In the south, the Seljuks revelled in their new god Tawusę Melek, shunning the worship of Allah for the worship of Allah's chiefest sons, the proudest one, the Peacock Angel, who refused to bow to Ādem, and was rewarded for his independence by leading the heptad of the Seven Mysteries, the Heft Sirr.
Their Sheikh Alp Yurek used his people's newfound faith as a weapon, whipping them into a religious fervour. The Seljuk Turks and their Kurdish brothers would rule in the north.
And so it happened that the Sheikh sent a message to the Emperor in Constantinople, Basileus Sergios Ua Briain the Just, an aging man in his sixties, none the less a powerful ruler and worthy foe that the Kingdom of Armenia now belonged to the Seljuk Sultanate.
Of course, as the guardians of Christianity in the East, the Catholic Byzantine Empire could not and would not bend the knee to the Seljuks, and so Sergios sent an envoy straight back to Alp Yurek containg some... choice words for the Yazidi Sheikh.
And thus it happened that the Seljuk Sultanate declared war - Alp Yurek spat an old Sunni curse, that he wished Sergios sewn up in the belly of a camel.
Alas, but that was not going to happen.
All across the Byzantine Empire, from Iceland to Eire, from Alba to Breizh, to the furthest reaches of the Byzants in Finnmark, a lonely province in Finnish lands, and naturally to the heartland of the Empire, thousands upon thousands of men began preparing for war.
The force arrayed against them was not small - the mighty Seljuks claimed to be able to call upon a hundred thousand men at a moment's notice, and their land stretched as far as distant India that the Hellenes once ruled over one and a half thousand years prior.
Truthfully, Sergios worried that his army would reach Armenia in time to defend it - with so much land spread over such a long distance, it would take time to bring his men together.
In his younger years, Sergios had conquered the Golden Horde, crushed it beneath his boot, spat in the face of the young Khan Arkhai of Itil and made it Greek... but this, this was altogether different.
Sergios estimated that his army was only enough to meet the mighty Yazidi army in Armenia by a small amount - bringing all men he could together, he outnumbered the Seljuk army 1.1:1.
Thus, he hired what holy orders he could, and sent off many diplomats to foreign nations asking for help against those once-were-Mahommedans.
The Greek Golden Horde, a vastly diminished shadow of its former Mongol Glory, but nonetheless still an Empire made up of three provinces, Diadora, Venezia and a small distant English province were the first to respond - they sent their entire force of three thousand Mongol-Greek soldiers - cataphracts and Mongol Horse Archers fighting together was a sight to see.
These Mongol-Greeks were ruled by Sergios's younger brother Andronikos - with much of the old Golden Horde broken and independent, it was unlikely Andronikos could muster much power more than any Byzantine Doux.
The Knights of Calatrava in distant Sicilian Castille, ruled by a cousin, the Grandmaster Belisarios Ua Briain refused the call to arms - they would only respond if they were duly paid for their services defending Christendom. Sergios was rumoured to have punched a hole in an old painting of Belisarios upon learning this - in their youth, they were firm friends, but with such time and distance, what friendship they had was long gone.
And so it was that the arrayed armies of Byzantium came to the fore of the battle - one flank of thirty two thousand men, led by two Douxs, all known for their skill in battle, Doux Belisarios the Cruel of Thrace, Doux Theocharistos of Trebizond, and a lowborn Mayor's son, Hierotheos, who despite barely being better than peasantry was a mighty general in his own right.
In the second flank was Sergios himself, and two Dukes who were skillful leaders, though not great generals. This one held approximately twenty thousand men.
In the third flank were various Counts and minor Dukes who wished to make themselves worthy in the defense of Armenia, mixed in with the leaders of the Teutonic Order and the Knights Hospitaller. They numbered approximately fifteen thousand.
Two more flanks were yet to approach - the Irish-Icelandic-Scottish-Breizh combined force, and the northwestern Byzants of Croatia and Serbia - when all were finally there, the first battle was underway.
The Battle of Jermuk in Armenia was a titanic one - fifty thousand men, made up of Belisarios and his general's armies, as well as Sergios and his leader's armies faced off against twenty-five thousand angry Seljuks.
It began as a terrified race to join the flanks up - the Seljuks attacked Sergio's flank before Belisarios and his troops could manoeuvre into position in Jermuk, causing serious losses.
By the Battle of Jermuk's end, the Byzantine armies had lost 14,104 men to the Seljuks, but the Seljuks were routed to the last man, all 25,154 soldiers lay dead in Jermuk.
The battered Byzantine soldiers regrouped in Paphlogonia, still waiting on the distant forces to replenish their lost men.
It was then, sitting in the war camp, that Sergios received word from King Pal of Hungary that he wished to join in the defense of Armenia - of course, how could Sergios do anything but accept? Anything that preserved Byzantium was welcome.
Not a day later, a distant cousin sent word from the tiny Kingdom of Bohemia - a King who had managed the throne, despite two very obvious handicaps - he was a bastard, and he was Jewish in a sea of Catholicism. "From one Ua Briain to another, I offer my help."
Six thousand men set off from Bohemia, and fifteen thousand more from Hungary to join up with the Irish forces that had just sailed to Constantinople - welcome reinforcements.
Even the Pope sent his formal declaration of alliance with Sergios, though no Papal soldiers joined the fight before it was eventually won, it was the thought that counted.
Shortly after the arrival of the European flanks in Constantinople, the Seljuks regrouped sharply and the battle of Ararat began.
Forty-seven thousand Byzantine soldiers met thirty-one thousand seljuks in the plains of Ararat north of the mountains where Noah is said to have come to rest, and the general leading the Byzants was none other than the low-born Hierotheos. Despite difficult terrain, the Byzantine army lost nine thousand, five hundred men, while the Seljuks lost twenty-three thousand. A fitting victory, and the remaining eight thousand Seljuks were chased out of Armenia by Sergios's retinue of nine thousand cataphracts.
Sergios killed the general's personal guard himself, wiped his blade clean and pointed it at the throat of the general, Burak Togtekinoglu of house Bozan, an unremarkable man.
It is said that Sergios, a man in his sixties, standing in gleaming armor streaked with the blood of Seljuks, made the Yazidi general right there weep.
After the two titanic clashes of Ararati and Jermuk, the Seljuk army was nearly totally routed - prime time for Sergios and his three generals to advance forward and begin sieging the northern holdings of the Sultanate.
It did not take long at all before the Sheikh Alp Yurek sent his declaration of surrender, paying war reparations just about bankrupted the Seljuks, leaving them with only a few gold in their coffers.
Feeling ever more powerful, Basileus Sergios announced a day of celebration across the entire empire.
Truly a glorious day, the hordes of the Peacock Angel dashed against the Cross and came off worst.
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Topic: Crusader Kings 2 is released. (Read 2010646 times)