(Closed to those who registered here. Remember the sides you're on and make the most of it. This thread will open January 11th and close on January 25th around the same time. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. I'll post periodically throughout the thread to give fillers and a sort of guard rail for you all during the course of the battle, but overall much of the actions of either factions is up to the players who are allied with that particular faction. Take heed of that fact. Other than that, the only rule so far is that the side who will win this battle will be the League as they have rightfully won the war. Enjoy.)
Excerpt from Baron Lebedjev's journal, Commander of League forces, days before the battle:
January 9th, 2002
In the middle of January these old bones ache, and certain scars that I bear upon my face crack and seethe at the biting, frigid winds. Once one of the 'wildmen' this country has labeled those bearing Skavian blood, I find it ironic that it is I and not my men that is finding it so hard to adjust to the grip winter has upon us. Though the climate spares these steppes from much of the accursed snow, there is still a lot to speak of the growing chill blowing down from the far North. It could be the onset of another catastrophe such as the Long Winter, but I fear that for once this isn't idle sorcery responsible for the premonitions of another terrible winter.
Or, this great, old bear has just begun to forget his heritage and his life among his tribes. Under the weight of many years and the curse of adopting civilization, it isn't hard to imagine.
I write this from an armored coach centered in the middle of a convoy guarded heavily by my men. When the Vagarand insisted implementing some of their resources, as they might call them, I refused. Though my men count roughly a third of all League forces, I find them trustworthy after being broken by the hammer and shaped into what our brothers in Corone might deem to resemble a soldier. They all bear a uniform unlike the rest of the men controlled by many of the nobles of this alliance. Where the members of the League crave power and dominance among those they rule over, I demand discipline and obedience. Where they thrive within their counting houses, I thrive amongst my brothers in the battlefield.
It is unfortunate, however, that I won't be able to join them in the beginning of the siege on this bastard city. I have been deemed ". . far too important an asset of the League to be lost in the horrors and atrocities of War." While reading that from the letter given to me by the barons themselves, it managed to provoke my ire. Unfortunately for the messenger who sent it, he found himself naked and deprived of his arms with the instructions to run back to his masters along the dirt roads and deliver my reply to this insult.
Riding along the lip of the Testhan Valley, it'll be almost a day before I reach the rest of the armies that have camped around the edges of the capitol. The armies of the barons have been amassing for weeks once the Great Purge had begun within Uroda. Many of the men have grown restless at the prospect of waiting for battle and wish to sate their bloodthirst upon the holy men they once called brothers. Of course, the time for that will come, but I have learned that barons have allowed their underlings to make sport of the refugees attempting to flee the city, unable to discern whether or not they have any allegiance to the Church. Or if they even care for that matter.
Already I can see the outlines of the bodies that lay nailed to crosses down below. Littering the path along the valley as if it were a road leading to Ber itself.
These civilized men I fight amongst are nothing more than swine that wash themselves in the blood of the innocent. It leaves little to wonder why I left the League in the first place. .Report from Erik Lloyd to Baroness Voyler a week before the Battle:
January 3rd, 2002
Went with my men into the city at nightfall, riding quickly through the cobbled streets in the outer quarters. In the outskirts, we found little trace of remaining citizens living within the city. Though the presence of the Church is strong as we've ran from several patrols parading around the streets, they don't seem to be watching over anything more than the buildings themselves. It seemed as if everyone had just up and left. No food misplaced, no clothes or posessions gathered. They just left their homes.
It was a ghost town.
At least, until we got further into the city.
Occasionally we'd find a house boarded up here, a store with people holed up in it there. But the signs of life were very scattered and disarrayed. We once even watched a home we knew people to be in it to snuff out their candles and grow completely silent at an approaching militia of the Church's new 'secret police'.
Could they be looking for people? But why?
Though the entire outer city looked to be picked clean of life, the Merchant Quarter was sealed. Sealed! Any entrance to the quarter was heavily barricaded by hastily constructed walls and were guarded by sellswords who roamed the wooden ramparts. Whatever money or influence the merchants had, they managed in the last days to buy themselves a sanctuary against the wolves of the Church. Though, it doesn't take much to imagine what the mercenaries will do to them once their gold runs out.
I also suspect them of hoarding food as indicated by the houses and stores that all lay bare around the quarter. But, perhaps it isn't an assumption I should make.
With the outskirts looking like they were evacuated, the merchants holed up in their own little castle, it left few places left to look. And it got worse the closer to the Church we got.
Though we find the presence of the Church the strongest here, it wasn't that which surprised me. It was the carnage. Men and women armed with weapons they found from home littered the streets, their bodies bathed in blood on one particular road we followed towards the Church. It was the scene of a battle between the citizens and their captors, but it looks as if they lost.
Or that was at least what I thought before I saw it. I even asked one of my men to check my spyglass because I couldn't believe what I had seen. How was the Church still operating without it?
How could they?!
St. Denebriel's Cathedral is in ruins. The likes of which I have never seen. From an explosion? Something far more sinister? Whatever the case, it wasn't the citizens who burnt it to the ground.
Though I offer you more questions to puzzle with than answers, Baroness, I've found the new stronghold of the Church and their zealots. It took a lot of trouble and several close calls to reach with how heavily guarded it is, but we managed to confirm it. The clothes of priests and their hunters guarding the remains of the great walls. The palace even lay in their grip. I can scarcily believe how they overcame the royal guard to attain such a place, but how could you not after being held victim against an entire city?
They have Rathaxea Square.Receipt of Purchase sent from an arms vendor near northern Uroda:
Ivan Brasghav's Armory
Vendor under contract with The Vogruk-Stokes Company
4 Boxes of .357 magnum cartridges bought.
1 case of oil and cleaning implements for a carbine or rifle.
1 Breastplate
2 Yards of Rope
10 Yards of Tripwire
Paid sum in full. Sending money directly to the Company coffers with this receipt.
Buyer: Gave his name as Svend.In his letter to his wife, Lieutenant Grahm of Baron Lebedjev speaks of the first day of the battle:
Dear Mira,
I apologize for not writing you for so long, but it has been a very busy few weeks. Let me go back to the beginning;
When we arrived at the base camp, our Baron quickly restored order among the ranks of the noble's soldiers who looked to have been growing lazy in the coming weeks with easy game and the lighter hand of their respective baron's rule. It hadn't taken long for Lebedjev to prove he was the one in charge, having within his first few hours at camp unceremoniously executing several barons responsible for the atrocities we've seen littering the roadside.
Their men were quickly absorbed into our companies.
After that, it was like watching these animals snap to his every word. Sidearms for all of the officers were dispersed among the ranks as well as whatever armaments the Baron brought with him in his stores. It was rumored that he took it upon himself to buy enough to outfit entire armies in their wares, but where he found the resources to do so I have little idea.
It took many days, but eventually every baron had their men and officers presentable for the coming battle. It was only by fear of death that these men obey our baron, but the other lieutenants and I wonder if it will be enough to spur these rabbles of men, all from different walks of life and military array to fight for our cause.
Either way, Lebedjev announced my company would lead the charge. I fear that is why I haven't written to you in the last few weeks as I have only just been relieved from the frontlines.
The battle began after a longwinded speech by Lebedjev, the march over the bridge unceremonious as we flooded the city with our numbers. We took the outskirts of the city in quick success, with the patrols too few in number to counter the overwhelming tide before them. Little trouble came from them.
We established a perimeter within the city and quickly secured the surrounding buildings, which all laid empty. Maybe we grew overconfident or perhaps it was the thought of the Church's occupation of the Palace that spurred us into action, but we didn't account for one factor when waging war in Knife's Edge.
As we drew closer into the center of the city, a gap between us and our perimeter began to form which widened quickly as we took much of the city within hours. It was only when many of the companies were dispersed amongst the city, seperated by many more of the buildings we found to be bare that the Church sprung it's trap.
First it was from the grates that they came, but they came by the dozens. Citizens converted by the Church as well as it's agents attacked us first as we were the deepest within the city, surrounding us within minutes. Stories from other officers in different companies were similar to ours as the Church had ambushed us, leaving much of the city barren while they hid within the sewers. It took hours to reunite our forces, and if it weren't for our sheer numbers and our better weaponry, I wouldn't be writing to you now.
Whereas the battle looked to be over just as it began, it seems to be the very opposite. Instead of consuming the city like consumption as disorganized as we were, we've found many of the companies belonging to Barons to have either fallen or hold their own before we could reach them. It is just as the subterfuge at the beginning of the war, these spies forcing us to fight them at every corner.
We've managed to gain control of some of the roads and companies to establish supply lines, but in all the chaos we've found Lebedjev's threat of impending doom to be insufficient to get the other raggled men of different barons to fight without either retreating or steadily losing their numbers to the potential of restoring order back within the city.
Though our numbers are great and we could truly crush the Church after the destruction of the cathedral, we're fighting against the worst enemy of them all. Desperate men of a dead God with nothing left to lose!
It is only our companies under the careful leadership of Lebedjev who are seeking to drive the herd towards Rathaxea Square, but chances are it will remain up to us to stab at the Church's heart. . .
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