The dwarven armies under Alessio and Alrik move in unison, quickly rallying to account for the additional demons coming in from the east.
Alessio has the dwarven ballista set up and firing before the demons are close enough to engage, the massive bolts tearing through the front line of dretches like they were made of paper. Unfortunately, as you've seen in the past, those injuries quickly start to spout gasses and noxious fumes, which waft ahead of them, roiling over the pikemen before they can engage either. The dwarves are ready for it. Protective gear in hand, and natural resistant to such things, most of them manage to get through the gas attack completely unscathed.
Still, despite that, almost three quarters of the dretch forces succumb to the initial barrage, their number decimated. By the time the pikemen charge into their ranks, there is little resistance left, and quite quickly, those that remain find their own deaths, on the end of dwarven spears.
By the time the mists start to clear though, you realize that the spite demons were using the dretches as a distraction. With unnatural speed, they manage to circumvent the main skirmish, bypassing the pikemen, and barreling into the engineers from both flanks. The dwarves are taken partially unprepared, their aggressive initial volley, though devastating to the dretches, has left them open to the counterstrike from the equally aggressive schir!
_____________________________
Meanwhile, somewhere up in the foothills of the Wolfcrag mountains, another battle is being waged, out of sight of the Pathfinder forces.
Sangkip, and his kelid mammoth riders find themselves engaged in yet another furious battle, vs overwhelming odds, hoping to stop whatever summoning ritual the last of Desimire's cultists are attempting to complete.
But the kelids are finding the terrain very difficult to fight in, with their usual tactics. The cultists are making full use of the hilly ground, to slow down the mammoths, and separate them from each other. Although they don't manage much in the way of offense, they keep the mammoth riders from any sort of proper offensive maneuvers either.
Then the spite demons join the fray. The goatlike schir even more accustomed to the terrain their their mortal allies. Every nook has a foul diseased halberd thrust from it, every cranny suddenly sporting a small legion of demons who burst forth, attack, then disappear almost as quickly.
It is all the mammoth riders can do, to fend them off as well.
The demons and cultists seem content to make this a war of attrition. Time is entirely on their side... the rising chants of the cultists summoning ritual an ever present reminder of the clock.
-- Engagement: Jormurdun, Day 14 (tactics/combat), Round 1 --
-- Engagement: Jormurdun, Day 14 (tactics/combat), Round 1 --
Battle on two fronts!
Mammoth Riders vs the Cultists and Schir
Dwarves vs Schir and Dretches
As the dretches wheeze out the last of their noxious fumes, the dwarven pikemen quickly turn to defend their engineers in the back. The engineers try to drive them back, but find them in far too close for their siege weapons to be that effective, and are sorely pressed.
But not so against the dwarven pikes. A number of the foul demons fall on the tips of their spears before the schir can rally and strike back.
Up in the hills, Sangkip tries to keep his own troops alive long enough to disrupt the summoning ceremony! A task made all the more difficult by the terrain and nearly a hundred spite demons trying to stop them.
But there's only so much terrain that can cover you from a six tons of hairy pachyderm. He manages to stomp more than a few of them into the dirt, despite them taking on a more cautious approach, hoping the demons could take care of the kelids.
And the spite demons indeed seem to be finally getting the upper hand, driving the mammoths into ambushes and waiting foes. Despite their best efforts to stay defensive, the demons break through time and again, their halberds cutting long painful wounds across the flanks of the mammoths.
But instead of finally succumbing to exhaustion or their wounds, the kelid troops appear to rally, continuing to stomp every cultists that dares to poke its head out from under a rock.
Though there still appear to be enough to continue their ritual, Sangkip can tell those numbers are dwindling quickly, as they are doing everything they can to finish what they started. Already the chanting has reached a fever pitch!
The spite demons seem to realize it too, as they get more and more reckless in their attempts to subdue their mounted foe... but can't seem to parlay that into overwhelming the mammoth riders, who continue to evade once more.
-- Engagement: Jormurdun, Day 14 (tactics/combat), Round 4 --
-- Engagement: Jormurdun, Day 14 (tactics/combat), Round 3 --
Battle on two fronts!
Mammoth Riders vs the Cultists and Schir
Dwarves vs Schir and Dretches
The Schir continue to press in, coming at the dwarves with quick concentrated attacks. Hard pressed, the siege masters are having a hard time even using their weapons, not designed for close quarter combat. They suffer heavy losses, as they try to recover!
Alrik pulls the pikemen back, forming a defensive perimeter around the engineers, and though they do not manage to do much damage to the fast moving schir, it is enough to force them back and to free up the ballistae. Suddenly massive bolts of wood and steel are lancing out from encircled dwarves, mowing down demons like meat on a skewer.
Though not meant for close combat, the dwarven engineers are more than willing to make them work in such quarters. Finally given the chance, they make them count! Soon those few demons remaining are fleeing back towards the hills.
Far too the northwest, in the foothills, Sangkip and his kelid troops continue their fight vs considerable odds.
The cultists clearly are feeling the pressure to finish their ritual, as those few that remain to fend off the mammoth riders take up an even more defensive strategy, their attempts to actually damage the kelids basically little more than harmless delaying tactics.
The schir too continue their aggressive attempts to stop the enemy, harrying the kelids from all sides, as they try to halt their advance... though it is not enough.
When the mammoths finally burst into the high clearing where the ritual is taking place, it is like riding into a nightmare. Dozens of men and woman are staked out along the ridge, all of them gutted, their entrails strewn out in the dirt at their feet... arranged in unholy patterns.
Dozens more bodies lay discarded at the base of the same ridge, rolled over the edge once they were no longer needed. Already scores of carrion birds feast on what remains. Most of those sacrificed appear to be kelids, probably captured from the nearby lands to the west, and based on the reaction from the riders, clearly some of them bear the markings of the Red Winter tribe.
In the middle of the clearing, a giant protective circle has been burned into the grass, a faint glowing shimmer marking its edges. Inside the circle appears empty, but occasionally the shimmer along the barrier flares up with a reddish glow, and you see the vague outlines of something inside the circle pushing to get out, many somethings... before they disappear again. You never see enough to identify what they might be, other than they appear to have claws, and spikes, and teeth, and wings.
The response of Sangkip's troops, to all of these, is brutal and quick. The giant mammoths rumble into the middle of the ritual trumpeting a challenge, as their riders waste no time crushing everything still moving into the blood-stained tundra.
What was already a gory scene, becomes even more so in short order. As the last of the cultists performing the ritual is reduced to a bloody smear, the glowing circle seems to fade, and finally snuff out entirely, leaving only the burnt outline and the ring of staked sacrifices to mark where it was.
The remaining demons howl in anger and confusion as the ritual is disrupted. What had seemed a constant, ceaseless, coordinated assault, seemungly suddenly thrown into disarray.
The mammoth riders waste no time, their anger still burning strong, they turn all of it on the remaining demons, piercing many of them with their spears and crushing more underfoot, before the demons can recover and get clear.
-- Engagement: Jormurdun, Day 14 (tactics/combat), Round 6 --
-- Engagement: Jormurdun, Day 14 --
Only Sangkip's fight remains. The demons unfortunately rolled a 1 in the 4th round, so got no attack in the 5th.
The pitched battle between the mammoth riders and the spite demons continues unabated throughout the afternoon. Despite getting more and more aggressive in their tactics, the kelids manage to keep their defenses up, holding the schir at bay, and even managing to pick off a few smaller groups that come too close, for too long.
-- Engagement: Jormurdun, Day 14 (tactics/combat), Round 8 --
Still just Sangkip!
Perhaps inspired by stopping the demonic ritual... maybe still trying to avenge their fellow tribesmen... or just driven to a final surge before being overcome by sheer exhaustion...
Whatever the cause, the kelids, atop their might beasts of war, lay into the remaining spite demons with unstoppable fury!
The schir's relentless attacks falter as their numbers become less and less, until only a few manage to escape the mammoth rider's onslaught... disappearing into the narrow canyons and crevices they crawled out of.
For the briefest of moments, Sangkip and his troops are suddenly alone on the field of battle, wounded and bloodied, but victorious!
But any thoughts of celebration are quickly quenched, as the sun starts to set... and the anguished howls of the stitched abominations echo up from the plains below.
They may have survived the skirmish, but the battle is far from over... and it clearly is coming for them... the kelids options for retreat back to more friendly terrain few and far between.
-- Engagement: Silvershore, Day 15 (movement)--
OK, back to movement! Sangkip getting to go first!
Alessio, another Soldier roll please!
Sangkip leads his kelid troops further into the foothills of the Wolfcrags. He can hear the demons and... worse... trying to give chase, but the mammoths' speed, despite the hilly terrain, is hard to match.
-- Engagement: Silvershore, Day 15 (movement)--
Everyone else can move!
When word finally comes back from the scouts, in the early hours of the fifteenth day, that the ritual appears to have been disrupted, and signs of Sangkip and his kelid mammoth riders still stomping their way around deep in enemy territory... there is some rejoicing.
The longer the campaign goes on, the more weary of it, the troops are becoming... and not just from the battles with the demonic hoards and their allies. The land itself seems to be at war as well, and the Pathfinder armies have no real defense against much of it.
The abyssal rains that had been falling for days prior, finally let up the day before... leading to a small bit of relief... but relief that was quickly quashed. The sun came up the day before, with a demonic red glow, and temperatures soared. Even the cold winds coming out of the Wolfcrags seem to blow a different direction.
By the time evening rolled around, you realized that there was a second side to this demon-tainted water. As the rainwater evaporated under the blistering sun, it seemed to produce some sort of gas. No one noticed at first, assuming any odd symptoms were just leftover aftereffects of the dretch poisons. But when Floria's Taldan troops arrived just before dusk, they and their mounts started to be affected as well.
Strange rashes, that caused constant irritable itching, blurry vision, blistering headaches with any amount of light. Alone, nothing terrible, but all together, with battle looming, it seemed like the Worldwound were trying to get its pound of flesh in this fight as well.
The scouts report that Thurl's laboratory castoffs were not far too the northeast, their attention apparently towards the hills further towards the mountains to the north... but it would not take much for them to divert their attentions towards the dwarves and Taldans.
A couple more large hoards of dretches are near too, the first of which seem to be following the stitched horrors, though falling behind. The second hoard though... they have been bearing down on the dwarven armies all the prior day. And when the dwarves decide to stand their ground, hoping to give the engineers time to recover from their wounds, those same dretches descend on them in a howling mass.
Smelling blood in the water... they attack, just before dawn, on that fifteenth day. Hundreds of lumbering sacks of pussy flesh, belching poisonous fumes in all directions.
-- Engagement: Jormurdun, Day 15 (strategy/tactics/combat), Round 1 --
Three on one... so not good odds for the dretches...
The dretch swarm in, in the predawn light, like a howling fog flowing down from the mountains.
The Pathfinder armies respond quickly, the pikemen quick to their feet, and engaging immediately, while the Taldan armies reluctantly get to their mounts, a little slower to join the battle. The siege engineers, with little time to recover, strive to their feet and weaponry as well, firing off their balistae as quickly as they can.
The weapons manage to catch a few of the dretch, who seem to have little care for their own safety as they sweep in. But the demons smell blood, and seem focused on the injured dwarves! Though they are met by spear and horse, both the pikemen and the Taldans managing to stop them from reaching the injured troops, the demons' poisonous gasses drift ahead, not nearly so easily stopped. Even as the siege teams start firing, the noxious fumes flow into and around them, seeping into open wounds, and breathed in by exhausted mouths.
-- Engagement: Jormurdun, Day 15 (strategy/tactics/combat), Round 2 --
Alrik and Floria continue the fight
Alessio tries to pull the dwarves back, but frightfully few of them make it out of the clouds of gas... and those that do, collapse coughing and wheezing, even once clear. The few that survive are forced to abandon the siege weapons... not enough men remain to move them, much less coordinate their use.
The remaining dretches seem pleased by their work, and immediately turn to flee back into the clouds of gasses, withdrawing from the field, after a quick brutal strike.
They completely ignore the pikemen's attempts to taunt them now, for the first time, seemingly focused on something other than carnage.
Unfortunately for them, just because they wish to leave, doesn't mean the Pathfinder armies are going to let them.
The pikemen are caught a little off guard by the tactic, not expecting the lowly demons to withdraw. They try to give chase, but not being able to see more than five feet through the foul mists, makes using their longer weapons difficult at best, and the dretches manage to avoid most of them.
Not so the Taldans. Atop their mounts, the Army of Exploration is easily able to chase down the fleeing demons, and quite effectively. Perhaps due to Floria's dressing down, perhaps just eager to show up the dwarven forces.
In short order, nothing remains of the enemy demons except the clouds of poisonous fumes they leave in their wake.
The sun doesn't breach the horizon for another half hour, but when it does, it has a vile reddish-green tinge to it... and it brings swarms of foul tainted insects with it, that descend on the fallen on both sides.
It proves a long day.
-- Engagement: Silvershore, Day 16 (movement)--
Sangkip moves first!
The sound of the war mammoths trumpeting as they lumber down out of the hills, straight for the stitched abominations, has almost the same effect as the Horn of Aroden did a few days before.
There are cheers from the surviving troops, as an ally who's fate was unknown rejoins the fray! The kelids look like they've been through the ringer... more than once. Every one of them bears wounds, fresh or healing, and the mammoths shaggy fur is matted and with both dirt and blood... as are the kelids themselves. Their fancy face paints washed away by battle or time. Their many tattoos covered over by grime and blood.
Of course, the mammoths aren't the only ones advancing on the scene, as out of the hills to the east, a hoard of dretches quickly join the fray!
-- Engagement: Silvershore, Day 16 (movement)--
The rest can move! (Though Huni will not be able to reach the fight)
The dwarven pikemen are quick to rush to the kelid's defense, followed by the Army of Exploration.
Dark, clouds roll in with them, looking anything but normal. With strange purplish tinges and the occasional flash of lightning, the clouds fill the sky from horizon to horizon before all the Pathfinder troops can assemble. Its almost like the sun itself gets blotted out, the desolate plane upon which the battle will be fought, suddenly plunged into near darkness.
The anguished cries of the demon-stitched horrors fill the air, but the abominations do not immediately leap to the fray. Instead, its the dretches that lead the way, the small bloated demons eagerly rushing towards prey, once again mindless of their own safety.
Clouds of gas are already forming at the front, and you can hear Thurl's creations maneuvering in behind it.
What could be the final battle before the march to Jormurden is afoot!
-- Engagement: Jormurdun, Day 16 (strategy/tactics/combat), Round 1 --
Game on!