Battle of the Rubicon

The Battle of the Rubicon was a battle fought between the Ilakans and the Lorenzen Kingdom, caused by the raids of Minos Dimelis into Otto’s lands.

## Background

In **415PR**, the Ilakan Wars of Expansion began, Minos Dimelis being named as the General on the Gonarundun front.

After his successful victory in the Helicules War, Minos was placed on the Eastern Front, dealing with many of the tribes in a brutal but efficient manner. When the wars of expansion ended in **422PR**, Minos was stationed near the Rubicon River with his soldiers.

In **429PR** during his deployment, Minos got into a heated debate with the Lorenzens under Otto nearby. Angry that they didn’t realise how powerful the Ilakans were, he insulted Otto personally and began raiding his lands. Otto responded by raising his army and moving to the Rubicon River, hoping to meet the Ilakans the next time they crossed.

Minos’s scouts had managed to follow the movements of Otto, allowing him to bring all his soldiers together to prepare for the battle.

## Battle

The battle started immediately, Minos wishing to prove his dominance over the Lorenzen noble, advanced his troops ahead. On the right, the Companion Cavalry under the command of Vaso, one of Minos’s commanders during the Helicules War, moved up and faced Otto. While the Lorenzens were mainly cavalry, they were not as trained and disciplined as the Companions, making their only advantage their number. To deal with the Lorenzen advantage, Minos ordered some of his Atkan to take the right side while the Drakos were to take the left side of the Lorenzens.

On the left, Damian moved up to face Casper in a relatively even skirmish.

In the centre, Minos continued to move up with his troops. To ensure stability, he placed the left side under Nestoras and the right under Akakios who weathered the storm of arrows with the troops. The centre would see little melee combat during the battle as the light infantry and archers of the Lorenzens kept retreating back.

As the battle raged on, Otto’s position became increasingly worse. On both sides he was in melee combat with either the Atkans or the Drakos, both causing major damage. In the centre he was unable to break through due to the skill of the Companions. Instead of retreating, he chose to fight, confusing many Scholars who have later researched the battle.

Casper’s cavalry on the left also were in a bad position.They were now pushed back by the Ilakan Companions and closed in on by a group of 500 Atkan. Similarly, he chose to stay and fight, receiving no orders from his father Otto. He would later be completely surrounded and took a total of 5 fatal wounds before falling off his horse.

Elias in the centre chose to send his spearmen to fight the likely exhausted Ilakans, still hitting them with arrows where he could. He himself was shooting his bow, using the large stockpile of arrows they had to keep firing through the battle, he would later state he had enough to last all day just in case.

Eventually, the battle came to an end with Otto’s death. His loyal bodyguard fighting to the death but not giving much of a resistance. Anyone of significance was captured for ransom later while the rest were slaughtered.

The centre is where something strange happened. Calling for the retreat of his soldiers, and covering them with the archers on the hill, Elias would instead run into the battle. Knowing that Minos was the brutal kind, he noted he had to kill him.

Thinking ahead, Elias had called for the retreat of his soldiers for more than defeat, he wanted to use the bloodlust of the Ilakans against them. When they saw the fleeing Lorenzens, they immediately went for the chase, creating chaos in their lines. Elias then used this chaos, slipping through and killing anyone who recognised him as the enemy with his short blade. Eventually, he reached Minos, who was none the wiser that the enemy had just passed through his army. Before the general could even react, Elias shot two arrows into his chest before lunging at him with his sword. Unable to put up a fight, Minos was stabbed three times in the chest with the sword, before getting another stab wound in the back, a dishonorable way to die in Ilaka. After killing the Ilakan general, Elias managed to slip past the enemy lines again and return to the Lorenzen Kingdom.

## Aftermath

The battle goes down as one of the only times that a general died after he had won the battle with no wounds.

In Ilaka the battle was seen two ways, a huge victory for the Ilakans who could likely raid Lorenzen lands in the future but an embarrassment that they lost such an important general in that way. King Thodoris was especially sad from the death of Minos, though still raised a statue in his honour.

In the Lorenzen Kingdom it was minor. Border skirmishes happened all the time for them and the loss of Otto created a power struggle for his lands, letting some of the nobles get more. By the end of the struggle it was actually Elias who claimed his lands, fighting for more by the end.

Other than becoming the new Count of the lands, Elias grew in fame for such a heroic action which many believed saved them from the slaughter that Minos likely would have committed.