Post by The Forgotten God on Dec 2, 2012 15:51:25 GMT -5
Karyl Crowl stands in front of Prince Benjen giving his report of finding the fortress hidden in the swamp, he tries to gauge the reaction of the prince and those around him but is unable to accurately tell their feelings. It was times like these that he wished he had spent more time with the civilized folk of the southern lands, but then again he thinks to himself, the southern lords are always playing their little games of power, he smiles inwardly at the simplistic ways of his clan and the others on Skagos. The Crowl focuses back in to the tent that he was in with Prince Benjen and the rest of the commanders, I really think I should start paying more attention to those words they say, but damn they talk a lot and nothing is ever really said.
He nods as if he heard everything that was said, and says a few words in response to something about marching but ultimately decides to disregard the conversation as just more orders to marching to the fortress that he found with the group of men that they put under his command. Leaving the command tent Karyl Crowl walks around looking for where he put his tent finding it after a short while he quickly falls asleep to get some rest before the march.
The march to the Swampy Fortress as it has been dubbed by those in the army was a blur to The Crowl, he was mainly left alone by the common soldiers and those of nobility usually just nodded when he approached them, They where nice enough to them but his nature and the culture of the Skagosi was always following him. Once they reached the Fortress, Prince Benjen lead him and Titus and the other commanders with them to discuss possible areas of approach.
After some silly comment from the Vale knight about dressing everyone up dresses the Prince suggest that a group of men swim through the river entering the north. The Crowl being a warrior of proper blood volunteers himself and his men for the task, “I can surely get the gate open for the main attack.” He tells the prince barely able to contain his glee at such a mission. Once they get closer to the fortress and prepare for the assault The Crowl takes his men and Titus Grafton who at the last minute decided to join the task force instead of sticking with the main frontal assault. Clad in their plate armor to weigh themselves down so that the current did not wash them past the gate they enter the freezing water of the river. Shivering at the temperature of the water Karyl is the first to enter the river and swim used to the waters in the bay of seals Karyl was soon able to forget about the temperature and focus on the mission at hand, swimming through the Swampy Fortress, Karyl see’s that Titus had found a place to make land, heading over to the area Crowl pulls himself up onto the land and once there helps pulls the other members of the group onto the land so they do not get swept away by the current.
They make their way to the gate in the confusion of the camp taking care of those who come across them and scaring the others away which does not occur to the simple barbarian is probably a bad idea. Once at the gate the guards stationed their try to stand there ground but soon are running from the task force, Crowl lets Titus and his men take care of the foreign clansmen and focuses on the gate, noting that it is rusted in numerous places The Crowl raises his massive fists and punches the thing as hard as he can numerous times. Finally as the thing drops down, he watches as the main assault force starts running towards the breach and after a couple seconds of watching them progress, the Crowl turns back towards the fight between his men and the clansmen of the Vale and launches himself into the midst of the fight punching his way this and that turning his opponents into a mash of bruised skin, cracked ribs.
Once the main force arrives The Crowl looks around at the butchery that happened as a result of the northern army and smiles widely. He notices the prince talking to one of the men that was not dead and looked to be someone of importance to the clans man and makes his way towards to stand over the princes shoulder glaring down at what Crowl assumes to be the clan chieftan.
After a discussion between the man and the prince, Benjen turns to Crowl and Titus who had unknowingly to the Skagosi walked up beside him the Prince nodded. "Ser Titus, Make the round with a few men and ask some questions of the women. Crowl, I leave you to mount the head." The Crowl grabs the head by the hair and starts dragging the body towards the staircase to take the once Chieftain up onto the walls, he stops on his way over to pick up a discarded axe and flinging it over his shoulder continues his way up to the top of the walls. Once there he fully decapitates the head and shaves it down on the spike above the gates, Once that was finished he continues to tear the limbs from the mans body and shoves his arms down on the adjacent spikes as if the man was waving. Crowl steps back at this point and smiling to him-self broadly, decides that what he had done was the most.
After an hour or two of questioning the survivors of the clan some of the scouts of the Northern host come running into the fortress. Karyl is able to overhear them from where he is in the courtyard hears them report that another enemy host was incoming and that they vastly outnumbered the northern host. Karyl Crowl looking at the ruined gate that used to protect the fortress. Pointing to a couple of the men Karyl gestures them closer, “Grab an axe and follow me.” He says taking the axe that he had used to decimate the chieftains body and going out into the swamp surrounding the fortress and starts to cut down the nearest trees to help rebuild a fortifiable defense incase the enemy host wanted to take back their Swampy Fortress. After cutting down one of the trees Karyl motions to two of the men who had followed him out. “You guys, take these back to the fort.”
The men look to the Crowl as if he is crazed, “Aye, and what are we supposed to do with it once it is there?” He replies.
The Crowl responds to the man with a threatening smile, “It matter’s not to me, just pick someone at random and say here you go.” He says swinging the axe again at another tree to cut it down, as the men leave. This continues until numerous trees have been cut down that provides a mediocre gate to replace the one that Karyl had previously destroyed. When the opposing army had finally made it to the Fortress Karyl accompanied the men up on the battlements and paid witness to the talks between the Prince of the North and the armies ambassador so called Mort the Friendly, Karyl watches on obliviously as the woman is brought forward not really registering what is happening but figures by Benjen’s tone of voice and the hostility building up on the walls that who ever the girl is she means something to the other Northmen, a little bored of the talking Karyl’s attention is finally piqued when he hears the words champion and duel being said by the Prince and the man outside the walls. The conversation ends with the girl being let loose and Prince Benjen calling for the best warriors in the host being assembled in the courtyard, figuring himself to be one of the best there the Crowl lines up right with them, he looks around at those who also lined up and saw that the man Ser Titus had also counted himself among the finest. When the prince approaches Crowl asking if he thought he would be able to fight the enemies champion using some weapon that Karyl had never heard of before, he quickly agreed nodding and smiling broadly. When told that he was the one that was going to be fighting the opponent in the following morning he grins wildly and makes his way towards where ever his gear was to prepare for the morning. In preparation for the fight the Skagosi warrior checks his armor to make sure there are no outstanding dents or weak spots in the metal and sits down with his gauntlets and proceeds to run an oiled whetstone over the spikes on them to make sure that the points on them where sharp and able to puncture things with ease, he then sat down and polished them to a shine, after satisfied with the shine, Karyl decides to lay down and get some sleep before his big day.
The next morning The Crowl walks outside to the edge of the river and looked over to the island that he was to be the stage for the upcoming duel. After muttering a few words to Titus and Benny about not being a hero and having none of those prissy little songs made for this battle he embarks to the island, someone had fashioned him a makeshift raft for the voyage so using a pole he was able to navigate the short distance towards the island and stepped off of the raft, looking at the island he judged that it was an appropriate size and at the sound of something large moving through the water on the other side sees another man coming up to the island, He is six feet tall and enormously wide, looking like he'd have to turn sideways to fit through doors. In each hand is a long sword, curved, with a single edge razor-sharp. He wears no armor save boiled leather. When he sees the Crowl come up onto the island, he looks confused. "Is this a joke?" Karyl hears him claim,
The Crowl momentarily puzzled by the man’s comment replies, “I do not believe so. I am sure you are the one that I am supposed to be fighting.” He claims flexing his hands in their gauntlets and leaving the last word hanging as if to say more but refraining.
The man looks suspicious. “Where are your weapons? You ...know this is a duel, right?” The dual wielding guy claims apparently amazed that the Northman would be so stupid to send an unarmed opponent against him. In answer to this question Karyl just lifts up his hands and shakes them slightly as if egging the man on before getting into his fighting stance.
The fight starts with the enemy champion approaching Karyl carefully, waving his curved swords in a pattern that momentarily confuses the large northerner but the Lord Crowl was always on edge when in the midst of a fight and soon caught on to the pattern that the man was using, when the time came and the Champion swung his swords in an attack, he was puzzled that somehow the Unarmed man was able to catch his sword blows and render the attack practically useless. Dedicated to the fight at hand Karl manages to block and parry his way through the man’s superior reach and drawing his hand back and is able to land a solid punch on the man’s leather covered torso, grinning wildly as the swordsman involuntary takes a few steps back from the impact of the punch.
What happens next not only leaves Karyl extremely puzzled but hurting in the head trying to think about the maneuver afterwards. It started after the champion sidesteps, throws one arakh over the Skaag's head, and swings a powerful two handed blows into his shoulder with his remaining, slides around, and catches the arakh, all in under a second and a half. This momentary lapse in Karyl’s fighting sends the man running from the ferocious Skagosi, the way the fight has turned reminds the champion of some sort of drunken tavern goer chasing a fair maiden around, unluckily for him the he was the maiden and the drunkard was a giant man who when catching the maiden would proceed to give the maiden a giant bear hug trying to crush them to death.
The champion to try and prevent his untimely demise reaches over his shoulder and with the pommel of his sword raps Crowl on the head savagely making the man loosen his grip so that the champion is able to wrestle his way free. Karyl Crowl angry that he was unable to squeeze the man like a bad case of acne, punishes the man in the only manner that he knows by punching him repeatedly and heavily, caught up in the moment of his savage punishment to the enemy champion, he tackles the man to the ground and continues to punish the man repeatedly punching him in the head until there is nothing left of the mans face but a mass of bloody meat and bits of flesh. Crowl leans back with the most disturbing smile on his face and brings his hands up to face to look at them momentarily licking his lips he shoves his hands into the mans chest and locating the mans feebly beating heart pulls it from the champions chest, saying a prayer to himself he stuffs the heart into his mouth and barely chewing it swallows it and looking up at the moon howls his victory into the heavens. Somewhere off in the distance he can hear thousands of men retreating back into the mountains but none of that concerns him, he had defeated his enemy and he had consumed the flesh of his enemy. The rest of the day is a blur to the Large Clansmen as he sits in on the Prince’s meetings with some prisoners that where left when the large enemy had marched off, though for reasons that Karyl had no idea why. The next day the Northern host marches back to the main host of northerners to drop of the freed prisoners and regroup to attack the main enemy encampment titled Cass’s Keep by the prisoners and those they had fought.
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Karyl Crowl stands in the Prince’s tent with the new commander Durand Coldwater, the two men are discussing tactics which put the Crowl in a daze, he is about to start drooling from his mouth, when the mention of his name brings his mind back from the depths of the abyss, apparently the prince had it in his mind that his small task force would be able to hold an entire front of the battle by themselves, thinking back to the fight at the swampy fortress, he is able to conclude that they where not exceptional enough to be able to hold their own in a real battle. Voicing his concern for his men and the battle itself the Prince responds with smiling at Durand before turning to Crowl.
"You're in charge of the entire wing now, Lord Crowl. See to it they don't die come battle.” The Crowl unpleasantly surprised at this turn of events simply nods and does as Benjen wishes him to do. He goes to get himself acquainted with his new force of men, and when the time to march came the men where quickly ready and heading up the road looking for any sign of the mountain clansmen, upon seeing some tracks and the men themselves, Karyl receives word that the main host is to be reunited and from there they will track the enemy trails and hunt them down. When the troops are finally united the army moves out and when they close on the clansmen the army spreads out once again to fight them.
When the time comes for the battle The Skagosi leads his men well and he himself is at the peak of his line bashing his way through the so called army of the Vale clans, his fists are like brick sized war-hammers battering away at the helpless men on the opposing side, the enemies directly before him attempt at fleeing the onslaught but due to the confusion of the battle field are unable to get very far before being overwhelmed by the rest of Crowl’s forces. As soon as the Crowl reaches the end of the enemies’ lines he turns right around and cleaves another line of mass murder straight through the opposing forces.
After the battle the Crowl looks around and seeing virtually none of the clansmen either alive or not being taken prisoner smiles widely, seeing one of the commanders of his force walking around and gathering those who had died the Crowl calls over to the man, “What are our casulties?” The mom glances up and is able to see Karyl not far off and responds, “About 60 dead on our end, with about twice as many wounded. Though there has been no word from the other battles.” He states pointing over on the next hill where the banner of Prince Benjen was still waving. A couple hours later and Crowl finds himself again in a tent with Benjen and Durand, this time though instead of a table displaying maps there is a man in ropes lying on the floor being questioned by Durand as to the whereabouts of Cass’s keep. After their business was done with the man and the next set of battle plans set up the troop marches off again into the mountains to try and stop this war before it becomes more of a nuisance then it has already become.
A couple day’s travel from the supposed hidden city of Cass’s Keep Durand approaches the Crowl, “Lord Crowl, we are separating three groups of raiders to wreak havoc on the villagers between here and their keep.”
The Crowl looks at the man and nods with a smile. “How many men are we being given for this trek?” He asks already expecting to be given command of one of the groups of raiders.
“Prince Benjen has set aside 50 men for us, we are too strike hard and fast into their territory and once we get close fall back and rejoin the main host.” Coldwater replies, as he points over to a portion of the army that was striking their camp and readying themselves for the raiding parties. The man also leaves Karyl to make his own preparations.
The savagery that the next few days of Karyl Crowl’s life is what he was raised for, every village that they had passed Crowl ordered the men women and children butchered the villages sacked for what ever precious materials that they help within them and then the entire village burned including the bodies of those killed during the raid, this continues until the mountains of the moon are hazy with all of the villages burning and the wake of Crowl’s journey through the mountain is marked with the dead bodies of the vale clans and the ash of their burned homes, a days journey away from the keep Crowl falls back with his men and rejoins the main northern host for the upcoming battle.
Crowl stands with his line of men for the upcoming battle when hordes of enemies start pouring out of the hills behind and to the sides of them, not knowing what is going on Crowl turns to face where the nearest enemies are charges them with his men behind him, he carves a hole through the enemies lines and delivers mass death via punching and kicking his way through numerous clansmen. This soon turns to hell as Crowl sees from the corner of his eye the signs of one of the lines of men starting to fail, he turns his attention towards the line but does not reach it in time as the line suddenly ceases to exist as the men start fleeing some unseen terror.
Crowl, knowing that such a break in their lines would not only prove hazardous but extremely bad for the tide of the battle lunges into the mass of clansmen taking out at least five of the soldiers with the dive he is able to claw kick and bite his way back to a standing position and swinging his arms like a madman is able to hold the line until those around him are able to find their courage again and resume their pushing back against the forces of Draven and Cassadar. The fight for Crowl continues oblivious of everything else except his fists punching their way through peoples flesh and bodies creating a mass of bodies around him either dead or laying on the ground clutching portions of their body swelling to the size of a large grapefruit from shattered bones and otherwise injured intestines. The Crowl looks around in a momentary pause and sees the clan leader so called The Wild One, approaching the man with the ferocious axe, he is unable to get close as suddenly off in the background he starts to hear the drums and horns signaling a retreat for the Northern forces. Cursing under his breath the Crowl turns around and while running back towards the main host punches the first enemy he meets straight in the face breaking his face like it was a sheet of moss.
Gathering with what was left of the Northern force, Karyl Crowl watches in disappointment as they are made to retreat back towards safer territory. He was being given 500 men to retreat back to the Coldwater, his leadership of the men was poor and everyone knew it. The first day of the retreat he took the wrong path and his men where easy prey when an enemy hunting party showed up to stop them from succeeding in their retreat. The Crowl pissed at the turn of events was able to fight and lead his men to safety as quickly as the battle had started it ended as the archers accompanying Crowl took it upon themselves to start raining arrows down on the force that was being led by the fierce Cassadar unknowingly to Karyl. The next day goes better as Crowl’s host is able to extend the distance that separates them and the hunting parties, still not safe though they continue fleeing back through the mountains towards Coldwater keep. The third day their opponent catches up with him though and being the Barbarian he is and bitter over the past few days and their defeats he attacks the force but is quickly driven back when his men get slaughtered by the opposing force who outnumbers them more then two to one. Retreating once again Crowl’s forces finally reach the haven of Coldwater and the fresh food and water that had been made scarcely available to them for the past three days.
He nods as if he heard everything that was said, and says a few words in response to something about marching but ultimately decides to disregard the conversation as just more orders to marching to the fortress that he found with the group of men that they put under his command. Leaving the command tent Karyl Crowl walks around looking for where he put his tent finding it after a short while he quickly falls asleep to get some rest before the march.
The march to the Swampy Fortress as it has been dubbed by those in the army was a blur to The Crowl, he was mainly left alone by the common soldiers and those of nobility usually just nodded when he approached them, They where nice enough to them but his nature and the culture of the Skagosi was always following him. Once they reached the Fortress, Prince Benjen lead him and Titus and the other commanders with them to discuss possible areas of approach.
After some silly comment from the Vale knight about dressing everyone up dresses the Prince suggest that a group of men swim through the river entering the north. The Crowl being a warrior of proper blood volunteers himself and his men for the task, “I can surely get the gate open for the main attack.” He tells the prince barely able to contain his glee at such a mission. Once they get closer to the fortress and prepare for the assault The Crowl takes his men and Titus Grafton who at the last minute decided to join the task force instead of sticking with the main frontal assault. Clad in their plate armor to weigh themselves down so that the current did not wash them past the gate they enter the freezing water of the river. Shivering at the temperature of the water Karyl is the first to enter the river and swim used to the waters in the bay of seals Karyl was soon able to forget about the temperature and focus on the mission at hand, swimming through the Swampy Fortress, Karyl see’s that Titus had found a place to make land, heading over to the area Crowl pulls himself up onto the land and once there helps pulls the other members of the group onto the land so they do not get swept away by the current.
They make their way to the gate in the confusion of the camp taking care of those who come across them and scaring the others away which does not occur to the simple barbarian is probably a bad idea. Once at the gate the guards stationed their try to stand there ground but soon are running from the task force, Crowl lets Titus and his men take care of the foreign clansmen and focuses on the gate, noting that it is rusted in numerous places The Crowl raises his massive fists and punches the thing as hard as he can numerous times. Finally as the thing drops down, he watches as the main assault force starts running towards the breach and after a couple seconds of watching them progress, the Crowl turns back towards the fight between his men and the clansmen of the Vale and launches himself into the midst of the fight punching his way this and that turning his opponents into a mash of bruised skin, cracked ribs.
Once the main force arrives The Crowl looks around at the butchery that happened as a result of the northern army and smiles widely. He notices the prince talking to one of the men that was not dead and looked to be someone of importance to the clans man and makes his way towards to stand over the princes shoulder glaring down at what Crowl assumes to be the clan chieftan.
After a discussion between the man and the prince, Benjen turns to Crowl and Titus who had unknowingly to the Skagosi walked up beside him the Prince nodded. "Ser Titus, Make the round with a few men and ask some questions of the women. Crowl, I leave you to mount the head." The Crowl grabs the head by the hair and starts dragging the body towards the staircase to take the once Chieftain up onto the walls, he stops on his way over to pick up a discarded axe and flinging it over his shoulder continues his way up to the top of the walls. Once there he fully decapitates the head and shaves it down on the spike above the gates, Once that was finished he continues to tear the limbs from the mans body and shoves his arms down on the adjacent spikes as if the man was waving. Crowl steps back at this point and smiling to him-self broadly, decides that what he had done was the most.
After an hour or two of questioning the survivors of the clan some of the scouts of the Northern host come running into the fortress. Karyl is able to overhear them from where he is in the courtyard hears them report that another enemy host was incoming and that they vastly outnumbered the northern host. Karyl Crowl looking at the ruined gate that used to protect the fortress. Pointing to a couple of the men Karyl gestures them closer, “Grab an axe and follow me.” He says taking the axe that he had used to decimate the chieftains body and going out into the swamp surrounding the fortress and starts to cut down the nearest trees to help rebuild a fortifiable defense incase the enemy host wanted to take back their Swampy Fortress. After cutting down one of the trees Karyl motions to two of the men who had followed him out. “You guys, take these back to the fort.”
The men look to the Crowl as if he is crazed, “Aye, and what are we supposed to do with it once it is there?” He replies.
The Crowl responds to the man with a threatening smile, “It matter’s not to me, just pick someone at random and say here you go.” He says swinging the axe again at another tree to cut it down, as the men leave. This continues until numerous trees have been cut down that provides a mediocre gate to replace the one that Karyl had previously destroyed. When the opposing army had finally made it to the Fortress Karyl accompanied the men up on the battlements and paid witness to the talks between the Prince of the North and the armies ambassador so called Mort the Friendly, Karyl watches on obliviously as the woman is brought forward not really registering what is happening but figures by Benjen’s tone of voice and the hostility building up on the walls that who ever the girl is she means something to the other Northmen, a little bored of the talking Karyl’s attention is finally piqued when he hears the words champion and duel being said by the Prince and the man outside the walls. The conversation ends with the girl being let loose and Prince Benjen calling for the best warriors in the host being assembled in the courtyard, figuring himself to be one of the best there the Crowl lines up right with them, he looks around at those who also lined up and saw that the man Ser Titus had also counted himself among the finest. When the prince approaches Crowl asking if he thought he would be able to fight the enemies champion using some weapon that Karyl had never heard of before, he quickly agreed nodding and smiling broadly. When told that he was the one that was going to be fighting the opponent in the following morning he grins wildly and makes his way towards where ever his gear was to prepare for the morning. In preparation for the fight the Skagosi warrior checks his armor to make sure there are no outstanding dents or weak spots in the metal and sits down with his gauntlets and proceeds to run an oiled whetstone over the spikes on them to make sure that the points on them where sharp and able to puncture things with ease, he then sat down and polished them to a shine, after satisfied with the shine, Karyl decides to lay down and get some sleep before his big day.
The next morning The Crowl walks outside to the edge of the river and looked over to the island that he was to be the stage for the upcoming duel. After muttering a few words to Titus and Benny about not being a hero and having none of those prissy little songs made for this battle he embarks to the island, someone had fashioned him a makeshift raft for the voyage so using a pole he was able to navigate the short distance towards the island and stepped off of the raft, looking at the island he judged that it was an appropriate size and at the sound of something large moving through the water on the other side sees another man coming up to the island, He is six feet tall and enormously wide, looking like he'd have to turn sideways to fit through doors. In each hand is a long sword, curved, with a single edge razor-sharp. He wears no armor save boiled leather. When he sees the Crowl come up onto the island, he looks confused. "Is this a joke?" Karyl hears him claim,
The Crowl momentarily puzzled by the man’s comment replies, “I do not believe so. I am sure you are the one that I am supposed to be fighting.” He claims flexing his hands in their gauntlets and leaving the last word hanging as if to say more but refraining.
The man looks suspicious. “Where are your weapons? You ...know this is a duel, right?” The dual wielding guy claims apparently amazed that the Northman would be so stupid to send an unarmed opponent against him. In answer to this question Karyl just lifts up his hands and shakes them slightly as if egging the man on before getting into his fighting stance.
The fight starts with the enemy champion approaching Karyl carefully, waving his curved swords in a pattern that momentarily confuses the large northerner but the Lord Crowl was always on edge when in the midst of a fight and soon caught on to the pattern that the man was using, when the time came and the Champion swung his swords in an attack, he was puzzled that somehow the Unarmed man was able to catch his sword blows and render the attack practically useless. Dedicated to the fight at hand Karl manages to block and parry his way through the man’s superior reach and drawing his hand back and is able to land a solid punch on the man’s leather covered torso, grinning wildly as the swordsman involuntary takes a few steps back from the impact of the punch.
What happens next not only leaves Karyl extremely puzzled but hurting in the head trying to think about the maneuver afterwards. It started after the champion sidesteps, throws one arakh over the Skaag's head, and swings a powerful two handed blows into his shoulder with his remaining, slides around, and catches the arakh, all in under a second and a half. This momentary lapse in Karyl’s fighting sends the man running from the ferocious Skagosi, the way the fight has turned reminds the champion of some sort of drunken tavern goer chasing a fair maiden around, unluckily for him the he was the maiden and the drunkard was a giant man who when catching the maiden would proceed to give the maiden a giant bear hug trying to crush them to death.
The champion to try and prevent his untimely demise reaches over his shoulder and with the pommel of his sword raps Crowl on the head savagely making the man loosen his grip so that the champion is able to wrestle his way free. Karyl Crowl angry that he was unable to squeeze the man like a bad case of acne, punishes the man in the only manner that he knows by punching him repeatedly and heavily, caught up in the moment of his savage punishment to the enemy champion, he tackles the man to the ground and continues to punish the man repeatedly punching him in the head until there is nothing left of the mans face but a mass of bloody meat and bits of flesh. Crowl leans back with the most disturbing smile on his face and brings his hands up to face to look at them momentarily licking his lips he shoves his hands into the mans chest and locating the mans feebly beating heart pulls it from the champions chest, saying a prayer to himself he stuffs the heart into his mouth and barely chewing it swallows it and looking up at the moon howls his victory into the heavens. Somewhere off in the distance he can hear thousands of men retreating back into the mountains but none of that concerns him, he had defeated his enemy and he had consumed the flesh of his enemy. The rest of the day is a blur to the Large Clansmen as he sits in on the Prince’s meetings with some prisoners that where left when the large enemy had marched off, though for reasons that Karyl had no idea why. The next day the Northern host marches back to the main host of northerners to drop of the freed prisoners and regroup to attack the main enemy encampment titled Cass’s Keep by the prisoners and those they had fought.
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Karyl Crowl stands in the Prince’s tent with the new commander Durand Coldwater, the two men are discussing tactics which put the Crowl in a daze, he is about to start drooling from his mouth, when the mention of his name brings his mind back from the depths of the abyss, apparently the prince had it in his mind that his small task force would be able to hold an entire front of the battle by themselves, thinking back to the fight at the swampy fortress, he is able to conclude that they where not exceptional enough to be able to hold their own in a real battle. Voicing his concern for his men and the battle itself the Prince responds with smiling at Durand before turning to Crowl.
"You're in charge of the entire wing now, Lord Crowl. See to it they don't die come battle.” The Crowl unpleasantly surprised at this turn of events simply nods and does as Benjen wishes him to do. He goes to get himself acquainted with his new force of men, and when the time to march came the men where quickly ready and heading up the road looking for any sign of the mountain clansmen, upon seeing some tracks and the men themselves, Karyl receives word that the main host is to be reunited and from there they will track the enemy trails and hunt them down. When the troops are finally united the army moves out and when they close on the clansmen the army spreads out once again to fight them.
When the time comes for the battle The Skagosi leads his men well and he himself is at the peak of his line bashing his way through the so called army of the Vale clans, his fists are like brick sized war-hammers battering away at the helpless men on the opposing side, the enemies directly before him attempt at fleeing the onslaught but due to the confusion of the battle field are unable to get very far before being overwhelmed by the rest of Crowl’s forces. As soon as the Crowl reaches the end of the enemies’ lines he turns right around and cleaves another line of mass murder straight through the opposing forces.
After the battle the Crowl looks around and seeing virtually none of the clansmen either alive or not being taken prisoner smiles widely, seeing one of the commanders of his force walking around and gathering those who had died the Crowl calls over to the man, “What are our casulties?” The mom glances up and is able to see Karyl not far off and responds, “About 60 dead on our end, with about twice as many wounded. Though there has been no word from the other battles.” He states pointing over on the next hill where the banner of Prince Benjen was still waving. A couple hours later and Crowl finds himself again in a tent with Benjen and Durand, this time though instead of a table displaying maps there is a man in ropes lying on the floor being questioned by Durand as to the whereabouts of Cass’s keep. After their business was done with the man and the next set of battle plans set up the troop marches off again into the mountains to try and stop this war before it becomes more of a nuisance then it has already become.
A couple day’s travel from the supposed hidden city of Cass’s Keep Durand approaches the Crowl, “Lord Crowl, we are separating three groups of raiders to wreak havoc on the villagers between here and their keep.”
The Crowl looks at the man and nods with a smile. “How many men are we being given for this trek?” He asks already expecting to be given command of one of the groups of raiders.
“Prince Benjen has set aside 50 men for us, we are too strike hard and fast into their territory and once we get close fall back and rejoin the main host.” Coldwater replies, as he points over to a portion of the army that was striking their camp and readying themselves for the raiding parties. The man also leaves Karyl to make his own preparations.
The savagery that the next few days of Karyl Crowl’s life is what he was raised for, every village that they had passed Crowl ordered the men women and children butchered the villages sacked for what ever precious materials that they help within them and then the entire village burned including the bodies of those killed during the raid, this continues until the mountains of the moon are hazy with all of the villages burning and the wake of Crowl’s journey through the mountain is marked with the dead bodies of the vale clans and the ash of their burned homes, a days journey away from the keep Crowl falls back with his men and rejoins the main northern host for the upcoming battle.
Crowl stands with his line of men for the upcoming battle when hordes of enemies start pouring out of the hills behind and to the sides of them, not knowing what is going on Crowl turns to face where the nearest enemies are charges them with his men behind him, he carves a hole through the enemies lines and delivers mass death via punching and kicking his way through numerous clansmen. This soon turns to hell as Crowl sees from the corner of his eye the signs of one of the lines of men starting to fail, he turns his attention towards the line but does not reach it in time as the line suddenly ceases to exist as the men start fleeing some unseen terror.
Crowl, knowing that such a break in their lines would not only prove hazardous but extremely bad for the tide of the battle lunges into the mass of clansmen taking out at least five of the soldiers with the dive he is able to claw kick and bite his way back to a standing position and swinging his arms like a madman is able to hold the line until those around him are able to find their courage again and resume their pushing back against the forces of Draven and Cassadar. The fight for Crowl continues oblivious of everything else except his fists punching their way through peoples flesh and bodies creating a mass of bodies around him either dead or laying on the ground clutching portions of their body swelling to the size of a large grapefruit from shattered bones and otherwise injured intestines. The Crowl looks around in a momentary pause and sees the clan leader so called The Wild One, approaching the man with the ferocious axe, he is unable to get close as suddenly off in the background he starts to hear the drums and horns signaling a retreat for the Northern forces. Cursing under his breath the Crowl turns around and while running back towards the main host punches the first enemy he meets straight in the face breaking his face like it was a sheet of moss.
Gathering with what was left of the Northern force, Karyl Crowl watches in disappointment as they are made to retreat back towards safer territory. He was being given 500 men to retreat back to the Coldwater, his leadership of the men was poor and everyone knew it. The first day of the retreat he took the wrong path and his men where easy prey when an enemy hunting party showed up to stop them from succeeding in their retreat. The Crowl pissed at the turn of events was able to fight and lead his men to safety as quickly as the battle had started it ended as the archers accompanying Crowl took it upon themselves to start raining arrows down on the force that was being led by the fierce Cassadar unknowingly to Karyl. The next day goes better as Crowl’s host is able to extend the distance that separates them and the hunting parties, still not safe though they continue fleeing back through the mountains towards Coldwater keep. The third day their opponent catches up with him though and being the Barbarian he is and bitter over the past few days and their defeats he attacks the force but is quickly driven back when his men get slaughtered by the opposing force who outnumbers them more then two to one. Retreating once again Crowl’s forces finally reach the haven of Coldwater and the fresh food and water that had been made scarcely available to them for the past three days.