I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone for their kind words, but there is one, last narrative update I want to put up for you all. In the coming days I'll have proper replies for everyone, I promise, but I thought you all might like to see the end of an era first...
“5 The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the LORD regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the LORD said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them...” - Genesis 6: verses 5-7.
July 22nd, 1340
Toghrul
Khan,
Amir al-Amirin, Commander in Chief of the Armies of
Faraud, self-consciously ran a hand over his silvered parade helm. Yes, it was straight. Yes, it was sitting properly. Another trace of fingers showed his plumes were, indeed, where they were supposed to be. The son of the chief of the Kazakh Horde, Toghrul was normally not one for fastidiousness—he’d made his reputation and gained his rank through daring, improvisation, and loyalty to the Shahkhan’s come what may. But today was no normal day.
Today was the day when
Faraud, that polygot of Persian, Mongol, and Turkish people, rose from the afterthought of the world and soared to heights yet undreamed. Today was the day when all those hours of worry, all those days of fret, when other nations decided her fate, were long forgotten. That past was recent, close, but would be brushed away by the broom of history.
Faraud had been lucky.
Surrounded on all sides, led by an untested boy and laid low outside of Rayy, she had been weak, vulnerable, ripe for the plucking. Toghrul remembered those dark days—viziers and great men had feared the Turk might swing north to take easy pickings, or that the
Khagan might decide to absorb
He Zhong into his realm. Even the battered Blue Horde was a threat.
b
Oh, how he trembled in those hours, Toghrul smiled in retrospect,
until the young one spoke.
Few had expected much of the new, young King. He was seventeen, barely a man, with scarcely a battle to his credit. Yet within the day of the word of his father’s death, the young man named ‘Iron’ showed the metal in his soul. When the leaders of the Kirgiz protested him bowing before Persian demands, he invited them to a banquet—and then executed them personally. He then took the lone army regiment that remained—the King’s Bodyguard, and rode to the herding grounds of the Kirgiz and ground them to dust.
That broke the back of much dissent—all could see the price of disobedience.
He abandoned his father’s dreams of a Persian marriage for a more practical one with the Blue Horde, then ‘arranged’ for the death of his brothers-in-law and his election by
kurultai to succeed his his father-in-law after the latter’s sudden demise. A few coins here and a well-placed dagger there yielded the bounties of Chagatai a few years later. Now, ten years after his ascension, he ruled not just as Shahkhan, but
Khan of the Blue and Chagatai Hordes, as well as Lord of Sarai and Kashgar.
There was more than Timur’s cleverness and audacity that saved
Faraud, of course. The Turks faced a particularly bloody uprising in the Ganges river valley. Persia, for some strange reason, seemed content to have Faraud as a vassal, no more. The
Khagan’s lands were stricken by a great and terrible disease where men grew lumps from their groins and armpits, and black rashes covered their body. It sounded demonically painful, and devastating in scope. There were already rumors that it had appeared in Kashgar, but Kashgar was hundreds of miles away from Samarkand.
Disease doesn’t spread that fast. We are fine for ten years at least, Toghrul told himself as he checked his bridle and other trimmings on his horse.
There. Perfect. Nothing less for the future Lord of the World.
There were rumors to the contrary, that the strange illness was rampaging through the forest tribes to the north, and even amongst the White Horde, but Toghrul didn’t put much stock in such rumors either. They were almost as useless as the repeated notices from the West—Andronikos deposed, him seizing the city, the Council declaring his nephew Anastasios
Megas Komnenos, and his own son claiming
Megas Komnenos—a paid scribe couldn’t keep track of who claimed that blasted title these days!
Besides, for Toghrul,
Faraud, and shortly the rest of the East, the title
Megas Komnenos would be irrelevant anyway…
It is strange, Toghrul thought, looking across the marshaling field at the plumes of helmets and the glint of steel,
to think the crazy loons to the West paid for the lion’s share of this… Faraud was a small nation, rich in trade, but even supplemented by the Blue Horde and the Chagatai, she couldn’t have fielded an army of levies,
tumen and sellswords this large by herself. It was Roman coin that had built his host—Roman coin from a distant man almost as obsessed with Persia as Toghrul’s master.
A man under siege in his own capital by a multitude of hosts… maybe the fool should’ve have kept some of the generous stipends he sent us?
Generous those stipends had been—monies for recruiting, for arms and armor. Toghrul’s lord has spent that coin well, building contacts with tribes from the Great Lake to the Urals, and sellswords from Havigraes to Karakorum. The palms of Viceroys were greased, the
Khagan was sent silver and medicine in lieu of soldiers. For five straight years the Lord of
Faraud and
Wang He Zong steadily built his forces, promising unbridled loot as pay, and unlimited glory as reward.
Baidar
Khan had held to his honor, and brought the riders of the White Horde, while Uzbeg
Khan led the King’s loyal riders from the Blue—four
tumen, one here, the other three already in the south, ready to slash into Persia at the Shahkhan’s command. Kutlug had arrived, albeit late, with riders from Kashgar and the rest of Chagatai. Toghrul himself commanded the riders of
Faraud, two
tumen’s worth, strong and stern as the Khwarezm iron faced horsemen of old. There were levies from the forest tribes to the north, strong swordsmen from cities from Urgench to Kokand, javelineers and slingers from the hills and mountains of the south, Chinese engineers, Muslim
napthateen, rocket carts, spearmen, and war machines great and small.
40,000 were here to see their Shahkhan declare war on his enemies. Another 60,000 were already in the field, to the south, ready to begin the war in earnest before his enemies were ready. It was, all told, perhaps the greatest host Samarkand had ever seen, the greatest army
Faraud had ever fielded.
Nothing less for the future Lord of the World, Toghrul told himself yet again.
A shout rose from the left, then another voice, and another until a general hue and cry arose from the assembled ranks. Toghrul followed the gaze of his men, towards the balcony of the Azure Palace that looked over the Fields of War. The
Amir al-Amirin couldn’t help but smile at the figure that stepped out.
Sidirios Borigijin-Komnenos, known as Timur, looked positively regal. Gone was the 17 year old boy, awkward in youth. In his place was a 27 year old monarch, a man who, despite his limp, walked into the view of his assembled host with the grace and power only a man who would master the world could possess. Robes of velvet, trimmed in tiger fur lined his shoulders, with golden clasps in the form of tigers, a brilliant ruby as each eye. His chest was covered in black enameled lamellar with gold etchings—blessings from the
Mar Catholicos, no less, while bright golden chain armor glinted underneath. At his hip hung the ivory and jeweled hilt of his grandfather’s blade, a gift from
Khagan Kublai Khan.
In his hand, Toghrul knew, he wanted to hold the world.
“Timur!” his soldiers bellowed, slamming the butts of their spears into the ground, stamping their feet. The earth quaked, and a rhythmic roar shook the air. “Timur!”
“My soldiers!” he roared over the noise and tumult. His voice reminded Toghrul of an ice covered waterfall he'd seen as a child, in the Ural Mountains—deep, with the power of water and winter coursing through and through.
“My soldiers,” a gloved hand raised to the sky, calling for quiet, “I, Sidirios Borijgin-Komnenos,” he called across out across the now silent mass, “have by trickery and deception, been denied my lawful rights, titles and honor! My rights, by birth and by the laws of God and man, have been trampled by those who would seek to aggrandize themselves! The witch Eirene, who calls herself Komnenos, has taken on herself the breeches and crown of a man in Isfahan, despite my legal and direct claim to the Throne of Gabriel!”
A rumbling roar of disapproval cascaded through the army, especially the contingents from
Faraud.
They remember the Isfahan Tax, Toghrul smirked. The then boy-king had decided to lay the entirety of Faraud's first year of tribute on the backs of the populace, and then aptly told them who demanded the money and why. Toghrul remembered courtiers complaining it would inflame the masses—and it did, but in exactly the way the Shahkhan wanted.
People have a long memory. Five years on, the sting is still there...
“In the name,” the young king raised his hand to calm the crowd, starting again once the boos had quieted, “In the name of charity and peace, I have stayed my hand. For years, I have watched, in horror, as Persia has languished under the unforgiving yoke of a she-bear that seeks to make herself a lion! For years, I have watched, as the crown that lawfully belongs upon my head adorn her chancred and broken brow! For years, I have seen the blood, sweat and tears of you, my people, flow south into her greedy hands! Now, I say to you, no more!”
“No more!” Toghrul grinned as he raised his fist in the air, echoing the far angrier shouts of the gathered soldiers.
“I have consulted with learned men, prayed, and fasted. It has not been an easy decision, nor is it one that I leap at without careful thought and sound counsel. God has revealed to me, that it is my duty, nay, my
obligation, that I take my rightful place as the lawful
Shahanshah of Persia! Then, and only then, will my rights be secured! Then, and only then, will my people be safe!” With a quick yank, his grandfather’s sword was aloft, glinting in the sun of a new day.
A roar rose from the gathered army, the bellow of a beast hungry for plunder and spoils.
Persia is only the start, Toghrul smiled as he raised his sword in salute.
After Persia will be the Turks, then …
Sidirios Borijigin-Komnenos, known as Timur, was intent on securing
all his claims—Persia through his mother, the Roman crown through his father, his title to
Khagan through the same. He was 27, strong, cunning, with a great army and a wealthy country behind him.
His eagle will soar high, and all of us will ride on his wings, Toghrul had said once before. Seeing him now, in full armor, sword aloft before his assembled army, the old Turk knew that truer words had never been spoken.
“
Amir al-Amirin!” the young King looked down to Toghrul, his face and eyes stone beneath a mass of chain and plate. “Muster the armies of
Faraud and the horsemen of the Horde! We march to war!”
It was Toghrul’s turn to draw his blade, as he bellowed the cry that would soon become the shout of this Ever Victorious Army.
“Men of city and steppe! To war! To war!”
So Timur finally moves, as the Council vacillates between Anastasios and Petros, and ends up breaking itself apart, as well as widening the coming civil war... and this hasn't even begun to describe how many of the lesser dynatoi, unit commanders, etc. would react to the news that their emperor is excommunicated, and that the Church has named, mistakenly or otherwise, two claimants to replace him... This, my friends, brings an end to the vast majority of the narrative portion of
Rome AARisen. Some parts of the what remains will be narrative, I have no doubt, but most of it will be recollection or retelling—not the actual events as they take place. Next update not only will take us 20 years into the future, but also start a new, final chapter... and with a new chapter comes a new chapter heading...
