Comrades Past & Present and all Gentle Readers,
I continue, and conclude, my account of the Second Sack of Tultipet.
To summarize: after receiving reports that enemies of the First City were gathering, the Tomal Khan decided to strike first. He gathered 3000 cavalry from various tribes connected to him by culture, history and intermarriage. The Tomal Khan also assembled an elite cohort of 60-70 hardened veterans. They set off with speed to defeat Princess Myrkasulanis before a massive combined force could be assembled. Despite losing the element of surprise in a skirmish with enslaved Voie, the Tomal Khan’s forces breached the walls of Tultipet with an absolute minimum of casualties. That was a small miracle in itself. It seemed like the day was ours. In reality horror and death still lay ahead of us.
Tultipet is an exposed crater. Around the perimeter are the crater walls and an outer ring of the city. Next there is something of a “moat” or chasm that is linked to a central Island by several stone bridges. A massive ziggurat dedicated to Larissa sits in the center, much like the ziggurat in Savona. That was the probable location of the Princess. We would have to move through the perimeter and cross stone bridges to reach the center of the city.
There were three ways through the perimeter to get to the bridges and the Tomal Khan decided to test all three at once. We would then gather to push through any defenses mounted at the bridges. So part of his strike force went underground to clear out tunnels, part ran up a switch back and finally a last part took on a gauntlet of defenders trying to push through straight ahead. We prevailed on all three fronts with minimal casualties. The Tomal Khan had his pick of routes for his cavalry.
I watched the Tultipetan defense at the bridges also fell apart too. But for the first time, the dwarves seriously bloodied our noses. Many of our attackers suffered multiple wounds when shot by massed volleys from crossbows. The Tultipetan marksmen were further reinforced with giants. These blocked the ability of our hardened veterans to advance upon the snipers. Worse the giants also knocked several attackers off the bridges. In horror we could only watch them plummet screaming into the darkness bellow. Grim determination fueled the hearts of many of our attackers. Our numbers were too great and as the last of the giants were cut down and the surviving dwarves melted back into the city center.
Gulbahar, my commander, ordered me to use my Clairvoyance to look for survivors while the cavalry crossed. I tried to harden my heart...and indeed what I primarily saw was the shattered remains of bodies. But to my surprise there were also around a half dozen unconscious survivors being carried off. Thankfully they didn’t go far before reaching an underground prison. A single corridor led into a round chamber lined with cells. I couldn’t manifest a sensor inside the room itself, but I could look in from the corridor.
Gulbahar was excited by my report. He whirled and went to the Tomal Khan to organize a rescue party muttering, “That must also be where they are holding Ronomoquetz!”
I didn’t have time to ask. Our forces surged into the inner city and the cavalry finally came into its own. Tultipetan defenders were neither able to coordinate nor respond quickly enough to match the mobility of the cavalry. The Khan’s men rode through the streets slaying. When a knot of defenders congregated and began to organize, the veterans were sent in. The fighting was fierce in places, but overall it seemed fortune was smiling on us. Tultipetans fell in droves. While this was going on the Khan Gulbahar came back and demanded that I check on the prison. Our jailbreak was in progress. While the Tultipetan guards were down as expected, all the prison doors were open. That was weird. And it meant a motley collection of monsters were free too! I saw a Voie chieftain and a wolf more or less trying to eat each other. There was a Singarthan warlock in a scrum with 3 or 4 attackers. There was also the world’s ugliest Bargest fighting and rifling through the collected equipment of the prisoners. What a chaotic mess!
Gulbahar wanted me to find this, Ronomoquetz. He now said this guy was a runecaster and the key to the Tultipetan resistance. I was only listening with half an ear at best, and then I saw something that nearly froze my heart.
It was like several spinning cloaks of shadows unfurled from empty air. And in the center of the shadows I could just make out this angular lanky thing. It looked like a humanoid. More or less. But it was covered in a carapace. And it had no eyes. I felt my heart in my chest and I started to sweat. I couldn’t bring myself to look away. A Voiceless One! I’m guessing it must have been in one of the cells too, though the Gods alone know how the Tultipetans managed to put it there. There was a Centurion with our raiding party and he moved up to screen the rest of his companions while people tried to attack it from range. Most of the attacks missed, and those that did hit seemed to do it no real harm.
My attention was jerked away by Gulbahar’s scream. Back on Tultipet’s streets our forces, now strung out across the city, were under attack from Reavers. Reavers! I don’t need to tell you what a bad a sign that was! It should have been unthinkable for Tultipetans to bring Reavers into their city as allies. And a part of my heart grew cold as I acknowledged that any chance for some kind of peaceful surrender surrender by Princess Myrkasulanis was surely gone. If she had brought the Reavers to Tultipet then we would fight it out till one side or the other was utterly vanquished. I reoriented myself just in time as a Reaver charged me and I finally bloodied my sword.
The Reavers gave no quarter, nor asked for any. We suffered a number of initial casualties, but our forces pulled together and consolidated. Our casualties stopped. The Reavers continued to force us together, but suffered extraordinary casualties to do so. I had the thought that even with surprise their tactics were foolish. The Reavers would have done much better to fortify the ziggurat. And then I had the follow on thought that the Reavers know their way around the battlefield. If only I had figured that out earlier! The Reavers did reject a defensible position. But in herding us together they set up a coup-de-gras, even at the expense of their own lives. As the last of the Reavers were falling, the burnt shades of Tultipet rose against us!
Voie. Harpies. Dwarves. Giants. Monsters. Reavers. It was like a carnival of death! Step right up! A new foe in each act! I had heard that the Dragon Villa’Tavorentis had burned out the soul shards of the Tultipetans, but that proved to be untrue. There were plenty of dwarven shades that remained burnt, half melted things. They had been gathered base the base of the Statute of their elder. My rapier has several runes on it and I swept it through three Shades at one go and the wretched things dissipated. But the cavalry had only mundane weaponry, helpless agaiunst these foes they died in droves. Some tried to hold their ground, some ran. I didn’t matter. Over no more than five or ten minutes I saw perhaps as many as five out of six pulled down and slain. The main body of our host simply ceased to be. And there was nothing I could do. I was nearly overwhelmed and it was all I could do to stay alive.
Our veterans fared much better. Almost all of them had either access to the Arcanum or runes or both. Without them Tultipet would be a city of ghosts. Eventually the screams stopped and the last of the shades were dissipated.
There were more unwelcome surprises. Malfelen soldiers now held the Ziggurat’s stairways. As our heavy infantry advanced fireballs that exploded erupted among the master swordsmen of both sides. The Malfelen had “Deathwardens.” I had never heard of such a thing before, let alone seen them. Clearly Ardakene, they somehow inverted their healing magics. These elorii had a palpable necrotic aura around them that sucked at the very life forces of our attackers when they closed to melee. And they wielded dread cants. For a moment I doubted our ability to force our way past them. Soldier for soldier they were essentially a match for our elite forces, but thankfully we had greater numbers this day. Though sorely battered, our infantry cut their way forward to the summit.
There they found Princess Myrkasulanis. Somehow she was embedded in a cube of pure crystal gazing of into the distance. Our assault force didn’t have much time to consider this strange thing. A penultimate challenge was presented. The last of the Princess’s defenders were more fire giants, a few of their lava hounds and their “Fire King.” I’m sure there was a deeply fascinating story about him and how he came by his crown, but by that point I was numb and exhausted. I just wished he would fall down and die.
While combat raged in front of the encased Myrkasulanis, I finally met the Runecaster. Even for a Tultipetan dwarf he had an enormous quantity of tattoos covering his body. Ronomoquetz had more dire news. I didn’t know if I had the stamina to take it. Princess Myrkasulanis, he said, had been kidnapped, and effectively brainwashed by Villa’Tavorentis, and even now was trying to contact and summon the dragon back to Tultipet. If that happened then we should just fall on our swords and be done with it. But he did have one trick that might help – Ronomoquetz had learned how to scribe runes directly onto the “human” body. And he knew of a rune that could send people into the mind of the Princess and do battle with her there. I helped him with preparations, but I barely understood what we were doing. Virtually everything of his advanced art was opaque to me.
So began the final battle. I was told after the fact that strike teams faced off against fragments of her mind on what amounted to strange Islands floating over a roiling void. Even with Clairvoyance I had no way to observe. The strike teams just sat there in a trance. In horror I had plenty of time to survey the abattoir we had created. Dwarves littered the ground. Probably less than one Tultipetan in twelve that had started the day alive was still breathing, and most of them were in hiding. I saw no surviving Reavers. I saw no surviving giants. Plenty of our own lay with the piles of the dead too, man and horse alike. Maybe 400 to 500 of us were left. Jackals and crows would love us.
Finally our strike forces emerged from their trance. That was it. Myrkasulanis was stopped. It was over. Those of us who had survived would ride home. I believe Ronomoquetz stayed to help organize any surviving in Tultipetans.
I suppose a final paragraph is merited for tying up two loose ends. I have heard wild rumors that we tortured and killed the Princess afterwards in vengeance, but these are untrue. She emerged from the Crystal, apparently free of the influences of the Dragon. Exhausted and full of despair as we were, none of us touched her. Also exhausted and full of despair she took her own life upon seeing what had become of her city. I continue to hear criticism back in the First City of the Tomal Khan’s leadership from certain quarters. Our casualties were horrific, but not one citizen of the First City was been injured. I find an unaccustomed anger inside me that the sacrifice of the Tomal Khan does not earn him more overt respect.
I suppose there is one more loose and as well, though my pen nearly shakes to write it. Villa’Tavorentis is hostile towards the First City. Safely home, I still feel the worm of fear gnawing at me. Will there be a next move from the Dragon? How will we survive it?
May peace favor you,
Tukufu, Ambassador of Altheria.
_________________ Eric Gorman
AKA Ambassador Tukufu, man of letters, tomb raider and Master Sword Sage . . . and Sir Szymon val'Holryn, Order of the Phoenix Formerly Sir Jaeger val'Holryn. Weilder of the Holy Avenger: Thonanos. Gave his soul to help free King Noen
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