[BC AAR] Sons of the Steppe COMPLETED
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Tegin's Gambit
A filthy scroll lay on the table, spattered with mud stains and flecked with bits of dirt. Worthless. He had paid three purses of gold for that. Yes, he had gotten his gold back. But it was covered in the gore of the messenger he had originally entrusted it to. Red gold. It might as well have been piss. He had wanted news from the rich lands to the south, perhaps a military report, how united the farmers were, how united they would be in the event of an attack?
But the idiot had gone too far south.
Well, maybe it was a good idiot. He had not hidden or spent the gold on the way down. He had waited months for this report, months that could have been spent fighting instead of standing idly in the camp. The only interesting piece of information (and that was stretching the word) was that some southern cur had lost his throne to a usurper.
Tegin raised his finger and a towering infantryman dutifully cleared the makeshift table of its gory decoration. It would not do to have human hearts out when one was about to eat. But just one matter to clear up...
The minute he had sat down at the campfire, swathed in a blanket and attended by a hook nosed cavalryman, he knew that he had no more time. Tegin Savalat marched on Caffa. The messenger...he had been a mistake.
But, fate grasped him by the throat.
"What about the other men, great one?" asked hook nose.
Tegin stopped in his tracks, the blanket half on and half off of his shoulders.
"May they go to hell!" he fumed, throwing the blanket into the mud and stalking away to his horse.
The men had to stay. They hadn't gotten any orders. The great khan would order them impaled for going, even if it meant the death of one of his sons. Bewildered, only the personal guard of Tegin followed him west.
It wasn't a promising start to the great campaign Khan Konchak had envisioned. But it was a start nonetheless. Caffa could in no way be said to have been impregnable. The only defense it had from intruders was a wooden palisade and two watchtowers. Tegin hoped to hide in the woods near the city and storm the gates at night. Fate choked his hopes yet again.
The citizens of Caffa, merchants and hagglers as they were, had armed themselves. The small advantage Tegin had with surprise was gone. But what could such a rabble do to a score of armored warriors in their prime?
Tegin had not counted on the Slavic mercenaries. They had come from the south, the north, and the west, pouring in from all directions, clamoring for work and land. Clamoring for a home. Armed with solid spears and clad in mail, they presented a serious threat to the Kypchak cavalry. Would they be frightened? Gods, no! They had sworn blood vows to the khan and his family, and another oath of personal allegiance to Tegin himself. Even if the dreadful helms had been stripped from their heads, nothing would be seen but a faceless determination to kill.
The most fearsome warrior will fall, and the stoutest oak can be felled by the smallest axe. So it was that three horsemen were felled by javelins that day. Tegin was forced to retreat, outnumbered more than six to one. But he did not leave the region. Erecting a small camp in the nearby forest, he brooded over the loss and prepared anew.
He took another look at the city. Caffa. It was rich. very rich, if it could afford the rapacious taste of its mercenaries. He needed the money. And he would get it if he had to kill every last man in that town. He didn't want servants and he didn't want slaves. He wanted land to call his own, land that he did not have to pay taxes on, land sufficiently far enough from Konchak. Land for his own sons.
A pleasant breeze flowed in from the south.
The Fall
Gold. Red. Green. Dirt. Painted hide stretched across the wooden surface of the shield until it almost popped. It wasn't a very good shield, and as the bow-legged Kypchak pulled back the bowstring, Tegin saw it splinter even before the arrow struck.
Three days. Three days had passed like this, the inhabitants of the town sallying out against him and scampering back to the walls. More than half of the Slavic mercenaries had been slain. Tegin knew that his men targeted these men first. He didn't care. If Khan Konchak himself stood between them and the town, he would be dead. But it didn't matter how many were shot down now.
They had run out of arrows.
Twenty cavalrymen, counting Tegin himself, stood against five score spearmen with nothing but their sabres in hand.
What else was there to do?
It was a bloody day, and in his mind Tegin saw the heart of the messenger on the table again. But this time, the heart was of solid gold and it bled mead.
Very few of the original population of Caffa survived the Kypchak pillage, but after a week it was back to normal. Well, almost normal. Nine out of every ten people in the settlement were now Kypchak. News of the sack had spread like wildfire, and Khan Konchak was impressed.
Tegin had orders now. Gather troops from Aqmesqit, and march west.
Kursk
Tegin had gathered troops from Aqmesqit, taking them along with his own men. The snow was a mild irritant and the horses were fit for war. Riding beside him was hook nose, gripping his saber in his fist. They were getting farther and farther from home. That is, if they now called Caffa home. And the further that they went, the more in danger they were of attacks by bands of Slavic raiders. Even if they had taken more arrows, the abundance of forests in the area neutralized their effectiveness. Perhaps Tegin should have ordered some pitch prepared?
But when they got to the local stronghold, they found it poorly garrisoned. Caffa had been stronger than this grod, or whatever the Slavs called their dwellings. Tegin did not care for their language. He cared for their homes. He cared so much for their well being that he wanted to take care of them himself. The Slavs were immediately encircled.
And what did the fools do? Tegin knew that there was a large Slav presence in the region and that they would, without a doubt, come to aid their compatriots. If he was forced to storm the town, he would either lose the battle or lose too many men. But the headstrong Slavs issued forth from their stronghold, under a rain of arrows.
There was little order in the Slavic ranks. Swordsmen, spearmen, and cavalry advanced in one mass. Men tripped over each other and there was much confusion. Meanwhile, the Kypchak archers coolly dispatched their foes.
But the numbers of men on each side were still even. The Slavic cavalry was the first to reach Tegin's position, and he risked losing his mounted auxilia. He had nothing else to do and charged his bodyguard of picked warriors straight at the enemy cavalry. The Slavs, seeing him tied up in melee, sent more men towards the center of the field. The fighting was brutal, but the Kypchaks stood firm.
Not all of the enemy were spent in fighting Tegin's men. A small detachment of them were still pursuing the light cavalry across the plains. Despite their fleetness of foot, they could do nothing to catch the archers and they were slain to the man.
To Tegin's amazement, the remaining Slavs broke and ran. Seeing that his men were tired, he did not pursue them. Their sword arms had seen enough bloodshed that day. Instead, he ordered his reserves to shoot them down.
Kursk was his.
Kiev
Konchak. That damned busybody was riding his fat behind as fast as he could in Tegin's tracks. Hearing of his fame, Konchak naturally wanted some of the booty.
He wouldn't get any of it. And in the event that he did get it, Tegin had a plan.
Keep sacking. Keep conquering. Keep killing. And when his men went from young boys with homemade bows to hardened veterans, Konchak himself would be the one to die. But first, concessions had to be made.
The Slavs of Kiev were powerful, and it appeared that a direct assault on their walls would fail dismally. Tegin had to be diplomatic.
But as he rode up to the city walls, he felt something...wrong. The Slavs didn't want to bargain. They had tried to ambush him. It was now that Tegin felt wise. He had intended to slaughter them once he was inside the city. But now, he had a pretext to do so.
The Kievan cavalry was surprised by the barrage of arrows Tegin's men loosed at them. They had expected to catch the Kypchaks off guard. It was only a matter of minutes before the confused enemy was slaughtered. The one gate into the city was now blocked by heaps of dead horses and their riders.
Now, in a moment of uncannily bad timing, the infantry emerged from the bushes. Isolated from their city walls, they had no choice but to break and run for the gate.
Where Tegin was waiting.
Now that the citizens of Kiev were suitably pacified, Tegin took everything of value and made his way south with the main body of the Kypchak army. He hoped to meet his army with Konchak's, and from there, push south until they met either ocean or death.
The Romans
Tegin and his great army now marched south. Coming upon the land of the Bulgar tribes, they found themselves on a remarkably paved road. It was strange....there were fewer towns and villages than Tegin remembered. And the one town that they did pass had a strange banner on its ramparts. A silk banner.
Romans.
Tegin marched as fast as he could, out of the province that was formerly Bulgar. It seemed that they had been crushed by superior forces. If the Romans could destroy them, they could just as well turn on the Kypchaks.
But of course, anything could be turned to one's advantage. Konchak was travelling alone, and he was an idiot. Perhaps he could make these Romans his allies? Perhaps he could even wage war against Konchak with their help? The Roman capital was not far off. He could travel there and offer many things in return for this alliance. Kypchak blades were sought after. Tegin smiled in the saddle.
But this smile was cut short by the lanky hook nose.
There was no capital. It had rebelled in the Emperor's absence. The Emperor had been away campaigning against the Bulgars.
Tegin grasped fate like he had grasped the saddle as a boy. He would simply have to take the city.
Meanwhile Konchak had taken a small fort on the coast and was following Tegin's footsteps. Coming upon the camp of the Romans and the corpses of the Bulgars, his former allies, Konchak was greatly angered and decided to teach these Romans a lesson.
His luck was extraordinary, for the entire Roman army was in the forest, pillaging the last Bulgar towns. The only men in the fort were the Roman emperor and his bodyguard.
It was a quick but brutal battle, the heavy armor of the enemy deflecting many arrows. But the slashing sabres of his horsemen began to tell, and the enemy were slaughtered to the last man.
Konchak rode into the Roman camp.
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