Battle of Stanis Howe

The Battle of Stanis Howe was the first major engagement of Shakathet's invasion of the Magelaw. Shakathet, a senior Nemovort field commander, marched his host across the Penumbra into the Magelaw on a deliberate pre-emptive strike against Vanador's consolidating power. The Magelaw warmage corps held him at Stanis Howe, a defensible rise on the eastern Magelaw frontier, in a fierce single-day stand that bought the time Terleman needed to reorganise his main force for the larger Battle of the Eastern Bank.

Magelaw command

Wenek, the rotund warmage of unmatched personal ferocity, took the field-commanding role with Sandoval, Astyral, and a contingent of senior Horkan Order knights. Buroso led the Vanador Guard infantry. Carmella's engineering corps had pre-fortified the howe with binding-spell-stiffened palisades.

The engagement

The fight was vicious. The gurvani vanguard struck the howe at dawn and was repelled by Wenek's warmagic and Buroso's infantry; Shakathet committed his Nemovorti and trolls in the afternoon and the line nearly broke. Astyral led a counter-charge that recovered the eastern flank. The line held into the night. Shakathet, recognising the cost was no longer worth the position, withdrew his host southward toward the Eastern Bank fords.

The cost

Magelaw casualties were significant but containable: roughly eight hundred dead, nineteen missing, a thousand wounded. Wenek personally was bandaged, blood-streaked, and grinning over a plate of egg pies in the morning briefing. Astyral lost his horse twice and his armour was burnt and torn. Buroso's Vanador Guard lost about a quarter of its strength.

Strategic significance

The howe held. Shakathet's timetable was disrupted by a full day. Terleman used those hours to redeploy the Magelaw main force to the Eastern Bank. The subsequent Battle of the Eastern Bank — the actual destruction of Shakathet's host — was made possible by Stanis Howe.