Vakis

Well, I've been quite poor about keeping this updated already, and I've only just started!  Here's a second little bit from the same world.  There's a short bit which I suppose I'll put up next which describes the armour which the protagonist of this section is wearing.  I'm all about me descriptions of things which no one else cares about.  And arming scenes, which also no one cares about.  I need to write a catalog of ships or something like that sometime.  That'll surely get me literary acclaim.

Vikas was one of the Princeps’ Daughter’s Twenty, twenty of his personal Agema tasked with her wellbeing—at any means.  War had come to the capital, and he sought to send her away, somewhere safer.  He had sent her to one of his most trusted lieutenants, the governor of a Satrapy not touched by the lashing tongue of war.  It was only the twenty of them and a few wagons being pulled, her coach and her slaves.  Some of her friends had come as well, adding another lumbering wagon to the caravan.

Within a days ride of the provincial capital, they spotted soldiers of the Satrapy.  It seemed at first a welcome sight, but as they got closer it seemed wrong.  Vikas couldn't tell why at first, he could just feel it in his gut, but as they got closer it began to sink in.  The men marching towards them were of the Satrapy, but they were far too numerous, and they were marching.  This was no honour guard meant to safely see them in, but hundreds of infantrymen with a handful of cavalry at their head.  Was the danger in the area greater than they had known, or had something else transpired?

As they drew nearer the infantry began to leave their marching order and form up, a worrisome sign, but it gave Vikas a better appraisal of what stood across from him.  There were at least five or six hundred, vastly outnumbering their twenty, but they were local recruits with local armaments.  A good two-thirds of them held only a wicker shield and spear no longer than they were tall.  The rest appeared mostly to be archers.  None of them wore armour.  None of them except for the few horsemen to their front, also armed in a local style, but the stylings of the local nobility.  They were almost completely covered in bronze scale, including the front half of their mounts, just as the Agema’s horses were armoured.

One of them rode forward, accompanied with a standard bearer, a golden dragon’s head with a tube of silk attached to it, billowing in the wind.  A worrisome sign.  Vikas rode forth as well to meet this man, accompanied with a standard bearer as well, but his was merely a coloured banner hanging from his lance, emblazoned with a sigil of the Princeps’ family.  The man across from him had dark skin and darker hair, a flowing moustache punctuating his face.  He looked like he would have been proud of it.  Above all, he looked proud.  When he opened his mouth he did nothing but confirm this suspicion.  “Release the woman and all else can leave.”  His accent was thick and guttural, clearly not his first language.  Vikas would play this man like a harp.

“Only a coward would ask that of us.  Are you a coward?”  He was free to snicker, his mask concealing all emotion, all intention.  It was part of the reason they wore these masks of iron.

“Coward?”  The great and noble lord of obviously incredulous.  “My father and his before him were great warriors!  I could squash you if I like!  I was told to kill only if I have to.  I would be more than happy to do so!”

“A warrior, a man, a man such as yourself is sucking the cock of another?  Stand aside before you hurt your powdered cheeks.”

The man was red with anger and wheeled his horse around, back to his standard bearer who handed over a lance, grabbing it greedily and whipping his horse around, breaking into a gallop instantly.  Vakis carried his own lance, and so all he had to do was urge the pointed heels of his boots into the flanks of his mount and started off.  They came upon each other in almost an instant, both grasping their lance with both hands, spearhead pointed straight at one another’s chests.  Vakis had no interest in dying this day and deftly flicked his lance back and forth, knocking his opponents lance aside as intended, but was unable to bring his back in time, so rather than impaling his opponent, he was only able to bring the shaft down upon his shoulder, unhorsing him.  His helmet and scale aventail spun off and landed in the wild grass after its wearer had already noisily struck the ground.

Vikas angled his lance downwards and thrusted, making effort to kill his grounded opponent, but he had rolled too quickly to the side and pushed himself to his feet whilst drawing his blade.  He shouted something in his native tongue, and judging by the near uniform movement of the forces arrayed against them Vikas assumed it was some manner of command to attack.

Vikas responded in kind, shouting backwards, “To me!” as he thrust his lance up into the air.  He was no longer concerned with the grounded, bewildered man.  The Twenty rode up and joined with him, forming a wedge as they headed towards the mass of infantry, Vikas forming the point.  One of the Agema impaled the man as they rode up, the lance stuck in his standing corpse, quickly falling to the Earth.  They charged into the center of the mass of infantry, who to their credit stood their ground.  However, their spears were much shorter than lances, and their wicker shields did nothing to stop their impetus.  Within naught but an instant dozens were left dead, either impaled or trampled.  Vakis himself skewered three men upon his lance all at once before their weight ripped the lance sharply from his hands.

He drew his Kopis and reformed the Twenty to charge again.  He was not the only one to have lost his lance, but his men knew what to do.  Those with lances still took the first rank, one of them handing theirs to Vakis such that he could lead the way.  They crashed back into the infantry, killing dozens more.  Within such a short instance of time, these twenty men had killed a hundred of more.  Vakis knew this would happen, and had hoped that it would break their spirit, their will to fight, and cause them all to flee.  No such luck.

The archers seemed to have strung their bows and begun to loose arrows.  They were most vulnerable together and unmoving, so he quickly set to work, dividing his men in half, sending them back against the enemy.  He lost his second lance, this one breaking as it lodged its head into a man’s hipbone.  He drew his blade for another charge, but amidst the enemy his horse lurched and flung to the side, crashing to the ground and flinging him from it.  His compatriots leapt over him, giving him respite from the enemy whilst he lay on the ground.  His whole body singed with pain and his ears ringing, he struggled to his feet and quickly eyed his horse, seeing a spear in its belly entrails leaking out.

He had little time to mourn his steed, for soon the enemy foot was upon him.  A spearman lunged at him, but the Agema parried it and sliced straight through his wicker shield, severing his arm.  Another slice took off his head.  The rest were instantly more hesitant, and Vakis did not give them the luxury of the attack.  He grabbed a man’s spear by the shaft and pulled him in, chopping down through the clavicle, killing him instantly.  As he started against the others, they took a step back, each one clearly not wanting to face him next.

It was then that out of the corner of this eye that he spotted motion.  The masks’ greatest weakness was its lack of peripheral vision, and here it would seem to show why.  One of the armoured horsemen galloped towards him.  Vakis had no time to react; a blade came clashing into the side of his face.