Tavard's Siege of Darkfaller

Prince Tavard's siege of Darkfaller was the most expensive military embarrassment of his career. It cost his treasury hundreds of thousands of ounces of gold, indebted six of his richest holdings to the Temple of Orvatas, drew the City Watch out of Castabriel to the front lines, killed thousands of his own men, and left Mycin Amana in calmer possession of Darkfaller than she had been before he started. The siege also forced King Rard, by its end, to publicly admit that his son could not be trusted with the kingdom's military and that the magi alone could be relied on against necromantic foes.

The reason

The siege happened against everyone's advice. Tavard had been humiliated by the Darkfaller Raid (in which the magi rescued the captives while his cavalry stalled in the outer bailey) and again at the Royal Curia that followed. Minalan had laid out a careful timetable for a spring assault on the castle with full magical support. Tavard rejected it. At a banquet some of his petty lords were overheard mocking him for needing the magi to rescue his own castle; he resolved to take Darkfaller alone, in winter, before any wizard could help.

He timed the strike for Azar's wedding in the Wilderlands, expecting (correctly) that every senior warmage in the kingdom would be there. He marched ten thousand men into Darkfaller Village ahead of the first frosts, with another twenty thousand promised from his vassals and from Castabriel's City Watch over the following weeks. He hired three companies of mercenary sappers from Remere to tunnel under the outer wall. He brought no magical corps at all.

King Rard, leaned on by Tavard via Queen Grendine (who in turn was leaned on by the unhappy news that Princess Armandra was pregnant with a child Tavard knew was not his) refused to intervene. Rard's letter to Minalan invoked the Treaty of Union and the Family's consideration for Tavard's "potential." Minalan, fuming, was constrained from action.

The weeks of futility

Mycin Amana let Tavard dig in. For weeks she did almost nothing, allowing his trenches to expand, his artillery to assemble, his peasant conscripts to freeze in inadequate tents on a single faggot of firewood per day. The first wyvern attack came after a week and killed hundreds of men in the trenches; the largest of his trebuchets was ruined. A few days later undead began harassing his cavalry patrols, leaving Castali knights dead in the snow who then rose the next day to join the besiegers. Tavard, undeterred, took the first ranging shot of his artillery against the outer wall as a sign of victory and held a banquet for the artillery team.

Mavone's scrying confirmed what every senior commander could see: Mycin Amana was deliberately allowing Tavard to mass forces in one place so she could destroy more of them at once. By the time the camp held thirty thousand men, the only question was when she would strike.

The Yule spider crisis

She struck the day after Yule, while every Sevendor warmage was hungover. The two-pronged offensive:

• At Darkfaller Village: Tavard's Remeran sappers, tunnelling under the outer wall, broke through into a hidden chamber that turned out to be a Paranchek nest. Giant spiders swarmed out of the tunnel into the centre of the besieging army. Within hours the Castali force was pushed back to the eastern edge of the village, formed a desperate skirmish line, and was barely holding.
• At Castabriel: Mycin Amana opened a portal over the capital and dropped roughly two dozen Paranchek directly into the city streets. The city had no magical garrison; the City Watch was at Darkfaller. Hundreds of civilians were dead before the first warmagi arrived. Donrard's Spire (the ducal palace) was webbed but not breached.

Minalan in the city

Royal Court Wizard Loiko Venaran summoned Minalan via the Mirror Array. Minalan threw his hungover Sevendor warmagi at the Castabriel spiders through the day, hunting Paranchek through the alleys of the burning city. By evening the city was clear of living spiders, but the loss of life among the populace was severe. The civilians were welcoming the warmagi as liberators by the time Minalan reached the ducal palace.

Tavard was in his private chambers in Donrard's Spire with his secret mistress, hiding, while his city smouldered. Minalan walked past the castellan (Taren put the man unconscious with a spell), pushed the prince against a wall, then physically threw him across the balcony. The shouting match that followed has become one of the most famous scenes in the kingdom's political history. Minalan to Tavard: "You have men dying in the field and you will not lead. You have children dying in your streets and you will not lead. ... Put on your armor, take up your sword, and bloody lead."

Tavard eventually capitulated. Martial law was declared in Castabriel under the Vanador Guard. Tavard was ordered into armour and onto a horse to join the night relief at Darkfaller.

The night relief at Darkfaller Village

Minalan opened a temporary portal a mile from the front and pushed everything available through it: Sevendor warmagi, Vanador Guards, a stream of senior magelords answering Pentandra's call, and a humiliated Prince Tavard at the head of what cavalry he could muster from his remaining household. The combined force struck after dark to relieve the broken Castali army still holding the eastern edge of Darkfaller Village.

The battle was brutal. The Paranchek had to be killed individually with fire, cold, and the strongest available destructive spells; the wyverns kept circling; the Nemovorti reinforced through the molopor portal under the central keep. The army on the eastern line was saved, but several thousand more of Tavard's men were lost in the relief.

By the time the relief held, the army was bled out. Tavard had no force left for an actual assault on the castle. The Castali host withdrew east, leaving Darkfaller still in Mycin Amana's hands.

Political consequences

Tavard had visibly failed at the kingdom's heart, in person, with his secret mistress watching from a balcony, against a foe Minalan had warned him would defeat him. The Castali peerage was openly murmuring about removing him. Queen Grendine, livid about both the siege and Armandra's pregnancy, withdrew her political cover. King Rard, who had been forced to write a humiliating letter declining to stop the siege, now needed Minalan's political acquiescence to keep the duchy under Family control.

The deal Grendine made with Minalan in Preceptor Chapter 2 is the direct consequence of this engagement: Minalan would not push for Tavard's deposition (despite Taren's open suggestion that Minalan declare himself Archmage and take the throne), and the Family would in return back the magi's plans for the actual takedown of Darkfaller.

Mycin Amana's position

Mycin Amana had won the siege but burned half her Paranchek and a substantial portion of her undead reserves in doing it. Korbal, in Olum Seheri, had reawakened and was reported (via Slagur, a defecting Nemovort intelligence source) to be openly displeased with her leadership and ready to "put her on trial" before her peers. Her position at Darkfaller looked secure to outsiders but had become brittle from within.

The actual fall of Darkfaller — the takedown of Mycin Amana, the dispossession of Isily's body, and the destruction of the central keep — does not happen here. That is the business of the Preceptor Darkfaller campaign (Chapters 11 onward), in which Minalan and Ruderal parley with both Korbal and Mycin Amana atop the central keep, Minalan uses Avalanche to drop Sheruel's inert sphere out of Korbal's staff, then detonates a custom necromantic-overload working that drops every Nemovort in the chamber. The actual Battle of Darkfaller is a separate event still to be written up.