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Post by Gamemaster on Jul 16, 2007 3:22:01 GMT -5
Kast Gorumyva Glantogran Province, Zekresh Empire
14th day, 1st month, 41 Cledman VI
Razik had a worried look as he was escorted through the garrison fortress at Kast Gorumyva to meet with Ekanor Falan Torimuk, commander of all Imperial forces in the province. Razik had been the advisor to Ulor Gefanin, but now, Gefanin was no longer Ulor and there was no replacement for him.
When Razik finally stood before Ekanor Falan Torimuk, he said, "We've got a crisis. An army of Tronds is marching on us from the North."
Ekanor Falan Torimuk said, "I know. If they continue on their present course, they will reach us in two or three more days."
Razik asked, "What's to be done?"
"First, I am taking control of the provincial government. I trust that you do not object."
Razik hesitated for only an instant, "I do not object. There is no one else who has the authority." Razik restrained himself from any further comment. He had requested that Rubanya appoint him as Ulor. Rubanya had not said no. He just had not answered.
Ekanor Falan Torimuk said, "Good. I have the 1st and 2nd Kantoro Glantogran here in the fortress. We have been stockpiling all the food we can get our hands on to prepare for a siege ever since we heard the news. The 3rd Kantora Glantogran is at the Eastern Fort, but I have sent orders for them to abandon it and come here. The Eastern Fort could not withstand a siege for any length of time."
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Post by Gamemaster on Jul 20, 2007 1:39:14 GMT -5
Kast Gorumyva Glantogran Province, Zekresh Empire
17th day, 1st month, 41 Cledman VI
Refugees from the northern settlements had been streaming into the town of Kast Gorumyva for days. Now they were coming from only two miles up the road.
The soldiers of Kast Gorumyva were still preparing for a seige and not entirely ready yet. Deserters had fled during the night and morale was not the best.
By noon, smoke could be seen rising from several places in the north. The sentries on the towers of Kast Gorumyva called in Ekanor Falan Torimuk. He looked out at the scene and said, "They are burning the farmhouses as they come. We've heard reports from the refugees. They are close now. The nearest column of smoke is only about a mile away."
Ekanor Falan Torimuk went to the gurikan of the 1st Kantora Glantogran and told him to send runners into town to bring back his men who were trying to obtain more supplies to stockpile them for the siege. Torimuk said, "Tell them to drop everything and run back to the fort. It is too late for any more supplies. Tell them if they are not back quickly, that the gates will be closed to them."
Next, Ekanor Falan Torimuk went to the front gate and told the men there, "At the first sign of the enemy, drop the portcullis and close the gate. If any of our troops are outside the gate, ignore them, even if they are close. We must not allow the enemy to get inside. Even a few enemy warriors could stop us from closing the gate and the whole fortress would be compromised."
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Post by Gamemaster on Jul 20, 2007 1:46:36 GMT -5
After the smoke, the next sign of the approaching Helmarie Army was the sound of drums in the distance. The drums pounded a steady rhythm from somewhere in the Northern forest.
Soldiers sprinted back to the fortress. Civilians fled the town. Chickens ran around the town streets, loose in the confusion, left behind by someone. All the while, the drums pounded closer and closer.
More soldiers now appeared on the walls of the fortress. The town was almost abandoned. A couple looters dared to steal from abandoned shops, furtively looking for signs of anyone who would stop them or of the enemy army whose looting they expected to far exceed their own and to cover their tracks.
Then, the drums were just inside the treeline, north of the farms on the outskirts of town. Sentries on the walls of the fortress now saw something moving amongst the trunks of the trees. It was a mass of soldiers. The Tronds had arrived.
The sentries cried out an alarm, "Enemy in sight!" and the soldiers at the gate lowered the iron portcullis to block the entrance while other soldiers pulled the huge doors shut and bolted them with a bolt that was solid oak eight inches by eight inches and twelve feet long. As the huge bolt slid home with a loud noise, the fortress grew quiet.
Ekanor Falan Andien let his horse walk to the edge of the forest. He saw the fortress, just a talong distant. He turned to Ulor Esinie, "There it is, Ulor. What shall we do now?"
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Esinie
Junior Member
The master sword
Posts: 78
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Post by Esinie on Jul 20, 2007 2:02:58 GMT -5
Esinies eyes lit up at the site of the fortress, and the site of the evil that had once swept across his home land, the zekresh were now the ones hiding with their tails between their legs, He thought with joy, He then looked over to andien and said, "Surround the fortress and tell them if they do not surrender they will die, and if they refuse to surrender have the archers launch a volley of arrows into the fortress."
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Post by Gamemaster on Jul 20, 2007 19:02:12 GMT -5
Andien gives the order and the troops from Helmarie quickly surround the fortress.
Ekanor Falan Andien himself rides up to within shouting distance of the gate to deliver the ultimatum.
He returns saying only, "They refuse to surrender."
Ulor Esinie nodded and Andien called out, "Bring up the archers!"
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Post by Gamemaster on Jul 20, 2007 19:05:45 GMT -5
Shortly, Helmarie's archery group arrived and, on command, loosed a volley of arrows. Nearly all of them landed inside the fortress. This was followed by the sound of panicked shouting from inside the fortress. It was impossible at that distance to tell if there had been any effect.
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Post by Gamemaster on Jul 22, 2007 2:58:42 GMT -5
Once the fortress was surrounded, the first priority for the troops from Helmarie was the sacking of the town. Hundreds of soldiers looted everything they could, even furniture which soon showed up in the Helmarie Army's campsites.
A few civilians who did not get far enough away were harassed and even assaulted, but most of them had already left and the few remaining soon fled. There were only soldiers in Kast Gorumyva now. They glared at each other from each other from their respective positions.
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Post by Gamemaster on Aug 2, 2007 8:34:21 GMT -5
Kast Gorumyva Glantogran Province, Zekresh Empire
20th day, 1st month, 41 Cledman VI
By the fourth day of the siege, the Helmarie Army was already short of food and having to send foraging parties farther and farther from town to find farms that still had any food supplies and had not already been raided before.
Sending volleys of arrows into the fortress at unpredictable times had so far been the besiegers' only means of attack.
As darkness fell on the fourth day of the siege, snow began to fall at Kast Gorumyva.
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Esinie
Junior Member
The master sword
Posts: 78
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Post by Esinie on Aug 23, 2007 0:52:16 GMT -5
"We should try to batter down the doors, and have our archers loose another volley of arrows into the fortress make sure the arrow tips are on fire, If we lose now we will have lost the initiative we must win now for helmarie!" Esinie said to Andien as he watched the snow fall as if a curse from the heavens apon his army.
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Post by Gamemaster on Aug 23, 2007 4:41:06 GMT -5
Ekanor Falan Andien gives the orders and the soldiers cut down a tree and lop off the branches to use it as a battering ram.
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Post by Gamemaster on Aug 27, 2007 0:40:21 GMT -5
The Tronds lopped off all the branches of the tree, but not flush with the trunk. They left them sticking out two or three feet as handles for the battering ram.
Twenty men hefted the log and ran with it towards the door of the fortress of Kast Goramyva. They expected to be met with a hail of stones or arrows or something else, but nothing came down from the walls above but the hostile stares of the Imperial soldiers.
The ram struck the door with a mighty boom. It hit so hard that several of the tronds lost their grip and the log nearly fell. One man not only lost his grip but hit his face on the handle as it bounced back at him. He ended up with a bloody nose.
Several Imperial soldiers on the walls above laughed at this, partly with relief that their door held and partly in joy at the misfortune of their enemies.
This only enraged the Tronds. Ekanor Davarie urged the men to get back on the handles of the ram, draw it back and smash it into the door again. This they did. It made a tremendous booming noise, but it did not break the mighty door.
"Continue! Eventually it must break. Pull back when I say "heave" and rush forward when I say "ho"! "Ready! Set! Heave HO!" This was followed by another loud boom. "Heave! HO!" Another boom. This rhythm soon became a monotonous pounding.
Eventually the men became too weary to continue. Ekanor Davarie and the men returned to the Trond lines. Gurikan Grathien of the 3rd Kantora Helmarie said, "Good work Davarie. We'll send in fresh troops. Ekanor Donadan! Take up the ram with twenty men and take a turn on that door."
"Yes, Guragan" Ekanor Donadan said.
Gurikan Grathien almost corrected Donadan's pronounciation, but then realized that it didn't matter if the Zekresh words were pronounced correctly any more. The Zekresh weren't in command of this army any longer. We might as well pronounce them the easy way now. As he watched Ekanor Donadan select the largest men for the job, he idly wondered if the Trond pronounciations would eventually become official. Would his rank officially be Guragan instead of Gurikan? Would he someday command the Gandor Helmarie Zasish instead of the Kantora Helmarie Zozesh? For that matter, Zasish was just a Trond mispronounciation of the Zekresh word "Zozesh" meaning "third", but why say it in Zekresh at all anymore? Why not just call it the "Ondry Helmarie Gandor"? ("3rd Helmarie Regiment" in Trondan). They would still have to use words like "gandor" since there is no other word in the Trondan language for "regiment". The Tronds never had regiments or captains or generals. At least, not until now.
Ekanor Donadan and his men picked up the ram and carried it back towards the fortress. The men selected for the job were huge. They were the largest men in a regiment of Tronds and the Tronds were the largest people in the known world. These twenty were like the giants or ogres of legend.
Still, the door to the Kast Goramyva fortress was built to withstand battering rams. Hour after hour, the Tronds battered the door.
"I think I heard it cracking at the end there," Ekanor Donadan said as he returned.
"We'll start again in the morning," Gurikan Grathien said. Grathien trudged to where his commander Ekanor Falan Andien was standing next to Ulor Esinie.
"We think it's starting to break, but we'll have to start again in the morning," Grathien reported.
Andien said, "No. I'll have Gurikan Starnie from the 1st Kantora take a turn at it tomorrow. If that doesn't work, we'll build a bigger ram."
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Post by Gamemaster on Aug 27, 2007 0:48:31 GMT -5
Kast Gorumyva Glantogran Province, Zekresh Empire
21st day, 1st month, 41 Cledman VI
The pounding of the battering ram on the door of the fortress resumed shortly after breakfast. Not that there was much breakfast. The Helmarie Army was becoming desperately short of food. A seige was not really an option.
Ekanor Falan Andien ordered a larger battering ram prepared, one that needed at least twice as many men to use.
Before it could be completed, however, the men on the ram returned to the camp, bringing the ram with them. Then Gurikan Starnie reported to Ekanor Falan Andien, "We hear cracking of wood now with every blow. The door will not last much longer. Shall I order my kantora to advance and stand ready to storm through the door when it breaks?"
Ekanor Falan Andien said, "Yes. I'll tell the others. When that door breaks, I want this whole army to go through that doorway."
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Esinie
Junior Member
The master sword
Posts: 78
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Post by Esinie on Aug 28, 2007 3:45:22 GMT -5
Esinie smiled with joy at the thought of this victory, and how those zekresh will rue the day they ever crossed the tronds. "And keep in mind men when we batter down those doors the entire store house of food inside the fort will be ours for the taking, it will be worth at least a month worth of food most likely more so when we win let us feast on the spoils of war!" Esinie shouted out to the army with his arms raised high hoping for a positive response.
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Post by Gamemaster on Aug 28, 2007 16:43:40 GMT -5
Gurikan Starnie advanced with his entire Kantora. Ekanor Falan Andien saw to it that the rest of the army followed. The Helmarie Army was no longer surrounding Kast Goramyva fortress. Now they were all arraying themselves by the front gate in preparation for the attack.
The drummers began to pound out an ominous rhythm. So did the battering ram.
Soon, the battering ram and the drums began to synchronize until the battering ram was striking on every fourth beat of the drums.
Then the door broke down and the Trond warriors stormed in with excited war cries. On the other side, there was a mass of imperial soldiers waiting with spears.
With no more barrier between the armies, the battle began in earnest.
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Post by Gamemaster on Nov 8, 2007 7:17:02 GMT -5
The Trond army pushed through the shattered entranceway. The doors had been broken asunder and the portcullis had buckled and bent and then broken loose from its moorings.
The Imperial soldiers at the gate broke and ran. The Tronds flooded into the courtyard of the fortress only to discover that their enemies still held the walls, the towers, the keep and other stone buildings inside the walls.
Confused fighting followed. Trond archers entered the fortress and began picking off defenders from the walls, but no sooner had this begun than the Imperial Army troops on the walls fled in a panic. Some of them were seen jumping off the walls so as to fall outside the fortress. Others behind the keep found ropes and lowered these down. A steady stream of Imperial troops began leaving the fortress by this route and others. The Helmarie Army was concentrated at the front gate. They were doing nothing to prevent Imperial soldiers from leaving the fortress from any other direction.
All the troops on both sides were inexperienced. None of them had ever fought in a battle before. The units soon turned to mobs and then were scattered and intermixed with men from other units. Tronds attacking the keep were thrown back with gruesome casualties inflicted. Men were screaming and clutching at wounds. Fear spread like a contagion. Soon Tronds were streaming back out the main gate, fleeing the battle, but from the other side of the fortress, hundreds of Imperial Army soldiers fled over the wall, down the ropes and ran across the open field, heading for the forest.
Ulor Esinie tried to rally some troops. At first he failed, then he was able to partly rally the archers. Ekanor Falan Andien saw this and began to try to assert control over some of the men and officers who were streaming past him, trying to get out of the fortress and flee the battle. Andien managed to get men from the 2nd Kantora Helmarie to stop fleeing and rally. This effort succeeded and soon men from the 2nd Kantora Helmarie were seizing the guard towers.
At the end of the day, it became clear that the Helmarie Army had actually seized the fortress. The entire garrison had left.
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