Aris Cretu's Journal

Seventh of December, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War

Fire in the frigid cold. Ash and snow floating on the wind. Corpses frozen in the snow. Only death stalks this killing ground now.

Eighteen stood against eight hundred. We were so far outnumbered it wasn't even funny. But we were warm from sitting about fires, fed on desperation, and backed into a corner. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Our foe had numbers and the embers of vengeance on their side. It wasn't enough. It wasn't even close to enough. The winter wind had reaped a harvest of carnage before the battle had even begun, sapping will and freezing flesh from bone.

They tried to rush the gate when the sentry called out the alarm. Gonukk the Dark and Bumob the Cold of Clan Glacierheart met them in the gateway, using it to limit the number of foes they had to face. They died hard, buying the rest of us enough time to gather our wits and our wargear, and took thirty-four foes with them to the grave. Sgt. Gork lead the counter attack that pushed them back out of the gate, but Mourn the Vicious and Imvel the Forsaken of Clan Glacierheart died in the doing. Kuro Dall, Zoni Manur, and Alzaren Syllahne of the Ironbark Mercenary Company died in the same assault. But they took back the gate and slew eighty-six more men in the process.

The Army of the Jeweled Cities assaulted the gate two more times. They slew Arovo Corros, Nyako Khatiti, Oni Ife, Roho Sarda, Ifama Danlami, and Ladi Seghen of the Ironbark Mercenary Company. In exchange for their lives, they slew one hundred and seventy four soldiers of the Army of the Jeweled Cities. Between the cold, the dead, and the undying defiance of the five of us who remained, the Army of the Jeweled Cities broke. It more then broke, it shattered. Those who survived threw down their pikes or swords and staggered back into the oncoming night.

The banner of the Ironbark Mercenary Company still flies over this outpost. We five yet stand to defend it.

Oh misty eye of the mountain below / Keep careful watch of my brothers' souls…[4]

Reth Nakima’s Journal

Eighth of December, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War

I had my first taste of proper battle happened yesterday. Chilled to the bone despite wearing enough layers of clothing to make moving awkward. Hungry because the rations were frozen solid. And faced with an implacable, impossible foe. There couldn't have been more than twenty rebels in the outpost when everything began, and there were a damn sight fewer when the killing was over. But the casualties… the ground was covered in bodies, enough that the rebels had built barricades from their slain foes. The snow was stained crimson all about the area. I thank the gods that I never even came close to striking a blow myself, because that would mean coming into the reach of the rebels' blades.

The medics are still triaging the wounded, almost a day after we came stumbling back out of the night. What few of us are left. The rebels slew many of us, and wounded many more. What they started, the cold night finished for all too many of us. Looking about the barracks and counting the empty bunks, I estimate that no more than four hundred and fifty of us made it back. That number will fall like a sinking ship as the ones the healers can't save pass on to their final rest. We lost at least twenty men for every rebel Ironbarker we killed. I had thought their reputation had been inflated with time. I had thought that that Company had faded from its glory days during the Seminal War. It didn't fade. It hasn't lost its fury. And they aren't standing alone.

Why do I feel as if I am on the losing side of a meaningless war?

Lord Ochen Shagari’s War Journal

Eighth of December, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War

Despite horrific casualties, we have secured two of the Northern Outposts. I have already detached the needed numbers of men to the outposts we do control, and in doing so freed up sufficient space inside Fort Westmarch that men are not stacked like wood while they sleep.

But the outpost in the center of the valley remains defiant. Reports are muddled, as they always are after a desperate fight, but I believe it to be only lightly defended given the casualties its defenders must have suffered in their stand. I will take today to reorganize my men once again before we resume the assault. This time, I intend to commit almost two thousand men, a full third of my total remaining forces, to the attack. We will carry through and take that outpost, even if we must climb over the bodies of our own dead to do it.

I would like to commit the siege corps as well, but their equipment is hopelessly impeded by the snow. The ten-inch siege cannons weigh several tons each, and even the catapults are almost a half-ton each when fully assembled. This limits them to defending Fort Westmarch, and means that I must send my assault columns in unsupported. I hate doing so, but I see no other option. Not with the Serene Dominas having pushed a messenger through the storms confirming their earlier insane orders. I'm beginning to think that they have never seen snow, much less the small mountains of it stacked about the place here in Westmarch.

Reading between the lines of their command yields a more worrying message. They need a victory in the field, and quickly, to bolster public support. Why I do not know. What guesses my mind makes, I dare not commit to the written word, for they disturb me so.

Editors Notation:

What Lord General Ochen is hinting at here may be the uptick in pirate and privateer raids on all of the Jeweled Cities. The scale of the manpower commitment to the Army of the Jeweled Cities limited the number of ships that Sapphire, Ruby, and Opal could commit to anti-piracy operations due to lack of marines. It is possible that the Serene Dominas of Sapphire in particular were eager to present a military victory to offset the destabilizing effect that the pirate attacks were causing. In the end, Emerald and Ebony ended up doing most of the heavy lifting where clearing out that particular nest of pirates was concerned in early 770.

Shaman Mul the Silent’s Journal

Eighth of December, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War

I made it back to the outpost today, leading a group of fifteen warbands numbering nearly four hundred men and orcs. We were just in time to help with the clean-up of the previous battle. I was glad to see that Sgt. Gork, Tam, and Aris Cretu all made it. The haunted look in Aris' eyes made me want to weep, but we only set about stacking the dead like wood until the ground thaws out enough to bury them in a few months.

Shaman Koroc the Singer has sent a runner back to the Clanhold asking for more reinforcements and supplies. I would have gone, but I am needed here. Even with all of the precautions we took, there are still too many cases of frostbite and chills. I will be sure to spend time with Aris, to let him cry on my shoulder if that is what he needs, and to make sure that he eats something. I know he can't keep anything down after a fight, but it has been almost two days and I could hear his stomach growling from seven feet away.

Shaman’s Records

Eighth of December, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War.

Shaman Koroc the Singer of Clan Glacierheart recording

The Stand of Sgt. Gork's Warband is an event that will be woven into the clan-songs of Clan Glacierheart and Ironbark alike. Less than twenty men holding off over forty times their own numbers and winning? Such a last stand has no precedent in the clan-songs that I can recall. I borrowed Aris Cretu's journal to glean the names of the dead, with his permission of course, and I will endeavor to ensure that they are not forgotten or overshadowed by their comrades who survived.

But our foe, the Army of the Jeweled Cities, will not sit idle and allow us to hold this outpost uncontested. I expect them to try again as soon as they can, and to do so in greater force. Accordingly, I'm going to see about getting another gunpowder sled prepared. We need to keep inflicting a steady trickle of losses on our foe to keep his numbers and supplies pruned back. I've already sent a messenger back asking for more warbands to be sent forward to this outpost, and recommending that attacks be organized against the other northern outposts. They have been captured, and are probably being reinforced, but they still represent a number of men separated from the rest of their friends and ripe to be surrounded and picked off.

Fighting in these winter conditions heavily favors the defender, if simply because he can stay by his fires longer instead of marching about in the cold. It will make storming those other Northern Outposts incredibly costly, but perhaps we can use sharpshooters and skirmishers to whittle away at our foes instead? That would probably inspire them to fall back into Fort Westmarch where we would have a hard time getting at them. It would be the smart move, and we could do little to stop it. Unless… if Shaman Mul the Silent can breach Fort Westmarch's wall in enough places, then perhaps the commander of the Army of the Jeweled Cities would consider the outposts more secure then the fort? It is a long shot, to say the least, but anything we can do to disrupt his decision making process is worth considering.