Campaign Timeline
6.051 T.E.I.
381 Yinka Timeline
Autumn
The first target of the rebellion is decided to be the city of Zahvul, the city is a strong loyalist to the Priest King and also a major point to be taken before they can move on the capital. Only a few days behind them a large Rhakhaaneese force is crossing the mountains lead by Raul.
The first stop of their march is the town of *****, located on the far side of the river *****. They decide to approach the town carefully and infiltrate it first to find out where it stands in the coming conflict. Raznir and Ashdar enter the city by night and is not seen by anyone as they approach the temple, there they find that the local clerics are already in talks with church soldiers from Zahvul and before they know it they are recognized.
A brief battle erupts, while they manage to escape relatively unharmed, they are forced to leave the town and return to their camp.
The morning after they send emissarys to the town of ***** further up the river, but the city prefer to stay neutral in the coming conflict. a little over a hundred volunteers join them from the town after their visit.
The army continues towards the town of *****, deciding to attack it fast instead of spending days on going around it and loose days of travel and probably the initiative. When they arrive to the town it is deserted, the ferry's are burned down or cut loose and all the stores of the city is missing. it takes the army more then a day to construct new ferry's and repair old ones and travel across the river, meanwhile the mercenary force led by Raul catches up with the army, and bring well needed supplies.
The battle of Zahvul
Three days later the army arrive at the gates of Zahvul, they make camp outside the city, waiting for the defending army to come out and meet them in battle.
Already sure of the outcome since their scouts and Raul have calculated the enemy's force to only halve their numbers, they get as the hours pass more and more inpatient. Then finally the gates open and the city's army marches out to meet them, while less numerous in men they have almost three times the amount of cavalry, but Ashdar calculates that his spear walls will compensate for that, and that the experience and superior weapons of his men will make the difference needed for a fast victory.
Ashdar organize up his army into three main parts and leave the cavalry behind for mop-up when the enemy force is broken. The Van is lead by Marduk and many of the most experienced men with heavy weapons. One flank the bulk of their spearmen are placed, lead by Raznir and the other flank is made up by the well armored mercenary force, led by Raul. In the center, behind the van is Ashdar himself with the majority of the priests (including Cyrus and Shúkort) and the main infantry force.
The Zahvul army makes the first move as it start steady march towards Ashdar and his rebel army, it's cavalry divides into two forces and attacks the flanks, showering them with arrows. Due to Raznirs leadership and the hard discipline on the spear flank it does not break or even tremble in it's position. On the mercenary flank they are better equipped to handle the shower of arrows coming down with their large shields and metal armor. After several volleys of the cavalry charging and showering the defenders in arrows as they ride by the enemy infantry is finally in range. The sky darkens as volleys of javelins and arrows strikes both sides and seconds after the armies crash into each other and the battlefield erupts in chaos, blood and fire as the Priests unleash the full power of Essænce right into the infantry
Mere minutes after the infantry crash together the cavalry attack in melee towards both flanks at full force, the flanks manage to hold the weight of the cavalry back and breaks it's formation. In the center the van is crushed and the army is being driven back slowly by the devastation left from the priests assault, the number of priests on Zahvul's side proves to be critical and it looks like it is mere minutes to the collapse of the center, when Ashdar defies all personal danger and steps up in front, all the troops are inspired by his bravery and follow his offensive and slowly the tide starts to shift, giving the flanks time to reorganize and move forward into the flanks of the enemy while the cavalry sweeps in and finish the enemy cavalry.
Seeing that victory has been taken from them the enemy army collapse, their priests retreat first, what makes the soldiers even more morally beaten and soon a well ordered retreat into the city is a chaos with fleeing people followed by cavalry and the remains of Ashdars army.
A few skirmishes erupt in the city but the taking is relatively peaceful, most are still in shock from the carnage outside and the higher priesthood flees the city towards the north, leaving Zahvul in the hands of the rebel army. After the surrender of the last forces inside the city they have almost a thousand prisoners, and just as many wounded to take care about.
Rape and pillaging is dealt with swiftly and harshly and after only a day peace is settling over Zahvul once again.
A dark night in Zahvul
The peace does not last...
during the night after the fighting ceased storm clouds are coming in towards Zahvul from all directions and before long there is a bad storm around the city, cutting visibility and making it perilous to be outside, the corpse fires outside are put out by the violent weather.
Cyrus and Shúkort is investigating a essence phenomena that seems to be remaining from after the battle when suddenly Cyrus feels something is wrong, casting himself aside and shouting out a warning he barely escapes as crossbow bolts strike the wall where his head was just a few moments ago.
Cyrus trying to escape stumble into the warrior priest ***** and when trying to fry him with a ball of fire the essence reacts to his magic, the fireball explodes point blank range , wounding Cyrus, and seconds thereafter while trying to escape he suffers another spell failure and falls unconscious to the ground. Shúkort, trying to escape the archers tries to put a earth wall between him and them suffers the same problems, the spell internalizes and he effectively knocks himself out, last he sees as he struggle to keep awake is that Cyrus getting bundled up and getting carried away.
Raul, who been out scouting is on his way to the barracks when he sees the explosion a block away, he realize fast that it is his friends in trouble and run to the rescue. He finds Shúkort, who points where Cyrus disappeared, and in a ally he finds half a dozen men just seconds before they manage to execute Cyrus, he storms up to them, cutting down one guard on the way and meet the Warrior Priest head on, the warrior priest also seeming to have some problems with his magic don't have time to lift his big black sword in defense before Rauls bastard sword cuts down through the shoulder and neck, severing the spine. After a short and bloody battle he defeats the remaining guards with some help from Shúkort.
Meanwhile Ashdar sits in council, trying to get some order in the army that is still left, when there is a crash, a clay pot is thrown into the room and explodes in fire on the wall, the window open the storm helps the fire who quickly get out of control.
Coming out of the door he barely has a chance to see the assassins waiting for him, the warrior priest ****** is right behind the door. He rolls and the sword cuts in above him and the arrows strike the wall instead of him. Quickly up on his feet he tries to get some distance between himself and the assassins, calling for the guards. The Warrior priest quickly closes the distance, and as he is about to block an axe he get an empty look in his face, static electricity envelops him and he falls without a word. Ashdar get into battle with the other assassins but with the help of the guards coming they prove to be no problem.
At virtually the same time in different parts of the city two persons make the same mistake. Raul, after defeating the last opponents bend down and take up the big black sword. Ashdar, after tying up the incapacitated warrior priest takes up the black sword.
The swords disappear in a thick smelly black smoke, inside the smoke something terrible takes form. An eight to nine feet tall humanoid, black shiny skin and long razor-sharp claws.
Raul immediately swings at the demon, the blade sings as if striking an anvil when it hits the demon.
In the battle that follows Ashdar and Raul is hopelessly outmatched, Ashdar manage to flee his opponent when some of his guards enter the fight and Rauls opponent grow tired of him when he is laying as a bloody pile in the street and leaves him for more attractive prey.
At that time gates are triggered across the city, opening portals to the Black Hêl. Demonic creatures pour out into the city, spreading havoc and chaos. The energy these portals release is the proverbial straw that breaks the camels back. At full force the storm evolves into a powerful essence storm, spreading devastation in the already torn city, with all the magic already in the air the essence storm becomes very strong and tears up holes in the reality between this world and the pales. More demons are let loose on the city and people are sucked away into some of the tears, some so large that entire blocks of the city disappear in a fraction of a second, the earlier chaos is now completely out of control. Outside the city at the sight of the battle the dead rise again when infused by the Essence from the storm.
The rebel army tries to organize some sort of defense against this onslaught of evil. Raul leads the fighting at the west gate, trying to keep the undead from entering the city while at the same time holding back an onslaught of demonic creatures. Ashdar and Cyrus is working their way into the city, seeking out pockets of demons and destroying them, but as the night goes on the casualties keep raising, the civilian losses are in the thousands and hundreds of soldiers are dying every hour. Meanwhile Shúkort and Raznir comes up with a way to maybe get the situation under control, to reverse the gate spells and maybe through that way be able to close enough gates to get the upper hand of the situation.
After close to eight hours of continued fighting the strike teams and the defenders at the gate make a unison cause to defeat the last main group of demons, a horde of hundreds lead by a Doombringer demon, the terrifying herald of terror makes it hard to keep the forces under control and he wades into the defenders ranks, bolts of lightning striking down all those around him. With high losses they manage to keep their lines and the evil creatures start a retreat. They retreat into the high temple of Yugal, a great stone building where they fortify themselves.
With the main threat gone the strike teams go out again, lead by Ashdar himself, they are successful in rooting out most of the demons remaining in the city, while Cyrus and the others have made a ring around the temple so no demons will come out from there. Finally the efforts of Raznir and Shúkort is showing too, and the essence storm calms down and in a few hours the weather clears up and dawn breaks the long night.
During the day that comes the strike teams still work with clearing out any demons they find while the remaining civilian population is fleeing the city by the thousands. The rebels manage to divert most of the refugees to the south and also spread rumors among them that it was clerics loyal to the priest-king that is responsible for the demonic terror that all but sacked the city.
After a little rest they decide to try and take out the last enemy stronghold, the main temple of Yugal, to go in and slay the Doombringer with a united force. As they enter the temple they find that there are still many demons there, led there by the Doombringer, they don't have time to more then enter the main chamber when tehy are assaulted from all directions by demons and in the far end of the chamber a terrifying creatures reveals himself, the troops panic and the lines break, letting demons in and in a few seconds there are close quarter fighting for their lives, the Doombringer moves closer, striking down the attackers with bolts of lightning. The fighting goes bad and they get badly injured but finally manage to flee the demon, loosing most of their troops and all of them injured. They decide they will not be able to manage this creature in a confined space, so plans are made to leave the city and march towards Media in hope of recruiting more troops, after the long night and the battle of Zahvul less then 800 remains of their once great army.
The priest-king is coming
Cyrus, Ashdar, Raznir, Shúkort and several of the known members of their army travel at high speed towards Media while Raul flies out to scout the area. A couple of days march north he sees a terrifying sight, a huge army is on the way south, flagging the banners of the priest-king, Raul can count them as 10.000 men. As he reports this they start organizing a defense, Raul takes the bulk of the remaining army and start patrolling the river that separates them, Raznir and Shúkort takes a hundred men cavalry and cross the river, heading around the army in hopes of being able to disturb their logistics. As Raul scouts more he can see almost 200 priests in the army
Cyrus, Ashdar and Shúkort arrives at Media, they manage to convince the clergy there to aid them in the war, the city of Media has almost 3000 regular soldiers, many of them hardened in battle in the mountain pass towards Rhakhaan. During the following days he manage to recruit many more from the population of media with surroundings.
During a dispute with his own troops Shúkort get badly wounded and is forced to retreat to Media, Raznir continues and defeats a enemy scouting party and continues around the main army, while going around towards the east, close to Sulini land he sees the tracks of an additional army that is heading south east, towards the area of Rahmet, unable to warn his friends he hopes they will discover the new threat himself. As he gets around the enemy army he sees that it is too controlled to be able to do anything good with so few men so he sends his men out to scout while he himself returns to the north, see how the situation is in the city of Cinvat.
At the front Raul manage to hold back the enemy scouts and soon he gets reinforcements from media and then the enemy army comes to the northern shore of the river and makes camp there, the defending army has raised to 7.000 men so as long as they can hold their position at the river they should be able to hold back the enemy, even though the number of enemy clerics is frightening for what casualties they can cause. During one of his scouting trips Raul sees the army in the south, it has placed itself between them and the city of Rahmet, making reinforcements from there all but impossible. Ashdar now back from Media sends 1.000 men south to reinforce the defense of Rahmet, and with Rauls guiding they can go through the lines undisturbed.
On his way north Raznir finds another enemy army, only about 2.000 men gathering and too far away to be a great threat, he decides to continue north. After a few days he reach the outskirts of Cinvat, there he meets a scouting party that sends him to Nerva that is gathering and army in secret. Nerva asks Raznir to make sure he gets 40 days, in that time he should be able to take the capital and force a surrender from the remaining enemy forces. With that news he sends Raznir on his way back
Unnaturally fast he reaches Zahvul and get back into contact with his own troops and they start together to come up with a plan for how the war should continue and how they should be able to meet the larger forces of the priest-king.
To end the stalemate the leader of the priest-kings army (Kemsyt) sends almost 4000 cavalry west towards Media, Ashdar answers by sending reinforcements to Media, at first 1000 men cavalry goes with him towards Media, having a higher pace they pass the other force on the other side of the river. Behind them 1000 men on foot is going towards Media.
After just over a day he reaches media and start preparing defenses, after half the day he sees something is wrong, signs of a battle further east, he immediately rides east to check it out and finds the enemy cavalry has crossed the river and attacked the reinforcements going to Media. He quickly follows them.
The burning river
The night after the main enemy army moves. Seconds after the first sounds of marching is heard the night sky is lit up by an enormous wall of fire crossing the river, cutting of the flow of the water, causing massive steam explosions that aid in confusing the rebel army. Under the lead of Cyrus the rebel army storms down to the shore to meet the enemy onslaught, finding that the cavalry already is crossing the now drained river. The foremost defenders, including most of the priest quickly become surrounded, the soldiers cut down before they have a chance to organize. Cyrus is becoming more desperate when he realize that he is close to be caught and tries to get out of there.
Suddenly a blue pulsating light shows in the middle of the surrounded Clerics and in a second they are gone without a trace. Deprived of their leadership and the support of the clerics the remaining forces of the army is slaughtered, many manage to flee out in the night but thousands are cut down where they stand.
One larger group under the lead of Marduk heads west to avoid the slaughter. The day after the battle they meet the enemy cavalry that went around them and most of them are lost, only a few hundred left when Ashdar comes to their aid right outside Zahvul.
Ashdar challenge the leader of the cavalry, a enormous man that is a warrior cleric. After a long and hard fight Ashdar wins. Still wounded from the fight he sits up and lead his forces against the numerically superior enemy cavalry, just in time as it becomes midnight and all the surroundings of Zahvul comes alive again and further confuse the army. After a long and bloody battle the enemy cavalry is defeated.
Ashdar takes his remaining forces and retreat to the south, after hearing how the battle went at the river. He started recruiting a new army after loosing the bulk of his again.
Cyrus who disappeared so abruptly in the middle of the battle finds himself in a forest, during the day, he is not sure what happen more then that something went seriously wrong, he has no idea where is is, or even when he is. After a while walking around he sees an army heading north, it is an army lead by I'los, head of the fallen city of Zahvul. Cyrus get spotted by the enemy force and a group of Warrior-clerics go out after him, he invokes his magic again and this time it goes a lot better, and he manage to levitate out of range of the enemy, up into the mountains. After that Cyrus finds out a little better where he is and he starts heading south, towards the city of Media.
New Alliances
Raznir has all this time been at the southern front, preparing the defenses in case the Priestess Shemere should decide to attack. Days turns to week and nothing happens, she just stays there, even though Raznir got information that the Priest-Kings army are ready for attack.
After a while he decides to take things into his own hands, he sends an envoy to the priestess telling her that he want to have diplomatic discussions, and within a few days they arrange a meeting.
The priestess want to know who they want to put on the throne after the war is won before she will even consider a deal with them, Raznir sends Raul to Raznir immediately and within the day he returns with the answer - "Shemere!"
This is a hard thing for Shemere to resist, so she agrees to that and Raznir's forces join up with hers and they start marching towards the priest-king. After a couple of days they encounter Ashdars forces, he recognizes some of the flags in the priestess army and decides to investigate it himself, he sneaks into the camp undetected and almost slays Raznir before finding out it is him. Raznir tells him about the deal he struck and Ashdar, just starting to gather a new army has not much choice but to agree to the deal.
The two armies meet again and also Cyrus has found his way back to the world and slowly they start moving towards the priest-kings army just east of Zahvul, even though they are numerically superior, the priest-kings army has almost four times the amount of Clerics and as they already found out, the clerics is what stands for the true devastation in the battlefield.
Investigating Raznirs suspicions Raul been up north, investigating Nerva's army. He finds out that the army is destroyed and can find no trace of Nerva himself, he returns back to report this news to the others. They reach the conclusion that it is the army of I'los that must have found Nervas army and attacked it. Raznir sends Raul back north to find out more.
Knowing that for every day that passes the enemy will get more and more reinforcements makes the rebel army to want to hurry, the supply problems is getting more and more known again when the army has grown several times it's original size.
They finally are getting the upper hand in numbers since the alliance with Shemere, but still lack the priestly support that the main enemy army has. Plans are made up for a fast, all out, attack that should prevent the enemy to use it's clerics efficiently in combat. The almost 3.000 men strong cavalry will drive two wedges straight into the enemy to disperse them and prevent a unified front against the main army when that one comes.
The army moves fast and after a day they reach within striking distance. The scouting is a little harder with Raul away to the north (sent by Raznir) but with the help from Shúkort they get a little airborne assistance and good view over the enemy locations.
The battle at Zavah river
At the first light the signal for attack comes. 3.000 horses are thundering towards the river, just passing the outposts of the enemy without engaging them and crashing straight into the enemy lines. The horse charge works even better then expected, the two wedges slice through the enemy almost until the river where they are stopped by massive walls of fire that the clerics put up as a last line of defense. Turning around they split up in smaller groups, attacking any defensive lines where they can find them while losses on both sides are rising catastrophically.
By the time the main army comes the van forces has lost almost two thirds of their manpower, but the there are no waves of arrows fire that meet the main army when it comes in and the battle quickly turns to slaughter as the enemy has no way of retreating.
Shúkort falls like dead down from his horse and is quickly dragged away by men even though Raznir does his best to stop it. Nak-Enog manage to free him and the cleric that almost kills him with is spell and tried to capture him is slewn.
When all seems won the air suddenly becomes all dark from smoke, fire begins to fall from the skies, killing rebels and loyalists alike, behind the firewalls they can see how most of the priesthood with a small escort have fled over the river and is retreating towards the capital, the firewall begins to falter then and a few minutes later the battle is over. more then a dozen clerics are taken prisoner and dozens more are slewn in the battle, but most of them seems to have made their escape.
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by Jonas 'Drac' Cedher.