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Fourteen marched upon it, leading horses laden with supplies. They would later be joined by two more reinforcements for a total of 16. A loose formation formed on the village edge as supplies were doled out to the mercenaries sporting their silver badges in various states of ware or newness.
They passed by boarded homes and lit flames. A foreshadowing of the harrowing experience that was to come. Plans were made, formations and assignments doled out, and there, on that frozen incline, the Whitewood Vanguard made their stand.
Hordes of filthy, matted hair and half frozen trolls threw themselves in wave after wave. And the Vanguard held their ground. Towering, hulking behemoths tested them. The Vanguard endured.
But betrayal was just behind them. After the battle had begun, members of the town militia turned on their fellow defenders within the village walls. Vanguard stationed at siege weaponry were suddenly beset by hardened combatants of a rival mercenary guild.
"Breach!" Was the cry that went out, because in the chaos and confusion, it was not yet understood that they'd been betrayed. The plans began to unravel and the Captain turned to investigate what he'd thought were trolls over the walls, only too late coming to find assassins on the inside. The mayor of Bekkreguard was laid low by one such betrayer in front of his eyes before the killer was dispatched.
That was nearly the end of things. More than half the company was wounded, but the remainder rallied at the top. Rallied and pressed outward, fighting back for the ground lost and lifting up their brethren along the way.
The fighting lasted throughout the night. Snow drifts became mixed with hot ash into a choking mixture of hateful blaze and just as spiteful freezing cold. Magic blasted back and forth from defender and attacker alike. Explosions rocked the road leaving behind death and destruction. Arrows, axes, and knives flung were retaliated with rocks and boulders.
In the end, the day was won. Of the village, over two hundred-twenty of the three hundred villagers survived the night. Those that died either fell to the few trolls that briefly made it through the breach, the blades of the betrayers, or, as most did, to the fires that spread or the buildings that collapsed under damage from the siege.
But this wasn't the end of anything. There were forces yet unseen on the field that were behind this drive of death and terror, and their reckoning was past due.
