The Great Shadow War(Part Two): Northward to Victory

With Zeal out of the way and the north shaken by assassinations, Toth-Gadal was ready to march his new army to victory.

 Passing through lands that were in those days known as the Narrow Way, the Arcanian army first attacked the nation of Thrice, still reeling from the death of its king. Thrice fell easily to the Sorcerer-King’s forces. It was at this point that Toth-Gadal made a crucial decision, and some say mistake, concerning his strategy. Debate still goes on as to whether the Sorcerer-King had planned all along to follow this course, or if he changed his plans after seeing how easily Thrice fell. Either way, it is widely believed that this choice was his largest mistake.

After conquering Thrice, Toth-Gadal decided to split his forces in two, sending half his army east to conquer Sivilar and Mylkar, nations he believed relatively weak. He himself would lead the remaining forces west, toward Telengard. The capital city of Syre was widely known in those days as the most heavily fortified city in the north, second only behind the Arcanian capital of Cerasin-Cera.

The Arcanians met fierce resistance in Telengard, but their forces were far superior despite being outnumbered. Armed with powerful magic and weapons made from the magical metal known as Sil, the Arcanians pushed ever closer, until they were outside the gates of Syre, poised for ultimate victory.

For days the Arcanian war machine pounded on the walls and gates of the city. It was only a matter of time now, until all of Bordelon belonged to the Sorcerer-King.

So bent on his razing of the city, Toth-Gadal failed to notice the army assembling in the far north. So it came as an almost complete surprise when, just as the Arcanian forces were about to breach the walls, a huge army comprised of men and women from both Telengard and Thrice, poured down on the entrenched and unprepared Arcanians.

Both sides fought bravely, but in the end Toth-Gadal’s siege was broken, and the Arcanian’s were forced to retreat. Each day was another step backward for the Sorcerer-King, until he was forced back to the capital of Thrice. He received even worse news here, and must have known it was the beginning of the end for his glorious campaign.

Just as his army was fortifying the city, a few stragglers came in from the east with grim tidings. The Arcanian Army had conquered the Sivilar capital, and were preparing to move out when a massive counterattack trapped the Arcanian forces with the city. Then the Sivilar set fire to their own capital, destroying both the city and the Arcanian army within. Almost no one escaped the conflagration.

With half his army gone and the northern forces about to press him on both sides, the Sorcerer-King had little choice but to retreat southward. But he was not about to give up, merely down but not out.

The nations of the north formed a hasty alliance, and began pushing the Arcanians back. The Sorcerer-King’s forces lost ground nearly every day, until the armies were back at the small strip of land known as the Narrow Way. It was here the Sorcerer-King played his trump card, and decided the fate of north and south for centuries to come.

Toth-Gadal had been holding back his most terrible weapon, his necromancers. It is widely held that the Sorcerer-King didn’t want to use them at all, but felt he had no choice, as the northern forces were about to invade his own homelands, much as he had just done to them.

And so Toth-Gadal ordered his sorcerers to cast their deadly spells. The sky above the Narrow Way became dark. The lands were stricken with terrible disease, and imparted a terrible sickness to anyone who stepped foot thereon. The Arcanian’s themselves were immune to this disease, of course, but the men and women of the Northern Alliance began to fall sick almost immediately.

Toth-Gadal saw his fortunes changing again. Until word reached him that the illness was being cured.

Spies within the Northern Alliance reported to the Sorcerer-King that a strange group of people had suddenly appeared among the northern forces. There were only nine of them, but they possessed some kind of healing power that was curing the illness inflicted by the necromancer’s spells. Angered almost beyond words, and seeing his last hope of victory being snatched from him, Toth ordered his forces to prepare for a last, all-out assault.

And then everything changed.