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Rise of the Black Legion, Begin.
Sargoth, March 1237.
A tall, cloaked man in heavy armor came to Sargoth through the sea, arriving after a long journey from his homeland. After abandoning ship, he came to the inn for the night, intending to do his works the next day.
The next day, he sold some of his old equipment and bought new ones; a short battle bow, a quiver of bodkin arrows, and a short sword.
Then he scouted the villages around for recruits, and chose from the younger generation. He bought twenty of them easily from their poor family with some denars, with the oldest being a boy twelve years old and youngest a girl of ten years old.
With his vast sum of wealth, the man brought many thing, including twenty hunter-class horses, light armor sets, and weapons.
He then bring those twenty children with him to the Far East, past Khudan and north of Hanun. He chose the frozen valley specifically for one thing; training his newly recruited to-be soldiers, although at this time they could barely live in the cold.
Newly established training ground, later named Tempest Haven, April 1237.
The children, after a week of acclimatization, began their first month of training.
It began with light exercise, but gradually getting heavier with each passing day.
Tempest Haven, April 1237.
The children, after a year of training, have showed great potential, and have grown bigger and taller than most of their counterpart from neighboring villages and towns, mainly because of their better training and better nourishment. The stranger, or as they known him as The Commander held nothing back to nourish his to-be soldiers.
Tempest Haven, April 1248.
Ten years of hard and gruesome training have hardened the young warriors into a small, yet formidable army. Not even the Swadian Knights or Sarranid Mamluks could go toe to toe with them without overwhelming numbers, and none of the Vaegir marksman could shot as accurate as they are.
The Commander, celebrating the twenty boys and girls, commanded them to fight him twenty on one. At first they refused, calling it unfair for him.
But in the end, they were beaten after accepting the challenge. None leave without at least a broken bone, except The Commander.
Tempest Haven, May 1247.
Each of the twenty soldiers under The Commander are tasked to recruit twenty children each, no older than thirteen and no younger than nine. They are given exactly one month to complete the task.
Tempest Haven, June 1247.
The four hundred recruits are wondering how they never heard of such grand training ground, and the older ones are wondering about who expanded the training ground to its current size. It is bigger at least tenfold from the last time they see it.
The four hundred children are to be acclimatized with a week of rest, and the twenty original trainee are tasked with training their recruited younglings.
They accepted their designated task with warm heart. After all, they are the ones to choose those children under their command. They are called the Instructors.
Tempest Haven, August 1257.
The ten years of training have once again hardened the younglings into battle trained soldiers surpassing most elites currently numbering four hundred and twenty.
Under the Commander, they wore their specifically made black armors and armed with black shield, short battle bow, bodkin arrows, and a long sword. Their mounts are hunter-class horses wearing black horse heavy armor.
They march to the south west, to the town of Khudan.
Khudan, December 1257.
The first and the last town to fall to the Black Legion was won without loss of life.
Due to their war with the Khergit, the Vaegir have less than three hundred troops stationed in the town, with most of them being levies recruited without proper training.
They surrender when the Commander, accompanied by ten of the Instructors, demand the town to do so. The surrendering troops are given two choice, either leave the city with their current equipment, or stay and being re-trained as regular troops.
They chose to return to their villages. The Commander gave them a hundred denars each as parting gift.
Rise of the Black Legion, End.
War for Calradia, Begin.
1257 – A mercenary of rising fame sworn his loyalty to King Harlaus, turning the tide of war for the Swadians. His highly trained soldiers have won many battles as mercenary, now as a Baron his army have grown to more than a thousand men.
1258 – War between the Rhodoks and Swadians have come to an end. With the help of a mercenary turned lord known as Count Alder Bryce under King Harlaus, the Swadians exterminated the Rhodok Chieftains and conquered the entire highland. The land was divided to the many Swadian lords, with Count Bryce receiving Veluca and its many villages as his estate for his trouble.
The Nords, with their Berserkers break through many castles and town walls, rampaging the tundra of Vaegir. The boyars were killed, and the High King was executed in his throne in Reyvadin. The town of Khudan is still unbreakable, and the Nords have no desire to confront the newly found Dark Legion. They began to reinforce their position and trained more men.
The Khergit and Sarranids are at peace and prospering, and the lord of Nelag Castle pledge his allegiance to the Khergit, after nearly defeated by the Nords.
1259 – War broke loose between the Khergit-Sarranid Alliance and the Swadian Empire after Count Bryce's proposal to wed one of the Khergit highborn lady was denied, with the Allied forces defeating the Swadians in their own great plains. But whenever Count Bryce took command, the tide almost always turn to their side.
The losing war almost ended after the Khergit lose Halmar and Narra along with their nearby castles and villages, and the Sarranids lose Shariz and Durquba and their nearby castles and villages.
But the losing alliance chose to band together to build the Zen Republic, after destroying the remaining Sarranid controlled desert towns and villages, bringing all citizen and armies to the Khergit steppe, now named the Zen steppe.
The Swadian, caught off guard by the development, sent four thousand men under Count Bryce through Narra to try attacking the newly established republic, only to realize that the pass is blocked by a camp of forty two men in dark armor bearing the insignia of the Black Legion, newly allied with the Zen.
The four thousand strong men tried to force their way under the banner of Count Bryce, but was commanded to turn around by the Black Legion, claiming that they will perish if they choose to pass.
Count Bryce, not one to back out from a threat, send a hundred Swadian Knights to crush the forty two men party, but none came back to report. A scouting mission the next day found their remains on the plains for everyone to see. The Count then send the rest of his men to march and face this new threat, to discover to their astonishment that the enemy still has forty two men ready for combat.
The battle was long and bloody, but the Black Legion's forty two men held until the Zen reinforcement arrived and slaughter the remaining Swadian troops.
Count Bryce was wounded in combat and retreat to Narra with three thousand of his living troops. His report on the Black Legion's party on Zen territory reached King Harlaus after two days. The King himself felt disturbed after hearing that his treasured champion was defeated in one-on-one battle against a Black Knight. He commanded the Count to hold on Narra and preparing in case of siege, which thankfully never happened.
1260 – The war with the Zen and Khudan allied troops have strained the Swadian economy and the Nordic border patrol was increased in their southern territory, making the Swadian nervous. They called a truce with the Zen-Khudan alliance to ease the strain, but the people of Zen demanded reparation payment from the Swadian. They grudgingly agreed to pay two hundred thousand denars.
Count Bryce married the crown princess in Praven. Later in the same year, their child was born, and named Erland Bryce. King Harlaus descend the throne after his grandson was born and let King Alder to ascend the throne, living his old age happily with his family, especially his daughter and grandson.
King Alder was seen repeatedly asking the former king to become his advisor instead of retiring, but was refused each time
1261 – 1290 – A peaceful time for the four nation, each having their own advancement.
The former King Harlaus died at the age of eighty, and the Nordic King Ragnar at the age of seventy seven. The new Nordic King was an old friend of King Alder, King Orric. Their kingdom made an alliance to respond to a new threat from the western coast, bearing green dragon insignia of unknown origin.
The Zen have reached their prosperity by breeding animals in the steppe and some farming in the lowlands. The Swadians have begun their own farming expansion and the Nords have their sea expansions. Population boom is happening in all four nation.
The Commander, or as known by the other monarchs with the name of Ervin Cameron, got a new moniker; the Immortal King, and his Black Legion have their own moniker; the Immortal Legion.
He, his wife and every men in his service does not age, as explained by the Commander himself. But he does not describe it as a blessing, but a curse, for you could still die of wound but not of age.
Scientific advancement was funded by the Commander in Khudan and many scholar have gathered in the biggest city in the entire Calradia.
With imported glasses, Khudan made their own farms in glass houses under the instruction of the Commander, and by the end of 1290 have managed to sustain their population, with some surplus.
1291 – Gunpowder was discovered, and their use was militarized, although the development is very slow.
1295 – Nord and Swadian navy have been refitted with cannons, and the green dragon ships have been seen more regularly. They asked the City State of Khudan and Zen Republic to assist in their navy, and to keep the balance of power, they agreed.
Both Swadian and Nordic military minds have grown restless, fearing an invasion of great number.
The four nations agreed to left old grudges and create the Calradian Union Fleet to face this new threat.
1296 – The first naval battle occurred, with heavy casualties for both sides. The Calradian Union Fleet lost seven ships while the unidentified Green Dragon fleet lost almost twenty due to their smaller and lighter armed ships.
The biggest ship that act as the flagship, Wrath of Khudan was commanded by one of the twenty Instructor and manned by his twenty Black Knight Captains, along with each Captain's own Black Knight numbering twenty each.
1298 – The second naval battle occurred in the northern sea, north of Nordic territory and was the Calradian Union's loss. They lost almost every ship, with the Wrath of Khudan destroyed to bough more time for the defender to prepare. The invader brought almost three hundred ships, of which almost fifty was sunken.
Out of twenty ships, only two survived the onslaught and reported the situation. The response was fast, especially after the sacrifice of one of the Instructor in the battle reach Khudan.
The growing Black Legion army send seventy five hundred marines from Rivacheg with sixty ships armed to the teeth, under the command of another Instructor to intercept the invader, or to destroy their anchored ships. It was the latter that was done, due to the majority of the invader having been landed west of Tihr shores.
The two hundred and fifty ships was sunken almost without a fight, the boarding army slay every sailor and commanding officer still on the ships.
The landed troops was losing morals when another Instructor strike through Tihr, commanding four hundred and twenty Black Knights, supported by two thousand Nordic infantry and archers and a thousand Swadian and Zen light cavalry.
The thirty thousand landed invader stood no chance, and most of the kills belong to the rampaging Black Knights, their victims numbering more than twenty thousand. The remaining ten thousand was slain or captured by the coalition army, mainly the light cavalries with their faster steeds.
The third generation of Black Knights consisting of four hundred individuals are called the Captains, each has their own party of twenty Black Knights trained back in 1280.
1299 – Almost reaching the new century, the Black Legion have a military reform.
Previously without formal ranks, the Instructors are assigned the rank of Imperator in command of their own four hundred and twenty men main party, of which the twenty are the Captains who was now called Legates, and the rest being the four hundred Black Knight bearing the rank of Praetors, with the right of taking command of up to twenty common soldiers each.
The City State of Khudan have passed the two million population threshold and have an army of forty thousand men excluding the Black Knights, with sixteen thousand directly under two legion of Black Knights. They previously also have a naval army of a hundred and eighty ships, with sixty under an Instructor currently patrolling the western border and sixty destroyed on the northern ones, leaving only a hundred and twenty currently in active duty.
1300 – 1320 – The new century also brought a new kind of weapon; musket, an improvement to the previous arquebus used by infantrymen.
Another invasion was crushed by joined forces of two hundred ships of the Union against another four hundred of the lighter armed Green Dragon ships.
1321 – The invention of riffled musket gave birth to a new rank of soldiers; the sharpshooters. While few in number, they are important aspect in the battlefield, for their accuracy was often needed to kill the enemy's commanding officer early on.
Another invasion was performed by the Green Dragon, now bringing along another fleet of Red Eagle in their ranks. They numbered in eight hundred ships, overwhelming the western navy and sinking every ships, except for one frigate class that escaped early on.
This time, the invader managed to make a beachhead in Yalen.
With another Imperator killed, Khudan decided to send three instead of one Black Knights legion, under three other Imperator. The town of Yalen was lost, however, they managed to intercept and kill forty thousand troops outside the high wall of the city, effectively decreasing the enemy number in half. The surviving enemy does not dare to get out of the walls,
Two other Imperator are sent with sixteen thousand troops under their command to lay siege, to find that Yalen was burned to the ground by the enemy long before they arrived. The remaining forty thousand Green Dragon and Red Eagle army have killed all the civilian on the town, and charged the eighteen thousand Black Legion.
No survivor was found from the enemy's rank, with minimal casualty from the Black Legion and the Union army.
1322 – 1400 – A long peace after the horror of war, rebuilding and prosperity once again made the land flourish.
The Commander got a twin daughter, named Lily and Rose Cameron, nicknamed Fallen Angels due to their beauty. They are trained in the way of the first Imperators by the Commander himself at young age, and recognized as two of the most powerful warrior in Calradia, next to their father.
They share the same black hair, eyes and his tall built, but retain their lithe bodies from their mother. They are assigned as the two new Imperators, claiming the places left behind by the previous Imperators.
At 1380, each Imperator has their own training ground, each with monuments of them and their twenty Legates.
The stone works took almost two years to finish, with the dead Imperator carved from memory. In the pedestal was written the names of Imperators and Legates to ever attain the rank, with some Legate statues have three names in them.
Now, except for capital city, every city have a Black Legion Legate as their defender along with local army. The Union also asked The Commander to let their troops train under the Legates, which he agreed to.
1401 – The dawn of a new century bring back old enemies; the Red Eagle, now without the Green Dragon, launched an all-out attack on western Calradia, once again trying to get a beach head in Yalen. But the former city, now a fortress almost half the size of Khudan's own fortress of Tempest Haven, managed to hold the million strong enemy army with their cannons and muskets. The ten thousand defender kill almost fifty thousand enemy before any managed to breach the walls, and kill another fifty thousand until they lose the walls and tried to retreat to the central castle.
The Imperator charged of Yalen was tight pressed with his army's condition, while mourning the loss of another Imperator in the naval battle. In a desperate attempt of breaking the siege, they fought street to street and killing another sixty thousand before being completely overwhelmed.
Four Imperators was dispatched from Khudan with eight thousand infantries, and the other nations each sending sixty thousand army, with an additional five thousand elite troops each as powerful as a Black Legion Praetor. In almost a century and a half of the Black Khight's career, the second battle to retake Yalen was the most devastating.
In the enemy ranks there are at least three thousand elite troops as powerful as a Praetor, which eluded the Black Knights, Berserkers, Conquistadors, and Lancers, each representing the elite troops of Khudan, Nords, Swadians, and Zen.
The three thousand Praetor-class hostiles managed to kill off almost twenty thousand of the Union regular troops before the nearest Imperator commanded his Black Knight and the nearby Lancers to eliminate them. Of the eight hundred thousand enemy that tried to defend the fortress, less than ten thousand was taken prisoner and sold to slavers.
The week-long battle was won, at the cost of a hundred thousand men loss of the Union's army. Of the fifteen thousand elite troops, less than ten thousand survives. Another line of names was carved to the Imperator and Legate statue pedestal in Tempest Haven.
1402 – 1500 – Another long lasting peace enveloped Calradia, with occasional spotting of the Red Eagle ships far on the horizon.
Khudan scientist and scholars built the first steam engine. Indusrialization was quick to develop and transportaation made easier with trains. Warships are decomissioned and new ones are comissioned, using the new engine as propellers. Bigger and more powerful, the new ships need more manpower to properly manned and the Praetors are assigned a new class of underlings; no longer they are regular soldiers, but the newly appointed Triarii.
The Black Knight ranks are once again refitted for duty; the Imperator are re-trained by the High Commander himself to another level. The Imperators themselves also trained their Legates, now at least as powerful as the Imperators of old. The Praetors are also as powerful as the previous Legates, and the Triarii is as strong as the other nation's elite troops.
Khudan made another breakthrough in firearm design by inventing cartridge system, making the reload faster by magnitudes, used mainly in line infantry riffles. The Conquistadors also adapted the firearm into their rank, making them the second cavalry to wield firearm, next to the Black Knight's double barreled pistols.
Not long after, they also invented the revolving reload system, making pistols easier to use with six shot before reload, used to upgrade the Black Knights. While having smaller range than the Conquistador's riffles, they still won by sheer firepower.
Calradia breached a hundred million population, eighteen million of which belong to Khudan.
1501 – Every single Khudan military personnel currently on active duty was recalled to the city of Khudan by the Commander, including the two Imperators acting as naval admirals and the Legates scattered across Calradia.
The Commander himself lead the festive of celebrating the coming of a new century.
War for Calradia, End.
CODEX
Black Legion Rank :
1. High Commander or The Immortal King, commanding the entire military.
2. Imperator, commanding one Legion, each consisting of twenty Cohorts.
3. Legate, commanding one Cohort, each consisted of twenty Century.
4. Praetor, commanding one Century, each consisting of twenty Triarii.
5. Triarii, lowest rank of Black Knight, the backbone of the Khudan military.
6. Evocati (Veteran-Regular troops), armed with riffles to act as line infantry.
7. Principes (Trained-Regular troops), armed with rifles to act as line infantry.
8. Velites (Auxiliary soldiers), armed with rifles and siege weapons to support the line infantry.
9. Hastati (Greenhorn), the newly conscripted citizen of Khudan, armed with bows and arrows as standard projectile weapons.
10. Sharpshooter (Special-Class), the sniper and assassin of the battlefield, the commanding officer of the line infantry.
11. City Watch, a lightly armed division of infantry to minimize crime in the city.
Black Knight Armaments :
1. Black Plate Armor Suit with Black Chainmail beneath
2. Black Steel Scimitar
3. Black Six-round Revolver
4. Two packs of cartridge, sixty each.
5. Hunter-class black horse armored with black horse plate and mail armor.
Line Infantry Armaments :
1. Evocati, Principes, or Velites assigned black robes.
2. Hastati assigned gray robes.
3. Sharpshooter have green, brown, and white robes to blend with forest, desert, or tundra.
4. Evocati, Principes, and Velites uses riffle with cartridge reload system plus a bayonet.
5. Hastati uses longbows and bodkin arrows.
6. Sharpshooters uses specifically modified riffles for accuracy.
7. Officer have their own assigned tall hats assigning their post in the chain of command.
8. A Contubernium of Velites consisting of twenty individuals are assigned two cannons. While three men shot each cannon, the other fourteen prepare for any possible assault from enemy flanking manouver.
Khudan Official Military power :
1. Twenty Imperator-class combatants
2. Four hundred Legate-class combatants
3. Eight thousand Praetor-class combatants
4. A hundred-and-sixty-two thousand Triarii-class combatants
5. Nine hundred thousand line infantry
6. A hundred thousand Siege Engineers with ten thousand cannons stationed mostly around Khudan, Tempest Haven, and the walls protecting the Glasshouse farms.
7. Twenty thousand Sharpshooter scattered as officers, scouts, bodyguards, assassins, or messengers.
8. A hundred and fifty steam powered trains with railways crisscrossing the tundra.
9. Each and every citizen above sixteen years of age are attending mandatory conscript and discharged at age twenty, making every adult at least adept in the art of archery. Every discharged soldiers are to take their bows, arrows, daggers, and armors home. Re-enlisting individuals are given new armors, rifles and bayonets for their next service.
10. Every public schools are training younger children in martial art and physical exercise to maintain physical health.
11. Except for children below the age of five, every single person is trained to defend themselves should the Army failed to response to threat in time.
12. Scholars and Scientist are given extra task in maintaining their physical condition, in case a third party tried to steal blueprint or simply assassinate them. Each was given a five-round revolver and twenty spare cartridge for self defense.
13. The royal family have their own Royal Guard, although unofficial and usually hidden from plain sight in disguise as maids, butlers, or common workers around the Palace, numbering two hundred individual, each chosen by the Imperators and the King himself. Armed with hidden weapons such as daggers, throwing knives, and small six-round revolver with twenty four spare cartridge. Each individual is a Praetor-class combatant, with ten Legate-class mixed in.
14. The Queen herself is a combatant beyond Imperator-class, trained by the King himself in private. Surpassing her twin daughters in combat prowess, albeit she would be defeated should the two joined hand to defeat her.
15. The City Watch is mainly consisting of individuals trained in the art of investigation, required to track down any criminal in the city. Consisting of two thousand Triarii-class combatants. Works mostly under the disguise of civilian or military officer.
Except for a few attempted rebellion in the early development of Khudan as a City State, as the last was dealt with extreme prejudice at 1270, there has never been any more escalated unrest.
[A/N] : IDEAS POPPING UP, YET SO MANY HOMEWORK TO BE DONE. BRAIN DECIDED TO FUCK UP FOR THE PAST FEW WEEKS, BODY DECIDED IT IS A GOOD TIME TO GET SICK. MORE HOMEWORK. NO END IN SIGHT.
MY SCHEDULE IS COMPLETELY FUCKED UP.
IF YOU ARE WONDERING WHY I HAVE NOT UPDATED MY OTHER FANFIC YET, IT IS BECAUSE OF THE FIGHT SCENE. SERIOUSLY, I'VE WRITTEN IT DOWN MANY TIMES OVER.
COLLEGE LIFE SUCK.