>From the Secret Diary of Sir Balroqayn, captain of the Tirmaeiri Rangers (retired). Discovered in his private correspondence and papers in 1520 by his descendents, and shared with Society of Scholastics researchers. The southern Midsea, sometime in 1453. I write this not knowing what month or day we are in, nor where we are. My navigator assures me are but a month away from Port Kaeir, but my eyes recognise any of the stars, and the waters seem strangely coloured. Needless to say, our mission to the South was a disaster, though it had started with such good and strong omens and prospects. Almost nine-tenths of the first two squadrons are lost, and half the Rangers dead. We set out from the Noble Green Republic three squadrons of ships and forty companies of Tirmaeiri Rangers (some thousand men) strong. We sailed easily to the South, where the 1^st and 2^nd Squadrons sailed to Sedonia, and we accompanying the 3^rd Squadron sailed east. Few of us, knew the exact nature of the mission charged to the 3^rd Squadron. Strange as it was, it seemed relatively simple. Overwhelm a small band of goblins, and bring them back to the Republic. After another month of sailing, our scout ships located a small, easily defended peninsula on the Tana-Videssia border, surrounded by rocky hills and a single ravine that followed a small river into the tablelands further inland. Establishing our camp there, the ships prepared to scout further along the coast when a terrifying storm struck, pushing the entire squadron away into the deep sea. Assuming the squadron would return when the weather calmed, we began to carry out operations (little did we know that the squadron was beset by a most demonic storm for months on end, unable to find good weather or safe harbour). The Ten Companies, the famous Ranger scouts under Captain Quetzal van Kiviri, set out almost immediately to conduct scouting operations deep inland. Quetzal sent back regular reports, allowing us a complete picture of the disposition of goblin forces and humans in the region (or so we thought). Quetzal identified several villages in the tablelands east of us, and on that basis the main body of the Rangers began moving in conduct the lightning raids that would gain us the required goblin captives. I myself led the main body of the Rangers east, our troops and horses in good health and ready for the combat ahead. However, almost immediately problems beset us. Contact with Quetzal was lost, and without Quetzal's intelligence, the troops began to become nervous. Food began souring, and men and horses began falling ill. The night before our planned raid, we were camped in the dark in the hills above a large (but outnumbered) goblin camp that Quetzal had located a month before. Despite the normal difficulties, things were going according to plan. It was in the wee hours of the morning, as we moved into position for our dawn raid, however, that things went horrifyingly wrong. Suddenly the short horn blast of engagement was heard from the left flank, then the right, the vanguard, and then, worst of all, the rear. The sound of combat soon was heard all around - the clash of metal, the grunt of fighting, and the cries of the wounded and fallen. At that point I saw the my long-held suspicion that the prohibition against magic was foolish, made fact. Balls of green and red fire flared in all directions, consuming whole companies of men in their hellish maws, filling the air with the stench of roasted flesh. I soon became aware, from my central position, of a sound that overlayed all others, a horrible bone-chilling sound like a thousand drums and a thousand howling infants. As the sun rose, I realised our true predicament. The valley below was filled with horde of nightmare creatures and twisted impersonations of mortals, whose numbers had crept under the cover of darkness to cover both our flanks in a pincer movement. Never had a reconnaissance report been so wrong, I must remind my sword-brother Quetzal he needed his re-drilled into him, in a short-lived thought. Yet our rear was not completely surrounded, and grasping at the opportunity I called a general retreat. Horns blaring, I galloped ahead to lead the rearguard in the push through the thin goblin lines at the back, breaking through them after a long, bitter hour. Finally able to break away from the slower enemy, we returned to our base camp after many days of hard riding, and began to reinforce our field fortifications. Of the twenty-five companies that had left the main camp (some 625 men), only fifteen companies had made it back. Of the Ten Companies, no news was to be had at all. They were presumed lost. A day later, the goblins attacked, pushing us back down into the ravine after days of bitter fighting, where we finally held them. Rumours abounded of foul creatures that stalked the darkness between campfires, and of spirits that tormented the dreams of sleeping men. Thankfully, the Rangers had never been taken in by the Millati preachers, and a few older warriors knew enough priest-lore to craft amulets, charms and wards to protect our dreams from these wraiths. My own dreams though, properly nightmares, seemed to lack all such protection, as they were of an endless black river that led into a black sea, and of my lost sword-brother Quetzal, his body trapped beneath evil black waters. For months we fought, unable to escape for lack of ships, unable to flee for the besieging demons. The ravine river began to run black, its waters tasting foul, and causing any who drank it to grow ill and die. Miraculously though, the spring around which the camp had been established remained pure, its waters holding off the foul blackness that flowed from the ravine and out to sea. Many men reckoned it to be a sacred spring, and indeed it seemed blessed, its waters capable of healing wounds and keeping infection at bay. This was our sole source of hope in these dark months, as we held the goblins off by the thinnest thread (though to my mind now it seems they were tormenting us, for my scouts told of a multitude of goblin warriors vast beyond our own numbers at the other end of the ravine). And then the ships were sighted. Far off, on the edge of the horizon, those noble ships of green sail could be seen. Yet for weeks they remained just that, gradually coming closer, but never close enough. This hope was short-lived though, as the goblins made a push against us the like we had not encountered. Waves of demonic warriors mounted on steeds of savage giant wolves hit our lines again and again, an inexhaustible supply of evilness against our very finite number of troops. Worse still, reports came in of lost sword-brothers spotted amongst the goblin ranks, their skulls split upon and their throats slashed, yet bearing arms against their own sword-brothers. Soon our lines broke, and goblins poured in through the ravine, over our lines, and we retreated back to our final line of defence. When all hope was lost, a final ray of light pierced the darkness. From the rear of the goblins came the roar of a Tirmaeiri horn, followed by the roar of many of its kin. Thundering through the ravine and into the rear of the goblins came the lost Ten Companies, the green banners of their lancers flying high as they charged the enemy (though only 8 actual company banners could be seen). At the head charged Captain Quetzal, his naked body covered in twisting black markings, and riding the most foulest goblin-wolf I'd seen so far, hacking his way through the enemy. The enemy panicked, with the goblin archers and shamans at the rear quickly falling to the Scouts. Taking advantage of the confusion, I ordered the surviving troops to make a renewed push at the confused enemy, who broke under the two-way pressure, whole sections fleeing back up the ravine. Wherever Quetzal had been, he had come at the right time. The goblins were routed, and our lives temporarily safe. Those pitiful few men who had survived, cheered for Quetzal and his Ten Companies. Minutes later, a shout went up from the shore. The ships, so long on the horizon, were now suddenly only a kilometre away. The cheering, already hearty, was renewed twicefold as we realised not all of us were fated to die in this accursed place. By next morning, all of us, the health and wounded, the sane and insane, were loaded on the ships. And as we waited for the sailors to complete preparations to set sail, the goblins returned to the camp, burning all that we had left behind. The journey back to Kaeir was only marginally less weird and terrible. After a month, we met up with the shattered remnants of the 1^st and 2^nd Squadron, and their tales of fearsome sea monsters that had eaten ships whole. All this time I had watched Quetzal, who had been talked little of what fate had befallen his Ten Companies. What he had told me, and what I had picked up from some his men, was that shortly before our planned assault on the goblin camp, Quetzal and his men had been ambushed by a large force of goblins and taken prisoner. Quetzal and his officers were held separately from the rest of the men, though both were moved further inland, where the Scouts realised a terrible fate awaited them. Imprisoned in muddy pens at the base of a great mound, the men of the Ten Companies watched as one by one they were slowly led up the hill to meet presumably grisly ends in weird night-time rituals that glowed sickening colours of red and green. Every three nights meant another dead Scout, presumably at point of a shaman's dagger. According to Quetzal, after three months, or after thirty men as he put hit, it was Quetzal's turn. Hauled before a dozen wizened goblins, wearing cloaks made from the fur of their giant demon-wolves, Quetzal was tied spread-eagled on a gore-encrusted circular stone at the top of the great mound. Throughout the night the twelve goblins, now obviously shamans, danced, prayed and chanted, as they tattooed twisting, moving black spirals and sigils into Quetzal's skin, until their chanting reached a crescendo and the earth began to shake. Suddenly, blinding white light pierced the all-embracing dark clouds and dispelling the reddish glow that had hung in the air. The earth split open, swallowing the shamans, and loosening the pegs that held Quetzal to the ground. Pulling himself free, he tore down the mound to the cages that held his Scouts, where many had become free, their cages shattered in the tremors. Quickly freeing the others, Quetzal and his men realised the goblins had fled, leaving the Scouts' horses (save for a good two dozen that had been eaten) and weapons. After gathering what edible supplies they could find, Quetzal and the Ten Companies took to their steeds, retracing the path the they been transported along. For almost a week the travelled westward back towards the coast, not encountering a single soul, human or otherwise, until they came upon goblin campfires at the mouth of the ravine that led to our camp. That was what Quetzal told me. However, the man who led the charge that saved us was not the same sword-brother I had said farewell to when he left to go scouting. Something was..... different. Not Quetzal. And not only Quetzal. All of his officers were strangely different, and I soon noticed that they were avoiding contact with the other Rangers. Perhaps it was the trauma they experienced at the hands of the demonic shamans. Perhaps, as war is hell, and always has been, and what they went through was definitely a grade worse then the normal. But there was something undefinable, unnameable that unnerved me, something in their.... behaviour. Balroqayn van Ayn, Crownsbane Keep. ================================ Confidentiality Statement and Disclaimer ================================ This message is intended only for the use of the individual or entity to whom it is addressed and contains information that is privileged and confidential. 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