The Defenders of Eatonshire

Current Campaign: New Blood For An Old Sword

Episode 5: "The Defenders of Eatonshire"

Year: 1763 Fall

Location: Eatonshire

PCs: Ambrose Carlo of Treefall Clay Chooser Kylie

NPCs: Angus Redgud Artemis, lord Esmoth, high priestess of the Temple of Calda Gavril Oromund, defrocked cleric and warmage for Redpike Kane Simonson, Prince of Eatonshire and youngest brother of King Garn. Kamil Jarthul Ludrik Serafin, Lord Chamberlain of Eatonshire Orianus Blacktooth, lord commander of the Crow Cloaks Quent the Wolf, lord commander of the Crow Cloaks Tarn, a deserter from The Grief Eaters who were routed at Tieremond. Urgush Redpike, Dread Legion lieutenant Valrik Omber

Previous Episode: "Trickery at Taros"

Next Episode: "?"

Previous Campaign: The Knights of Eaton

Story

Act One

The Silent Wake docks in Kandorr and Carlo leaves the employ of Artemis on bad terms. They are disturbed by the despondency and desperation of the people of Kandorr and the refugee tent city beyond its walls. Carlo finds Kandorr's populace hostile and unreceptive to mercenaries, and Clay learns that the mercenary guild-house has been burned to the ground. Carlo hires on Clay, Angus, Kylie, Kamil and Ambrose to accompany him. They decide to pose as agents of the church on a charity mission and tarry in Kandorr for a week, gathering information and supplies for the perilous trip west to Eatonshire. Ambrose checks in at the charterhouse, where he is warned by the magus captain that several of his charges attached themselves to a contingent of horsemen who mean to fortify Eatonshire; they rode out three weeks ago but never reached the city. The mage warns them against taking the main road directly to Eatonshire.

As they leave the city a voice calls out to them and they see Valrick, the cabin boy for the Silent Wake, sitting astride Bancroft. Valrick says he was insulted by Artemis and the captain so he quit the ship, stole the lord's horse and kit, and wishes to join them. Kamil expresses doubt, but Valrick dazzles them with a display of his knife skills. Carlo welcomes him to the group, warning him of the danger ahead. They ride together out of the west gate and past the tent city. Their intent is to journey south to Greendale to avoid the well-trod main road between Eatonshire and Kandorr and then cut north to approach Eatonshire from the smaller, the less-traveled road.

On A Road Less Traveled

On their journey they pass emptied villages and the smoldering ruins of towns, bodies litter the shoulder of the great road. Valrick tracks a recent mass of movement headed over the hills outside Greendale, where they encounter a gruesome sight: the corpses of the horsemen out of Kandorr hang from trees in the peach orchard of House Windsor. They ride to the manor and find it sacked, with the corpses of servants and livestock slaughtered alike. Ambrose enters the ransacked main hall and discovers a young squire alive but sorely wounded, lying beneath the body of a house guard. They unpack Artemis's enchanted pavilion, stow the young boy inside, and roll it back up.

They arrive in Greendale, which has enlisted a company of Inyaré rangers from Elys to help defend the area around the city. They are escorted through the main gate where they meet Shogar Cromwell, Lord Lieutenant of the city. He introduces Carlo and Clay to their local compatriots in the Dread Legion, thirty survivors of the Battle of Rainbow Bay who swam to shore and fled south, regrouped outside of Greendale, and reconstituted as a platoon. They are led by Lieutenant Redpike, a half-orc of great reknown who was discovered near-death by Shogar and restored to full health—Redpike has since pledged himself to the defense of Greendale. Shogar provides the group a license of passage and Redpike detaches half of his platoon under Carlo's command for the purposes of reinforcing Eatonshire, and after a day of rest the group rides out north the next morning.

The trek across the bleak, still countryside is unsettling and the group keeps morale up by telling stories, singing, drinking, and playing road games. On the fourth day of the trip they arrive at Old Oak Tor to bear witness to another dismaying tableau: the families of those lords who lived outside the walls of Eatonshire City hang from many trees. They spend the day cutting bodies from the trees and burying them as the warmage and former cleric, Gavril, blesses the grave. During the ceremony Ambrose discovers a group of serfs hiding in a nearby gully and they assure the frightened peasants they mean no harm; on man among them, Erdric, says they were hiding from local brigands who were hunting for their women.

Incensed upon hearing this, Clay suggests they lie in wait and ambush the brigands. They draft a plan and used Edric as a lure, dressing him as a traveling tinker with a cart of goods. When the brigands arrive on the road the group attacks them and slays all but their leader, a Grief Eater deserter named Tarn. Carlo recognizes Tarn as one of the platoon members who burned his village and he interrogates him, learning the possible whereabouts of his children and of the likely troop movements of the Grief Eater host. He kills Tarn and leaves him in the ditch alongside the other dead brigands.

Within The Weakened City

The group arrives at Giant's Head Ridge and views Eatonshire in the distance. Using his spyglass, Clay sees scant trace of the typical bustling activity within its walls. He does, however, view scouts within the woods opposite their position on the other side of Eatonshire. He passes the spyglass to Carlo, who recognizes the scouts as Crow Cloaks. They realize that the mercenary host must not be far behind. "We must hasten to the court of lords of the city," says Ambrose.

As they arrive at the outer wall the group is challenged by soldiers at the gate. Carlo observes their haggard countenance and shabby gear and recognizes the war-haunted look in their eyes. Clay delivers Shogar's license and informs the gate chief of the scouts outside the city. The group is permitted entry and gate chief sends a runner along with them with orders to assemble an emergency war council.

The council is held in the high court and there the group meets Prince Kane, youngest brother of Garn, who runs the city defense with a skeleton crew of seasoned knights and soldiers. Kane is at odds with Lord Chamberlain Ludrik Serafin, who leads a small contingent of nobles who feel that House Simonson has forsaken the throne, and the war council deteriorates into a fracas. Carlo tries to break up a physical struggle and in the process forcefully topples Ludrik, who immediately demands the mercenaries be thrown in the dungeon for bringing ruin to the country. Simonson reminds him that the Dread Legion was recruited to assist in their defense and Ludrik demands Carlo be flogged for insulting the dignity of the office. Kane refuses this demand and Carlo volunteers to duel with the chamberlain, who agrees and reminds Kane of the Eatonshiran custom that dueling a point of honor during wartime requires the death of one of the combatants. Kane reluctantly consents to the tradition on the condition that Ludrik's supporters withdraw their complaint and yield unreservedly to the will of House Simonson. They agree.

The men clear the courtroom of obstacles and adversaries duel. Ludrik is a skilled and powerful swordsman but Carlo finds a weakness in style and exploits it by letting the chamberlain wind himself. Ludrick lands two wounding blows to Carlo's chest and shoulder but Carlo parries his third swing and smashes Ludrik beneath the jaw and thrusts his sword upwards, killing the lord. The hall falls silent as Carlo removes his helm and kneels before Kane, who absolves him and recruits his men as guardsmen of Eatonshire. Carlo assigns Clay as his second and Ambrose as his war-mage and they go about assessing the strength of the city.

Eatonshire Faces The Crow Cloak Host

The Crow Cloaks arrive at the city walls at dusk siege engines in tow, and Quent the Wolf rides forth to deliver his terms to the assembled lords on the wall.

"Lords of Eatonshire, I bid you surrender your defense and open the gates to your city. Assembled before you are men who have taken far greater cities with far superior equipment that what we have now. Surrender and the lords of your city will be permitted safe passage to Kandorr. Deny us entry and see your walls crumble, your lords ransomed, your city sacked, and your freemen sold into bondage."

Prince Kane refuses Captain Quent's offer and the mercenary rides back to the host and they prepare for siege. Clay is learned in mercenary history and knows that Quent the Wolf is a brilliant siege tactician—he warns Kane that their defense must be sound, but that the odds are against the city even though they face so small an invasion force. Carlo insists he can muster a defense but needs time to do so. Kane is at a loss for suggestions but agrees that desperate measures must be taken. Ambrose suggests that Kane permit him entry into the sacred crypts of the temples, where he might access forbidden grimoires kept by the priests therein. Kane assembles the various priests of the city temples and proposes Ambrose's plan and the high priestess of Calda, Esmoth, volunteers an aged scroll taken from a heretic many decades ago. Scribbled upon the parchment is a curse that requires the skull of a venerable general and the uttered name and location of the target.

Kane dispatches Clay and Carlo to secretly exhume the remains of an old Cozann general buried in royal cemetery. They work at night as Ambrose holds the lantern and Kylie keeps watch. Valrick volunteers to scout the position of Quent with two other rangers they leave the city walls for that dangerous mission. Once the skull is secured, Ambrose reads from the scroll and both the scroll and skull dissolve in a whirl of dust to be replaced by a faintly glowing specter adorned in a tattered funerary shroud. It hovers before Ambrose, waiting. Minutes pass and they hear ragged breathing in the dark distance. Kylie draws his sword and sees a silhouette lurch towards them: it is one of the scouts, pierced by arrows. He tells the group of Valrick's discovery and murder and, before he dies, reveals the position of Captain Quent. Ambrose passes this on to the specter, who coils into a thin stream and glides off and over the city wall. They race to the ramparts and watch the camp and shortly afterwards they hear an alarm raised and cries of "assassin!" from within the enemy compound. Carlo raises his spyglass and views Quent's body being pulled from a tent and attended to by their war magi. It is evident he is beyond their help.

Eatonshire Besieged

The Crow Cloaks man their stations and launch a searing attack upon the city walls, sending flaming debris into the city and deploying magical propellants to destroy the watchtowers along the central gate. Ambrose and Clay lead teams of men to extinguish the fires, but there are magical properties that accelerate the heat of the debris and before the flames can be extinguished the city's grain store and larder is completely destroyed. The group reckons the city has approximately two months worth of food. The siege continues throughout the evening and Kane's forces repel the enemy host until Crow Cloak sappers successfully dig and cave in a tunnel beneath the outer wall. The ramparts crumble and Kane, Gavril, and many of the lord commanders are killed in the collapse. Carlo orders the remainder to fall back into the inner curtain while he and Clay fend off the enemy assault to buy time for the retreat. Clay is sorely wounded and Kylie helps him back to the inner wall. They blockade the advance and watch in horror as the Crow Cloaks wreak havoc on those poor souls left in the outer city. In the following days the Crow Cloaks catapult debris and corpses over the wall into the inner curtain, creating a fetid mess and sowing terror. Carlo rallies the surviving fighters and for two weeks they fight off three heavy advances by the Crow Cloaks.

Desperate to even the odds, Ambrose assembled the city's remaining priests and clerics early one morning and issued a directive to comb their libraries and temples for summoning aids and meet at the Tabernacle of Solace at nightfall. That evening Ambrose leads the assembled clergy in a ceremony to summon an envoy of Kalamir. The invocation is tightly focused and draws from the life energy and collected artifacts in the room, thus concentrating the potential power of the envoy. The ceremony lasts all evening and at dawn Ambrose, exhausted, utters the final prayer as the first rays of light trace the stained glass and illume the temple. There is a moment of silent calm that is broken when a priest is bodily hurled into the nave and decapitated in mid-flight by an unseen force.

Ambrose gazes in horror as two more priests are cut down as they stand there puzzled; he recognizes that a demon is in their presence and he shouts at the others to begin a binding ceremony. The clerics, being robed and unarmed for the ceremony, are ill-equipped for combat and so the invisible demon has little difficulty cutting them apart. The remaining magi assault the thing with their spells, but the lengthy ceremony has left most of them depleted of magical energies and so their attacks do little damage to the sinister creature. Ambrose clutches the last full powerstone and unleashes a salvo of spells, one of which blinds the demon and sends him into a panic. It lashes out in all directions, a whirling maelstrom in a mist of blood, and in this frenzy it kills Ambrose and brings the temple down around it.

Clay's morning patrol is investigating the clamor when they see the temple collapse and an unseen force slam into the buildings across the street. He orders his archers to target the whirlwind of debris and they unleash a deadly volley at it. Enraged, it changes course and slams straight into Clay's group and begins killing them. Carlo shouts for the alarm and in moments the streets are alive with combat, as the demon cuts down scores of men and pushes its way to the Gate of the Sun. Clay is wounded in fracas and Kylie drags him out from under the maelstrom and towards the temple ruins, where he scours the debris for any remnants of healing medicine. Carlo orders the remainder of his seasoned warriors to form a shield wall and corner the demon—they successfully confine it to the west thoroughfare and close in to attack it as one. The demon deflects their attack and instead of countering, abruptly rushes the gate and smashes the portcullis down. Horrified, Carlo shouts at his men to advance and kill the creature but by the time they are within spearing distance it has blasted the main door and pushed its way into the outer bailey.

The Crow Cloaks fall back in horror at the oncoming behemoth, a many-armed horror coated in red and black gore and spitted with spears and arrows. One of the Crows tracks it with a [scorpion] and fires a deadly bolt, striking the creature directly in its chest. It howls and staggers and the Crow Cloaks descend on the creature and cut it down. They turn and rush the opening created by the demon and clash with Carlo's forces. The skirmish is intense and brutal and the Eatonshirans, being too afflicted by hunger, thirst, and sickness, are no match for the experience, superior weapons, and rested vigor of the Crow Cloaks.

Bloodied and wounded, Carlo orders a surrender. He throws down his sword at the feet of Orianus Blacktooth and is taken prisoner along with the other mercenaries and anyone of noble blood; the rest of the able-bodied fighting men are shackled and marched east to be sold into slavery.

Meta

• House Croydan has set up a provisional government as Garn rules in exile from Erelaan,