379YE Winter Solstice winds of war

Overview

• In Spiral, Fort Mezudan is destroyed by powerful magic. Imperial forces and Grendel forces engage in a battle for Ateri, which the Empire wins. The Grendel are pushed back, but the Empire makes little headway into liberating the rest of the territory.

The Storms of Spiral

The Ruin of Fort Mezudan

Fort Mezudan lies in ruins.

Shortly after the Autumn Equinox, a luminous greenish-yellow effulgence engulfed the highest spires of Fort Mezudan. It leapt from roof to battlement, coiling across the ramparts and the rooves like a living thing, before striking down to the lower levels. For a few minutes, every item of metal larger than an eating knife was wreathed in the cold flame. Then it was gone, and the first rain began to fall, and wind began to wail between the towers.

The storm gathered strength over the course of a day, battering the castle with increasingly powerful winds and pounding rain.

Shortly after sunset, the first spear of lightning hammered into one of the towers with an ear-shattering explosion, sending shards of sharp stone in all directions. For four hours, the castle was pummeled with thunderbolts. As the lightning cracked and broke the stone, the wind howled louder and louder. The rain thickened until it was a veritable deluge, cascading water making the courtyards and stairs treacherous and click. The rain sent cold, questing fingers searching for any crack in the white granite walls, and where they found them they tore them open to the hungry wind.

For four hours the storm raged. Then silence. People began to pick themselves up and assess the damage. The rain continued to pour down but the winds were silent. There were a few guarded expressions of satisfaction that the Fist had weathered the magical storm. There had been some loss of life - two sentinels thrown from the ramparts by the wind, a tragic tumble down a rain-slickened staircase resulting in a broken neck - but it could have been worse. Yet the clouds continued to swirl above. A desperate warning came from Illuminate Nissea, the otherwise unflappable commander of the castle. The storm was not over.

The final hammer struck out of the eye of the storm. A whirling tempest, roaring like some abyssal behemoth, smashed down from the churning sky into the heart of Fort Mezudan. A thaumaturgic gyre, summoned and unleashed with the most potent of Spring magics, tore the central tower to pieces and sent boulders of white granite spinning through the air like so much lethal chaff. The devastating column of wind, water, and stone lasted no more than ten minutes, and then collapsed violently one final apocalyptic detonation of thunder. The wind died. The rain continued to fall, heavy enough to hamper efforts to find survivors beneath the rubble.

With Urizen thoroughness, a tally of the dead, the injured, and the lost was quickly prepared. Seventy sentinels, magi, and spirefolk are accounted dead. This number including Illuminate Nissea, along with the majority of the stone-crafters guild, slain while attempting to shore up the collapsing central keep. A further sixty serious injuries are listed, along with eight souls unaccounted for either lost beneath the rubble or hurled to their deaths on the lower slopes by the cruel winds.

Fort Mezudan, the lonely sentinel in the east, stands watch no longer.

The War for Ateri

Had the storm struck earlier, it might have caught the army of the Granite Pillar still billeted at the Fist, and the death toll would surely have been higher. Yet when the Fist fell, the Highborn army was already marching. With the Quiet Step, they were marching north-east towards Screed and the slumbering horror of the Black Plateau. Had the storms struck a week later, it might have caught the Northern Eagle, the Wolves of War, and the Citadel Guard marching east from Highguard. As it was, they arrived several days after the destruction, after the last of the bodies had been recovered from the wreckage, just in time to attend the last of the funerals.

There is little time for grief. Imperial strategy is straightforward and ambitious. The Empire's forces intend to push cautiously through Ateri, driving the Grendel out. Then, on to Screed and the looming shadow of the Black Plateau; then onward to liberate the Legacy. A bold plan.

The Grendel strategy also appears to be quite straightforward. They launch a major offensive into Ateri the very morning after the ruination of Fort Mezudan. Despite being outnumbered by Imperial forces, they drive a spear-thrust of orcs and beasts into the heart of the Imperial armies. Perhaps a thousand-score barbarians, with siege weapons and unfamiliar warbeasts attempt to consolidate the gains made last season in Ateri.

If the Granite Pillar and the Quiet Step had been the only Imperial forces in Spiral, they would have outnumbered them two-to-one and we might be telling a different story here. With the relief column marching down from face nearly, however, they instead face nearly thirty-thousand Imperials. Not only are there three extra armies, but the Wolves of War are supported by one of the most significant forces of independent captains seen in recent memory, nearly ten thousand strong.

The Grendel respond quickly to the new threat. For all their savagery they are able to react quickly to unexpected Imperial tactics - perhaps supernaturally so. The soldiers who fight beneath the banner of the wading bird are particularly adept at countering Imperial stratagems. Their captains swathed cinnamon and scarlet silks direct a significant force of more traditionally dressed barbarians to cut off the Imperial advance, while avoiding Navarr attempts to lure them into ambushes, and countering the cunning feints of the cause-bound mercenaries of the Wolves of War.

The Wolves of War, advised by mercenary Urizeni strategists and supported by [{Varushka|Varushkan]] and Wintermark sellswords with long experience of fighting in hills and mountains should have easily outmaneuvered the Grendel and attacked them from their rear. Unfortunately, the Grendel are already on the move by the time the Wolves of War arrive - they are not taking defensive positions, but pushing forward towards the Fist. They also enjoy the support of the naval vessels anchored on the southern coast; hard-bitten marines support the rear encampments of the Grendel, delivering valuable supplies to help the Grendel against their Imperial enemies.

In the end though, the campaign is proof that any while strategy is important, it helps to have your plan backed by superior numbers. Slowly but with growing confidence the Empire pushes north-east, and the Grendel fall back. That said, the Imperial forces never see the Black Plateau (except perhaps in their dreams). None save perhaps the scouts of the Quiet Step get to see the Legacy in distant Ossuary. The fighting is bitter, but it is largely constrained to the western foothills.

The Grendel cannot hold back the Imperial advance - over the course of three months they are slowly, slowly pushed back out of Ateri. The majority retreat toward Apulus (no doubt the take advantage of the supplies offered by their naval forces), but perhaps a third of the force retreats north-east, to defensive positions scattered around the outskirts of Screed.

During the Imperial advance, the soldiers of the Empire account for as many as three thousand Grendel orcs, while suffering barely half that many casualties themselves. Yet the Grendel show no signs of being routed - quite the contrary. Even in retreat the core of their barbarian forces remain disciplined. They do not flee, they withdraw in good order - all the while gathering up as much mana as they can find, and as much metal as they can claim from the mines on the mountain slopes.

The Grendel forces are a long way from home ... but they are well supplied and the Empire has seen in Sermersuaq how deadly a committed barbarian force can be if it chooses to make the Empire pay blood for the territory it seeks to reclaim. If the rate of Imperial advance stays constant, Urizen mathematacticians estimate it may take as long as six months to conquer Screed alone - assuming the Black Plateau remains quiescent in the face of the tide of death and hatred that armed conflict will doubtless stir up around it.

Game Information

Fort Mezudan has been destroyed by potent Grendel sorcery. The Empire has recaptured the region of Ateri from the Grendel, but made no headway toward Ossuary; the rest of Spiral is firmly in the hands of the Grendel. The campaign continues.