Battle of Darkfaller

The Battle of Darkfaller was the culminating military engagement of Marshal Arcane: a single-day three-front assault on Darkfaller Castle, then occupied by the Nemovort Mycin Amana in Baroness Isily's body. The battle simultaneously closed two crises: the kidnapping of magi from the Sevendor Magical Fair, and Prince Tavard's rebellion against the Magelaw, which had emptied Darkfaller's garrison in the first place.

The plan

Minalan's assault used a freshly-built Sevendori stone archway as a coordinated portal — bypassing Darkfaller's necromantic Way-blocks and depositing every assault company at its assigned point simultaneously. Three keeps; three companies:

• Northern keep: Tyndal with the Sevendori warmage strike team. Minalan personally directed the battle from the top of the northern keep with Mavone's Vanador Guards as bodyguard.
• Southern keep: Azar with the Vanadori cavalry corps.
• Central keep: Marshal Arcane Terleman with the main force, assisted by his aide Anjak. The central keep held Mycin Amana's throne and the most-valuable captives.
• Reserves and screening: held back to be deployed wherever first needed.
• Tavard's horse: the Castali cavalry, having reluctantly accepted the truce that ended the rebellion, engaged the Nemovort field force in the open ground beyond the moat to keep them off the assault columns.

The expulsion

The decisive moment came in the central keep when Mycin Amana fought from her command throne until the keep fell. Minalan, working a custom snowstone-resistance-breaker spell, expelled Mycin Amana's enneagram from Isily's body. The Greenflower-augmented vessel was preserved; the Witch Queen was dispersed.

Consequences

Darkfaller was retaken. The Sevendor Magical Fair captives were freed (most still under the visual-compliance spell that lifted with Mycin Amana's expulsion). Several Nemovort lieutenants were killed or captured. Tavard's rebellion collapsed without further engagements; the prince surrendered at the field and was politically humbled for the rest of his life. Isily's body, free of Mycin Amana but not yet inhabited by Isily's own returning enneagram, became a long political problem for Princess Rardine and the Family that ran through subsequent volumes.