The Lesser Boneheart mage Vayne rules Admundfort from a great townhouse in the city district once known as The Guilders for the members of the powerful artisans' guilds who used to live there. Vayne had the central citadel of the Knights of the Holy Shielding looted and the many shrines to Heironeous defaced and befouled. Fiends prowl there now, tormenting the handful of Shield Land minor nobility captured in the city.
Within the walls of Admundfort, the garrison of occupying minions of Iuz the Old had been awaiting the arrival and command of their Dark Lord Iuz ever since their commander, Vayne of the Lesser Boneheart, had been forewarned earlier that day (by a quasit demon messenger named Regurgipox) that the "Old One" would "provide a bridge over the water, and sound the Horn of War at the Lake of Unknown Depths at three hours before midnight!"
To most of the garrison occupying Admundfort, this came as welcome news, for the walled city on the south shore of Walworth Isle had begun to feel more like a great donjon cell they were trapped in than a stronghold. With no capable sailors among them (except for some of the human slaves, who would likely use the caravels and fishing boats docked around Admundfort to flee, if given half a chance), the garrison were essentially captives of the island city, as much as they were its occupiers. Therefore, upon hearing that they would finally be turned loose to slaughter and pillage again after feeling trapped in Admundfort for more than a decade, nearly all of the occupying orcs, goblin-kind, gnolls, ogres, and other evil humanoids of the garrison reveled in the news.
But to their commander Vayne, the quasit Regurgipox's warning struck him like an ogre's club to the gut. Vayne is a bitter man; he has been demoted from the Greater Boneheart for a lack of distinction in the wars, and the Archmage Null was promoted in his stead. This was an especially cruel blow, since the Greater Boneheart is one short of its maximum number, and Vayne is now isolated from his master and fellows.
Also, Vayne has to deal with the Rhennee who ply their trade from this city across the Nyr Dyv. They tell Vayne much of what happens in Greyhawk, Urnst, Nyrond and Furyondy. Vayne passes on some of what he learns to Iuz, but not all, and he is beginning to consider the possibility of defecting and telling all he knows of Iuz's plans to a country which would reward his treachery, such as Veluna. However, he is too terrified of Iuz to put this plan into action yet.
Vayne had been dreading this moment for half the day, and now it had arrived. There was nothing for it but to feign total loyalty to Iuz, and lead the garrison across whatever "bridge over the water" the cambion demigod had provided with as much false enthusiasm as he could muster. Emerging from his townhouse in the Guilders district, he made a show of fierce determination and unflinching decisiveness as he shouted to be heard above the general din of the mob gathered in the streets and market squares of Admundfort: "THE HOUR HAS FALLEN, THRALLS OF IUZ!! MAKE READY TO MARCH, FOR OUR MIGHTY LORD OF PAIN CALLS US TO HIS SIDE!! LET US NOT TARRY HERE ANOTHER WASTED HEARTBEAT!!" Vayne then casted a fly spell on himself and rose up into the air some 30 feet above the street so that he was clearly visible to all of the assembled minions, and turning toward the gatehouse in the central north city wall, he flew toward it, shouting: FOLLOW ME TO OUR MASTER, AND TO THE MASSACRE OF OUR VICTIMS!!"
A loud and monstrous roar went up from the throng of evil humanoids, lesser fiends, and monstrous minions that made up the garrison of Admundfort as they surged northward after the flying mage, who led them out through the north gate in the city wall and across the north half of Walworth Isle, where just as the little quasit demon messenger had predicted, the north lake channel had been completely spanned by a great flotilla of Rhennish rafts, barges, and flat-bottomed boats lashed firmly together by ropes.
As the garrison crossed over the flotilla to rally around their evil demigod-emperor on the northern lakeshore, the extended familial clan of evil Rhennee thralls of Iuz who'd constructed the flotilla-bridge joined them, and the combined host, led by the "Lord of Evil" himself (and by Vayne, who was "going through the motions" as convincingly as he could), marched west along the north lakeshore toward Critwall ....