back to the Index, or to Chapter 36:  Edgehall Part II

Chapter 37

Edgehall, Part III

9:30 Dragon, 28th Day of Guardian

     Weather:  in the morning, the heavy clouds produced rain around dawn, then hail and eventually snow. After noon, the skies cleared but the temperature dropped; frigid temperatures continued into the evening. Storm clouds gathered after sunset, and heavy rain fell in the late night.

     Landon awoke having had a dream of the elven Keeper named Maven, who had lived near Red Crossing in the time of Athras. He now knew how to cast the spell Ensnare. He and various "chirurgeon's assistants" continued rolling bandages, and brewing up Lesser Healing Potions and Lesser Lyrium Potions. The healing potions were mostly distributed to the troops; Our Heroes kept the lyrium potions for use in the coming battle.

     All through this day, the forces of the allied banns and mercenaries moved across the frozen landscape, converging on the wide plain containing Edgehall. After sunset, the Dalish elves under Alora's command began locating and (eventually) destroying the Orlesian scouts, sentries and pickets set out more than a mile or two from the castle. 

9:30 Dragon, 29th Day of Guardian

     Weather:  the continuing rain and frigid temperatures brought down many trees, overloaded with ice and frozen snow; the fallen trees made travel in the woods more difficult. This night was the dark of the moon; between the nasty weather and hidden moon, it was about as dark as dark could be in the countryside.

     Alora's elves continued to slaughter Orlesian sentries and scouts. A few hours after midnight, the Dalish elves, and some hardy Fereldans, gathered to the west of the Orlesian camp, and launched a diversionary raid on the tents and corrals.

the gap in Edgehall's defenses

     Meanwhile, a group of eight brave souls crept up to the castle walls unseen and charged into the breach in the west wall. Bran, Griff, Landon, Alistair, Alpheus, Travis, Eornan and Andra were immediately engaged by Orlesian chevaliers and militia!

Edgehall

     Bran and Griff destroyed the two intricate Orlesian ballistas mounted in wooden towers, while Alistair, Eornan, Andra and Landon engaged the enemy around the towers. Alpheus and Travis scuttled stealthily around to a stable, intent on hiding within the castle until needed for the assault.

     Our Heroes were successful (although Alpheus had difficulty hiding himself from the Orlesians, spotted and pursued into a stable where he and Travis discretely dispatched the unfortunately perceptive Orlesian), and leaving Alpheus and Travis ensconced within the Edgehall stable to wait until dawn, the Fereldens retreated back across the snow-covered fields to safety in the woods, a few miles away. The raid by our speedy Dalish elves and Fereldan woodsmen had killed some Orlesians and driven off or captured some horses -- but more importantly it disturbed the Orlesians morale putting them on unsettled alert through the wee hours of the morning. White-clad enemies came out of the darkness and cut throats, retreating when confronted by heavy troops, only to appear somewhere else around the camp!

     Just before dawn, the Fereldan forces crept silently towards the west side of the castle, waiting in the snow flurries for the signal. A smaller group, led by Our Heroes, approached the gatehouse in the north wall.

Ils sont à la porte! Aux armes!

     At the appointed time, the secreted Alpheus and Travis opened the main gates, and we sprang into action! Bran, Griff and Alistair rushed first into the bailey, roaring "All right, let's go!", "For Ferelden!", and other inspiring / taunting / intimidating phrases. Eornan, Landon and Andra followed up immediately behind them.

     The Orlesians were clearly expecting some sort of trouble that morning -- Our Heroes gave them two sets of trouble. At the same time the smaller group rushed in the main gate, the main body of the Fereldan forces attacked the camp outside the western wall of the castle.

     Griff and his son rushed onto the stairs of the former citadel, and were engaged by some elite chevaliers and guards; Alistair made a grand display of sword-and-shield work to one side of the gate; Landon, Eornan, Alpheus, Travis and Andra found themselves in a swirling melee between the gate and the citadel as many Orlesian militia closed in around them. In an ill-fated central location, Travis quickly realized he was in far over his head; badly wounded within moments of the battle's inception, he slipped behind the open gate to avoid being slaughtered (and as his luck continued to hold, he found himself out of range of at least one Group Heal).

Lisa, just out of interest -- what level is Travis? Don't gotta answer, of course. (Michael)

Travis is 8th level - but this is what happens when you put your skills into Etiquette, etc., rather than martial ones.

If he is some cut throat assassin like you folks suspected, I think he did a fantastic job at keeping that secret.

     In less than a minute, we learned that the Orlesian Enchanter, Julien, was on the wall above the gate, guarded by some militiamen and the noted chevalier Richard until Julien instructed him to join the fight. Julien remained up there, unharmed until Andra, noticing the mage was undefended scaled the ladder to punch him repeatedly keeping him stunned and out of the fight until some of the other militia came to his aid. She retreated artfully as she lept to the top of a tent and slid safely down the back. Richard only took the ground briefly, but was quickly recalled to his duty by a militia man on the wall, and he returned to protecting the mage.

     Five minutes of terrific combat passed; the steps leading up to the citadel ran with Orlesian gore. Landon cast the Shock and Lightning spell several times; Alpheus used Mass Heal and Mind Blast to impressive effect dropping five men at once. Bran and Griff cleared the citadel of enemies, and turned back to descend the steps into the bailey.

     The Orlesians around the gate and citadel were slain or driven off (except for those protected by chevalier Richard); but hundreds of them remained at the west wall and in the camp outside. As Our Heroes regathered and prepared to join the battle at the west wall, a rider galloped into the main gate -- an injured Fereldan man, on a panicked, exhausted horse.

     Griff grabbed the horses reins and calmed the beast; the rider was bann Kail, clearly tainted by darkspawn attacks. Kail gasped, "Thousands of darkspawn ... they're coming ... a day away at most." Bran went immediately to the west wall, calling out for a parley with chevalier Corbin. While Bran was away, Alpheus determined that Kail was dying, with no chance of recovery ... the mage did the needful thing.

     Meanwhile Bran told Corbin, "We have a bigger problem -- bann Kail rode in, he's dying of the darkspawn taint, and an army of darkspawn are twenty miles from here. We need to hold a council!"

     The truce and cease fire was called for at 7 a.m.. Arl Gell was not present -- he had fled north during the morning siege.

     Triage began almost immediately. Funeral pyres began to be prepared shortly after; this grisly task was primarily overseen by the local Edgehall Chantry. 

     Initial gathering and parley with the Orlesians and Banns took about 30 minutes before decisions were made and messages started being written. The most urgent actions were sending couriers to the various bannorns and the Arl of Redcliffe; along with Dreamsendings to Duncan, Sextus and Erin back at Hounds Hall. Travis added a note to Corbin's missive back to Orlais.

     Work on the broken wall resumed in earnest. Dwarf masons who previously insisted on 'solid construction,' relented in consideration of the coming darkspawn horde. With round-the-clock exhausting work, the wall would be finished in a couple of days. It would have gone faster if it wasn't so darned cold and wet as nothing wanted to set or dry (this was not a dwarf's ideal environment to work in -- wet and cold were not common problems in Orzammar). Corbin's people had been hearing this complaint for weeks and knew that no matter how loudly you yelled at the dwarves (or use other incentives), there didn't seem to be any way to make them go faster -- and in light of the crew's very lives now being on the line, their complaint may well have had merit all along. 

     Cursory attempts were made to repair the ballistas. One could be fixed, the other (that Griff smashed spectacularly) was be too much trouble to mend.

     Parth returned home to coordinate affairs there, as it was only a eight mile journey (you did not travel that far to just be able to get a overview of Edgehall -- that was about three miles). He intended to return after sunset this same day to help. He left all but a handful of his men at Edgehall during the day.

     Lanya and her wounded and walking wounded headed north back to her bannorn. They intended to evacuate the people of her bannorn towards Jader but would probably not be allowed to stay there, and it was likely they would have to continue to West Hill on Ferelden's Storm Coast. Her bannorn, already depressed, did not have much to offer the Edgehall defenders but they still managed to send a hundred blankets, two dozen barrels of grain, a couple hundred pounds of dried fruit and three dozen small bottle/jars. These provisions arrived late in the evening.

      Griff headed home to Honnleath, with the intent to stop at the Rutherford's keep. He may have taken the advice of moving his people into the Rutherford's as their hold was considerably better fortified then the Helwyr properties, and May Rutherford (Cullen's older sister) was hardly in any position to defend it herself.

      Bryton choose to stay at Edgehall and allowed his bailiff and people to coordinate the evacuation of his bannorn.

      Alora returned to her band. Her final decision as to whether her band would stay to fight against the Horde, she promised by dusk.

      Alistair insisted that the fallen Orlesians' equipment be redistributed to those who live. Commander Corbin was initially very opposed to this idea but eventually relented when he witnessed the condition of the equipment for most of the Fereldan 'forces.'

on to Chapter 38:  Edgehall Part IV