The Siege of Corin's Crossing

Summary
The Siege of Corin's Crossing was the first great battle in the Covenant's Eastern Plaguelands Campaign. It was fought to help stabilise the route between the Covenant Base Camp at Tyr's Hand and the rest of the Plaguelands so that a trading route could be established. Also helping the stabilisation of the Eastern Plaguelands in general. The conflict lasted a grueling two days with several brutal skirmishes over the space of two days. Although the Covenant only saw the loss of one soldier, it saw many injured, many close to death. The Covenant had a clear victory in the battle and took the crossing after having fended off the rogue Necromancer Master that rallied the undead in the area.

The Siege was first planned to begin a week earlier, but after gaining knowledge that there was a mine nearby that could potentially contain Thorium, and finding out that their master blacksmith could craft the metal, the attack was postponed by a week so that the troops could be supplied with better armour and weaponry. However during this time the covenant did not sit still. Clearing the path up to the Crossing and a route around the nearby Lake Mereldar which served as a temporal solution for supply trade, until the Crossing was taken. These fights around Lake Mereldar and in the mine however also left some wounded, but once everyone was healed up and most were supplied with the new Thorium equipment, Knight-Commander Cantor Horus rallied the soldiers to head for the Crossing.

Day One
The Covenant rounded up three mages, four foot combatants, four mounted lancers and a balista. All soldiers on foot were led under Knight-Commander Horus while the cavalry charge was led by Sergeant-Major Atyrian Ryland. The cavalry rode ahead and positioned themselves to intercept the ghouls that would charge towards the footsoldiers, while the footsoldiers positioned their balista on a hill. The streets were guarded by one abomination and a dozen ghouls. The footmen fired the balista at the abomination, giving signal for the cavalry to ride in and injure the ghouls so that the footsoldiers could easily deal with them when they clashed.

After a couple of charge the riders lances broke, they continued mounted charge for a while, dismounting and joining the forces afoot. After dealing with the abomination and the ghouls they first encountered the Necromancer Master that was leading the undead at the Crossing. The Necromancer summoned a shield and more ghouls to help him. Bringing down the necromancer's shield turned problematic as only ranged attacks could reach him, since he was sitting atop a tree. And as his ghouls were fighting, he tried to infuse Archmage Cyan Avenfall with fel energies. Luckily once they suceeded to destroy the shield, they could get him down from the tree and the melee fighters beat him down, forcing him to stop the infusion and eventually escape. However, as a few ghouls were still alive, one of them managed to bite Recruit Rikard Goldfield, causing plague to strike him. After having defeated the Nercomancer Master they set up camp outside the Crossing to be ready to continue to clear out the houses. Recruit Thesse Barbarossa took Recruit Goldfield along by horse to Light's Hope Chapel, however the wound was to deep and the plague spread to quickly, making him pass away on their way there. Many others were wounded in the battle but most were healed up to stand another day.

Day Two
The second day, the Covenant went in afoot to clear out the buildings, since they had secured the square the day before. See the map to the right to see exactly how the troop advanced. All advances except for advance one occured on the second day. They first charged into the building on the opposite side of the inn, clearing out the ghouls within. After that, they split up into two groups, one remaining in the square to fend off attacking ghouls coming from another building, while the other group charged into the inn to clear it from the lesser Necromancers within.

After having dealt with the attacking ghouls, a huge abomination approached the troops outside, the forces inside the tavern were however close to finishing up their buisness in there and thus soon joined the others outside to bring the giant down. After succeeding in such they found the Necromancer once more, but again he escaped before he could be dealt with.

Aftermath
All in all the Crossing was cleared out as the Covenant entered the Town Hall when the Necromancer fled once more, leaving them victorious. In the Town Hall they found a sacrificial rune which, after studying, Covenant Member Aenylia found that they had been sacrificing living through. After having stabilised the Crossing, the Covenant could establish the trade route with Light's Hope and move onto the rest of the Plaguelands. They later on hosted Rikard's funeral in Hearthglen and Private Khelben Manshoon had several scryings in their time in the Western Plaguelands to find where the Necromancer was.