Kushan

Kushan lies at the far eastern rim of the known world, well past the realms that answer to the Holy See. It is less a single state than a quilt of lesser houses bound beneath one ruling dynasty, a design that breeds feuds among the clans it holds, the Bakiraka among them. Its affairs are settled by tradition at an assembly of clan heads called the kurultai, a council that gathers anew to crown a fresh emperor whenever the throne stands empty.

In war the empire pairs disciplined human hosts with creatures drawn out of magic. Mounted troops form its backbone, split into units of several hundred riders apiece and reinforced by columns of war elephants, ranks of archers, and roaming scout bands. Kushan engineers furnish cannons, siege towers, oared galleasses, and a rolling palace ringed by imperial guards. Marching beside the soldiers come the pishaca, beasts conjured by sorcery and directed by spellcasters known as harashada, along with the daka, human fetuses steeped in astral evil through a man-made Beherit and carried to battle by ship.

Terror is the empire's chief tool of rule. Its subjugation of Midland is stained with appalling cruelty, entire cities slaughtered and their remains hung across statues and halls, women dragged off to be sold or turned into daka. One of its commanders credits Kushan's endurance in drawn-out wars to a habit of pushing war slaves and captured enemy troops ahead as expendable shields meant to soak up the losses.

Faith threads deeply through Kushan life, arranged under a high priest and an order of monks called brahmins whom foreigners suspect of wielding magic. An oracle handed to the high priest sent the Bakiraka hunting for the falcon and the so-called land of oracle, foretelling that something of great weight would come to pass in that pagan country. Rumor even carried abroad of women given up in sacrifice to the Kushan god.

The empire first surfaces under Emperor Ganishka, whose reign fuels a grinding war against the Holy See's allied nations and the occupation of much of Midland. As Griffith builds up his apostle army, the Kushan forces meet one shattering defeat after another, yet rather than exterminate the survivors he folds surrendered Kushan soldiers into his own host, and their people are eventually permitted to dwell in peace within Falconia.

With Ganishka fallen, a new emperor is raised through a revived kurultai, and the dead ruler's downfall is laid at the feet of the dictatorial neglect he showed that very council. Once the Great Wave has remade the world, Kushan forces still command a great coastal city and the waters around it, able to mount intricate naval assaults with the Bakiraka beside them and Daiba's counsel at hand. Word reaches them of Falconia's rise, and sighting the White Falcon's vanguard near their western frontier, these remaining Kushans resolve to march on Falconia, dreading that they will be the next devoured by its expansion.