The regional base was perched on a sizable but low plateau, perhaps a few hundred paces above the surrounding young forests; several winding paths up and down, as well as a few underground paths out from the complex, provided its only paths to the outside world. Built here for its view overlooking the surroundings and its high defensibility, this base, named “Giant’s Anvil,” had become one of the key logistical and area control points for the Sarke Army to hold onto. As a result, a garrison of several tens of thousands was maintained here at almost all times, even when major offensives raged on elsewhere.
It was towards this massive base that Kern rode. However, even on horseback, it would take some four days of riding his horse into the ground to travel the, he measured the map again, two-hundred-forty-some thousand-paces all the way to that base. For the sake of traveling light, and hopefully a bit faster, he only brought supplies for a couple days; additionally, his horse would definitely be exhausted towards the end of such a long run and would start to slow down.
He couldn’t aim to finish the trip in one run. Thankfully, that was never the plan; radiating out from the Anvil were numerous roads, and upon these roads lay smaller ‘Branch’ bases, officially referred to as Locality Bases. Each of these held upwards of a few thousand troops, and were more immediate connections to the more remote outposts, and, after two days of riding, Kern entered the Northwoods Clearing Locality Base.
Quickly writing up a report on the outpost’s circumstances and the evidence of imminent attack, Kern turned it in before swapping horses and departing from the small ledge-top fort, mortar-and-rubble walls and ironwood gate.
Now was another two days of fast riding to the main base on a fresh horse. In the mean time, he thought over how to explain the wyrm he saw, which, Kaerie had confirmed, carried creatures within its belly.
No one knew exactly how many, exactly how fast, exactly how far, exactly how much. Really, no one knew anything, except that it burrowed and could carry other beasts. Reporting only what was known… the best case scenario, amongst reasonable ones, was that the report practically got ignored. The worst case scenario was the regional general getting paranoid, perhaps even paralyzing command.
On the other hand, if he were to mention his speculation as well, he’d almost certainly overestimate or underestimate the opponent, and the information and speculation still wouldn’t be reliable.
No… as far as the wyrm’s ability, he’d have to leave it blank; instead, he should think of possible countermeasures instead…
The most obvious was staying mobile and just slightly spread out, so the troops have time and space to get away from an emerging wyrm. Only a bit spread out, though, or the wolves would swarm the swordsmen. No, they’d run through then, and go for a larger encirclement… perhaps split by squads would be best.
Then, what else? Scattering some infantry squads among the archers, sure. Then? Avoiding clearings and soft ground, where it was surely easier for the wyrm to emerge. Stone cliffs or dense woods would both certainly prove annoying to emerge from, if not worse… yes, that might be a good method. Thankfully, there are still some old woods in this region that they could use to restrict the wyrms. Launching an attack themselves, though, would probably not afford such luxury.
He thought for a moment. Recalled the sound. The wyrm tore through the earth, and then surfaced to deliver its charge. Firstly, they might be able to go backwards through the tunnel, if the wyrm left one behind it, but… no, more importantly, the wyrm underground was not so different from the earthquakes; sunder-weights should be able to detect the wyrms as they travelled underground. Using a few from different directions, they might even be able to tell exactly where the wyrms were.
This was much more important; regardless of whatever other measures they took, ensuring they knew where their enemies were came first and foremost. With the sunder-weights, tracking wyrms just might be easier than tracking direwolves on the ground. He had to bring this up.
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He shook his head to clear his thoughts; he still had time to think up more methods. Fire wasn’t an option, great-ballistae were few and clunky to turn around quickly, keeping too many troops behind was a no go, but they probably would want to retain more reserves…
He thought and thought, his mind churning slowlier and slowlier, but couldn’t come up with anything else before needing to stop for the night. Jotting everything down, he set up shelter and went to sleep, leaving thinking to the next day.
Morning came, and with it, an early riser packing up at lightning pace, before setting out again at fast clip. Going over his prepared report, Kern memorized everything he wanted to say on the trip, as any proficient Recon member could.
The wyrm could at least grow to several tens of paces in diameter, could definitely carry direwolves and most likely also greatwolves, and travelled by burrowing underground loudly before emerging from the ground at its destination, releasing its charge.
As for range, exact speed, number under enemy control, and reusability, nothing was known.
For countermeasures, fighting in areas with rock floor or dense, older forests would be ideal. Staying slightly split up and avoiding large, dense formations was key. Sunderweights needed to be deployed to locate the burrowing wyrms in open areas, especially near bases, so that defense was viable. If possible, directional precision should be maximized.
Digging unstable holes to cave in to nearby disturbances would also work in a pinch, but that would keep the engineers busy. In the mean time, exhausting the enemy’s forces took priority; dragging more reserves out to the frontline meant less threat of large scale ambushes and penetration maneuvers, which the wyrms would almost certainly be used for.
Alright. That was everything. Kern brought his focus back to the road, and pushed out his encroaching worries.
Another few bells passed both quickly and slowly, and Kern saw the plateau fortress from several thousand-paces away, poking out through the trees. From here, the fortifications and architecture couldn’t be appreciated at all, just slivers through the forest. If Kern didn’t already know how big it was, and if the area was more barren, he might also have thought the plateau was just a big wall, possibly even scaleable. He slowed his horse a moment, making sure he wasn’t running it too hard. Mountains and whatnot, had to be careful of impatience.
The rest of the ride in the forest was quiet, the bustle of the fortress far away yet. Emerging into the cleared buffer zone, the outermost barricades and low walls marked the edge of the base. A sentry on a tower, rather, a simple shaded platform, called out to him.
“THIS IS THE GIANT’S ANVIL. NAME YOURSELF!” A strong voice, this sentry had. Kern was almost dazed by it, but at least it meant the back lines weren’t slacking off.
“Kern Sciles, Advance Recon, on intelligence. Requesting direct access to Intelligence to provide detailed logs.” On further thought, why were the sentries so alert, even on the outermost edge? Kern had hardly entered view before being accosted. Had something happened?
“How does the sparrow fly?” The callout. Kern wasn’t under too urgent a mission, and he himself was unhurt.
“Steady, on the winds.” So he gave a standard response, which the Sentry took normally, as far as Kern could tell.
He drew near to the wall now, and the shoddy outer-ring gate opened up for him. Passing through, he found these outer rungs not crowded, but still active; tents and campfires dotting the space between here and the next wall. Recalling how the base was structured, Kern remembered there were three ‘rungs’ of walls before reaching the actual plateau and plateau walls. The outermost two rungs had the largest gap, and was mostly kept empty, using tents when the space was needed.
Aside from when the base was completely mothballed, in which case, only a skeleton crew would remain, sentries would be posted on the outer rings. That wasn’t too surprising. What was surprising, was that there really were quite a few tents in between the outer rungs; doing some rough estimation, Kern gathered that the base likely had at least sixty thousand people, and likely had upwards of ninety thousand.
That was not a small figure for a base that hadn’t formed an offensive army and was, on further observation, still accumulating forces and preparing facilities for higher load. They already doubled, perhaps tripled the usual garrison, and yet were planning on… what, potentially doubling or tripling once over?
Kern had a very bad premonition as to the importance of his exact presentation. No time to think it over, though, not with his message. It was crunch time, right as he entered with a wave to the sentries at the plateau’s base. Right into the Anvil proper.