Of Mail and Men

[gamegeek2]

Chapter V: When Scale meets Spear: The Conquest of the Indo-Hellenes

260 BC - Paropamisadai

For many weeks I have rode below these mountains, along with our conglomerate of Parsigan, Saka, Daha, and Subeshi. The hoof-beat of our steeds barely make tracks in the hard mud anymore, so little their opportunity to eat has been. I thought that these mountains might have some food; perhaps they all died from some sort of Hellene disease. All I know is, we have a city ahead of us, and we must follow the path beaten out by scouts' hooves.

...several weeks later...

At last, we have forded and reached the great river. And the city lies in front of us; our spy tells that their forces are superior in number, but weaker in valor and skill. Pah! Let them come at us. We can wait until they starve, and when they come forth they will be weaker and not many of us will die. If they attack sooner, the sooner the city gets a new ruler. How can we lose?

The answer is, we couldn't. And didn't either:





(green arrows are intentional in the latter. forget whose archers those are...)

Our years of training had finally begun to show. We crashed into the enemy horsemen, routing them while our archers shot their 'phalangitai' from all sides. To hold the pikemen in place, our archers set up an anvil while we hammered from behind.



Such a tactic was employed against another pike phalanx, but those pikemen did not flee instantly; their commander was in that very unit. The brave footmen turned to face us, determined Hellenic looks in their faces as they thrusted their weapons at our mounts. Though we were among them with our kontoi, they still managed to kill many men. We broke of and re-mounted the charge, losing a few but killing 20 or so and losing 5 more before killing the general and causing the phalanx to run.

Our other horsemen effectively dealt with their share of enemies:



Their standards torn by arrows, they decided that their lives were better than their honor. Not that it mattered; they died anyways...

We decided that they deserved to live. There was to be no huge slaughter like in Pahlava, the home of those determined purple bastards. Here, at least, good men (and women) lived and deserved to continue that way.

255 - Plains of Gandhara

I actually miss Kophen. It was so nice there; everyone, Sindi, Hellene, Daha, Parsig, and Saka got along and profited together. Andronikos himself took himself, his merchant business, and our two children there as soon as a 'royal eye'/client ruler was established there. Hopefully little Alexandros and Artemis (or 'Hita' as her friends call her; it's her Parsig nickname, apparently after a goddess who mirrors the Hellene 'moon-maiden') have taken to riding as well as a proper Hellene education (Hita just learns from Alexandros, since the Hellene schoolmaster won't let her go there).

My late father, who died at the same time as his charge, the Hina-Bayai, was right about war after all. There was no water in sight, and our only meat was what we shot and the occasional dead horse. For days we trudged on through the desert, and our horses once again failed to make tracks in the dirt. This land was supposed to be full of rivers; where was the water? The great farmland? The mines of sacred metal?

Then, on the Horizon, a river! We ran towards it, ignoring our exhausted and sweating bodies, crying out for rest; we were blind to the great walls far closer to us. Only when the water was blocked off by Hindi guards did we have to retreat and make camp. We fell asleep as dusk was setting, our exhaustion was so great.

Thankfully, it rained that night - we woke to the feel on our faces, as we fell asleep on the ground - and by moonlight we celebrated, bringing out our dusty cups and setting them in the ground while we prayed to the gods. Fully rested, we celebrated, in the most rowdy and loud ways we could - I swear the enemy king woke up and could not sleep. The same may have been true for many a man in the great city, Taxila. Our spy took the opportunity to inform us that the enemy host was twice our size, and featured bows as tall as a man, beasts as tall as a tower (and five times as deadly to boot!), and swords so great they were wielded in two hands. He also handed us the king's plan - to attack after breakfast.

As the sun rose, we adorned our bodies with oil and exercised in the nude to warm ourselves up for the inevitable clash that would occur that day. Our fortune was not infinite - our commander was suffering from voice-loss and I had to give all verbal commands, translated from hand signals. But I had to give the rallying speech on my own. When their great gates slowly began to open, the commander nodded. I rode forward, and turned around, not knowing what to say. Then I noticed that the rain was fading to a drizzle. Hmm...


(I ended up fighting mainly with my lance, though)

"As all of you notice, it is raining. Well, for us, it's raining water, and we savor every drop of it, and fully deserve it after ours and our horses' legs' toil in the desert. Do you not agree?" Strangely, the men cheered at my pathetic improvisation; perhaps...



"But what will it rain for our foes, the Hindus who cower behind those walls until their master's prod comes along to drive those asses into battle? The enemy, who enjoy every luxury from the Dzin to Hellas? What will rain on our foe today? I have consulted the weather-man and the astrologer, but neither can foresee what will rain on them. But I am sure a warrior can..." I yielded to a chant of "Arrows, Arrows!" and caught my breath.

"It seems they have 100 horsemen behind those facades. Well, I suppose that means we out number them by our number to 100. My friend here, our spy [name withheld for obvious reasons], says that their warriors are townsfolk who are given arms (and maybe armor) and told to pray to Siva before heading to battle!" Our spy nodded in agreement.

"Exactly. So that leaves only the 100 horses, and they have 100 warriors. Hmm..." I said in mock thought. Everyone chuckled.

"I suppose we don't need a lesson on how to herd sheep. What I will tell you is that, despite their obvious inferiority, they will cower behind shields. Even their 2-handed swordsmen have shields strapped to their arms. So treat your arrows like the water you bring on campaign; don't waste them when it won't help at all. Like your water, the arrows will be depleted; but do not despair. We made it to this city when we were parched of the liquid; we will win this battle, even if we run out of missiles. Trust the bow and the spear, and they will guide you to our inevitable victory!"

At that point, men erupted from the stone facade and spilled onto the field like a stream into an empty basin; spreading quickly and wherever possible.



Then their captains ordered them into good columns, but some impetuous fools charged at us and were quickly dispatched (like the above peltastai). After their example, their archers marched forward to provide covering fire, but we didn't by it; the Parsigan marched and gave them arrow for arrow, while we massacred their spearmen. An entire unit disappeared under our fire; many others suffered the same fate.



500 dead in less than half that time in seconds. Such things remind one of the cruelty of war. The drizzle clinked off of the Aysiramja's (my unit's) and Hoplitai's scaled, and steam rose from our mouths. The enemy (by now a simple horde due to the confusion) smashed into the infantry's scale and spears, but the line held fast in its shieldwall. Their levies were simply stalling and weakening our line. At this they did well; our men suffered minimal casualties but were exhausted of their energy quickly as the levies' superior numbers allowed them to slowly flank the shieldwall. However, the enemy swordsmen moved in early, so my unit was able to ride around to their flanks (rear for some of them) and charge...



...and again...


And again... you get the idea. Some of the spearmen broke, and were shot down. But those swordsmen refused to yield; were they true warriors, or had they had one too many?

Then the terrible beasts came. The tower-tall ones the spy had described. Their skin was like three layers of leather, and they had horns where a moustache normally goes and a snake for a nose. Upon them rode archers in "towers" of sorts. Slings, we decided, would be best against these beasts; at least the beasts would feel them, and some bones might be broken...

And they did. When our stones met the beasts, they let forth shrill blasts out of their snake-noses. They scared away our hoplitai and caused them to rout (I didn't blame them) and caught us charging some swordsmen. We stabbed them in the belly and legs, killing or KO'ing several, but we had to withdraw; 10 were left, and two more were killed by arrows. I was one of the lucky ones...

...then...

95
(sorry, I shot a teeny bit late)

Their king fell from his beast, struck by a stone, and his 'elephantas' fell with him, crushing him to death. For a moment there, I felt remorse. Then, I yelled at the others: "Look, you fools, he's dead! Their leader is dead!" Not only that, the beasts were running through their own ranks, trampling and killing those who were unfortunate enough to meet the soles of the elephantes' feet. We added to the chaos with slings, and only one elephantas was left, and it was a full li away by that time.

Many of the routing men recovered in the streets and launched a brave, but feeble assault and were beaten back with almost no survivors. They simply painted their walls' arrow-torn standards white. A good idea.