FVN Chapter 294: Chapter XX: Battle of Dawnstar: A Slaughter
Chapter 294: Chapter XX: Battle of Dawnstar: A Slaughter
Chapter 294: Chapter XX: Battle of Dawnstar: A Slaughter
Two more days had passed since the initial big clash of our armies with neither side gaining all that much ground from the other. The Stormcloaks were still resting and Ulfric was likely scrambling to repair his side's still flagging morale while Tullius felt that taking any ground we did not hold in the first place was tactically unsound and quite frankly a waste of lives.
We were the defenders here, and attacking an enemy when time was not in their favor was just plain idiotic.
That is not to say there was no fighting happening all over the place. Both sides kept engaging in minor skirmishes with the only real major fighting happening around the forest and the eastern fort guarding the besieged city. Hundreds of men and women still died as each day passed but this naturally failed to come even close to the utter bloodbath the mere three hours of battle had brought days earlier.
The Dawnstar garrison was almost relentless in their attempts to break out but sadly, whoever was commanding them now was unfortunately intelligent enough to leave all of his flanks fully staffed, else we would have just stormed one of the flanks once they attempted another breakout and taken the city with barely any resistance.
Another batch of reinforcements, mostly made up of old veterans from what I managed to spy, had arrived in the Stormcloak camp overnight but the news of Ulfric's shameful retreat had already spread throughout the ranks, taking the wind out of the sails of Ulfric's downright hysteric attempts to motivate his people for another clash.
And so I found myself sitting in the middle of a neat forest clearing, pondering my orb while a miserable sod barely held himself back from begging for mercy as crossbows discharged all around him, knowing damn well it would only earn him more torment.
[Big D: Anything new happening over in the college? Busy burning rebels atm so can't really come personally.]
[Savos: The new batch of students seems promising, and the previous year's generation has almost universally cleared their adept exams so nothing unusual if I am being honest.
Also, must you word it that way?]
[LizardWizard: If they didn't want to burn, why so flammable?]
[Savos: ...Of course, how foolish of me.]
[SugarFromHeaven: How does this thing work? Is it on?]
[Big D: You already made it work Hakan, just think what you want written and the orb will interpret the rest.]
[SugarFromHeaven: Ah! Most excellent! I thought you might want to know that we got a message over from Morthal asking for a new Court Wizard, my apprentice decided to accept it provisionally.]
[Big D: ...While I am impressed Idgrod decided to stop being a fucking idiot about running her hold I am genuinely surprised Morrigan went for it, what with her whole obsession with wealth and luxury, that place is a shithole.]
[SugarFromHeaven: Well, she was finally finishing her apprenticeship anyway and the bogs are a good place to source ingredients so it isn't that bad of a decision.]
[Big D: Quite, especially if she invests in proper magically enhanced housing.]
[Skeletor: There are other forms of housing?
Also, why does my name keep changing to this? It isn't even spelled out correctly.]Nôv(el)B\\jnn
[Big D: Your lack of enlightenment disappoints me, Phineas.]
[Skeletor: Ah yes, the butcher's wit strikes our crotchety old assholes once again!]
[I Cast Fist: I personally find it quite humorous.]
[Skeletor: Of course you would you old fart... Never you mind that, you should come up to my labs soon, I think I am close to making a breakthrough with the whole skin generation stage and I need your ridiculous sight to help me out.]
[Big D: Finally cracked it, eh? Sure, I will come by just as soon as I am done soothing the dreams of the people I butchered.]
[Skeletor: Fine, as long as you don't get stuck doing something inane like discussing philosophy with a dragon I can wait.]
[LizardWizard: I will have you know, young man, that dragons are excellent philosophers!]
[Skeletor: ...Please tell me he is fucking with me?]
[Big D:...]
[Skeletor: Reyvin.]
[Big D: Gotta go! See you all whenever bye!]
I cut off the flow of magic from the orb just as Phineas starts stringing curses in increasingly morbid ways. A bolt whizzes dangerously close to my face as Tiberius forces another blast of wind from within and falls over, his Magicka completely spent.
"Excellent work men!" I clap my hands "Give him five minutes and then start again."
A column of highly alert warriors of Skyrim marched through the thin forest paths, and at
their head marched a full unit of the heroes of the Great War, the veterans only convinced to join the fight after their reluctance started to cause 'accidents' for their families and the authorities all seemed to be incredibly oblivious about everything that was happening. None of them were idiots but understood that politics were neither clean nor honorable so they simply accepted their lot and took up their old arms and armor once again.
At least that went for the actually reluctant ones, the rest were more than happy to 'finally' be
taken out of the reserves so they could fight for their liberty against their no doubt PTSD- induced hatred for all things elven.
The path seemed to widen by a large margin as they stepped out into a vast forest clearing,
their eyes met with only vibrant green grass and a lonely figure standing atop the slight rise in
the clearing's center.
The figure was leaning on what looked to be a glaive with a long purple strip of cloth attached
to just below its blade and waving freely in the wind.
Even the slowest-minded among the rebels took only a moment to recognize the terror they were unlucky enough to behold and the entire five hundred man strong line froze.
The silence seemed to stretch for what felt like years as no one was quite brave enough to speak before the visage of death before them gave leave.
Was it only fear or did the Nords feel actual respect for the one to face down heroes such as
Ulfric and Grimnir?
Finally, a light voice resounded across the field, almost reluctantly "I will give you but one
chance." Glowing red eyes opened and sent further terror down the spines of every man and woman present "Surrender yourselves, or be slain to the last."
Silence once more descended upon the lines of rebels, many of them wanted to take the offer but none was quite so brave to face the peer pressure of being the first to accept.
But their chance was soon snatched away as one of the veterans was bestowed with an unfortunately firm spine, as she grabbed her axe and bellowed "SOVENGARDE!"
The figure of Lord Dagoth remained perfectly still as ravenous winds descended upon her and
shred her to pieces.
A sound, almost akin to a defeated sigh, resounded across the battlefield and the entire unit
was assaulted with the sudden urge to blink. By the time they did so, the figure was gone...
Fifty men were already dead by the time they realized just where their target now was. Soon the entire forest erupted into battle, with perfectly positioned imperial forces descending upon their foes with immense efficiency of slaughter, all of their movements and even losses were pre-planned as if they were merely following a path outlined for them by a
higher power.
Such a slaughter would have been a thing of eternal glory... had they not been killing their
brothers. (Reyvin's POV)
By the time I buried my sword into the gut of the two thousand five hundred and sixty eight Stormcloak, the blood seemed to almost be trying to resist my robe's enchantment, trying to stick to me almost like some kind of curse.
The sash, gifted to me by Torygg all those years ago, seemed ten times as heavy as I waded
through the sea of corpses, my house guard and the rest of the forest detachment following behind me, finishing off everyone who was unlucky enough to still live.
No one spoke, or even made much noise for that matter, as we stepped out of the woods in all
our bloodied glory, the Stormcloak camp and thus victory firmly in our sights.
Swiftly my pretties, we must reach Reyvin's kill count with stones before we are left behind!
If you want to support me directly and get access to 35ish chapters (Some 70k-ish words) in advance visit my patreon page patreon.com/Rastislav156
If you want to discuss the story or just meme about join my discord server: https://discord.gg/NSDHGQpvsF (refreshed)