Two hexes southwest, nine northwest of Alakran.
Fully titled "The Skin-Flaying Screen of Hail and Dust," this elite company of the Wahatti military is made up of skirmishers who throw leaden sling bullets engraved with their names at distance, and hurl heavy armor-piercing javelins at shorter range. Their round shields spend much of the time strapped to their backs. Hide jerkins and helmets are their only other armor, the faster and farther to move without tiring. Each man carries three smoke pots to be lit and thrown in a retreat when concealment is desired. Completing their armament, a dagger with a rough quartz crystal for its pommel goes strapped to the buskins around each man's left calf.
Their fortress commands a view of the northern plain from a rounded hill. It houses half of the company, the others being quartered west of Mehershal's Caravanserai where the Road of Flowers is joined by the Eryptos road. Its tall walls have multiple angled slits from which the slingers are trained to shoot accurately, and each of the eight towers has a shot-arbalest that can pepper the ground below with a fast-flying shrapnel of sharpened stones. The men entertain themselves with footraces, rabbit hunts, and a kind of hide-and seek in the hills to the south, appearing in groups of 10-20 out of their total complement here of 80.
No comments:
Post a Comment