"Allow me to present myself. I am Archibauld Concreter the third, official scribe to the High Council of DHMC. What you are about to read is an accurate description of what would have happened." ### The rose and white marble columns of the palace of Valour gleamed in the sunlight, newly polished and cleaned for the grand festival. Pennants and banners depicting the orange and green colours of the PA alliance, dotted the battlements surrounding it, with a clear almost translucent light blue banner adorning the main castle and the gates themselves, showing the colours of the palace's owner, Frosty. Lying in fertile ground, the castle dominated the surrounding settlements and masked the palace completely from the people outside the walls, which was probably for the better; the decadence inside was enough to make some men cry out with physical pain. The dirty peasants, sweating lumberjacks and chained slaves toiling in the fields and forests didn't really care about the palace, nor the town and they especially didn't care about Lord Frosty himself. He and his cronies were just something to avoid the attention of, so they could live their lives in relative peace. Very few of them had ever ventured outside the fief and only a handful had visited the towns on the other side of Hightop, the mountain range to the South of the fief. If they had visited that area now, they would be in for a rude awakening. The forest had been full of strange noises for some hours, shadows moving in shadows, rustling sounds covering clanks of metal against metal and the occasional whispering voice emanating from nowhere or everywhere. Chairman Whytee looked out over his assembled war machines, his crews and the supporting Viking berserkers with pride. None of them seemed to be affected by the strangeness of the forest, or at least they didn't show any outward signs of it. The Vikings were grinding axes, drinking Meade or fighting among themselves. Some of them doing all three things at once. In the middle of the 200.000-some Vikings, Norse priests were cooking up a foul brew of red fungus and alcohol, the drink that made his Vikings true berserkers. His gaze flowed from the mass of red-bearded giants over to his other complement of troops and their war machines. Arrayed in lines for the assault, the blackened timbers of the catapults were adorned with spikes, skulls and charms to Tyr, Thor and Odin, emanating raw destructive power and menacing purpose. Equally menacing were the rams in multi-wheeled covered wagons, giant bronze rams heads staring out towards the horizon with polished unseeing eyes. The black-clad hunched-over engineers that tended to the machines were almost the exact opposite to the Vikings; silent, disciplined and orderly. Only the slow oiling of hinges and wheels, the stacking of firebombs and the soaking of leather on top of the rams showed that they were getting ready for battle. With no warning, the forest went silent and from the edge, a single person emerged as if created from the fog that still covered some part of the thickets. Chairman Whytee knew that figure from past engagements, but even if he hadn't ever seen her before, he would still have guessed and guessed right. The woman approaching was almost naked with only tattoos covering her upper torso, arms and legs. A translucent veil covered the lower part of her face, masking her mouth and nose. Her raven-black hair seemed to have a life of its own, swirling and caressing her, precisely covering the parts of her body that she wanted covered. The Vikings parted in front of her as if she was a flaming sword passing through butter, only to stand dumbfounded and stare as she passed them.
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