The map attached shows a more detailed view of what is called the Agalien peninsula. The Agalien are a secondary tribe, more now a loose collection of dozens of minor tribes who once entirely populated the region before the Karith cross the sea from the south and settled there.



The Karithian Collossus.

To many Holorians the dwellers of the Agalien peninsula were particularly odious and represented the absolute extent of barbarity to which any man could stumble. They swaddled their limbs in folds of cloth of the gaudiest colours and in plumbing the absolute depths of decorum allowed their womenfolk not only to carry weapons and to fight in their battles but to dance in public to the wild cadence of drums, but to wear tunics that reached barely below their thighs that they - and here the Holorian lips must have curved in a sneer of contempt - further slit to reveal the flesh of the side of the buttocks. A more licentious people could barely be found unless one were to enter the jungles of Massinia. No wonder then that the Karith - the worst of them all in so far as the Holorians were concerned, were called in sniggering terms, Coenexa, for which the only accurate modern translation of this forgotten word is they who give themselves for sale. Prostitution was no stranger to the back streets of Holorian Cities, did beautiful and modern Hithorion not bear the nickname of Hithoracoexa amongst the tittle tattling commoners? And could any obviously wealthy visitor to Illusidum wander the throughfares of any of its five islands of an evening without a gyrating hip being thrust at him and a curling finger, though the eyes were undoubtedly on his purse, from any of a hundred darkened alleyways? And yet the Karith, beasts of the dust flats and deserts as they were, positively pimped their own wives and daughters as eagerly as they offered up pottery or bronzeware at their many markets. For a Karithian man to take a woman by force would result in his head being used for a plaything by the children of the offended womans family, but the gossips of the Holorian City States were not interested in any such facts as might spoil their scorn. It was of course no leap of the imagination for the Holorian military to look upon Karithian lands as better suited to uses other than that for which the nomadic, immoral, ashamedly brazen and barbarically bloodthirsty and fiercely individualistic Karith could put them to. In short, fair game, more than most periosapoi, dwellers beyond the walls, as the dwellers of within the Holorian city states termed anyone who dwelt beyond the states protection. And yet it is wrong to describe every inhabitant of the Agalie peninsular, the vast swath of land south of the River Efris, as Karithian or even Karith-like. The name of the peninsula itself derived from those who ruled over the region long before the Karith crossed the middle sea from the even more arid south and forced the Agalien tribes to abandon their ancient cities and to eke out a living in the very wildernesses in which their kings once hunted for sport. The Holorian nations, for all their excellent qualities, and they had many, were not given over to study of their enemies any more than was necessary to protect the state from them. The Karithians would have seemed an aimless mass, a conglomeration of tribes under as many rulers as there were tribal centres, and ten times the number of warlords in waiting, hungry to take their neighbours land as well as to seize and dominate their own. In truth the Karith were not a gathering of tribes, but of races grouped under an all description which is like describing the lands north of the Efris as Holorian. Certainly as a racial entity there was such a tribe as the Karith, their name for themselves being the Sacuda, and they were undoubtedly since their invasions of some several hundred years. the most numerous, but to call all those south of the Efris, Karithian, was typical of the Holorian need to brand their many enemies as of the same ilk and breed, barbarian through and through.
So who were these people who for four hundred years defied the might of the Western Empire, overcame its generals and suffered the presence of garrisons in their midst without conceding defeat? Religion certainly played a part in the day to day life of the Karith, but it was not religion that bound them. Their Gods were many though their teachings and demands were scant and fluid, a necessity when ones life was generally spent living hand to mouth, travelling and making ends meet. Was there a fanaticism? Not as might be considered by modern standards. Theirs were the Gods of common sense, the look after number one and no matter what the hardships the future is of your own making. A selfish theology? Again, only by the modern standard. Tribes would steal and raid from one another, the strongest ruled and the weakest served, nor was there any particular religion of the barracks. The Karith fought when the need took them and almost always in order to make some material gain, or for simple self existence. Their rulers could not draw upon any fervency of some all demanding God, a God of rules, of dictum, of do as I say no matter how abhorrent before the doors will open and you will attain enlightenment of everlasting life, yet the leader of the tribe received the utmost respect and was in his position entirely sacred. Geography and climate were against the Holorians from the start, and yet on the face of things this should not have been as large a problem as it became. The Karith were not natives of the region and had themselves arrived as conquerors from across the sea. However at the time of the Karithian conquest of the Agalien peninsula, Domie 770 apprx -1290 Ist Era the people of that region were much less numerous and much less capable of defending their tribal nations than the Karith were against the later assaults of the Holorians. It was therefore neither the Karith, the climate, the geography or any fervour of religious belief that stood the Karith in such good stead against the Holorians, but a combination of them all. Without the climate, the searing heat of the deserts and the sheer distances between oasis then the Holorian military would have found the conquest of the region so much easier. Without an identity so ancient as the Karithian religion, the Holorian propaganda machine, the threats, the siting of temples and garrison within the few Karithian cities as were, would have crippled the Karithian sense of being a people, a nation, despite the distances between each nomadic tribe at any given time. The campaign of Emperor Bacchus is an excellent example of the difficulties faced by the Holorian Empire and provides at a bite a taste of the entire fruit.

“The grand tour.” The campaign of Bacchus I.

As with most of the Holorian incursions beyond the Efris the campaign of Bacchus was brought about by the actions not of the Karith themselves directly but of the tribes bordering the Efris and in whose lands the Holorians currently had garrisons, trade interests and in the case of several, were allies of. Karithian pressure, nomadic raiding and outright war forced thousands into exile from their lands and it was no coincidence that they gravitated towards the Empire and tried to enter to settle there. The Empire could do little to prevent a steady trickle of refugees but as whole tribes began to migrate its hand was forced and the four Alscoria on border garrison duty acted by amalgamating their Almae and forming roaming columns of cavalry to persuade the refugees to remain south of the river. Skirmishes were frequent but generally the state of the refugees meant that they were not able to successfully challenge the border garrisons and force the frontier. It would have been suicide to do so and the southern tribes had learned their lesson in this matter long ago and seem to have given up on such an undertaking knowing that ultimately it would consign them to being hunted down and defeated, even if it took the entire strength of the Empire to do so. Bacchus appears not to have been much concerned with what was going on at this point, although a few members of the Middenstal do appear to have made their voices heard when their own properties were threatened. Few Consulors were fool enough to have their personal residence anywhere near the border but a good number did have business interests and land there and beyond the Efris. Bacchus was not a man to close his ears to sensible requests for help, after all no matter what the differences between Emperor and Consulori through the years, the Emperor maintained his power via the army and the army was ostensibly the protector of the people and their lands, but the threat would have been considered slight indeed.

When two forts were overrun in the Mas region of Agalien with the loss of sixty lives the Holorian war machine barely whirred a cog. The forts were re-occupied with increased strength and punitive action taken against a number of surrounding villages which had undountedly harboured the aggressors. When a trade envoy was captured and ransom demands sent to Illusidum by the chieftain of the offending tribe, again the Empire responded simply by ordering the nearest garrison to burn properties and inform the chieftain that for every Holorian life, a hundred of the lives of his people would be taken in payment in slavery. The trade envoy was left to his fate and along with his retainers was murdered and left on a highway for the carrion beasts to devour. There seems to have been no further attempts at taking captives with the Karithian raiders, those who were in any way organised, moving over to attacking forts that stood along their lines of assault and then melting back into the scrub waste that made up most of the geography of the western reaches of the Karithian peninsula. When the body count had passed three hundred the border Alscoria were mobilised and placed under the command of a Nalae Alscoriate who was initially Marus Detemanides, a man of proven record in punitive action against malevolent tribes beyond the Efris and former commander of the XXIII Alscoria in Scatha. Bacchus orders to his commander were to move across the Efris and to locate the raiding forces and destroy them. However there was more to matters than mere raiding.

The more northerly of the Karithian tribes, those abutting the regions of Mas, Setuza, Tharmae and Amacia, had come as close to uniting in common purpose as they had ever been since the great migration that had brought them to dominate the peninsula that now bore their name. They were racially akin to the Massinians from whom they were descended and darker skinned than their southern cousins and extremely accustomed to nomadic life throughout the scrub deserts. They numbered in their hundreds of thousands though were scattered over a huge area and had no great cities or any settlements larger than towns of several thousand built around markets. Their preferred means of warfare was raids by no more than two or three hundred cavalry spearmen who would avoid pitched battle at all costs, riding to the desired target, dismounting, scaling the walls, or rushing the gates with subterfuge if it could be managed, stealing away slaves, food, valuables and then melting into the scrub desert. They could rarely be traced to a specific nomad tribe and as such presenting not much opportunity to be hit below the belt, in their undefended homes. Such forces were not suffered to pass through the territories of their brothers but positively succoured and assisted with food, water, medicine and intelligence. This occurred to no small extent and further confused the issue of punitive retaliation. The unity of these tribes, their chieftains had met on several occasions and seem to have thrashed out something akin to a strategy, or combined intent of purpose, up to several months before the raids and incursions. The intention was never to goad the Empire but to simply yield riches and to make up for three years of slim pickings raiding elsewhere and a bout of plague that thinned out the goat and cattle herds. The Holorian garrisons beyond the Efris were viewed not as military targets but areas to be avoided if at all possible, and eradicated if necessary and tactically sound. Nor was their an intention to settle the lands they were raiding, simply to arrive quietly and to take by force what could be carried away. The more peaceful tribes in their path and their victims had also had a bad time of it, the same plague that had thinned the herds of the nomadic northern Karith had hit them no less hard, the taxes demanded by the Empire further added to the problem of being able to feed ones family and animals and yet beyond the Efris in clear sight was a land of rich pasture, huge cities and towns and a well fed populace. The dominos were therefore stacked and it took only a concerted effort by the Karith to push the first one over. Once the trouble had begun it would take a massive effort to stop it and Detemanides had neither sufficient troops nor the backing of the population of the regions he was moving into to fulfil the purpose for which he had been sent. With heavy infantry, cavalry and supporting arms (his siege and engineer detachments were left in garrison to continue to hold the border against refugee incursions), Detemanides force marched to Mas where he made his field fort and headquarters intending this to be used as a jumping off point into the scrub deserts once a particularly ripe target presented itself. His intention from the outset was to locate a Karithian nomad encampment of sufficient size, shadow it if it began to move with his cavalry and then march his infantry in and take hostages and property, then to locate a second and a third and continue until the Karith ceased their activities. His strategy was in essence sound and the climate was neither too hot nor cold for his infantry to march the distances required, yet as was too often the case the Karith were simply not going to present themselves for conquest. The tribes had received news of the Holorian advance across the Efris and were intelligent enough to know that the Holorians were coming for no-one but them. The nomad encampments melted into the deeper scrub desert and the raiding forces merely extended their reach taking several days to travel to and from the border and roaming more or less at free will as the attacker often does in his advantage. Detemanides set up his headquarters camp and sent out his cavalry yet for more than five weeks they found no sign of the enemy they were seeking and were drawn more and more into chasing the spectre of raiders who had come and gone leaving the Holorians to look foolish and increasingly desperate. Demetanides fearful that summer would soon be upon him and the usefulness of his infantry diminished by the heat and lack of easily accessible water sources, was pushed into changing his tactics entirely. He split his force, considering that the raiders never came in numbers more than three hundred at the most and setting up garrisons of five hundred infantry able to gather intelligence and to set up in the hope of ambushing the Karith as they arrived ready to plunder. It was a mistake he would not live to regret and would cost him the lives of nearly a thousand of his men in return for half that number of enemy slain.

Brugaura

Between the River Sult and the edge of the scrub desert is a wide strip of semi fertile land running for a hundred and sixty miles from the coastal plains into the Tulluk hills. For most of its length the Sult is fordable nine tenths of the year and in high summer frequently dries altogether. Mid way stands a collection of ten to fifteen occasional villages used by the semi nomadic native as market places depending upon which tribe plays host. There are only three permanent settlements of any size. Brugaura being the largest and sitting favourably on a permanent watercourse where an underground river rises for a few hundred metres forming an oasis lake and then disappears into the earth again. The waters are clean, fresh and swift flowing travelling three hundred miles from the Karithian Mountains into the Gan am Blennau. The population fluctuates between five and seven thousand dependent upon which tribe is passing through and what the climate is like for many miles around. During drought the settlements along the Sult are abandoned and the people move en masse to Brugaura. It is an ill defended location surrounded by only low hills and woodland with eight valleys offering unimpeded access over a wide front. Any army advancing on Brugaura would be able to do so free from fear of ambush because the defenders would have to advance to ambush and flee from it over open scrubland and have no opportunity to fall upon their enemy in a narrow place. Such pinch points simply did not exist. Detemanides chose this location as his most forward garrison for three good reasons. Fresh water, ease of cavalry movement and nearness to the Karithian scrub desert with wide views from the hills over the Sult and beyond. What he had not calculated, or if he had did not act upon, was that although an enemy could be seen advancing once assaulted it was beyond all hope of defence. There were no walls, the hills overlooking the town although low encircled it for too wide an area to be themselves used as fortification. The town was built of narrow streets with stone walled dwellings that were so densely stacked that it would have taken a large army of labourers months to dismantle to make open enough for a fort area near enough to the water to be capable of sustaining itself should it be besieged. His force of 1,300 heavy infantry and four hundred cavalry was neither numerous enough for proper defence, nor few enough and mobile enough to give up the location should it become untenable. In the event the latter was its downfall. Detemanides decided upon Brugaura as his headquarters two months after it had been chosen as the forward base. Its initial garrison had been seven hundred foot and a hundred and fifty horse. His own patrol force effectively doubled that number and the temporary fort built on the outskirts of the town was extended to accept this increase. Water was being stored in stone built troughs with enough to sustain the garrison for two weeks at a time. On the face of it enough to cope with most emergencies. However the water storage was not increased and with men and animals replenishment was needed on a twice weekly basis. This was overlooked as Detemanides probably only intended to use the location for a month or so and then move on, possibly giving up the location entirely. His strategy of piecemeal protection was proving as ill fated as that of patrol, locate and assault in force. The Karith had not only increased their raids but one had actually reached within sight of the Efail prompting the despatch of the remainder of the Almae to drive them back from the border where panic had erupted.
News reached Detemanides of a Karithian raid planned to pass through the territory near Brugaura and so he readied his cavalry to meet it. Leading this force in person he left Brugarua on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, following the line of the Sult east towards the most probably crossing point. Much of the Sult was fordable without effort but intelligence directed Detemanides hand. For three more days he billeted his force at an empty village, long since abandoned, and sent forays the mile and a half to the Sult to get water. By the dawn of the fourth day he gave up and set out for Brugaura, no doubt downhearted and wondering if he was ever going to locate a raiding party. He was not to be denied that hope for much longer for as he drew near to the hills surrounding the town he saw just such a force advancing towards it, by the dust trail a force as large as any that had thus far crossed into Imperial held territory.

His intelligence had been entirely correct in that a large force was moving to raid the lands to the north, a force much larger than before and intent on going to the Efail now that the lands adjacent to the scrub desert was yielding little or no reward. Detemides efforts had thus far only made raiding more difficult. It was the success of the Karith that had forced them to stretch themselves further and as events were to disclose, of increasing their raiding parties to enable them to take on bigger prizes and not to be over concerned with the movements of the Holorians now that they had split into smaller garrisons and become tied to within a few miles of the wealthier towns. There is no doubt that these garrisons did save such towns from harassment and keep the Karith having to nibble at smaller prizes than to take great hoards and forced the Karith to raid again and again to gather sufficient resources to fulfil their needs. The Karith on the other hand had become greedy in the face of Holorian impotence. On this occasion several tribes had banded together. Even the Karith were loathe to operate for too long a period in the hottest weather and had decided to undertake another three or four large raids in order to be able to sit back and survive a year or two on its spoils. The first of these forces had chosen a route taking it through Brugaura where it intended to water its horses, then continue on leapfrogging the River Benus and Oxa, finally striking along the Efail and coursing the edge of the Gan Am Blennau back into their own territories. They had heard rumour of the garrison at Brugaura but expected to find it half the strength that Detemanides arrival had brought it to. Detemanides had sensibly marched his cavalry north as if making away from the Sult before doubling back under cover of night and through empty territory to set up his ambush. In ordinary circumstances 1300 heavy infantry and 300 cavalry were much more than a match for two thousand Karith intent on an easy pillage, and yet Detemanides force at Brugaura was simply not prepared. In the absence of his commander, the Senevate in charge of the garrison had allowed the water supplies to fall to a dangerous level. Three days supply was left to them when the Karithian force arrived and lined up across the plain. A sensible commander would have immediately split his force and used half of it to bring in all the supplies they could carry whilst the other half defended the fort. Even six hundred heavy infantry could hold against two thousand Karith if properly led. The Senevate however did no such thing but simply ordered the gates closed and made ready for a siege. The Karith faced with fresh water and a penned in garrison took the sensible option and put themselves between the two. When Detemanides arrived he had insufficient cavalry to disperse the Karith and so placed signallers on the nearest hill and flashed orders for the Senevate of the garrison to march out and attack the Karith with their backs to the lake whilst he took the flank with his cavalry. The Senevate signalled agreement and prepared his force, but for some inexplicable reason did not send his entire garrison but chose now as the time to split it, hedging his bets between denying the Karith the fort and sending enough to beat them in a fight. A more pointless waste of half his force there could not have been. The Karith did not take forts and hold them, they simply had no use for them. As half his force deployed Detemanides sent riders to order him to empty the fort. However these were intercepted by the Karith and killed. He then flashed his orders and the Senevate, who’s name is unknown as he had been raised to the rank after his predecessor had been wounded in an accident and returned to the Efail, sent runners to bring his whole force forward. At this point Detemanides attention was so focussed on events between the fort and the lake that he was not aware of a second force moving in on his left flank and formed of two hundred Karithians returning from raiding and hoping to link up with the greater force and pass on intelligence of opportunities they had been forced to leave untouched and which were ripe for plundering. They arrived and cautiously held back from revealing themselves, perhaps thinking that their kinsmen were in command at Brugaura and that Detemanides were an advanced force of Holorians having cornered them. It is assumed that they could not from their vantage point see the foot soldiers deploying their shield wall for the fort had been sited screened by the town to prevent the enemy from overlooking its habits and sentries and revealing weaknesses. Detemanides would still have been sure of victory even with these reinforcements but the Karith took the initiative presented to them by the over cautious Senevate who had not only split his force but had advanced too far from the fort leaving a dangerous space over which the second half of his force now had to advance to bring them into play. Quickly the Karith feigned a frontal attack loosing their javelins at the shield wall and receiving taunts from the Holorian heavy infantry few of whom had been barely inconvenienced. The Karith however wheeled about their flanks and came in from both directions against the reinforcements hurrying out of the fort. Half this force was still inside the gates, the other half strung out Mellin by Mellin between them and the Senevate. The result was a fast and bloody clash, with the Holorians being pelted with missiles from both flanks and unable to present a solid wall to either. The Karith withdrew, feigned a second attack driving panic into the Holorians who were now scattered and drawing the Senevate to wheel the unified portion of his force and fight a withdrawal towards the fort. The ordered retreat prevented the Holorians from being entirely cut off from the fort gates, but was by necessity too slow to save further loss. By the time the gates were fast shut about a third of the Holorian force lay dead or soon to be dead on the sands of Brugaura. Detemanides chose this moment to charge the Karith, scattering a good number of them and inflicting many casualties but he had far too few men to follow up on the counter attack and was forced by the arrival of the Karithian reinforcements to either abandon Brugaura or join his men in the fort. His choice of the latter was probably made with the intention of feeding and watering his men before choosing an opportune time to strike out, the Karith were not known for their patience and as the days wore on would grow tired of a siege and their force begin to dissipate but he would not have been aware of the dire state of the forts water supply. The Senevate who’s foolish actions had led to the momentary defeat and to the water supply being so ridiculously low was given his own sword and left to take his own life or have it taken from him and Detemanides made no replacement, taking sole charge of the force available to him, such as it was. His cavalry were both tired, hungry and thirsty after their retirement from the Sult and even with rationing the waters were fit for only a week at the most, and yet all was not lost unless the Karith broke from their habit and both kept up the siege and made good preparations for a break out in force. It was to Detemanides dismay and that of his men that the Karithian leader proved willing and able to do both. The account of the last week of Detemanides force is not detailed as the two soldiers who survived the coming battle and trek across the scrub desert to the nearest Holorian force were not privy to Detemanides meetings with his officers, but the final battle may be recounted a little. On the last day prior to the water vats being exhausted Detemanides despaired of a relief force attending Brugaura merely because he had no visited or sent messages to any of the other Holorian strongpoints and resigned to strike the Karith hard, hoping to bring his men to the waterside and there make as sure a stand as could be amongst the rocks and scrub trees. A well ordered Holorian infantry force was formidable even in defence against cavalry and archers given sufficient time to at least dig a ditch and basic earth wall, an endeavour that took barely a couple of hours. However Detemanides was surely aware that the Karith would not allow him that time and he could not hope to mount a successful screening operation with the cavalry available to him. In the event he made a good show of it, the gates opening and he leading his cavalry straight for the lake and proving the Karith ineffectual engineers when his well trained horsemen simply manoeuvred around the log barricades that had been erected to stop them. The Karith were slow to respond and not a few were killed as their bivouac was overrun but again numbers counted more than skill and as the Holorian infantry moved out in square, shield wall to all sides with archers in their midst, the Karithian cavalry withdrew beyond range and bided their time. The barricades which the highly mobile Holorian cavalry had negotiated with ease proved difficult for the infantry to move through and it took time for the moving square to do the same. Now the Karith attacked, their spearmen riding within range and deluging the shield wall which could do nothing in retaliation. Men were lost but the Holorian archers made each attack equally costly until finally the Karithian commander wised to the fact and directed his men to risk closing almost to within spear range of the shield wall to use their own bows against the Holorian archers. Detemanides cavalry made a second attack but the Karithian left flank merely withdrew tempting the Holorian cavalry to follow, which they obligingly did leaving the infantry to be harried as the slowly crept towards the lake, constantly under a barrage of arrows and lacking the mobility to spoil the Karithian tactics. When the front of the shield wall opened and the Holorians threw their spears at the attacking Karithians they inflicted losses but the corpses of men and horses merely made the advance even more difficult. Gradually the Holorian archers were slaughtered, men being drawn off from the shield wall to replace the casualties. The Holorians reached the lake but by this time there were barely seven hundred of them against a force of fourteen hundred Karithians. The return of Detemanides cavalry did buy time for defences to be dug, but not nearly long enough for them to be effective. The death knell being sounded by the arrival of a third Karithian force made up of a second raiding party no doubt diverted from its original task by the Karithian commander sensing an opportunity to kick the Empire where it hurt and perhaps cause such panic amongst the Holorian leadership that they would withdraw beyond the Efail. He was however to be the victim of his own success. Had Detemanides survived he might have indeed withdrawn his forces to regroup and muster, but without him the decision could not easily be made. Even a leader as politically favoured as Detemanides would have pondered long and hard before committing to such an open act of defeat, his successor being promoted simply by being the second in command and with no sponsors or allies of any consequence amongst the Consulori had to defer such a decision to the Emperor who would take on the mantle of commander himself heralding the grand tour. At Brugaura the temporary lakeside garrison was immediately shepherded into a small area centred upon a cedar wood in which Detemanides made his camp and gathered his cavalry to prevent the horses from being targeted by the Karithian archers. The only viable wall was made of the shields of his infantry and it took no effort for the Karith to pepper them until nightfall with spear and arrow until exhausted, hungry, in many cases wounded and lacking spears to throw back or arrows to loose the Holorians had to simply endure. The Karith learned quickly to half hack their spears close to the tip so that if they struck shield, flesh, bone or soil they either split or broke in two making them useless for throwing back. During the night a number of the Holorians made good their escape without orders from Detemanides who had allowed only five horsemen to try to run the gauntlet of surrounding savages to at least take news of the debacle from Brugaura. In the even all of them were killed or captured and killed and only deserters made it away from the place to tell the tale. At dawn the Karith would have resumed their attack and it is not known how Detemanides met his death. Did he ride out with the remainder of his cavalry and meet the Karith in the saddle or finally stand beside his men in the shield wall, suffering to be killed piecemeal will never be known for certain. The remains of his men were found by Bacchus some eight months later, skeletons already bleached by the sun and piled in a mound where the Karith had left them to decay. No monument marked the site. The City States was not fond of either recording or marking its defeats.

The fortresses and strongpoints manned by the forces of Detemanides did not capitulate or withdraw as the Karithians had hoped but prepared for the assault, which never came. As can be seen the Karith were capable of mounting a successful operation when chance presented it to them but were not able to make for themselves the opportunities that a successful strategy depends. Tactically they controlled the land, but strategically they were unable to make use of it for more than a short period, raiding, goading the defenders to leave their fortifications and hoping that a Holorian commander was fool and arrogant enough to open the gates and despatch infantry or a small force of cavalry against a much larger and highly mobile enemy force. The Holorians were wise enough to decline.

Bacchus is reported upon hearing of Detemanides defeat to have ordered the servants and staff out of his palace room and to have gone into a rage breaking ornaments and statues and tearing down the wall hangings. It is doubtful for he was in all matters a thoughtful man not prone to fits of either anger or passion, so the renown and generally accurate Consulor Supramidicus states in his own writings. However his enemies amongst the Middenstal may have liked to present another picture of their Emperor as volatile and thereby not to be trusted. What is known is that for a period of one month he banned the reporting of any military affairs within Illusidum to soften the blow of the defeat upon the populace whilst calling in nine Alscoria from around the Empire and ordering the hasty raising of four more. He then made for the Efail gathering these thirteen Alscoria totalling more than thirty thousand men plus about a third that number of supply slaves, merchants, foragers, engineers and the usual hangers on that would have gravitated towards such a force. By the time he crossed the Efail the Karith were already known to have withdrawn their raiding parties and to be drawing away from the north and into the depths of the scrub desert but in the long run even that vastness would not save them. It took two months for Bacchus force to cross the Empires provinces south of the Efail and to consolidate all of the land between that river and the Sult. Four Alscoria were detailed to defend the borders: IX Demetanica, XII and XIV Torvanican and XXII Setanta Acurae. Surviving records detail that these forces were at that time made up of troops recently having been in conflict and thereby highly motivated, trained and in good order for action which in contrast to his other forces being both recently formed or of dubious quality owing to their not having been utilised for war within the memory of their soldiers, shows that Bacchus feared more the threat of a retaliatory strike against the Empires lands than of the Karith and other indigenous tribes contesting the progress of his main force. Nevertheless only a foolish commander, or an arrogant one, would have committed these fresh and unprepared troops to campaign without training. Bacchus was capable and far sighted and implemented a regime that even by the standards of the Alscoria was draconian. He began by ordering his officers to refuse any offer of battle by the enemy no matter how provocative. He needed to wean his men into a belief of success by ensuring that there was no early defeat. When a patrol of one Mellin from the XIV Alscoria Sarachianas crossed the Sult after spotting enemy horsemen making east towards by a parallel line and was turned upon and forced to withdraw under arrow fire losing more than half its number for no enemy dead Bacchus had the survivors flogged publicly then stripped naked and staked outside their encampment until they were dead for their cowardice and failing to adhere strictly to his orders. A barbaric method, but successful in that there was no repeat of the disaster. Maburius records that over the following summer Bacchus drew together three Alscoria who’s detail is not recorded and force marched them for several days between forts, fording rivers and negotiating the most difficult of terrain following a line of march that favoured infantry over cavalry until he was satisfied that the men were capable and ready. Casualties were high and the men bore him little love for their endeavours, though they would applaud him in the long run when they came face to face with a more mobile enemy and lived to recall it. For a further eighteen months Bacchus built up and prepared his forces whilst the Karith raids ceased completely to bother the border and turned against coastal settlements of tribes allied to the Empire. A naval force despatched to create and hold a forward strongpoint was intercepted by Karithian pirates (the middle sea was at that time plagued by hundreds of corsair captains most of whom were Karithian) and destroyed with the loss of sixteen sea garrisons and many more transport vessels. This appears not to have delayed Bacchus invasion of Karithia but stimulated his men to greater efforts of readiness and to their officers imploring Bacchus to let them march sooner rather than later. However Bacchus was as cautious as he was thorough and two further months passed before he considered his forces ready. A second fleet much larger than the first then traversed the coast driving for Scartha and winning two victories over the pirates before depositing six hundred heavy infantry to secure the abandoned fort at Talath Urius. With its walls repaired and guarded by ballista and other artillery and supplied by an independent well and with the fleet capable of re-supply indefinitely there was now a haven for Bacchus forces to make for and a spear thrust into the bowels of the Karithian peninsula. Crossing the Sult Bacchus first advanced to Yovkanak where the gates were flung open in the face of such an overwhelming Imperial force. The Khan, the young usurper Bukumanus who had murdered his uncle and had other eligibles for the Khanate killed, initially refused to believe that the Imperials had crossed the Sult and in true Karithian style killed the messenger with his own hand by throttling him with a rope torn from a curtain. Enraged the Khan sent his own scouts to Yovkanek however Bacchus forces had already advanced a further sixty miles to take the fords of the River Cella at Rumus Four Alscoria were left in defence of the region whilst Bacchus split his force into three. Three columns would advance, one into the lands of the Agalien, one along the lush though difficult foothills of the Gucayus mountains and the last coursing the borders of the Gan am Blennau. It was a risky strategy with many weeks of hard travel between these columns which were tasked with the subjugation of all lands along their routes of advance and numbering at the most twelve thousand Imperial infantry and cavalry plus between a quarter and a third more auxiliary allies of varying qualities and loyalties. The Karith however were by their very nature a disparate and not easily controlled people and as one after another of their lands fell, or their client kingdoms held under sway through fear rather than trust or love threw in their lot with the Holorians the Karithian hold on all but the desert and its surrounds was made doubtful to say the least. In nine months the Holorian forces went from victory to victory until finally they met at Scatha where the Holorian fleet had already made a secure base. There were no great battles, no magnificent sieges, for history to record but Bacchus had by speed and sheer bravado plunged a spear into the belly of the Karithian nations. Scatha was made into a protectorate province whilst all along both east and western coast Holorian strongpoints controlled the river mouths and harbours rendering the Karithian pirates incapable, for the most part, of coming to the aid of their landbound cousins. However the endeavour had proven costly in both manpower and money, with the Imperial treasury being run to a half its content to pay for the campaign which in total lasted more than three years. This was no small burden for an Emperor as the columns returned to the Empire proper along a different route to further compound the insult. The return journey presents little of note however the advance


The War machine of Karithia

“A disparate people brought together through the will of their Gods for the ends of the wealthy by the blood of the poor.” So says Xethon in his “Conversations” A vivid and surprisingly accurate description of the popularly titled Southern Menace. The fear of the Karith amongst the people of the Western Empire was entirely disproportionate to the actual risk they posed as a lone entity, Xethon begins. "It took a strong leader indeed to bring the scattered tribes together, many of whom had amongst them so many arguments, disagreements and opposing views that it is a wonder that they ever amalgamated their efforts against any opponent other than between themselves." Occasionally one of the stronger nations would throw its weight against the Imperial borders or take a bite at the Imperial assets in its midst but generally peace was the order of the day, though a begrudging peace based wholly upon lack of interest on the part of the Karith than any effort of the Holorian Army and diplomatic colleges. The makeup of the Karithian military then was varied and prone to all manner of change as one warlord usurped or was succeeded by another. The land was their ally and their greatest weapon, undoubtedly. The peninsula can roughly be divided into four; the rugged and semi forested north, the mountainous and arid centre, the inhospitable deserts of the east and the more hilly though equally savage west.

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