The Northern Wars

THE NORTH SEA

Winter, 1E77

Elvish longboats cut through the foggy mists of the night along the still icy waters of the North Sea. The boats sailed from the port town of Arden on the coast of the Aryan Forest in Eastern Aenor, carrying scouts and explorers east across the channel towards the mysterious lands swathed in fog upon the horizon. The exploration party had been arranged and sent by the people of Aenor in a unanimous decision. The Elder Council, made up of the major chiefs of the land, had convened by the order of the Great Chieftain after hundreds of reports of missing elves and cradle-snatchings in the night. A body had washed up to shore one morning and the rumours began to spread of dark things in the eastern land over the water and of creatures snatching elves up in the night and dragging them to their watery graves or worse things. The elves of Arden were suspicious of the eastern shore and the Elder Council gathered up the willing for a voyage east to scout out and survey the foreign land.

There were five fleets of ten ten-man longboats sailing through the night after a long day of traversing the cold dead waters. A cold breeze blew upon their faces as they rowed their boats closer and closer to the now not-so-distant shore. The fog that blanketed the coast of the eastern land was so thick that the elvish eyes could only see but five or ten feet ahead. On each of the five fleets of ten boats there was a long length of hemp rope crafted by the people of Ahglor to keep each of the ten boats in tow with their companies so that none got lost in the fog or strayed from their plotted course. After some time, the foreign shore pushed through the fog to reveal itself to the elves- just in time as their boats scraped against the rocky reefs. Jagged rocks slashed through the elvish wood of the Aryan Forest that the boats were crafted from and they screeched in agony as the rocky teeth sank into their hulls.

Icy cold water began to fill the bottom of the boats of two of the five fleets, though only one of the elvish companies had managed to reach the rough shoreline unscathed. They dismounted from their longboats on the bare grey shoreline that was black in the night even as their misfortunate kin screamed out in the agony of the moment. The other two surviving companies of elves abandoned their vessels and swam the remaining distance to the shore- some of the elves shouted out as they disappeared beneath the water’s surface, snatched below by some unknown creature or thing to join the two lost fleets in their watery graves. Those who weren’t snatched to the great below made their way to the shore and clambered, cold and wet, to their dry kin who were already busying themselves about making a fire to ward off the creatures of the night. After some time the elves got a fire going with some of the dead branches and bramble that littered the shore and the elves settled themselves for the night after the chaos of their landing.

"Brace yourselves- those sea harpies may be the least of our worries yet!" one of the surviving captains of the expedition called out, somewhat uneasily as he peered into the distance outside the light of their campfire. The survivors gathered themselves around the flames, many of them drenched after abandoning the wreckage of their boats.

The land on the coastline was grey and bare, and nothing grew upon the desolate beach. Dead withered trees stretched as far back inland as the elves could see and formed a wall about twenty feet from the end of the bare beach that stretched in both directions as far as the elves could see running from north to south. There were no paths, no lights, no noise, and no signs of life anywhere around them as far as they could see and hear. The coast was devoid of any signs of life or activity but for the dead withered trees and black thorny brambles that were the only remains of a once mighty wood. Archers stood watch through the night whist the main host slept through the night before deciding their course of action in the morning.

There was no activity through the night, though the archers felt uneasy. It was as if they were being watched by some unknown entity, though no creatures were apparent on the beach. The elves woke in the morning and decided to make their way east- deeper inland through the dense dead wood. Some of the swordsmen amongst the gathered host stepped forward, hacking and slashing their way through the thick thorny brambles that beset the elves as they pushed their way into the dead forest. Cutting through the thorny underbrush that slowed the explorers and hemmed them in as they fought their way through the forest, they noticed that the ground steadily rose as the expedition continued further inland.

The fog was not as bad during the hazy light of the day and as the elves climbed in altitude, the further they travelled inland the fog began to thin out. They continued to take note of this until they found themselves above the misty clouds that blanketed the land behind them like a ghostly ocean. The whistle of elvish steel and dead bramble giving way to the Aenorean blades was the only sound in that forest- it echoed through the silent lands eerily in the early morning on that foreign shore. The elves were wary and alert as they pushed their way deeper into the dense wood that surrounded them from all directions.

After some time the land peaked and the elves reached a plateau high above the sea level. The elves could see for miles eastward- there were mountains on the horizon, hundreds of leagues to the east, running from north to south. As well as levelling out, the land had also cleared up before them. Brambles that had previously blocked their path started to clear out and the wood was steadily becoming more open. In the distance straight ahead and further east, the elves could see wisps of smoke above the treeline on the sunset horizon within a day’s journey from where they were.

They pushed their way through the undergrowth and by the end of the day they could see a pinprick of light in the distance. As they drew closer they found the source of light to be the torchlit streets of a small outpost in a man-made clearing within those woods. The elvish expedition made their way into the village centre; log cabins were built in rows forming a network of streets there. In the heart of the village there was a great heap of bodies all drenched in blood and covered in the exposed entrails the spilled out from all their torn orifices. Their grotesque faces were warped in a state of eternal gaping shock and agony while blood soaked the ground all around the mass grave before them. The bodies were impaled upon spears and decapitated- piled atop each other in a crude mass grave.

Some of the younger elves vomited, others stared onwards in brooding silence, but the senior elves in charge took the moment to discuss their next course of action. Even as the elven explorers decided what to do next, a twig snapped- echoing in the dead silence of the night. A stifled gasp escaped an elvish scout’s mouth before he silently thudded to the ground. A dark humanoid figure was hunched over the elf and the creature shoved its clawed hand into the misfortunate elf’s chest, ripping his heart out and devouring it out of the palms of its hands. Elf archers fired their arrows at the foul creature and the arrows flew through the shadowy creature as if it wasn’t even there.

Fear rose up in the hearts of the elves, unsure of what it was that they saw in the depths of the night, just outside of the dim warmth of the torch-lit village centre. The creature turned and charged at the elves, lunging after an archer who had only just fired his arrow in its direction. His shot vanished into the ghastly depths of the black cloak worn by the feral humanoid creature, disappearing into the darkness of its shadowy silhouette as it proceeded to devour the young elf scout. A swordsman sliced through the vampire with his steel scimitar and the enchanted elvish-forged sword bit into its flesh. Blood poured out of the stooped creature’s back and the wretched abomination screeched out a death wail even as the elven warrior beheaded the beast with a second swooping blow.

"What monstrosities does this horrid land harbour!?!" the swordsman cried out as he brandished the sword openly in his perplexion.

Screeches replied to his outcry even as his victim's death wail receded into the surrounding night. The responding shrieks came from every directions, echoing all around the elves. At the sight of the gruesome death of their kinsmen to the initial monster, paired with the ferocity and dark enchantments of what they now knew to be the beasts that inhabited that foreign land, many of the elven scouts broke rank- fleeing for their lives in all directions into the night. Some made a final stand in the city centre before they were inevitably overwhelmed in the end. The deserters who attempted to flee West in the dark arrived at the coast, only to find the longboats missing. Even the remains of the boats that had been smashed upon the rocky reefs were missing, and so they sat down upon the beach- their hope gone, along with their only chance of escaping those wretched lands.

Very few of the western deserters had managed to make it far, however; the majority found themselves lost in the treacherous undergrowth that covered the dark forest floor in the foggy night of the East. It couldn’t be helped but to assume they had fallen prey to the seemingly undead hunters who sought them out in those lands. Those who fled North only ran closer to danger and into the open arms of the enemy that pursued them. Though the elves were unaware and ignorant to the fact, there was an even larger nest of the monsters in the north; liken to a nation of vampires. It was populated with human slaves and tribal cannibalistic savages alike who were harvested liken to cash crops in those lands. The cannibals were glorified roaming slavers and marauders- capturing the people of rival tribes to feed upon for themselves or to offer as sacrifices to the monsters of those lands in an effort to keep their own people safe. The southern route ended at the foot of the mountain range that trapped those unlucky survivors of the retreat like a cornered animal before they were also slaughtered and inevitably devoured like the rest of their unfortunate kin.

The elves who decided to flee further East ran frantically crashing down a heavily wooded and overgrown path. They cut through the winding path with all the intensity and desperation that their situation warranted, opting to hack through the horny brambles and overgrowth in their haste as the land began to ascend closer towards the base of the eastern mountains that ran along the length of the whole country. The elves ran as hard as they could and pushed on through the night, forgetting their hunger and exhaustion as the monstrous humanoid predators tackled and devoured any unlucky stragglers who fell behind. Screams and death cries of dying elves all around pierced the depths of the dark forest as they fell one by one in the eastern lands.

Out of them, the dozen or so survivors of the hellish eastern run hurtled through what was left of the thinning woods and suddenly the trees ended, allowing them to see the horizon across a plain of thorny brambles. The creatures stopped at the edge of the dead wood whilst their prey pushed forward with another renewed burst of speed. They raced to the top of the mountains, realising too late that they’d reached the edge of a cliff at the top of the mountain-range they’d spanned in their run. The ground ended suddenly beneath them and so they flew over the Dead Man’s drop- experiencing the sensation of weightlessness one feels when falling from a great height before they came crashing into the snowy ground of the Northern Wastes below...