Specters and Snares
Twenty-Third of the Second Month 294 AC
The discover that a few of the very oldest inhabitants of this land are still alive in a fey realm that opens beneath the hill is neither the worst nor the strangest news you have gotten this month, not by far. You had been worried about some new company of the unquiet dead bursting from below upon the hosts of Sathar. The hills will make fine artillery placements no matter the secret way beneath it. Of course artillery can't quite shoot that far, or at least not land bound artillery.
Moonsong is more than happy to have you, Lya and Dany on her bridge, strange as it may be for the three of you to look down on a battle though arcane glass. Even with all the talismans you bear and arcane wind beneath your wings you can't keep up with a sky ship moving with a purpose. The plains blur beneath you and soon you witness the same sight your scouts had, the dead gathered around the broken walls of Sathar, as though overflowing from ancient wounds, banners of darkness woven obscuring the face of the sun even though their magic has not yet been called upon.
"At your convenience captain," you say politely.
"Fire, incendiary and explosives!" she calls with the bloody good cheer that comes with having a full complement of launchers and explosive payloads at her disposal. Technically she has the full sky fleet, but Moonsong sees them more as secondary players in her ship's grand scene.
For a brief while she gets precisely that, but then as the lesser dead are immolated and shattered, their ashes scattered far and wide, the Wyverns begin to notice something odd.
"It's like the banners are vanishing just before they would be burned, but I'm not sure what..." the voice in the speaking sands fades for a moment into bewilderment, but when he speaks again the tone is clearer. "Ghosts... ghost of some kind are pulling the banners into the ground and the bones they're trying to take cover as best they can, pulling back to the city."
You could not say for certain when the lesser dead had come to be known simply as 'bones' to distinguish them from their more dangerous fellows, not to mention your allies from Kasath, but the question fades from your thoughts quickly. Having to fight street by street and house by house, even among a city as ruined as Sarnath, would likely cost far more lives than an open field battle might, but you doubt the destruction of chaff and puppets is going to persuade your enemy to move. They have already lost a field battle to you, after all, and know what your armies can do.
It is only now, watching the enemy withdraw with the greater portion of the army still missing, still
hidden you are now confident, that you realize the positioning of the lesser dead and perhaps even the banners were a feint to make the legion engage near the city and then draw columns in unprepared.
What do you do?
[] Continue bombarding, being sparing of ammunition
[] Send scouts into the city to find the ambushing force you suspect is there
[] Let the forces of Sathar take the point, they have their own lesser dead to take the brunt of the first blow
[] Write in
OOC: A bit short, but the break point can't really be shifted anywhere else. Not yet edited.
