Assault on Baldie's Palace

"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 happened." ### Now, you must understand, dear audience, that Chairman Whytee the Merciless is under no circumstances adverse to a little slaughter or genocide. One of his trademarks, upon putting his Bloodied-Raven banner upon a conquered castle wall, is to have everyone previously inhabiting the town, put to the axe and have their heads piled into pyramids on both sides of the, by now destroyed, castle main gate.

Likewise, Whytee had travelled extensively in the frontier-lands of the dreaded Lady Novi, and was quite used to seeing a couple of thousand heads spiked by the roadside for casual amusement and had even visited the abysmal slaveextermination pits of the terrible Inkabus, where his captured enemies were worked to horrible deaths, while extracting the Moonstones so highly prized by the High-Northerners. Whytee had seen plenty of death. He had not seen anything yet.

The BaldenOne had named his shire The Necropolis, and not because of some whim or other, but because it adequately described the sickly-sweet and decrepit wasteland that his black-painted castle was located in. Never a gentle ruler, even at the best of time, Baldie, as his enemies called him, had lately begun to take his wrath out on his own population, especially recently, when his forces had been destroyed on the battlements of Marek, Bane of PA 's fortresses. Thus it was that when Whytee arrived at the very outskirts of the shire, the only thing that reached him was rows upon rows of decaying bodies with the accompanying cloying sweetness of rotting flesh. Not rows as in a row here and a row there.

The ground was carpeted with bodies, three or four deep, black and golden blowflies thick in the air like grains of sand in a sandstorm.

Whytee grimaced and spat a particularly phlegmy collection of chewing tobacco, snot and blowfly, onto the front semi-decayed head and nodded. They would have to wade through these corpses, to get at the castle two miles further along the trail. Well, maybe not all the way; maybe he could lure Baldie's troops out into the open. There were a couple of still-standing hamlets in front of the main castle. He nodded to himself, turned and gave a hand-signal to his Norse priests, and smiled widely when they in turn grasped giant horns, and blew them as loudly as they could. Surely, if any of the dead in the Necropolis were so inclined, they would have been wakened by the noise.

The Viking berserkers filed out in what could at best be described as chaotically anarchistic groups, axes and round metal shields held at the ready. The few thousand archers that were hiding behind the screen of Vikings, looked decidedly out of place, in their green and brown leather armours, all looking soldier-like and completely different than the Vikings. Still, the Bloodied Raven flew high above their ranks, proudly. Further back, dozens of bronzed ram's heads adorned the battering rams that made of the remainder of his smallish force. Chairman Whytee turned around to face the castle and shouted his battlecry, a cry that was

echoed across the ranks almost doubling the noise level. They weren't many, but they were loud. Whytee raised his left hand and lowered it in a swift motion, unleashing his Vikings onto the hamlets like molten lava onto desert-dry timber.

The fight was very soon over and the pillaging, raping and general slaughter began.

Their noise was heard from the distant castle, as well as observed from the witch's tower that towered over the battlements. A hideous banner that looked like the skins of many people's heads sown together and dyed black, was raised on top of the castle walls. Movement could just barely be seen on the ramparts, and Chairman Whytee once more raised his arm and indicated a line behind him.

Almost all of his Vikings came back to their starting position, only the extremely intoxicated or very stoned or “romantically� engaged remained in the hamlet. No matter, they had just volunteered themselves for the front row of the next castle assault. Now he came to think of it, it wasn't much of a punishment really. Ah yes. They would instead be sent on a liaison mission to the Imperial Court. Now, THAT was punishment.

His train of thought was interrupted by a blast of sound from the black castle, and he turned to watch, as the massive fortified wooden double doors slowly opened, to let the black-clad army of Baldie out onto the plain. A full complement of twenty squadrons of halberdiers was backed by at least fifty thousand archers, both on the parapets, as well as in rows behind the forming army. A steady stream of ballistae and anti-paladins streamed to the sides of the guardians from smaller outlying castles, to cover the flanks of Baldie's army. Whytee guffawked.

His army was outnumbered at least six to one with what was on the battlefield right now, perfect time to attack. He turned to his priests.

"Sound the advance, For Odin lad blodet flyde!"

The battlecry was echoed across his lines, and slowly and methodically they advance while hammering their axes on their shield for extra noise. From behind the lines, the priests chanted "blooooooood, bloooooood, blooooood", a call that was repeated by the main lines. The sound was deafening. With a sideways cutting motion from his poleaxe, Whytee halted the advance and motioned with his hand to call his chiefs forward. The four biggest, hairiest and filthiest of the Vikings, and this was precisely why they were chiefs, brought a banner up in front of Whytee and unfurled it. The banner of Baldie's elite Necro-guards had been captured a month ago, and had been saved for a special occasion. Like this one. The chief's held the banner high before tossing it on the ground with contempt. All four chiefs, as well as Chairman Whytee himself, undid their breeches and started to urinate on the banner, while keeping an eye on the army in front of them. Gobbets of phlem shot out from the men as well while they finished their task. Shouts of outrage were heard from the enemy's lines, and just as the five men finished, another sound was heard. The unmistakeable sound of shafts of arrows passing through the air. Chairman Whytee grinned and turned to his troops.

"Shield wall. Prepare for incoming."

His men hid behind their round shields and braced for the thousands of arrows that were incoming. Chairman Whytee himself kept standing in front of his troops, hands and chin on his poleaxe; he had been told by the Norns, how he would be slain when his life-thread was called for, and it had nothing to do with arrows.

Besides, he trusted the protective charm he had been given by his benevolent Empress. The arrows impacted like sleet-rain on a corrugated iron roof and with much the same effect. No arrows touched Chairman Whytee and he allowed himself a small smirk of satisfaction. His reputation as a fearless Norseman had just been cemented with his troops. Baldie's troops slowly advanced behind the flights of arrows towards the Viking battleline, polearms lowered and ready for battle.

"Steady men, steady."

Whytee's deep voice tremored across the line, heard through the metallic noises of the advancing Baldites. When the halberdiers were about 30 metres away, Chairman Whytee started backing away slowly, keeping pace with the line of the advancing troops. His troops backed away behind him, keeping a 30 metre distance. When they had moved back around 100 metres, Whytee turned and waved his poleaxe high to the priests far to the rear. He observed the whitehaired druid nod and turn, before Whytee hefted his poleaxe two-handed again.

"Right men, I think this is far enough. For Odin, Charge."

With that, the entire Viking army charged forward into the thousands of polearms that were levelled at them. The halberdiers held their lines magnificently, and to the flanks of the battlefield, Baldie's anti-paladins started moving forward on the black and silver steeds to outflank, and eventually annihilate, all of Chairman Whytee's army. His Viking Berserkers died in large numbers, impaled on the long polearms, penetrated by the steady rain of arrows or crushed by the evil steeds of the anti-paladins. But still they held the line, forcing Baldie's general to send in his heavy ballistae, to break the Vikings’ flank. They were now outnumbered ten to one and out-classed in weaponry. Whytee grinned and fought on, his mighty poleaxe tearing halberdiers apart like tin-foil soldiers. In just a few minutes he would have won the battle if they kept coming like that.

Behind the Baldite forces, a torrent of fire appeared in the bay that bordered the mighty citadel. Chairman Whytee laughed out aloud and observed the rain of fire, as it turned into a wall that swooped up from the water, and slowly, ever so slowly but inevitably, turned and rained down on the almost abandoned citadel walls and buildings. The extremely potent but very short range incendiary bombs and solid metal spheres impacted on the rooftops of the citadel, smashing the fire-protective tiles, and allowing liquid flame to pour into the vulnerable insides, setting the citadel on fire. The Baldite line wavered, and the ballistae that normally would have been kept inside the citadel, to keep naval forces well away from effective bombardment range, started pulling back towards the coastline to be able to engage the emerging ships from there. It was not to be. With a mighty roar, the hidden Viking cavalry emerged from the camouflaged positions they had been hiding in, and charged directly for the catapults, and especially their vulnerable crews. Attacked by wild axe-flailing riders, the siege engine crews

broke and ran, only to be trampled to death.

Now outflanked in turn, with enemy cavalry to one side and the naval forces to his rear, Baldie's general moved his archers over towards the cavalry, to stop them with a barrage of arrows. No sooner than they had shifted, did he realise his mistake. They were now in range for the naval forces, and with a sinking feeling of year's of torment under the watchful gaze of his master, he flinched as thousands of firebombs landed among his archers, ripping them apart as they died burning and screaming. That was where he lost the battle, as the fist halberdier dropped his polearm and ran towards the, now magnificently burning, citadel.

Soon the Baldite army was routing, with only the anti-paladins left as a fighting force, and once the halberdiers had been slaughtered and the Viking raiders had returned, they had been hacked to pieces as well. Smeared in blood and gore, an arrow jutting from his left cheek, where it had lodged itself in his cheekbone, and quite tired by now, Chairman Whytee put one leg on top of a crushed ballista and looked out to see where 1000 war galleons, all streaming the proud banner of the two Countesses and above those banners, the flag of Lady Novi herself, lay at full battle-readiness. The firebombs kept on pouring into the smashed citadel, reducing the buildings to rubble and ash. He grinned and waved at the armada, before he ordered his men to form up for the walk home. There were a lot fewer than when they set out, but their mission had been successful.

"Draw out the ballistae and the damned anti-paladins, and make enough noise, that the Armada can come unhindered and unseen to the citadel and destroy it."

Those had been the words of Lady Novi, and they had succeeded magnificently.

Heavily loaded with booty, they started the long trek back, leaving the crushed remains of Baldie's Necropolis behind.