Battle of Tasfahn

Prelude

In the year 3 BR, the Haxamanian Empire was in the midst of a succession crisis. Bahram VII, the previous Shahanshah, was on a ship en route to Peshmerghestan that sank, leading to a power struggle between his two sons, Rostam and Zarang. Rostam defeated and killed the inexperienced Zarang at the Battle of Boghoz and imprisoned their sister Rukhsana, who had "unwomanly" (as he put it) ambitions of her own, in the distant province of Gamalistan in a prison called the Fortress of Oblivion. In the Fortress of Oblivion, Rukhsana met Omar Bin Aziz, the leader of a group of powerful Gamali priests called the Zamanrahib, who preached a different, less socially restrictive form of Yasnic Anandism than the Students of Anand, the current faction who had been using the Shahanshahs as de facto puppets for centuries at this pont. Additionally, they had access to powerful magic, which Omar taught Rukhsana in prison and wide support among the Gamali people. 

Eventually, Rukhsana and Omar escaped from prison and began putting an army together to oppose Rostam, with many Gamali tribes joining them and forming the nexus of their force. Since her sister Narenja was married to the Satrap (governor) of Peshmerghestan, Rukhsana was able to recruit his help and a large number of Peshmerga infantry, some of the best and toughest on all of the Planet Awal. Rukhsana then traveled to the Planet Bharatam and visited the Haxamanian Satrapies located there, which had been subjected to numerous crackdowns by Rostam's religious police. The Satraps here flocked to join Rukhsana to rid themselves of Rostam and the Students of Anand, giving her plenty of light infantry and some war elephants. Returning to Awal, Rukhsana gained some support from the East Hyrcanian Satrapies, Hatti, and Luwistan before moving west into West Hyrcania, the mountainous homeland of her Shahanzai Dynasty.

Here, she received a small contingent of volunteers from the westernmost Satrapies, but this was limited in number, as much of the west was still firmly under Rostam's thumb. While the Shahanzai Dynasty she was part of was from West Hyrcania, and were considered members of the Shahanzai Tribe, almost all of the leaders of the Shahanzai Tribe defaulted to supporting Rostam at first because he had the support of the Students of Anand, whose leader, Akhtar Akhund, was also a member of the Shahanzai Tribe. However, using some unresolved drama between their two subtribes her parents had told her bedtime stories about as a child, Rukhsana invoked her tribal right to resolve it by dueling Akhund in single combat. Rukhsana defeated and killed him, putting her on equal standing with Rostam as far as tribal obligations were concerned. Not particularly caring for Rostam, the Shahanzai Tribe enthusiastically supported Rukhsana, and the closely related Nangzais soon followed. The Hatsazais and Hilazais joined her as well, but the vast majority of tribes decided to remain neutral, while the Lodizais supported Rostam. 

Meanwhile, Gavicus XXIX, the Dominus of Aurea, had heard about the chaos in the Haxamanian Empire, and decided to strike while the iron was hot, sending a massive force of around 120,000 men north from the Aurean Exarchate of Tifinagh. Landing in and quickly capturing the coastal Satrapy of Van, the Aureans caught Rostam completely by surprise, and Rostam was forced to send his similar sized force south through the Hyrcanian Mountains to counter them. Knowing it would be suicide to engage Rostam in the Hyrcanian Mountains, the Aureans forced his hand by pillaging and plundering the flatter ground of Van to draw him into more exposed terrain. Forced to fight the Aureans and their superior Tifinaghian and Tangolian cavalry on open farmland, Rostam was crushed at the Battle of Zanbil, and was killed in the process, leaving the Haxamanian Capital of Tasfahn virtually undefended and the throne vacant. 

Seizing their chance, the Aureans marched into the Hyrcanian Mountains, hoping to capture Tasfahn before the winter snow arrived and trapped them. The Aureans followed the course of the Anahita River, near the headwaters of which Tasfahn sat, aiming to live off the farmland the river irrigated along their journey, and since it provided them with an easy path through the mountains. This took the Aureans through Hilazai lands, resulting in the Aureans being harried relentlessly by Hilazai warriors for their entire crossing, and most importantly, Rukhsana being notified of this massive Aurean army moving towards Tasfahn via scouts. 

Rukhsana quickly moved her army through the Hyrcanian Mountains, but was stopped by the neutral Surkhzais, who controlled part of the road from Mingora (her headquarters) to Tasfahn and refused to let her pass. As she knew her force was barely a third the size of that of the Aureans' to begin with, she could not waste any soldiers subduing the Surkhzais. Out of options, Rukhsana met with Darwesh, their Khan, in her yurt to discuss a solution.  Through unknown means (some of Rukhsana's detractors suggest they slept together), Rukhsana managed to convince the Surkhzais to side with her and continued the march to Tasfahn.

When she reached the city, it was the middle of autumn, and her scouts informed her the Aureans were only a 3 days' march north of the city, so there would be no time to prepare an elaborate coronation. However, they also informed her that leaving garrisons behind, exposure to the elements, and harassment by the Hilazais had significantly reduced the Aureans' numbers, leaving them with only around 100,000 men, although that was still more than double Rukhsana's force. Rukhsana allowed the army to rest and resupply in the city for a day before marching north to meet the Aureans. Additionally, the 10,000 Immortals, traditional heavy infantry guardians of Haxamania's royal family, were in the city after Rostam's defeat and joined Rukhsana, bolstering her numbers substantially. Using Hilazai scouts, Rukhsana was able to find a place along the Aureans' path that would be suitable for battle: an area of flat farmland bounded to the west by a deep section of the Anahita River that looked deceptively fordable due to  the glacial minerals in the water. This flat valley continued to the east for around 5 miles before rising into the Hyrcanian Mountains, which also sprang up around a mile west of the river. Behind Rukhsana, the river was shallower and actually fordable. To the north was a narrow mountain road through a canyon which the Aureans were about to travel through to reach the battlefield. On the eastern bank of the river, along the road to Tasfahn, between the ford and the faux ford, Rukhsana and her army set up camp, knowing they had the element of surprise on their side.

The next morning, the Aureans arrived, slowly trickling out of the canyon. They were taken by complete surprise, thinking that after defeating Rostam, the path to Tasfahn was clear other than some Hilazai guerilla activity. They were not at all expecting to see a full-fledged army anywhere near Tasfahn. Although it was far smaller than their own, its mere presence without any warning was enough to unnerve them. Nevertheless, the Aureans set up camp along the eastern bank of the river to Rukhsana's north, knowing retreating into the canyon would allow this force to cut them to pieces if they tried. By late afternoon, both sides had formed up and were hurling insults at each other.

Rukhsana's army arranged itself into three lines: heavy infantry in the front, lighter infantry and archers in the middle, and cavalry in the rear. Behind these were war elephants, split between the left, right, and center in 3 groups of 10 each. Rukhsana sat atop her personal elephant and commanded the center, while Omar Bin Aziz commanded the left and Shahrbaraz Nangzai commanded the right.

Gavicus arranged his army in a manner mirroring Rukhsana's, with heavy infantry in the front, light infantry and archers in the middle, and cavalry in the rear. He also split his elephants among the center and wings, although Gavicus decided to strengthen his wings by giving his right and left 25 elephants each, while the center only had 10. Like Rukhsana, Gavicus also commanded the battle from his personal elephant. His left wing was commanded by Quintus Floridius Longinus, and his right by Gaius Caesonius Theodosius.

Battle

The battle began at midday, with commanders of both sides dueling each other in single combat. While duels between Aureans and regular Haxamanian commanders tended to go either way, the battle-hardened West Hyrcanian, Gamali, and Peshmerga warlords that made up the bulk of Rukhsana's force absolutely dominated the Aureans, whose commanders, while generally decent at leading and ordering soldiers around, were usually Senators or other politicians who lacked dueling expertise, and as a result, the Aureans lost many valuable commanders and suffered a blow to their morale. The clash began in earnest with the Aurean left attacking Rukhsana's right, covered by a barrage of arrow fire across the board. The heavily armed and armored Aurean legionnaires packed a wallop, and Rukhsana's more lightly armed West Hyrcanians and Peshmerga were unable to stand up to their disciplined ranks, resulting in them being pushed back. However, the Immortals proved enough to prevent the total collapse of Rukhsana's right, with Nangzai rallying them to stop the bleeding. Longinus, however, had a plan, and used Tangolian cavalry, famous for their speed and horse archery, to pepper Nangzai with arrows to provide cover for his elephants and cataphracts to arrive and roll up Rukhsana's right. Realizing what he was doing, Rukhsana personally led a contingent of her lighter Gamali, West Hyrcanian, and Bharatami cavalry from her center to intercept the cataphracts before they could arrive. While the cataphracts were able to break through the light cavalry charge and cause severe casualties, their momentum was blunted and they were unable to break Rukhsana's right. The elephants, on the other hand, were trickier to deal with, as Rukhsana wanted to save her own elephants for use against infantry and did not want to simply waste them against the Aureans' more numerous elephants. Instead, she and her light cavalry got in amongst them, chopping the cables that connected the riders' platforms to their bodies and trying to panic the beasts by playing loud drums. As a result, many of Longinus's elephants ran off, sometimes riderless, into the valley or even into Aurean lines, where they caused chaos and some casualties. Rukhsana's elephants, used to the sound of the drums, were unaffected. To avoid losing all of his elephants, Longinus pulled the Aurean left back to its original position, ending the first day of battle. Both sides were battered, but Rukhsana's entire force had suffered considerably more damage due to their inability to resist Aurean arrow fire, while the Aureans' heavy armor blocked many of the Haxamanians' shots.

The next day, both sides redeployed for battle in mostly the same manner as the previous day, but this time, the Aureans put their elephants in front rather than at the rear, seeking to use their superior numbers and their beasts to push Rukhsana back and roll up her flanks. Also in the front were Aurean deinonychus riders, light cavalry who rode theropod dinosaurs the size of small horses which the many peoples of Awal were not used to. Longinus on the Aurean left again began the day by attacking Nangzai on Rukhsana's right, with the deinonychus spooking Nangzai's cavalry into retreating to the back of the line behind infantry cover. Meanwhile, the rest of the Aurean line unleashed a hail of arrow fire against Rukhsana's line, causing heavy casualties and pinning her center and left in place to prevent a counterattack. Nangzai's West Hyrcanians, Immortals, and Peshmerga were able to hold back the Aurean legionnaires, but the Aurean elephants were able to charge into her troops, goring, stabbing, and throwing many to their deaths and pushing Nangzai back. Since the deinonychus were mostly concentrated in the center of each of the Aureans' wings, Rukhsana was able to take some Gamali, West Hyrcanian, and Imazi cavalry from the rear of the center (out of the range of arrow fire) and charge Longinus's right flank, saving Nangzai. Gavicus then changed strategies, charging in with his center to tie up Rukhsana's and sending his right under Theodosius to attack Omar Bin Aziz on Rukhsana's left, covered by heavy arrow fire. On Rukhsana's left, deinonychus once again spooked Omar's cavalry into retreating behind his infantry, and the elephants pushed his infantry back. To deal with these elephants without using her own, Rukhsana ordered Bharatami light infantry, who were used to elephants, as well as Imazi who lived in lands bordering the Aurean Exarchate of Tifinagh and were used to deinonychus, move in to deal with them. With considerable skill and daring, these agile warriors, like Rukhsana's light cavalry the previous day, cut the rider platforms from the elephants, leaving many of them riderless and forcing them to retreat behind Aurean lines. Meanwhile, the Peshmerga, West Hyrcanian, and Immortal heavy infantry fronting Rukhsana's line was able to push the Aureans, who were demoralized after seeing their elephants forced into retreat, back to their original positions. Not expecting Rukhsana to immediately counterattack on all fronts, Gavicus neglected to order his deinonychus to retreat to the rear with the rest of the Aurean cavalry. Taking advantage of the fact that the deinonychus were now fronting the Aurean army with no other cavalry support near them, Rukhsana ordered all of her army forward, with her heavy infantry crashing into the front line and killing most of the deinonychus before they could rejoin the rest of the Aurean cavalry behind the infantry. With most of the deinonychus killed, Rukhsana was able to send her cavalry between the gaps in and around the flanks of the Aurean army. Gavicus responded by sending his own cavalry out to engage them, and a slogging match ensued. Eventually, a group of Rukhsana's Gamali cavalry was able to get close to Gavicus himself, but he and a small group of his Tangolians under Qajeer Khan himself were able to rally and push them back. Inspired by seeing their leader do this, the rest of the Aurean line rallied and pushed Rukhsana's army back, ending the fighting for the day.

That night, unnerved and confused by the fact that Rukhsana had not used her elephants at all during the first and second day of battle, Gavicus devised a plan to eliminate them.  He sent a large group of around 4,000 Tifinaghian light infantry, under Marcus Septimius Massgaba, to ford the Anahita River under the cover of darkness, sneak around the battle the next day, ford the river again behind Rukhsana's lines, and cut down her elephants. However, the Aureans fell for the fake ford and Massgaba, along with most of his Tifinaghians, drowned in the river. Only around 300 of these Tifinaghians made it back to the Aurean camp. Rukhsana, on the other hand, had something else up her sleeve. Under the cover of darkness, she sent light cavalry to retrieve the corpses of Aurean deinonychus from the battlefield, and had the few soldiers who were still awake work on meticulously scraping off the deinonychus feathers and attaching them to a few of Rukhsana's cavalry horses, knowing these would come in handy in the event of an Aurean cavalry charge.

The next day, both sides arrayed for battle mostly the same way they had been doing for the previous two days, with both sides keeping their elephants in the rear. However, the Aureans began the day with their cavalry in front and opened with a cavalry charge. Rukhsana paraded the newly feathered horses in front of her line, spooking the Aurean cavalry and causing them to retreat behind Aurean lines. Rukhsana followed up with a general attack across the entire line, and a slogging match ensued. This caused heavy casualties on both sides and lasted into the evening, but eventually, the Aurean legionnaires managed to painstakingly push Rukhsana back again, ending the fighting for the day.

When both armies were arraying for battle the next day: Rukhsana was met with a nasty surprise: the Aurean lines parted briefly and through the gaps came Aurean elephants, rearmed and recuperated, surrounded by escorts of Aurean legionnaires, Tangolian cavalry, and what remained of the deinonychus. Fronted by these elephant escort formations, the Aureans began the fourth day of battle with a general attack, the deinonychus in these formations repelling Rukhsana's cavalry to the rear. As these formations made contact with Rukhsana's army, the escort formations slid to the sides of the beasts to allow the elephants to crash into Rukhsana's front lines. Thousands of Rukhsana's soldiers were gored, crushed, stabbed, and thrown to death, and her line was brutally shoved back. Gavicus smelled blood in the water and gathered a large contingent of Tangolian cavalry to attack Rukhsana's right flank and end the battle. Nangzai was able to stop this attempt with a cavalry charge of her own, he was killed in the process and Rukhsana's army nevertheless appeared on the verge of collapsing from the extreme casualties of the Aurean elephant charge. Despite wanting to hurt or kill as few Aurean elephants as possible and instead preferring to simply scare them off the battlefield, Rukhsana was out of options and had no choice but to send Bharatami and Imazi light infantry in to slash at the beasts, hoping to cause them enough pain to get them to flee the battlefield. Although Rukhsana averted her eyes the entire time, this was a success, with the hurt and scared Aurean elephants panicking and brutally stampeding through their own lines to flee the battle. With the Aurean elephants gone, Rukhsana seized the opportunity she had been waiting for since the battle began. Leading the charge atop her own elephant, Rukhsana crossed the Anahita River at the ford behind her lines, went around the battle, and using the huge height of the beasts, crossed again at the fake ford. To distract the Aureans while this was going on, she had her entire line launch an arrow bombardment of their own. While this caused few casualties due to the Aurean legionnaires' heavy armor, this allowed Rukhsana and her elephants to sneak around the Aurean line completely unnoticed until the elephants crashed into the Aurean rear. Eventually finding Gavicus, Rukhsana and Gavicus dueled briefly atop their elephants before fighting for a while longer on the ground, while the Aureans desperately tried to hold Rukhsana's army back on two fronts. Eventually, Rukhsana defeated and captured Gavicus, bringing him with her on her elephant while she resumed leadership of the elephant charge, which when combined with the capture of Gavicus, caused the Aureans to rout and attempt to flee to the east. Since the path through the canyon to the north was too narrow to allow more than a few soldiers to escape at a time, many of the Aureans were trapped in the valley and either cut down by Rukhsana's cavalry or killed by the Aurean elephants who were still stampeding around the area. Rukhsana had defeated an Aurean invasion force more than double the size of her own army and taken the Aurean Dominus captive.

Aftermath

After the complete annihilation of this Aurean army, most of the survivors retreated back through the mountains to Van, being harassed all the way by West Hyrcanian guerillas. Once out of the mountains, the remaining Aureans, under the command of Longinus, hunkered down in Van and began sending letters to Rukhsana to negotiate Gavicus's release. Meanwhile, Gavicus was paraded in chains through the streets of Tasfahn while Rukhsana was crowned Queen of Kings of the Haxamanian Empire, the first person to ever hold such a title. The rest of the West Hyrcanian tribes quickly pledged allegiance to Rukhsana and were followed by the western Satrapies that had previously supported Rostam. Although what was left of the Aurean army in the area tried their best to hold Van, a Haxamanian force from neighboring East Sakastan attacked and forced Longinus to abandon the Satrapy, returning it to Haxamanian control. Longinus returned to the Aurean Exarchate of Tifinagh, from where he continued to petition for Gavicus's release. Having no desire to execute Gavicus and cause a longer-term war with Aurea and all the needless bloodshed that would come with it, Rukhsana was nevertheless determined to get all she could out of his capture. 

She essentially used him as a slave for a few months before eventually taking him to Mingora (her previous headquarters and the ancestral home of the Shahanzai Tribe) and negotiating with him the terms of his own release. He agreed to pay the Haxamanian a large indemnity for the war and cede all Aurean lands on the planet Awal except Tifinagh to the Haxamanians. However, Rukhsana demanded Tifinagh as well, and since Tifinagh was basically keeping the Aurean people on their homeworld fed through its food exports, Gavicus picked up Rukhsana's sword and said he would fall on this sword and die before surrendering Tifinagh. Impressed by Gavicus's willingness to die for his people and wanting to avoid killing him anyway, Rukhsana allowed Tifinagh to remain in Aurean hands in exchange for drastically raising the war indemnity, which Gavicus had no real choice but to agree to. Upon his signature of the Treaty of Mingora, Rukhsana remarked that he was free to go, and when Gavicus asked when the Haxamanians would bring him back to Tifinagh, she laughed him off, saying that if he could stumble his way as deep into West Hyrcania as he did, he could certainly find his way back to Tifinagh on his own. Gavicus walked off without saying a word, cowed and humiliated. Gavicus would eventually make his way to the port of Yakawlang, from which he returned to Tifinagh by sea and returned to his duties as Aurean Dominus. Although many in the Aurean Senate would cope and seethe about this for decades and claim the Treaty of Mingora was illegitimate due to Longinus temporarily assuming the duties of Dominus during the time it was signed, it marked the de facto end of the on-and-off hostilities between the Aurean Dominate and Haxamanian Empire that had been taking place for millennia, as the Dominus that succeeded Gavicus, an offworlder from Arturia named Weasel, was a personal friend of Rukhsana's and sought out the Haxamanian Empire's alliance for the monumental problems Aurea, Awal, and the rest of the galaxy would have to deal with during his tenure.