To ruin
=======

A Fistful of Runes
------------------

At first the watchers on the cliffs of Visten believe it is a wave, a wall of water sweeping toward their shores; or perhaps a fogbank roused and motivated by powerful magic. Then the spyglasses of those in the towers reveal that it is neither. It is a forest of masts. An armada of Grendel ships. The alarm is raised, and as the news spreads quickly and the lights of the heliopticon flash their warning, the true scale of what is coming is made clear. All four Grendel navies are here - the Shamal, and the Simoom and the Tempest and the Golden Wind.

They bring the thunder with them; the beating of great drums, drums that keep time for those at the oars of the Asavean warships. The ‘’Leaping Bull’’, sunk during the failed attack on Meade, has been replaced and more than that. Along with ‘’Venger’s Blade’’ and ‘’Wind Tamer’’ and ‘’Balo’s Grace’’ come the ‘’Pilum Asav’’ and the ‘’Deep Fury‘’. Five Asavean battle-ships, each with its own small fleet of auxiliary ships clustering in its wake, bound together by discipline and the beat of the drums. Each of the five would be a force to be reckoned with; together they might be a match for an entire Imperial or Grendel navy. Together with the Grendel armada…

The runes click and clack and fall. Crossroads and swords and road.

They do not come with stealth - so many ships are a roaring stormfront - but they have swung out away from the shore as they arc westward, well out of reach of the defenders on the shore. The folk of Visten make ready for the attack as best they can - sentinels in the harbour, magicians versed in healing and in battle-magic behind - but the armada does not stop. It does not care for Visten, nor for the Ribbon of Salt. And, indeed, the waters around the bay where the spire sits are too shallow for all save the lightest Grendel warships to approach. Even as the soldiers of the Court of the White Fountain - already on alert - rouse themselves the ships are gone, curving around the reaching headlands of Tomari.

As the armada gathers speed there is the faint hope that the Grendel might intend to keep moving, to smash themselves into the teeth of Reumah’s Rest or the Great Chain. Yet there is a certainty, a foreboding, heavy in the hearts of the people of Elos as the harbingers of the heliopticon roar their alarm across Redoubt.

They come scything around Rebekah’s Leap, to the mouth of the lazy Couros, to Elos once more. Last time they attacked the port, they did so almost as an afterthought, on their way from Madruga to the Broken Shore. They were handed an embarrassing defeat by the combined force of the Citadel Guard, the Towerjacks, the Northern Eagle, and the combined garrisons of Cargo and the Court.

This time they seem fired up with a furious, terrible purpose. Everyone here knows what happened in Siroc, when last the Grendel and the Asaveans sailed together. Some folk retreat as the armada rounds the headland; most stay. They will fight to protect their home, to do what it takes to prevent their beautiful spire being rendered into ash.

The runes spin and tumble, and the stars wheel overhead. The wave, the apple tree, the Fang.

Knife in the Dark
-----------------

The garrisons are on the move as soon as the armada passes Vesten. The sentinels of the Court march east, the defenders of Cargo march south. The heliopticon chatters and winks. The little garrison at Elos readies itself. The seers at the Tower of Light and Shadow search the shrouded sky for any beneficent sign but on these odd nights the constellations are unfamiliar - the true stars seem to hide themselves away, and the Crab, the Looking Glass, and the Bondring offer nothing that can be interpreted.

In the past the Grendel have sometimes assayed diplomacy before their attack, offering a chance to retreat and give them easy pickings. They do not do so this time. Horns blare, hundreds of horns, and the battle begins without preamble.

The green sails of the Tempest lead the way, a spear thrust straight to the heart of Elos’ defences. They allow nothing to distract them as they break through the harbour defences and seize control of several of the lighthouse towers. Behind and beside them come the Golden Winds and the red-sailed Shamal. They too strike straight into Elos - a risky strategy if there were any ships to oppose them but they must know there are not. As soon as they have secured part of the harbour wall, the Golden Winds begin disgorging Grendel warriors into the spire - the Black Eels and the Bone Nautilus and the Hamsin join the attack, three whole armies of the Broken Shore. The blue-sailed Simoon do not attack the docks directly, not at first, but rather assails the ships docked there - Imperial and Axou vessels are mercilessly boarded and looted, taken by the Grendel where time allows. Only those trading ships flying the flags of the Sarcophan Delves are spared - that vaunted neutrality serving as a shield.

The Asavean battle-ships follow behind, and once the Grendel have begun to secure the harbour they disgorge their own sunbronze armoured soldiers, their tridents soon bathed in the blood of Urizen sentinels.

They do their best, those brave defenders of Elos, but the odds are so stacked against them. They can only fall back, and hope against hope that aid is coming, as the Grendel secure more and more of the harbour and the reality - that the spire will fall next - becomes unavoidable.

The runes bounce, spin. The red knife, the black blade, the lion come to rest in a triangle about the crossroads and the road chosen.

Horns on the Hillside
---------------------

A long journey along the coast has brought the Fist of the Mountains across the River Couros, over the Courspan bridge. Tired from the long march and the cold stares of Sarvos and Necropolis, the scops nonetheless keep spirits high as they come into Redoubt. An old army, the first army of Wintermark. Soldiers from the far north-west, supported by miners and engineers, regularly advised by clever icewalkers and proud scops. The soldiers of the Fist are known for their caution, and for their ability to fight viciously in tight spaces over vertiginous drops. Centuries of fighting in the mountains of Sermersuaq, Skarsind and Hahnmark will no doubt set them in good stead for defending the mountains of Urizen.

That caution and cleverness is augmented these days by the divinations of the farsighted advisors that march with the army. The mystics mark the omens, mark the fall of the runes, and if their advice is heeded the Fist of the Mountains is almost never where the enemy expects it to be - but often in just the right place at just the right time.

The dead follow in their wake, last to cross the bridge under the disapproving gaze of the stewards of Ethan's Respite. In Winter last year, the magicians of Wintermark drew down a host of Winter spirits to fight with the Fist. The dead walked in Tassato and marched with the Fist to battle in Reinos, and in the Quiet Grasses of Madruga. Their presence as the army marched through Sarvos and Necropolis did not go unremarked, of course. Not that all the winter spirits still wear the dead flesh of the League. There are a few orcs of the Lasambrian Hills among them now, still showing the wounds that killed them, crusted with dry blood. The spirits of the Winter realm do not care where the meat comes from, and the death of the husk is no great impediment to them.

To Redoubt come the Fist of the Mountains, and the dead, and the ravens, and the jackdaws, and the hawks fly ahead of them to presage their coming.

The runes clatter like old bones. Both lanterns - light and dark - with the wyrm between them on the mystic’s mat.

They come to Redoubt, where they are not expected to be, into the teeth of the storm. Is this, here, the right place? Is now the right time?

A Hero's Tale
-------------

The light of the heliopticon shrieks a warning and despite their long march, the Fist of the Mountains gird themselves and move straight to engage the Grendel and their Asavean allies. Nobody will ever know it for sure but they arrive, their banner-bearers sound the horns of battle, at the exact moment the first Grendel sets foot on the docks. Sometimes the world is simply like that, a mass of secret knots that no mortal will ever see.

Horns blare, and the warriors of Wintermark come to the aid of the people of Urizen. People they have never met, for the most part. Strangers, for whom the heroes of the ‘Mark are prepared to shed blood and lay down their lives if it comes to it. The mystics have read the signs, and the icewalkers have read the winds, and the veterans have read those symbols that are seen only by the eye of those who have known battle and survived. They do not charge pell-mell to the assault; their strategy is considered, careful, but no less resolute and courageous for all that.

The first priority is to protect the people of Elos, to give those who would be overwhelmed a chance to fight or flee. The second is to keep the Grendel from taking the harbour, or the spire, or to make them pay dearly for doing so. To delay them so that the garrisons to the north and the east can reach Naris. So that whatever harm is done here is contained, is ameliorated, if it cannot be prevented.

They are very far from home, and some of the runestones are still in the air, still tumbling toward the mystics mat.

At first the appearance of the Fist of the Mountains seems to set the attackers into disarray. They do not seem to have anticipated any major Imperial forces to be present at all. Yet they rally quickly, adjusting their approach to deal with the unexpected presence of four thousand Winterfolk. It quickly becomes clear that while the Tempest, the Shamal, the Golden Winds, and the Asavean warships are here to conquer, the rest of the Grendel forces are in a much more larcenous frame of mind. They fight, of course, but they