The Warden was happy with the Army's uneventful but rapid progress to Farreap, feeling he had made gains in tempo that might yet be considerable in the conflict ahead. The Kingdom's army had recovered for a day at Farreap but not the support staff or the city folk, with missile weapon ammunition, additional tar barrels, caltrops and food supply run organised to go by lunchtime with instruction not to tarry or stop and to travel briskly till they reached Iceflow Keep. Earl Bloodburn insisted on accompanying them with the hardy Berserkers and Shieldmaidens, not lacking in the stamina and endurance to make the journey, 25 Golems had been sent as soon as they arrived at Farreap to trample the path straight to Iceflow Keep as an advance party, and to make the road less treacherous for others, with a further 25 Golems waiting on the convoy acting as the vanguard. The Cavalry set off to travel to Iceflow Keep first thing on the second day's morning, accompanied by additional squads of Rangers covering their flanks. They would travel at a normal pace resting the horses and keeping themselves fresh unless targets of opportunity presented themselves. The rest of the Army had another day of practising, training and sparing before their planned departure on the third day with additional supplies. All non-essential residents should help harvest whatever they could with the City Watch as guards from the local area to deprive a possible enemy incursion of resources before the Army left with further orders given that on the departure of the Army, then the evacuation of all non-essential personnel and resources from Farreap, should begin in earnest, sending them back to the safety of Big Bear via the underground Dwarven expressway, as a most prudent precaution. Ur'sid troops set up camp outside the city next to the road to Iceflow Keep.

The supply run arrived late afternoon, with tar barrels and ballista bolt and arrow positioning prioritised, then storing food in the keep and distributing the other equipment. The support workers were tired and were given a place to rest in the keep and the existence of the underground Dwarven expressway to Big Bear was revealed to them with instructions to evacuate and return to Big Bear in the morning and leave straight away if there was any sign of trouble before then. The Shieldmaidens and Berserkers leaders asked Earl Bloodburn to toss a coin for who would take which reserve line on each flank, but instead; he split them into two mixed groups who would fight shoulder to shoulder, alternating with each other as they had been practising and tossed the coin for him to take the right flank of the Keep. The 50 Golems were going to be divided in half on each flank. Still, they decided that instead, they'd send 10 to reinforce the Golem frontline and rely on 20 rather than 25 Golems spaced out as the leading edge of the reserve line on each flank. Assuming they may not have trouble for the night, they ate and all turned in, grateful for somewhere warm to sleep.

It was a dark night with the moon shrouded behind the clouds; the feeling of the storm brewing was palpable. Still racing before the squall was the Northern Icekin Alliance armada led by Chillblood Walrusslayer, the Orc shaman. Chillblood was angry and determined to take his fury out on the humans but first, he summoned infernal magics to raise fret over the waves, which obscured their approach from view, as the large walrushide canoes quietly paddled forward to their landing site in Iceflow Bay. The sea fret billows in to land ahead of them, hiding one's hand in front of your face.

The ward runes go off, alerting defenders of incoming hostiles to Iceflow Bay. The five duty messenger riders leave at a gallop, one riding non-stop back along the road to Farreap to alert them and anyone on the road of contact with the enemy being made at Iceflow Keep. The other four Gallop along the underground Dwarven Expressway, each to go without stop to their destination Farreap, Mittfield, Jade City and Big Bear. The 15 Ironchest Golems plus 10 reinforcements were stationed in the Iceflow Bay armed with a sword and shield. However, they now had instructions to fight unarmed with swords sheathed and shields strapped on to their backs and to be positioned instead 15 feet below the waves; since they didn't need to breathe, they were to focus on rolling boats, breaking boat structures, ripping holes into the hides, dragging boats under and pulling and holding enemies under the waves to drown them. They had been assigned to act initially as a rear guard action to allow a retreat, but as attack is the best form of defence Theria had updated the orders, hoping this action would do more to assist the defenders than anything else.

The Rangers busy themselves some knocking over the tar barrels spaced along the shoreline and then opening the slow-release taps on the base of each tar barrel every ten paces up the shoreline. This gives the time needed for others to finish their tasks without being encumbered by the leaking tar. A second group of Rangers took the latest load of ballista bolts to arrive from Big Bear down from the shoreside stack into the shallow water and wedged them tip facing upwards. These are ward Runed with chain lightning imbued; they will go off upon impact, and the Rangers continue to do this until after the fret rolls in and they hear approaching watercraft or paddles. Then they focus on stealthily falling back before the incursion loosing arrow after arrow when they have formed up in formation; they either fire blindly into the fret or above the splashes sounds of disembarkation, their arrows are ward Runed with poison fog, and those that impact the water and those that hit something still give off a damaging poison fog something which is hidden by the fret. Every ten paces, they retreat; they scatter a couple of handfuls of caltrops coated in poison onto the floor behind them before returning to archery till they reach the first resupply point.

The eerie Battlestations alarm is sounded, giving a quiet but clear tone to alert the garrison to turn out for action. The Catapult launches mixed loads of ordinances continually despite the fret, as do the ballistae and archers when in range as they follow the rune wards guidance as to which direction and how far away hostile forces are located. The bolts fired are ward rune imbued with a fireball to explosively make contact with the boats and attempt to neutralise them before they can make landfall and hopefully turn them into fireships, causing maximum blockage and damage to the other boats behind them; all this time the weather is gradually worsening, and the waves start to appear a little choppy.

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Earl Bloodburn felt in his element; this is what he lived for as he formed up the reserve flank lines behind the Golems that would help delay any troops landing and give the artillery on the Keep more time to make their contribution felt by the enemy.

The armada was first engaged by the Carrocks; both, as soon as the rune wards had activated, moved to each side of the entrance channel to the Iceflow Bay, narrowing the space the canoes could use to enter and creating a bottleneck while they fired with all the artillery might that could muster at the canoes as they passed with the rest of their crew and marines armed and standing ready to repel borders.

The visibility was minimal, but canoes were aflame, capsized, pulled under, wreckage and abandoned. Many who might have swam to safety drowned before reaching the shore, overcome by wounds, poison or drowned by Golem, including many of the werewolves who were the most valued target for the Golems to take out; the water was stained red with blood, bodies floated, and the stench of death and poison fumes mingled with the sea fret; after ten minutes, the sea itself had enough tar floating in it to be on fire along with canoes that were now acting as fireships. Canoes crashed to shore, with the crew being electrocuted repeatedly. Nearby canoes and swimmers got hit, too, occasional a Golem was struck, but this did minimal damage as they were built to be resistant to lightning but, more importantly, thought the builders, to have them immune to both poison and death magic given the army they were created to fight.

Remnants of the Heavy infantry Orcs formed a line with a shield wall, slowly advancing up the shoreline under constant fire. The light infantry goblin army fell in behind them, and the Ice Elves provided what artillery support they could bring up the rear with the Werewolves holding back, ready to charge up the wings waiting for the opportune moment to let the Orcs buy them distance, for now. Orcs fell wounded or killed, but more came up from behind, filling the space and adding a second and third rank which continued to advance, paying a heavy cost for every step. Leaving a trail of bodies, burning, traps sprung and unsprung, caltrops, wounded, and assorted dropped equipment, which successive waves of wet warriors had to clamber over while under constant fire from above.

The multitude of Northern Icekin Alliance canoes that contain either a ballista or catapult were guided by their onboard shaman, who told the crew where to fire and where the rowers should head through the fret; the Shamans would use their power also to augment the canoe defences and offensive capacity; the artillery support first engaged the Carrocks as soon as they came in range and tried to force them to retreat one lasted 15 minutes after losing its main mast, it had given as good as it got, while being on fire it managed to limp away, leaving with a small fire on deck from the wreckage of the demasting that seemed manageable. The second Carrack Captain had used his paired Seeing stone and then given orders to provide cover to the other Carrock so that it could escape, but in so doing, the second Carrock put itself in the line of fire and consequently took more damage and was only able to hold out for another five more minutes before retreating. Both damaged vessels fell back to Grey Isle for repairs and restock on munitions which they had significantly depleted, and to heal the casualties their defenders had received.

Then the artillery canoes closed to attack the Keep and the four flanking Towers, who had significant defensive and range advantages. All the while, more land forces managed to join the Bridgehead that they were establishing up the incline towards the Keep. Chillblood could tell the fret now hindered his forces, so he channelled infernal power to pull it back into the water; this took time. It took almost an hour before the artillery attacking the Keep became a threat, and much damage was inflicted on the armada and the advancing troops during this period. In attempting to find the range to attack the Keep, some magical artillery arced high into the sky above the fret and became visible from the Cavalry camp that had stopped half way to Iceflow Keep. The Rangers, flanking the camp, sprinted straight towards Iceflow Keep, sending two signal arrows high into the sky back towards Farreap. The signal was seen, and Ur'sid responded immediately, ordering his 170 Rangers to go through the Expressway to offer relief to the Keep as well as 4 quivers of extra arrows each; his endurance-trained legionnaires were ordered to double time march overland to Iceflow Keep, while he leapt on his DireBear and sped away across the land before even the Warden had received the news, one of his Pages was sent to the Warden to report on Ur'sid's troop movements and the signal. With 2,100 Heavy Cavalry taking the longest to prepare and being slower, the 10,600 Light Cavalry were quicker off the mark and maintained formations of 100 horses as they cantered to Iceflow Keep to allow them to contribute most effectively when they got there. The Golems found that it was easier to work in pairs if two of them held the frame of a canoe and removed their feet from the seabed; the boat sunk faster. Standing on shoulders also worked for the Golems, and one of them started going into deeper water doing a three-high tower formation before the bottom one would climb up as the topmost one held on to a canoe that rapidly sank.

By the time the fighting retreat of the Rangers had picked up their second resupply points and then split, reaching the flanks of the Keep with about 500 Rangers on each side. The werewolves could now see their enemy and so made their move from behind the Heavy Infantry Orc shieldwall; they raced out to the sides and then charged up the flanks, then the Orcs joined in the charge as did the Goblins and Ice Elves. As the enemy emerged from the shadow and into their sight, the waiting reserve line moved forward as one, with every two columns merging into one, leaving open columns through their formation, which the Ranger ran through; the moment they were through, the Berserkers and Shield Maidens clicked back into formation, and the Rangers continued to send arrows over their infantry into the enemy and reached their third resupply point. The Berserkers activated the Burnblood bloodline and immolated themselves and their Axes in Soulfire just before the werewolves' charge impacted them, invariably getting an axe in the face first. The shieldmaidens had an unerring capacity to block multiple attacks and still land blows, saving many of their berserker comrades' lives.