Battle of the Behemoth
| Battle of the Behemoth | |||||||
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| Part of Border Subjugation Campaigns of 1685-1690 | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 | The Behemoth | ||||||
| nearby large kaiju; feral dragons | |||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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| Strength | |||||||
2,064 dragons 17 elder dragons with riders and dragon masters | The Behemoth about 500 feral dragons 3 feral elder dragons various ground kaiju |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 2,164 dragon warriors 1,993 dragons 15 elder dragons | The Behemoth and all nearby kaiju and enemy dragons wiped out | ||||||
The Battle of the Behemoth was the largest of the wider frontier subjugation campaigns carried out by The Hexarchy on its remote, wild frontiers from the 1680's (just before the country's independence) through the mid 1690's AN. The battle marked the end of the initial subjugation campaign, rendering most of the country's formerly most dangerous frontiers safe for fortification and pacification at a later date (which was to last until 1695 AN.
The battle was by far the most costly in the Hexarchy's history up until this point, in terms of national assets, combat strength, and in leadership. Most of the country's domesticated dragon population and almost the entirety of the feral dragon population south of Pyrax were destroyed during this battle alone, with more dying later from wounds sustained in combat. Of the survivors, very few were still of reproductive age, and with their destruction also came the destruction of nearly the country's entire military air forces, as dragons were used instead of aircraft due to their numbers and ease of use.
The battle's aftermath led to the ascension of Praetor Gilgamesh II, and the fresh absence (and near-extinction) of military-owned and combat-oriented dragons presented the perfect opportunity for the new leader to completely overhaul and modernize the country's military. While the cleanup efforts post-battle were truly grim (the area being infested with massive kaiju scavengers for years), it rapidly became clear that a vast swathe of territory had opened for fortification and settlement. This allowed the swift encirclement and preservation of the Empty Quarter's more heavily forested regions, so that its more unusual and docile species (ironically, including the few other Behemoths found in there) could be preserved for posterity to study rather than fight.
The reforms and modernization following the battle directly contributed to the country's explosive growth in territory after 1693 AN. While many other changes were brought about due to this battle, many of the circumstances precipitating afterwards because of this truly pivotal event in The Hexarchy's modern history are well beyond the scope of this article.
Prelude
The conflict was caused by the emergence of a Behemoth, a newly discovered kaiju of truly colossal size, that emerged from deep in what is now known as the Empty Quarter. (Note: Kaiju are what the people of the Hexarchy call the various species of particularly large reptilian megafauna found to the far west of Keltia.) Faced with a threat to the barely-built national capital of Marduk, Praetor Gilgamesh I rapidly assembled nearly every single active-duty dragon warrior and dragon master in the country's military to the capital. The Behemoth's power was unknown, but was confirmed about a month before its arrival when it was seen blasting a large dragon clean out of the sky with what appeared to be a blue beam of explosive power. This confirmed that the vast reptilian beast was the true apex predator of this entire portion of the continent, and had strayed outside of its natural habitat deep in the forest.
By the time the Behemoth (as it was now being called due to its sheer size and power) had changed its walking path and turned directly towards Marduk in earnest, likely mistaking the city's unprecedented number of assembled dragons as prey items gathered into one place. In its trail followed other feral dragons acting as large-scale scavengers, among with a few were elder dragons of a few species. Additionally, it was accompanied by a large number of kaiju of various size. It was clear that, if the massive beast reached the city, the national capital would be utterly destroyed with all its inhabitants, after which the creature would likely target any other nearby populated places.
Knowing that the death toll of failure would be truly catastrophic, the recently inaugurated Praetor hardly wanted his country to be completely trashed barely after he managed to consolidate political control over the formerly scattered tribes and backwards people of the continent. Also knowing that the casualty rate on the military's air forces would similarly be catastrophic due to the country's lack of modernized weaponry capable of dealing with natural defenses of that magnitude, he chose to lead the expedition himself to prevent a critical level of desertions.
After giving a rousing speech (whose exact contents have been lost to history) the Praetor managed to convince nearly 90% of the country's assembled force to attack the great creature that most viewed almost like a living, merciless god (and for good reason). The total force the Praetor was able to muster amounted to 15 elder dragons and their Dragon Masters (along with their crew of Warriors), some 2,200 individual Dragon Warriors and their own dragons... and that was it. The country lacked modernized fighter craft completely, and any joining the battle lacked sufficiently powerful weaponry to damage the most threatening aerial targets. Additionally, land forces would move too slowly, and/or be trampled by some 350 kaiju, some of which were powerful predators themselves under the great Behemoth's protection (or, more likely, not considered a threat).
With his forces assembled, the Praetor rapidly had his final will and testament drafted, as odds of his own survival were extremely slim, whether the Behemoth fell or not. It was the head warrior's duty to lead his troops into battle, and he was still first and foremost a native war chief called into battle by his country. He would do his duty, and at any cost necessary.
The Battle
The Opening Salvos
The Praetorian forces rapidly mustered on the fifth day of the eleventh month of 1690 AN, and flew from Marduk at dawn. Accompanying the force was the Praetor's fifth son, then calledUtupolasser (later, Praetor Gilgamesh II)... although these facts were completely unknown to the great leader due to the sheer urgency of the matter. About 150 kilometers from Marduk, they encountered the Behemoth and its sizeable entourage. While the assembled group of kaiju on the ground had lost about about half their number due to predation or attrition (from the Behemoth or its carnivorous allies) the feral aggressive dragons had grown in number and in savagery alike, due to a general lack of food at the edge of the vast forest (now known as the Empty Quarter).
As soon as the enemy dragons were spotted, the battle immediately commenced as the massive force led by the Praetor was similarly detected in the next instant afterwards. The struggle was brief, but costly, as the enemy elder dragons were particularly fierce, among their number being two very large and strongly armored lightning dragons that decimated many times their number before falling themselves.
Although the enemy kaiju gathering's air creatures were dealt with, the encounter had already a quarter of the Praetorian Expeditionary Unit, as the army had come to call itself. That said, many of its number had already been felled by the enemy (the few survivors of the fall to the ground already being savaged and eaten by kaiju). Still, the force hadn't even faced down the colossal monster causing the dragons to follow and defend it.
The Behemoth
Dealing with the Behemoth proved to be a monumental challenge. It took everything the Praetorian army could throw at it, and dished out far more pain in return. Rather than enemy elder dragons merely disabling their foes, the great behemoth used its breath attack to simply blast the Praetor's dragons clean out of the sky. The news wasn't entirely grim, however. The Praetor and his warriors quickly came to realize that, while they were still taking extreme casualties fighting it, the Behemoth was the only enemy left with a ranged weapon, the kaiju on the ground being "ordinary" reptiles devoid of such fantastical and devastating powers of destruction.
Getting close to the Behemoth was rendered possible due to the fact that it could only fire off its breath attack every few seconds, and the creature was large enough to render its agility almost non-existent. The behemoth was not without its tricks, however. It lashed out with its vast, batting the Praetor's men to impossible distances, rendering the very idea of surviving an attack from the Behemoth a mere fantasy. Its swift claws were also a threat, proving that the creature had other tools for fighting and bringing down prey that rendered its inability to run or even walk fast a moot point.
It was after a few minutes of fighting that the Praetor directed his forces to aim for the eyes, or, if unable to, the head of the massive creature. The order resulted in success, although the creature still had extremely thick scales resistant to the dragons' breath weapons, and it would sometimes savage a careless dragon and rider in its jaws if it could swing its head around and snap its maw shut on a target fast enough. Eventually, the Behemoth was struck enough times in the eyes to render it blind, after which it fired breath attacks blindly every few seconds.
The Death of a Titan
It took some six hours after the start of the battle to finally blind the Behemoth, crippling the precise strikes it kept delivering with its tail, arms, and breath attacks. Although the battle was going comparatively well, casualties were extreme. While the Praetor was careful to keep himself on the edge of the field for much of the battle, he needed to prevent his few remaining warriors (now down to a mere quarter of the original force) from retreating in despair, by attacking the great beast himself. Although the elder fire dragon he rode on top of was easily the largest in the country, it was still dwarfed by the massive Behemoth. And even its scales could not protect against a direct attack from the enemy...
The very attacks that could fell a dragon kept on coming even during the creature's prolonged death throes. Occasionally, the beast would blast a target out of the sky, or a massive claw would tear a dragon apart after it ventured too close. Sometimes, it managed to smash an opponent with its tail, grounding them and leaving the warrior's remains and his broken mount to the mercy of the kaiju's surviving entourage on the ground. This routine persisted into the night, as the sky became filled with roars, screams, and spectacular flashes of light from dragon and Behemoth alike.
It was during one of the Behemoth's strongest moments of lashing out that the the Praetor managed to once again gather a band of dragons to launch a concentrated attack at its head. Unfortunately, the Behemoth could still hear, and the roars of so many dragons blasting at its head presented the perfect target for the now-doomed creature to fire a particularly destructive parting shot at. With all the force it could muster, the Behemoth fired a beam that could (on retrospective investigation) be seen all the way from Marduk, a mere 150 km away from the battleground.
The Praetor's final attack from nearly a hundred of the remaining dragons was what it took to deal a mortal blow to the Behemoth's softest parts of neck... a near miss from his target, which would have instantly killed the creature and thwarted the inevitable counter-attack. Instead, the creature lived just long enough to blast away a more spread-out breath attack that was still as deadly as before. Although the creature had spent its last, it was enough to land a direct hit on the Praetor and his formation, killing all but a small remainder.
Almost as soon as the already-doomed Praetor and his fatally wounded dragon hit the ground and breathed their last as proud warriors to the end, so did the Behemoth. Its fall triggered an earthquake that could be felt from Marduk and surrounding areas, such was the creature's size and such was the violence of its end. And so ended the long, glorious tales of two titans: one of the great creatures of the forest, and one of the vast expanse of unified peoples in the wilderness of Keltia.
Denouement
With the Behemoth's fall, only some ninety dragons were still in the sky, along with two elder dragons. The remaining Masters took up the mantle left by their fallen leader, until it was discovered that the Praetor's son was among the survivors, having transferred dragons just before his own fell from the sky due to its severe wounds. The 35-year-old man, knowing he was lucky to be alive, nonetheless seized the moment and ordered the most magnificent funeral pyre in the history of the land be lit... by using the fallen Behemoth and its "spawn" as fuel for the fire, out of revenge for all their fallen comrades-in-arms and for their noble dragons.
The two hours that followed were the most brutal that Utupolasser had ever experienced. Although he shared his father's name (if only in part) he hardly felt capable of carrying it on his shoulders in this moment amidst the carnage and destruction. Fire and death were the only things upon his mind, and the minds of the 99 other people who auspiciously survived the battle.
The cleanup and subsequent impromptu funeral resulted in no additional casualties among the warriors, although some of the most seriously wounded dragons fell to their deaths from exhaustion during the few hours that followed. The lack of additional personnel casualties (despite the fall of several more dragons) was in no small part due to remaining wounded dragons falling from the sky from wounds well after their riders had made the daring move of switching riders mid-flight to save themselves (which prevented them from joining their mounts in death). Thus, there were barely 70 dragons to the remaining men, although the remaining massive creatures could easily carry their riders around -- wounded or otherwise.
Aftermath
After the cleanup operations were finished and Praetor Gilgamesh I given their fitting funeral by fire and blasts of ethereal lightning, the only son to accompany the great leader on his great journey was loudly proclaimed to be a "Second Gilgamesh." Thus, Utupolasser received the name of Gilgamesh II by acclaim, an ancient custom by which a warrior may be indirectly blessed by the gods. With the rest of the exactly 100-strong surviving party, they made it safely back to Marduk.
Proclaimed the Magnificent Hundred by the people, the troops not already in positions of acclaim found themselves a form of immortality. They had joined a demigod on a quest to save the world, and they not only succeeded but lived to tell of their deeds worthy of eternal epic, emerging as demigods themselves. While the battle was extremely costly, it was still won, and the nation's great work could begin on the ashes of enemy and beloved comrade alike. And from this crucible of pain and suffering emerged a victorious individual worthy of succeeding the Praetor's place: his son, who now shared the same name as the great leader had.
The toll of the battle was truly something awful to behold. More than 85% of the country's military dragon force was eliminated outright, and confiscating eggs, hatchlings, and dragons for requisition into the armed forces had long been illegal by sacred custom, making a swift rebuilding process impossible. With most of the feral dragon population gone, so were broods from which the military could poach eggs for future mounts. And with so many dragon warriors gone, many lines of warriors had ended, as had the lines of dragons their scions would otherwise ride into battle. Most notably, the sheer loss of elder dragons in battle was unprecedented. It was the elder dragons that kept lesser dragons in check (and hostile dragons away), and this meant that the now-decimated dragon population would take decades, if not a couple centuries, to recover.
With the dragons went most of the country's air forces, leaving them otherwise vulnerable to attack were it not for the dangerous terrain and savage wildlife deep in the country's interior (notably in Ereshkigal Forest and elsewhere). However, this also meant that the country was rendered almost entirely safe for air transport between its major hubs outside present-day Arumen and Pyrax. (Instead, both of these territories became, all or in part, native reservations as compensation for the loss of their warriors, masters, and dragons during the Battle of the Behemoth). It was also the perfect opportunity for the country to phase in a fully-mechanized air force, rather than relying on dragons as weapons of war (which had earned the country a considerable amount of national-level ridicule until this point).
Following the battle, a wave of modernization and explosive population growth swept through the country, precipitating rapid expansion soon after. Politically, the country continued its rapid consolidation and centralization after the near-immediate inauguration of Utupolasser, now known to the rest of the world as Praetor Gilgamesh II. Himself a member of the Magnificent Hundred, he was in a particularly strong position already, as the previous Praetor's will named "any of my sons" to succeed his post. The recently proclaimed "Gilgamesh II" was the obvious choice, as the gods so clearly favored the man despite the extreme odds against surviving such a battle as this one was.
Never again would the Hexarchy take as many losses during the Praetor's reign, and never again would dragons be the dominant force in the skies of western Keltia. However, to his day a lucky tourist might be able to brave the long journey of going to the faraway, exotic lands of Arumen or Pyrax, and hitch a ride aboard a native's dragon and set off on adventure into the Wild Lands for an over-the-top hunting expedition.
