Fourth War of the Ûr Lords

# 1295-1297 Fourth War of the Ûr Lords

## 1295 Assault of the North

Seventy years was enough time for the Ûr Lords to spend fighting amongst themselves before thinking of another invasion of the
West.  The leader of the strongest clan of the Ûr Lords was Orot Jahd.  He was
part Frost Giant, part Human, part Drow, and was fearsome to look at or to face in combat.  As he grew in rank in
the Dark Caste, he had made allies of some of the Night and Frost Giants who
lived on Icereach at the northern coasts of the Steppes.  As his clan grew powerful, instead of continuing his battle for supremacy over all of the other high caste Ûr Lords, he decided to convince the other clans and the giants to attack the West.

The giants of Icereach still raided each other often in the ancient traditions of the First Age, and the communication between the various sects of giants was still fairly open.  This allowed the giants of the Dunns to learn that there was going to be an attack of the north prior to the army even moving.

Immediately, the word was sent to the Houses of Raj Gohn, who began to muster troops.  In addition, the dwarven lords of Kharin & Kazden Dûn prepared themselves both for possible siege and/or sortie.

Orot Jahd gathered his large force of Ûr, Night and Ice Giant, and marched across the Steppes and tundra to the north of Kazden Dûn, straight towards the East Dunns.  The Rhorden, Dunn, Glenhome & Gelden forces had already assembled in the Ceoltoireacht Hills north of Glenhome.  Thangku’Ur had mustered a large army as well and it was already marching out of Thearth and into the Misniuil Plains, when Orot Jahd was days from the moors of the East Dunns.  South of the Bryan, the Detmanth forces marched into Devnah to protect the eastern fiefs, while the Vaddoren forces sailed into Almo to quickly assist the Caer Ddaden stand.

When the horde arrived in the Dunns, the western scouts returned with information that the horde was still three times the size of the Caer Ddaden army.  The army retreated to the south, for although the reinforcing armies were near, the horde was closer.  This gave the Western lords enough time for all three armies to join up in Ár Dale.  The word was also sent to the Kharin/Kazden dwarves that they were going to lure the horde further south and that a sortie by the dwarves would help delay any reserves, as well as cut off their retreat. The Kazden clan sortied and began to march towards the West.

Orot Jahd had also used scouts when he got closer to the Dunns, and had discovered that they were not going to fight anyone until they had reached Glenhome.  He also discovered that there was a smaller dwarven force to the northeast that was secretly marching to cut off their retreat.  Orot Jahd, therefore, split his force into raiding parties which would devastate the Dunns and the East Dunns, and another force who would strike against the dwarves.

**The Bloodshed of Meisceoireacht** [1] was one of the darkest days of the Khalid-Ka dwarves.   The greatest lords of Kazden Dûn and their most elite troops were wiped out by a horrible and savage attack from Orot Jahd.  After the battle, the entire horde rejoined and headed back towards Kazden Dûn to lay siege.

## 1296 Siege and Besiege

Orot Jahd led the horde back to Kazden Dûn to finally level the great citadel.  As soon as siege was laid against the citadel, a major assault against their walls and gates was conducted every few days.  By this time, the army in Ár Dale was fully gathered and so they headed directly towards Kazden Dûn to relieve the siege.

Orot Jahd pressed the assaults further as the days went by, but to no avail.  Orot Jahd also spent his time rallying additional support from some of the other Ûr Lords who had not directly opposed him.  He made deals for their support to make sure that they were not facing the intruders from the West alone.

Finally, it looked as if Orot Jahd’s assaults were making headway against the massive gates and walls of Kazden Dûn, just as the Army of the Houses arrived.  In this great battle, concentric battles were fought for days.  On the inner circle, Orot assaulted the great doors of Kazden Dûn, and wore down the weakened defenses of the Kazden clan.  On the next circle, the Army of the Houses assaulted the outer forces of Orot Jahd, weakening the besieging force every minute.  On the next circle, five clans of the Ûr Lords picked at the Army of the Houses who were spread around Orot Jahd’s force.  And finally, the army from Kharin Dûn and Detmanth had raced north to attack the force of the five clans of the Ûr Lords, to keep them from disrupting the main Army of the Houses too greatly.

**The Battle of Torn Skins** went on for days until finally the five clans of the Ûr Lords retreated from their support of Orot Jahd.  This left Orot Jahd with only desperation for salvation[2].  He called up the dead soldiers to fight as undead or as demons, but the Army of the Houses continued to savage the horde.  Two days after the five clans left, Orot Jahd and his horde were completely eliminated.

## 1297 Scourging the Ice

The horde who had dared to attack the West was now gone, but the relationship between the Ûr Lords and the Night and Frost Giants of the northern Steppes still posed a great danger to the people of the Dunns, as well as to Kazden Dûn.  The Army of the Houses marched northward and pushed the collaborating giants back off of the continent and on to the islands off the Icereach.  This attack against the giants did force these certain sects back away from Steppes, but it also solidified the hatred of the Night Giants against the West forever.

## Links

Chronology of Eirethune

Previous, Third War of the Ûr Lords

Next, Fifth War of the Ur Lords

## Notes

[1] Many of the dwarven bodies who were lost at the Bloodshed of Meisceoireacht were taken
by the giants and returned to the north to be burned in their clan camps.  The magical fires of the giants changed the bodies so that all would burn away except for the hearts of the dwarves which were turned to black stone.  These dwarf
heart stones are quite rare except in the frozen north, but they are very deadly to dwarves, gnomes and even goblins. The *Rapier of Bloodstone* was said to be used by an Ûr assassin during the Fifth War of the Ûr Lords, but it was recovered by the West and is believed to be in the ruined halls of the Dwarven Kingdom of Ffydd.

[2] When the other Ur Lords left Orot Jahd, Orot Jahd took the bones of some of the dead lieutenants of the retreating Ur Lords and constructed a set of rings. These rings allowed Orot Jahd to call up the dead as demons to help him in his fight. The rings were supposedly recovered and separated so that this power would never be used together again. The whereabouts of the rings is lost to history, although there is a tale which said that one had returned with a lord from Detmanth, who later died trying to raise his dead wife from the grave in his house somewhere long the Amed Plain, which didn't quite work the way he wanted. The *Ring of Necrotic Reformation* was said to transform the dead into a living devil to potentially do your bidding.