Lord Ochen Shagari’s War Journal

Seventh of October, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War.

Sixty percent of the Army has assembled, with more formations reporting as in transit. The Logistics Corps are out in force, arranging the camp and drill grounds. Wagons are moving everywhere, and I have reports of at least six incidents of quartermasters fighting over organizational matters. I will need to sit down with all three Logistics Commanders and get standards set up and agreed upon. I wish I could delegate that task to one of my minions staff officers, but they are either too incompetent, or not of sufficiently noble birth and stature to command authority outside of the Sapphire command structure.

The siege engineers are also setting up their own encampment well away from the main encampment. The Logistics Corps started to complain, until one of the Gunners pointed out that storing gunpowder anywhere near the cooking fires, or any source of open flame in general, was a really bad idea. I didn’t know that we would be burdened with siege cannons, but Ruby sent a trio of them along. Sapphire and Opal brought along the lumber for far safer and more practicable catapults. I can’t complain overmuch however, given that the sheer sound of a ten-inch siege cannon firing is fit to send lesser men running. And the Ruby Gunners actually know what they are doing, and are taking all of the needed safety precautions, which should keep collateral damage to a minimum.

The first reports are starting to creep in from my scouts. Ironbark’s banner still flies over the Westmarch border fort, so they still hold the orc Clans at bay. This is good, for it means that they will still be taking attrition losses while I assemble the remainder of the Army and get everyone organized to march in the same direction on the same day. I do have to give some credit to Ironbark for continuing to hold despite reported losses of over thirty percent before all communications were cut off. Then again, they have nowhere to run to when it all falls apart on them, so perhaps I am giving them too much credit.

One thing that I have learned thus far is that armies do not march over land. They march over paperwork. Endless crates of forms, pallets of reports, and cartloads of ink stained bureaucrats infest the camp. I have half a mind to throw them all out, but the efficiencies that they produce are too valuable to be so casually dispose of. Fortunately I have little minions junior staff officers, useless twigs from aristocratic trees really, to delegate the most onerous paperwork to. And thank the gods for it, for I think I’d go mad, or at least fail to accomplish anything if I had to fill out all of it myself.

Shaman Initiate Mul the Feisty’s Journal

Eighth of October, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War.

These Records are Personal in nature, and separate from the Shaman’s Records. A place to put personal thoughts and fears down, but not make them part of the official Record. A journal, as Aris calls it. And there are indeed things that I wish to put down that should never be part of the official Shaman’s Records. I write them here in an effort to understand them, to put them down in the physical world where I will not forget or misremember them.

I heard Aris practicing a song the other night as I was staring at the Shroud Across the Stars. It was old, wild, free. There were no words that I could hear, but I felt it. And more unusual, the Shroud Across the Stars twitched several times while Aris was singing. Almost like a puppy cocking an ear to listen to wolf song on the wind. Since then, nothing has seemed quite real to me. War blades and clubs look hazy, shrouded in pre-dawn mist. Their handles feel like wool or rope, not leather and wood. My robes feel cold and rough, as if they were made of uncured hide instead of woven cloth. The runes that I am carving to make my divining set swim in my vision, as if they are fish in a fast flowing stream.

No one else seems to notice this. No one else can see the Shroud Across the Stars. No one else can hear the silence in the night, taste the blood on the wind. I am not sure If I am going mad, or if I am being driven to be so.

It all began with Aris singing that song in the silence of the night. I must ask him where he learned it. I must Know it. The Shroud is calling out for anyone who can hear it, and I am the only one who has felt its call. I do not know how I know this, but I am certain of it.

Aris Cretu’s Journal

Eighth of October, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War.

I have managed to get Shaman Koroc to begin to teach me Orcish. Initiate Mul is helping as well, and I have managed to not have another shoe thrown at me in the process, so everything seems to be going well for once. In turn, I have been helping Mul with her Common, but she is far better at that then I am with Orcish. There is still the matter of learning to read and write the Old Tongue from Innoch’s Logs and Shaman Koroc’s translations of them. He treats the whole process like some ritual, which I guess it might be for him. I can only hope that he will allow me to learn from his work.

I did make a practice pass at singing one of the songs that Lady SiDabolo taught me. It went well. Very well, actually. The empty mountains have great resonance. Or it might be that I’m used to the echoless sound of singing over the open sea. Out there, sound carries forever with nothing to bounce off of. Up here in the Glacierheart Mountains, there are plenty of things to create echoes. But the trees also eat up sounds in their evergreen needles, and there is always a background murmur of conversation from the camps.

Well, almost always. I followed Mul out near her stargazing hill, and that one dead-end valley is strangely quiet. It is as if the silence surrounds you and swallows you up. That place feels like one of the places of power the old songs speak of. It has that strange silence and stillness, the isolation from the rest of the world. It is untouched by any construction, unmarred by thinking peoples of any race. The very ground and air feel like they are ever so slightly shaking with invisible power. I suspect a spell caster or druid would be able to tell me more, but there are none about. Or if they are, then they do not know their own power.

I’ll ask Mul if I can follow her out to her stargazing place again tonight. It is a good place to practice.

Shaman’s Records

Eighth of October, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War.

Shaman Koroc the Singer of Clan Glacierheart recording

Something new is in the air today. I am not sure what it is, but I could feel it change late last night. It is as if something is calling out to me. I will set aside my translation work for the day and go find Mul the Feisty’s star watching hill again.

Addendum:

The hill has changed as well. There is a resonance in the air here, and the feeling that someone or something is watching, waiting. For someone or something, I do not know. Aris has been showing interest in the translation work. Perhaps I will show him to satiate his curiosity. And to take my mind off this place.

Chronicler Vian’s Log

Eighth of October, Seven Hundred and Sixty Ninth year since the Seminal War.

The Westmarch Valley fort is almost ready for the coming war. Most of the civilians have been moved back into the mountains. The food has been stripped down to send everything we can spare with them. The Orc warriors are taking well to the drills we have instituted. They are eager for this coming fight, but they are more eager to learn about how the Pikes, as they call us, fight. Warlord Elder Otab the Old in particular has come up with a few new wrinkles. In particular, his insistence on scouts and skirmishers being able to use more of their own initiative within guiding orders. Warlady Elder Vuggie the Vivid showed us what that meant during the fighting up on the goat trails, so the Captain has authorized out scout leaders to start working on similar approaches. It will take some time and training, and in particular some personnel changes, before out skirmishers are comfortable working in such a structure and our line unit commanders are used to their doing so.

Ironbark and Glacierheart are starting to evaluate ways to slow down the approach of Sapphires army. We have a combat force numbering almost two thousand five hundred, but almost five hundred of those are scouts and skirmishers. We will have plenty of intelligence gathering opportunities, but two to five odds in pikes is starting to be a little steep for anyone’s liking. The good thing is that despite occasional clashes with mounted scouts, it appears that Sapphire’s army is still assembling. We will have plenty of time to harass them as they move up the valley.

And we could get even more time to grind their forces down in skirmishes and ambushes if we yield the fort. That is a strategy that is being discussed. It would mean giving ground, which some of the officers are not happy about. But it would also mean drawing our enemy into a trap. Give them the fort and the farms around it, stripped of all food, and then use it as an anchor tied to their necks. Once the snow starts to fly they will be forced to either retreat or fight. One part of me, the honorable and decent part, hopes they turn tail and run. The other part of me wants them to stay and fight, to bleed all of their strength into the snow, and leave the Jeweled Cities (and Sapphire in particular) crippled and weakened.

If we are to have a chance of winning, then this must not be a short war. We may not have the numbers to make it so, but we have the terrain, the cunning, and the planning to achieve just that.