Reclining in the sprawling encampment’s command tent, sipping a spiced Orosian wine, Lord Sevrin Mindau was eminently pleased. The magnate of Glosom and Lord of the Shadowhold had just that morning received the most delightful news, when a rider had arrived from the north, exhausted and breathless, to deliver the following letter:
“Beloved uncle, I regret to inform you that our barn burned down during the night, and we lost at least thirty chickens in the commotion. The southern fence collapsed due to strong winds, and it might take some time to repair. I am also sorry to say grandfather caught a bad chill three days ago and sadly passed on.
I hope you will visit us soon, love,
Martyna”
The message, of course, was coded. Had anyone intercepted his rider on the road, they would not have been able to decipher its true meaning. What it actually communicated, much to Lord Sevrin’s satisfaction, was that his agents, which he had sent to infiltrate Forsot over a month ago, had at last achieved their aim and provoked a revolt against the Issir garrison. The note revealed that at least thirty guardsmen had died in the riot and, much to the Lord’s pleasure, the mob had actually taken hold of the town’s southern wall. Lastly, it informed that his assassin had successfully killed the garrison’s captain, which would make taking the city even easier than expected.
He had left Glosom that very morning in full haste, marching north with his vanguard and making camp on Salemon’s Hill, the northernmost point of his Hold. The rest of the army, a vast host over seven thousand strong, slowed by supply wagons and siege weapons, had arrived as nightfall came, raising a camp so large it resembled a city, its torches blazing in the darkness of the cold night.
As he rested on silken pillows, snacking on a bowl of roasted nuts and cubes of aged Omlar cheese, Lord Sevrin considered his plans for the campaign. As they entered the Mininghold the next morning, the Lord thought, his army would be joined by the tattered remnants of the Razden forces, led by the young lordling Jonos Razden, son of Forsot’s magnate, who was being held prisoner in his own keep by the Issir. The Lord’s plan was daring, but success promised immeasurable gains. Using the Razden forces as guides through the mountainous Hold, his army would cautiously march through the wintry, snow-covered passes, taking care not to alert the Issir rangers to their movements. They would continue in this fashion until reaching Asot, a walled village less than ten miles from Forsot. So close to the city it would be impossible to conceal such a large army for long, which is why it had been essential to incite the town’s inhabitants to rebellion. Preoccupied with the rioters and undoubtedly disorganized due to their captain's death, the defenders would not be expecting an attack in the dead of winter, and, with the little advance warning they might have, the garrison would not be able to mount a successful defence. Thus Lord Sevrin’s forces would triumphantly enter the town, hailed as liberators by its citizens, while the garrison, defeated and outnumbered, would be forced back to the keep. Though Forsot’s stronghold was a formidable fortification, the intricate network of tunnels and catacombs beneath it would be unfamiliar to the foreign soldiers, and thus, using the Razden’s knowledge of their ancestral home, would his own troops enter the castle, ambushing and annihilating the garrison within. With Forsot taken, the remaining Issir troops in the province would quickly fold, retreating back to Cairiss, while the house of Razden, which had long rivalled Lord Sevrin’s influence, would be victorious but weak, and have no choice but to submit to the Lord's power.
He was, of course, aware that there would likely be obstacles, and that even the best-laid plans rarely survived first contact with the enemy. However, the Lord of the Shadowhold was confident he would succeed. He was reaching his fiftieth year now, and had led many campaigns on behalf of the Crowned of Ombrun. When he had heard the news of Geidric Lorien's murder, orchestrated as it was by the rebel lords of Akenhold and Erebos, Lord Sevrin had vowed before the gods to avenge his sovereign's death, but before turning his attention to the southern rebels he would have to eliminate the northern threat posed by Cairiss.
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The following morning Lord Sevrin’s army reached the village called Stangs, a place which many held to be cursed. Though small, it was situated at an important crossroads, in the southern part of the Mininghold, where the Shadowroad met the Silverway, which led from Forsot all the way to distant Raisenai, capital of the Hexarchy. Stangs' strategic position made it a key location to hold in wartime, and it had, in matter of fact, been the site of a major battle several centuries ago. It was believed that the ghosts of the slain still haunted the surrounding fields.
An odd place, surrounded by magical barriers, the fortified settlement seemed to exude an air of death. As he passed the hamlet's enchanted defenses Lord Sevrin felt sick to his stomach, as a rotting miasma seemingly enveloped him and his men. He quickly accepted the peasant's submission, eager to leave the village's boundaries and curious how anyone could stand to live in such a place. The Lord refused the generous supplies offered to him by the inhabitants, knowing his troops would refuse to eat or drink anything given to them by the villagers. He made camp a mile away, on a small rise upwind of the settlement, so the rotten air wouldn't reach him and his troops. There they waited for the arrival of Razden's forces.
It was late afternoon when Jonos Razden finally arrived, leading a ragged group of men and women that Lord Sevrin would have likened more to a bandit gang than a feudal levy. Most of them wore tattered pieces of mismatched armour, and the weapons they carried would not seem out of place on a peasant's farmstead, which, the Lord reflected, was probably where most were from. Some of the troops looked to be injured, and were walking supported by their comrades. A few, perhaps hurt more severely, were being transported on wagons.
The young lordling himself rode at the head of the unfortunate band, accompanied by his bodyguards and a dozen or so knights, the only mounted troops in the company. As they neared the encampment Jonos sped up to meet Lord Sevrin, and was closely followed by his guards
“Lord Razden”, greeted the commander, using the honorific out of courtesy more than anything else, as Jonos Razden held no title of his own, “I trust your journey was not unpleasant.”, he said, eyeing the wounded soldiers.
“Lord Mindau”, replied the young lord, “some bandit vermin tried to give us trouble on the road, nothing more”, he said, attempting to reassure Lord Sevrin, adding “We dealt with them easily enough, they lost at least two men for each one of ours.”
The two nobles exchanged pleasantries as the Razden forces slowly made their way into the camp, following which Lord Sevrin excused himself, inviting the lordling to join him for dinner later in the evening.
As he slowly made his way back to the command tent, inquiring as to the needs of his troops while he walked, and reassuring those who feared the curse of the nearby village, Lord Sevrin reflected on what the young lord had said. In all his years as a ruler and leader of men, never had he known a bandit gang, no matter how large or well equipped, to attack an army. It might be they had grown desperate, even during peacetime there was little enough food to be had in winter, and the war had made matters much worse. But even so, raiding a village or one of the few caravans which still travelled the passes would have been much safer, and just as profitable. What was more likely, the Lord reasoned with growing apprehension, was that some of the Hold’s minor lords, many of whom had never been the most ardent supporters of Razden rule, were following the example of Cairiss and seizing the opportunity to eliminate their overlords once and for all. Were that to be true, it would make travelling to Forsot in secret almost impossible, as Lord Sevrin had counted on using the region’s minor castles and redoubts to secure and conceal his advance north. Unfortunately for Lord Sevrin, his suspicions would be confirmed that evening.