The Evermarch Campaign

### Combatants

The Khannaean Empire, Evermarch, Ultain, Shanna'dar, Lithandel, Antaria, Venaris, Ivantier.

### Result

Pyrrhic Victory for Evermarch and the Southern Coalition

## Commanders

### Defenders

Initial: The high Archon of Evermarch Southern Coalition Reinforcements: First Marshal Aurelian Danvis

## Strength

### Defenders

Initial: 15,000 (incl. 10,000 men of the golden Spears) Southern Coalition Reinforcements: 25,000 foot, 10,000 horse

## Casualties

### Defenders

Roughly 25,000 (incl. reinforcements) 40,000 civilians

The Mighty and Prosperous Free City of Evermarch is known as the Jewel of Andura; the center of trade for an entire continent, where fortunes can be lost or made in a single bargain, where the riches of all the world change hands. Controlled by the High Council of Archons and the Golden Wheel Trading Company that they represent, it is considered to be the richest settlement in all the world. Its position, connecting the roads between kingdoms and empires together, have made its people wealthy beyond measure, and its dominance is coveted by any nation that seeks to expand their power.

Evermarch is defended by its double ring of high, sandstone walls, colossal towers forty feet high punctuating the parapets. The gatehouses large enough to admit two elephants side-by-side, their surfaces covered in mosaics, paintings and carvings that commemorate the old, long-lost strength of the Dominion. Guarding these gatehouses and mighty walls are the Golden Spears, the finest mercenaries in all Andura, each company trained and housed within the city when they are not hired out on campaign. Each company serves at the pleasure of the Golden Wheel Trading Company, and is as fierce in battle as the debt collectors of their employers.

The great Mesa of Rahn-Kaddai is dotted with the mansions and palaces of the city's wealthier merchant princes and princesses, as well as the copious supply of dignitaries, travellers and exiles from the nations of the world that have chosen this paradise to make their homes. Atop the Mesa itself, the crown of limestone towers known as The Peak form the headquarters of both the Golden Wheel Company and their magistrates and archons; the city's ruling class.

It is a fortress unassailable, guarded so closely by its steeled warriors and mighty fortifications, despite the legions of envious foes that wish to make it their own. It has been besieged time and time again, but the city has never been lost.

It was the year 762 AR when the Khannaean Empire chose to test that vow.

## Combatants

**Khannaea**

* The Fifth Blood Empress
	+ Lord Varin Khanzeon
	+ Lady Kava Aldmoria

**Evermarch**

* The high Archon of Evermarch
* The Council of Nine

**The Southern Coalition**

* King Dagon Dyre II of Ultain
	+ Prince Dragor Dyre
	+ Prince hadrian Dyre
	+ Prince Danton Dyre
	+ Valen Reed
	+ Lieutenant Devan Malicos
	+ Sergeant Alaric Vane

* King Dunham Ryder IV of Antaria
	+ Prince Rennard Ryder
	+ Princess Rowan Ryder
	+ Antares Valaran

* King Calderan hawker of Venaris
	+ First Marshal Aurelian Danvis
* Queen Ravenna Languen of Lithandel
* The Jade Company
	+ Bright Dragon over the Mountain
	+ Sun Fire at the Dawn

## Prelude

The Fifth Blood Empress and her finest generals planned their attack methodically and over many years, preparing in secret for the sudden assault that would fell the mightiest city of the age. They built a fleet of War Galleys in the hidden shipyards at Nalas, hiding the completed ships along the river to keep them obscured from prying eyes.

To free up soldiers for the assault against Evermarch, Lord Varin Khanzeon elected to use his fortune to hire mercenary companies from the Golden Spears themselves, stationing them along the border with Arkhanagad and in the Dimakian Islands as if in preparation for an assault against the northerners. Company by company, the strength of Evermarch was hired away, and legion by legion, Khannaean forces were moved from their stations across the Empire. Supplies were quietly allocated to nearby fortresses along the Raven Road, and the army was slowly built up near Laris and New Khelaran, and the companies were hidden in the foothills and forests of the Arahven Mountains. Over the course of two years, these plans were carefully laid.

It was in the spring of 762 AR that they came to fruition. A legion of Khannaean soldiers landed at Bandar to the north of Evermarch, on the Atran Road, seizing the smaller city in the space of a week and putting it to the torch. They carried no banners, and as such were thought to be a mercenary band from the Wylds. Many of the remaining Golden Spears sallied forth from Evermarch and the surrounding territories to recapture Bandar, leaving many of their outposts along the road to Khannaea but lightly manned.

And lightly manned they were, when the first lookouts at Evermarch glimpsed purple sails on the horizon, and the watchtowers to the east saw the dust kicked up by an approaching host. Out of the north came that secret fleet of galleys, one hundred strong, sweeping down across the Khalyn Sea to take Evermarch's smaller navy by surprise. The shattered hulks of the Marchers' merchant fleet dotted the bay like candles, and black-hulled, purple-sailed galleys surrounded the harbour.

But the true danger came from the East itself, as a mighty army thundered down the Raven Road, sweeping aside the meagre groups of mercenaries and Golden Spears that stood between them and Evermarch itself. The city was besieged from the sea in a matter of days, while that mighty host of some forty thousand soldiers marched its way towards the city over land.

Their vanguard reached the walls of Evermarch but a week later, to the alarm of the gathered defenders who watched from the walls.

The remaining companies of the Golden Spears assembled at the Free City itself, stood firmly against the invaders, and were utterly crushed in the face of the Empress's might. The left flank, commanded by Lord Varin Khanzeon, broke the center of the Marchers Army with a well placed cavalry charge, and soldiers were landed on the shoreline from the Khannaean Fleet to cut off their retreat. By then, the bulk of the Khannaean troops pressed forward to drive the fracturing lines of the golden Spears back. Thousands died in the ensuing massacre, cut off from the city walls and driven into the sea by Lord Khanzeons Cavalry.

Evermarch was surrounded by day's end. Messengers had departed for the Exodus Kingdoms, warning of an oncoming army, but little else. With the city surrounded, no further pleas could be made.

## First Siege

With the soldiers of Evermarch driven from the field, the Khannaeans surrounded the city walls, spreading themselves into camps to block off the roads and encircle the city in its entirety. Caravans found approaching were turned back or captured, the harbour blockaded and its warehouses burnt by the Khannaean fleet.

Inside the city, chaos began its reign. Merchants trapped by the siege tried to stockpile supplies for themselves, and would fight with the city garrisons to break out of the gates from the inside. Khannaean Spies inside the city slaughtered generals and nobles in their dozens, burned supplies and incited riots to sow chaos among the populace. The remaining garrison could do naught but hold the walls, and even then just barely.

There was bravery here, too, even in the darkest hour that Evermarch faced. Five thousand Golden Spears stole a march on the Khannaeans besieging from the west, and broke through their lines to enter the city with relief supplies and soldiers to man the walls.

Letters went out with calls for aid, but the Khannaeans were careful. Any birds leaving the city were struck from the skies by their enslaved sorcerers, or the legions of archers that they had marched in for the siege.

The Khannaeans surrounded the walls, firing on it with siege engines they dragged from the east to batter against those beautiful, sandstone fortifications. Hundreds died within the first week, as poorly aimed stones rained against the walls and the city itself in equal measure. Fires spread within the streets, until Evermarch was covered in a pall of smoke that never seemed to cease.

It was a delaying tactic, nothing more, but it worked effectively. The Exodus Kingdoms were slow to respond, Shanna'dar alone actually sending scouts to assess the situation. The siege dragged on for weeks until a Lithandel caravan fled after seeing Khannaean banners on the horizon, bringing the tale to Ivantier.

The news, vague though it was, fell on mostly deaf ears in the south. The Exodus Kingdoms had long been chafing under the tariffs of Evermarch, and considered the vaguely described struggles of a city half the world away to be of little interest. Besides, many claimed, surely the marchers would have sent word if the situation was truly so dire.

## The Escape

As conditions worsened within Evermarchs walls, the Archons Council decided upon an unorthodox plan to warn the southern kingdoms of their plight.

A score of warriors were picked from those residing within the city; some known for their loyalty, others for their cunning. Teams were assembled, given messages and evidence of the Khannaean attack to carry beyond the siege lines to the south, where the only hope for Evermarch's salvation lay waiting.

The warriors left the city in groups of five, each in a different direction. They could have taken the roads on horseback, attempted to ride across the burned and blackened farmlands of the hinterlands to safety, but the Khannaeans patrolled the lands with vigilance.

To this end, companies of the remaining Golden Spears and the city Garrison sallied from the city's gates as one, attempting to draw the Khannaean attention towards them, and away from the groups that crossed the aqueduct on foot. The lack of horses meant slow going, and their efforts at stealth were not always successful, but the long stone constructions kept them above the worst of the patrols.

Reports taken from both sides described battles atop the aqueducts that very day, with Khannaean soldiers climbing the stone archways to stop the mercenaries escaping the siege. The western aqueduct was broken by a magical explosion that flung stones for miles, one that utterly incinerated the heroes who were moving across it to safety.

Of the twenty handpicked soldiers who fled the city; some of them taken from the dungeons, others from the highest echelons of the golden Spears, only two were ever seen again; a pair of mercenaries that remain unnamed to this day. Their comrades had been slaughtered in the escape, and the two had only barely managed to escape the siege lines themselves.

## The Coalition Counterattack and the Second Siege

It was these survivors that reached the town of Der Valic, bought horses and rode hard for Ivantier, where they would present their messages to the Conclave itself, the center of the Ascendantist Faith. The warriors delivered their message during a public session of the Conclave, with a thousand of Ivantier's people looking on. By the time they had finished describing the conditions inside the walls of Evermarch, the rest could not be heard over the angry cries and the stamping of feet.

The evidence of the siege itself, and the pleas delivered by the magistrates of the Golden Wheel Company to their debtors in the Exodus Kingdoms did their job well enough. The Conclave met with local magistrates of the golden Wheel Company, and their verdict was settled. A proclamation was read out from the High Virtue's balcony on the Grand Godspire, and his words were recorded and sent across the south. His message was clear:

The Children of Ethain were to unite against their brothers and sisters who had strayed. They were to save Evermarch from destruction.

A mighty crusade was assembled with haste. A squadron of Antarian warships embarked up the Delathar, their decks crowded with the Windryder's finest marines and heavy cavalry. Lithandel, while never a martial kingdom, sent three thousand men north, under the command of the Queen's Prince Consort, with two score Sentinels accompanying him. Ultain's Shadowguard was marshalled with haste, a dozen battalions of black-armoured soldiers marching out of the forests to join them. Even the Paragons of Newhaven, so weakened over time, sent troops to join the growing force. The multicultural host grew stronger and stronger, finally stiffened by two of the Iron Legions out of Venaris, armoured in silver and blue. Every old soldier, and every aspiring one, came together to heed the horns of war, led by a confederation of Kings, Lords and Princes who numbered in the hundreds.

They marched not only beneath their dozen banners of different shades and sigils, but beneath one that all of them knew. The White Star of Ethain, Lord of the Skies, flew proudly on a banner that could have shrouded a palace from view. Their speartips glittered silver and black along their line of march, held above suits of armour enamelled every shade from crimson to gold. Soldiers of fortune and honour both, white-clad Inquisitors of the church riding beside common churls from the gutters of Canteaux.

It took months to assemble the army, but it set forth eagerly along the Atran Road from Ivantier, racing north to break the siege.

The leaders elected the First Marshal of Venaris to lead their troops in battle: Lord Aurelian Danvis, a tried and tested veteran of a dozen wars. The soldiers of the Iron Legions called him Firebrand, for his flame red hair that had long since gone to grey. With the First Marshal pushing the soldiers north with haste, it was hoped that they would break the siege with little difficulty.

## Casualties

Khannaea

* Lady Kava Aldmoria

Ultain

* King Dagon Dyre
* Prince Dragor Dyre
* Prince Hadrian Dyre