EBII AAR: The Secret History of the Saka

[strelyat]

NOTE: This is my first AAR. I'm trying to write it in the style of an ancient epic. The name is based off of the The Secret History of the Mongols. This is the first chapter, or "book". Hope you enjoy it.

When man learned to tame the wild steppe horses
The whole land was beholden to his might
When man learned to hunt with his trusty bow
Great empires fell from the arrow’s strike.
By the charge of the Eternal Sky Lord,
Bring me the words to recite the great tale
Of how the Saka conquered the great steppes,
Subjected the decadent Yavanas,
And came to rule over all of the land.

Book I: The Struggle for Unity
From the seat of his horse, Azes gazed on
At the great army assembled by him
In the name of the Saka Rrudi
His own father, Sapalbizes the Great.
By the work of his own hands, he had brought
The feuding Saka tribes into one horde
He had decreed that the tribes were destined
To bring their authority over
All the nomads in the great endless steppes
Their armies marched from Chighu’s sweet comfort
To unite the tribes in their new homeland
Many tribesman submitted to his rule
But countless still scorned the Great Rrudi.
When winter fell over the land, Azes
Took his men and had them plunder the herds
Of enemy tribes plotting against them.
They moved swift over the frozen rivers
And seized the livestock of their deadly foes
Bearing the animals victorious
Back to the snow-swept plains of their Chighu.
The chieftain of the enemy Kangju,
Kharda the Ruthless, plotted revenge for
The foul theft of their horse, goats, and cows.
In one of their camps, known simply as Chach,
They found a Saka, known as Miyika,
Branded him a spy of the enemy,
And slew him for his evil treachery
Though there was no evidence to prove so.
Kharda, allied with Homartes of Chach,
Formed a great horde with which they would attack
The camp of fine Raudäka Aryandes.
At the break of dawn, the Kangju did strike,
The hooves of horses thundered over snow.
The Saka mustered their best fighting men
And routed the army of the Kangju!

Still those foul men were not satisfied yet,
So they gathered in the mountain passes,
And waited for brave Oxyboakes
Tall and proud, he was a true Saka man
Renowned for his fearlessness in battle.
Yet again, the Kangju were defeated,
Struck down by the folly of arrogance,
Oxyboakes, joining with his prince,
Laid siege to Chach in vengeance for their dead.
In the north, opportunistic Saka
Renounced their ties to great Sapalbizes.
Even joined with the army of Azes,
The rebellious horde was still larger.
But the loyal Saka trusted their king,
So Sapalbizes triumphed once again.
Jikhona, the traitor’s organizer,
Was put to death for his most evil deeds.
Tribal unity was restored once more
Artisans worked without fear of murder,
Forging great beauty out of their metals,
And the numbers of their herds swelled greatly.
Another people, the Sugda, allied
With the Saka, bringing their best fighters
Into their overlord’s fierce armies.
They took Antiocheia Eschate,
One of the cities the Yavanas built,
Merging into the steppe federation.
In the Saka domain, alien ways
Were blended with the nomad’s traditions
And a new way of life began to form.
At the same time, Homartes met the fate
Of his old ally Kharda in battle
The Saka slew him in the camp of Chach
And the Kangju were finally conquered.
The allied Sugda prepared for winter
On the path of the Râh-e Abrisham
When a Yavanas army from the south
Captured their camp and made slaves out of them.
The sons of the Rrudi promised their men,
“As long as Druvaspa grants our steeds speed
To chase after the cowardly slavers
And bring sweet freedom back to our tribesmen,
The Yavanas shall live in fear of us!”

[strelyat]

Book II: The Unjust Fate of Men
An army was assembled to march south,
Led by the prince Aryandes and his kin
He was soon joined by Zeionises’ men
And Oxyboakes’ skilled warriors.
When they learned where the Yavanas were camped,
They set up an ambush in the bare hills
Above the old rod to Marakanda
The army of the Yavanas marched on
Ignorant of the Saka watching them.
The battle trumpet signaled the attack,
The drums of war rolled deep like thunder’s march
The Saka rode down the grassy steppe hills
Their arrows pierced the air like birds in flight
The Yavanas walked their last on that day.
Further to the west, Sapalbizes marched
Into the lands of the Alantae tribes
Their chieftain, Asparung, learned of the horde
Massing on the edges of his clan’s land
He rode out swiftly to greet them in war
And routed the armies of the Rrudi.
Great Sapalbizes promised to return
When he could muster more Saka horsemen.
Runners brought him news of the siege upon
The haughty Baktrans of Marakanda.
He smiled and said, “Their cruelty shall be
The cause of their most desired demise.
Their people will rise up in revolt soon
This I know in the bottom of my bones.”

Seeking to strengthen the federation,
He sent out an emissary, Shafar,
To the land of the bold Mazakata
And offer them an esteemed place in the
Growing domain of the Saka Rauka.
Some of them accepted in great wisdom,
Yet others still refused the Rrudi’s reign.
The allied tribes laid siege to Bukharak
And urged the rebel leader, Urgaspa
To capitulate to the Sakas’ rule.
Poor fool, he refused to acknowledge them
Claiming that the gods were on his men’s side.
His head was soon rotting upon a pike.
This was to be the last great victory
Rrudi Sapalbizes lived to witness.
Three days after, he lay dead in his tent
The knife in his chest was of Baktran make!
The Yavanas had a great commander,
Apollodotos Agathekleious,
A veteran warrior and survivor
Of countless battles against many foes.
With Antigenes Antimachou, they
Marched to Marakanda and struck the horde.
The Saka retreated, but not for long
For Apollodotos came upon them,
Outwitted Raudäka Aryandes, who
Had just be declared Rrudi Aryandes,
And killed many of the Saka’s best men
Forcing them to flee into their own lands.
Apollodotos almost followed them
But was ordered by his king to return.
The poor warlord Aryandes was left
With a scattered camp of exhausted men.
They had been dazzled by the great city,
Tasted fine wines plundered from its vineyards,
And now they were back upon the fierce steppe,
Their beloved chieftain dead, and their new king
Beaten back by the Yavanas’ power.

[strelyat]

Book III: Shadow of the Father
The finest of Sapalbizes’ livestock
Was sacrificed during his burial
So he may enjoy them in the next world.
He wore armor made of glittering gold
Studded with gems from his recent conquests.
He was buried beneath the windswept plains
That his ancestors’ horses first grazed on.
A great stone was placed on top of his grave
To mark his eternal rest for all time.
Rrudi Aryandes was left with his father’s
Great war saddle to fill as the ruler.
He held influence over the new tribes
Incorporated into their domain,
But not over much else beyond his lands.
Worse yet, he was not a good warrior.
He struggled with tactics in the battle
And failed to inspire the men he led.
At first, his reign was blessed with one triumph:
He sent Shafar to the Pahlavân land
And won the allegiance of some tribesmen
But the war with the Yavanas worsened.
Apollodotos and the confident
Antigenes attacked Saka armies
Led by the noble but young Chastana.
When they tried to flee from the Baktrans’ might
They were pursued until they met in war
And defeat always followed afterwards.
Aryandes sacrificed to the war god
But the swords of his men killed few Baktrans.
He sought the advice of wizened elders
But Saka tribesmen continued to die.
The settled south and the steppe north
Differed more than the Saka ever thought.
Ssandramata, goddess of the earth
And fertility must have liked the south
For the farmlands were green with many crops
An emerald oasis in the dry
Barren mountains that protected Baktra.

Despite their setbacks, the Saka fought hard
They trained their boys in their nomadic camps
So when they were older, they could ride south
And avenge the cruel deaths of their fathers.
In the royal camp, Aryandes plotted
To launch a great, victorious campaign
But Apollodotos never fought
When the sun, Urmaysde, shone so brightly
He fought in the dead of the bitter night
Taking advantage of the horde’s blindness
When the sun sunk below the mountains.
Yet not all of the Yavanas were pleased
With the man who called himself their chieftain
Part of the Baktran army revolted
And set siege to their kingdom’s capital
But when word came that Apollodotos
Would take his army south and slaughter them
They fled for the distant hills and caverns
Taking their food and water by sword-point
From the poor and desperate farming men.
A scout force of the Baktran king found them,
Lured them out of their hiding and into
A carefully orchestrated ambush.
Soundly defeated, the rebel Baktrans
Fled north to the Saka federation.
They were warmly received by the nomads
Yet the Saka could not help but laugh when
The Yavanas swore to serve the Rrudi
They were pledging their lives to a duffer.

[strelyat]

Book IV: A Turn of Fate
Apollodotos was disgusted by
The poor treatment of his fellow soldiers
At the hands of the cruel Baktran ruler.
He begged the king to pardon the traitors,
But he refused to forgive the rebels.
“They are cowards, the whole lot of those pigs
Let them live alongside the barbaroi!”
Now, among the Yavanas of Baktra,
There were those from the land of Makedon,
Those who hailed from the faraway Hellas,
And the children of settlers and natives.
Those Baktrans are called Heterogenes
And Apollodotos was one of them.
He knew that most of the rebel Baktrans
Were either native or not of pure blood.
Indeed, he was looked down upon those
Who could claim pure Yavanas ancestry.
He was furious that the king could call
His very own countrymen barbaroi.
Apollodotos suddenly recalled
The words of the Makedon king known as
Megas Alexandros to the Baktrans,
The ruler that conquered the Chorsari:
“Every bad Yavanas is barbaroi;
Every good barbaroi is Yavanas.”
He went to the tent of Antigenes
And told him his dangerous intentions.
In the morning, they told their soldiers that
They would no longer serve their brutal king.
Instead of protecting Marakanda
From the reach of marauding Saka hordes
They marched on the city and laid a siege.
When it fell to the might of their swordsmen
They proclaimed allegiance to Aryandes.

Rebellious Baktrans plundered the farms
Of noblemen that supported the king.
The city of Baktra itself soon fell
To the Yavanas serving the Rrudi.
Soon, taxes on caravans filled coffers
Of the Saka with fine gold and silver.
The riches of the east flowed through their lands.
At the orders of Rrudi Aryandes
The emissary Shafar traveled west
Across the kingdoms of the Yavanas
To a nation set high in the mountains
Called by its hardy people Hayasdan.
An alliance was promptly formed
Between the wise Arkah and the Rrudi.
The latter, proud of his recent conquests
(Which were all earned by the blood of Baktrans)
Sought to subdue the tough Huwarazmish
But was pushed back in the western deserts.
Never did the head of the royal camp
Consider that he was no soldier king.
When Apollodotos, now bearing the
Banner of the Saka horde, assaulted
Oskobara, the last Baktran foothold,
Took the city and killed the evil king,
Aryandes claimed the hard work was all his.
He sneered at the foreign deities that
His new general thanked for his success
Saying, “Who is this most strange Artemis
Or Anahita, or Athena, or
Any other god you sacrifice to?”
From that day to the end of his days,
His wife would not carry another child.

[strelyat]

Book V: The Growth of an Empire
Apollodotos and Antigenes
Joined with Raudäka Oxyboakes
And went on campaign against the hordes of
Pidan the Slothful and Vanaspara
Both kings of the Haomavarga tribe
And vanquished them on the great battlefield.
They soon set siege to the tribe’s camp, Oyrta,
Kept at bay only by a wooden wall.
In the western deserts, Aryandes, his
Brother Zeionises, and Chastana,
A confident young man seeking to prove
His worth not only in eagle hunting,
But in commanding a great Saka horde,
Assembled a mighty army with which
They would march of the city of Khiva
Belonging to the Huwarazmish tribe
The locals prayed to their favorite god,
Known in their tongue as Ahura Mazda,
To banish the mighty nomadic force.
But the Saka host triumphed in the end,
Just as Oxyboakes took Oyrta.
Still the Saka were not content with their
New conquests, for Apollodotos soon
Brought his great army to Orthospana
And took it from the Uparisena.
The nomads’ herds swelled larger than ever,
For now they had far more lands to graze in.
The elite flaunted their newfound riches
Filling their simple food with rare spices
Looted from distant eastern settlements,
And sharing war stories of distant lands,
Of Haoma drinkers and Yavanas.
Oxyboakes continued to fight,
Now against the eastern Yuezhi nomads,
Winning countless battles against that tribe.
But the Saka were not the only ones
Whose herds grazed upon the mighty steppe lands.
The Pahlavâns watched the expansion of their
Deadly northern neighbors with great concern.
When a Saka tribe strayed into their realm,
They attacked them and killed their warriors.

At this time, Aryandes had marched northwards
To conquer the tribe of the Alantae.
Their chieftain, Tsaegaer, defeated him,
Pushing him back to the western deserts.
The news of the attack came days later
As the Rrudi brought his army along
The ancient caravan routes of traders.
“This grave offense shall not be forgotten,”
The warlord proclaimed to his warriors,
“If they want to wage war, they shall have it.”
He planned to lead the invasion army,
But an unexpected illness struck him,
So young Chastana commanded his horde,
While Aryandes brooded alone, stuck in
Khiva, the town of the western wastelands.
Chastana was twice the warlord he was,
And defeated a Pahlavân army
Led by swift Varâzdad ê Dahâën.
While the Rrudi recovered, his brother
Zeionises marched on the Alantae,
Even besieging Gava-Alanna.
When he became well, he rushed north to fight,
But an Alantae war band beat him first.
Ashamed by his countless defeats, he went
Back to Khiva, never again planning
To lead a horde onto the battlefield.
That would be the work of his brothers, his
Yavanas generals, and his children.

[strelyat]

NOTE: This may be one of my last posts for a while. Hopefully, I'll find the time this fall to continue.

Book VI: A Son of Convenience
After a season of siege, the Saka
Launched their attack upon Orthospana.
The Uparisena leader, known as
Yazdâbân, sallied forth from the city
But the forces of Apollodotos
Swarmed his army and crushed it utterly.
The Saka horsemen sacked Orthospana,
Focusing their destruction on the shrine
Of Dionysos, who was worshipped much
Throughout Baktra and neighboring kingdoms.
The gold and silver of the temple was
Carried north by victorious nomads
And the wealth found its way to tax coffers.
Now the Saka could afford a full war
Against the kingdom of the Pahlavâns.
A nomad horde soon surrounded the town
Of Antiocheia Margiane.
The ranks of this army was bolstered by
Veterans who had fought in the mountains
And eastern deserts against the Yuezhi.
They were proud of their recent victory
Against the chieftain called Hippostratos.
His rotting body now dangled from the
Wooden palisades of Yuezhi Sulek.
Chastana was sent to the settlement
But a Pahlavân force intercepted
His army and routed the Saka horde.
The commanders of the enemy host,
Were confident Hârâsp ê Dahâën
And the veteran warrior Dârmân
Also from the Dahae federation.
They marched to their kingdom’s besieged city
And drove the Saka army from that place.
Fortunately, Zeionises managed
To defeat the headstrong Alantae tribes
And slay their chieftain, Asparung, with aid
From Alantae who pledged fealty to the
Growing nomadic confederation.
Now Zeionises could march south to fight
The Pahlavâns in their own grazing lands.

Apollodotos continued to win
Countless battles into the former realms
Of the once mighty Chorsari empire
This time assaulting the Haravautish,
Victoriously slaying Dorushâb,
Their king, while his army fled from battle.
Their new ruler, Tirâvand, fortified
Alexandropolis against the horde
Looming closer on the horizon line.
From the governor’s palace of Khiva,
Aryandes was pleased at his expanding
Kingdom, but feared the influence of the
Popular victor Apollodotos.
He filled his quarters with loyal soldiers,
Oversaw the administration of
His expanding empire, to ensure that
No disloyal wrench would try to rebel.
The former Khivan satrapal palace
Was outfitted with new stone taken
From the buildings of conquered regions, so
All in Khiva could know who was Rrudi.
When he received word that the Baktran had
Taken Alexandropolis and killed
The notorious Yavanas warlord
Nessos Apamenes Syriakos,
He thought, “It is better to have this man
Close to my side at all times than far off
Plotting some nefarious stratagem
Against my rule. Should he try to kill me
Then I may learn of his scheme beforehand
If his manservants are available
A couple of coins can buy any man.”
He declared that he now regarded the
Baktran as his very own son, and found
A noble Saka family loyal
To his rule willing to give their fair daughter,
Pishpasia, to Apollodotos.
Should he try to betray the King of Kings
The Saka Rauka would hunt that swine down.
The Baktran was honored by the offer.
With great felicity, the Yavanas
And the fair Saka maiden were married.