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CHAPTER 218
295 AC
POV THIRD PERSON
Lord Sunderland's eyes held a hollow, disbelieving stare as he witnessed a nightmarish reality unfold before him. The battle raged on, pitting their forces against a mere 500 defenders, with a mere 200 of them being knights who now held the town square. The remaining 300 were archers who strategically positioned themselves atop the buildings, raining arrows down upon their attackers.
Merely five minutes into the conflict, they had already suffered severe casualties, losing one-third of their forces. Lord Longthorpe had met his end, while not a single one of their enemies had fallen. They did succeed in injuring dozens of their foes, but these wounded soldiers merely rose and hobbled back into their ranks. The situation before him was nothing short of a horrifying nightmare, one that Lord Sunderland couldn't bear to accept.
The Battle of Moondrift Port had descended into a horrifying tableau of chaos and brutality. In the heat of the clash, only one thing appeared in Lord Sunderland’s mind: they were not just mere mortals, they couldn’t be; it was a dance with death in the realm of nightmares. The battered raiders of the Sistermen forces found themselves ensnared in a relentless struggle for survival; their lines rent asunder by the wrathful onslaught of the Northern monsters. It was a grim spectacle of carnage as the Knights of Drasil carved through the enemy lines like reapers.
Aermir, the Lord Commander, had fiercely jumped out of Sith's back, and now he roamed the battlefield, reaping the lives of many. Every swing of his double crescent halberd a promise of death. At times, it seemed as if Sith was competing with her master, a macabre race, to see who could claim the most Sistermen's lives.
With eerie grace, Sith pounced upon the invaders. Her claws and fangs sought their marks with chilling accuracy, leaving behind a macabre path of maimed and dying men. Those unfortunate enough to cross her path filled the battlefield with their dying screams, adding to the orchestra of chaos that echoed through the town square.
Harlik Greenwood, the resolute commander of the Paladins, was renowned as the Iron Goliath. His massive war hammer, a weapon of unrivaled destructive force, swung with the relentless fury of an approaching storm. Bone and flesh shattered beneath the colossal impacts while the Paladins fought with unwavering determination right beside their leader. In the chaos of battle, the Paladins carved a path of destruction through the 3 thousand Sistermen, leaving those who dared to oppose them broken and dying.
The Sistermen's three-pronged assault had devolved into a disastrous endeavor. In every direction they ventured, they encountered overwhelming resistance. The battle had quickly deteriorated, and their initial confidence had given way to desperation. With each passing moment, the Northern defenders proved themselves to be a disciplined, unwavering force that met the Sistermen's invasion with an unforgiving response.
...
The battle bore witness to the remarkable discipline and unwavering strength of Aermir's forces. Knights and soldiers alike fought in perfect unity, their actions a deadly choreography that spoke to their relentless training. Meanwhile, the rangers' arrows found their marks with deadly precision, further thinning the ranks of the Sistermen.
A few of Aermir’s buffed knights and paladins had sustained injuries, approximately 20, due to the blunt force they'd endured. Their broken arms and legs could be mended by Aermir's potent healing spell, a process that was agonizingly painful. Yet, their rigorous training had inured them to such pain; almost every one of them had broken their limbs in the ruthless mock battles in the Forge; they knew their lord could always heal them. All they needed to do was retreat into the back lines and stay alive until Aermir could heal them.
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…
Lord Sunderland found himself in a bewildering predicament, grappling with the reality that he was losing to a mere handful of adversaries. But it wouldn't be entirely accurate to refer to them as men; at that moment, they appeared more like vengeful demons than ordinary soldiers, and he was not the only one grappling with the reality. Every other Northern lord that came with Aermir was in the same position, too. They had never seen an army move this disciplined and be such a deadly force. Amid this chaos, Lord Drasil raised a spear high, invoking the gods of nature with a fervent plea,
"Oh, great gods of Nature, please bestow your blessing upon this spear that shall become the guiding light for your righteous fury."
With that, he hurled the spear with an indescribable force that pierced through a staggering twenty men before pinning three of them against the wall of a nearby building. This awe-inspiring display of power left the Sistermen raiders demoralized, sapping their courage and willpower as they began a hasty retreat toward their ships. They could hear the roaring of Lord Drasil, but they didn't even have the courage to turn back and look; they just ran.
"Kill all of them, do not let any one of them run away!"
The situation was dire for the Sistermen, and the Northern lords’ forces were not oblivious to the chaos that had enveloped all three battlefronts. Every one of the Sistermen Lords was well aware that their forces were on the brink of defeat, their enemy proving to be far more formidable than they had anticipated.
As Lord Drasil's rallying cry reverberated through the chaotic battleground, a unified chorus of Northern defiance erupted. The battle was still ongoing, but the Northern forces were attacking with relenting wave after wave.
...
The Battle of Moondrift Port had been a brutal and brief conflict, lasting just 30 minutes, yet the toll it took on the Sistermen forces was staggering. Out of their initial 10,000-strong army, only 3-4 thousands managed to escape with their lives. The Northern side had suffered the loss of 800 men, with only 100 of them belonging to Aermir's forces, while the remainder came from the forces of the Northern lords.
Aermir moved his wounded soldiers to a separate location, leaving the Northern lords in the mayor's manor to attend to his injured men. Erecting monoliths in areas hidden from the guests' view, he began the process of healing his soldiers and preventing further loss. One hundred of his warriors had fallen in the battle. Though formidable, they were still human, and their enchanted armor did possess weaknesses that could be exploited.
Even if the armor was magical, it still didn't protect the joints one hundred percent. When they got hit there, they mostly fell down, and falling on a battlefield was often a death sentence. Those that were buffed by Aermir's magic could bypass most of these weaknesses. However, his limit in this regard was 200 men; thus, he had transformed his fiercest warriors into nearly unstoppable forces.
The wounded knights and soldiers lay on the ground, their expressions a mixture of exhaustion and pain. They knew the healing process was agonizing, but it was a necessary ordeal.
...
At this moment, Lord Sunderland was sailing back towards Three Sisters and couldn't help but wonder at the deadly efficiency and cohesion of Aermir's forces. He had witnessed a kind of disciplined, merciless army that was not seen in these lands. They had no fear, no weakness, and the only thing they knew was merciless slaughter.
With desperation and panic in his heart, Lord Sunderland realized that his grand ambitions for a triumphant invasion had been thoroughly shattered. The taste of victory had turned bitter as he now faced the stark reality of defeat. More than half of their forces had been sacrificed in a futile and devastating battle.
As the weight of his actions settled upon him, the lord couldn't escape the harsh truth. In a moment of hubris, he had declared war on the North, and this audacious act had led to his downfall. He understood the consequences that loomed on the horizon, and they were dire.
In his vulnerable state, Lord Sunderland made the only choice he believed was left to him. He sent urgent messages to Lord Pryor of Pepple, Lord Elesham of the Paps, and the other Vale Lords who possessed ships, beseeching them for help. His hope rested on the possibility of reinforcements, a lifeline that might allow him to salvage what remained of his forces and, perhaps, turn the tide of this unforeseen conflict.
He knew he was done for, but there was still hope for his house; he could just take the black and accept the full blame and save his house. To do that, he wrote one more letter to Lord Stark accepting all punishment and declaring his intention to take the black and only asking for a peaceful solution. He was hoping the peaceful Quite Wolf would be able to hold the leash of this ferocious beast that was bearing its fangs at him.