The Battle of Jordian's Dunes

By: Conor Broughton

Alberic squinted against the brilliant incandescent light of the evening desert sun as the cold curtain of night slowly fell upon the dunes snaking lazily away into the distance. The cool breeze feeling ominous against his neck as if the dunes were whispering a warning of the coming night.?

Voltaire tossed his head and whinnied nervously under his weight, his snort making hot steam in the quickly cooling air. “Easy Voltaire, easy,” Alberic calmed soothingly, rubbing his hand over Voltaire's damp jet-black flank.?

“Sir.”?

Alberic tilted his head to his War Master, Cranderous, a bulk of a man who despite his size was a highly effective practitioner of Maítrise la Guar, the Arrosian Art of War or, as far as Alberic was concerned, a highly effective practitioner of slaughtering the Orc-kind with perfectly timed charges of horse and lance. ?

“What is it, Cranderous?”?

“The mens’ horses are restless, sir..”?

“We know what that means then.”?

“Yes sir, they are close.”

Alberic gazed up at the emerging dusk sky and closed his eyes. Under his breath he uttered a small invocation to Evra the goddess of the hunt and protection. ?

“Well let's find them, shall we, Cranderous”

“Yes, sir.”

Suddenly a hideous stench washed over the dune where the 500 cavalry men of the Arrosian horse-guard were perched, sending ripple-effect sounds of armour plate and chain mail clattering, as terrified horses tossed, snorted and whinnied across the line.?

Utterances of “Steady men steady!,” “Steady your mounts!,” and “Shhhh goddamnit!” could be heard as horse captains across the line harshly whispered while men struggled to control the panicked mounts underneath them.?

Decades of training was the only thing that stopped Alberic from feeling fear.

“This is my purpose,” Alberic murmured to himself before turning to address his troops.?

“Horse Men of Andarross and the outlying provinces! You have given everything you own to be here with me and for that I am grateful! But we all know why we are here and why it is worth the cost to our comfort, our time, our coin, our family! Each one of you knows all too well the terrible pain the Orc threat has cost us over the last three years, how we are not even safe to walk the lands of our own home, to tread our own land! They have defiled every forest of Andarros, taken our children and taken our honour as men! Each one of you has joined me for the single purpose of destroying this threat once and for all, and this night we begin that slaughter!!”

A deafening clamorous roar emanated from within the throats of every man on the dune and quickly spread throughout the thousands of horse lords, captains and men strategically positioned on the surrounding dunes stretching into the rapidly falling darkness.?

Alberic wheeled his horse expertly to the left to address his young horse captain, Jordian. His youngest brothers’ first son, he was a handsome man with blonde hair, the youngest of his captains at a mere 22 years of age and was arguably already the best horseman in the army.

“Jordian take the scouts and run a wheel to the right and see what we are dealing with.”

“Yes, sir. Right away.” Jordian's answers were always crisp and filled with confidence .

‘He’ll make a fine commander one day,’ Alberic mused to himself, promising himself to keep an eye on him over the coming campaign.?

Wheeling and kicking his horse, Jordian disappeared in a spray of sand, his 50 elite horse scouts peeling off the line behind him in quick succession, moving silently as the night on the cooling sand.?

Alberic sometimes wished his brothers son had requested a safer division of the army to command but the boy was infuriatingly insistent that he wanted to be part of the most elite horse division, and the scouts were the best.?

‘So like his father,’ Alberic chuckled in thought, ‘but I have the best men around him, Eudaros will keep him protected.’ ?

A stubbled dark-haired man of moderate height, Eudaros was the most elite cavalryman of the horse scouts and was the only one that was arguably a better horseman in the army than Jordian. He had taught the boy everything that he knew, however, he was quickly being challenged by the skills of the young ambitious captain. Nonetheless, Jordian still had a while to go to surpass the veterans’ immense mastery in horse archery and other disciplines of Maítrise la Guar.?

Turning his attention back to the brown and black desert wasteland stretching out in front of him, Alberic studied the terrain. Small brown mountains rose up in the darkness, blotches of brown and black that studded the barren dry-dirt plain they squatted upon. ?

'Any one of these, our enemy could be hiding behind,’ Alberic thought cautiously. ‘I hope you protect Jordian well Eudaros.’ Saying another prayer to Evra, Alberic looked to the sky and back, peering with his energetically fierce eyes into the black.?

Suddenly a fire arrow cast high in the air illuminated the left side of Alberic’s vision. Terrified snorts, gurgles and screams of Orcs with arrows dug deep in their throats and chests echoed off the dunes and hills. In the dim fiery light, he could see a scattered black mass reeling in panic from a wheeling diamond of men on horses, arrows like black needles shooting from the shape like a thousand wasps firing their stingers into their victims.

‘Found the impure bastards,’ Alberic triumphed, turning to address Cranderous but the man was already there at his side.

“I suggest a heavy double charge from the right, sir.”

“Yes, immediately, Cranderous. When you pull away, I will split them down the centre.”

“Excellent, sir. It will be done.”

“Evra’s blessings to you and your men, Cranderous.”?

“Yes, sir, to you and yours also. May your spears run red.”?

With that, Cranderous wheeled and spurred his horse away. The dunes seemed to shift and move like small black grains of sand as half of the army galloped away with him.?

Alberic cast his eyes back to the skirmish below, which was quickly looking like an Orcish rout. The screams and the smell was almost intolerable. Orcs moving in large groups were notoriously foul-odoured, but in death it was ten times worse, and judging by the smell the scouts were killing hundreds already with their elite bows and swift sword strikes.?

After what seemed like a mere moment, out of the right a sound like thunder rolled, increasing in intensity as a wave of black emerged from behind the dunes. The blaring cry of horn emanated from the wave and a booming call could be heard over the whipping winds, reflecting off the dunes and sounding like it was surrounding and coming from all areas at once.

“ANNNDAROSSSSSSSSSS!!!”?

The cry brought an emotional tear to Alberic’s eye, ‘Three years… three long years we have waited for this moment.’ Alberic looked ahead with divine purpose, and then turned to his men waiting impatiently behind him all with the same look of unblinking defiant determination; men who had been trampled over for too long and were on the verge of enacting righteous revenge for all they had suffered and lost. Raising his golden sword high above his head, Alberic projected his voice and boomed:

“FOR ALL YOU HOLD DEAR, CHARGE! CHARGE FOR THE HONOUR OF ANDARROS AND THE HONOUR OF YOUR FAMILIES, RISE! RISE! RISE MEN OF ARROS TO THE OCCASION AND BY EVRA’S BLESSING YOUR SPEARS SHALL RUN RED!!!”

A guttural roar was Alberic’s response, a deep resonating cry filled with pain and purpose. Alberic guided Voltaire to the edge of the dune, and like an avalanche the men of Andaross poured over, galloping their steeds as fast as they could on the hard cracked sand, each one of them seeming more eager than the other to reach the enemy first. With them, they carried the spirit of Andarros, Arros and the rage of men finally unchained with them, and as they smashed into the disorganised Orcs scrambling to escape the incoming wave of death, they swept them aside with spear and sword and scattered them like sand in the wind.?