Siege of Banua Day 3

Early the next morning, Bo-Jing surveyed the state of Banua. He was cheered by the people of the Bolad horde. They had seen him nightmarish monsters; his associates had minimized the damaged caused by the war machines. Under his leadership, the horde’s warriors had stood bravely against the demon-crazed beastmen.

But there was another story and it was loud and bitter. There were casualties, many, among the Nergui
horde. Their best warriors. Their families. Children. They had been lured to Banua. Herded. The town
had been a slaughtering pen. Bo-Jing’s efforts to answers the invectives of the Nergui elders by
reminding them that they had come to Banua of their own free choice only made them more angry.

The anger of the Nergui turned to grim determination. If they were going to die, let them die free on the open lands. They would not die as shields for Ganbaater and for the Bolad horde. The gathered their remaining animals and packed their remaining possessions.  They left their dead to be buried by their Bolad cousins.

By early afternoon, most of the Nergui horde filed out of Banua. 

They did not go west toward the Nergui lands, but southeast, toward the lands of the Eagle Horde.

Batzorig did not go with them.  Standing near the breached gate, he watched his clan file out, scanning their faces while hiding his own eyes.  After they were gone, Batzorig spent the afternoon sifting through debris .  Bo Jing worked him and it was Bo Jing who found what they both were looking for in  among the remnants of burned ger-- Naransetseng's necklace.  

Bo-Jing consoled his new friend and ally  Salt, Bangqiu shared in his sadness.  The mystery of her importance to the beastmen added a sense of absurd tragedy to the loss.  All agreed that she deserved a proper funeral.  Batzorig, clutching the necklace dug through the debris looking for anything that might remain of her body.

He found bones and burned bodies and bits of clothes, but none that he could hold and know had belonged to his sister.  In the burned-out ger, he found weapons and tools, all badly damaged and lumps of metal that might have been jewellery.  How strange that the necklace had survived fully intact.

Bo-Jing voiced his opinion that Naransetseng had not been killed by the dragons, but had cast her

necklace aside as a decoy and fled Banua with the other Nergui refugees. And this, suggested Bo Jing

was why the beastmen had marched right past Banua. They were pursuing their quarry. The grieving

Batzorig eagerly greeted this ray of hope. “Then I must go after her, either alone or with the help of all

brave men who love what is beautiful and good!”

And so Bo-Jing and his men, together with NarNuteng, Bangqiu, together with 100 brave warriors, went in pursuit of the Nergui horde.

Siege of Banua Day 2

 The following day, the armies of the beastmen started to withdraw.  From the watch towers, they were seen to pack up their encampments and move westwards, toward a long ridge.  They were many. Despite the resounding defeat the night before, they still outnumbered the defenders by 3-to-1.  And they were uncharacteristically quiet, strangely economical in their movements, as if moving under the direction of an alien intelligence.

Sensing deception, Bangqiu and Salt cloaked themselves in an invisibility charm and went to scout the enemy army. Evading yetis scavenging fallen beastmen, the two magicians, reached the ridge from its crest saw the beastmen horde surrounding a deep pit. The attackers were tunneling into the ground.  Based on the constant stream of beastmen heavy laden with dirt, something was progressing toward Banua at a preternatural pace.  Surveying the scene, they noted among the monsters, a solitary human in black armor.  Bangiqu and Salt blasted him with a bouquet of magic missiles, sending him into his tent. Bangqiu amplified the ensuing chaos by summoning a stone wall and dropping it at the entrance of the tunnel.  Bangqiu took the form of an owl and flew back to Banua while Salt made her way home on foot.

Few in Banua slept peacefully that night.  Flashes of red in the sky and the rumbling in the ground fueled rumor and speculation.  Some said the well water tasted wrong. Some heard screaming beyond the ridge. 

From the city walls, came reports of advancing beastmen, giants, and multiple juggernauts. Ganbaatar organized a defense, sending armed soldiers to the battlements while inviting the citizens of Banua into the barracks behind the inner gate. 

The rumbling under the town grew in intensity and the ground split.  The split widened and an enormous pair of claws emerged directly under the inner gate.  The gate collapsed and a giant, red-eyed, slavering badger burst out of the ground, followed by dozens of beastmen.  One slash of its claws were like a phalanx of heavy swords, crushing a man to death inside his armor.  A snap of its fanged snout broke a horse’s back. As soldiers fled these terrors, the badger greedily pursued, killing and devouring any it could catch.

Bo-Jing, with his stalwary henchmen and the bravest of Banua rushed to attack the badger.   Some drove long sharp spears into its flanks while others shot arrows into its neck and back. At first, the badger seemed impervious to pain, and dragged several bloody spears as it chased soldiers and horses.  But a well-aimed spear hit its underbelly and demanded its attention.  It stopped its pursuit and turned to face its attackers.  Bo-Jing slashed at its face, brutally cutting the soft flesh of its mouth.  Nar-Nuteng drew her sword and drove it into the badger’s flesh under its foreleg.  With so many brave and strong soldiers attacking on all sides, the ferocious beast was brought to the ground and destroyed.

The beastmen, meanwhile, had scattered throughout the town, some engaging with warriors while others massacred unarmed people and animals.  Others destroyed yurts and setting them on fire.

Three juggernauts reached the outer gate.   With Banua’s principal defenders occupied by the giant badger and ravaging beastmen, the gates were breached and the juggernauts rolled into Banua. 

The magicians—Bangqiu, Hyamsam, and Salt— targeted the wheels of the lead juggernaut with fire balls and magic missiles.  The first juggernaut was diverted into the pit created by the badger, and the other two crashed behind it.

The beastmen kept pressing toward the marketplace in the back in the town where the Nergui refugees had erected their tents.  While arrows pelted them from above, the beastmen went from one tent to another, killing their occupants.  Only when Bo-Jing and Nar-Nuteng rallied the warriors on the ground to mount a counter-attack were the beastmen deterred from further destruction.  In fact they were no match from Bo-Jing’s organized and powerful attack.  They were driven into a corner and destroyed.