Diamond Tiger

Arrival at the Western Front

From the margins of the Annals
Ichikara vel'Ashkal, Shin'zeni Legionnaire

The Rift behind us

The Hozelbrucke went up behind the last outrider, carrying the Ember Wolves and most of our remaining specialists; and for a while that was the only light. Nobody cheered, a single mission's success doesn't change this nightmare into a victory. Torb Agnasen, the Marshal, stood in the rain at the stern of the Moon's Rupture until every legionnaire was back aboard, and the mission craft - Firebrand and Dragonfly - were safely stowed, his one eye on the south the whole time. The dead aren't fast, but they are patient climbers.

The old Lorekeeper did not come back from Ettenmark. The Annals did, in three sealed chests, iron-bound and treated to resist all but the hottest fire. The new Lorekeeper is a dwarf, Uzdrin Larmuk, and I do not understand the choice. Not much is known about the dwarves, but it is well known that his people do not keep histories. They say the past is a thing to walk away from. I asked him why he took the post. He said somebody has to remember, and he doesn't forget. Then he asked me how my leg was hurt, and which hour, and which ship was burning on my left when it happened, and wrote none of it down. He bids me draw what I see, for the books. He says paper is for when he is dead; then went back to his library, memorizing every word of the Annals by candlelight. Four hundred and forty three years of history.

The shallows

Two days north the field turns patchy, and the flagship crawls. Wreck-reef under the leaves: hulls from the battle here three years ago, Alberetoran, Lyastran, and whatever horrors the Cinder King brought, grown over. You can hear Moon's Rupture's keel scrape. Loaded down with as much as we could scavenge during the route, and any soldiers we could rescue - she rides low in the thrash. The Horned One stood at the prow through all of it and did not speak, and did not flinch as Quinn tended to her wounds. She is younger than my sister. The crew avoids looking at her and then cannot stop.

At night the sky to the southeast is orange. That is Karlsburg Tallshank, the old capital, still burning, its glow thrown back down off the clouds. Above it hangs Selia full, despite her broken pieces - the ruptured moon, our flagship's namesake. The sailors bare their heads for her in the old superstition. Werewolves cannot hide their curse under the light of Selia - whether that's still true, who can say? Nobody looks at her long.

Holrook's Spit

The center of the Western Front is a leviathan's spine and ribs rising out of the Thrash, the gaps between the bones stopped with ironwood and slag, with several dozen rough buildings constructed within the massive cavity all stacked one on top of the other and walkways narrow enough that there are places an ogre simply cannot fit. The Eastern armies built it on their way to Ettenmark. Salvagers descended on the area as soon as the Armada sailed, and took what could be pried loose from the outer defenses. Most of them are wise enough to not tear apart their only defensible position, though not all of them. What is left is walls with holes in them, a dock long enough for the flagship, and the men who stayed.

There are not many. They watched us tie up and did not come down to help with the lines. They know what the Legion is. Behind them, the refugees from the west, who are afraid of soldiers, ours and theirs, and are right to be.

The officers at work

The Commander, Hakim al-Ghadeer, went ashore first, shaven and in a clean coat, as if this were a port call. He found whoever passes for the fort's command and spoke to him a long time. I could not hear it. I could see the other man stop arguing.

Amed Gredfol, the Quartermaster, was already counting. In his reds and saffrons he is the only color on the Spit, and every salvager on it saw him. Half came to sell him what they pried from the surrounding hulks.

I did not see Cerardo Vesci, the Spymaster, go ashore. I only noticed later that he had been among the refugees for an hour, and that one of the fort's sergeants would no longer meet anyone's eye.

The Lorekeeper remained cloistered in the library.

The first night

The dead came after midnight. Not an assault. A few shapes in the smoke beyond the barricades, testing one place, falling back, testing another. The fort's men say it has been this way every night, and every night they come a little closer to where the wall is weakest, as if someone is keeping notes.

There are a few days of food here for the few who hold it. More for us, if the Quartermaster bargains well. In the dark corners they are talking about leaving, all of them, and they look at our ships when they say it.

The Legion waits while the command take stock of what we've lost, what remains, and where we go from here. We know the Legion has been down before. We're down just over forty soldiers now.

The Mission

• The Ghost Owls
  • Hakim Emza (Zalj-Daru)
  • Heqet, Who Silenced the Grave-Thief (Khemtari)
  • Kichi kes'Rashkarel (Shin'Zeni)
  • Nebmaatre, Bead Marked (Khemtari Changeling)
  • Tonal Quietstone (Xochitlani)
• Quinn (Changeling Medic)
• Snarler Blackbrow (Ogre Heavy)
• Ratisl Yelkaovich (Alchemist)
• The mission craft dropped the squad off at the entrance to the long path through the Tangle which leads to the shrine. It runs along a broad bough of the ironroot, and is well marked with lanterns, with a simple rope strung along each side of the bough as the only defense against fallling.
• The squad hears large creatures in the tangle to either side as the entrance to the shrine is in view, and they charge ahead to the more defensible position. As they enter the shrine, Burned begin to swarm the path where they were.
• Burned are made by taking freshly killed or still-living people and impaling them on specially prepared sharpened branches. Near-perpetual summoned storms blast them with lightning, animating those impaled. Burned often give off sparks and minor shocks when struck, and unlike other undead, they are still warm inside.
• The Burned are the work of Breaker, and Breaker is also known to field mind-controlled living known as Hexed - so you don't know what to expect in the shrine.
• Snarler holds the door against the Burned while the rest go in
• Elarissa Calmesh is seen with her hands on the blight afflicting the ironroot.
• A dozen or so people remain clustered about the small shrine.
• Quinn attempts to convince them to leave, makes some progress, some are willing to go, others not so much.
• We run out of time, so Elarissa succumbs to the blight, and turns into an Abomination, a very abbreviated fight and the Abomination is put down, with only Snarler taking a wound.

Next Session

Secondary Mission

You'll choose one of the two remaining missions to run as the Secondary Mission, we'll roll the dice and see what happened. This is relatively quick

Back at Camp

• Soldiers hold a remembrance for the fallen.
• A young soldier is detonating munitions, egged on by others.
• Storms darken the skies. Rumors and wild speculation spread.
• Supply crates go missing, but no one admits to knowing why.
• A squad talks about home, and asks their captain about theirs.
• Your Chosen has fallen silent and refuses to speak to anyone.

New Missions

I'll send an email with the next batch of missions when I generate them