Several days after the battle at Icinerenth, we received a message from the regiment north of ours.Once we had finished reclaiming the walled city and its wealth, the regiment turned eastwards the small city of Mesayne which lay across the true border of Moringia and Junumianis.

The journey to Mesayne was unpleasant, for the weather was wild and fluctuated between the exhausting heat of summer and the ominous gray chill of autumn. One day several men would faint from the heat, and crows would circle the regiment expecting death. The next day frost would cling to the breath of the marching regiment and those of us who rode in carriages would drape ourselves in woolen blankets for warmth as the mages discussed strategies to neutralize the Junumianian wizards.

Nestyne in his years of experience was concerned what might occur if we encountered the mage from Icinerenth again, for we could not find any sign of the mage’s fate. A mage of that power, and desperate enough to attack us with the ferocity we had faced down in Icinerenth certainly would have survived and fled east towards reinforcement.

Seeing the weather beating down upon the regiment, I offered to summon easier weather for travel, but Nestyne immediately forbade it. His lecture was serious, but not grim.

“The weather treats no man differently based on creed or country, and the same it be with armies and battles. Do not waste your skill upon crafting a spell that does not provide an advantage for our men, as the only thing that will do is make sneak attacks and other subterfuge more dangerous. We must be prepared at all times to fight enemy mages, and predicting the weather does not do that.”

Still, I was knowledgeable enough in the matters of weather and seasons to know whatever we were experiencing was too amiss to be within rhyme and reason. The landscape and the sky exuded a bizarre atmosphere almost as if Nature herself had forgotten what seasons were, and recalling Corindrian’s spell from many years ago I assumed it was the doing of one of the mages of Junumianis. It was not until years later that I would realize this was the machination of a force more dire than any Junumianian wizard.

After three weeks of marching, slowed by the encroachment of the bizarre atmosphere, the Kalipaonin Regiment set camp near the small city of Mesayne. Autumn had set in early, a relief from the strange fluctuations, but in retrospect an omen of the all-consuming nature of the conflict. The non-evergreen trees began to fall into the reds and yellows of Decay, and frost now hung on the breath of men. The sky was clouded, gray, almost as a thick slab of granite. Yet, it could not have been stone, for there was no Shelter would be found for those who once called Mesayne home in the aftermath of the battle.

Our plan of assault was simple, for there were only two mages in the small regiment at Mesayne (one of whom was most likely the Icinerenth mage who would be ill and : I would bring a storm (far easier and less dangerous now), and we would use the mist and rain of that storm as cover. Once we approached too close to the city for any efforts of the mages to repel us with any cataclysmic magicks, lest they bring danger upon themselves, our larger force would eventually overwhelm their’s.

The evening before the attack, I cast the spell to summon a storm. The spell was not ornate, or beautiful, and to the untrained eye it appeared to do nothing. Yet, to a weathermage (especially Corindrian) it would have been unsubtle and crude, for the wind changed directions suddenly and heavy dew plagued the camp within minutes. The spell, cast too hastily (despite the season) threw me into a daze wherein my vision was obscured, and I was prone to distraction. Nestyne and I would observe what I could of the battle from a nearby hill, and receive spoken accounts of the conflict along with the Commander and the Lieutenant.

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It was before the sun rose that the mist of the storm set in. The phalanxes navigated the damp pre-dawn blindly, linking themselves arm to shoulder to the men who stood at front. Caronin, perhaps one of the most skilled enchanters I have ever encountered, had cast a spell that aided vision on a small portion of the frontline men who were to lead their squadrons through the misty darkness. While my memory of that battle is incomplete, I recall visions of the tired men, linked arm to shoulder, walking out of the torchlight and fading into the fatal mists of conflict.

Nestyne, for his part, had been working on a spell to ensure the final breach of the city without any cost of illness to himself. The wooden drake had left him more stiff than usual, for it was a quick and improvisatory casting (to the extent such a label could ever apply to summoning), and the veteran mage and magickal tactician was now making great care to be at his full faculties. Nestyne knew that if magicks were to affect his mind or drag him to illness, there was a strong chance he would make a tactical error and cost many men their lives. So, the summoner took the utmost care with his spells from Mesayne onwards.

About a week prior, Nestyne had found a deposit of clay in a riverbed, and Quatimonian and myself had taken turns to make sure the clay stayed wet as Nestyne shaped and molded the material into something serviceable. The result was a golem, at least two men tall, created for a singular purpose that would force the small Junumianian regiment to retreat. Perhaps, with luck, we might even capture the mage from Icinerenth who had previously evaded us. Alas, if capturing that mage had been so easy, perhaps I would not have fallen into Necromancy.

The noise of the conflict began as dawn hit the devouring mist that lay in front of Mesayne as if it were a sea. The clash of blades and spears were the crash of waves, and the rain ( streaming downwards from the granite sky) and the yells of men became the unending roil of undulating waters. Yet, though we heard the terrible noise of death and vanquishment the mist remained still, for it swallowed all motion and all light under its placid surface.

The fighting had been going for several minutes, when out of the muddy turmoil rode the messenger.

“We have yet to push close enough to the city, Commander Partelin.” spoke the young messenger, who was perhaps not older than Jaryne in years.

Commander Partelin was stoic in his demand.

“Keep pushing, then.” he said, dismissing the young messenger to the rain and the muddy grounds of the swallowing mists.

Minutes passed, and then within the mists one could see distant bursts of flame surface from the sea of mist. The mage from Icininerenth was not too ill to fight, even after his desperate display of power at that battle. It spoke both of that mage’s foolishness, but also of his prowess. This was no mere apprentice. I could tell that the mage was not at full strength, for the bursts were intermittent and weaker than what I would have expected from a mage of that potency.

As if knowing I expected more from him, a large burst of fire emerged from the mists. Immediately following, waves of dark mud that grasped the spout of cinders and flames and pulled it downwards into the placid white like a back of wolves to devouring game. It was clearly Quatimonian’s spellcraft, the motion of the earth was too violent and abrupt for Carinon to have manipulated.

The messenger rode outwards from the fog once more, and spoke to the commander.

“Sir, we are close to the city. The incline has lessened.”

Commander Partelin spoke solemnly.

“Tell the captains to stay clear of the center of the field.”

The messenger rode back into the mists which coiled around him, almost as a weed, before he disappeared into the white stillness.

The sounds of warfare shifted, indicating we had control of the battle, and then Nestyne released the golem.

The hulking beast of clay began its journey slowly at first, but with each step gained speed and power as it sprinted through the obscured sea of war, parting the mists of wake. The bodies of countless young men, most Junumianian, lay on the muddy ground, drowned by blade or magicks as the golem struck its intended target: the city itself.

The Junumianians began their retreat, for they knew Mesayne and its citizens were not worth the trouble of disarming the golem. Shortly after our victory, the storm retreated exposing the entire fields worth of dismembered and desecrated bodies before the small city with its crashing buildings and consuming fires. We looted what we could find, but anything of value was hard to find, for the golem and our torches had made simple work of the centuries-old city. By the time night fell the city was rubble and ash. The former citizens walked aimless westward, hungry, cold, and hopeless well into the night until their torches, distant, faded into desecrated wood and grassland.