World Revolution

[Dracos]

Dracos nods, heading to somewhere he could address the storm riders and trying to get their attention (Blowing his horn if need be), before beginning.

"Storm-riders, hear me, in the last two days....fifteen thousand dreadmarch have fallen to our blades.  Victory twice has graced us!  Even in these dark hours, Hamar guides our blades to glory!  But this is not the end.  This is only the beginning.  We shall stand firm as we continue the fight against the darkness!  We shall march bravely and crush them, piece by piece until not a single dreadmarch soldier can be found along the lands!  Who among you will be the first to claim fifty heads of dreadmarch soldiers?  Who among you will be there, sword, spear, axe, or bow in hand as we take another Jotun head?  They will know we are here now.  They will hear our shouts of courage.  They will wonder where their troops went, their supplies.  Hunger will strike them and they will know the fear of dealing with the storm-riders!  They will come from the north and the south, but we will meet them, our courage unfaltering as our blades deal them death.  Now, we march north.  For as long as we can let us be the thorn of hunger in the side of the beast!  Let us tear their hopes of support down!"

Dracos

[Brian]

You raise a deafening cheer from the assembled storm-riders that can hear you.  The rest get the speech relayed to them, and still find it worth cheering about.  A good number of the men haven't even gotten kills yet, after all.

[Dracos]

Dracos, not one to let a good ruckus go unrewarded, leads the army north along the trenches, scouts ahead to try and find the next group along the enemy supply lines.

Dracos

[Brian]

You've reached the western fringe of the crescent-shaped mountain range at this point, and everyone thinks that hiding in the foothills for the next while would be fabulous.  There's a height advantage to survey the land, it's got hills you can hide contingents behind to rush oncoming forces ... and the wind blows up into the cloudy mountain tops, so you could actually have cookfires without worrying too much about the smoke.

[Dracos]

Dracos agrees, setting aside though some men to go through the area and assess the possibility of arranging defensive traps, just in case.  Until he hears more from the scouts he busies himself with overseeing the settling in of storm-riders, letting them enjoy the first warm grub in probably a while for lunch/dinner.

Dracos

[Brian]

Yeah, warm food is nice.  Defensive emplacements are pretty easy.  Some of the extra dead-weight wagons you've been hauling are broken into huge, nasty splinters of wood, which then make nice little icy pit-traps in every direction except a pass which gives you a height advantage, should you need to defend yourselves.  It's not perfect by any stretch, but it's a damn sight better than lying in the middle of a featureless plain that stretches as far as the eye can see.

[Brian]

You're not emplaced for too very long when Nathan returns, bringing a few non storm-rider guardsmen with him, and additional healers (which is going to be handy; one priestess alone has her hands full trying to look after some 30,000 men).  He's led past the defensive structures by Erik, and brought to you.

[Dracos]

"Greetings Friend Nathan, I see you've made well to do." Dracos greets Rez hardily.

Dracos
Probably misuses a word.

[Rezantis]

Rez raises a skeptical eyebrow, but nods.

"Didn't quite manage what we were planning, but yu take what you can get.  Did the rest of my men make it back?"

[Dracos]

"Aye.  And I'm glad to see you did as well.  Eaten and rested yet or not?"

Dracos

[Rezantis]

"No, not as yet.  Soon.  I'm actually not that tired right now."

Rez sighs.

"So, yes.  We headed south for several hours, but we ended up being spotted by advance scouts of the dreadmarch and they sent a two hundred and fifty strong force at us.  We probably could have evaded, but given that we weren't going to be able to do any damage I changed the plan and decided to see if I could convince them that the Stormriders were up to something to the SOUTH . . . apart from the fact that if we retreated they'd be able to follow us back here without much trouble.  So we set up an ambush - thankfully they were lead by an idiot -  and we managed to wipe them out completely."

Rez grimaces.

"And I got half of my men killed in the process, but I honestly didn't see a better option.  We took some supplies off their bodies to try and make any scouts think that we must have been operating from close by - then I sent my wounded north, and went east to lay a false trail indicating that our group had headed that way.  Ideally I wanted to lead the dreadmarch towards the fort, and think that a decent-sized group of storm-riders had been using that for their base of operations.  We ended up finding the actual inhabitants of the fort, and dragged them back here.  We did what we could to avoid pursuit, and I think we managed the distraction role fairly well, but we shall see."

"In any case, I left two men with orders to conceal themselves on the edge of the Dreadmarch Trench for two days, and if they saw a sizeable force moving north, to get here as fast as they possibly could.  I have no idea where they are or how they'll do, but I didn't have enough men to set up a line - and I figured that if they move north, since these people seem so unimaginative, they'll track along an area that's already packed hard as opposed to wading through thick snow.  Much faster that way."

[Dracos]

Dracos nods solemnly.  "I see.  Either way, take some time to rest Nathan.  No wearing yourself out so early in this mess."

Dracos turns to Erik.  "Any news from our scouts otherwise?"

Dracos

[Brian]

"Another caravan from the north," he reports.  "Less reinforcements, but ... they've got another ten thousand soldiers, and at least six Jotun with them.  I think they didn't plan for the possibility of any storm-riders attacking their supply-trains."  He frowns.  "Which seems strange, given that ... Markham's brother was apparently working with them.  They'd have to know we'd be out here, if he saw to it the Dreadmarch cut us off from the keep."

[Rezantis]

Rez muses, "They probably thought that the traitor would either succeed, where the storm-riders would head north and not cross near to their supply line . . . or if he failed, the stormriders would get to the keep. They probably didn't expect him to fail after successfully delaying us . . . Either way they'll realise their mistake very soon, but the longer it takes them the better. I hope Mattias hurries up and frees Eske."

[Dracos]

"Oh, the answer to that is quite obvious.  They knew where we were.  They knew where they planned on us heading.  I highly suspect had we made a direct route to the keep, we would've found ourselves in a planned out ambush with at least twice our numbers, more than enough to ensure that we'd be slaughtered to a man.  Why plan for us attacking their forces when they were expecting us to be demoralized and fleeing like dogs to a trap?  It'd be a waste of manpower that would be better used making sure the trap was unescapable.  What's more curious is how many soldiers they have.  The numbers are insane, ten thousand men per supply caravan?   Eh, no use complaining.  We need to starve them out, so, any good areas for ambush along the route they are taking?"

Dracos