Ranulph's Account of the Sack of Hogstone

## Before the Battle

The Tension had been building for years.

The dynasty of the Steiner Kings of Hogstone had spread peace and justice to so many of the Thousand Islands, the pirate clans, fearful of retribution from a unified kingdom and the Guardians of Hogstone, had been forced further and further north, as far from the reach of Hogstone as they could go. But piracy can only flourish where there is wealth, where there are goods and coin to plunder, and in the cold and desolate northern islands, the pirates found none. What they did find, however, was a man to unify them.

Valon Mutt had been leader of the Mutt Clan for only a few years, after the death of his father in 415. An ambitious man, Valon was ever resentful of the wealth of the islands of the south, the prosperity of Brightwater Bay, the riches of the Spice Islands and the centralised governance of Hogstone. However with little power and few men, he did not have the means to exert his will on the Islands. The pirates that had been pushed closer and closer to Mutt’s Crag gave him the opportunity that he needed.

In 418, Valon called a great meeting with the leaders of the three most prominent pirate clans - Gordyn Greyship of the Greyship Clan, Randyll Redbeard of the Kraken’s Oarsmen and the fearsome Marston Battleblood, leader of the Battleblood Clan. In the hall of Mutt’s Crag, Valon made a pact with the men, that if they helped to gather men to the Crag, and then to strike hard at Hogstone a year to the day, the other islands would be easy prey, and their piracy could resume. Valon gave his sons Markan and Gerion to Randyll Redbeard as wards to seal the pact.

Markan and Gerion grew stronger under the tutelage of one of the Thousand Islands most feared pirates, and more and more men were brought to Valon's cause as the year 418 came to an end. The year of 419 was to be one of the bloodiest in the history of the Islands.

## The Battle of Shipbreaker Bay

In the Spring of 419, Mannaphi Al Lazphal, the court wizard, began seeing visions of a swarm of dogs, running across water. He brought his concerns to a council meeting where King Erryk V, his son Prince Erryk, myself, and the Guardians of Hogstone discussed the tidings. Mannaphi’s visions are a rare thing, but they had rarely been incorrect in the past, and this was one was not being taken lightly.

The council decided to send ships to the points where attacks were the most likely, the Kingsbay, as it was then known, to the north and west, and the waters between Hogstone and Brightwater Bay. The Guardian sisters Leya and Palima of Timberhill took the ‘Justice of Hogstone’ - the King’s flagship, and a dozen smaller vessels to Kingsbay, and entrusted the defence of the southern waters to the crew of the ‘Great Myranda’, a three masted galleon.

Accounts of what happened at Shipbreaker Bay are difficult to ascertain, as neither of the Guardian Sisters, and none of the crew of the ‘Justice of Hogstone’ lived to recount it. But what is clear is that they were come upon by a force that nobody could have survived. We know from Thirdson Mutt, who was amongst the ships that followed towards Hogstone, that his brothers Markan and Gerion were aboard the Hounds Tooth, the flagship of the Mutt Clan, and that Gerion, the younger of the two, was killed during the battle. We also know that following the battle, nothing on the seas could prevent the clans making landing at Hogstone.

## The Sack

We sat and watched the ocean all morning. Myself, the King and Mannaphi. We watched as fifty ships approached our shores, knowing that there was nothing we could do. The King had already given his orders, the smallfolk had gathered inside the castle, and the defence of the city was in the charge of the Guardian Uhtred Longaxe. Archers had been posted along every wall, but there were too few warriors inside the walls. Fools we were to believe our power at sea could not be overcome by any one fleet of pirates, none of us had been prepared for an alliance.

The clans came ashore near the docks, allowing the Hounds Tooth to dock in the huge port left empty by the ‘Justice of Hogstone’. From her vast deck was wheeled weapons of war, huge trebuchets, battering rams and ladders tall enough to scale the walls. These were not the tactics of the pirate clans, but of a shrewd military general, this was the work of Valon Mutt.

Valon himself took the Sleeping Stag Inn for his command. We had time to empty the stores there but the clans were well provisioned. For three days the clans surrounded the Castle as bands of pirates stripped the land bare and burned houses to the ground. On the third night the formations came together outside the walls. Everybody inside the Castle held their breath.

I was in the Kings solar when the trebuchets started loosing rocks. I heard the sounds of a warhorn and watched two thousand men stream toward the walls. It was then that Uhtred gave the command for the archers to fire. People say that a good archer on a strong wall is worth a hundred men, but whoever spoke those words can not have known of the hell that Valon Mutt unleashed on us that night. Wave upon wave of men drew the archers’ attention, as huge rocks slammed into the walls. Pyron Mutt, the Great Dog, Valon’s eldest son and the largest man I ever saw, larger still than Aelfrid the Giant, managed to lead a group to the gates, alongside three huge battering rams. The ladders came forward too, five, six, seven ladders threw up against the walls, and like insects the pirates began scaling them.

Mannaphi created a thunderstorm above the walls, later he told me that he was attempting to make the walls too slick, and the climbers too wary, but it did nothing to stop their ascent. One bolt of lightning did strike one of the clan’s huge trebuchets however, setting the machine and its operators aflame. But by this time the climbers on the walls were of smaller concern than the group at the gates. Pyron Mutt himself was at the head of one of the rams, and within an hour they had caused enough damage that the Great Dog’s greatsword could hack the remaining parts down. The defences had been breached, and that is when I knew we were lost.

## The Massacre

I ran from the Kings rooms in Hogstone Keep down to the main door, but by the time I arrived there the yard was a slaughter. I saw the Guardians Arnolf Silvertongue and Missa of Silverstream overwhelmed by a dozen clansmen each, Aelfrid the Giant lay dead, littered by a score of arrows. And I saw Uhtred Longaxe and Pyron Mutt engaged in fierce battle. I saw Herman’s boy, Jussi quivering behind a barrel and Harrald the farmhand wielding a pitchfork. I gathered them inside as more of the townsfolk followed. Steffon Sea-Tamer was wounded and bloodied but managed to get inside too. From there I called to the townsfolk just inside the keep to follow too, we made our way upstairs, into my solar and behind a wardrobe into a secret passageway. That is where we stayed, for the next three days.

## The Aftermath

On the morning of the fourth day, Jussi was the first to peer from the passageway. It seemed that outside the Keep, Hogstone was empty. As we walked into the yard, a smell of death overwhelmed us, clung to us. In the centre of the yard was an executioners block, and bent over it, the body of King Erryk V Steiner. His head was not found, but we can assume it was taken as trophy.

The townsfolk looked for their dead. But some were so bloodied and broken that they could not be identified. What was known for sure though was that the Guardians had been extinguished. Uhtred Longaxe lay dead, as did his brothers and sisters of the order.

Seeing the Guardians defeated had suddenly put a terrible thought in my head, I turned back to the Castle and down to the Underchamber of the Sekken Steiner. Gone. All of them gone. I wept then, falling to my knees. The sacred stones that had helped the Guardians to protect the Islands for 400 years were gone, and worse, in the possession of Valon Mutt.

Several days later, a ship docked, and four men disembarked, walking slowly and solemnly towards the castle. When they were close enough it was clear that they were only lightly armed, and that their leader was Thirdson Mutt. Thirdson fell to his knees and begged our forgiveness for what he had done. He would do anything to have made his father happy, he told me, and that he knew the terrible consequences that he had helped to bring to the Islands. He offered his service, to help rebuild Hogstone and try and undo some of the destruction his family had caused.

So here we are now. Months after the Sack, in the ruins of a city, governed by an old steward and a court wizard.  Thirdson up to this point has been keeping his word. He has a mind for numbers and already there is a small amount of trade reopening on the island. I have a mind to give him an official title, City Treasurer potentially. His account of the Sack filled in some other unknowns, that it had been Pyron Mutt that had executed the King, and that Valon Mutt had crowned himself directly afterwards inside the Castle, before leaving for Mutt’s Crag with the body of his dead son, Gerion.

The future is however not bright. The Sekken Steiner and all of the power they bring are in the possession of Valon Mutt, as is all the wealth of the Islands, which we are no longer able to protect. We hear word of islands being taken. Landon Mutt is Governor of Sailor’s Wyk now, and the Jarl of Timberhill is in league with the clans too. We need help. And soon.

Ranulph, written in the year 419.