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CHAPTER SIXTY

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Heavy lancers were equipped with plate armour, a medium steel shield, a heavy horse lance, a longsword and a dagger. Horse archers were equipped with leather armour, a buckler on the shield arm, a short sword, a dagger and a horse crossbow. Each unit consisted of fifty persons and fifty horses fully armoured with ring-mail barding. An archery unit consisted of a unit of light crossbowmen and a unit of longbowmen.

Light crossbowmen were equipped with a light chain mail shirt, a dagger, a short sword and a light crossbow. Longbowmen were equipped with a leather tunic, a buckler on the left shoulder, a dagger, a long sword and a longbow. The size of the light crossbowmen and the longbowmen were one hundred and one hundred and fifty, respectively.

A cavalry unit consisted of heavy plated warriors on heavy warhorses. By far, they were the most heavily armed and armoured unit of an army unit. They were equipped with field plate armour, a helm specifically designed for each warrior, gauntlets made of the finest steel, steel boots fit for a king, a horseman’s flail, a battle axe, a dagger, a longsword and a hand crossbow. Their numbers were no less than two hundred.

Footman units consisted of pikemen and warriors. The pikemen were equipped with studded armour, spiked gauntlets, small bucklers at the joints that had one two inch spike on each of them, thick leather boots, a short sword, a dagger and either a longspear or another polearm. They consisted of one hundred persons. Warriors were equipped with ringmail armour, leather gauntlets, a body shield, a short spear, a dagger, a short sword, a sling and a war hammer. They consisted of one hundred and fifty persons.

Medical units were very important in the success of the army. They consisted of a repairer unit and a gatherer unit. Repairer units were stationary units that stayed behind the command unit. They were healers and doctors that worked on the wounded. Repairer units consisted of fifty doctors and fifty nurses. Gatherer units went out into the field searching for the wounded and taking the wounded back to the repairer units. These units consisted of paramedical warriors.

Paramedical warriors were trained in basic first aide and basic combat and were equipped with light leather armour, a first aide kit, a long sword, a dagger and a shortbow. There were two hundred men in each Gatherer unit. A command unit consisted of the foot guard, the command center and one elite unit. The foot guard consisted of two scout units, two longbowmen units and two footman units. Scout units consisted of two runner units and one rider unit.

Runner units consisted of fast runners that could scout out an area without getting caught and a rider unit relayed messages to and from the command centers of each army unit. The runners were equipped with a scroll case, paper, quills, an ink bottle, light tunics, four daggers and two pairs of good boots. Riders were equipped with a good horse, leather armour, a shortsword, two daggers and a leather satchel to carry messages in. A runner unit consisted of two hundred persons and a rider unit consisted of one hundred persons.

An Elite Unit consisted of an Assassin unit, a Forerunner unit, an Armsman unit and a Military Surgery unit. An Assassin unit consisted of two units of Ambushers, two units of Stealth Recons, three units of Special Operations (SpecOps) and one Master Assassin.

The Ambushers were equipped with various hidden weapons, mainly daggers and darts and wore light leather armour on their chests, light leather greaves, light leather boots, light leather gloves, light leather helm all dyed black and their weapons were dipped in metal black and poison and carried a light leather satchel. There were ten persons in each unit. Stealth Recons are an elevated form of a scout with some assassination and subterfuge training. These had the same equipment as the Ambushers but each unit consisted of fifteen instead of ten.

The Special Operations unit or SpecOps are assassins and their equipment varies depending on their target, thus they are trained in every and any weapon known and have been known to come from all of the other units of the Grand Reach’s army at any given time depending on what is needed, thus there is no real number to how many each unit consists of as they come from the rest of the army and may even stay with their regular units until called upon.

They are the secret service of the army and thus no one truly knows who is a part of this Special Operations except the Master Assassin. The Master Assassin could be anyone and everyone, so everyone in the army is on their toes. Due to his or her nature only a select few of the governing council of the Assassin unit, which I might add don’t come with the unit and are voted upon from the SpecOps, know of his or her existence as the king or general talks to them as he does not want to deal with someone that is that close to death dealings in his or her life.

A Forerunner unit consisted of a Tracker unit and a Spotter unit. The Tracker unit contained various levels of skilled trackers with at least one Master Tracker in the unit, sometimes more than three Master Trackers might be in the unit depending on the job at hand. They wore any numerous types of armour up to and including Elvin mail and knew how to use various types of weapons especially bows and crossbows and the odd two weapon style or two handed axe or sword.

Some might have shields, but usually nothing larger than a buckler as it might hamper movement being any larger. There usually were twenty men or women in this unit. Spotter unit is actually what its name suggests. They would follow the trackers closely and were trained in sharp shooting with a longbow and would search the trees while the trackers would be looking for different signs of passing people or animals upon the ground and about four feet above the ground.

Without the spotters they would not be able to notice sentries or whatnot far up in the trees. Likewise, the spotters don’t normally notice ground traps, so these two units must work together in order to work at all. There usually were twenty men or women in this unit as it usually matched the Tracker unit in numbers, including number of Master Spotters available.

Armsmen unit consisted of heavy plate wearers that specialized in mainly polearms, but were masters in all types of weapons even ones that other units never heard of. They knew how to exploit armour of all types and were blacksmiths that had many years of training as warriors and blacksmiths, but mainly they knew how to make weapons and armour. This unit preferred extremely heavy plate and massive warhorses.

Some women joined this unit, but it was rare to see this as to be part of the armsmen you had to be tougher than the toughest and ornerier than the orneriest. These men or women tended to get into fights a lot and very rarely you found one that could control their temper enough, but that was so rare to find considering what you had to do and go through to be one.

There was usually anywhere from one hundred to three hundred of these, it depended on whether they could find enough horses to field them or not as the horses that they needed were rarer than the men or women in the unit. Military Surgery unit were tough and quick men and women that were able to mend anything and everything on the field in the most awkward of situations. It was said that they could even fix vein, artery and nerve damage. They came from the regular populous and sometimes other units of the army, as the ability to heal someone with more than medical tools was rare if at all possible.

These men or women usually had a staff and tattered clothing as their job was tough, their clothing got a nasty beating. Sleep sometimes was not gotten much if at all unless you consider them passing out in the field and waking up later sleeping. There were usually around one hundred of these in the army. Lastly and most importantly the command center consisted of a General, a General’s aide, a unit of the General’s knights, a unit of squires and a medical unit.

The General’s knights were equipped with fine steel plate armour over a long sleeved chain mail shirt, steel gauntlets, steel boots, a medium war horse with chain mail barding, a horseman’s flail, a longsword, a dagger, a light crossbow and a medium war lance. They consisted of twenty knights that are the personal guard of the General and his aide.

Squires are squired to the General’s knights and were equipped with studded leather armour over a light chain mail shirt, a light war horse with studded leather barding, a horseman’s flail, a longsword, a dagger, a light crossbow and a light war lance. Thus an entire army unit consisted of five thousand, one hundred and eighty-two persons.