The End of the Beginning

Zorlac stumbled blindly through the carnage, eyes wild, fingertips sizzling. He had lost Zanticus somewhere – well, he had lost most of him. There was an arm somewhere back that had looked a lot like Zanticus' -
No! Oh Bopol, he shouldn't think of that! That arm had probably washed Zorlac's smallclothes or something! Oh Bopol! Who was going to wash Zorlac's smallclothes now? He couldn't do it himself! Oh gods...
Maybe he should have taken the arm along. No, it wouldn't be any use to Zanticus now. Oh gods...
"Zorlac!" Could it be... It was!
"Zanticus! Yes!" They ran towards each other, splashing through the reddened muck, as friends reuniting on a battlefield tend to do.
"Zorlac, it's good to see you – ow! Why are your fingers so hot?" Zorlac peeled himself off of his minion.
"Oh, it's magic, Zanticus. Flinging fireballs and all." he answered airily.
"Really?"
"That and that near-miss with the laser."
"Listen, Zorlac, there's someone who wants to talk to you..."
"Mage!" a dry voice roared. "Mage!" Zorlac turned around.
"Duke Scalax. My old enemy." The bony, ancient monarch picked his way through the carrion to rivet his cold gaze on Zorlac.
"I know you don't like me, son, but I trust you have a reasonable head on you. You saw what we just fought – those lightning guns - "
"Lasers. Lasers, we call them."
"Lasers. We need means to combat these lasers and whatever other tricks the Blue Dragons may have up their sleeves, and you know – probably better than I do – how unexplored, how mysterious, Elleria is. I am leaving it up to you to go out and find some way to fight the Blue Dragons. That is a request, not an order."
"Why me?"
"You are the most able." Zorlac puffed up like a preening peacock.
"Well, then, I'll most certainly do it."

* * *

That wasn't all that happened. Days passed.
Ankh closed his eyes, raised his hands towards the statue in the proper position of adulation, and tried to sink into the cool reflectiveness of prayer. But every time he closed his eyes, the visions would come again.
Flashing. Screams. A field of corpses, dotted by bonfires and watered with blood. Men with the swarthy, long-limbed look of the Eastern Duchy about them, chasing down pale Kamareans. Flashing, horizontal lightnings – like the sort thrown by wizards out of tales – striking down Lanciars, and these coming out of strange, pipe-festooned tubes gunned by dark-skinned Lanndings. A thousand ends leaped into his head, grinning Eastern bandits driving axe blades into thrashing Lanciars, Lanndings coolly gunning down dozens of red-coated Kamareans, and every so often, an Easterner or Lannding falling to a Lanciar or Kamarean. Kamareans – and a few Lanciars – turning on their erstwhile allies, shouting the supremacy of the Blue Dragon. Lanndings and Easterners outnumbered ten to one, driving forward into the red ranks and silver-armoured phalanxes of their foes with the savage certainty of victory, the balance tipped by the strange lightning-guns.
Ankh tried to banish the images, but nothing worked. He tried to imagine himself back in the chapel at Magia, the closest thing he had to a home. That almost worked; it wasn't the soft red stone of the walls that gave his pretense the lie, or the ever-present din of Salkir filtering through the walls, in the end, but the heat. The Badlands, where Magia was situated, were hotter than this, but whatever way the Lanciars built their buildings, they were always cold on the inside – like the Lanciars themselves. Ankh was, technically, a Lanciar, but – for having been born outside the caste, for having been inducted in on the basis of his intelligence and magical ability - he would always remain something of an outsider.
And therein, he suspected, lay his problem. He was a magician; not the most gifted, but more able than most to affect that universal force which itself affected all sentient beings. But even though most people couldn't use magic, they were still detectable with it. What Ankh was detecting through his visions was a catastrophe of Biblical proportions.
As if the visions themselves hadn't told him that.
Footsteps sounded behind him, and Ankh turned around to see the Osting ambassador from the north. The corpulent man – or not-quite-man; the Ostings, apparently, belonged to a different subspecies of human – looked at all the statues adorning the walls of the chapel.
"I can't understand you dwarfs at all." he began, but quietly – though Ankh was the only worshipper in the chapel. "What is the point of addressing your prayers to the Dead God of the Desert, like the Farhighters do, if he's dead? What is the point of having a god and not building temples or sacrificing to him, like the Kamareans? And what is the point of this zoo you call a pantheon?" The Osting ran his eyes around the statues.
"Hadr is represented as a human." Ankh answered coldly.
"Every zoo needs a keeper. The gods of the north, though... the world is a conflict between nature and artifice. We understand this in Ostmargue. Animals and the unenlightened thrash around amidst the chaos of nature, drowning themselves in the relentless green tide that can be evidenced in the thousand lost cities of Elleria – consider the ancient, fallen civilisation of Mistocre. Are not her cities swallowed by the greenery?"
"So it would seem."
"The enlightened strive to leave the chaos of nature behind and become artificial. The gods of Ostmargue are beings who have achieved this feat."
"Machine-gods." Ankh extrapolated, flatly.
"Yes."
"At least a zoo doesn't need batteries." The Osting laughed: under normal circumstances, he probably would have had a deep, jolly laugh, but there was a brittle, forced edge to it. Ankh thanked the gods that he had remembered that machines need batteries; there were few enough machines in Akar.
"Tell me about your gods, dwarf."
"Tell me what you came here to say, giant."
"Tell me about your gods, Lanciar, and steel yourself while you do it. You will want to be prepared to take this news." Ankh took a deep breath; he was rarely discomforted, but what with the visions...
"The rabbit? She is Benet, queen of the gods."
"How did a rabbit become queen of the gods?? Surely you'd have issues dividing up your inheritance..." The Osting chuckled again. Ankh didn't laugh.
"Oh, was that a joke? I'm sorry, I have no sense of humour. To answer your question, it was bequeathed to her by Bil, the Soulforger. The Soulforger made the earth and all its plants and animals, and all the peoples that lived on it. Lastly, he created the other gods, each with a specific purpose. Benet's purpose was to rule, even over him."
"That was altruistic of him." the Osting remarked.
"He's a god, he's not like other people." Ankh answered, keeping a completely straight face while saying so. "In any case, he created Muir – the fish – to rule the seas; he created Cera, Bera, and Trichos to answer for the beasts of the wild, he made the Leafscale for the plants and the farmers, he made Gibann – the grinning man – to teach humanity the basics of civilisation and to take care of thieves and rogues; and he made Greenskin Blackeye – it's obvious who he is – to teach humanity magic and mathematics. He made White Pyk and Bathyrax, the Sheltering Shadow, to ward humanity – though against what is never specified. Second-last he made Hadr, the Herald of the Gods, to summon the gods and the faithful should they ever be needed; and last of all, he made Benet, the youngest of the Gods, to act as queen."
"And have you a hell?"
"When the world was newly-created, so the myth goes, it attracted the attention of a horde of demonic creatures, only a few of whom are named – Miclose the Starwyrm; Black Pyk – we don't know of any connection between it and White Pyk; Nightpinion, the Shadow in the Sky; all sorts. Interestingly, a supreme demon is alluded to but not named."
"Fascinating."
"Surely. In any case, Bil made the... aah... place, I suppose... and called it Delirium, locking all the demons away into it. But some lesser demons escaped – the myth goes, they prowl the oceans to this day, sailing on the Scabbard's Whisper, a demon-ship. In response, Bil took the city – Delirium manifests itself as a city, so it would seem – and cast it outside the boundaries of our universe, however you choose to interpret that. Interestingly," Ankh continued in a dry, flat voice, his mind elsewhere, "there was a cult in Mistocre, in an Akarean colony, about a century ago whose stated aim was to free these demons from Delirium. It even corrupted a few Lanciars in the end. When the Lanciars stormed the stronghold, half of them came out raving mad about the 'shoggoth-masters', the 'dark ones from beyond the stars', 'the power of the stone', and all sorts of similar rubbish. There was a gelatinous, acidic mass – apparently dead, if it was ever alive – which the Lanciars identified as a 'shoggoth', and there was a stone artefact as well. I believe the artefact is now in the vaults of Magia." Ankh took a deep breath. "I can't talk any longer. Tell me what you have to say."
"Ah... there was a battle. Twenty-seven thousand Green Dragons clashed with eight thousand Lanndings and Easterners."
"The Green Dragons were slaughtered." Ankh answered flatly.
"It was a Pyrrhic victory." Ankh closed his eyes and thanked the gods whose chapel he was in. A victory! "The Lanndings brought large numbers of... aah... lightning guns, for lack of a better term, with them. No-one can count the dead, but it looks like thirteen or fourteen thousand Kamareans and five thousand Lanciars died. Duke Scalax led the countercharge himself, when the Green Dragons were on the point of breaking; the Easterners fought well, so it would seem, but the Lanndings broke and fled. The entire opposing army was slaughtered, at huge cost in life, and twenty of these lightning-guns were captured. The Kamareans are in a huge fuss over it; apparently they had prophesied the technology but had not developed it. No-one knows how the Lanndings developed it, or if they didn't, who they got it from."
"Another mystery. But Elleria has plenty of mysteries. Where is Scalax now?"
"He was planning to invade Lannding when the message left, so I imagine he must be almost at Lanndar by now." Ankh closed his eyes. They'd won. Gods, it had been a close victory, but they'd won.
"Is that all."
"That is all."
"Do you know if the Shahanshah has given me leave to depart?" His pulse quickened – once they were done conquering Lannding, he might return to Magia and -
"He has not."
"What?"
"In celebration of the news, he has ordered an expedition to Aspherna, to the east. And he wants you to come."

* * *

Nor was that the extent of it either.
"Where are we now?" Constantine asked the commander of the Tyreneans, trying to keep the worry out of his voice. Guilder turned the map upside down, shook it a bit – for some reason – scanned the surrounding landscape – miles and miles of stony, sandy half-desert that could have been in any one of a thousand places in Lannding or the Eastern Duchy – then looked at Constantine, and shrugged.
"Lannding, sir? Possibly?"
"Oh Benet's bones. I've got ninety Lanciars and four thousand Tyreneans the former Patriarch has given and I can't even find Lanndar. Can we find anything??!"
"Ahh, sir..."
"I mean, Benet's bones, it's not a big country, Lannding! In fact, it's actually quite a small country! More of a city-state, really!"
"Sir?"
"It could even be classed as a province if you dispute the legality of Lannding's - "
"Sir?"
"What?"
"I think something may have found us."
Constantine looked at the... the... the thing settling itself comfortably onto the soil and disgorging more things onto the soil as if this were the most natural thing in the world. He rubbed his eyes. He pinched his cheek. He rubbed his eyes again.
"Is this how you humans greet each other?" the towering, slimy-skinned creature asked, in gravelly and heavily accented but grammatically perfect Akarean Mistocren.
"Umm... not traditionally, no."
"Well, I bid you greetings in the name of Kahruisge, the city beneath the waves." the creature said, in what it probably thought was a pleasant voice. Constantine couldn't take his eyes off of it. It was nine foot tall and had slimy skin and a big wedge-shaped head with a little tentacley tuft on its chin and it had black robes like they showed Megas with in the statues. It was alien. "I am Kantor, the Nimble Mind, and this is my nephew, Altyr the Curious. I have studied your endearingly primitive race for many years, and I would like to propose an alliance with the great human kingdom of Akar."
"Aaah..."
"No pressure. Mull over it. I'm sure we have much we could offer each other."
"Aaah..."
"Take your time."

'Pwned' - A Lesson in Literary Pwnage

Today I read the first two chapters of 'Pwned' by Erika Mitchell.
It was good. In fact, it was very, very good.
The title is a dead giveaway, as anyone with a background in computer gaming would know: 'pwned', for all the luddites, is the computer gamer's favourite synonym for 'walloped', 'smashed', 'steamrollered', 'gazeboed', or any other one of those wonderful, weird and wacky words which all mean intense and unrelenting pain for the subject. According to the trailer, the 'pwnage' inherent in the title applies to the protagonist, Sean Boxer – a gamer, of course, and a writer, who spends his life playing Starcraft II and writing mystery books about faraway places. And the 'pwnage' being applied to Mr. Boxer is when he shows up in Korea for a Starcraft tournament – and gets nailed by the FBI. Yikes.
All this I found out from the video trailer, a fascinating link at the top of this page ( http://www.erika-mitchell.com/books/pwned/pwned-chapters-1-2/ ) which features a hilariously appropriate speech-bubble dialogue alongside the voiceover (in my opinion, the trailer's weakest point – the man's voice makes you want to go to sleep), and also a bevy of amusing comments from Ms. Mitchell's assorted friends, acquaintances and minions. The other weak point regarding the trailer would be that it reveals quite a lot of the story – for example, it gives away not only that Sean gets arrested by the FBI, but that his arch-enemy, fellow Starcraft nerd and (in the trailer's wonderfully apt words) 'douche' Norman, has somehow orchestrated this.
And now for the chapters.
There is nothing like being dropped right into the middle of the action, and we surely are here, for no sooner than we open the theoretical pages of 'Pwned' than Sean from the trailer is leading hordes of imaginary computer-screen people against other hordes of imaginary computer-screen people led by a real person somewhere on the other side of the world. The prose is elegant and pleasant to read, yet not opaque or literary (consider: 'Light caught motes of dust drifting through the air, further illuminating the mess that had snuck up on his living room.', or 'People emerged from the void that existed behind his closed eyelids, their conflicts and characteristics wrapped around each of them like cauls.', describing his writing. I don't even know what a caul is!!!) A lot of Sean's character is shown to us, describing a moderately successful geek, slightly bitter at the world, who hides from the real world in his computer games and his writing (and who also insists on spelling perfectly – just like me. I thought I was the only one who did that). We are also introduced to Tabby, awkward yet pretty, and in whom Sean professes no interest whatsoever (I don't believe it for a minute). Therefore, before the first two (very short) chapters have ended, we know two of the main characters and are impressed by the author's use of language. On the negative side, while Tabby gets plenty of description time, it's not obvious what Sean looks like – aside from assurances that he's blond and bespectacled, a category of people including millions.
Personally, I think this book is excellent; in fact, if I wasn't penniless, I'd have bought it myself already. I would certainly recommend it if you are one of Ms. Mitchell's friends, acquaintances and/or minions, although a further general recommendation would be impossible without the rest of the book.
That's it. Can't think of anything else to say.

The First Move, part I

Alaman Shaundaar was not a man who took much interest in politics.
Nor was he a man to match his delicate-sounding, obscure name. A hulking, cruel brute with a surprising intelligent – or at least cunning – streak, he had grown up on an uncivilised planet called Elleria, in a nation called Kamar, though of foreign stock. Through a really quite unbelieveable series of events, he had ended up not only in space, but in charge of his own stolen Deydaan gunship, with a crew of fellow humans, most of them from the human homeworld of Elleria.
So it was he had turned to space piracy. And in the world of space piracy, politics matters not very much – whether the trade lanes are policed by the Deydaans, or the Khanati Commune, or the Arbugadines, piracy occurs nonetheless. His operation was large enough to be lucrative, yet small enough to be ignored by the vast run of the Khanati cruisers whose elegant lines traditionally dominated this area of space.
So he was very surprised when he saw the ship – for that was all the mysterious, star-swallowing black shadow heading his way could be.
He was even more surprised when the sensors didn't see it.
He was even more surprised, when he opened up with the Deydaan plasma cannon, that the ship not only didn't fire back but barely seemed to notice.
The only word to describe his reaction when the black shadow pulled up alongside his ship was 'gobsmacked'.
And when he met the creatures from the shadow ship, surprise gave way to terror.
This made him rather amenable to their demands, despite the fact that they were quite political in nature.

* * *

The canvas marquee's walls shook to the tramping of Lanciars and Kamareans on the soil of East Lain, the two nations' combined hosts assembling to bring wrath to the aides of the Blue Dragons.
"A word is now requisite on the nations of Lannding and the Eastern Duchy," Duke Scalax of Akar croaked, "for the benefit of our foreign allies." A bevy of emissaries – a brass-embellished Thurse soldier from Ostmargue, a bony Markanian Thurse, a little, green-cloaked Erse and a Farhighter – all nodded gratefully. Zorlac debated whether or not he should go to sleep, then decided that Scalax would probably take it amiss – even though he was one of almost fifty people crammed into the marquee. Zorlac was, of course, the greatest wizard known to mankind and all that, but even so he wouldn't like to tangle with Scalax of Akar. The ancient, emaciated – in fact positively skeletal – Duke, bent under the weight of the Lanciarial armour he was never seen without, was far stronger than he looked, and the fevered eyes that glistened in the wrinkled folds of his face were as sharp as they had ever been. Aside from the fact that he was old and sharp, there was something... off about Scalax, something Zorlac didn't think a non-magic user would detect, something dark and potent and mysterious.
In short, Duke Scalax was a funny kettle of fish.
"The people of Lannding and the Eastern Duchy," Scalax began, his reedy voice echoing within the confines of his ribcage, "are a sullen, mongrel lot, jealous of the power and prestige of Akar and Kamar." Well, of our power and prestige anyway, Zorlac thought wryly. "Ethnically, the people of the Eastern Duchy are mostly Akaric, like the people of Akar, Tyrenea, and Old Lain, before the Kamarean... aah... colonisation, with some Farhighter and Shai Qadi elements; Lannding's folk are mongrels, composed of Farhighter, Akarean, Kamarean and Shaiqadian bloodlines. Their right to independence is disputable." Independence from you, you mean. "Lannding is, in fact, the last remnant of the Farhighter empire in the west, declared independent in a moment of weakness for the Farhighter monarchy; the Eastern Duchy, a nation so bereft of identity it remains nameless. Their land is half-desertified and arid, supporting only two hundred thousand souls in the Eastern Duchy and a hundred fifty thousand in Lannding, of which twenty thousand live in Ostia, capital in the East, and thirty thousand in Lanndar. Economically, Lannding is richer than the Eastern Duchy, though neither are wealthy, and, especially in Lannding, the balance of wealth is very inequitable. It should not be diffucult to pressure the peoples of both nations to rise up against their corrupt monarchies. Technologically, both Lannding and the Eastern Duchy are behind Akarean standards by up to thirty years." And behind Kamarean ones by up to two hundred and thirty years. Akarean barbarians.
"Militarily, neither Lannding nor the Eastern Duchy are formidable. During the Lannding War of Independence, a century ago now, Lannding fielded ten thousand soldiers; factoring in her population increase, I surmise Lannding should be able to field around sixteen thousand soldiers. In the Eastern Duchy, there is a long and ignominious history of banditry; mobilising these gave the Eastern Duchy thirty thousand men and women, when she fought against Kamar a generation ago." When you Akareans manipulated the Eastern Duchy against Kamar, you mean. Bloody Lanciar crooks, Zorlac thought angrily. "Factoring in the ravages from that war, I estimate the Eastern Duchy will bring between eighteen and twenty-five thousand to the field. At worst, that gives us a total of forty-one thousand enemies, probably ill-equipped and poorly trained. I imagine that, across the border from us are assembled the standing armies: ten thousand, maximum.
"In contrast, Kallipolis holds almost forty thousand Lanciars, of which I have seven thousand. If my Kamarean, ah, comrades have a hundred thousand as they claim, and twenty thousand of those are here, then we outnumber the enemy well over two to one, and outgun them too.
"With this in mind, my friends, I predict that, on the morrow, when we invade the Eastern Duchy and find the enemy, our biggest problem will be cleaning up afterwards." Scalax nodded, and cracked what might have been a grin. "Thank you for your attention."

* * *

"Your biggest problem will be cleaning up afterwards." Janin of the Sand's End Shai Qadi assured the King of Lannding. "Isn't that right, Mr. Shaundaar?"
And the space pirate nodded and smiled grimly, as he handed over the blueprints for all the weapons on his ship, like he had been told, for the Lanndings and Easterners to arm their armies with.
Because the people from the black shadow-ship wanted Elleria very much, and this was how they were going to get it.

Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time

Before we begin... I know. It's crappy. This one just wouldn't come. Such are the vagaries of being a writer and all that.

Constantine watched the Tyrenean Wall, its white shining limestone expanses stretching away to either side, and beneath it the tiled, Kamarean roofs of the crossing-village of Lestraun. Its houses huddled around the only ingress to Tyrenea in the entire wall.
“I don't think the stealth plan is going to work.” one of his Lanciars said, watching the collection of houses that comprised their objective. Constantine looked around. "You're probably right."
Ninety-odd shimmering Lanciars on twenty-hand Kallipolitan horses can be somewhat tricky to hide, especially on the plains of western Lain. All the forests were in the north.
"Yes, sir."
"Well then – Plan B, ladies and gentlemen. If it's any comfort to you," Constantine barked, "it's only marginally more crazy than our previous one."
"Your previous one, sir." one of his Lanciars told him. "I have the benefit of free speech, and I am using it to tell you that I am not taking the blame for this." Constantine pinched the bridge of his nose and wished fervently for an authoritarian, totalitarian dictatorship. One in which he was in charge.
"Fine. Just do it." The Lanciars slipped – well, fell elegantly; it's somewhat hard to slip in full chainmail – off their horses and unlimbered their gastraphetes – huge, powerful Lanciarial crossbows, capable of propelling bolts through walls. They settled the bows against their midriffs, wrapped the ends of the bolts in oily rags, lit the rags, slid back the sliders -
Whump.
"Onto horses! Onto your horses!" Constantine made as good as his word and vaulted – scrambled – onto the back of his huge animal. Ponderously, the Cataphracts began to trundle towards the chaos-stricken town of Lestraun, where villagers and Lain militias were running around like headless chickens, as one does when one's town has just been bombarded with burning crossbow bolts. As the Lanciars drew closer, their hooves churning up the fertile muck of western Lain, some of the villagers screamed, waved their arms, grabbed the militiamen by the arms, and pointed at the Lanciars.
Like any realistic unpaid soldier, the militiamen ran for their mammies.
Constantine could probably have captured Lestraun in that instant. He had a better idea though.
Well, he thought it was a better idea.
Scabbards rattled. Chain clanked. The grunts of men and horses intermixed. Hooves struck sparks off the cobbles of Lestraun's main street – as in actually struck sparks. Constantine tried to balance his gastraphetes against his stomach, shout – "Aim for the gate!" - and aim for the gate himself. The silvery, fish-like flow of the Cataphracts, belied by their awful thundering, cleared the streets ahead of them like boiling water through ice, as militiamen and villagers conceived of better places to be very fast. Finally, his bow was balanced – against his chest, he didn't want to kill his horse – and he ground the slider back -
The bolt flew out and Constantine flew back. The Lanciar behind him was treated to a surprising view of his commanding officer's mailed backside accelerating towards his face. The first rank of Lanciars craned their heads back in time to see Constantine knock his subordinate off his horse in a spray of splintered gastraphetes.
"A hint, men." Constantine croaked from the ground. "Get off your horse before shooting a gastraphetes."
They did so. As the injured parties helped each other up, the rest of the Lanciars trained their bows on the gate.
Eighty-nine forceful bolts simply caved the gates in. Tyrenea yawned before them.
Constantine clambered onto his horse – there was no grace at all in his movements there – uncrossed his eyes, worked who and where he was, and only then unsheathed his sword and waved it forward.
In the Tyrenean half of Lestraun, two militiamen in conical Tyrenean helmets with spears ran out from the gatehouse. They took one look at the Lanciars.
"Nope." one said.
"Not happening." said the other. They ran.
And that was how the Tyrenean Wall completely failed to keep out ninety men and women on a mission. Such is life.

* * *

Constantine reined his horse to a halt. The rising sun highlighted its sweaty flanks; they had abandoned the horses' heavy armour in an abandoned farmhouse not long after Lestraun. They had ridden all night – not hard, just enough to get them to where they wanted to be with the dawn. Everyone was tired, but Constantine was sure his plan would work.
How could he fail to capture the metropolis of Tyrene after all his hard work?
For that was where he was. In front of him, the temple-studded, upmarket, white-alabaster-stereotype Hieropolis district was dropped into the industrial muck and dirt of Low Tyrene like a diamond into a pig trough. The temple domes and spires jutted whitely above the paleness of Hieropolis' walls, looming brightly over the low-slung squalidity of the Low City. A city of great inequality, Constantine knew, of decadence and privilege paid for by the blood and sweat of the lower castes.
Still, it was a fair prize, and Constantine had the advantage of surprise.

* * *

"The Lanciars are attacking!" the woman shrieked, shaking the fruit-seller by the shoulders. He shook his head, his innumerable chins jiggling terrifiedly, but sure enough, the soot-stained people of Low Tyrene were all scrambling through the dirt-paved streets and between the mock-classical hovels to get out of the path of -
The salesman gasped. The woman legged it.
Cataphract.
The faceless mailed warrior on his enormous horse, cloaked in the trademark Lanciarial silence, dashed down the street, waving his sword in the air. He was followed, shortly after, by no less than twenty screeching Tyrenean soldiers in bleached-white lorica segmentata (Google it), in bronze conical helmets, all waving spears.
In fact, similar detachments of men were chasing nineteen other Cataphracts around Low Tyrene, and the rest of the garrison had been mobilised to combat this sudden and unexpected threat.
Which left Constantine able to waltz relatively unscathed right down Low Tyrene's main street and smash in the main gate with the remaining seventy Lanciars' gastraphetes.
"To the Patriarchal Palace!" Constantine shouted, riding dramatically through the splintered gate, his seventy cataphracts behind him, like some avatar of literary improbability. Domed temples and grey-paved streets opened before him, focusing on the great central plaza and – as it happened – the Patriarchal Palace, right opposite him.
Constantine couldn't believe it. The Patriarchal Palace – the center of Tyrene and Tyrenea. The dawn sun's rays caught the glittering white marble, highlighting the exquisite statuary and architecture.
It also highlighted the hundreds of Tyrenean soldiers pouring into the plaza from all sides.
"I told you this was a bad idea, sir - "
"Shut up, please, and start working out how we're going to explain this to Duke Scalax."
A particularly well-dressed Tyrenean pushed out from the front, strutting peacockishly up to the now obviously defeated Lanciars.
"Well well well. Lanciars!"
"Well spotted."
"I am Patriarch Actuari of Tyrene." the man announced smugly. "And we have much to talk about, you and I."