Dance of Blood and Jotun consequences

Watt of Lambrook, Minister of Historical Research.

Introduction

In Winter 387YE Watt of Lambrook, Minister of Historical Research commissioned the Department of Historical Research to investigate the Dance of Blood. The Dance was a Navarr army who disbanded in 245YE, fighting the Jotun during the reign of Emperor Guntherm. The Dance are historically somewhat controversial, given their embrace of cruel and merciless tactics.

Welcoming

The Dance of Blood were raised in 239YE, one of the first acts approved by the newly ascended Emperor Guntherm. The Navarr Senator for Hercynia, Rhun Night-River, led the contingent of the Senate that had chafed under the rule of Empress Mariika and her resolute opposition to enlarging the Imperial military. Four times they had passed a motion to muster a new Navarr army, and each time Marika had vetoed the motion. Rhun was known to desire the Throne and was widely expected to make a bid for it, but instead he and his fellow Navarr senators crossed the floor to support Guntherm. A new Navarr army was approved at the very next session, raised by Hercynia and seconded by Hahnmark.

With popular support, it took less than a year to fund the army, but it soon encountered controversy. Rhun was a fierce advocate of the Navarr maxim that "You cannot betray your enemies" and openly advocated for Imperial armies to adopt a more pragmatic approach to war against the barbarians. When the Navarr Assembly passed a statement of principle reminding the nation that the Navarr cannot betray their enemies, it led to a mandate allowing the nation to embrace cruelty as the most effective way to defeat the barbarians.

The judgement was contentious, splitting the nations of the Empire on the issue in a manner that might be familiar to citizens who remember the arguments around the Iron Helms. Since the matter was for the Navarr Assembly only, however, there was little that other Imperial priests could do about the mandate. The Cardinal of Wisdom, a mystic called Astor Far-Eyes, publicly spoke against the Navarr embrace of cruel tactics, arguing that it was ill-omened and would end in disaster, but his attempts to delay the vote achieved nothing and the required greater majority was narrowly achieved. Rhun made it clear that he would use his authority as the raising senator to uphold the will of the Assembly.

Thorns, our people have slumbered while our steadings are threated by the Thule. Now is the hour of our awakening. We will reclaim what they have taken. We will drown our spears in Thule blood. We will slaughter every orc that marches beneath a blue banner. We will lead our enemies in the Great Dance to the doors of the Labyrinth. We will teach the Dragons to fear us.

General Gobaith, General of the Dance of Blood

Dancing

Once the army was ready, the Navarr senators appointed Gobaith of Summer's Grove to be general. A popular, charismatic brand, adored by many thorns, she was notorious for her dark humour. Described as intimidating, always dressed for battle, face painted for war at any moment, she was known as someone to be reckoned with within and without the Empire.

From the outset, the tactics employed by the Dance of Blood were uncompromising and brutal. The Navarr have often sought to ambush their enemies, preferring to use the element of surprise to defeat them. That season, the Dance of Blood went much further, poisoning wells and razing Thule settlements that would not surrender. In battle, they would wound the enemy but not execute them, then lie in wait to slaughter those who came to heal them. Warlocks in particular were singled out on the battlefield, with Gobaith looking to break the enemy's chain of command.

Gobaith's strategy made many people queasy, but it worked. The first season of campaigning, the forces of Otkodov were brutally driven back with many hundreds of orcs slain. Over the next two years the Dance of Blood fought mercilessly against the Thule, with only a single season to rest, they were active all the across the north of the Empire. Wherever the Thule banners marched, the Dance of Blood would lie in wait for them. Traps were set, food and water was deliberately spoiled. In one gruesome incident Navarr scouts planted infected meat in a river, upstream of the Thule camp. Scores died in agony of vomited blood. It was routine for the Navarr to pick off Thule pickets and drag them into the woods, where they would be tortured to death within earshot of their fellows, The disembowelled corpses would be left for the army to find at sunrise. The reports from the front made brutal reading, but victory had a way of quelling all the arguments.

While the Dance of Blood is remembered for its final battle against the Jotun, the Thule have very good reasons to remember it.

By the end of 243YE, the Dance was triumphant; the Empire surrounded three Thule armies in Hercynia, completely cutting them off. There was an option to allow the Thule to withdraw but Gobaith seized the opportunity to trap them and began starving them out. By the time Gobaith's forces finally attacked, it was said that some of the Thule were too weak to hold a spear. The Earthquake Drummers managed to escape but the Path of the Gyre and the Teeth of the Blizzard did not. Both armies were broken by Gobaith's cruel tactics, their warriors slaughtered and their leaders executed.

Guntherm's support of the Navarr army is one of the reasons he gained the nickname "the Bloodthirsty", although he remained broadly popular. After years of struggle against the barbarians, citizens were eager for news of victories and the Dance of Blood certainly delivered that news.

Unburdening

Had the situation remained that way, history might have been very different. But in 242YE, the Jotun launched an assault across the frozen Lake Nutjuitoq in the Suaq Fount. They were led by Kjorvak, Jarl of Kierheim, whose willingness to risk the untested ice allowed him to take the Wintermark defenders by surprise. Emperor Guntherm led the Green Shield on campaign against them, but both armies were attacked by a large Thule force. In the resulting panic, Guntherm and Kjorvak ended up fighting together against the Thule, forging a battlefield alliance with the Jotun and together they drove the Thule off. Out of respect for Guntherm, the Jarl withdraw his forces, but a strange friendship blossomed from the battle. Although the Jotun and the Empire were still at war, the two continued to exchange winged messages in the seasons that followed.

Guntherm's love for the Green Shield was well known throughout the Empire.

Rather than attack Wintermark, the Jotun invaded Liathaven in 243YE. The territory had been relatively peaceful, at least as peaceful as a land cursed by the vallorn can be. The Jotun quickly captured West Ranging and threatened Liath's Ring. The attacks shook the Navarr, and caused widespread outrage after hundreds of Navarr were forced to accept life as a thrall by the invading Jotun. Gobaith swore to take her army south and unleash the same terror against the Jotun that had proved so effective against the Thule.

Gobaith's counter-attack clearly took the Jotun by surprise, and her forces were able to take thirty Jotun prisoner. After the civil service assessed the options, the prognosticators laid out two clear choices. The Navarr general could let the Jotun go, which would create an opportunity to make peace with the Jotun, or they could be executed to spread fear through the enemies of the Empire in the west.

It was explicit that the more fearsome the deaths, the bigger the impact would be on Jotun morale. Gobaith led a contingent of her supporters through the Sentinel Gate to deal with the prisoners, and returned having drowned them. According to the exaggerated and embroidered stories that spread in the wake of the incident, they were drowned in vats of blood. This tale was widely believed, despite the unusual public notice issued by the civil service indicating that the Jotun had in fact been drowned in water.

Of all the ways the prisoners might have been dealt with, this was far and away one of the worst from the Jotun point of view. The western orcs have an abject fear of the sea, apparently in the belief that those who drown can never pass over the Howling Abyss and are thus condemned to oblivion. The fear is so endemic in their culture that most Jotun refuse to even contemplate setting foot on the water, and the few ships they own are invariably operated by thralls. The cruelty of the Dance of Blood shook the Jotun to the core, weakening every single one of their armies and making it easier for the Empire to claim territory from them all along the western front for the next year.

Even so, the actions were hugely divisive. The Assembly of Nine called Gobaith to inquisition, claiming her actions were fundamentally unvirtuous. As the denouement of the inquisition, they called for the Tribune and revoked the general with primacy in front of a huge crowd. Unfortunately, word of the Nine's plans had leaked, and Rhun and his fellow senators were waiting in the audience. They quickly stepped forward and reappointed her on the spot, in defiance of the Assembly's will.

Outside Anvil, the executions outraged the Jotun. The Dance were already notorious, but the actions led to a blood-feud between the Jotun and the Navarr. Casualty rates on campaign shot up, as both sides refused to offer quarter to the other. In particular, there were several incidents where the actions of the Dance of Blood led directly to the death of numbers of Jotun thralls, driving the western orcs to the verge of frenzy. Their religion outlaws the killing of thralls under any circumstances, and so it is no surprise that the Jotun quickly began referring to the Navarr as the "Imperial Druj". To the Jotun, this was the gravest insult they could throw, but Gobaith and her army wore the epithet as a badge of Pride.

Binding

With the enemy on the backfoot, the Empire continued to push the Jotun back throughout 244YE. Rather than back away from her cruel tactics, Gobaith doubled down, arguing that they were working and that for the first time in years the Empire was winning. Supporters of the army, and there were many, pointed to the key successes they were having. Thanks to the Dance of Blood, the Empire were pushing the Jotun back in Wintermark, and elsewhere. The recent war with the Druj had been marked by a number of appalling massacres which had horrified citizens across the Empire, including one notorious incident where a score of brave citizens venturing through the Sentinel Gate were all captured and executed by the Druj. When the heroes rallied out to battle the next day they were forced to encounter the bodies of their fallen comrades impaled on spears. Such atrocities were commonplace and frankly surpassed anything that Gobaith and her supporters had enacted, but there were many who said that adopting the strategy of the Druj was the only way to win. The Empire had to meet fire with fire, they argued.

Agramant encourages atrocious acts in the name of survival, but publicly denied any responsibility for the atrocious acts being taken by the Dance of Blood.

Critics, and there were many, claimed that the Dance of Blood didn't just embrace cruelty, they revelled in it. There were frequent accusations of Agramantism (wilfully entreating with the eternal Agramant), so much so that they were actually refuted by the eternal themselves, who took the unprecedented step of issuing a public statement to the Conclave on a bloody scrap of flayed skin. The statement claimed that Blood-on-the-Snow had absolutely nothing to do with the horrors committed by the Dance of Blood (which some people believed) and that Howler was shocked by what was happening (which no one believed). That said, and in a manner typical of the Wastewalker, the statement ended with an offer to create an opportunity for every Imperial army to become cruel, if the Conclave would only accept his boon. The resulting vote was rejected, but the level of support for Agramant's offer surprised and alarmed many.

The Emperor tried desperately to rein Gobaith in, largely without success. Gobaith's tactics had upset many Winterfolk with scops and stormcrows claiming they were unheroic and the mystics forecasting doom from the twisted skeins of those involved. Politically, Guntherm was clearly compromised by the nature of the attacks, which resulted in outraged communications from the Jotun who felt the Empire's actions betrayed the burgeoning friendship between the Emperor and the Jarl of Kierheim.

Ignoring the Emperor's protests, Gobaith continued to perpetrate the war with a ferocious intensity with the Dance of Blood brutally slaughtering any Jotun they could find. In response, the Jotun became increasingly desperate. Enraged by the actions of the army, they lost much of their typical iron discipline and began to lash out wildly. The Dance became a red rag to the Jotun bull, driving their warriors into a violent fury in any campaign where the Navarr army took part. By the end of the year the Empire had inflicted three decisive defeats on Jotun forces, however.

The Empire were winning the war against the Jotun and while the strategy continued to cause concern for some, and personal problems for the Throne, criticism of the army was muted by their successes. But in 245YE, the situation changed dramatically when Holberg and Therunin were invaded by a huge force of Druj.

Vows

The invasion split the Empire. The West was secure with more territory in Imperial hands than at any point in the Empire's history. But the East was collapsing with region after region falling to the Druj. Armies marched east, but Gobiath refused to stop attacking, arguing that the Empire should crush the Jotun while they had the chance and then turn their attention to the Druj. Crucially she argued it was impossible to stop now and if the Empire pulled back then all the territory they had gained would be reclaimed by the Jotun.

In Senate, Emperor Guntherm publicly vowed to make peace with the Jotun, so that the East might be saved, but the Jotun refused all attempts to negotiate. Driven wild by the deaths of their thralls at the hands of the Dance of Blood, their contemptuous replies claimed they would never stop fighting until every Imperial Druj was dead.

There were rumbles that Gobaith would be excommunicated, but it was clear to many that the Synod simply didn't have the numbers. The general was a hero to many Navarr, but they were also popular with enough Varuskhan and League priests that action was impossible. There was discussion of revoking Rhun but the assumption was that she would simply be reappointed just as she had last time. Guntherm's habit of assuming personal control of the Green Shields made it impossible for him to take over the Dance of Blood, even if he had been inclined to risk the outspoken opposition of the Navarr nation by doing so.

The situation continued to deteriorate, not in the West, where the Empire were clearly winning, but in the East, where the Druj were advancing on Holberg itself. It was clear the Empire needed to do something, but nobody could agree what. Guntherm and his supporters were demanding that Gobaith cease their attacks on the Jotun so that the Empire could try to make peace - but senators from Navarr and Dawn openly called for the Dance go further, to force the Jotun to surrender.

The Dance continued to exact a merciless assault every season, but it was increasingly unsuccessful; it was clear by now that the Jotun were ready for their strategy and beginning to adapt to it. More than that, they were actively seeking to engage with the Dance any chance they could get. Stripped of the opportunity to catch the Jotun off guard, the Dance took (and inflicted) heavy casualties as the enemy risked everything to destroy their hated enemy.

The general's orders caused a slow erosion of their support in the Military Council, as it became increasingly apparent that their strategy was making any détente with the Jotun impossible. Gobaith was utterly unrepentant however. She boasted that the Dance of Blood was the only Imperial army to claim victory in every campaign it had fought in. She verbally sparred with Guntherm in Council, at one point going so far as to imply that his loyalties were to the Jotun and not to the Empire. She vowed that she would not stop her war until every Jotun was dead. In response he called her "the real enemy", saying her brutal war against the Jotun was to sate her lust for blood and going to destroy the Empire.

Funerals

The fall of the Dance of Blood came after the Summer Solstice in 245YE. The military situation had continued to deteriorate and there was talk in some quarters of revoking Guntherm himself. He was blamed for losing control of the Military Council - with the Empire now furiously engaged on three fronts, it was becoming clear that they could not win, but nobody could agree which territories should be abandoned. Even if Gobaith had wanted a way out, she was trapped by her vows, forced to stay engaged, locked in ever more bloody war against the Jotun.

The summer muster was brutal with screaming and shouting and grew worse from there. The first battle through the gate was a sortie against the Jotun to secure a crucial position in Bregasland. The battle was a unparalleled disaster, with nearly a hundred Imperials executed by the Jotun, most of them Marchers or Freeborn. When previous battles had gone badly, much of the blame landed at Guntherm's door, but this time the furore was directed at the Navarr. The Marchers were adamant that the Jotun had changed their tactics, executing everyone they could, driven by their cold hate for the Dance of Blood.

By the end of the summit, few of the generals were on speaking terms and the atmosphere in the Council was funereal. Gobaith outlined a plan to entrap the advancing Jotun in Bregasland, with the support of the Marcher and Wintermark armies. Amid an air of sullen silence, the other generals reluctantly agreed to back the plan.

The ambush went devastatingly wrong. It soon became clear that the Jotun had been warned of the impending arrival of the Dance of Blood and were waiting for them, in force. Worse, no other Imperial army moved into Bregasland to support them. Only the Strong Reeds were present, but with their general giving orders to defend the territory, the Dance of Blood's attack was utterly exposed. Outnumbered more than five to one the Dance might still have survived, were it not for the presence of a terrible Spring curse laid over the territory that poisoned the water and turned every wound lethal. The Dance were overwhelmed and utterly slaughtered. Gobaith was never seen again, widely assumed to have lost her life on the battlefield fighting alongside her beloved thorns. The Jotun were brutal and efficient, with squads of Ulvenwar patrolling the field slaughtering every single Navarr they could catch. Those too wounded to fight were gathered together, whereupon the Jotun built a huge pyre, and burned them alive.

Tattoos

There was widespread shock at the Autumn Equinox, following the destruction of the Dance of Blood. The Navarr grieved for so many of their thorns lost. In other nations the mood was sombre. Rhun was incandescent and publicly confronted Guntherm during the first Senate session while he was actually sat on the throne. He shouted that he had betrayed the Dance of Blood, to which Guntherm coldly responded "You cannot betray your enemies". The room exploded into violence, blades were drawn, and open fighting erupted in the Senate chamber itself. Rhun and his supporters were cut down, and the consequences of this spread through the whole of Anvil like a wave of blood.

It seemed obvious to everyone that the Military Council had sold the Dance of Blood down the river. To the fury of the Navarr, the magistrates confirmed that nothing illegal had happened - no general was under any obligation to submit the orders they had agreed to, therefore no crime had been committed. However the magistrates confirmed that whoever had cursed Bregasland with Rivers Run Red most likely broke the law in the process, and so the search was on for the traitors.

The Grandmaster of the Shuttered Lantern took three magicians of her order through the Sentinel Gate to investigate a powerful Spring regio on the banks of the Gullet called the Fetid Gyre, believed to be the source of the magic. They performed numerous divinations including Shadowed Glass of Sung and concluded that no Imperial citizens were involved and that the magic had been enacted by the Jotun - a terrible bargain between five jarls and an unknown eternal of the Spring realm associated with the sea. According to the Grandmaster, the jarls threw themselves into the water to be devoured by sharks and in return the eternal poisoned the waters of Bregasland.

Today we might assume that the eternal referenced by the Shuttered Lantern was Siakha, but it is doubtful anyone will ever know for sure.

This story was widely believed to be untrue. A mysterious Spring eternal whose existence was hitherto unknown, and strange ghodi dealing with eternals for their boons when Jotun were widely known to dislike magic and loathe curses? Everyone assumed that the grandmaster's account was a fabrication made up to conceal the identities of the real traitors. But every member of the order stuck to the story and insisted it was true.

The death of the Dance of Blood was a catastrophe and relations between the Emperor and the Navarr never recovered. But the terrible loss proved to be a turning point for the Empire. Emperor Guntherm signed a peace treaty with the Jotun that very summit, and Imperial armies along the front were finally able to relieve the desperate forces fighting a rear-guard action against the Druj. With the threat of the Jotun lifted, Guntherm was able to drive the Druj back, delivering a series of crushing attacks from which they would take decades to recover. The peace with the Jotun was short-lived, but it was enough to turn the tide of fortunes in the Empire's favour. Thereafter Emperor Guntherm became known as the Bold.

The Navarr themselves were split. Some of the stridings and steadings from Therunin and Miaren believed that the Dance of Blood had made their own bed, but most kept that to themselves. The majority felt that the Empire had betrayed them, that Guntherm had sold out the Dance to the Jotun in return for peace. Unfortunately that accusation did not resonate outside the Navarr. When they appealed to others for support, the response was bitter and sullen but clear - the Dance of Blood's war with the Jotun had threatened the survival of the whole Empire. "Actions have consequences" the Navarr were repeatedly told.

Relations between the Jotun and the Navarr likewise never improved. The cruel strategies employed by the Dance left a lasting mark on the Jotun. They point-blank refused to ever speak of the campaign in Bregasland, but they never again wavered in their hatred of the Navarr. When steadings were overrun the occupants were swiftly executed, treated by the Jotun not as people, not even as enemies, but as wild dogs to be put down.

Further Reading

• Emperor Guntherm
• Campaigns of Emperor Guntherm