Siege of Arizan

*Part of the Pentarchy-Augkarate Conflict*

The year is 151. Oziras Azendros, an Arezian official, is lynched by an angry mob of Otheiae in the city of Estya. His body is cut to pieces, and thrown into Lake Esers.

While the Kara of the Newcomers issues an Official apology, the Arezians withdraw all their envoys from Otheia, returning to their scattered cities. Taking this act as an insult, the Realms of the Newcomers declare war on the Pentarchy, and march for the nearest city: Arizan.

### Background

Following the Glorious Revolution, relations between the Otheiae and the Arezians were amiable. The Arezians, who had aided the Otheiae in overthrowing the previous Warlords and establishing the Augkarate, sent diplomats to the various royal courts of Otheia to work as advisors, and to help guide the Otheiae using their wisdom.

However, by the time one-hundred years had passed since the Revolution, the Otheiae had begun to chafe under this relationship, viewing it far more negatively than they had previous. Believing the Arezians wished to control the Otheiae and their realms,  and egged on by the Karas, the public began to turn against the Arezians.

This came to a head in 151. Oziras Azendros was dragged out of the Fish and Barley Inn in Estya, where he was staying temporarily, by a mob incited by  anti-Arezian sentiments. While he managed to kill several dozen of his attackers, he was overcome and hacked to death by an axe.

As such, for the protection of their people, the Pentarchy summoned all Arezians back to their cities. This was taken as an insult by the Otheiae at large, and so three realms, the Realm of Easu, the Petty Realm of Kaxep, the Petty realm of Hass, moved to declare war on the nearest Arezian city, Arizan.

Located within Otheia itself, Arizan was uniquely poorly positioned for this conflict. To the south of Lake Esers, it was several hundred miles from any border, therefore totally isolated from the rest of the Pentarchy. To make matters worse, it was still undergoing vast repairs from its siege during the Warlord Period, and its defenses were, as yet, incomplete. Nonetheless, almost every Arezian in Otheia evacuated to the city, seeking the protection it provided.

As the Newcomer army assembled outside the village of Rether, in Hass, overall command was granted to Kara Keporo of Easu, an experienced war-leader. Of the 70,000 strong force, 45,000 were from Easu, while 10,000 originated in Kaxep, and a further 15,000 from Hass. The armies were larger than average, likely due to many thousands of volunteers from each realm. Such numbers of volunteers would also be seen later in the conflict, particularly during the Arezian counterattack.

### The Siege

Once the armies were organized and command established, the combined force of Otheiae set out southwest for Arizan. While there were issues feeding the large army, and the vanguard dealt with occasional attacks by disparate Arezian forces, spirits were generally high. Any Arezian unlucky enough to not make their way to the city before this point was slaughtered. Once the army reached the city, it split into large companies, and these began construction of siege works in their designated section of the fields about the city.

Immediately following the construction of the first trenches, the Kara Keporo ordered the first assault. Aiming to probe the strength of the defences, and potentially force their way into the city without undergoing a prolonged siege, a Forlorn Hope, comprised of Spellswords and other infantry, supported by mages throwing large stones, assaulted the Northern Gate of Arizan. It was, however, completely annihilated by Arezian magicians before they reached the walls; only one man of the 1,500 strong force survived.

Having tested the defenses of his foe,  Kara Keporo, began the construction of circumvallation trenches, to protect his men from direct-fire attacks, to connect his camps. , and to prevent the Arezians from escaping. Throughout the four-year siege, these would be extended, more lines of trenches added, slowly encroaching upon the city   Simultaneously, he also began positioning his Battlemages strategically about the city, in places where his engineers judged the defenses weakest, or from the highest ground. From there, they could hurl their stone-balls into the walls of the city, with the goal of bringing them down, or over the walls, targeting the city itself.

Throughout this, however, the defenders were not idle. Zeran Azendros, Governor of Arizan and brother to Oziras Azendros, continuously dispatched skin-changing scouts, to overfly the field as ravens. These scouts would continuously report their findings to Zeran, who would order the necessy counteractions to take, to best nullify the opponent. The most common of these tactics was to employ counter-batteries of mages, who would employ magic to destroy the positions of the allied Battlemages. Other tactics included sending lone, skin-changing assassins into the night, with the aim of killing the enemy commanders, as well as sending small sallie parties to disrupt the enginnering-work of the Newcomers. It is in the former way that Kara Akala of Hass fell, killed in his sleep.

The Otheiae, meanwhile, were sending raids of their own to scale the walls. Some of these would succeed in reaching the walls of Arizan, but none would gain a significant foothold before being wiped out. As the Newcomers fought the Arezians, it became increasingly clear that their tactics were causing them to sustain great casualties. Thus, Kara Keporo began his reforms of the combined army. The previous close-order tactics were done away with, replaced by modern orders of battle which emphasized spacing, so as to sustain minimal casualties when subject magical attacks.

Such was the state of affairs for nearly three years; the Newcomers sending wave after wave at the defenses, with each being soundly obliterated, despite the tactical changes slightly lessening the casualties. Morale for the attackers was low, and Arizan, now little more than a smoking ruin, was nearly out of supplies By the dawn of the fourth year, however, Kara Keporo had devised a new tractic. He would dig several large saps beneath the northern wall of the city. These saps would be completed, counterintelligence successfully hiding their construction from the Arezian scouts, before being laden with a new type of weapon. Gunpowder, imported from Kamengrad to the east, would be loaded into the mines.

On the first day of spring, 155, the Otheiae massed the majority of their forces to the north of the city. Then, the matches were lit, and eight mines were detonated beneath the wall of Arizan. It is said that nearly half-a-million pounds of gunpowder was detonated. The northern wall was reduced to ash, and nearly 3,000 Arezian soldiers were vaporized with it, waiting for the enemy to assault. When the Otheiae did attack, they did so with vigor. Only pausing to haul themselves out of the crater, they swept through the city.

Cohesion was quickly lost among the Newcomers, but that was hardly any matter. Splitting up to loot the city, the Otheiae put any Arezian they found to the sword. Those skin-changers who could fly escaped, including Zeran. However, most were trapped. The Rape of Arizan would see the Newcomers excise their frustrations with the siege onto the city's inhabitants, with each citizen being killed, tortured, or worse.

### Aftermath

The siege would prove a rallying cry for both sides. The Otheiae saw that the Arezians could be defeated, their carefully-cultivated aura of invincibility disintegrated along with the walls of Arizan. The Arezians would see the sack as an example of the Otheiae being brutal savages, and there would be calls amongst the Pentarchs to destroy the Otheiae before they destroyed them. These would continue throughout the war

The Arezians who escaped the sacking flew east until they encountered an army dispatched by the Pentarchs, sent to relieve Arizan. Once they linked, Zeran would tell tales of the brutality of the Otheiae. Thus, the Arezians of that force would wheel about and begin razing the east of the Augkarate. This would force the Augkara into action, and an Execution-War would be declared on those Arezians in Otheia.

The siege tactics employed by Kara Keporo would go on to be studied across Otheia, and would be implemented by many commanders. These tactics, and the usage of concentric circles of trenches, batteries of mages, counterbatteries thereof, and the construction of saps, would begin to be employed by every Otheiae siege commander, and form the basis for modern day sieges.

Kara Keporo's reforms to the allied Newcomer army would be carefully studied and implimented by every army in the Augkarate. The use of the so-called Newcomer-Order, an order of battle emphasizing good-spacing and discipline, would become standard across Otheia, as it limits casualties sustained when fighting against mages. The Newcomer Order is the primary order-of-battle used in Otheiae armies today.

Incidentally, following the Siege, it would come to light that many more Newcomers are magically inclined than average, and that their battlemages and spellswords are capable of performing greater feats of magic than their contemporaries elsewhere. Whether this is related to what occurred during the sacking of the city, or is caused by some other factor, is unknown.

Despite winning the siege, the allied army of Newcomers would be forced to rapidly redeploy east to combat the rampaging army of Arezians in the borderlands and Wooded Realms. Having been forced to keep such a large army in the field for so long, Hass, Kaxep, and Esau would be forced to declare for bankruptcy, as they had emptied their treasuries to fund their independent war. None of these states, nor the Mage Houses which ruled them, would financially recover until well into the next century. The state of Hass, in particular, would be sold to the House of Roral in 209, to pay for the House of Hass' debt.