Sons of Ironstorm: Book 5 - Griffon's War

The North

Garth brushed away the few flakes that managed to make their way onto his worn parchment map of northern Hernak and let a thick finger trace along a river that made its way out of the Teeth towards the Sea of Storms. A river that turned into a delta as soon as it hit the coast, making it a perfect place for a port. Which, coincidentally enough, it was: the deep water port of Neri Mar, one of the most hotly disputed on the Sea of Storms.

Currently Neri Mar was anchorage to several squadrons of Warjammers, the elite strike ships in Keva's powerful navy, usually filled to the brim with hard-as-nails Kevan marines. From the last report he read before marching towards Galental to join Morgan's efforts, it was the Second Fleet that rode anchor at Neri Mar, under the command of Admiral Vledni.

Meeting up with Vledni and his marines would provide them with enough strength to finish retaking northern Hernak and securing the two Western Hammer kingdoms. Out of the seven human kingdoms that divided the peninsula up, Kaph and Hernak had been among those hardest hit by the Shadow forces shortly before summer's end. It would also serve to let Keva discover what Talemonese forces were doing in the Hammer, something the Silvermane may be interested to know.

At least, that was the plan that Garth and his fellow alliance generals had agreed upon when they decided to send him and his Cliffhammers along with several supporting companies of mixed troops north to establish a forward operating base. Now, however, with elven scouts returning from the north via something they called 'elftrails' in a matter of turns, he was getting reports of something unusual happening in Neri Mar. Something that was making him reconsider reaching out to Vledni.

Dragons. Ice dragons, to be precise; creatures native to the snow and ice north of Keva. With flights claiming territory both in northern Keva and across the Straits of Glass on the pack ice, ice dragons were a fact of life in the north, just as the smaller, yet just as vicious acid fire-breathing draconi were in the Yatual and Giant's Teeth.

Those dragons, moreover, had no fondness for Humans. Or for any of the mortal Races to be truthful. If one or more were sighted over a human holding, it was because they were in the midst of destroying that hold.

So when the scouts reported ice dragons a-wing over Neri Mar, he expected them to also report the port in the midst of being blasted apart by ice fire. When they didn't make such a report, alarm bells began to ring in his head. Especially when they went on to say that they had seen marines out in plain sight unmolested by dragons overhead as they prepared their equipment for war. Not only that, they indicated that they had espied a number of the Warjammers preparing to sail with ice dragons actually perched in their rigging.

He knew the world had become a vastly different place since the Return but this?? Had dragons suddenly become allies of Keva since last time his boots stood on the soil of the land of his birth? The veteran officer had seen much in his tenure first as an officer in Keva's military then in Talemon's military after the Ironstorms freed that land from the oppression that was Urud the Usurper. But he was struggling to comprehend how any mortal race, especially the humans that had fought so long and hard against the ice dragons, would suddenly have them as allies. It was yet another question he now added to the list of many such questions he wanted to ask Vledni.

Sighing, the bluff and blocky human lifted his eyes from the map he wasn't really reading to let them scan over the curve of the river that stretched out from the foot of the ridge he was standing on. The same curve that he had been tracing with his finger tip on the map.

A broad and fast-moving watercourse, the Neri-Athan was given birth in the north highlands of the Teeth where deep run glaciers fed a thousand tributaries to become its headwaters. From the highlands, it rushed east and north, cutting its way through the eastern foothills before making the final run across the flood plains of Mar Kenath and to the delta that gave the port its name. Running deep, broad and with a great deal of power, it was virtually impossible to cross without a bridge in any season. A perfect place to get trapped against, if the Shadow had a mind to.