Aris Cretu's Journal
Twenty Third of November, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War
We made it back to the northern outposts under cover of darkness and with our gunpowder wealth in tow. I find myself amazed that the Army of the Jeweled Cities has not yet taken them, if only to relieve the crowding inside Fort Westmarch. Then again, we of Ironbark did manage to lose almost three hundred men and the northern outposts when Clan Glacierheart assaulted them, and that fact was relayed obediently back to Sapphire at the time. So perhaps the General of the Army of The Jeweled Cities isn't dumb enough to stick his men into the same trap.
Shaman Mul seems to be doing better. She hasn't needed to cry on my shoulder any more, and seems less distracted most of the time. I don't think she'll ever get her old zest for life back, which is a minor tragedy in its own right. Oddly enough, she never seems cold. Heck, she's still wearing the same lightweight robes she was wearing when I met her back in October. I don't know if I should mark that down to her powers as a shaman or to something else. Since here elevation from Shaman Initiate to full Shaman (A ritual I was not invited to witness), she has been wearing a gold ring. I had thought it a wedding band of some sort, but perhaps it is a minor magical item granted to her as part of her mantle of office? I know little and less of such things. Magic and mantles of office for orcs that is, though orc wedding customs are also an opaque mystery to me.
As for the gunpowder we have spent the last three days in backbreaking labor to bring back with us, it is something of an embarrassment of riches. We have no cannons to expend it in, no way to dig worthwhile mines below Fort Westmarch to place a charge into, and I can think of no other way to expend it profitably. Perhaps we can use it to demolish the northern outposts, but that would also serve to remove bait from the trap set for the Army of the Jeweled Cities. We could try mining the outposts instead, but I'm not sure how we could detonate the charges at an opportune moment. I'm glad we have the gunpowder and the Army of the Jeweled Cities doesn't… but what are we going to do with it?
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Reth Nakima’s Journal
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Twenty Third of November, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War
My Platoon just got ordered to head back down the Westmarch Valley to Sapphire four days early. Wonder who the Lieutenant pissed off to make that happen? Or if the Logistics Corps decided they needed some extra bodies and we got 'volunteered' for the job? Not my place to ask why, only to do or to die.
Still it could be a lot worse, we…
[The page is obscured by a bloodstain]
Nine blazing hells, that was fucking close. My hands are still shaking. Someone killed the guy sitting right next to me. Crossbow bolt came in from somewhere upslope, tore right through the back of his head and out his mouth. I think his severed tongue bounced off of my shoulder. Drivers picked up the pace and the rest of us just got behind whatever cover we could as more bolts, arrows, stones, and even a javelin came in from what seemed like fucking nowhere. Probably rebels and raiders dug into whatever cover they could find, hid themselves at dawn and jumped us because we were the first caravan that passed them by. The drivers got the wagons out of there fast enough that there wasn't any real chance of a fight breaking out.
I'm starting to think that all bards are charlatans with silver tongues. There haven't been any battles in the Westmarch Valley, only ambushes and raids. So much for the glory of serving in the Army of Sapphire. It hasn't even been a week, I've been nearly killed twice, only seen a half-dozen or so rebels or raiders, and haven't even come close to killing a foe in honorable battle. The last is kind of hard to do when said foe discards all honor and refuses to meet in honorable battle. But I guess rebels and raiders don't have any honor any more. They only have their misguided cause and bloodlust to drive them.
Headcount just came in. Of eighty who set out from Sapphire, now only thirty-four remain. Honorless cowards these rebels and raiders may be, but they seem to be killing us just fine. There must be some way to strike at their source. We must push up into the Glacierheart Mountains, find their hidden fastnesses, and burn them out at the source. That will rip their hearts from their chests and leave them to freeze or starve in the cold embrace of winter. If Lord General Ochen will not do so before the snows begin to fall, then what hope do we have of winning this war?
I wonder what happened to that shipment of gunpowder we left behind? Looking back, we should have probably found some way to spoil it, or pull it away from the road and laid a long fuse. The rebels and raiders have shown no siege weapons, much less cannons, but who knows what deviltry they could get up to with that much powdered destruction? I only hope that they won't find a way to use it, or were unable to recover it.