[X] Yes. Have the Rassit move out now, to harass the supply line of Jinhai, and his troops as well. He might have forces designed to try to stop that, so there is that danger, and even if it's a complete success, it will wear down and exhaust the Rassit before the actual battle. But there are definitely morale and logistical advantages to sending them out now.
This is what Rassit are best at.
[x] Yes. Have the Rassit move out now, to harass the supply line of Jinhai, and his troops as well. He might have forces designed to try to stop that, so there is that danger, and even if it's a complete success, it will wear down and exhaust the Rassit before the actual battle. But there are definitely morale and logistical advantages to sending them out now.
Scourge him and push him to the limits of his resources. Can't let him have the room to adjust to that.
[x] Yes. Have the Rassit move out now, to harass the supply line of Jinhai, and his troops as well. He might have forces designed to try to stop that, so there is that danger, and even if it's a complete success, it will wear down and exhaust the Rassit before the actual battle. But there are definitely morale and logistical advantages to sending them out now.
[X] Yes. Have the Rassit move out now, to harass the supply line of Jinhai, and his troops as well. He might have forces designed to try to stop that, so there is that danger, and even if it's a complete success, it will wear down and exhaust the Rassit before the actual battle. But there are definitely morale and logistical advantages to sending them out now.
[X] Yes. Have the Rassit move out now, to harass the supply line of Jinhai, and his troops as well. He might have forces designed to try to stop that, so there is that danger, and even if it's a complete success, it will wear down and exhaust the Rassit before the actual battle. But there are definitely morale and logistical advantages to sending them out now.
[X] Yes. Have the Rassit move out now, to harass the supply line of Jinhai, and his troops as well. He might have forces designed to try to stop that, so there is that danger, and even if it's a complete success, it will wear down and exhaust the Rassit before the actual battle. But there are definitely morale and logistical advantages to sending them out now.
[x] Yes. Have the Rassit move out now, to harass the supply line of Jinhai, and his troops as well. He might have forces designed to try to stop that, so there is that danger, and even if it's a complete success, it will wear down and exhaust the Rassit before the actual battle. But there are definitely morale and logistical advantages to sending them out now.
Adhoc vote count started by The Laurent on Jun 8, 2017 at 3:48 PM, finished with 21 posts and 13 votes.
[x] Yes. Have the Rassit move out now, to harass the supply line of Jinhai, and his troops as well. He might have forces designed to try to stop that, so there is that danger, and even if it's a complete success, it will wear down and exhaust the Rassit before the actual battle. But there are definitely morale and logistical advantages to sending them out now.
[X] No. Keep them back and rested, mostly, for the battle. Use them to guard against any of Jinhai's attempts at doing what they might have done, but to Kiralo. And use them as extra scouts for now.
It's a much simpler vote than most and the advantages of voting yes are pretty obvious.
Not unleashing the Rassit would look weak and inactive. Conversely, Rassit coming back with blood on their lances will buoy everyone up.
Hurting the morale and logistics of our enemy is a big deal.
Making contact with Jinhai's forces gets us information on them.
Rassit are known for their endurance - even tired and bloodied they'll be the best cavalry on the field.
It's a much simpler vote than most and the advantages of voting yes are pretty obvious.
Not unleashing the Rassit would look weak and inactive. Conversely, Rassit coming back with blood on their lances will buoy everyone up.
Hurting the morale and logistics of our enemy is a big deal.
Making contact with Jinhai's forces gets us information on them.
Rassit are known for their endurance - even tired and bloodied they'll be the best cavalry on the field.
Didn't we mess up Jinhai's attempts to hire Tanarin?
If he does have Tanarin though, we wouldn't expect Rassit to be able to mix it up with them even when fresh. All the more important that we we destroy the fodder in the baggage train.
"Show discretion," Kiralo said, feeling like he was worrying too much, but in no mood to do anything else. "Remember, he's given to tricks. In fact, while he's a very, very solid and skilled commander, the real magic is the way he keeps on using different tricks. Poison and diplomacy and lies, instead of just pure military force."
"That is part of military force," Kueli said with a roll of his eyes. They were speaking in Southlander, of course. The better not to be overheard by a spy that could understand them.
"Maybe, but that doesn't mean he can't use it. He knows what to expect of me. He knows what I'm likely to do, but just because he knows means nothing. Unpredictability matters, but the right move is the right move."
Too many people thought that being a good general meant not doing what was expected. And that was true, but just as many people assumed that meant you changed a winning formula. Harassing with Kueli and his Rassit was the right move, almost objectively so, especially since Prince Jinhai had very little that could fight against the Rassit, deployed properly.
But he had to know it. And one could wrap your mind around and around and around: he knew that Kiralo knew that he knew that Kiralo was the leader of a group of Rassit Mercenaries that he'd brought with him. And he knew that Kiralo knew that he'd heard all about how skilled they were and had to know that Kiralo would want to use them.
Except the solution there was to have troops from Hari-Su or the Southlands ready to face off against Kiralo. Now that he lacked that, what would he do?
"Yeah, you're right. It's a shame you're not going to be going out there with us. It's going to be a wild couple of days, but I know you're needed here."
"Yeah," Kiralo said, "make sure to show the enemy no mercy."
Kueli laughed. He didn't need to be told.
******
He was getting older. It was amazing the way aches and pains could add up when you were growing older. He wasn't old, though he joked sometimes, stroked his mustache and asked if it were going grey. But even with the spirits he knew--but not as well as he should have--that could help ease aching bones, he was not going to be in the flower of his youth forever.
Thirty and one years he had been on this world, and this was a battle like he'd never seen. There was not a single army in the Southlands that was the equal of this, and there hadn't been in generations. Hadn't been a need, for that matter.
Kueli had watched the damn thing crawl along, and he'd thought how easy it might have seemed to pick it apart as it went through hostile territory, if it turned southward. But against someone like Kiralo?
He imagined a Kiralo who returned to the Southlands at the head of an army. How many would die?
Perhaps only one, because Kueli would kill him if it came down to that, best friend or not.
Now, though, it was other people who had to do the dying.
Eight hundred men raced the wind and won, they danced and ran their horses. Horses, for each man had at least two, and usually three, and looking after them was a full-time job.
It was several day's travel by the army. Which was to say that in a matter of hours, Kueli began to see the signs of scouts. He tried to estimate, based on what Kiralo had said, exactly where they were, and then he plunged forward.
One of the scouts, an unfortunate man in thin armor, his face as samey as he found all Csiritan faces he wasn't used to--Kiralo being one of them--found his death swiftly, and the others sounded a retreat, screaming as they were pincushioned full of arrows. Kueli, who had been watching their movements, hadn't even had a chance to draw his own bow, and he grunted, annoyed.
"Save some for me, will ya!" he yelled with a harsh laugh. And then he began to ride south, making sure that the enemy scouts saw it, those few that survived, as they retreated, trying to run around what looked like a small pond.
A lovely, flat day, and there was a rice paddy field that his horses thundered through.
Swift-Roar, the horse he used in a fight, snorted. They hadn't even stopped to tether their other horses, or rather, as was the case with Rassit, order them to move away and then pick them up on the backswing of a raid. He could have left horses behind, since it wasn't that far, but he wanted to keep it up.
…and he wanted to swing around, now that Jinhai thought he knew where the Rassit were going.
*******
The watch camp on the other side of the army from where he'd struck before was on fire. It wasn't a fire arrow, those were all too useless, more often than you'd think, and he hadn't had time. Instead, he'd picked up a burning torch and whispered a few words, and his Keeper of Secret Names had made each firepit a funeral pyre, as it spread out of control.
People choked on their blood, arrows in their throat. They died, and not a single Rassit had been hit. But there were horns in the distance, Kueli thought, as the sky was starting to darken with coming night.
But it wouldn't come for many dozens of men, and they'd have to find others to watch, here.
But why was Prince Jinhai stopped long enough to have a watch camp?
It was time to move on.
*******
Try to imagine a perfect day.
For Kueli, it was raid after raid without danger. Every fair fight was a trick, and so he hadn't let it be. He'd looped his Rassit around the long way and begun to slaughter the supply carts. Tip them over in the mud, and kill the animals, and they'd have to find more to draw the things out or abandon them.
One attack, and then another and then another, all the morning taken by riding and attacking until his first horse was almost starting to get tired. Mud and sweat covered him, and the sun was baking them down, hard. It was not where the average man would want to be.
But he laughed, thinking of the losses. Jinhai had tried, he really had. He had put a small group of Hanin in charge of one of the depots he'd hit. It had worked better than it should have, the moment of surprise enough to kill Ysin, and Naren. Two of his Rassit dead, but in the moments it would have taken them to reload, eight Hanin paid for their success, arrows riddling them.
Kueli hadn't bothered to hold back. You didn't with the Hanin.
And their spearmen, the ones that came with the crossbows, were able to keep him away from one of the carts, but that still left the others, and a stray shot that he'd snapped off while riding off, barely able to see the beast, who was a little dot in the distance, took out the oxen as well.
Try moving the cart anyways, he'd thought, as the noonday sun beat its wretched tattoo. "Spirits!" Kueli shouted, "This is a slaughter."
******
The spirits must have heard him, and made the next attack, and the next even worse for Prince Jinhai's men. In numbers, well, even altogether, it can't have been more than a few hundred dead, nothing against the large numbers present, but it was unanswered. A third Rassit died, but that was it.
And then he looped around to try to hit another of the pickets, on the end of the second day away from the main army.
It all went wrong very quickly.
********
He first knew that he was expected when he heard the keening scream of a spirit, high in the air. "Halt!" he yelled, and he felt it in his bones.
No time to think, just time to decide. "Left!" he ordered.
The horses whined and he whispered in his gelding's ear as they traveled hard, just ahead of a stream of crossbow bolts that would have torn them apart if they'd kept on coming towards the seemingly poorly defended camp.
And that's when the scream of the spirits grew louder, and fell upon the men.
"Hold! Hold but scatter!" Kueli yelled, nonsense but nonsense that was authentic Rassit gibberish. Hold but in a way that didn't leave you sitting targets.
Then he saw it, in the distance, coming from the right. A small group of enemy cavalry, dressed in gleaming armor, but seeming to know their horse lore enough that they were able to ride fast and hard at them, firing off arrows, some of which even hit near the Rassit.
So, spirits above, and Hanin in front, and then from the right, light cavalry.
And the left?
In the distance, he saw a marching company of infantry, barely visible in the gloom, their numbers hidden by a cloud of darksome spirits.
"One volley!" Kueli screamed, knowing that with how it was set up, if they didn't retreat now, they'd be sandwiched and slaughtered on all sides, and then the horses they'd left behind out of the way would be run down, just for the fun of it.
He gripped the reins hard for a moment, tugging his horse, who leapt out of the way of a bolt, and then he drew and loosed once, and then again, and then once more, all in the span of moments, barely taking time to aim. The Hanin were temporarily discomfited, dozens of them dead, but they no doubt had spearmen nearby if the Rassit charged them.
Already, Kueli could count well over a dozen deaths in the chaos and screaming of the fight, and he knew that that number was nothing compared to what it'd be once everything came together. The only good news was that he hadn't underestimated Jinhai enough to split out his forces too much.
He could have had a half-dozen formations of Rassit raiders, but he feared that Jinhai had a plan for that. So he'd kept his men together, and that meant they had numbers that would tell if they didn't get pinned down.
"Horse!" he yelled, and then loosed another arrow before grabbing for his sword. His men were following him, he knew it, as he fell in among the enemy cavalry.
It was the best move, because it meant the losses were at least balanced. Losing his horsemen now meant he wouldn't have them later, if this was really that big of a trap.
Still, there were almost three-hundred light horsemen, and behind them, the enemy Mages and their guard, and as Kueli parried one blow and cut off a hand at the wrist, before driving his sword into the stomach of another enemy's horse.
It was a slaughter. These weren't bad troops, the enemy's. By the standards of the weakling, cowardly, spineless Csiritans, they were even excellent horsemen, and they were taking their toll, but for every Rassit that died, a handful of them died, and there were fewer of them than there were Rassit in the first place.
And then they were through. "Take out the spirits!" Kueli yelled, and then sent out a torrent of curses as he was almost borne off his horse by one of the enemy horsemen leaping at him at the same moment that a spirit with wide, angry jaws of red light went straight at him. He roared, swinging his sword down, ignoring the enemy horseman as they scrambled and clawed.
He should have died.
It was only a fool that let an enemy get on your own horse like that.
Instead, he shoved an elbow into that fucker's throat, so hard that he felt something shatter, as the spirit was pushed back, a spirit that looked like a bird grabbing it and flinging it away.
Kueli muttered the names of spirits under his breath, panting a little as they began to run down the enemy Mages in that direction, trying to clear the way.
By then, the infantry had gotten closer, with shield and spear, and were forming a wall to advance on them, hoping that they'd not be able to get through the Mages and their supporters in time.
They were probably almost right. "Fuck it! N'tono," he said, speaking to the Keeper of Names, a man from far south indeed, "horses of the dark sky!"
There was a roar, and then the man, skin darker than even the average Southlander, began to chant. Shapes formed, spirits gathered, even from halfway across the world, horses of wind and darkness, with eyes that were flaming coals, and wings that were sharp and glinted with an impossible edge. It was as if space itself were cut in two.
Harsh, difficult spirits, that could not be tamed, for all that they were horses. But they could be directed, and after the diving attacks of the other spirits, it would be a joy to unleash it on the enemy.
Down they came, and their eyes had no mercy, as they trampled soldiers in the muck, screaming as loud as they could.
Kueli hacked and hacked, as the enemy forces began to melt away, dying as fast as they ran, and he knew that there were times when he might have charged forward. Hell, Kiralo, that mad genius, would have felt it, felt whether the right move was to go forward, to take advantage of the horses that were now rearing and roaring their way towards the Hanin, leaving dozens and dozens of enemies dead in their wake, despite the other spirits of the enemy Mages trying to stop them.
But N'tono was chanting, his eyes gleaming with dark joy, and his bow sang, almost literally sang in this case, as arrow after arrow plunged into the spirits that were trying to distract the Dark Sky Horses from their task.
They were spirits without mercy, spirits that did not run as other spirits did, a weapon that was most useful among those who wouldn't know the names and kinds of spirits that would drive these back.
Muttering the name of other spirits too, spirits to fortify his body and strengthen the speed of his mount, he turned away from the fighting, still vicious and deadly.
In the last moments, in the roar of the horses, and the moments before that, more and more had died, until he couldn't count them.
Kiralo would have known.
Kueli? On the other hand? He felt it in his stomach, the fear that this was all part of another trap, that there were more Mages lurking who would hit them hard. He'd done well against the ambush.
And so they fled, fled and gathered their horses.
They rode through the night, and returned, exhausted and bloodied, about a day before the two armies would meet.
Most of them, that is. Almost eighty of them had been left behind in the charnal house of that skirmish, along with hundreds of enemy dead. And it could have gone far worse, would have if it wasn't for their magic and, Kiralo said to Kueli, who didn't believe him, Kueli's leadership.
Kueli had his pride, and he knew that mistakes happened, but Jinhai had predicted him, had set a perfect trap and come within a few quick actions of destroying the Rassit.
"He's clever, I'll give you that," Kueli spat. "And we had to leave them behind."
The horses, the bodies. They would not be buried in the Rassit way, they would not be seen over by sages and priests to commune with the spirits and send them on their way.
Kueli knew that people fucking died in war: that's why it was war.
But it stung, oh how it stung.
*****
Choose a (brief) Interlude (Choose 1)
[] Through the eyes of history.
[] Through the eyes of destiny.
[] Through the eyes of the butcher's assistant.
[] Through the eyes of the blind.
[] Through the eyes of the frail.
Kiralo's Deployment: 1d100+15 (Martial)+4 (Rassit Captain)-1 (Illness)=102
Kueli's Field-Work 1: 1d100+12+2=75
Jinhai's Countermeasures: 1d100+10+3 (Kiralo is a known man…)-6 (Lack of Proper Troops)=63
Kueli's Field-Work 2: 1d100+12+2+1 (Previous Success)=93
Jinhai's Countermeasures: 1d100+7+2 (Diverting Hanin)=72
Kueli's Field-Work 3: 1d100+12+2+2=78
Jinhai's Third Countermeasure: 1d100+12 (Martial, full)+3 (Kueli is now a known...element)+5 (Trap)=120+1d100=124, ow. You don't want to know how bad it would have been if that second, bonus roll wasn't a 4.
Fight Your Way Out:
Kueli's Leadership: 1d100+14=77
Kueli in a Fight: 1d100+13 (PC)+5 (Rassit)=95
Kueli's Leadership 2: 98
Counter-Magic: 1d100+9=56
Kueli's Bows: 1d100+18 (Martial and Rassit)=99
Counter Magic 2: 108+1d100=197
Kueli's Leadership 3: 30, decides to pull out, though the enemy is disarrayed, they could recover and his men are hard hit.
A/N: Despite the ending, this was actually a pretty successful set of raids. You did a lot more damage than you took, and yes in theory it's going to be a lot harder to get more Rassit if you stay in Csirit, at least Rassit trained up to any decent standard.
But you reaped a butcher's bill in exchange, and Jinhai's incredibly, incredibly clever attempt at trapping the Rassit. It was resource intensive, though, to say the least.
Hiding those men wasn't easy, either, which meant there was probably stealthy magic going on even before the first bolt was fired.
After the brief, short Interlude, then we'll do a few more rolls, and it'll be time for pre-battle votes.
That was a fantastic update, kept me excited throughout. It was definitely worth the cost in lives given the supply disruptions, morale issues, dead soldiers, and some of their elite units being killed given the Hanin and Mages aren't replaceable, outside of the resources Jinhai committed to planning the trap itself only to see it fail which of itself should cost him something.
"That is part of military force," Kueli said with a roll of his eyes. They were speaking in Csiritan, of course. The better not to be overheard by a spy that could understand them.
That went okay. Better than okay actually. We lost almost 10% of our Rassit, yes, but they killed far more of the Prince's troops. Losing Hanin, which are elite troops, and Mages, each of whom should be worth a good number of soldiers on their own, has got to sting. I don't think he had as many Hanin as us in the first place and with all the Mages we have assembled, our magical superiority should be even bigger now. And all the Influence points he spend on preparing this trap are wasted now. *cackle*
[] Through the eyes of history.
[] Through the eyes of destiny.
[] Through the eyes of the butcher's assistant.
[] Through the eyes of the blind.
[] Through the eyes of the frail.
Hmm, history and destiny might be a retelling of the events up till now from the point of view of a history book and the spirits respectively and the last three from the point of view from certain people. I don't really have a good idea who they are, but a few wild guesses would be: the butcher's assistant is one of our torturers, the blind is that one woman that was blinded by the officer we executed and the frail is.... Ayila? On second thought, destiny could be Ayila, since she was said to have a great destiny, and the frail could be.... our sister? Meh.
