All the way

The Red Wind Corsairs lead a daring engagement against the retreating Lasambrian Jotun.

Maybe Tomorrow Is A Better Day

Anduz stands before us, the Lasambrians have long overstayed their welcome. When we drive them from Segura, assault their supply lines, capture their captains. Lets bid them a freeborn farewell

Vrael i Sol-Devorador i Erigo, General of the Red Wind Corsairs

The Lasambrian Jotun have quit Segura.

After the Winter Solstice the Black Thorns march north to Miaren and the Quiet Step joins the Red Wind Corsairs and the Winter Sun in their campaign to liberate Segura. Even as the armies regroup and begin their advance toward Anduz, the orcs are already on the move. Their defensive positions around the old town are abandoned; the gates of Anduz stand open to welcome the Imperial soldiers. Bells are ringing. People cheer. The Lasambrian Jotun are already crossing the border back into the hills of Reinos.

Soldiers of the Winter Sun, once more we fight with the sun at our backs as we continue our Steady Conquest of Segura. These Lasambrians have grown soft in the heat now let us teach them the harshness of Winter

Rykana, General of the Winter Sun

According to the free people of Anduz, the Lasambrian Jotun began preparations to move during the Winter Solstice, as soon as news reached them from the north that Imperial heroes had been repulsed and their excavations at the Caida had proved fruitful. The Freeborn describe the orcs as being filled with a sense of triumphant glee, of victorious passion to match that of the kohan, almost. Whatever they recovered from the Caida, they were gone from Anduz in less than a week. While the Winter Sun were beginning their steady advance across the plains of Anduzjasse, the orcs were stripping Anduz and the surrounding villages of every scrap of food, and every bottle of wine, and paying well below market price for both. While the Quiet Step were smearing blade venom on their spears and the handful of heralds of the Spider King accompanying their army were scuttilng through the long grasses, the Lasambrians were breaking their camps. While the Red Wind Corsairs were making their first daring raid north, the orcs...

... actually in this regard the Empire steals a march on the Lasambrians. The main body of the Freeborn army moves too slowly but the advance forces of the Red Wind Corsairs move faster than the Lasambrian Jotun, cutting into the Hierro supply lines like hot knives into soft butter. There is some limited fighting as the armoured Hierro defend themselves against the swift Freeborn kohan. Wagons are seized; a few prisoners taken. They confirm what the other the Imperial armies have just discovered. The Lasambrian Jotun are done with Segura for the moment. They have what they came for - relics of the ancient Lasambrian ancestors carved out from the dry soil. Mementos of the time when the arid plains of the Brass Coast belonged to the four great families, before the human invaders drove them west and south into the hills.

We return to Segura alongside our Freeborn and Orc allies, we are going to make the Lasambrians pay and we will do whatever it takes to do it. Apothecaries ready your posions, vates your rituals, we will soak the sand in blood

Brennos Brackensong, General of the Quiet Step

It seems inconceivable that the Jotun would countenance an invasion of Segura merely to support Lasambrian scholarship. Indeed the prisoners make no bones about the fact that they had every intention of staying if possible but knew that the odds were stacked against them. Yet Courage, Ambition, and the Wisdom-driven need to know about their roots gave them the fire they needed to forge their own path with little more than token support from the other Jotun.

The Lasambrian ghodi are Wise enough to see the shape of the future when it is staring them in the face. While they could perhaps hold on to Anduz there is little chance that the three families - the Hierro, the Corazón, and their new-found siblings in the Escuta - could do anything more than delay the inevitable. Not this time. So they are leaving.

The Quiet Step support the other Imperial armies as only the Navarr can - with swift-moving soldiers and envenomed spears.

But they will be back. One day, they will be back. One day, the Brass Coast will be gone and only Lasambria will remain. One day.

Take Control

The Lasambrian Jotun do not go far. While the Imperial armies are making sure there are no barbarians left in Segura in the wake of the retreat, the Hierro, Corazón, and Escuta re-emerge from the western hills into Kahraman. Almost before anyone realises they are there, they are half-way toward securing a beach head in the Cinnabar Hills. In the past, when the Jotun have attacked Kharaman they have gone straight for Serra Damata and the Damatian Cliffs. This time, their strategy is a little different. Perhaps because the Lasambrian Jotun are less concerned about fighting in woodlands, they emerge through the scrubby trees of eastern Gambit, avoiding the hills and mountains altogether.

They are not alone either. As the first Corazón raids begin to hit the caravans bringing mithril and white granite down out of the hills, the first stories of humans fighting alongside the Lasambrians begin to percolate through. It takes only a little time for the facts to emerge; it seems that while the Jotun forces in Bregasland have been on the defensive, the Yegarra of the Mournwold under Steven of Sarcombe have come south via Jotun territory to fight with the Corazón. They seem to make a good match for the orcs - their familiarity with the virtues makes them arguably a better fit for fighting with the Lasambrian Jotun than it does with the orcs of Narkyst or Kallsea.

The presence of the human auxiliaries is not the only thing that has changed about the Lasambrian Jotun in the weeks since they left Segura. There is a new intensity to them. Their conquest seems fuelled by something that goes beyond the zeal granted them by their adoption of the Virtues. The Corazón seem more daring in their raids, more ambitious than ever before. The Hierro seem more implacable, more driven. The shaman of the Escuta - now looking even more like Lasambrian Jotun and less like people of Narkyst - seem possessed of a mystic insight into the strategies of their opponents they never evidenced during the fighting in Segura. Whatever they brought into the hills, whatever relics they uncovered, are changing the Lasambrians. Or perhaps merely accelerating the process of change put into motion when the Hierro, battered and broken, were granted short-lived sanctuary in the Brass Coast.

Some things have not changed; they still offer the Freeborn they encounter their version of the Jotun Choice. Join the Lasambrians; keep your land and your possessions but agree to accept the conquerors as your rulers, swearing an oath of loyalty, and offering a portion of your wealth each season. Or simply leave, with nothing save the clothes on your backs, a few sentimental keepsakes, and as much food as you can carry. Loyalty or exile, with death reserved only for those courageous few who refuse to choose either way. Western Gambit is not well populated, but a slow trickle of exiles begins to flow east into Rojota, and from there down the wide roads into Madruga.

As always when the Jotun launch an assault on Kharaman, the only thing that stands between the Lasambrians and complete conquest of Gambit is the garrison at Braydon's Jasse. They are quick to rally, and then make the long slog march south and west to engage the orcs and their allies. There is a usual level of grumbling, and some talk of how the Cinnabar Roads might have made the task of defending the entire territory a little easier. Yet for all the grumbling the garrison nonetheless make that long march and engages the invaders, slowing their advance and buying time for the Empire to rally its defence.

The Jotun have tried to claim Kharaman before, and will no doubt do so again. Indeed, they wrote their intentions on the walls of Damata. "We came, we shall come again." Yet each time the Empire has driven them back out of the Cinnabar Hills again. It remains to be seen if this change of tactics - if this decision to begin in Gambit rather than the hills of Damata - will disrupt the pattern.

Game Information

The barbarians have left Segura; the Imperial forces have liberated Anduz and the whole territory is now in Freeborn hands once again.

The Lasambrian Jotun have invaded Kharaman. The Corazón have launched probing raids against caravans from the Damatian Cliffs and the Great Mine of Briante. They have not had an impact yet, but if they remain in the territory for another season they will reduce the amount of white granite and mithril provided to the Imperial titles associated with them.

I have heard it said that the Freeborn named this place Gambit because every venture begun there is said to run a little extra risk but offer a little extra profit. Perhaps we will see if they are right.

Meketh of the Flames, General of the Corazón

On the Rojota Road (Battle Opportunity)

About a week before the Spring Equinox, messengers from the Fort Braydon garrison report a worrying development. The Corazón have pulled most of their raiders back from the hills of Serra Damata and Serra Briante, and joined up with the advance scouts of the Escuta and the Hierro. They are camped on the grasslands south-west of the town of Rojota, the only major settlement in the whole of Gambit. The town is known for its prognosticators and seers, and sits on the main road that runs down out of Serra Damata toward Madruga. Most of the caravans that supply Damata and Briante pass through Rojota, as do the caravans bringing valuable Bourse materials south from the hills. While these caravans could find alternate routes through the highlands, such disruption could potentially cause serious problems for the workers at the Cliffs and the Great Mines.

More importantly, if Rojota falls into the hands of the Lasambrian Jotun it will mean that they have a base of operations from which to complete their conquest of Gambit. In the great scheme of things this will be unfortunate, but will still leave Kharaman in Freeborn hands. It will however represent a beachhead in Kharaman, making it significantly easier for them to conquer more of the territory in the coming months. Some of the seers of Rojota claim that if their town falls to the Lasambrian Jotun then by the time of the Summer Solstice all of southern Kharman will be in orc hands. One does not need to be a prophet to see such obvious outcomes, but these divinations are beginning to send ripples of uncertainty through the entire territory.

The final report from Kharaman before the Equinox indicates that it is not the orcs that are leading the way toward Rojota. Steven of Sarcombe's Yegarra are in the vanguard, and by quite a distance. It seems almost as if the orcs are giving the humans the "first go" at Rojota. There are a few Lasambrian Jotun with them - but the main bulk of the force closed on the Freeborn town are humans. If they reach the town they'll almost certainly be able to overcome the exhausted soldiers from Fort Braydon. Rojota will fall in short order, and Gambit will fall with it. Even if Imperial armies do move into Kharaman to face the Lasambrian Jotun, they will not be in time to stop the orcs consolidating their control of Gambit and securing their beachhead.

Furthermore, with the main road into Serra Damata and Serra Briante in the hands of the invaders it will be significantly easier for the Corazón to raid the Damatian Cliffs and the Great Mine of Briante. Should Rojota fall, the ability of the orcs to intercept the caravans of precious white granite and mithril during the coming campaign season.

The Civil Service have confirmed a major conjunction of the Sentinel Gate that leads to the grasslands on the Rojota Road on the Saturday morning; a chance to intercept the Yegarra and their Lasambrian Jotun allies before they can reach the town and potentially turn aside their lightning raid.

Further Reading

• Winds of War for Spring 383YE
• The Game - the Winter 384YE Wind of War covering Segura