Aurion Ch. 03

Lord Cal Kandor was an ostentatious man. However, he was also politically shrewd and highly intelligent. He knew just how to take advantage of the fact that his lands bordered the Dorian Kingdom to the southwest. He was also extremely selfish, greedy and sometimes outright cruel. Despite his young age and short reign, his selfish leadership style and personal decisions had already stirred discontent and hatched multiple plots against him.

Unfortunately for the just, or at least the less selfish, the political opponents of his Lordship never had any success in replacing or moderating the young man's excesses. Lord Kandor actually seemed to enjoy participating in the conniving plots commonly surrounding men of his station.

Beyond political savvy and intelligence he also had a huge network of spies and informers in addition to the 2,200 man Kandorian City Guard as well as his own stable of Gladiators. It was said that he often employed the Gladiators as enforcers or hitmen for internal dissent or political rivals. He had no standing army, relying on the feudal obligations of the Knights and men-at-arms.

The source of his true strength, however, was his blackmail files. His widespread network of spies and informants not only warned him of plots against him but also the secrets and weaknesses of many. He had at least one dirty, dark secret about each and every one of his Knights to ensure their loyalty.

Most Knights were wealthy landowners with their own servants and retinue. In a battle, the Knight was immediately assisted by his squire while his orders were given and relayed to the three Archers by his Sergeant. The six-man unit was called a 'Lance', tactically consisting of three archers and three armored men-at-arms. All of the men in a Lance were mounted but the archers were not true mounted archers, not being skilled at firing from the saddle at full gallop with accuracy. Unlike mounted archers who carried composite bows, they instead carried longbows. (reminder: Composite bows consisted of a flat wood core with thick layers of animal horn and sinew on opposite surfaces. The horn increased the compression strength and the sinew increased the tension strength, and when combined with recurved shape, allowed for a much shorter bows to generate force superior to the best longbow with a significantly lower draw weight and increase in mobility on horseback. The lower limb of the bow was often shorter than the upper limb which made mounted use easier but also stabilized the shots. With a composite war-bow in the same high draw weight as a military longbow and a good enough arrow, even good steel wasn't guaranteed protection, at least not in any level of thickness that could be worn as armor).

It was the Knights and men-at-arms forming up and gathering with other Lances into anything from a group of a dozen Lances to run off bandit groups or raiding parties to hundreds of Lances formed into a proper army that provided the fighting force for a Lordship, instead of a standing army, which was expensive, difficult to build and high maintenance in return for use on highly rare occasions. In most situations it was easier just to hire mercenaries if you ever had need for more men than you had access to. The arrangement was not at all not unusual in the feudal times where Lords, and even Kings, simply hired mercenaries, drafted peasants into a Militia and called on their Lords who, in turn, called on their Knights, when in need of a large fighting force.

The fact that the Aurion Empire had a standing army in itself was an advantage. Said army was highly trained, impeccably armed, and possessed officers with extensive experience. The Legionaries were full-time soldiers who had no need to return home every year to harvest their crops or practice their professions. They were professional fighters who achieved high skill and group coordination by being trained every day that they weren't actually fighting. Only a few other people had warriors or soldiers that were full-time fighters and not farmers, shepherds or artisans who picked up swords to fight for their leaders in times of crisis or go raiding during the warm season before returning home for the harvest and winter.

Unsurprisingly, he had renamed the capitol of his fief after himself. Though it was originally little more than a castle surrounded by a few small urban centers, 'Kandoris' was turned into an opulent walled city filled with imperial architecture and material wealth. But, if you weren't rich, you were severely poor. The outskirts of the city, nearest the walls, circled the city almost entirely with the simple wooden huts of poor. They were crammed together and forced into an existence that was only separated from homelessness by having an eight by eight foot, non insulated wooden shack. The products of Lord Kandor's overtaxing and confiscation, clearly.

Above all, the worst was the enormous statue of Lord Kandor himself located up the mountain slope directly behind the city, framing his 'palace'. The statue stood more than one hundred feet tall, with a body made from marble. The robes of the giant marble likeness were made from solid bronze while the generous jewelry was formed from solid gold. The area around the enormous stone base was leveled during construction for a couple hundred meters in all directions out, and up-down, the softly sloping ascent.

Like many of the large or capitol cities in the Aurion Empire, Kandoris was built using surrounding terrain features as natural defenses.

With it's back to a mountain that had no back paths or secret trails and whose only gentle slope were those leading down to the city's back, Kandoris had a distinct advantage in only needing three walls and having the high ground on any invaders who attempted to besiege their capitol city.

They could also retreat up the highly defensible mountain at their back if the city itself was to be overwhelmed. In fact, there was already a few preparations permanently in place, were that ever to happen.

Seeing the Lord Kandor's colossal likeness made Amila sick. It was shocking to consider how many people could've been properly clothed and fed with only the gold from the giant pieces of jewelry adorning it.

Fortunately, his siding with Daemonkind meant that in addition to taking out the Raven Counsel's (composed of leading humans who, through one path or another, ended up siding with the Demons against their fellow man) main financier, they would also be ridding Aurion of a genuinel asshole, at least the way she saw it.

The fact that Michael intended to sack Kandoris with just a company of Rangers and a handful of assassins had his men more than a little puzzled, yet they followed his orders. Sure enough, the next day there was a giant pillar of smoke emanating from the city's location and Michael and company had returned by early afternoon.

Apparently, Michael had instructed Amila in creating a simple but powerful Alchemic mixture that was packed into barrels. The barrels were snuck up to the base of the giant statue located on the mountain slope above the city while the remaining barrel was hidden in the back of a wagon. Shortly after dusk, the wagon had been sent towards the gate without a driver, drawing the attention to the guards in the walls who had been doubled do to an unexpected occurrence earlier that day. (At midday, clay headed practice arrows had randomly fallen around the city from unseen sources. Each arrow had a message wrapped around the shaft, warning any innocent people to flee the city as the now famous/infamous Lord Michael was coming to burn it to the ground. This resulted in many leaving their homes to visit relatives or go hunting or camping outside the city, suddenly getting the desire to spend the night elsewhere. It also led to the infuriated Lord Kandor doubling his night watch, though he did nothing to try to stop the exodus from his city as he could claim the property or daughters of those that left by claiming they 'defected' as well as giving fewer mouths to feed in the event of a siege).

Before the men guarding the front gate could move to act, the ground shook with a horrible sound like angry thunder and suddenly the giant statue of their leader had become giant chunks and slabs of stone that rolled and bounced down the mountain slope with great and ever growing speed. Unfortunately, those men never saw the destruction of their leaders villa along with significant portions of the city due to the fact that the unmanned wagon at the front gate detonated at that moment and ripped the iron gate apart while destroying the guard towers and a good length of wall to either side.

The Lord Candor's guardsmen, who would've responded to any attack on the city, found themselves trapped as the doors to all four 500-man barracks had been barred before incendiary devices burst into flames on the barracks' roofs. The Gladiators had all been caged and therefore no threat. After that, it was a simple matter to eliminate the remaining guardsmen who had been on duty. The explosions took out a few dozen of the two hundred men who were on duty while the majority of the remainder fell without ever seeing their attackers.

The 128 Rangers and 21 Assassins were darkly cloaked as they used their bows to easily pick off the small groups below from their rooftop positions inside the city. Some of the Assassin's closer victims fell to poisoned throwing stars and darts just as some of the Rangers made use of the heavy mechanical crossbows that supplemented their collapsible steel bows and were often used on oversized animals or beasts with armored hides and monstrous Trolls in the forests, Ogres in mountains or Cyclops in the stone lands.

Their collapsible segmented steel bows were extremely powerful, being of much more efficient design and yet still having draw-weights of between 180lbs. and 240 lbs. when the average War bow for a skilled archer would be closer to 100 lbs.-160 lbs. When the increase in efficiency is added to the extreme increase in strength the Rangers were able to bury arrows deeply into a solid rock face. Deeply enough to seat a zip line, and certainly enough power to punch through most unspelled armors. They could also fire solid steel bolts with waxed leather fletching for dealing with world-class armor or, more often, large thick skinned beasts.

However, the mechanical crossbow was always strapped to their backs, as a supplement to many more weapons, like their steel bows/quivers, long twin daggers, telescoping steel javelins with a hollow central tube that allowed it to double as a Blowgun and a thin but strong chain that could be connected from the javelin's rear to the wrist allowing retrieval as well as the capability to pull shields and anchor beasts, two axes (Sagaris battle-axe with rear spike and a heavy Francisca throwing-axe with S-shaped blade, or two), lasso, medical kit, fire kit, light ration (borts, hard cheese, pemmican, oats, sea-weed and almonds) fur-lined dark green/black/grey uniform and marble looking smoke/fire/flash balls (much like the incendiary/poison gas/flash/ smoke/fire balls were also used extensively by the Demon's Assassins).

However, their powerful mechanical crossbows generated nearly as much force as a Scorpion bolt thrower and mail armor actually made the wounds worse as the heavy diamond shaped head shredded it without effort before continuing into the body, carrying and spreading the broken mail links. The thin neck behind the heavy diamond shaped bolt-head allowed solid penetration with heavy plate armor with the thin neck and smoothly tapered shoulders allowing smooth progress through the larger square hole already torn open. The thick ironwood shaft barely fit through the breach but the bolt's penetration was not impeded. The solid steel bolts came in a few varieties (some enchanted) but were mainly intended for giant beasts like Mammoths or Dragons or penetration through multiple bodies.

Dragons hadn't been seen in Aurion for centuries but the races, most extensively the Elves, still had knowledge of Dragons in the form of ancient texts in Citadels, oral traditions in tribal societies and the more accurate memories and recorded observations of the Elves. The legend surrounding them was often exaggerated but they were powerful beasts with intelligence somewhere between a man and a dog or pig. Contrary to popular belief, they were not invincible, just very formidable. It was true that, due to their Volcanic evolution, they could indeed produce fire by drawing an aerosol mixture of fat, sulfur, iron, petroleum, highly concentrated pure oxygen, fats and Dragon venom into their lungs from various biological sources

and exhaling it while an organ in it's throat produced intense electrical currents that spark the Dragon's breathe and turn it into a flame-throwing maw.

However the power and, primarily range, of the dragon's flame breathe had been greatly exaggerated through the fear of ancient peasants. While they could project Dragon flame, which was hot enough to melt steel, stone and flesh alike, their range was limited to less than ten meters of flame projection in most cases. This meant that they had to fly low, risking their more vulnerable underside, to set towns or castles alight with Dragonflame. Beyond that, and the high elemental iron content in their bones, claws and scales, they were pretty much just very large winged reptiles with unusually high intelligence.

The Dragon does have its vulnerabilities, though. The scales along it's back and flanks provide very thick overlapping armor plates but the scales covering it's belly and throat are much smaller, thinner and they overlap to a much lesser degree. The wings are another vulnerability, the iron rich bones may be very strong but the membranes in the wings are barely thicker than heavy leather and are covered by very small and thin scales. If one could land a piercing blow to the front neck of a Dragon as it was spewing flames, or preparing to, the flames would explode out of the openings and rip the dragon open. There were also herbs, poisons and magics that were effective against Dragons.

There are few weapons capable of actually penetrating a Dragons hide without sliding between scales or into exposed vulnerable spots. Most are Arcane in nature such as properly spelled or enchanted weapons (dragons had a resistance to many forms of magic due to practical reasons such as the speed, flight and distance of an attacking dragon as well as a general biological resistance to many forms of offensive magic), soul weapons, Dragon steel, Ice steel (good steel at a temperature below freezing will act like glass would against against human skin-prone to shattering but extremely sharp), Obsidian (the sharper-than-razor micro edges of Obsidian allow the otherwise brittle material to cut the material that makes up the scales-with their high iron content and a touch and texture somewhere between river stone and boiled leather), Dragonbane (consisting of a mixture of Wolfsbane, Ogresbane, powdered obsidian, Mistletoe, Sage and serpent blood) and Kraken venom (injected by the barbs on their enormous tentacles) mixed with human blood and serpent venom (preferably a species of Viper).

Knowing that the mechanical Crossbow could take down such a beast under the right circumstances, it is not so hard to imagine that shields were penetrated, steel faced with heavy oak planks were punched through, their armored chests sprouting the thick stubs of deeply seated heavy bolts through heavy armor. The mechanical ratcheted hand-winch was strong enough to tow a boat and, when combined with heavy bar of pure, high quality, iron that was treated and beaten into a composite folded steel recurve crossbow prod, it was an amazing weapon. Even the oiled and waxed stock and woodwork built over a composite steel frame using the extremely strong but very lightweight Southern Ironwood. The marksman's Ranger Heavy Arbalest was referred to ironically by it's users as 'The Cure'. Amila was quickly able to work out a design before putting into production an idea called a 'Sniper Rifle' that Michael had shared with her from the advanced technology of a magic lacking world called Earth, inhabited purely by humans.

Amila, aided by craftsmen and smiths and sped by her own Alchemic and magical abilities, created a telescope and mounting bracket for the tops of the Steel prodded mechanical crossbows of the Rangers as well as the Scorpion bolt-thrower. The telescopes allow 2x magnification in their fully collapsed form but with each expended segment the magnification doubled until the maximum of 10x magnification. This allowed unbelievable vision enhancement and with practice, made much easier by the markings on the lenses that helped the marksmen establish distance and the crosshairs placed at multiple elevations that sped range calculation and improved accuracy of shots.

Soon, with much daily practice, the already extremely skilled Rangers found that their enhanced view allowed them to hit individuals at ranges that previously only allowed targeting of large troop formations. At over 200 meters, most could make a head shot through their scoped. At 500 yards most would be able to hit center torso. At out to 700 yards they could consistently hit troop formations, long before the standard enemy archers could approach to the edge of their 300 yard maximum range. If aimed in a high arc, while the scope would be useless, the weapon had a range of out to 900 meters.

There were many different types of boltheads for everything from incendiary and consecrated silver plating to long needle nose armor piercing to multi-needle headed injection darts (reduced draw). However, it was the standard razor tipped diamond shaped bolthead with a square cross section that did most of the dirty work.

Lord Kandor had been dragged out of his hiding place inside his luxurious villa while the men where busy loading wagons with gold, jewels, weapons and provisions. The Gladiators were given their freedom but warned against turning to banditry. Having only known a horribly harsh master, they were in awe of Michael and they agreed to join him to a man. Some of it might have been a result of seeing him easily kill their enraged Gladiator instructor, who was the meanest and toughest ex-Gladiator around.

The men split into pairs and each two-man group was responsible for loading and driving a wagon back to the rendezvous point Michael arranged with the officers, having left Kokochun in overall command while Jelme led the Xia cavalry and Felix led the combined infantry.

The men where in high spirits on their return. Nyssa was getting progressively worse at hiding her interest while Amila was openly infatuated with Michael, appearing like a smitten schoolgirl.

:..:

In Aurion, there are two types of marriage. First, the 'Legal Wedding before man' was more common and was more about the Dowries, arranged alliances and merged assets of the union. The second type,

'Loving Wedding before the Gods', was a true romantic ceremony meant to bind two people into one loving couple.

Before leaving the Dorian Capitol, Michael and Diana underwent a stiffly formal Legal Wedding before Man (which technically requires no consumption) in order to give Michael the necessary authority to unite the North. King Domitus sent a message to the Emperor informing him of the appointment of Lord Michael as the new Warden of the North and Lord of Winterhaven by way of marriage to the sole surviving family member. Though the Warden's needed to be approved by the a Emperor himself, King Domitus' extreme support and the rumors flying around would almost certainly guarantee Michael's appointment and status would be confirmed.

:..:

Michael sat around the campfire in front of his camp tent along with Amila, Kokochun and his officers, eating roasted meat, fruit, fresh bread, cheese and fish. They had taken a huge haul from Kandoris and now, in addition to being oversupplied, each man was legitimately wealthy from the huge amount of plundered gold and gems, even those who didn't participate in the sacking of the city. The fact that the Assassins refuse all material wealth meant there was much more to go around.