On The History of the Empire of Azadora – A Treatise
By: Mary Elizabeth Browning
Translated by Lyriel Elhana
While lacking the formal training of her older brother, the new empress set about fixing the situation her brother had put the nation in. The first order of business was the beginning of an aggressive ship-building campaign centered on the southern coast.
She then set about training and equipping two additional Legions while also unshackling the Legion remaining in Azora from policing duties. To accomplish this she met individually with each local county and helped enable them to begin the process of raising their own security forces which would be trained by the new Guard Corp she’d created in Bastion.
The two new Legions she had created were quickly branded the “Dead Legions” by many in the public as they were made up of women who had never had a place in the military or administration at any level and were widely considered suicide soldiers. Laura moved the portion of the Legion still fighting against the Vampire incursion out of Brieland, reforming it and sending it north to deal with the tribal uprising in Sarland, while leaving the hastily formed guards on patrol in each of the cities in Brieland.
By Quilintius of IY 60 the vast Altairan navy set sail from Torgues toward Azora with 30,000 troops split amongst the nearly 200 ships of the Altairan armada. By contrast the Empire was able to muster only 40 warships and 30 additional large leviathan boats converted for military service. Fortune smiled on the Empire as the Altairan armada was blown widely off course by a sudden gale which came from the Western Sea, pushing many of the ships into the Phaedithia Islands to the southwest where they were subsequently damaged by the remains of the Phaedithian Empire’s towers and buildings jutting up from the bottom of the seabed following The Collapse. Of the 200 ships which were blown into the islands only 90 managed to make it back out of the archipelago, many of them heavily damaged.
Seeing little choice, the Altairans set course back toward Torgues to repair and resupply. Fate was cruel once again to the Altairans as a storm once more engulfed their rapidly dwindling armada. By the time the winds had ceased most of the remaining 60 ships were dead in the water, their sails hopelessly shredded, many of their rudders badly damaged. As the men remaining on the ships were in the midst of desperate repairs the Azadoran ships descended on them.
Sending several dozen small fishing vessels first filled with sulfur these fireships were lit on fire from a distance using flaming ballista. The suddenly wildly burning vessels bearing down on them sowed confusion and fear in the Altairan fleet, though the damage was minimal, the cohesive formation was shattered, leaving individual ships who could make sail fleeing in all directions: easy pickings for the Azadoran navy.
The ships left fought bitterly against the inevitable but were far too damaged to be of much use. Their superior armor and weaponry didn’t matter when they couldn’t maneuver. After nearly three days of pitched battle the remains of the Altairan navy were able to flee in a thick fog. The fleet of 18 vessels and barely 2,000 men which managed to limp back into port at Torgues was a shell of its former self. The colossal failure nearly broke the back of the Altairan economy and directly led to their loss of the Eastern Verdantland to Carletane in the ensuing war between the two nations.
Meanwhile the warships which had been built turned northwest and began to strike at the coastal cities of the Western Isles, destroying many of their buildings with the ballista. The first Dead Legion exited training and was immediately sent to the Western Isles to assist the bogged down legions still fighting. Landing north of the current Legion positions near the native village of Banhill, the Legion officially designated Legio XIII Mortuus made quick work of the local villages and fought a lightning campaign arcing north, then west and then south, meeting up with the other legions trapped in the Central Stormlands.
Breaking the northern lines of the Western Tribes proved a devastating blow as High Chief Mannion was amongst the numbers killed by the 13th Legion. The sudden death of the High Chief threw the tribes into disarray and by the time the weather settled in Juenelius of the following year the Legions found themselves on the move once again, their supply lines unthreatened in the resulting leaderless confusion.
Meanwhile the 14th Legion, designated Legio XIV Exanimus had finished its training and was marching to join the fight in the north of Sarland. The back of the rebellion was quickly broken as both legions in the area quickly rounded up and put to the sword the leaders of the rebellion. By the time the two legions marched south once more toward Brieland in Octinilius of that year Sarland was quiet once more and the legions themselves were hardened veterans.
While victory was not quick, on 31 Quilintius IY 67 the remaining tribes on the Western Isles surrendered and the land became Imperial. While the vampires in Brieland would continue the fight until the Sanguine Accords in IY 1443 they would do so in fits and starts from the ruins of the ancient Brielander forts strewn throughout the south of Brieland in Wasren, living like animals amidst the crumbling walls and towers of the inhospitable region.
Unfortunately for Empress Laura, her success drew unwanted attention and on 9 Undecembrius IY 68 word began to spread that the former Emperor was returning to the throne he had abandoned 9 years prior. Empress Laura was not shocked when most of her closest advisors recommended abdicating her throne in favor of her brother. The news Ashton had secured not only the support of the King of Oskea but also the support of Altair and, more importantly, Carletane sent shockwaves through the Empire.
On 12 Octinilius IY 67 Ashton landed north of Greystone in Central Sarland at the head of 10,000 Oskean soldiers and nearly 200 Lycans led by their Alpha Leiknir Bergen the Lycans fled the Northern Wastes in the wake of the eruption of the Volcano Roggsfjall and were quickly welcomed into Oskean lands provided they lend their strength to Ashton’s campaign. With the promise of new lands to call their own, Leiknir quickly found ample volunteers among his people.
A small force of Altairan troops, some 500 strong landed west of Duskgate and began the march toward the town of Camfort in the lush Greenlands of central Azora. Meanwhile, a larger force of 30,000 Carletane troops landed on the eastern shores of Azora near the village of Mullinlow and began to march west to meet up with the Altairan troops to await Ashton’s southern march.
Meanwhile the disarray in the legion culminated in a great betrayal as thousands of Legionnaires defected to Ashton’s side and marched from their bases to join the growing rebellion. Only the quick thinking of the palace maids prevented the assassination of empress Laura by her ministers. With the help of the intrepid maids the empress escaped the castle with her young daughter Jessica and fled to the safety of the Legio XIII Mortuus fortress at the current site of the Imperial retreat of Edgemoor.
With the empress no longer in the city and the majority of ministers in open revolt, Bastion was sent into chaos. Riots broke out in the streets and open revolt by many of the citizens was met with scores of loyalists so that battle was waged in the streets. The empress quickly organized a new council of loyalists and marched from Edgemoor at the head of Legio XIII toward Bastion. Met outside the walls by Legio XIV the Legions quickly restored order, dragging the traitorous ministers still left in the city to the blocks and liberating them of their treacherous heads.
Ruthlessly putting down the revolt in Bastion and leaving several divisions of legion troops to secure the city, the remains of the two legions marched north, joined on the way by the remnants of the remaining loyal troops. By the time the legions loyal to the empress reached the hills to the south of Camfort the Imperial army consisted of nearly 30,000 soldiers. Across the valley the traitorous legions had met up with the Altairan and Carletane troops to number almost 50,000.
Opting to fortify her position the Empress’ troops crafted bulwarks and skirmish lines along the gentle hills. Meanwhile cultural differences had flared within the ranks of the rebel army, leading to sometimes pitched battles between different factions. With no one to lead them, chaos was quickly spreading through the rebel ranks.
This chaos was further stoked over the next week by stealthy units within the Dead Legions which created even more havoc with stealthy night feints which never actually led to combat, leading to sleepless nights. Fires set in various parts of the encampment causing even more disarray and rumors of attacks spreading through the ranks of the enemy soldiers which never materialized. All the while the loyalist defenses grew more and more secure. By the time Ashton arrived to lead his army he found it a tinderbox of dissent and discontent.
On the cold morning of 16 Sextenarius the Empress and her long-lost brother reunited briefly in an empty glade north of Camfort. Both demanded the other surrender. Neither did, so they returned to their lines to prepare for the inevitable battle.
Ashton’s army was badly demoralized after many sleepless nights. The disparate nations’ troops kept their distance warily from each other and as the sun peered over the horizon to the east the Carletane army began to march forward without orders, eager to get done what they’d been sent to accomplish. In fits and starts the entire force of almost 60,000 following a spate of desertions moved from their camps on the heights toward the teeth of the Royalist army across the valley from them.
As the rebel forces reached the base of the valley, they found arrows beginning to fall upon their front ranks from the Legion Sagittarii archers stationed on the heights of the hills beyond. Desperate to reach the royal lines before the archers picked them apart the rebels rushed forward. Reaching the first line of defense, a wide and deep trench dug and then seemingly abandoned by the royalists they were relieved to find the trench unmanned and were even more relieved when the arrows of the archers couldn’t reach them due to the high stone walls built on the other side of the trench.
Their relief turned to horror quickly when several soldiers bearing torches appeared on the earthen walls above them and tossed the lit sticks into the trench, catching the pitch which coated the walls and floor of the trench on fire and, by extension, the men trapped inside. The rebels, clothes on fire scrambled to get out of the pit the way they’d come, rushing headlong into their oncoming fellows. Flames spread quickly as death rained down from the archers on the heights as the rebel army milled about in confusion the ground began to shake as Legio XIII appeared at the northern head of the valley and raced forward, the Equites breaking off toward the heights the enemy had come from.
The rebel forces tried desperately to turn to face this new threat, but their response was chaotic and too slow. Those soldiers looking to flee south toward the imagined safety of Camfort were the first to understand the horror of their position as Legio XIV emerged from the misty village, quickly formed ranks, and rushed toward them, their own Equites peeling off to join the others on the heights the way the rebels had come from. The exhausted, demoralized, and undisciplined rebel army was quickly reduced to pockets of sporadic fighting as most tried desperately to flee the slaughter.
While the Lycans fought bravely, even they had transformed into their wolf forms and fled the battle by midday. Of the 60,000 rebel troops which had begun the battle only 4,000 lived long enough to surrender, including the former emperor. The rest have either managed to slip through the noose like the Lycans or lie where they fell upon the bloody ground of the valley.
The former emperor was taken in chains back to Bastion where he was quickly tried and convicted of treason against the Empire and summarily executed in Basile square along with the rest of his conspirators, including all of the empress’ former advisors.
Anika Campbell, the head of the royal maids quickly became the head of the nascent Imperial Secret Service (ISS) and set about reorganizing and training the maids themselves, rebranding them the Imperial Watch, a tradition which continues to this day. The Legions were re-formed under female leadership, reaching their now familiar count of 20.
Under threat of war Oskea ceded the Drailum Isles northeast of Azora while Carletane was forced to hand over control of Nottingly Archipelago and Altair gave up the province of Ruvia and, thus, the Empire expanded. With her new cabinet of ministers the empress reordered the Empire, decreeing the throne could only be passed to females. Males, it was roundly decided, were too prone to treachery, emotional outbursts, and fits of bloodlust which made them unsuited to hold most high positions within the empire.
