Axe-bite and ploughshare

What was Liathaven

The Jotun have dubbed it Ashvale, but the Empire knows it best by the name the Navarr gave it long ago. Liathaven, the haven of Liath. It has been two-and-a-half years since the orcs of the west claimed Liathaven. The trods are still intact - repaired in the depths of Winter and of little interest to the barbarians. Since that last foray of Imperial heroes into the depths of the forest there have been a few skirmishes but little more. In the seasons that followed, the Jotun transformed the territory into a place of industry and sanctuary.

The sanctuary has now been threatened. A great host of Imperial soldiers comes roaring south from the Marches, and north from their recent victories in the Lasambrian Hills to test the complacency of the Jotun, to reclaim Liathaven, and to rip the barbarians' place of refuge asunder.

The Imperial Host

Seven Imperial armies meet in the Mournwold, in Green March. Three armies of Wintermark are here - the Green Shield, the Bloodcloaks, and the Narwhal's Spear. With them come the orcs of the Autumn Hammers, both the Drakes and the Bounders of the Marches, and the Highborn soldiers of the Seventh Wave come from the liberation of the Mourn to fight the Jotun in their lairs.

All save the Seventh Wave and the Drakes have been granted supernatural clarity by the Highborn Coven of Barabbas, which binds them together and helps coordinate their conquest of the Jotun woodlands. There is an implacability to the Imperial strategy as they move out of Green March and into Liaven’s Glen. The Seventh Wave and the cunning Narwhal’s Spear lead the way, scouting ahead to identify the best places to fight, weighing the foe and the unfamiliar land. It has been years since Imperial scouts have made a full accounting of Liathaven and a lot can change in that time. The Winterfolk mediators ensure that the two groups of scouts, with very different approaches, complement one another rather than conflict or cover the same ground. The unconquered efficiently take care of the Jotun watch-posts and far-patrols, delaying news of their approach as long as possible.

Behind them the Marcher armies form the steady core of the host, with the Mourn at their backs and the Jotun ahead, they are careful to eschew risky tactics, or those that would lead to unnecessary loss of life, in pursuit of spilling enemy blood. No Marcher soldier is far from a healer - for the first time there is a significant contingent of Marcher orc physicks and magical healers marching beside their human neighbours in a major campaign beyond the borders of their nation. There is a grimness to the former thralls, a sobering contrast to the more genial face they show when they are at home.

Even without their own chirurgeons, the Marchers and the Highborn are well supported by the Bloodcloak woundbinders. Some of the army lags a little behind the advance, establishing field hospitals and supply points. The rest - the bravest Wintermark healers and their mighty shield-guardians - mirror the oaths of the grimnir and separate into champion bands to accompany each of the other Imperial forces bringing their herbs and mana to bear to ensure that nobody who could be saved perishes needlessly. Wherever the Bloodcloaks are found, there two are the proud warriors of the Green Shield. More than the other Winterfolk armies, they choose to fight with honour, to show the Jotun that they are a foe not to be underestimated, but one that understands the highest calling of heroism and the restraint that prevents soldiers becoming butchers. They share their understanding of the Jotun with their allies, and nobody in Liathaven this season can be left in any doubt that Wintermark has sent true champions to fight against the orcs of the west.

Then, in the rear (for now), come the Autumn Hammers. The orcs are slow not because they are cowardly, or laggard, or lack the spirit for the fight. They are slow because they lug with them truly massive siege engines, and wagonloads of lumber harvested from the woods of Alderly. Everyone knows the Jotun have fortified their stolen land here, and so the Unshackled have drawn up contracts with the City of Fire and Stone to lease powerful tools of war with which to batter the orcs’ strongholds. Three of the chainbound Lictors accompany the army; they do not speak often and simply observe a guarantors of the agreements between the Imperial Orcs and the cities of the Iron Labyrinth.

Seven armies, then. More than thirty thousand soldiers of four nations. With them come another seven-thousand or so warriors fighting under command of the Empire’s free captains. Most march with the Hammers - the only army here that has been deemed worthy to receive the Imperial Guerdon - but a handful of loyal Marcher yeofolk stubbornly fight alongside the Drakes. Tom Drake would be proud.

In Liaven’s Glen

Liaven’s Glen is the easternmost part of Liathaven sandwiched between Kahraman, Mournwold, and Bregasland. To the west, the beauty of Liath’s Ring and the horror of Liath’s Heart. There are some among the Navarr who believe that this might have been the first place truly cleansed of the vallorn’s fell influence by the descendants of Terunael. Records are uncertain. Two hundred years before the foundation of the Empire, the children of the fallen empire struck against the doom that devoured their ancestors and were victorious. Nearly six hundred years after that first blow, the Empire marches into Liathaven to strike against a very different foe.

Some of the Imperial armies have fought in the forests of Liaven’s Glen before. There are murmurs of surprise at how changed the place is. Once, this was untempered woodland scattered with steadings and the trails of the stridings. Beautiful, but mysterious, a far cry from the farmlands of the Marches, the alpine peaks of Skarsind, the rugged splendour of Hahnmark, wilder even than the deep woods of Casinea or Reikos. The trees are still here, but they have been tamed, brought to heel. Great swathes of forest have been cleared. Trees six or more centuries old are simply gone, not even their stumps remain. In the place of the steadings, there are farms and villages. In place of the Navarr, there are Jotun thralls. There are orc logging camps as well, but it would have taken decades or centuries to clear this much wood by axe alone - this is clearly the scar left on the woodlands by the touch of Shikal. There is no sign of the brass-skinned heralds of Estavus here, but evidence of their handiwork is everywhere.

The open ground makes stealth next to impossible; the good work of the Narwhal’s Spear and the Seventh Wave can delay the alarm being raised but cannot prevent it. Within a handful of days the first engagement with the Jotun takes place. There are Jotun armies here, taking advantage of the many benefits provided by the rich woodlands to resupply and recover before joining the fray once more. The scouts and hunters count three distinct forces - the prideful Mandowla’s Roar, the grim Shield of the Mountains, and the war-hungry Bear Who Swims - eager to engage the Empire’s advance. They are joined in time by the first stragglers from the Iron Host, who it seems may have been deployed further west on business of their own (or more likely, guarding against any incursion from Bregasland).

As always, the Jotun relish the opportunity to fight. At first they are cautious, but when it is clear that the Empire is prepared to face them in a glorious battle, they fall to the fray with enthusiasm. The presence of the Green Shield is marked and welcomed; the opportunity to contend against Wintermark, and the Imperial Orcs relished and if there are Marchers and Highborn here… so much the better. Some of the orcs seem keen to seek out and face champions of the Empire - those whose banners, or livery, they recognise are singled out by the Jotun warbands who show their respect by doing their level best to kill those they recognise.

The orcs are not foolhardy, however. They may have been expecting a season of recuperation and rearmament but they are not shy about defending Ashvale from the Imperial trespassers. They test the invaders, pitching battle where they feel they can win, and falling back when they feel the odds are too heavily stacked against them.

The Empire knows there is a castle here in Liaven’s Glen, a great fortification whose construction was overseen by the master siege engineer Igya Olgafsdottir (now Jarl of Tromsa since the Empire slew her father in battle). It was raised with the aid of the ‘’Immovable One’’, the ‘’Mistress of Ice and Darkness’’ who it is said holds a particular regard for the champion-builder. It towers over what was once the Feni settlement of Hotter’s Mire, a somewhat ramshackle village built by those driven from their homes by the Empire. Now it is a Jotun town, and a prosperous one at that. It is here that the orc armies set their standards in the rich earth, and begin to fight in earnest.

The Siege of Schogsfestnir

The Autumn Hammers were wise to bring their siege engines with them; the winnowing of the forests would have greatly complicated the business of building catapults and trebuchets. Armed with the weapons of the Autumn Realm, however, they are ready to face the ‘’Schogsfestnir’’ full on and mar their white-granite walls with iron and stone. The devices of Shikal are machines, like any an Imperial soldier might be familiar with, but they were also born from the forges of Estavus and possess their own peculiar properties. Some seem to rearm themselves between shots; others make minor adjustments to the shot they launch, causing iron and rock to strike with the force of tempered steel.

While the engines pound the walls, the Drakes, the Bounders, and the Green Shield form up around a cohort of Unshackled armed with a mighty iron ram, covered by a canopy with the thickness of wool but the resilient strength of green iron and orichalcum. They push forward through the defenders, deploying the ram against the gates of what was once Hotter’s Mire. As arrows and spears rain down from above, the Winterfolk and the Marchers protect the engineers as they batter the mithril-bound oaken doors to splinters. Once the gates are down, the fighting shifts to the interior of the town itself.

It is a far cry from the winding streets and uncouth homes of the Feni - this is a Jotun town, with wide avenues and buildings of stone and carved wood, roofed with slate, and with the faces of the faðir and a dozen other ancestors gazing from every lintel and square. This is the seat of Jarl Sederholm, who has been given dominion over eastern Ashvale by the King of Narkyst. She and her warriors stand ready to repulse the Imperial assault, to make the faðir proud, and to secure their path across the Howling Abyss if it comes to that. Resplendent in mithril breastplate and a helmet fashioned in the visage of a shrieking raptor, armed with a long spear, she leads the garrison of the fortification into battle on the streets.

Neither side employs fire. Neither the Empire nor the Jotun seek to burn the town; there are too many thralls here, and it would be too dishonourable to endanger them unnecessarily. Fighting with honour comes at a cost, one that sometimes restricts the strategies and tactics one may employ. While the walls crumble, it is strength of arms that will win this battle one way or another.

The Jotun are outnumbered, but they battle furiously. They are pushed back, driven from their defensive positions, and each time they surge forward again like a wave. The Imperial strategy is to capture Liathaven, not to slaughter the defenders of Ashvale. The Jotun for their part are equally more interested in holding their ground than slaughtering these invaders.

The walls of Schogsfestnir are high and thick but they are no match for the Autumn Hammers and their borrowed weaponry. The castle is breached, and the fighting spills into the halls. The Seventh Wave have maneuvered themselves into position to pin down the garrison with a withering rain of black-feathered arrows, while the Narwhal’s Spear possesses an uncanny ability to locate pockets of resistance and scatter them. Before the sun has hit its zenith, the town falls. Jarl Sederholm sounds the retreat; there is nothing to be gained by sacrificing her life and those of the warriors under her banner in a futile attempt to hold a castle that has been overrun so completely. She gathers the surviving garrison and leads her fyrd in the retreat westwards.

Most of the thralls have fled; those who remain are numbed, uncertain, shocked by the defeat of their masters. They huddle together, eying the Imperials nervously. They are uncooperative at best, and neither the Autumn Hammers nor those orcs of the Marches that are here with the armies can get more than grunts or worried questions from them. Trying to get them to understand that they are free now proves challenging - and it is clear that if they are left to their own devices they are likely to follow after the armies rather than remain in Liaven’s Glen. A problem, perhaps, for another time.

Schogsfestnir has been breached, but it is not broken. The walls are damaged, and the gate shattered, but the fortified town still stands. A credit to the art of Igya Olgafsdottir and her patron, perhaps.

There is a day to regroup, to count the dead, for the injured to be restored by the Bloodcloaks and the other healers that march with the armies, and then the Imperial forces are on the move again, westward.

Beating Bounds

Or rather, most of the armies move westward. After a night of discussion, and poring over old maps, warbands of Highborn scouts and Winterfolk hunters split off from the main force and head north and south. Partly they do this to consolidate the Empire’s hold of Liaven’s Glen and to ensure there are no nasty surprises waiting in the remaining woods. Partly they do this to check those places of certain significance that lie in the region. A fair number of Bounders go north with them, keen to beat the border with Bregasland.

They find that beyond the walls of the castle, Liaven’s Glen is quiet. More of the same. Farms, timber yards, hunting posts, the homes of thralls. It is a little odd, at times, for those who have been in Liathaven before. It reminds some of the Marchers of what life was like in the Mournwold for thirty years or so. This is not a territory where the Jotun are at war - well no more than they always are - but a territory they have settled. The thralls seem mostly to be here by choice - they have not been forcibly resettled but when their Jotun masters chose to go east and civilise Ashvale they came with them. Like those in the town, they seem unsure how to act or what to do. They understand that the Empire offers them liberation - and some surely will take that offer and perhaps start new lives in the Marches - but the majority seem to expect to remain as thralls under the command of the Empire.

To the south, there are signs that the Jotun have taken steps to try and contain the vallorn of Liath’s Heart. There are odd effigies hanging from the trees, and rune-crusted poles thrust into the ground as one gets close and closer to the borders of the hateful forest. Some are warnings, others seem to draw on a Jotun hearth magic of boundaries and borders that might be familiar to Marchers or Varushkans. Regardless, there are fewer and fewer farms and timber yards as one heads south.

Liaven’s Dance - the great earthworks - remains intact which is more than can be said for the steading that once stood near it. The Navarr settlement has been converted into an armed Jotun camp, one that puts up a spirited fight against the Highborn, Marcher, and Winterfolk soldiers. They are defeated - but these orcs refuse to flee until the last moment. They seem to take the duty of watching over Liaven’s Dance extremely seriously. The earthworks are surrounded by a ring of poles and hanging effigies, similar to those that guard the approaches to the vallorn. It seems the Jotun may not have damaged the place - despite their clear hatred of the Navarr - but they nonetheless view it with a healthy amount of caution. There are signs it has been studied, likely by ghodi, but there are no sign of the Jotun priests in the vicinity.

Singing Moon

Westward, the Jotun continue to fight. Forced clash again and again. The going here is a little more difficult; the Jotun have cleared a great track that stretches between Schogsfestnir in the east and the burnt woodlands of West Ranging. Laid along its length like strange beads of stone and slate are two small logging towns, industriously carving away at the forest on either side. There are no signs of heralds here; the trees are cut by hand by the thralls and then ferried west and presumably across the border.

The first the Empire encounters is old Mournstead, where once upon a time Marcher landskeepers would come to speak with the Navarr. All sign of that steading is gone, now that the Jotun have come and built stone walls around the place it once stood. They have not touched the dolmens and monoliths in the wood, but hedged them round with their boundary markers and left them and the trees that still cluster around them, alone.

More fighting, more back-and-forth between the Empire and the Jotun. The season is wearing on, but the Imperial host is in the ascendant. For all their fierce pride, these Jotun soldiers were not expecting to fight this season; they thought themselves safe. The fact that they were recuperating in Liathaven means that they had suffered significantly in recent battles, their strength already depleted and the presence of the Empire means they must fight rather than resupply.

There is a distinct absence of champions as well, of the warrior-heroes that are perhaps the closest thing the Jotun get to the independent captains of the Empire. Their banners are conspicuous by their absence, the closest thing being the Jarl’s fyrd. Yet there are other unexpected participants in the fighting as the Summer Solstice draws near. The Feni arrive, although one could be forgiven for being entirely unaware of it.

Last Autumn, a warband of Jotun chased a group of Feni into Bregasland - the Moon-That-Sings, allies of the Prince with a Thousand Foes. The Imperial Advisor for the Feni responded to a plea for help and apparently dealt with the warband, granting succour to the Feni. They have not forgotten; they stand ready to help the Empire. One warm night, a quartet of green-and-yellow tattooed hunters materialise from the woods and make themselves known to the sentries watching one of the Bounders camps. They are skittish, ready to flee at any notice, but they are also resolute in wishing to see their messages delivered.

Rather than fight the Jotun it seems the Feni have fled into the wild places, and with the aid of their gods they have managed to stay hidden. They raid, a little, here and there, but they know that they are no more able to defeat the Jotun than they are to defeat the Empire. They expected Imperial troops to come from the marshes of the north, rather than from the east, but they stand ready to offer what aid they can in hopes of repaying the favour they owe. Long into the night they speak with the Bounders, and with commanders from the other Imperial armies roused swiftly from their beds. With the first rays of morning the Feni slip away, leaving behind them hastily drawn but up-to-date maps of the Jotun deployments, of hidden routes through the woods, or weak spots in the orc defences.

Before they depart, their leader - an older woman with one dark eye and one clear glass orb in place of the other - matter-of-factly explains that even if the Empire drive the Jotun out, Liathaven still belongs to the Feni. It is their home now. They will help the Empire drive out their mutual enemies as long as it does not risk their destruction, but the matter of who will be in charge of the glens and the farms that remain is by no means settled.

Victory

Armed with intelligence from the Feni, supplemented by the observations of the Imperial scouts, the fighting in Liath’s Ring is over within a matter of weeks. The Jotun are beaten back into West Ranging and the Empire follows. There at the border, though, the Imperial advance slows and halts. The woodlands are quickly consolidated, but the Summer Solstice is knocking at the door as the armies regroup on the western border of the Ring. Spread out to the east, the remnants of the burnt woodland that Surut created when he “aided” the Empire to fight the vallorn. The charcoaled trees are gone, the grass is green and lush, and on the wind comes the insistent grinding of saws and axes and the tinny sound of metal on metal. It seems that the servants of Estavus have not quit Liathaven after all.

But for now, there is a moment to catch breath and decide what to do next. The Jotun have paid dearly for their defence of Ashvale - perhaps three thousand dead between the warriors and the garrison of Schogsfestnir. Despite the best efforts of the healers, there are more than fifteen-hundred Imperial soldiers who will not fight again. The battle in Liathaven has been won, but it is unlikely the Jotun will surrender this rich territory without a fight.

Spring turns to Summer, and while the Empire may have won this round the fight for Liathaven is very far from over.

Game Information

The Empire has claimed Liaven's Glen, Liath's Ring, and the fortification of Schogsfestnir The Jotun still control the territory

The Empire has captured Liaven’s Glen and Liath’s Ring from the Jotun. The western orcs still control the rest of Liathaven save for the vallorn heart; consequently they still have control of the territory.

Thanks to the precision of the Autumn Hammers and their leased siege engines, the Empire has also captured the fortification of Schogsfestnir and the surrounding town. It has been damaged and its walls breached, but Imperial Orcs soldiers are already taking up residence.

Jarl Sederholm has begun raising her fyrd which is estimated to be perhaps one thousand warriors strong. It’s not clear at this time if she is the only Jarl of Liathaven or whether there are other Jotun rulers in other parts of the territory; likely the scouts of the Seventh Wave and the Narwhal’s Spear will know more.

The “under-threat” quality of Liath’s Ring provided by the Moon-That-Sings did not, in the end, play a major role in this campaign. It would have provided a significant bonus if the Empire had attacked directly into Liath’s Ring, but obviously the situation in Bregasland made that impossible. Regardless, the Feni appear to have gone to lengths to indicate that they still consider themselves allies with the Empire at least to a degree.

Finally, it is clear to everyone that the powerful Winter curse that once hung over Liathaven - Wither the Seed - is no more. It appears that the Feni, with the assistance of one or more eternals, ended the curse.

Battle Opportunity

Imperial prognosticators have identified a major conjunction of the Sentinel Gate in eastern Liathaven during the Summer Solstice. They are still investigating the implications but there is a cautious suggestion it might involve both the Jotun and the Feni.