The Battle of Rosefield was the first of the two great victories of Lorenan the Great against the Gawedi warlords who had plagued his homeland for the last 45 years, during the Gawedi Invasions of Lencenor.
Prelude[]
The Lencori Warlord Period had lasted 45 years, and the last ten years had seen the meteoric rise of Lorenan the Great. The leader of the Lorenti, a tribe of the Rubenti peoples, had united these people into the Lorentish Kingdom in the year 516, dominating the Bloodwine River after defeating the Rubenti warlords downstream and, together with the dwarves of Rubyhold, organized a set of alliances to expel the northern invaders for good.
By the year 523, a coordinated attack by king Roen of Enteben and Lorenan had defeated the Gawedi warlords of Wrenswatch and Stovanfield, expelling the invaders from all areas south of the Redwood, and Rycanreach stood as the only strong Alenic warlordship left in the region.
So it was that in the year 524 the last Gawedi Warlords in Lencenor proper formed an alliance led by Alvor Redthroat to oppose the rising Lencori, hoping to turn the tide by drawing the Lencori armies out of their advantageous positions to the south of the Redwood. Knowing of Lorenan's fame as a protector of the Lorenti, Alvor began raiding his own Lorenti subjects, most of them from the Uenati tribe, expecting the Lorentish king to ride north and meet them on their own terms.
As soon as the news made their way to Lorentei in the winter of 524, King Lorenan called upon his allies and loyalists as he himself rode east, seeking the aid of the kings of Tretun and Carneter, and receiving only the former. With the combined armies of Sormannon, Tretun and his own Lorentish force, Lorenan crossed the Ruby Pass unopposed yet spent the next month finding nothing but empty, destroyed settlements. Unable to find the Gawedi, the only armed group that came to Lorenan was a large group of Iochander cavalrymen who had come to counterraid the Alenics. With the allied kings growing anxious, Lorenan had no choice but to order his men to begin the move south. His Lencori army made camp next to a large field of roses, and it was in the early morning of the next day when, out of nowhere, the Gawedi host surged out of the morning mist and formed up for battle.
The Battle[]
While some called to quickly rebuild camp and others wanted to retreat, King Lorenan was undisturbed by their pleas and gave the order to face the enemy they had come to fight. With few precious minutes to organize, men from all the present Lencori realms fought side by side as infantry while all the available cavalry (of mostly Lorenti and Iochander origin) was put under the direct command of Lorenan.
The battle started with a rush of the Gawedi infantry, led by a core of veterans of the warlord wars in Lencenor with Alvor Redthroat at the helm. Seeking to disrupt the Lencori line before it properly formed, the charge threatened to break the mixture of Sormanni spearmen and Lorenti city infantry at the center of the rosefield, placed under severe stress. The line was slowly pushed back in a long and arduous melee, yet all of the Gawedi heavy infantry was engaged in combat and fixed in their positions.
Meanwhile, on the flanks, lighter infantrymen armed with spears and shields supported the smaller force of Gawedi light cavalry as they acted as a screen against the strength of the Lencori cavalry. The Iochanders proved their worth as their horsemen, led by Florien the True, managed to create a gap between the spearmen and the cavalry in Gawedi left flank, enough for Lorenan and his heavier Lorenti cavalry to smash through it and charge directly into the flank and the rear of the main Alenic army.
Covered in an armour of Rosemetal and Dwarven steel and with a lilac shield on his right arm, the king of the Lorentish charged at the head of his cavalry, opening a breach in the Gawedi line and starting a rout. Instead of stopping to face the now broken men, however, Lorenan pressed on aiming for the Gawedi warlords themselves. He himself slayed the lord of the Redwood, and the Gawedi army dissolved before his very eyes.
Aftermath[]
The whole Lencori army was by now covered in rose petals, blood or a mix both, and Lorenan himself and Beluinal most of all. A Gawedi arrow had pierced a great red rose and fixed it to the center of his shield: the first appearance of the Lorentish Rose in historical records. Lorenan took the symbol as his own, raising his shield for all to see and proclaiming all of them to be one united Rose Army. In response, Lorenan was acclaimed High King by both the soldiers and the kings of the Tretunics and the Sormanni.
Upon his return to Lorentei, Lorenan was presented the Ruby Crown of Lorent by envoys of the King of Rubyhold himself, and so began the High Kingdom of Lencenor. The Iochander soldiers had already acclaimed him as High King at Rosefield, and King Fizwick I Allspark swore fealty to Lorenan in the following months. The Entebic Kingdom, the last remaining Lencori realm not within Lorenan's Realm, would join the High Kingdom after arduous negotiations between Lorenan and King Roen at the behest of the High Priest of Adeanscour.
Meanwhile, many Gawedi fled north towards the Gawedi Kingdom after being expelled by the victorious Lencori, drawing King Godric II's attention towards Lencenor. The fight against the Gawedi wasn't over, and it wouldn't be solved until the Battle of Red Reach four years later.