The Hellhammer Floods

The year is 1047AT

Account written by Captain Harraid Stoneword - of The Royal Guard, recovered from his body by Imperial forces when searching the mudslide outside of Hellhammer and sent to the capital for analysis and storage. -- Hellhammer fell some time ago. With each passing day, a dagger in the heart of those who called her home. The troops were weary. We marched from Camdoria, but others have ventured from greater distances. The weather had not greeted us as kindly as we remembered it. Harsh winds whipped a cold frost that bit to your core, rains that pelted down at such an angle it got under your helmet. The sun lay hidden behind the black clouds that smothered us. Thick sheets of fog gathered on the battlefield as we tried again and again to breach the defences of Hellhammer.

The Imperials held the pass well. They drove us to a narrow gap and kept us at bay for days. We lost many soldiers to the skirmishing, archer volleys and even more still to the wet, cold and sickness. The line fights are brutal. With both sides fighting until their dying breaths it seems only madmen remain. The churning of armour, blood, bone mixing with the screams, the cries of home and agony of loss. It's almost too much to bare.

Last moon was the signal of our first major victory. We crushed a section of Imperial defences. Broke the lines and used goat tracks to encircle and decimate a large group of defenders who had kept us at bay for days. They fought until the last person. Injured, muddy, cold, hungry and broken, she stood swinging her sabre against the encroaching royalist line. Bitter hatred and solemn pity bore the final strike as not a cry of victory was sung from the Royalist forces, the rain thundering down in sheets. Yesterday we were told that the rains would cease, and that the attack would continue with new sunlight. But we knew better. Sickness had taken many, with food stores contaminated, clean water near impossible, and wounds soaked with mud from battle, it looked impossible.

Today we are to launch our attack with less than a quarter of the anticipated troops. The rain has not stopped, in fact it feels slightly harder than before. We have to take Hellhammer, as we cannot march back, the way is flooded. Reports have come back that the Imperials are suffering a similar blight, and that it will come down to a test of mettle. The soldiers are digging deep. I feel we can do this, if the gods would hold the rains for just one day. The Royal guard will claim victory this day. Or I shall die trying.