Tuesday September 4, Seven Gates
“Covenant has fallen.”
These were Turgeïs with Burning Steel’s first words upon entering the camp. A terrible silence came over those huddled round the fire, pierced only by the struggling crackle of its flames in the biting wind.
Soulblighter had entered the city by night hoping to find cover under darkness. All he found were the empty husks of long abandoned dwellings and derelict huts.
It turns out that Alric and the Royal Family fled along with their closest advisers two days previously, followed swiftly by the city’s inhabitants with Mauriac at their lead. They are safe now in the village of Shoal, where many are hiding in the network of chalk quarries lining the coast.
An army was left on the banks of the Ire as a last line of defense against the dark but they were easily outnumbered and broken by the relentless undead. The remnants were forced to flee to the Free Cities of the North so as not to betray Alric’s whereabouts. Turgeïs was one of these men, sent to bring us the news.
In his anger, Soulblighter leveled the city and although the population escaped his fury, I tremble to think what could be done with the countless tomes and artifacts which were left within the walls of the Great Library.
We are camped in the pass of Seven Gates, awaiting the arrival of Greatwood and the Forest Giants who for the past three years have returned to fend off the Leveller’s amassed armies of undead. Balor himself is now preparing to attempt the crossing of the Cloudspine and enter into the West and will surely be strengthened by the news of his lieutenant’s victory in The Province.
The Fallen Lords have only recently managed to break through our defenses at the Stair of Grief and Bagrada and judging by the damage they have dealt in this time, Balor’s passage from the East will surely spell the end of our campaign against the dark. He must be stopped.
We are not alone in this belief and have enlisted the aid of the bowmen of the fir’Bolg, our long-standing enemies from the Ermine. Their king ou’Khan forged a truce with Caliban, the mayor of Tandem, after Bahl’al ravaged his land en route to Tyr. We have been promised archers to swell the ranks of our legions until their kin have been avenged and the dark has been banished from the earth.
Amongst our opponents are the fearful Trow who have been seen at the foot of Tharsis to the north worshipping their stone-god Nyx. I have no desire to know what they are praying for. It is only because of their ancient emnity with the Trow that the Forest Giants have helped us thus far and I hope this is enough to encourage their return yet again.
The battle will be long and violent, more so if our towering allies do not arrive, and whether I am cut down by gridaksma blades or ripped apart by limbs of stone, I pray that Wyrd protect the West from Strand to the Ocean should we fail.
