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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Amaroq" data-source="post: 1332702" data-attributes="member: 15470">Issue #8: The Seige of Kratys Freehold. Episode 4 of 6Things do indeed look bleak for the defenders of Kratys Freehold. The ratmen have breached the eastern wall, and, twenty ratmen have piled to the top of the main hall in the southeast corner. Yet more are atop the forge, the northeast point of the wall, where only two defenders resist, and there are still twenty archers firing arrows blindly into the melee. The mauler and shaman are now free of Goldpetal’s entanglement, and if they advance to the attack, there is nobody free to deal with them.Twenty ratmen scrabble their way over the top of the wall, onto the roof of the main hall. Six of the freeholders try to hold them at the edge, and wound several of them, knocking one off the edge of the wall. By sheer force of numbers, the ratmen drive them back. Several of the freeholders are injured as they give ground, and one is skewered brutally. The survivors fight desperately for their lives. Two of the ratmen join the sword duel between Taryn Kratys and Xyler Blackfoot, the ratman captain; they both wound Taryn. He turns, and lops the head off of one. The captain takes advantage of his adversary’s momentary distraction to attack Chuck, and the whipsword again proves more than a match for the young Vigilant. Hit hard, he collapses, bleeding, to the roof of the hall. Three of the ratmen attack Delonia, the mage who once worked for SySy. She wears no armor, and they gloat as they cut her. She snarls as she brings up her hands and utters a quick arcane phrase, burning hands. A fan of flames jets from her fingers, igniting their nappy fur. They scream in pain and rage. Telryn, behind her, tries to cast sleep at some of the others, but in his panic he jumbles the words, and the spell fails him. A constant hail of arrows is falling into the melee, fired indiscriminately by the ratman archers at the orchard’s edge. Two of those arrows pierce Taryn’s mail just as his long sword thrusts into the heart of a ratman. He yells for Miriel, “Medic!” and tries to position himself between the captain and Chuck’s bleeding body.The rat men Delonia had lit on fire drop and roll to put it out, but the others try to attack her before she can make another pyrotechnic display. One of them moves too close to Taryn, and his flashing blade catches it in the neck. It is dead before it hits the blood-drenched wood of the roof. Others push past the freeholder infantry to attack her, and faced with numerous blades, she is hit repeatedly. One blow catches her in the side of the head. Bleeding profusely from the temple, she falls face-first to the roof.On the roof of the forge, Brand and his assistant are surrounded and outnumbered five to two. Brand scrambles to his feet, drawing his longsword. Reinforcements for both sides rush towards the forge. The first to arrive are six more ratmen rushing along the catwalk to attack them. Four of them engage Brand’s assistant, and their numerous blades drive him mercilessly towards the edge of the wall! Five of the freeholders from the barn and back gate are running along the catwalk towards the forge, and Llewyn has dispatched three dogs towards this point. The dogs are even now heading into the forge and up the stairs towards them. Outside the walls of the complex, five ratman archers move out from their archery blind at the edge of the orchard, towards the forge. They fire their bows at the five freeholders, who are crossing the stable, only seconds away from reaching the fight. It’s a tough shot, and all of the archers miss.Though surrounded by five ratmen, Brand finds an opening, and thrusts the point of his longsword into a ratman’s breast. It falls, but the others circle him warily, unwilling to press too close to that deadly blade. Their hesitation costs them their advantage, as the dogs arrive. The guard dog from the eastern wall, chasing the ratmen, attacks from the flank. The second guard dog comes up the stairs behind the ratmen, and bites one of them hard. The sheepdogs also pile into the fray, wounding another ratman. Disheartened by the sudden reinforcements, several of the ratmen stumble around in confusion, but one gets a telling hit on the assistant. He staggers, near the verge of collapse.Below, in the center courtyard, Llewyn charges the fifteen ratmen by the catapult astride her mighty warhorse. The steed, so much larger than her opponents, tramples one with its hooves. The others surround her, some attacking with scimitars, and others attacking with tooth and claw like animals. Myrs, from atop the tower, sees the danger to her daughter, and casts sleep into the crowd. The spell puts three of the ratmen to sleep. The heavy infantry leap down from the wall, crashing into the back of the group; they are all wounded, but fight bravely. Llewyn is hit as well, but her warhorse tramples the three sleeping rat men. She attacks another with her longsword, slicing off its head with a single, powerful blow.The tide of battle in the courtyard begins to change; the shock of two successive charges has broken some of their spirit, and five of the ratmen break off from that group, darting into the apparent safety of the forge.Atop the hall, things are still dire. Delonia and Chuck are bleeding to death, while Taryn Kratys and Xyler Blackfoot duel above them. The five freeholder swordsmen, fighting grimly, have killed about five of the ratmen, but there are still eleven surviving ratmen battling on led by their captain. Five of the archers are advancing from the orchards towards the freehold, launching arrow after arrow with little effect. Milo, after waiting at the base of the wall, now tries to climb the wall again, but he seems to have hurt himself in his previous fall, and he has difficulty. Next to him, the only rat man to have survived a fall from the wall is using his sling to throw small stones into the melee above; he hasn’t hit anything. The mauler and the shaman are skirting the edge of the orchard, circling around towards the southeast corner of the freehold, but staying in the cover of the trees. Goldpetal and the other archer atop the tower keep them honest, firing into the trees. The freeholder gets lucky, and another arrow buries itself into the mauler’s left bicep. He ignores it.Myrs, casting spells from the tower, casts sleep into the fray on the roof of the hall. Four of the rat men fall, snoring peacefully despite the clamor of battle around them. Miriel, rushing to respond to Taryn’s cry for aid, reaches the top of the hall, poking her head out the top of the ladder, but staying mostly down and out of sight.As the ratman captain fences with Taryn, the youthful mage, Telryn, casts magic missile at him. A small ball of iridescent blue energy coalesces at his fingertips, and flies directly into the captain’s chest. He shrugs it off, and glares at Telryn. In a heavy accent, he growls, “Traitorspawn witch! You will die next!”The exchange distracts him, however, and he takes his eyes off of Taryn’s blade to issue the threat. It is the last mistake he ever makes. Even as he speaks, Taryn leaps forward inside the reach of the captain’s sword. He slashes his blade across the captain’s chest, and as the ratman leader doubles forward in pain, Taryn presses the attack. The second blow chops the captain’s head off; it bounces once off of the wooden roof, and rolls sightlessly away.The surviving ratmen look around in dismay. Two of them lower their weapons, and are quickly run through on the swords of the freeholders. Three of the freeholders kneel to kill the sleeping rat men. The odds atop the roof have suddenly shifted, from well in favor of the ratmen to clearly favor the defenders.Miriel takes advantage of that moment of indecision to rush across the rooftop to Chuck’s side. “Madriel!” she cries, laying her hands against his bleeding ribs. Healing power courses through her hand as she heals him, and he looks around groggily.At this display of divine power, four of the five surviving ratmen rush at her. Taryn kills the first to reach her, but two of them wound her. The last one slips on the wet wood of the rooftop, losing his scimitar entirely.Telryn has exhausted his ability to cast spells. In desperation, he draws out his light crossbow, and at close range launches a quarrel at one of the ratmen attacking Miriel. His first shot goes straight through the heart, killing it. He looks down at the crossbow with respect dawning across his face, and rapidly starts to reload.Myrs throws open the door from the tower, which opens onto the roof of the hall. She steps over to Delonia’s bleeding body. She shouts to Miriel, “Take care of Paks!” and begins bandaging the worst of Delonia’s wounds. Miriel looks around, and spots Paks’ body, bleeding on the catwalk of the eastern wall. There is nobody near it.Chuck clambers back to his feet as Miriel rushes that direction. There are only three ratmen remaining on the roof, and he and Taryn begin to advance on them from one side, while the other freeholders attack them from the other side. Just as they reach them, an arrow buries itself in Taryn’s neck. It narrowly misses killing him, but the lord of the freehold kills two of the last ratmen with mighty blows of his sword. The other freeholders dispatch the last one, and Taryn drops to his knees, holding his hands around the arrow, but clearly afraid to pull it out.</blockquote>

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