The March to Stone Shard - Part 1

From: The Personal Journal of Lord Dorvan Long-night

Date: 6th of Gol (The 5th Month of the Year 204 of the 2nd Age)

Just before I started writing this, Sir Euwan visited my chambers and informed me that Taigstun has called a meeting of the lords taking part in the Crusade to go over the strategy for the army until we reach Stone Shard.

So, I’ll be brief for we march first thing in the morning.

These last few days have been too hectic for me to spend any time writing in this journal and, the first few minutes I have free, I can’t spend it with my wife or children, or even here writing in this journal; I have to spend it with Taigstun of all people.

Great.

Still, with the army we’ve raised, the Gold Crusade shouldn’t take too long for us to make progress. We can set up a forward operation base and start giving soldiers time off to return to the city.

Forgive me, dear wife, but I promise to make it up to you.

Those loyal to my house, and those Sir Euwan have recruited, have answered my call and we have contributed quite the force to the Crusade’s efforts.

10,000 men in total; 1000 ram riders, 4000 phalanx infantry, 3000 men at arms, 500 of my elite house guard, 200 knights, and 1300 volunteers from the civilian population who joined the day the High King made his speech.

My men at arms are trained with both sword and shield and crossbows, so I’m pleased to say that my men have a good balance of soldiers moving forwards.

Should my forces need to act independently from the main army, I believe that we could effectively.

In total, there are 300,000 soldiers taking part in the Gold Crusade, a mighty army to say the least, with the other great houses offering up as many or more men as I have, but the High King has the majority of the army under his personal banner; some 100,000 strong.

He’s also enlisted 4000 slayers from Strangúld which is more than half of the order, so we should be well equipped to take down trolls and any other beasts that the Goblins throw at

[I imagine that Lord Long-night’s entry here was cut short by Sir Euwan arriving and bringing him to the meeting with Taigstun]

Below, I’ve complied an equipment detail of each of the different types of soldiers that participated in the Gold Crusade, as they were provided with the best equipment that the Dwarven army could make.

House Guard - Gorgeous and heavily detailed steel armour bearing each house’s sigils, steel longswords and shields [From what I’ve heard from Sir Euwan and others, each of the Great Houses attempts to out-do the others in a contest concerning the beauty of their suits of armour, something which I imagine wasted a good amount of time that could’ve been used giving the other detachments better equipment]

Knights - Identical to house guards, but with less fancy armour and they only carry two handed weapons, like great axes, war hammers and claymores, rather than using a shield [Apparently, not using a shield shows how ‘brave’ they are]

Slayers - Thick steel armour, heavy duty crossbows that fire powerful steel bolts capable of piercing armour and the thick hide of trolls [Without these soldiers, the gates of Strangúld would’ve fallen many a time to the Goblins]

Ram Riders - Chainmail armour, iron shields, long spears with steel tips, iron short swords and their own personally raised rams. [I did see and hear about heavily armoured ram riders, though I have no idea how many there were; the armour had been made either by the riders personally, or they had paid out of their own pockets to make the armour, so not everyone had armoured rams]

Phalanx - Thick leather armour with iron long spears, steel short swords and tall shields just a head shorter than the man carrying them [Most Dwarven soldiers serve in this detachment of the army at some point or another. Even the knights and noblemen [Most of them, at least] have served with the phalanx]

Men at Arms - Thick leather armour with short steel swords and small shields, and armed with wooden crossbows [Most of the men at arms were volunteers who answered the High King’s call and then managed to complete all of their training, but not in time to get better equipment]

Volunteers - Thin leather armour, small wooden shields and short spears, and an iron short-sword [Left over weapons and armour, essentially; they were the ones who answered the call but couldn’t complete their training in time]

The day after Lord Long-night wrote that entry, the Gold Crusade left through the gates of Dawn Hammer and, from there, they would travel through a few of the other cities in our kingdom, then to Strangúld and then make their way to Stone Shard, the first of the lost cities.

I still remember how I felt when I first lay eyes upon the mighty Crusade force, marching through the streets, cheers and music carrying them onwards beyond the gates.

I smiled and cheered along with the rest of Dawn Hammer and I couldn’t help but feel that such a great army would never, ever be defeated.

Even then, I wanted to run out and join them. Throw myself before one of the ram riders or knights, prostrate myself, offer my life to them and request the ‘honour’ of going with them.

Once they had left, I honestly felt like I would regret not doing that for the rest of my life.

Ancestors be praised that my fear of death outweighed my determination to fight.

With hindsight, I can safely say that it was the arrogant attitude of the Gold Crusade’s members that partially lead to the downfall of the Gold Crusade, Taigstun and Torvar’s pride fuelling the rest of them, but that could not have been the only reason.

As soon as the Gold Crusade began, I and all the dwarves in the tunnels forgot that our soldiers were mortal men, not chosen, divine warriors.

Date: 14th of Gol (The 5th Month of the Year 204 of the 2nd Age)

Surprisingly, it’s been a rather calm week since we first departed from Strangúld towards the lost city of Stone Shard.

By now, I had expected us to have run into a few small goblin warbands, perhaps a couple thousand strong, but, thankfully, I was wrong.

Not a single goblin for days.

Quite unusual for the road leading to Stone Shard, I’ll admit, but not uncommon either.

After all, when I was a soldier at the city, there were a good three months without a sighting of a single goblin, let alone a warband, so perhaps our ancestors are smiling down upon us and granted us such a period of peace to make our march on.

Whatever the reason, morale is high, and Taigstun and the High King are revelling in it, I assure you.

Understandably so.

The men are in good spirits, all eager to battle the goblins come the morning, and, I must admit, their enthusiasm is infectious.

Sir Euwan informs me that all our men are more than eager and even have a betting pool going for who will kill the most vermin come the morrow.

Many of them have placed good coin on my name.

Even as I write this, I can hear tens of thousands of voices talking, laughing, drinking and cheering.

It’s loud, yet I take peace from it, knowing that the men are eager for a fight.

And I’m no different!

I haven’t felt this eager for a fight in almost a decade, not since the last time I was a soldier at the Strangúld garrison.

Back then, twenty thousand goblins beseeched the walls and I’m sure that I alone felled a good fifty of them.

Ah, what a rush it was!

Still, I can’t afford to let my blood boil and cloud my judgement.

From what our scouts have found out, the goblins’ strength in the city is rather substantial; fifteen thousand, give or take, and they don’t seem to be expecting us.

We have the much larger army with better equipment and the element of surprise.

It should be quite the glorious slaughter of their filthy kind!

Taigstun has said that there doesn’t need to be such a careful and thought-out battle-plan for such an easy victory, and so each lord may organise his men however he sees fit, something which I’m not entirely happy with.

I had raised the point to him and the rest of the lords that perhaps it would be quite prudent to use this easy victory as a good way of giving our newest recruits some real combat experience and discipline, but Taigstun said that there was no need.

“What purpose would there be in having our men practice battle tactics against such a pitiful force?” He scoffed with a wave of his hand. “There will be time for that in later fights, not this one, Long-night.”

…As much as I hate to admit it, Taigstun might be right.

Perhaps it was a stupid suggestion.

Well, regardless, I had Sir Euwan organise the least experienced men into a phalanx formation, teaching them the importance of the tight formation, and ordering them to use it in the battle tomorrow.

Hopefully, they’ll get some good combat experience out of it and be just as eager to get into more action in future battles in the Crusade.

Ah, it seems that it has gotten quite late.

Most of the camp has quietened and Sir Euwan is ordering the change of the guard outside of my tent.

I best get some rest myself for tomorrow shall be a long day of fighting and the evening will be a long night of celebrating.

I feel like before I go any further, I should briefly explain a few things.

While High King Torvar was the one who proposed and lead the Gold Crusade, Lord Taigstun of House Star-forged was appointed personally by the High King to be his Grand Commander, advising him on strategies to take back our ancient homes.

Needless to say, a lot of the noble families were dissatisfied with Taigstun being appointed, Lord Long-night in particular.

Most were upset at the chance of having carved their names into our history and earning themselves eternal glory.

This wasn’t the case with Lord Long-night, though.

It was well known that he and Taigstun did not get along well with one another, partially because the people, both commoners and nobility alike, liked Lord Long-night more than Taigstun, but many changed to support Taigstun instead following his appointment as Grand Commander.

Taigstun was not as good of a warrior, nor commander, but the High King had appointed him because he was his friend and that was the end of it.

From what rumours I’ve heard, accounts I’ve read and survivor’s stories that I’ve listened to, Taigstun was quite arrogant for most of his life and I imagine he was no different in the Crusade.

Still, based on Lord Long-night’s entry here, it seemed like the members of the Gold Crusade felt truly invincible, though I can’t fully accept that myself.

Surely not every single person thought that the Crusade would end without fault or issue?

If not, perhaps that is one of the reasons it failed.

The Gold Crusade was not the first attempt by our people to retake our homes, though not on this scale.

In fact, after researching it for many hours in the Archive, I discovered that the army we raised for the Gold Crusade is the largest army that our people have ever assembled throughout our history.

We didn’t even raise that many men when Demons and Goblins both were hammering at our doors during the Dread Dawn.

I’ve gotten off track.

The next entries from Lord Long-night’s journal tell of the Battle for Stone Shard and the evening after the fighting, and they both paint quite the insightful picture into why the Gold Crusade might have failed.