My lord, Nobody knows why they came; They're Orcs, Goblins, monsters. We received word from royal messengers that the grand army of Bralor was being sent, but you and your knights are the only relief we've seen. The horde that stands against us is endless, their brutality knows no bounds, their desire to leave the Wildlands is overwhelming. How can we withstand such tenacity?
-
Horatius Dragomir to
Bernard Ursel
In the month of Rorso 2501 AGF there was a particularly harsh winter, colder then what was ever seen before. It caused the river Caswood to freeze solid, allowing a crossing at more spots then just the ford by
Stathmor. The harsh winter also killed much of the jungle that made it almost impossible to navigate the northern route to
Lakeshore, this one act of nature opened up vast sections of
Eastbrook that were normally lightly defended. Several weeks later there was a noticeable rise in incursions, at first the local militia and knights could handle it, but in the first week of Poazi everything changed.
The Conflict
Prelude
On the 2nd day of Poazi a large horde of orcs, lead by Urzul Ironhide , had crossed the Caswood river and had managed to stealthily evade the garrison of Stathmor. Fortunately his horde knew nothing about the terrain on the other side of the river, which caused them to run right into one of the lumber camps used to supply Stathmor. Urzul butchered the camp, but a few loggers managed to escape and evade the horde. These loggers managed to warn Stathmor and mobilize the garrison, in their overconfidence the garrison marched to face the horde on open ground (instead of staying behind the fortifications of Stathmor). The garrison commander believed that this was just a rabble of disorganized orcs, thus didn't order an evacuation of the area. When the two side met it looked like they were quite even in strength, Urzul proved to be cunning and had Worgs waiting, and when the garrison pushed just a little to far the Worgs outflanked and shattered the garrison. With the path to Stathmor clear, Urzul pushed on, the citizens hastily fled on the trading vessels and left behind the majority of the winter stores.
While an orcish horde was threatening the southern border, goblin Worg riders and Bugbears (Lead by Sreete ) had navigated the jungles in the north. They didn't have the terrain to hide their movements so they were quickly spotted, the garrison of Lakeshore moved to destroy the canals and aqueducts to flood the plains and slow the movement of the Goblins. With some time bought an evacuation was started, every civilian and any and all useful material was sent to Hillfar, though granaries couldn't be fully emptied. With the goblin horde at the gates a small contingent of fighters (Lead by Horatius Dragomir) distinguished themselves, by slowly withdrawing deeper into the city the goblins followed not knowing fires were being set. After they were sure the fires were big enough the fighters finally withdrew to one of the boats left in the harbor and evacuated up the coast.
After a day of sailing up the coast, Horatius made landfall and marched his group to Hillfar. On the way to Hillfar he ran into the knights of Aramore, led by Bernard Ursel, who were dispatched to to look into the reports of increased monster activity.
On the 5th day of Darress, Bernard and Horatius arrived in Hillfar, what they found was complete chaos. The regional mayor had refused to believe such an incursion was possible and was trying to force the evacuees out of his town. Bernard rebuked him and used the powers granted to him by the provincial council to take control of the town and its resources. He organized every fighting age male into a militia, he evacuated the sick and elderly, and ordered every able body to start construction of fortifications at the natural choke points formed by the lakes. The fortifications were essentially one line of barriers after another, which became known as "Bernards barriers", in some areas the barriers extended 20 deep.
To buy time for the construction process Bernard took what few trained fighters he had and organized them into skirmish units, the tactic proved to be quite effective in Edra 10 years earlier, Horatius would lead one such unit. The skirmishers sent to the south would harass the Orcish scouts, once they figured out what path the Horde was taking they would set small fires and engage the horde til the fires grew bigger. Due to the winter climates alchemical fire was used to accelerate the process and to ensure the flames weren't extinguished, this caused mass forest fires which would uncontrollably spread and eventually destroy the orcish supply cache. With their supplies gone the horde had no choice but to attack hillfar. Horatius lead the skirmishers to the north, due to it all being grasslands between Hillfar and Lakeshore, the few casters that were available were used to flood and tear up the earth so the Worgs couldn't move as quickly. With the Goblins bogged down in the artificial marsh Horatius started to pelt them from range, but nothing could stop the inevitable. By the 3rd day of Sirlith, both hordes had reach the beginning of Bernards barriers.
Once both hordes reached the barriers they quickly moved to encircle the area, and the soon met each other. The hordes were weary of each other and both stood their ground waiting to see what the other side would do. After several days Urzul and Sreete managed to find common ground and agreed to join forces, deciding that it was the fighters of Hillfar who had caused so much aggravation that deserved to be annihilated. On the morning of the 6th day of Sirlith the combined horde launched their attack on all sides.
The horde fell on the barriers like a wave against a rock, Bernard had ordered his newly trained militia that when the position was no longer defensible they were to retreat to line further back exposing a line of fresh defenders. Bernard directly commanded the professional fighters and would use them as a strategic reserve, when one line looked like it needed to be backed up the reserves would be there. The fighting continued like this for the next week, but what the horde didn't know was that the civilian labor force was being used to fashion together crude towers and waterways. Once the Horde had made it to the final line, a skeleton defense (equipped with light armor) was left in place to allow the casters to do their work while the rest of the defenders got to whatever high ground they could find. The caster boarded crude boats and watched as the horde preceded to ransack the city, once the majority had entered the city the casters began to chant. The lakes awoken, the water began to rise, and the hydro force was unleashed. All but the highest points of Hillfar were engulfed by the flood, drowning vast swathes of the horde, after an hour the water began to subside. The majority of the horde lay lifeless on the ground, but that wasn't enough, for there was still their reserves in an encampment away from the lakes. Bernard moved his force into position and led the final charge into the encampment, catching them off guard and scattering the horde to the winds. Urzul and Sreete managed to escape, but with their forces scattered they retreated back to the Wildlands.
After the horde was scattered there was still small raiding groups that had to be dealt with, Bernard took his knights to deal with these small groups. Stathmor, Lakeshore, and Hillfar were left in ruin and it was already planting season. These two factors caused a food shortage which lead to more deaths across the kingdom.
The far eastern side of the province never quite recovered, a large part of the population was either killed or fled west to
Strongfare or
Aramore, leaving the most affected areas a mere shadow of their former glory.
While the conflict was described as a victory for
Bralor when relayed to the Royal council, the citizens of
Eastbrook knew that the rest of the kingdom provided no support in the conflict. This planted the seeds of succession in the minds of the populace and started murmurs of what could be considered treason.
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