Shah Andragoras exited his tent and spurred his horse to the front line. Surely his retainers must have felt pride knowing that there was unlikely a ruler with such power and grace in any of the foreign kingdoms. He was the shah of the great kingdom of Pars, and as an undefeated power stood at the apex of all the nobility of the neighboring lands.
Vahriz now proclaimed to him with a deep bow, “85,000 cavalry and 138,000 infantry each stand at the ready to fight for you.”
“And what of our enemy’s numbers?”
The aged eran now looked to Kharlan, and the marzbān responsible for surveillance showed his respect while answering the shah’s query thus,
“While it is just an estimate, we guess that there are about 25 to 30,000 cavalry and 80 to 90,000 infantry. Around the same size army they used to approach Maryam.”
“They have lost a few men due to their continued campaign?”
“Reinforcements have been sent from the kingdom, so their army is perhaps slightly larger.”
The shah nodded and vocalized his acknowledgment in a manner tinged with disappointment. He had hoped for a report that was more accurate and that would educate his plans. For it had been Kharlan himself who had volunteered to scout the front line, and he had proven himself to be reliable enough in the past. Which was why he had assigned him the responsibility for the current battle as well, and the general who was even more steady and reliable than Daryun and Vahriz now turned to the shah with a truly assertive stance.
“And yet are we not unable to see our enemy’s position through the fog.”
“I understand your concern, my Lord, but of course the enemy is also unaware of our whereabouts. If conditions are equal, then there will be no doubt of our victory.”
Shah Andragoras nodded in response to Kharlan’s confidence. Vahriz who had stopped his horse about twenty gaz (approx. 20 meters) gave a concerned look, but the quiet conversation had not reached his ears.
“Enemies ahead!”
At last, the chain of shouts from in front of them had reached the main battalion. It was a messenger on horseback who came to deliver the message: the enemy forces stirred at an hamaj (approx. 2,000 meters) hence.
“The front line appears to be proceeding along Mount Bashur. Probably hoping to receive the protection of the hero-king Kai Hoslow, that direction has neither faults nor basins. No matter how thick the fog, they can trust their horses’ gaits to be undisturbed,”
Kharlan having so declared, shah Andragoras made a satisfied expression. Just as he had rejected Daryun’s proposal to proceed with caution, he was known for his prowess at executing offensives. Indeed, a head-to-head battle of offensive tactics was exactly what he hoped for. Still, it was true that if Daryun had been on hand, he may have thought Kharlan to be leading the king on to a sense of false hope.
At once the wind changed direction and the fog flowed with it. Arslan perceived it to be a blessed omen. If the fog is blown away by the wind, the whole of the plains will become visible. A tremendous advantage for their army made up mainly of men on horseback.
But the fog was thick. It had merely swayed and did not dissipate from the plains. Expelled from the main battalion, the solitary, mounted Daryun’s black armor in the white fog lingered in the prince’s mind.
The call of shah Andragoras roared as it pierced through the veil of fog.
“Shahs of the Kingdom of Pars! Holy-bladed Jamsheed, Hero-king Kai Hoslow and other spirits, watch over our army.”
“…watch over our army!”
So rang out the voices of the cavalry in concord with their shah, and that call spread further through the army of Pars like a ripple. When the shah raised his indefatigable right hand and brought it down, a great battle cry was unleashed as the army began its charge towards war.
It was a march of 80,000 men on horseback. And it was no exaggeration to say that the roar of their horses’ hooves in that moment caused the earth to quake.
The mist flowed in response to the sprinting horses. Armor rang, and brandished blades and spears glistened with droplets of condensed fog.
Witnessing the charge of the cavalry of Pars, the enemy would succumb to feelings of fear and deficiency and would be cut down by the fury of blades and spears like blades of grass. Little would the mist do to interrupt the roar of the horses’ hooves, and that it hid the force of the army from site should have only invited greater fear.
The army of Pars saw victory beyond the mist. And yet, its dream was quickly eliminated. The riders at the fore of the army were the first to notice the ground disappear from underneath their horses’ feet. A cry of disarray arose from the men. They pulled on their steeds’ reins too late and were forced from the edge into freefall.
The front line was pushed off by the second, and the second pushed off by the third. Cries of horses competed for the air with screams of men.
The giant fault gaped in front of the men. It was the greatest the plains of Atropatene had ever seen. It stretched farther than a farsang (approx. 5 kilometers) in length, was 30 gaz (approx. 30 meters) wide, and was 4 gaz deep. Within that natural moat fell Pars’ mighty one after another, crushing those who fell first underneath. Confusion enveloped the army. Those who managed to stand noticed a strange smell around them, before they realized it was the scent of sticky tar rising to their knees. They were filled with dread.
“Madness! This is oil; th-they intend to burn us all alive!”
The inferno rose high into the sky before the screams could stop. Flaming arrows were loosed. The oil spread on the plains before the battle was lit ablaze wrapping the Pars’ army in fiery tongues.
Within the mist, hundreds of rings of flame formed. Each one trapping hundreds of cavalry within a cage of fire. The force of over 80,000 no longer acted in unison with one another, separated from their brothers at arms. What was more, the flaming rings forced away the mist giving the Lushtanian army clear sight. It happened in an instant.
“Fwoosh… fwhoosh…”
The riders of Pars tried in earnest to calm the horses as they thrashed about in fear of the flames. Within the mix of horses’ cries, clattering hooves, and stern shouts of their riders, was a new sound.
It was the sound of countless arrows being loosed.
The army’s commanders gave an order to evade. An order that was impossible to execute. The front line’s progress had been impeded by a wall of flame an entire farsang in length. The remaining three battalions were deprived of their ability to move by seemingly unending rings of flame. From within the blaze came the anguished shouts of horse and riders being burned alive.
The Lushtanian army had prepared hundreds of towers around five times the height of an average man, and from them had fired the barrage of arrows at the rings of flame. It was all too easy to shoot down their enemy with their movements restricted. In fact, it was so trivial it felt like a game to the Lushtanian bowmen. The one-sided slaughter continued to unfold as the blood-red armor of Par’s soldiers soaked the field of grass.
Still, at long last, the fire and smoke penetrated the curtain of fog, revealing a portion of the front line of the Lushtanian forces to the cavalry of Pars. Knowing in their hearts that they rode to their deaths – these riders leaped over the wall of flames making full use of their horsemanship. When some failed to make the leap, they emerged as spheres of flame. Even of those who succeeded, most were badly burned. And of those who had turned to flame emerging full of vitality, most fell within short order.
What until recently had been known to all as the invincible cavalry of Pars, now lay in heaps of dead upon the ground. Truly they looked like a bunch of clay dolls caught in a thunderstorm. Tens of thousands of souls, tens of thousands of prideful hearts, a kingdom’s history, all looked to return to the earth amid a hail of arrows and white mist. Arslan patted out a small flame that had taken to his sleeve and cape, and choked up smoke as he screamed,
“Father! Daryun! Vahriz!” but there was no response.
Those riders who had managed to break through the encircling flames now brandished their blades and marched forwards with capes ablaze. And the Lushtanians made to meet them.
Of course, the result of this forward charge was one-sided. Both in terms of horsemanship and fighting on horseback, the army of Lushtania was no match for the army of Pars. The riders of Pars’ blades soaked up blood as they mowed down Lushtanian soldier after soldier. Now Lushtanians fell among the mortal coils of Pars’ dead.
“So, this is the army of Pars, what tremendous strength. Had we faced them in a fair fight, would our defeat have not been assured?”
From within her regimen protected by three layers of fencing and a moat, the general Monferrat grumbled. Another general Bodin nodded beside her. His vaguely cold expression now quivered with the look of their emerging victory.
In front of them were the ever-growing piles of corpses of their enemy. Even if some soldiers cut their way through the enemy lines, they would not make it through the fences and moat. They would bath in the arrows from the towers where they stood until both horse and rider’s breaths had ceased.
As they imagined whether the pile of corpses would reach the height of the fence, the horn of the Lushtanian army rang high. The cue for the counteroffensive to take place. The fence’s gates opened, letting forth a flood of armored Lushtania’s main force fresh and ready for battle.
“Where is Kharlan!?” bellowed the shah Andragoras with countenance twisted by anger and fear. On the battlefield, Andragoras had always been full of confidence and valor, something that he had not expected to change since he bested Badafshan as the previous shah’s eran. However, today there was a finally a chink in that impenetrable armor. Especially for one who had yet to know defeat, fear had gripped him.
In response to the bellowing shah, one of the generals of a thousand horseman under the banner of Kharlan lowered his head. He was commanded to always stay with the main battalion to keep the shah and Kharlan’s communications private.
“Y-yes, you see, marzbān Kharlan has not been seen since earlier. We are also searching for his whereabouts….”
“Find him and bring him to me! Do not let me see your face again until he’s found!”
“…as you command.”
Shaken to the bone by shah’s fury, the general propelled his cherished horse to leave. Yet Andragoras felt another wave of fury as he saw him off. It was Kharlan who had said that there was no fault ahead of the front line and who had encouraged an all-out attack. And it was clear what had been the result of following that guidance.
“Kharlan, you have betrayed me…?”
While he had heard the shah’s anger, Vahriz did not respond, and instead walked his horse to the edge of the battalion. Daryun turned around to face him. He could see the irritation in his hand that lightly gripped the pike held within the fork of his saddle.
“It’s time, Daryun,” said the eran, giving his nephew a light pat on the arm.
“I will do my duty to protect our shah. Go now and find Prince Arslan.”
“Have you seen the prince…?”
“He was at the front of the charge. It is worrisome. I fear it may be too late but look after him. I will deal with the shah’s anger.”
“Understood, uncle. May we meet again in Ecbatana.” Daryun bowed, then lightly took the reins of his black steed and set its direction. The old general continued to watch his nephew until he had disappeared into the mist beyond.