[Kingmaker Saga]In defense of Pestovo.

[Elthas_Belthasar]

(Chronologically takes place spring-time year 1815 sometime after the Adventure Crown event.)

It happened all at once.

Just when the city of Pestovo was recovering from the onslaught delivered at the hands of the mysterious entity known only as Forral.

The battle of that particular event saw that The Trading Company was awarded with their base.

On one of the guard towers of Pestovo, on a Friday, that was when another event began. With his partner snoozing his off shift away, one of the famed Pestovo snipers was studying the horizon for any signs of enemy assault as he was trained to do since his early youth. Something flickered in the distance and the sniper had to squint his eyes to see it better. At first, he wasn't sure what he was looking at. Then, it became clearer, the smoke from a torch which later manifested into something dark and monstrous. The torch bearer was snarls and muscles and motioned to more torch bearers. And soon there were thousands of them. "ORC!" The Salvarn was a native son of Pestovo and he knew the Berevar Orcs well. Never in all of his days had he seen an army of them mustered together. The sniper woke his partner up. "LOOK!" He yelled, and sounded the alarm carefully. "Get your ass up, Slarken." The sniper commanded his partner. "Ready your weapons, look what is out there."

A few moments later...a commander was roused from his sleep.

"What is all the trouble?" He asked of a servant.

The house maiden leaned towards the commander and handed him a distress letter. "It's an army sir."

"What!?" Why didn't you say so sooner!" The alarm was sounding all over the city at that point.

***

"How many you figure, Elthas?" The commander asked Elthas Belthasar who was looking at the group of warriors though a scope.

"It's an invasion force." Elthas said frankly. "I got a thousand-strong at least, with more on the way. There seems to be a portal of some sort out there bringing in their reinforcements."

"So we'll have to go out there and meet them?" The commander asked. The Orcs had not yet attacked.

"Likely, my old friend." Elthas said carefully. "This is what we have trained our whole lives for though."

Elthas turned towards the gathered Pestovo troops. He looked at the commander. "I need you to stay here." Elthas said. "Rally them, guide them to their victory."

"What about you, Elf?" The commander asked.

Elthas looked at the gathered. "I will need some volunteers. A small squad of you will do." Elthas would hand pick among the gathered warriors of Pestovo to mount a final defense. Elthas did not know of the combat capacity of the Berevar Orcs, but he knew Orc tactics in general. He looked at the gathered, they were not afraid of an army, they were not afraid to defend their turf. "We will go out there and provide the distraction needed for the commander to defend Pestovo. Who within your ranks has balls enough to bleed for Pestovo?" Elthas asked.

Elthas was not a native son of Slavar. But he'd embraced the Salvarns as though they were his own blood and had fought for them, bled for them, and killed for them. Elthas was naturally comfortable in a leadership role anyway. He tipped his hat to the gathered defenders of Pestovo as several joined him. Those were the true sons and daughters of Pestovo. Elthas took a moment took look up at the sky, there were clouds that were spewing the endless supply of snow. The clouds were particularly thick and were starting to turn into storm clouds. Elthas nodded towards the commander. "After we get out on the field, keep the gates closed commander." Elthas said calmly. "Do not allow them in the city." The two armies were staring at each other from across the field, it felt to Elthas as if they were waiting for something. Perhaps a command. Elthas signaled for his group of volunteers to approach him. "Come with me, we have to ensure a victory in Pestovo tonight." Elthas had a grim and serious expression on his face, he KNEW what Orcs were capable of doing. Whole cities were wasted in single Orc or Demon sieges from Haidia. But this time, it would be different.

Because Pestovo would not fall.

Not only that, Pestovo had one thing that the Orcs did not have.

They had him: Elthas Belthasar. He would guide the defenders to certain victory. Even if it cost him his own life.

Elthas heard the gates close behind as they all stepped on the field. "Shitty way to start a weekend." Elthas commented to nobody in specific. "On my mark, we charge the bastards. Go for quick kills, don't do any of that fancy shit and I will be there to back you all." Elthas said calmly. "We have to shut down their leadership units, and whatever is charging their portals."

"Sir, there's a portal out there?" One of the Pestovo volutneers asked.

Portals meant magic, and generally speaking, the Salvarns hated magic.

"Aye there is. But all magic can be disrupted." Elthas said. "We just have to find the power source."

The gathered volunteers readied their weapons.

Elthas took the lead point of the group and turned around to face his companions. "Today, we will fight in defense of the city we love. Today we will fight like the Heroes of olde and defend our honours." Elthas said and there was growing excitement on the eyes of the volunteers. Many of them were youths, but were already battle hardened. Elthas and his group of twenty men would stand a chance to defy history as they knew it. They would stand against an Iron Legion.

They would stand.

And they would win.

(Devonus and Alden you're in the volunteer squad too let's get ready to kick some Orc ASS!)

[Alden]

The land seemed to be in never-ending supply of snow. It fell gently from the sky in soft flakes, landing with a whisper, but the clouds were beginning to turn dark. If Alden had imagined where he would be in his life a few months prior, he would have guessed at home in Scara Brae, working his leathers. Here he stood instead, freezing in a foreign country for a man he hardly knew. A man whose resources he greatly needed.

”Your heroics have garnered my attention, dear boy…”

His benefactor, the mysterious Mr. Black, claimed to know how to restore Alden’s lost memory. The time before he woke in Scara Brae half-naked, crazed, and speaking an unknown language, only a handful of years ago. The half-ling thought he had made peace with never knowing. He thought he had accepted his life as a leatherworker and woodsman, that his past couldn't change him. He thought wrong.

Mr. Black sent him far to the north, to frigid Salvar. While there he was to aid in the defense of a valuable port city, Pestovo, from an Orc invasion and deliver a sealed letter once the deed was done. In return, the governing lord would produce a package as payment. He was not told what or why, but the woodsman held a faint suspicion that he was being tested. It gave the half-ling the distinct impression of being a piece moved on a board. He did not like the feeling, but he had no other choice but to play along.

A voice stole Alden from his reverie. His hand fell away from the crystal pendant around his neck, away from the comforting vibration that drove deep into his bones. Their leader, the elf Elthas, rallied the men around him as he spoke. They were a volunteer squad, a distraction in hopes of buying the city more time from the onslaught of oncoming grey orcs.

The elf spoke with vigor. He pandered to the group’s honor and national pride. Both of which, Alden lacked. He almost laughed. He wasn’t here for their city, he was here for himself. He was here because a tall man cloaked in a dark shroud had ordered him here. The half-ling longed for hearth and home. He longed for a simple life. The desire to have his past recovered was stronger, however.

Alden looked over the group. Most were native Salvarns – as Alden learned they were called – with the exception of their leader, the half-ling, and another elf. They were young men bursting with courage. They were fitted with bright chain and sharp swords. The woodsman wondered how many would be dead before this was done. He wondered if he would be dead before this was done.

He looked down to Cavan, donned in his custom leather armor, panting at his side, frost flowing from his maw. The beast had been his companion through much, but nothing as dangerous as this. Cavan looked up at him with those fierce golden eyes, fiercer than Alden remembered. The half-ling could tell that his companion knew the stakes. The wolf in him was beginning to show.

The woodsman pulled the hardwood bow from his back. He then pulled a few arrows from his quiver, nocking one and holding the rest in his bow hand. Before him sprawled snow-covered hills fraught with peril. Hundreds of strong grey orcs, intent on his death, spilled from an eldritch portal and each one he slew would bring him closer to his goal.

It was going to be a long day.

[Devonus]

Devonus had just arrived at the gates when the alarm went up. He had been enjoying the delighful frantic struggles of a lone guardsman doomed to death. Salvarns were intriguing in their bouquet. They were simple, stout, their blood lacked the complexity of some, but it beat pure and steady. It tasted of war, resolve, tinged with the frost of their northern clime. It was a hard life for any, and even the simplest farmer of this northern tundra carried a heated passion for their hard won right to live. Even as the light dimmed in the guards eyes, the last of his blood flowing freely from the punctures in his neck, he never wavered, never feared, I had watched him with no small sense of admiration as he attempted to muster the last of his strength, and blow his horn in warning. It still laid clutched in his hands as he lay dead in a dark alley, knife wounds scattered about his body in amateurish fashion, another victim of the desperation wrought in this stricken city.

So now, with the blood of their kinsmen bringing a pink flush to his cheeks, Devonus stood among the volunteers. His tall frame silhouetted in the frosty night, long blonde hair gleaming at the middle of his back, cast in moonlight to shine as bright and pure as the snow that now fell, small pointed ears gently poking from it's folds. Hand crafted leather clasped with small iron buckles, pressed snugly down over layers of simple brown and black clothing. He did not quite fit in, besides his elven blood, his clothes did not seem quite so well suited for the climate, and yet he stood stoic and still, no hint of the cool crisp chill of the night. He may have been subject to more scrutiny, were it not for the more odd, and perhaps more imposing creature that lay at his feet.

Wondering eyes that may have taken note of Devonus's less then appropriate reaction to the climate, were to distracted by the crimson wolf that lay at his feet. The Jarg'Un lay in seeming peaceful slumber, three foot of rippling muscle, fur and fang, curled around Devonus's legs. Its name was Agar, and his fur burned bright as fresh blood under the soft moon light and pristine snow that fell. Devonus doubted that any here had seen his like this far north, though the similarities to a warg were astounding. He lay so serenely to dissuade the fear of those around, for to many had whispered in fear as he approached the battlement. With orcs in the distance, and a bestial visage so great, the similarities had not been missed by the locals. The others saw no reason to fear a slumbering beast that called a half elf friend though.

Silence settled across the myriad of gathered men as a tall lithe elf stepped to the fore. He barked orders with an air of command, slim figure gracefully gliding across the battlements to speak to men, to consult the many soldiers there. His name graced Devonus's keen hearing several time, and they twitched with intrigue. This elf, who commanded so many a human, was why he was here, Elthas.

It was not often Devonus found himself so far from his crimson red wood. Rarer still, was it for him to find himself amongst mortals, pride and patriotism coursing through their veins. It ran hot all around him, tickling his nose with its luxurious scent. Their blood boiled with indignation, fear, apprehension, eyes struggling to cut through the expanse of swirling crystalline flakes and empty night. The source of their aggravation far in the distance, flickering torch light dotting the panorama, the soft beat of war drums thrumming through the air in time with the wary men's hearts.

An orc army before them, heart's steeled with weapon in hand, and a predator amongst them...

A brief smile danced across Devonus's visage. It curled at the corners of his mouth as he listened to Elthas's words. Love, honor, these were almost foreign concepts to the damned half elf. For those cursed to forever forgo such things, they meant little. No Devonus was here for the simplest, basest reasons a man or elf ever stood alongside another. He needed something, and to acquire that, the Elf grandstanding before these men, as if one of them himself, must live.

Just my luck to find the man with knowledge of these lands, of where to seek out rare brothers in this frozen waste, would place himself before an army. Fate truly is a fickle mistress.

A soft sigh escapes his lips as he leans down and pats the crimson wolf to wake. The creature rises from his slumber, arching its back as it stretches, its three foot tall frame putting the full length of its bestial presence rolling to life as its tail rises into the air, seven foot long snout to tail. He wasn't the only canine to join the war path though that night.

Another stood by an odd one's side, it was decked in lovingly crafted armor. The leather lay snugly against its coat, straps skillfully placed so as to not hinder the dog's movement. It was above the rough hewn work Devonus practiced in his subsist-ant existence. Its yellow eyes danced with a fierceness that mimicked the feral, perhaps not merely common mutt.

The creatures owner, was a tad odd. He was short, and his ears hung low, like a dogs about his face, small pointed tips hardly visible. He carried himself as a hunter, experienced from the way he carried his arrows and readied his bow, though it was a style Devonus himself was not familiar with. He carried himself with a weight of wariness, perhaps he would actually survive the coming storm. The human's around him, eye's bright with a lust for glory, bravado dripping on their words, he was not so sure.

With a shake of his head he kneels and begins stringing his yew bow, horse hair line running taut end to end before hanging it back on the bone hook designed to carry it. Arrows would fly, blood would be spilled, and war would ring out tonight. There would be much blood this evening, Devonus just hoped it would not be his own, or the prideful elf that led the charge.

It would also be nice to sample some this evening.... but we will see..

[Elthas_Belthasar]

The snow ever drifted around them.

Elthas was confident in his capacity to lead. In his capacity for sound strategy and tactics, he would sacrifice himself alongside the sons of Pestovo. Together, they would weed out the victory that Pestovo and the rest of Althanas would need. Together, they would be Heroes. Elthas's eyes met with the only other two folks who were not sons of Pestovo. Devonus and Alden. They were both of some sort of Elf origin, but he would not question their heritage or their reasons for being there. His own reasons were far from heroic, but a deed was a deed. Elthas was a simple man.

He drew his daggers and rotated them carefully. He was prepared to lead the charge against an army of murderous Orcs. Out there, amid their ranks, was a Sorcerer that would bleed a horrible death. Elthas pointed one of his daggers towards the sky. "Hear me, sons of Pestovo, Heroes of Salvar, today...we will fight!" The small volunteer squadron yelled in unison. Except for perhaps, his two Elf kin who both seemed to wear grim expressions. He nodded towards the gathered. "In honour of the old alliances we will bleed together as brothers!" He then turned towards the enemy legion. And started to RUN at best speed which was fairly impressive, the Salvarns immediately took off behind him in a united group. Some were speedier than others. But all were rippling muscles and sinew. Weapons were drawn, shields were at the ready, and protective visors were lowered across handsome faces.

As Elthas ran forward, he kept himself in deliberate pace with his platoon, he could have run much faster than that, but he didn't want to leave the others too far behind.

He didn't want to die by himself.

His majestic and enchanted daggers rotated skillfully in his hand on instinct.

He spotted the orc war machine just up ahead as the first of the archers began to fire off arrows into his platoon. Shields were expertly raised, and most of the bolts and arrows were blocked off with some degree of skill. Only one or two of the sons of Pestovo were actually struck and injured. Due to the north man's blood, they felt the adrenal rush of their heroic ancestors.

The first sounds of battle resonated in Elthas' ears.

He felt hot despite the cold temperature and frigid air.

His heavy leather boots pounded the snow covered ground.

His daggers moved expertly and he recalled the most basic of his training. "Strike fast sons of Pestovo! Strike true!" Elthas yelled.

A horrid smell of the Orc's sweaty bodies penetrated Elthas' sensitive nostrils. The Orcs were even more terrifying than the invasion of Pestovo at the hands of Forral's Fortress. Elthas remembered those Orcs quite well, but deduced that they were likely a different group of Orcs than these Berevar ones. They were on the outskirts of the invasion force. Elthas knew that the true test had begun. He immediately went for jugular cuts, he was not there to fuck around. He was there to put a stop to a serious event. Blood flowed freely, the black ichor of Orcs. It felt heavy and sticky on his sleeved arm. He was thankful that he learned to dress for Salvar early on. His thick coat swirled around his body as he moved, several of the Orcs had already gone down permanently. He could hear yells of confusion and anger from the Orcs as they barked some sort of orders to one another in their native tongue.

As a bard, Elthas knew what he had to do.

He cut down several more Orcs, and then sheathed his daggers. He mightily pulled out his battle horn and hoisted it up to his lips with both hands. There he began to blow the tunes for one of his songs and lay out the foundation of his plan. He meant to inspire the sons of Pestovo to such a degree that the Orcs would be caught completely off guard. The support song was his Horn of Inspiration played from the horn of a Ruildian. Immediately, his companions, the closest of the lot, went into a battle frenzy upon hearing the ancient technique of the battle bards. Elthas mightily blew on his horn, his lungs sang powerful and true. He let the effects of his music swell up the chests of his companion with nationalistic pride in the defense of Pestovo. And once the song was done, he was surrounded by his companions as they protected him, the bard. He sheathed his battle horn and drew his daggers anew.

"For Pestovo!" Elthas yelled and he was deadly serious.

He was there to crush an army of Orcs.

(Note: Cast Horn of Inspiration. All allies present will be affected by it's magic for a certain amount of time just letting you guys know Alden and Dev.)

[Alden]

Alden lined up the shot and let fly. The bowstring twanged, his arrow cut through the air and found its mark deep in an orc’s neck. From his perch atop the hill, he saw the grey orc stumble, give another half-hearted swing of its weapon, and collapse. The Salvarn soldier who had been fighting it took a moment to catch his breath. Blood stained the side of his chain, his chest heaved with every labored breath. With a rough cough the man spit blood into the thick snow, staining it red.

Everywhere Alden looked, he saw the same thing. They were outnumbered, had no serviceable defensible position, and for every orc slain, two more would take their place. The roar of battle filled his ears; screams of defiance, cries of pain and death. Cavan whined and barked at his side, eager to fight, eager to help. The woodsman wasn’t about to send his companion into that mess.

This wasn’t a distraction… this was a massacre. They had charged the bloodthirsty army head-on and were starting to reap the benefits.

The orcs alone posed no real threat. They wore a hodgepodge of mix and matched armor over their animal hides and grey skin. They looked undisciplined, relying more on savagery than real skill. What the force had lacked, though, they more than made up for with an undeniable willingness to die. A sentiment the half-ling was not as ready to match.

Another arrow flew from his bow, finding its mark, as a horn’s call thundered above the tumult. It was Elthas. He could feel the magic coursing through him, giving him strength, casting away his fatigue. The men below fought with renewed vigor, and the elf rallied them to continue fighting.

“The fool,” Alden angrily mumbled, as he let fly another arrow, saving a Salvarn from being skewered in the back. The half-ling looked out past the battle to the eldritch portal beyond, and the orcs that spewed forth. Many of them were starting to branch off to the sides. They were moving to flank and swarm the volunteer squad.

The half-ling knew this wasn't their chance to fight. This was their only chance to retreat.

“ELTHAS!” Alden called to the elf at the top of his lungs. “We have to fall back!!” The half-ling hastily shot three more arrows in quick succession, felling three more orcs.