La prueba

Hy r k a ni a

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Hyrkanians are nomadic horsemen, cruel and ruthless, whose violent rampages across the steppe are still spoken of in frightened voices, as if the brutal conquests had happened but yesterday and not years, decades or centuries before. The area called Hyrkania lies to the east of the Vilayet and ranges from tundra, taiga forest, steppe, prairie and even desert. The Hyrkanians conquer all that they see, swarming over the terrain in overwhelming numbers on fleet horses.

Hyrkania’s population is unknown. The size of the nation is vast.

Some Aquilonian scholars estimate well over forty million persons, including the Kozaki and the Turanians, but the truth is unknown.

The borders of Hyrkania are so vast, and cover so many types of terrain it is hard to tally the population. Aquilonians estimate nearly sixty thousand villages.

The Hyrkanians, masters of the double-curved bow, dominated the Vilayet both in military might and in economic might. Hyrkanians are described as shrewd merchants and traders. They defend their trade cities, their caravans and their trade routes with swift warriors mounted on sturdy steppe horses. In battle, the Hyrkanians would form virtual swarms of violent rage, sending thousands of riders to war. In Howard’s Shadows in the Moonlight, the Hyrkanians sent 15,000 cavalrymen against Conan’s 5,000 kozaki. These deadly riders are trailed by an enormous herd of spare mounts and, in major battles involving scores of thousands, are preceded by thousands of civilians, driven forward by the riders as a vast human shield. Villages faced with the prospect of coming under the sword would often surrender, which was fine by the Hyrkanians, who would accept tribute and loot, drawing taxes and additional troops from the surrendered villages. Those that did not surrender were burned and destroyed without mercy.

To say that the Hyrkanians are superb with their horse-archery is like saying Cimmerians are hardy folk. They are especially adept at firing their bows from the back of a running horse and their training involves horsemen encircling a herd of game, each with one arrow, and each expected to kill with that one arrow. Able to fire up to six arrows per minute, the Hyrkanian cavalry have no equal in battle.

They armour themselves in urine-hardened horsehide, wearing a tightly woven silk shirt beneath robes to blunt the damage of enemy arrows, and use a small shield to protect their face. A spired steel cap with dangling earflaps protects the skull and iron squares are sewn into the fabric of their boots to protect their calves. Much of their armour and clothing is trimmed in fur. A typical Hyrkanian warrior carries his double-curved bow of wood, sinew and horn and up to three quivers of arrows. Most Hyrkanians also carry hooked lances, a scimitar or sabre hooked to his belt or saddle and a dagger strapped to his left arm.

Hyrkanian generals tend to be audacious and bold. They know their troops could be depended upon to fight without fear. The generals are quite cunning and are not against trying new tactics.

The Hyrkanians usually began battles with archery, filling the air with as many arrows as possible. If the enemy charges, they light dung fires to create smoke and the archers melt away on their horses to be replaced by Hyrkanian cavalry with long lances and sharp sabres who hide within the smoke to surprise the oncoming knights.

Kettledrums are also used to create a fearsome din that echoes above the horse-beats of their onrushing hordes.

Hyrkanians have a disciplined cavalry that is divided up in squads of ten, troops of fifty, companies of a hundred and divisions of 10,000. Commanders, or kagan, are those proven in war, not tribal chiefs. A squad-leader is called a ten-commander or a commander-of-ten. Other commanders of larger numbers follow similar naming schemes. Commanders signal with flags during the day and with lanterns in the nights.

Between the inland sea and the eastern borders of the native kingdoms lie vast expanses of steppes and in the extreme north and extreme south, deserts.

Robert E. Howard, The Hyborian Age

‘You’re as bad as a Hyrkanian woman, with your damnable veil.’

Robert E. Howard, Black Colossus

They came forth on the southern slopes of the Talakmas at last, to look upon a fantastic sight – a vast, green valley that sloped down and away before them. It was as if they stood on the lip of a stupendous dish. Below them, little clouds crept over leagues of dense, green jungle. In the midst of this jungle, a great lake or inland sea reflected the azure of the clear, bright sky.

L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, The City of Skulls

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Hy r k a ni a

Hyrkanians are born to the saddle, learning to ride before they learn to walk. Hyrkanians almost always travel with three or four horses per warrior and they never stop to change horses; switching mounts is done on the run with the Hyrkanian simply gathering up his stuff, including the saddle, and vaulting onto another steed. Their stirrups are designed for adroit manoeuvres, being disk shaped to provide a solid platform. Horses are a measure of power and wealth among the Hyrkanians and all of them have names. Horse races, hunting and archery contests are popular past-times. Hyrkanians rarely walk more than twenty paces unless the need is great. An Hyrkanian who needs to be somewhere rides his horse.

The men of Hyrkania are not alone in their mastery of the bow and the horse. Hyrkanian women are also deadeye archers and accomplished equestrians. Although not members of the Hyrkanian cavalry, women follow the warriors to put the wounded to death and collect arrows for re-use. Hyrkanian women are practical people and are almost cold-blooded when it came to death. Marvel’s Red Sonja, an Hyrkanian, is not that unlikely of a character. Hyrkanian women are not pampered and could fight, although they are expected to remain loyal and follow whomever wins them in combat.

Hyrkanians typically go bearded. Additionally, they wear turbans or high fur hats, sheepskins, wide-sleeved tunics, sashes and loose-fitting trousers. The women are veiled. In more conservative circles, usually the upper classes, the women favour the khalat, a long costume that conceals the entire body.

One of the largest nomad tribes on the steppe is the Kuagir.

Princess Zosara, the daughter of King Yildiz of Turan, married the Great Khan Kujula of the Kuagir, and bore him an heir. The Great Khan does not know it, but Zosara’s son is Conan’s.

Another nomad tribe to be found in the far northeast of Hyrkania is the Wigur, a short, bandy-legged race with dark skin and braided black hair. The favoured class for the Wigur is barbarian and they dress in furs and skins, painting their faces in stripes and circles.

They are a shamanistic people. Their shamans can conjure up visions with their drumming and incense.

A nomad tribe in the deserts of the south are the Juhanna, the fiercest desert nomads around the region surrounding the well of Harith, lands claimed in name by Turan (see page 130). The Juhanna are honourable and fair foes. They do not like for women to speak boldly as men do, however they incongruously seem to

respect Ishtar.

Major

Geographical Features of

Hyrkania

The Hyrkanian steppe is a dry, cold grassland, rolling along in smooth, low hills. There isn’t much humidity in the air because the steppe is located away from the ocean and close to mountain barriers. The soil is poor and thin, supporting only grasses.

Virtually no trees can be found on the steppe. The steppe has warm summers and really cold winters. The northern steppe see a lot of snow and rain comes in small amounts. The Hyrkanian steppes experience long droughts and violent winds. These droughts of the summer combine with the heat, the browning dry grasses and just about any sort of ignition to create dangerous, quick spreading prairie fires.

The western edge of Hyrkania is the eastern shore of the Vilayet Sea. It is bound on the east by Khitai, on the south by the Talakma Mountains and in the north by cold tundras, vast pine forests and frozen wastelands.

Loulan Plateau – The Loulan Plateau is a Hyrkanian steppe land in the east. The Hyrkanians here have strong Khitan bloodlines and tell stories of the ‘desert man of forbidden Pathenia’, a man-like ape that dwells in the snow-covered mountains, a veritable abominable snowman. The plateau is also home to jerboas, small mammals that burrow in the thin soil. Summers are hot and winters are frigid.

He, too, had heard the roar of the ten-foot bronze trumpets that blared over the bare black mountains of forbidden Pathenia, in the hands of shaven-headed priests of Erlik.

L. Sprague de Camp (rewriting R. E.

Howard), The Flame Knife

He had traversed hundreds of leagues of bleak Hyrkanian steppe and skirted the foot-hills of the towering Talakma Mountains.

L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter, The Curse of the Monolith

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This plateau is described by L. Sprague de Camp as lost and bleak.

In Howard’s original story, Three Bladed Doom, the reference was to the Gobi Desert. For The Flame Knife, L. Sprague de Camp changed the name to the Loulan Plateau, thus its location should be approximately where the Gobi Desert is.

Meru – The kingdom of Meru lies in a great bowl-shaped valley of jungle between the peaks of the Talakma Mountains and the mighty Himelians. The valley also has a huge inland lake or sea named Sumero Tso. Called the Cup of Gods, Meru is home to stocky, brown, lazy, fatalistic people. The only garment for the Meruvians, male and female, is a short skirt. The priests shave their heads, their religion is shamanistic and they believe in reincarnation. Their chief god is Yama, the king of demons. They make slaves out of captives, usually Hyrkanians or the occasional Himelian hillman. The capital of Meru is Shamballah and is ruled by a god-king. Shamballah is a city of rose-red stone amid paddies and fields between the jungle and Sumero Tso. The gates to the city are of green bronze and cast in the shape of a skull. The architecture is ornate and sculpted.

Gigantic faces hewn from red stone glare down from walls and towers. Their mythology is one of many-armed gods and demons.

Carvings in the form of human skulls are omnipresent. Even the people wear human skull-shaped ornaments hung on golden chains about their necks. There are seven cities around Sumero Tso. The other six are: Shondakor, Thogara, Auzakia, Issedon, Paliana and

Throana. The cities are deemed sacred. To avoid the dangers of the jungle, the Meruvians trade via ships that ply the Sumero Tso, pulled by galley slaves at the oars.

Pathenia – Pathenia is a frigid mountainous region somewhere in the north, north of the Loulan Plateau and north of Hyrkania in general. Some scholars believe Pathenia to be the country of origin for the Hyrkanians, where they developed their nomadic lifestyle.

Those who dwell in Pathenia apparently worship Erlik.

Talakma Mountains – The Talakma Mountains are an arid range that breaks off from the Himelians to merge with them after arcing to the east, forming an effective border between Hyrkania and Meru.

They are analogous to the Kunlun Mountains that fringe northern Tibet. The Talakma Mountains are bitterly cold and fiercely wind-swept. Hard frost forms nightly, although actual snowfall is rare.

The soil is salty, keeping all but the hardiest of plants from living here. The rough conditions are impossible for most animals to endure for long and only the toughest find homes here. Snow leopards, wolves, yaks and brown bears live here in small numbers, as do other mountain breeds of animals. A few lakes exist, but most are dry.

Virtually no one chooses to live among the heights of these dire mountains, although the foothills are home to some hillmen

Before him lay the steppe, a sea of grass stretching from the Vilayet to distant Khitai, from the northern border of Vendhya to the pine forests of the far north. It was a land of few rivers, much of it semi-desert during the long dry season, when its parched grasses could become a terrifying ocean of flame, ignited by lightning or the actions of men. Few but steppe nomads roamed the vastnesses of the plain, but its southern periphery was crisscrossed by the ancient caravan routes that linked the lands of east and west, and at intervals along these routes, wherever there was an abundance of water, there were the legendary cities of the caravans: Lakmashi of the Silver Gates, where precious metals were worked before transhipment to east and west; Malikta, where the jewels, stones, pearls and jade of the east were traded by the hundredweight; Bukhrosha, city of incense and spices; and lordly Sogaria, where the silks of Khitai were dyed with pigments from Vendhya and the far isles of the eastern sea, and then woven into wondrous fabrics by the artisans of the city.

John Maddox Roberts, Conan the Marauder

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