Chapter 365: Chapter 349 – The Second Northern Expedition’s Debacle

“Oftentimes people do unwise things in the name of their greed and other desires. At times, those decisions backfired and consumed them whole.” - Liovar Rhodes, Philosopher from the Clangeddin Empire, circa 419 VA.

The Second Northern Expedition towards the prairie that would later be known as the Xewaur Plains, as the locals called them, was a military venture that was not officially supported by the Clangeddin Empire. Even so, the silence of the Emperor equaled tacit approval to begin with, which emboldened the many nobles in the Empire to send out their personal retinues and levies conscripted from their territories to the far north, to the land of the orcish clans.

 

It was a venture fueled by greed, by a desire to increase their personal fortunes, to conquer new lands in the name of the Empire and plunder its wealth at the same time. A great force of sixty-five thousand men and women of fighting age was gathered and marched together towards the north, composed of forces from over a dozen different duchies, marquisates, counties, and baronies of the Empire.

 

Records from survivors of the expedition noted how the expedition forces encountered no signs of the greenskins early on in their journey, the only sign of their presence being remnants of abandoned campsites, at times ones that looked like they had been evacuated in a hurry. It was almost as if the greenskins had seen them coming and fled before their wake like cowardly cur. That narrative emboldened the members of the expedition in its early days, but it was not too long before it was proven false in the worst way possible.

 

A month into their march, scouts of the expedition reported a large horde of the greenskins traveling towards their direction, and the expedition chose to halt and made their camp in the plains, to welcome the savage natives in whichever manner they arrived. The greenskin horde gathered near a poorly maintained wooden fort left behind by the first failed expedition, and nearly matched the expedition force in numbers.

 

Marquis Leckarsch Voswort of Noile was chosen as a delegate to negotiate the savages’ surrender, as he was the highest ranked noble out of those present with the expedition, and was met by a delegation of elderly savages accompanied by a human woman, whom most presumed to be a captive of the savages that was made to translate for them.

 

From that point on, records became more scarce and disjointed, with their veracities more in doubt.

 

What was known for a fact was that the negotiations broke down, and that Marquis Vosworth escaped from the venue at the cost of the personal guards he brought with him, who were supposedly slaughtered to a man by the savages. Since the Marquis himself never returned from the expedition with his fate unknown, there were no first-hand accountings of whatever happened during said negotiation.

 

The horde of greenskins launched a charge towards the expedition force when they saw the negotiation venus burning, a development that the commanders had expected. The expedition force was arrayed to meet the savage natives on the field of battle, their formation neat and proper as was expected from soldiers of the empire, incomparable to the pell-mell chaotic mess the horde was.

 

That was where things started to go awry for the expedition forces.

 

Most people – experts included amongst their number – had dismissed the reports from the survivors of the first expedition that the savages used monstrous bows with hefty arrows capable of piercing through a knight’s armor and slaying the man within from a hundred and fifty paces away. Those claims were thought to be excuses made by the losing side where they overexaggerated the abilities of their foes so as not to make themselves look too bad.

 

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They found out that those reports were the truth with their own bodies.

 

A deluge of arrows, many as thick as a grown man’s thumb, rained down on the expedition force. They raised their large wooden shields, which they prepared for just that sort of occasion, only to find that the arrows struck with such force even over the long distances that they pierced nearly halfway through those shields.

 

Some unfortunate soldiers were struck by those arrows in their arms and dropped their shields, which resulted in their demise shortly afterwards as more arrows fell on them. Their deaths caused those around them to be exposed to the rain of arrows, which in turn caused more deaths and injuries. Gaps quickly formed in the expedition forces’ once-neat formation under such a barrage.

 

Archers amongst the expedition forces attempted to retaliate, only to find themselves horribly outclassed. The greenskins had archers who were superior in range and penetration, and to make things worse, the arrows launched by the humans often failed to even incapacitate them on direct hits. Many depictions abound, telling of the savage greenskins rushing on despite over half a dozen arrows protruding from their bodies.

 

Not even the addition of the crossbowmen’s contribution managed to halt the greenskins, as the shorter range just allowed the greenskin archers to shoot directly instead of over an arc. There the previous reports were validated, as the greenskin archers easily pierced through knights in plate armor with their arrows from a distance of hundred and fifty paces away or more.

 

The cavalry detachments of the expedition force, led by famous knights from Niole and Oiloma, rode out and attempted to strike at the flanks of the savage horde of greenskins, to disperse their momentum and turn them to rout. Their advance brought hope to the soldiers of the expedition, as they knew they just had to hold until the cavalry routed the barbarians they faced.

 

That hope also proved to be a false hope.

 

Instead of charging through the greenskins like a hot knife gliding through butter, the cavalrymen were stopped dead in their tracks, those who charged in lost to a man as the greenskins seemingly had no fear and brought them down, at times along with their steeds. Those that remained adopted a tactic of slashing attacks, where they struck and ran to make space for the next group of attackers, but even such tactics proved to be limited in its effectiveness.

 

Instead, it was the cavalrymen who were ground down over time by the greenskins, and the lack of progress from their side broke the morale that had at first soared upon their advent. As a result, the expedition forces’ formation broke apart, as knights, men-at-arms, and levies all ran for their lives in the chaos without a care for everything else.

 

Such was the debacle of the Second Northern Expedition of the year 251 VA as noted in the history books.

 

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