The closest Wasolan and the Lord’s House had to any kind of formal agreement was an edict called a Writ of Acknowledgement, given to Wasolan by the leadership of the Lord’s House. It was one of two, the other had been given to Ovek quite a while ago.

It wasn’t until about midway through the war between the Lord’s House and Oszrath that Wasolan had been given a Writ of Acknowledgement. It had been seen as a necessary evil to aid in the war effort. After the war was over, revoking the writ had been considered, but it was still in place.

A Writ of Acknowledgement was a fundamental departure from the stated beliefs of the Lord’s House. It was an official acknowledgement that the culture of another nation was, at least, not so heretical as to deserve immediate destruction.

The sole purpose of a Writ of Acknowledgement was to make trade easier between the recipient and the Lord’s House. Prior to the war, the Lord’s House had been wealthy enough for traders from Wasolan to bother adhering to its practices. During the war, and since, that was much less true.

Technically, the Writ of Acknowledgement had no effect on how quickly news of the siege at Lookout made it back to Wasolan. Their caravans hadn’t made it to the Lord’s House in close to two years.

Despite mixed feelings within Haven and the wastes, caravans headed from Ovek to Wasolan were left alone. Ovek was not at war with anyone who might be sympathetic or helpful to Haven, and was substantially richer than both the Lord’s House and Wasolan. It was better not to start that fight.

So the news made it from the Lord’s House to Ovek fairly quickly, and didn’t take all that much longer to make it to Wasolan with a slave trader from Ovek. Wasolan wouldn’t have noticed the significant reduction in raids coming out of the wastes, since most things that could be raided had already been raided, and Wasolan barely stationed any troops in the area anymore.

While no one outside of Haven knew how many people lived in the wastes, Wasolan was confident it wasn’t all that many. They saw two opportunities in the siege at Lookout. If they hadn’t been quite so wrong about the second, they might have managed the first.

Two armies mustered in northeast Wasolan, one at Borirnna and one at Ivterran. Three battalions weren’t hard to come by at Borirnna, and that force set off much more quickly than the bigger army gathering at Ivterran. Though not a single soldier had made it back from Outpost so far, Wasolan was at least sensible enough to send some siege engines with the army headed into the wastes.

The second army, mustering at Ivterran, took a good deal longer to muster. Ten battalions was more than were still stationed around the northeast, and given that three had already left for the wastes, Ivterran had to wait for five battalions to be cycled from the fighting in the northwest.

Wasolan’s military command had both underestimated and overestimated the military strength of Haven. They had underestimated the military strength of Altok, and planned not to repeat the mistake, hence mustering an army about twice times the size of the last one they had sent to Altok.

What they figured, in Wasolan, was that with the siege at Lookout and triple the amount of soldiers sent after Outpost, the raiders from the wastes would be far too preoccupied to come to Altok’s aid again. Thus overestimating how much the force from Haven had actually contributed to Altok’s absolute defeat of the last army sent there.

Haven had not asked Altok to help with the Lord’s House. Altok would have refused. Haven did not ask Altok to help with the nine hundred soldiers marching into the wastes. Altok just did it.

The Sand Crawlers who had remained in Outpost still spent a lot of their time exploring northeastern Wasolan. There weren’t as many raids because there wasn’t as much to raid. But they knew very well what was going on. They knew an army was headed into the wastes before it had left the walls of Borirnna.

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They also knew that an army was headed for Altok, and ran over there to let them know. Altok would have found out on their own pretty quickly, they also had people in Wasolan, keeping an eye on things.

What Altok also knew was exactly how the war between Kzara and Wasolan was going. Wasolan and Kzara were essentially locked in a stalemate since Altok and Haven had joined the war on Kzara’s side. Altok and Haven hadn’t contributed much, but it seemed to have been just enough to balance the situation.

Wasolan and Kzara were just about stuck skirmishing back and forth over a few border towns and a silver mine way out in the west, waiting for some kind of opening. Five battalions cycled out of the fighting wasn’t very many, in the scale of things, but it just as much wasn’t nothing.

Kzara and Altok formulated a plan, based on what they were hearing from Haven about the siege at Lookout. Altok could sustain a siege much longer than Lookout, since their farmland was much better protected, and they had a great deal more soldiers. They could spare many more skirmishers to stay out of Altok to harass Rhatal and Ivterran.

And, while they were out there, there was no harm in sending about four hundred soldiers east to intercept the army headed from Borirnna to Outpost.

Telegraphs were not yet very widespread within Kzara, though the effort was ongoing and quite rapid. A telegraph line had been set up between Kzara and Altok. No telegraph line had been established between Altok and Haven.

So when news got back to Haven of an army headed from Wasolan to Outpost, it was relayed over to Lookout, where the skirmishers were having very little success hassling the besieging army since they had shifted formation.

The watchtower signalled the skirmishers to leave for Outpost and, given that they were making very little difference where they were, they rushed off southwest. The army from Borirnna was still more than two weeks away, there was plenty of time to prepare.

Runners from Altok arrived only a couple of days later, to let Outpost know that they were going to intercept the army from Wasolan on the border of the wastes. It was too late to tell them not to, so most of Outpost left again to join in.

The army from Wasolan was better prepared to deal with a settlement than they had been the last few times. They were just as unprepared to deal with persistent raiders as ever.

One of the many functions of a society is to instil a kind of paranoia in its members. The exact form of that paranoia varies from society to society and even person to person. But it can broadly be described as fear of standing out.

In the case of slaves, under threat of execution if they turn on their owners, there’s a good bet that the paranoia is a bit more severe. This had created an observable pattern in those slave soldiers freed from Wasolan: the more of them there were, the harder it was to make the collective decision to turn on Wasolan.

Combined, the forces from Altok and Haven outnumbered the free soldiers and overseers in the army sent to Outpost. Four hundred and fifty slave soldiers failed to make the collective decision to turn on the overseers at all.

This was advantageous only for Haven. It meant that the whole excursion took longer than intended for the soldiers from Altok. And it led to more of the slave soldiers being killed in the fighting than was ideal. Four days of skirmishes meant that the army was getting fairly close to Outpost by the time the slaves had been freed.

Very close to a thousand people trudged back to Outpost, once the fighting was over. The force from Altok were in need of rest. The situation was unchanged at Lookout, the siege was ongoing and there had been no fighting there.

Once they were back at Outpost, the soldiers from Altok explained the plan that they and Kzara had cooked up. A majority of Wasolan’s defence forces in the northeast were mustering to be sent to Altok. The skirmishers were going to hassle Wasolan’s settlements until either the army was force to retreat to defend them, or, hopefully, more troops were sent from the fighting with Kzara.

Some hundred of the freed slave soldiers decided to go with the skirmishers from Altok. A hundred more decided to go to Altok itself. Of the remaining two hundred, only about fifty took the opportunity to head to Haven or further east to get themselves out of the business of fighting. The rest were just about excited to stay in Outpost with Jules.

So far, Jules has not been nearly enough credit for being able to assume leadership of, thus far, more than five hundred soldiers hailing from a severely patriarchal society where women are essentially forbidden from fighting. And she would like you to acknowledge the immense power of her personality that made such a feat possible.

Jules and some of the Sand Crawlers stayed at Outpost while the rest of the skirmishers headed back to Lookout. They were planning to help Altok with both the army headed their way and the raids on Wasolan’s settlements. Jules wanted the time to work on all her new soldiers.