to clutter the IC...

Aelfbald was no fool. With several of his men down already, and seeing the outpost where fresh horses waited, he cursed. This was never going to work.
"Pull back! Pull back!"
Scouts could be sent more cautiously to guard against Alshorian reinforcements.
The remainder of the ten rode back. Any Alshorians encountered on the way back who had played a part in killing their comrades would pay.

The Town
They were starting to take casualties. Waltheof realised it had been a mistake not to fill in the ditches on the way in, but the first parties were reaching the walls - better to let them attack than take more casualties pulling back to prepare further.
No man could totally ignore comrades being killed horribly alongside him, but the rawer men were steadied by those who'd done all of this before, and kept moving forwards. The steady chant helped as well, focussing the men on something other than the risk of death.
In the north and east, the first ladders reached the walls. One had been destroyed by a lucky dropped stone. The rest raised up against the wall; two, then five, then more. Men started swarming up them.
Surveying the field, Waltheof guessed at two score dead, and twice that hurt; but he couldn't see much of the battle, it could be one score or three.

Rosciia Town
(Thought I should give it a name, which I'll likely forget! Nothing says your nation must call it by the same name.)

Fighting continued around all the walls, the south and west faring well but unwilling to let-up their defence lest the enemy take advantage. People were hard pressed to keep abrest of events hundreds of yards away on the other walls.

So far, only one or two residents had been killed, and little more than a dozen seriously hurt, but the enemy was not falling back in spite of his own injury, and death's ratio could soon switch cruelly against the defenders.

As ladders landed against the wooden walls, defenders there pointed the location to others within, and spearmen, archers, and even young boys with slings stood ready. The first head up was stuck square by a stone, the next man almost climbed over before being run-through by a spear.

But, as more appeared, here and there, and men on the walls risked themselves in efforts to cast the ladders back or break them with rocks, the fact of the matter was that men and boys in the town found it hard to look into the eyes of a man climbing over and plot a missile's course between them. Most were not real soldiers, and only a minority could look another man in the face and finish him for this world without feeling a deep and fundamental horror over it.

It may cost more lives and limbs until success, but the Incongnitians would before long get some men over the walls if they were prepared to bear the cost.

The eight Imperial Guardsmen tried now to muster spare fighting men, some from the other walls, some old, stupid, sick, or infantile, and prepare them to charge enemies who might try to assemble on the inside of their town's defence ring.

The Incognitians blood was now well and truly up. Seeing men killed as you approached the walls was demoralising. Now though, they were committed, they were so close...
Men continued pouring up the ladders, casting aside the bodies of those who fell, be they dead or only injured.

Even now in the south and west ladders were beginning to reach the walls. Men immediately began climbing. Anyone poking their head over the wall would get an arrow in the face, but this was not expected.

Hygwulf swept the man ahead on the ladder aside as he took an arrow, letting him fall to the ground, survive if he could. He himself was busy...bursting over the wall top, casting his spear at the first man looking ready to pull a weapon on him, and grabbing a sword from the dead fingers of a man who had fallen before him at the top. Even as he did so and turned to the next enemy, a man came up behind him, soon followed by another. They rushed the defence up here. The town would fall...and they wanted to be in the forefront.

Resistance on the walls continued for some time, but on every side it was a losing battle for the Ralish subjects. Even some of the children were scoring a few hits with their little slings, but it was not long before their mothers were struggling to hide them inside some of the stronger houses -owned by the two citizen families of Rosciia- and the Alshorian temple at the heart of the small town. The north and east walls falling first, it was here that the eight Imperial Guardsmen lead their charges, chosing to attack a party of invaders in the east, who'd just about established themselves and were being reinforced up one or two surviving ladders there.

The Guardsmen drew their short swords -slightly hooked weapons about a foot and a half long, with a pointed tip for limited stabbing use, otherwise resembling a kukri- and wore their metal-reinforced shields, breast plates, helms, and some other protection. They were not nearly so heavily armoured as Osteian knights, but far ahead of anyone else in the town, and very flexible, fast-moving fighters. For King Ralish, and the Eternal Golden Empire they rushed into the enemy coming down from the walls they'd just scaled, often holding their hooked blades as if they meant to gut the opponent and zip him open from the belly up, changing in a lightning fast move practiced since infancy to, more often than not, cut his throat, crashing into his arms with a small but strong and fairly heavy and centrally-spiked shield.

With the Guardsmen went the last of the town's defenders, the rabble, what came out when the Guards scraped the barrel. Much more stand-offish, these men and boys generally used their weapons -basic spears, staffs, farm tools- as if to fend-off the enemy rather than kill him, attempting to chase him back over the walls. Many of them shouted and cursed violently, but not more than a tenth of them were really inclined to kill, and these few stood out as almost heroic, if bloody and somewhat unskilled, until they were cut down one after another by superior fighting men.

Unless the devotion, skill, and reckless ferocity of a mere eight Guardsmen saved the east wall before the others were fully breached, this was likely the last action of Rosciia's defence.


It would still be hours before any high-ranking officer with ready fighting men heard of the attack on Pyrennia, and more hours -if not days- after that before even the nearest of them could arrive.. even if he decided to respond, bearing in mind the Osteian revolt.

Hygwulf was at the forefront when the Guards charged. As a housecarl, he was somewhat better equipped, and more experienced, than most of the Incognitians.
His shield blocked a thrust from one of the strange swords. He saw a fyrd man who had been next to him go down, guts spilling, to be replaced by a housecarl swinging an axe for the guardsman's head. He thrust with his own sword.
He expected the guards would take out more than their own number of Incognitians...but they would fall. His comrades would likely go through the other Alshorians like a flock of sheep, and the guards be overwhelmed.
A roar came from the south "For the King! For the King!" as Incognitians reached the top through the weakened defences.
A party of men was even now fighting towards the gates, to turn the trickle of men into a flood.

That Guardsman faced with a swinging axe had managed to sweep under it and hook his blade around the leg of the housecarl, snapping tendons and making the man a cripple, but was then exposed to attack by other enemies and saved only by the intervention of a comrade. But, as the enemy was now coming faster than so few Guardsmen could kill him, it soon became impossible for the Ralish warriors to afford eachother such mutual support.

In this case, not knowing the enemy's intention, the Guardsmen would not have any option, according to the codes by which they lived and served. The town, the whole of Pyrennia, may be in serious danger. Nobody could say what would happen after the enemy won, and so the eight men fought to the death, or at least until completely incapacitated.

Once the Guardsmen were gone, the vast majority of makeshift fighters began to fall back. The temple, the two citizen households near to it, and the main gate would be the obvious rally points, but those aiming for the gate would not be long before collapsing or giving-up without the Imperial Guardsmen.

Around the central buildings, residents not under arms began to erect barricades, upturning tables and stacking sacks and barrels between the small tightly clustered houses. From the temple, two young monks emerged bearing traditional weapons, the last men with real fighting skill. Inside, the elder priest was busy hiding the place's limited treasures in secret holes and passages and preparing other items to be broken or burned rather than captured and understood.

A few residents had not left their homes elsewhere in the town, and were huddled inside, unable to contribute to the faltering defence.

The fight was close to over, or so it seemed. The men fighting for the gate reached it, and went to toss the bar aside and throw it open.
Those now pouring over ladders on every wall had already overwhelmed most of the defence, and were becoming an ever more disordered force, with groups of men going every which way, killing any who resisted.
They knew not the significance of the temple and its secrets, nor of the monks coming out - just more men with weapons. A party of four, two axes and two swords, moved closer to finish them off.

The pathetic barricades would delay the inevitable by at most a few moments.

The rest of the town fell quickly, but the heart, around the temple and the citizen houses, continued to resist for several intense and bloody minutes. The four men sent to assault the monks faced a little opposition from inferior makeshift warriors easily enough forced from the barricades, possibly dealing a few minor injuries to the attackers, but the monks themselves were skilled in the martial arts acquired by the vast and ancient empire. Usually these men fought bandits, spies, and others who may wish to damage or loot the famously rich Alshorian temples, and though they were too few to stand against an army, a small band of men dispatched against them would be drawn into the narrow confines of the outer temple area and tackled on the preists' terms.

Still, the fighting priests were -though skilled, fanatical, and armed- virtually unarmoured and only two in number. One suffered a broken arm and continued to fight for some time before taking his own life, unable to fight anymore; and the second simply refused to give-in, releasing hot steam from a copper pipe at one point, even burning himself badly in clambering through the elaborate arrangements of heating and 'magics' without appearing to notice, and finally becoming trapped along with some of his enemies as he burned-down the central temple complex while they fought inside.

With him, though, died the defence of Rosciia.

The prize was damaged: the temple's treasures smashed or hidden and the building itself now ablaze, but more than 2,500 Imperial subjects were now at Incognitian mercy, two Citizen families amongst them, in a town with significant earthworks and palisades, a very deep well, reasonable farming and hunting grounds in the north of Pyrennia, and the bodies of eight Imperial Guardsmen, each wearing light armour and weaponry of world-beating craftsmanship.

One of the citizens tried, while his peers indicated that they did not intend to resist any longer, to toss the Imperial colours upon the flames of the temple so that they should not be captured by these barbarians.

The men who had formed the successful assault were all set to fulfil the traditional end of siege warfare - rapine and pillage within the walls of any settlement that hadn't surrendered.
However, there were more soldiers than inhabitants of the town, and many of them had not been committed to the assault at all.
Waltheof now used these reserves, to keep the settlement intact. Some of the townsfolk would be gently questioned about what was to be found elsewhere in the region, and a garrison would be left to keep the town under control. For now, all was confusion as those about to engage on a rampage through the settlement were restrained by their fellows.
It would probably be expedient to throw the Alshorian citizen families out, as their loyalties were entirely with the empire. The rest, well, they would learn to accept the order of things, given time.