Second Oathbreaker War

Belligerents	
White Serpent Coalition	
Creaseraiat Talmoa
Commanders 	
 Various	
 Meruszyph
Strength 	Unknown	Unknown
Losses 	Unknown	Unknown
Result 	Defeat 	Victory
The War of Two Serpents (207-237 ABV), known also in various sources as the Thirty Years War, First War of the Red Dream or the Second Oathbreaker War, and known in Saiännic as the Veioszcu Daisra ('War of Two Serpents'), was a major military conflict in the southern reaches of West-Central Saiän. At the time, it was the largest inter-Saiännic war in history. The Copper War, which dominated northern Saiän, was fought concurrently.
The conflict initially started when the city of Aran invaded the territory of neighbouring Szamoä, provoking a Tālmoänni counterattack. In short order Szamoä was reduced to a battlefield in a grinding conflict between Talmoä and the allied cities of Aran and Mara.
The war took its name from the great Saiännese riviers: Talmoä was fighting for control of the Reisra (Red Serpent), whilst both Mara and Aran lay on the Veisra (White Serpent). Each side made extensive use of their river in ferrying troops and supplies.
The war was notable for the role played by foreign powers, and for the extensive and pivotal role played by mercenaries. It saw the first large-scale use of bronzen equipment, by the Tālmoänni sun-trooper regiments.
Although Talmoä was brought to the brink of revolution, and suffered a potentially catastrophic mercenary revolt, the war concluded in an absolute Tālmoänni triumph. The Marani field army was finally tracked down and annhilated, and shortly thereafter the city of Aran was sacked by a mercenary army from Doriya, paid by Zaia to reinforce the Allies, and utterly destroyed.
Talmoä annexed Szamoä and her territories, the eastern half of the Marani kingdom, and almost all of the former territory of Aran, a small section of which was granted to Maran in the peace treaty. As a result, the Tālmoänni kingdom secured access to the sea and became by far the largest of the Saiännic city states. It would take fifty years of reconstruction to heal the land devastated by the war, and this gradual process would lead up to the Tālmoänni golden age at the turn of the next century.
==Opening Stages - 207-215 ABV==
====Prelude====
After losing more than half her territory to Mara at the end of the Sza-Marani War, Szamoä had her attention southwards and gradually captured itself a long slice of territory along the western shore of the Reisra river. Whilst this gave Szamoä a degree of independence from the larger cities surounding it, when Szamoä reached Talmoä's deltic exclave (held since the end of the War in the Reisra Delta), it served to cut the city of Aran off from the Reisra altogether.
Aran had recently come under the control of a new king, the last having allegedly been assassinated at the behest of the Zaiāni Empire. The new king was keen to stamp his authority on regional affairs, and in the year 207 ABV two columns of Arani troops crossed into Szamoänni territory, swiftly capturing Gyazimoä and besieging the Szamoänni army at the town of Jaramon. The outclassed Szamoännis resort to harassment tactics, primarily with chariots.
All of this was of deep concern to Talmoä. Aran's status as a cultural exclave, strategic base and possible puppet for the remote but powerful Zaiā, on top of Aran's status as an Oathbreaker City, meant that any aggressive moves on its part were met with immediate suspicion. Arani territory already spanned the Veisra and thus controlled river access to the markets of Vidst and Zaiā, and the prospect of Aran gaining control of a huge swathe of the river-bank on Talmoä's lifeline to the sea was viewed as unacceptable.
At first, diplomatic overtures were made to Szamoä. The delegates arrived at the height of an annual anti-Tālmoänni festival, held to commemorate Talmoä's annexation of the border fortress-town of Rahmoä at the end of the First Oathbreaker War. Talmoä was rebuked completely, with Szamoänni dignitaries declaring they would rather lose the war than cooperate with Talmoä.
====The War Breaks Out====
Talmoä thus took the direct approach - the Seraikeitīn, or First Black Sword (equivalent to First Army) deployed by river from farther up and launched a lightning campaign against the outnumbered Arani, forcing them back into their own territory. The hostile Szamoänni troops in Jaramon refused to open their gates, and after leaving a small force to garrison the city the Tālmoänni troops swept into Aran. Meanwhile, a secondary forced moved over the Tal-Szai border to besiege Szamoä.
However, the senior officers made a major error - they divided the Seraikeitīn into two, having the northern section ravage the Arani farmlands to the north. However, this left the southern portion stranded near the city of Aran, unable to press the attack.
Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the Tālmoänni commanders Mara, the third and original Oathbreaker City, had signed a covenant with Aran and secretly deployed three thousand soldiers by the river into the swamps south of the city. Together with seven thousand Arani troops, these Coalition forces ambushed the southern Tālmoänni force in the Battle at the Gates of Aran. The Tālmoännis fell back to a nearby mine and regrouped, holding position and fending off further allied attack. Meanwhile, another Marani army, eight thousand strong, had opened a second front in the north, but had failed to penetrate the well-fortified Tālmoänni border.
The season ended with a brief lull in hostilities, as each side contemplated the unexpected seriousness of the war they found themselves in. An offer of mediation by the city of An went nowhere: the memory of the First Oathbreaker War hardened each side's hostile intent. Talmoä's army, hardened from a long-running colonial campaign against Gholan raiders in the salt flats, had proven itself superior, but in occupying Szamoänni territory was now stretched across a broad front. 
== Second Stage - 215-225 ABV==
====Developments in Talmoä ====
The annals record that, as the war progressed, Talmoä was wracked by slowly mounting social instability. It began in this decade with a string of bizarre murders and occult occurrences, culminating in the discovery of the remains of an abducted baby scattered around the garden of Pyszamo, a retired general. When he was taken in for questioning by the authorities a mob formed and demanded he be handed over, a very unusual occurrence in law-abiding Saiän. Rumours began to circulate that the King and his senior council were involved in black magic.
Following the Burning of the Seven (see below), the secretary of a prominent merchant family is recorded as having offered a single copper piece to the public subscription for the war, as an insult. Despite this voluntary donations to the war effort make provide a significant boost to the Tālmoänni warchest.
====Talmoä Regroups ====
The Tālmoänni army finally captured Jaramon from the remnants of the Szamoänni army. However, the Szān burned the town down on surrendering. It is unclear whether this was simply to deny the prize to the hated Tālmoännis or to hide evidence that they had slaughtered the town's inhabitants, a rumour which circulated at the time. With Jaramon's surrender Szamoä would play no further active role in the war.
At the same time, five senior sarsza (judges) arrived from Talmoä to investigate the defeat at the Gates of Aran. For spllitting the army, and in particular for ignoring the fact that their scouts in the southern swamps went missing (having encountered the Marani army), seven senior officers were sentenced to the Supreme Redemptive Path and burned alive in front of the rest of the army. The remaining officers were commanded to rub the hot ash into their faces and "never to wash it clean until the disgrace of Aran had been washed from the record of the Tālmoänni army".
====The Battle at Urusense====
Although unable to recruit more units of cavalry, a young Tālmoänni cavalry commander called Meruszyphutālman launched an ambitious new strategy, pulling together all of the Seraikeitīn's camel units and launching a string of deep-penetrating raids into Marani territory, harassing enemy forces and scouting their movements. Meanwhile, attempts by Mara to launch its own raids across its narrow border with Talmoä failed to circumnavigate the fortress town of Rahmoä.
This shadow-boxing campaign of cavalry raid and counter-raid ended In the autumn of the year 222. A Marani army ten thousand strong set out to link up with and reinforce Aran. Combined with the three thousand Marani troops already there and the Arani army, the Coalition would have been able to pull together a field army more than 25,000 strong against the Tālmoänni Seraikeitīn. Talmoä could not afford to let that happen.
Possessing the strongest field army in Saiän man-for-man, Talmoä's intention had always been to destroy the enemy armies in detail, and the Marani redeployment was their chance. Meruszyph's camelry swarmed the army as it moved south, stripping it of foragers, threatening its supply chain, and most importantly depriving it of scouts. The main force of the Seraikeitīn, comprised of seven thousand regular infantry and five thousand of the new bronze-armoured heavy troops, the gholroana (sun-soldiers) were thus able to ambush the Marani at the shore of a small lake in northern Aran, Urusense (Lake Urusen).
According to Tālmoänni historians, the Tālmoännis struck in the pre-dawn as the Marani broke camp by the lake. Meruszyph's camelry and formations of regular infantry blocked the Marani line of retreat to the south as the heavy infantry smashed into the Marani centre and slaughtered them, pushing them into the lake. The Marani commander, Uszypha, had no choice but to fight his way out to the north, leaving the Seraikeitīn between his army and Aran. By the time he did so he had lost more than five thousand troops, against reported losses of fifteen hundred for Talmoä, and he was captured alive in the process.
The Veiaku Urusense marked the first major battle in which bronze had been used in Saiännic history. In mineral-poor Saiän all bronze had to be imported from the desert, and Talmoä's unparalleled access to the metal was just one indication of its long-cultivated mercantile connexions coming to bear on the war.
====The Siege of Aran ====
With the Marani threat lifted, the Tālmoännis then moved to invest the city of Aran. The Seventeenth King retreated with his field army into the Arani west, but a garrison of seven thousand was reportedly left inside the city. The Tālmoännis constructed circumveilling earthworks and attempted to block the harbour, but were prevented by a dozen Marani and Arani castle ships (lonsua) who managed to hold it open. Despite this, most merchant shipping on the Veisra river bypassed Aran on the southern shore.
The siege conditions were terrible. Like most Saiännic cities Aran's fortifications were well-built and extensive, including a double layer of wall around the entire landward edge of the city. In fact, these defences would not be breached in the entire war. Burning arrows fired by the Tālmoännis achieved little. Worse, the defenders destroyed the city's principle irrigation canal, causing a disease epidemic both inside and outside the city. Tālmoänni chronicles report that more than two and a half thousand soldiers died in the first three years of the siege. The Zaiān ambassador to Aran reportedly sought a meeting with the Tālmoänni commanders.
==== The War in the Delta====
To date the war had been entirely a land-based affairs. Naval warfare in Saiän was historically completely dominated by its vast rivers. Yet there had been little cause for naval warfare thus far. Each side was solidly in control of one river: the Coalition controlled the White Serpent, Talmoä the Red. Whilst each side made extensive use of their river to move men and supplies, neither was contested.
Without a need to defend the Veisra, the Coalition thus embarked on a fresh attempt to pressure Talmoä into submission. Leaving their heavy castle ships to guard the entrance to the Port of Aran, Aran and Mara pooled the faster elements of their fleets and sent them out into the Srasyagha, the great delta of the three Serpents of Saiän. They started to harass the Tālmoänni fishing fleet. Talmoä at this time was still heavily dependent on delta fishing, and whilst the campaign didn't prompt and immediate famine the city immediately had to start drawing on its granaries.
==Third Stage - 225-235 ABV==
====The Seven-Year Stall, 225-33 ABV====
From 225 to 233 ABV, the war entered another relatively quiet phase. The Siege of Aran ground on, causing great hardship inside the city but unable to force a surrender due to the continued operation of the Port of Aran. The Tālmoänni Seraikeitīn continued to builld up its fortifications around Aran, wary of a counter-attack by the Seventeenth King of Aran and his elusive field army. 
The Tālmoännis also began to bed down their occupation of Szamoä and eastern Aran. Damaged towns were fixed up, and the local populations permitted to return to the fields. Crops were replanted and irrigation ditches cleared. Rather than attempting to re-fortify towns of potentially hostile locals, the Tālmoännis instead levelled town defences completely and began to build a series of free-standing forts in defensible positions near the settlements. These forts housed the Tālmoänni garrison and the offices of the occupation authorities, as well as the local granary. All food collected was moved to these granaries and issued to the local population on a regular basis. This both protected vital food supplies against raiders and discouraged the population from attempting to revolt.
Both sides used the lull to build up their forces. Talmoä built up her riverine and deltic fleet, preparing for a naval campaign to liberate her fishing waters and alleviate conditions in the city. Both sides also hired mercenaries for the first time: Talmoä is recorded as hiring Gholan archers, Hereri hillmen and concluding a treaty to secure four thousand Yehari soldiers from kingdom of Soofalls, far to the south. Meanwhile, Mara hired many squadrons of Riunnic horse-archers.
Meanwhile, Talmoä reinforced the critical choke-point at the triple border between Mara, Szamoä, and Talmoä. The border fortress of Rahmoä, and the seconary fortress of Tigmoä, were reinforced and strengthened. Meanwhile the Tālmoänni forces besieging Szamoä constructed their own fortifications across the narrow land bridge that led to the island city's gates. The besieging army was reinforced and formally reorganised into the Deraikeitīn, Talmoä's second field army of the war.
====The Naval Campaign, 233-35 ABV====
By the year 233, Talmoä faced the pressing need for a naval campaign. Coalition piracy in the delta was disrupting its food supplies, and in the city anti-war sentiment was sharpening. Worse, the young wergom of the Kingdom of the Gates, taking offence at Talmoä's refusal to assist him in some matter lost to history, was reportedly dispatching a mercenary army to reinforce the White Serpent cities and "drive Talmoä back to her island". The continued operation of the Port of Aran was turning the siege of that city into an endless stalemate. Finally, the bargain struck between Talmoä and the Yeharene city of Soofalls would mean nothing if the four thousand Yeharene soldiers could not reach Saiän - the sea lanes to the south had to be reopened.
The Tālmoänni fleet massed farther up the Reisra and stormed into the delta, encountering very little resistence as the faster elements of the Coalition navies quickly withdrew into the Veisra. After waiting for its heavier ships to catch up the Tālmoänni navy moved to achieve its primary objective and blockaded the mouth of the White Serpent, bottling up the Coalition. It then held position whilst other elements, supported by regiments of marines, occupied the deltic provinces of Szamoä and the Coalition. Immediately fish from the Delta, along with shipments of grain from Sudao, were able to pass up the river and the situation in Talmoä was alleviated. The Soofallin fleet was also able to progress and unload its troops.
The fleet then attempted to press the attack farther up the Veisra in the year 233. It met a Coalition fleet, centred on several super-heavy castle ships, at the Battle of Dunaszyna Banks (Veiaku Dunaszyna). The battle was inconclusive, with several experimental defences on the Tālmoänni fleet serving to protect their ships from getting damaged but greatly limiting their offensive capacity. After a protracted exchange of fire, the Tālmoänni fleet was forced to withdraw to its blockade positions at the mouth of the river. Fortunately, by then word reached Saiän of the disintegration of the Wergom's mercenary forces, and the immediate need to control the Veisra was lessened. The Tālmoänni fleet returned to tightening its control of the western Srasyagha.
====The Offensive into Mara, 231-33 ABV====
Concurrently with the naval campaign, the Tālmoänni army launched itself into a new round of operations. A small army was despatched to capture the western town of Ryszulon, and from there the westernmost portions of Aran were thoroughly scouted. It became apparent that the King of Aran's field army was not present - either it had disintegrated, or he had retreated into Marani territory. Thus an offensive into Mara was planned.
The Seraikeitīn divided into two: four thousand troops were left to hold the fortifications outside Aran and maintain the siege. The remainder, consisting of some ten thousand troops - including, according to history, six thousand of the bronzen heavies - supported by chariotry and camelry, moved north, under the command of Meruszyph.
Their first target was the border town of Khesemoä. It was well-defended, reportedly having two curtain walls with a deep moät between them. The limited range of Saiännese bows meant that archery had little effect, and the army settled in for a long siege. A unit of engineers attached to the army apparently dug a series of ditches which drained the groundwater beneath the down, lowering the moät and causing a portion of the outer wall to collapse, but this process took five weeks. 
Whilst this delay to the offensive was not welcome, it did provide the opportunity for the four thousand Yehari troops, along with one thousand mercenary Gholan archers, to catch up to the army. The Gholan bows were far superior to Saiännese equivalents, and proved capable of firing even over Khesemoä's interior wall. This prompted the beleagured garrison to surrender, and gave Merszyph a fortified foothold in southern Mara.
However, the Tālmoänni campaign was seriously hindered by the Marani deployment of more than twelve hundred Riunnic horse archers. This force had originally been hired to launch an offensive into Talmoä in 232, where they were able to outpace local garrisons and raid villages and farmland. However the narrowness of the Tal-Marani border, and the presence of the Deraikeitīn outside Szamoä, meant that this force could not press too deeply into Tālmoänni territory, and after Meruszyph's offensive squadrons of Riunnics were rapidly redeployed against him.
Despite severely hindered scouting, the Tālmoänni army detected scattered concentrations of Arani troops throughout Mara, and attempted to move against them. With Meruszyph taking personal command of the Tālmoänni camel squadrons in an attempt to counter the Riunnics, his lieutenant Maruszamon took command of the infantry and attempted to force the Coalition to battle. But it was not to be - the enemy scattered and evaded combat, leading the Seraikeitīn in a long and pointless game of cat and mouse. The only regular clashes were between the Ruinnics and the Tālmoänni camelry, although the Gholan archers would occasionally punish the horse-women when they drew too close, unaware of the power of their bows. The farmlands of southern Mara were decimated, but the campaign was a stalemate.
====The Arani Breakout, 233 ABV ====
In the year 233, the focus of the war shifted dramatically south. The garrison of Aran, not nearly so depleted by war as the Tālmoänni commanders had assumed, issued an unexpected sally against the depleted Tālmoänni forces besieging the city. The Tālmoännis were well protected by their circumvellations, which centred on a field fortress, and for a long time bled the Arani white as they attempted to force their way out of the main gates. However, the garrison also slipped a force of soldiers out via the canal, and these reportedly outflanked the Tālmoänni army and forced it to abandon the defences.
The Siege of Aran was lifted. Almost one thousand Tālmoänni soldiers are killed and another five hundred captured, and the Arani swept the nearby countryside clear of what food they could before retreating back behind the walls. However, they did not have the strength to attack the Tālmoänni garrison forts and the granaries they protected, greatly lessening the amount of food they managed to return to the city.
==== The Rûkhene Intervention====
At this point, Zaiā formally involved itself in the conflict for the first time. Talmoä had long suspected the Rûkh to be the power behind the increasingly Zaiānnised Arani monarchy, and the intervention did nothing to lessen that suspicion.
House Zo'bah, the Devayani family whom the Rûkh entrusted with handing trade down the Veisra to the Parelsa, approached the Tālmoänni government with a peace offer, along with an offer of gold to any city prepared to start negotiations. According to the writings of Chete, a Tālmoänni Reidauna historian and politician, it was worded thus:
'"Szamoä is delivered to Talmoä, and is recognised as a part of the Tālmoänni kingdom. Aramoä is given the west beach of the Reis'eh, and Maramoä yields it south-easternmost settlement to Talmoä. All parties promise to love one another and not make any war, and if one party is attacking another, the two other parties are responsible to help them.
"Everybody hates war and loves peace. Do not waste any more lives for a fruitless war that cannot end in any other thing that a compromise. Choose wisely, and your people will love you. If you end the war now and turn to negotiations, you will win more territory than Talmoä ever won before. It is a risk that when the situation of the war is turning more sour, your gains will be significantly more limited."
The Zaiāni ambassador also informed Talmoä that the Rûkh would shortly begin sending civilian caravans of food aid to "the suffering people of Saiän, especially in Maramoä, Aramoä and Szamoä", and that any interference with these would be considered a breach of the Syo-Zaiān trade accords and would provoke a response. Talmoä was also informed that the Rûkhene Council of Thirteen were considering asking their ally, the Rahol kingdom of Ira-Uspaz, to intervene to 'separate' the warring parties.
====The Situation in Talmoä, 235 ABV====
The year 235 found Tālmoänni politics in a state of increasing tension. A rabble-rousing sarsza named Nashýtalmo had begun whipping up discontent against the city's ethnic minorities, in particular the Gholan population, leading to several riots. Meanwhile a well-funded pacifist movement, the Blue Lilies, had sprung up to urge and end to the war on "honourable terms". Against them a prodigal young student at the academy, named Chete, had risen to prominence as a hard-line Red Dream fanatic, publishing a commentary on the works of Szaeda and espousing a doctrine of total devolution to the Tālmoänni state, the 'City of Fire', as the engine of Saiännese unification.
The earlier, horrible murders had been discovered to be the result of a strange game of dares, imported from Zaiā. Although the game had been co-opted by Talmoä's sarsza and turned into a game for teaching virtues, the sudden appearance of this foreign game had made the Tālmoänni establishment suspicious.
The Rûkhene intervention placed Talmoä in an acute strategic crisis. The Copper War had just ended with a complete triumph for Nehamoä, Talmoä's northern neighbour and closest rival for Saiännese leadership. It had annexed the city of Rumoä and now held a position of unchallenged dominance over the northern Saiännic world.
It was apparent that the war could not long continue: the threat of Zaiāni intervention, domestic unrest and the sudden freedom of Nehamoä to redeploy her forces made that impossible. But peace on anything like the present terms would not be adequate to ensure Tālmoänni parity with Nehamoä, let alone her long-term security. Thus the Tālmoänni high command decided to gamble on a last, lightning offensive.
==Final Stages, 235-237 ABV==
====Tālmoänni Military Buildup====
Determined to close the war before the Rûkh could start propping up its enemies indefinitely, the Tālmoänni high command pulled out all the stops and pulled together an unpredecented number of additional soldiers. The discovery of gold mines in Sudao, and the reconquest of the Gholsygha salt flats, sharply increased Talmoä's colonial income and were pivotal in funding the final stage of the war.
The Yeharene city of Soofalls dispatched a further four thousand troops to reinforce the four thousand already fighting, alongside two squadrons of warships. Two thousand Ruinnic horse-archers, from rival states to those fighting for Mara, were hired and shipped down, alongside five thousand Gholan mercenaries and several thousand more Hereri hillmen. One thousand Red Dream supporters from Nehamoä joined two thousand from minor Saiännese states in voluntary regiments.
Alongside fresh drafts, Talmoä now commanded the largest force at arms ever seen in Saiän. Meruszyph's Seraikeitīn stood at close to 35,000 strong, the Deraikeitīn encamped outside Szamoä stood at another twelve thousand, including the three thousand foreign volunteers, and if the histories are to be believed, more than half of Talmoä's own troops still stood on defence inside her core territory.
==== The Fall of Szamoä, 236 ABV====
The first Tālmoänni strike did not fall against the Coalition, however, but against Szamoä. Often forgotten as the war waged about it, the beleagured city had been besieged by the Tālmoänni Deraikeitīn for almost a quarter of a century. It's population had been reduced to only seven thousand within its vast defences, and most of the space behind cleared for agriculture. It's harbour had been blocked with sunken vessels and turned into a fish farm.
Unbeknownst to the inhabitants, or to the Coalition, a Szān woman named Geziszaeta had crept out of the city and approached the besieging Tālmoännis, revealing to them a hidden storm drain in the city walls. Tired of being a prisoner, and hoping for her husband and sons to survive the war, she offered the Tālmoännis a chance to take the city by stealth. They did exactly that - an elite troop of Serairei commandos infiltrated the city via the drain on the eve of a major festival and opened the gates, allowing the rest of the army to storm the city. The exhausted and dispirited garrison were subdued without trouble, and the city peacefully occupied.
This move, executed in a single night, caught the Coalition off guard and transformed the campaign. Suddenly, Szamoä had become a Tālmoänni base and strongpoint. Worse, the reinforced Deraikeitīn was now free to leave the city and attack Mara. For the first time in the war, both of Talmoä's field armies could attack at once.
====The Battle of Kesczī, 237 ABV====
Under the overall command of Meruszyph, the two Tālmoänni armies advanced into Mara. This time their own Riunnics were a match for their Marani counterparts, and the armies were able to scout and forage with greater ease. The Marani field commanders, despite the ease with which they had evaded Meruszyph before, knew that evading two armies in the tight confines of south-eastern Mara would be close to impossible. But if they withdrew west, into the vast and undamaged farmlands of western Mara, the Tālmoännis would be in a position to beseige the city of Mara itself, and possessed sufficient mercenaries to force an assault rather than settle in for the long siege that would force a confrontation with the Rûkhene aid convoys. They concluded that they had no option but to attack.
Thus began a new game of cat and mouse: the Marani army attempting to position itself so it could fight one of the Tālmoänni armies alone, whilst the Tālmoännis manoeuvred to catch the Marani in a pincer movement. With their superior number of Riunnic horsewomen, reinforced by Meruszyph's camel squadrons, the Tālmoännis were gradually able to whittle down and box in the Marani scouts, eventually managing to force their enemies out of position. Beneath the walls of the fortress-town of Kesczī, the Coalition army was forced to battle.
History does not record a great deal of detail about the battle itself. Between them the Serai and Derai Keitīna numbered around fifty thousand troops, against an army of Marani and Arani troops no more than half that size. The Marani had by this point managed to put together a small force of bronzen heavy infantry, but it was outnumbered and outmatched by the veteran gholroana of Talmoä. By all accounts, it was a massacre, the sky darkened by Tālmoänni arrows before the heavy infantry ground the Coalition centre against the walls of Kesczy and cut it to pieces. With the Deraikeitīn closing the only avenue of retreat, the principle field army of the White Serpent cities disintegrated.
====The Sack of Aran 237 ABV====
At this point, Tālmoänni scouts reported that a large force of mercenaries from Doriya had put ashore from the river in western Mara. A delegation was sent to meet them, and their commander revealed that they had been hired by the Gate Kingdom to reinforce the Coalition army in Mara. However, the Tālmoännis noted that the fleet supporting the Doryi soldiers was manned by Zaiān.
The two delegations broke apart, and nobody is certain as to what passed between them. What is known is that the Doriyan general, unwilling to leave his comparatively small force in the same theatre as fifty thousand enemy soldiers, re-embarked his troops and sailed south to Aran. There he and his men received a hero's welcome as they disembarked as if to reinforce the city.
Suddenly, at a pre-arranged signal, the Doriyans turned on the horrified Arani and ran rampant across the city. The garrison was put to the sword in short order, civilians dragged from their homes and raped, killed or enslaved. The central palace was stormed, the King and city council put to the sword, and the citadel torched. Even the inner defences were damaged, such was the ferocity of the violence. Overnight, the city-state of Aran virtually disappeared.
====The Tālmoänni riots====
Her enemies were broken, yet Talmoä would come very close to voluntarily losing the war. The Blue Lily (Beiyulu) pacifist movement, emboldened and enrichened as the war dragged on, had started holding large rallies in the streets of Talmoä, demanding peace and the end of the shedding of Saiännese blood. Scuffles and street fights had started to break out between the Beiyulua and members of Chete's Movement for Economic Patriotism, a group which 'encouraged' and collected voluntary contributions to the war effort by ordinary citizens. Chete and the Beiyulu leader, a female student named Renaeda, held several raucus public debates. After one of these, Chete was stabbed and almost killed.
Meanwhile, Nashýtalmo's preaching against the city's Gholan and Zaiān populations reached fever pitch, and one night exploded into an orgy of mob violence in the city's Gholan quarter. Several taverns were put to the torch, including one where a famous member of the Courtesans' Guild was giving a performance. Her death sent shockwaves through the local Gholan community that were felt even in the camps of the army.
In response to the mounting chaos, Ranaeda and the Beiyulu began to rally angry citizens in the square in front of the Citadel of Talmoä, demanding peace and an end to the war. The Yulua had many backers amongst the merchant classes who were prepared to form a government if the government of hawkish King Beiszoutalo could be brought down. In a move unprecedented in Tālmoänni history, the commander of the city garrison - a Reidauna - orders troops to forcibly clear the square. The army had made sure that the regiments assigned to the city garrison were loyal, and the sight of masked and armoured troops was enough to scatter Ranaeda's mob, robbing it of its potency.
The city was placed under unofficial martial law, and Nashýtalmo arrested. The moment of crisis passed, and the hawks remained in control of the state. Within weeks, they would have their triumph.
====The Battle of the Camps====
Even as Aran burned, the Tālmoänni army faced one last, unexpected confrontation. The race riots raging in Talmoä proper had spilled over into one of the Gholan districts, and taken the life of a famous member of the Gholan Courtesans' Guild. Upon hearing this news, the bulk of the remaining Gholan mercenaries - although not the archers recruited earlier in the war - mutinied against Talmoä. Arming themselves silently they slipped out of their camp and fell upon the nearest Tālmoänni soldiers in the dead of night, killing all they could find.
The camp, still wary for Riunnic raids, was soon alert to confusion and in short order the area around the Gholan was a confused, fire-lit melee, individual soldiers with whatever weapons they had to hand fighting desparately in the shadows of tents. The desert warriors were formidable opponents, and in one-to-one combat out of formation were more than a match for the Saiännese regular infantry. The tide of the battle only turned when Meruszyph, alerted to the mutiny and at the head of some three thousand assorted cavalry, stormed into the camp, followed by two thousand heavy infantry and progressively by more as the rest of the army roused and equipped itself.
The Gholan were gradually surrounded, their fury matched by that of the Tālmoännis at this inexplicable betrayal, and fought to the death. Come the morning they were dead to man, and had taken some four thousand Saiännese troops with them. The combined loss was almost one fifth of Talmoä's field forces. the most serious casualties the city had sustained in the entire war. Fortunately, and unbeknownst to the Tālmoännis, the war was already won.
====Ending the War====
Despite their losses, the Tālmoänni commanders still considered themselves to be in a strong position, and divided their forces again. Meruszyph led the Seraikeitīn, reinforced by all the remaining mercenaries, south to Aran whilst the Deraikeitīn remained outside Mara. The Marani, despairing at the loss of their army and horrified by the revelation of the Zo'bah peace offer (which offered Talmoä Marani land for nothing) were prepared to deal, and the two cities signed the Treaty of Tigmoä in the year 237 ABV. Mara surrendered her deltic exclaves, half her core territory and all her bronze to Talmoä, but agreed to accept a portion of Aran's westernmost territory in compensation. With that, Mara withdrew from the war.
Meanwhile, Meruszyph arrived at Aran. To the surprise of his soldiers, he rode out and met the Doriyan commmander outside the gates of the city, whereafter the latter formally presented the gutted fortress to the Tālmoännis and embarked his own forces. He also revealed to the Tālmoännis that his Zaiān ship crews had taken their own lives, "fearing the wrath of the Devayani", as he'd sacked the city. Once the Doriyans had departed, Merusyph garrisoned his troops and sent word to his capital: the city of Aran was no more - the war was over.
==Aftermath==
The War of Two Serpents was the largest, longest war in Saiännic history. It marked the end of two ancient city-states and a complete redrawing of the map of south-central Saiän. Talmoä leapfrogged Nehamoä to become the largest Saiännic state, and at last secured territorial links both to the Veisra river and the Parelsa.
The annexed territory was not immediately productive, however. Three decades of war had devastated the lands, and Talmoä annexed the most damaged portions of Aran and Mara alike. Gradually replanting and resettling this territory would take half a century, but the Tālmoänni government was patient. It was this land, healed and productive, that underpinned the dawn of the Tālmoänni golden age at the turn of the next century. Aran became a fortified naval base and was renamed Meruszyphon.
With this and the Copper War ended, Saiän settled back into an uneasy peace. Mara forged a new friendship with Talmoä's neighbour An, who strongly condemned the latter's annexation of "one quarter of Saiän" and had banned the Red Dream movement. Nehamoä continued to solidify its hold over the north. Yehamoä, which had taken the opportunity to annex one of her buffer states with Talmoä whilst the latter was distracted, was keen not to provoke a confrontation, and would sit by as Talmoä peaceably united with the last buffer state at a later date. The status quo would persist at least until the turn of the next century, when all the cities of Saiän flocked to Talmoä's Teradan Games to mark the three hundredth anniversary of the Beïveï.
Category:Battles
Category:Wars
Category:Syan
Category:History