Twenty ninth day of eleventh month of forty third year after the foundation of the Union

John Edward, Sergeant, The 44th Blue Guards, Union Army

He followed the young paladin through the gate and into the fortresses. His musket was primed and ready to discharge. Almost immediately he was hit with the stench of death.

Human and dwavern bodies littered the courtyard. From what he could tell a battle took place here. Why the battle occured inside the fortress he could not say."

"Careful there might be some enemy still around."

Cautioned the sergeant

"Keep your muskets primed and don't let your guard down."

The paladin stood still for a while taking in the slaughter. Someone had decapitated all the dwavern soldiers and lined up their heads on spikes.

Ben one of the privates that he had chosen to join the scouting group spoke.

"This is a Dwarven work. I fought with the dwarves when the union qwelled the wild dwarf uprising."

About five years ago the union had put down the wild clans of dwarves that lived in the Red Iron hills. The wild clans did not want to submit to rule of the union it had been a bloody affair. Thankfully John Edwards had missed that conflict. He had been fighting in another war with the free states.

"I remember once when my company was sent out to look for a missing patrol. It took us a couple days but we found the patrol, there heads were placed on spikes like this."

Ben continued

"One of dwarves explained to me that is was that they believed that a dwarven soul only went to their heaven if the body remain intact. We had to gather up the bodies and heads brought them back to the fort."

Ben paused looking around the court yard.

"The dwarves spent two weeks matching the heads to back to their correct bodies. So that they could give them a proper dwarven burial. But we wiped out the wild dwarves, there shouldn't be any here, it's over several hundred miles to the Red Iron hills."

John Edwards scratched his chin and thought to himself what did we stumble onto, was it a dwarven conflict?

Then he spotted the carcass, or should say the body of one of the human guards. There was not much left of the body, it had been devoured.

He almost vomotted, he had been a professional soldier for longer then he could remember but this still shocked him to his core. Something had rendered the fresh from the guard bones. That wasn't something that dwarves did.

"Keep your eyes sharp we don't know if there is still any of the enemy hidden within the fortress."

He yelled trying to keep his voice sound calm and in control. He wanted to get back to Captain and the rest of the company but knew he needed to make sure that enemy no longer resided in the fortress.

Ben was examining the bodies when he yelled.

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"Hey I've found a survivor here."

Quickly they gathered around the body Ben was kneeling above. It was a women dressed in tight black leathers. She had dark skin and looked like she was from the northern continent.

The Paladin knelt down and placed his hand on the wound. He yelled a pray to his god and heavenly granted healing passed through him onto the injured women.

He watched as the wound healed over. The women open her eyes and gasped for air. She looked disoriented and confused and when she saw Sgowt she reached for a spear that was laying on the ground beside her.

"Calm down lassie the elf is with us we are part of the 44th blue guards regular army of Union. Can you tell me who you are and what happened here."

Second day of tweleth month of forty third year after the foundation of the Union

Awewe Soldadu of the Babaturan Angkat

She stood next to grave they had placed Manawydan fab Llyr. It was a small shallow grave just outside the fortress that he had died defending.

She had told the sergeant what she had remembered of the battle with the elves and their orc allies. Her last memories of the battle were of the dwarven soldiers entering the battle. So she couldn't tell the sergeant how they were defeated.

After that they had done a quick search of the fortress and confirmed that there was no presence of the enemy. The sergeant had sent back one of his privates to bring the rest of company.

She had met the Captain of the Company. Who had immediately placed soldiers to guard the fortress and then detailed the rest his soldiers to bury the dead union soldiers.

She had taken the Captain and few of his soldiers to check on the mine. When her team had arrived at the fortress they had been given a tour of the facilities by the commander of the garrison.

The Commander had been quiet proud when he had shown her squad the armoury where they were stock piling weapons and armour for the union war effort. The armoury had been looted.

She took them further into the mine where they came across more dead guards. As she feared all the monsters and other prisoners had been released.

To capture or elimate the escaped monsters would have been a job the Babaturan Angkat would have taken. Her squad members would have loved the challenge.

They were all dead now and she did not know what she we do with herself. She would go with Captain Wayne and report what had happened here. Maybe she could recruit some people to come back here with her.

She wanted to avenge her fallen comrades, she also yearned for a rematch with the female elf that had given her the grivious wound.

It had been two days since she had been found and the wound on her side had mostly healed inself by the magical powers of the Paladin. It still ached when she moved, especially when she attempted to do some practice moves with her spear

She looked over at the Paladin who was saying a pray over the grave of a union soldier. He was a bit younger than the men she normally attractive too but he had saved her life and she was extremely great full.

Third day of tweleth month of forty third year after the foundation of the Union

Bertram Hanlen Paladin for the order of Torm.

Finally they were leaving Mianach Sléibhe, he would remember for the rest of his life the grizzly scene's at the fortress and in the mine.

The decapitated dwarves the half eaten human soldiers. Inside the mine that had found some more soldiers that looked like they had been eaten. One soldier was missing his head.

After three days they had buried all the dead. He had been very busy providing rites of the dead for each of the soldiers that had fallen.

The Captain had detailed half his company under one of his Leftenants to guard the fortress and protect the mine.

The rest of us were heading back to Dyffryn Dwfin to report what had happened.

Before coming to the fortress the paladin had wanted to get revenge for his fallen friend. Now he felt he needed to get revenge for all who had perished. To kill the beasts that had done such horrific acts against the union soldiers.

At least he had managed to save someone from all the carnage. If he hadn't used his healing lay of hands on the warrior women she would have died.

He looked over at the warrior women, she wore a large bear skin cloak wrapped around her. Most of the time the warrior was silent. A couple times he had spotted her watching as he went about his duties.

Maybe she was accessing whether he worthy as a warrior. He had wanted to ask her questions about her life in a monster elimation squad but felt it best to let her mourn for her fallen companions.