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"The whole damned area burned down to ashes…!" I said as I looked over the vast stretch of forest, now reduced to a sea of blackened trunks, charred ruins, and corpses that were nothing more than brittle coal. The remains of goblins and their giant spiders lay scattered everywhere, unrecognizable, like shadows consumed by fire.
"The webbing burned too fast. And since the entire forest was saturated with those cursed fibers, there was no way to stop the blaze. Many of our scouts report that the goblins and spiders that survived are retreating north. To the south, however, nothing has been seen."
"Of course not…" I replied with a grimace, omitting the fact that I myself had blocked any escape to the south, slaughtering everything that tried to flee while I moved through that zone.
"My men are already fighting the greenskin scum in the north. It's only a matter of time before the whole forest is cleansed, my lord," said one of my captains firmly.
"Are we certain that the entire central forest was reduced to ashes?" I asked, stepping over charred trunks that cracked beneath my boots.
"All of it, my lord. The forest burned without leaving anything standing. Only a few stone ruins remain, the ones the goblins had occupied. We also found remnants of older villages… most likely destroyed decades ago when this plague first took hold of the region," answered a scout who had been surveying the area.
"Good… almost too good. I'm surprised the flames spread so quickly, but I won't complain about the results. Now that the trees are nothing but ash, we must take advantage of it. Order the charred stumps to be torn out by the root and the ground prepared. The rivers in this region should make the land fertile, and with the ash as natural fertilizer, we can turn it into farmland. The northern forest, on the other hand, must be cleared completely, while the southern one will be kept as a reserve. It will serve both as a natural barrier against invaders and as a controlled source of timber." I pointed at the map spread out over my mount.
"Do you wish us to do anything else, my lord?" asked my captain.
"Yes. The entire captured population will be sent here. They will work themselves to exhaustion clearing and sowing, and with some luck we'll have the first harvest ready. If not, we can always import grain from Averland. It's not ideal, but the important thing is that this region will be secure, self-sufficient, and serve as a recruitment base for the army. Moreover, it's not located along any direct invasion route, which makes it even more valuable."
"At once, my lord!" exclaimed the captain, bowing his head before sending messengers on horseback to gather the prisoners from Akendorf and the nearby villages. Most arrived with sour faces, driven at spearpoint, fully aware that endless toil awaited them.
For hours they worked at uprooting the charred trees and piling them in heaps. That dead wood would still serve a purpose: as charcoal for furnaces, as firewood for the forges, or as material for construction.
Days passed. Thousands of my men kept sweeping through the remains of the northern forest, hunting down goblins and their spiders that had managed to flee. The campaign was a success: deprived of food, the creatures were forced out of their holes, constantly on the move, exposing themselves to ambushes by our scouts. They were doomed; it was only a matter of time before the entire plague was eradicated.
News from the messengers sent to High King Thorgrim soon arrived: regrettably, he could not dispatch reinforcements immediately. He was locked in a hard struggle to reclaim his Karak, his forces engaged against a stubborn greenskin resistance. Even so, he promised that if we held the region for a few more months, he would send his best warriors to help cleanse the forests.
The response was almost irrelevant: the wildfire had already done devastating work. The conflagration had annihilated a massive colony of goblins and their spiders; the plague was shattered, and the few bands that survived were retreating, hungry and fragmented.
With that relative security, the days passed at a frantic pace. Thousands of laborers arrived to set to work: charred trunks were felled and hauled away, makeshift bridges built to cross rivers and transport lumber, while work crews began raising defensive palisades at strategic points of the northern forest. The foundations of future settlements were marked out; stakes, trenches, and posts outlined the first lines of what would become fortified villages.
Progress was swift. The scorched land was plowed with the plows seized during raids; seeds and tools were distributed among the prisoners and settlers. Everything began to function. I left Akendorf and Munzig as military centers to station my troops—especially Akendorf, where almost all my forces were concentrated.
The primitive tent-city in the burned forest sheltered the displaced population under strict watch. Without the need to maintain a tedious supply line back to Reinsfeld—constantly moving prisoners—the column gained mobility, and my numerical strength grew as more prisoners and settlers arrived to work.
I summoned several priests of Sigmar to carry out inspections and purification rituals in the most affected areas. When I moved through certain clearings in the burned forest, my medallion vibrated insistently: there was a lingering presence of dhar in the soil, faint but real. I could not locate its source from outside, so I brought in the clerics from the fortress under construction.
Soon the litanies and prayers began. The metallic voices of the theogonists sustained the hymns and chants of purging while peasants and prisoners gathered at a distance, uneasy at the dark currents that seemed to seep from the earth. The prayers lessened the pressure of the dhar: it was as if someone had opened a window through which foul air flowed, and the priests closed it with salt and chants.
With the area more under control, the project began to take shape. If I kept the people gathered and under watch, I could focus on consolidating the new territories. The plan had shifted: I no longer sought to make myself Elector Count in the strict sense—it would be wiser to install loyal vassals under my command, local administrators who would secure the region, gather resources, and above all, organize recruitment. Relying less on others' permissions to swell the ranks of the army was a practical and necessary objective.
"How goes it?" I asked my dawi armorer, Grimm, who remained in his workshop beside the camp, assembling shotguns from parts he himself had forged with the help of a few dwarfs I had recruited in Altdorf. The dwarf showed a rare impatience—something unusual among his kind.
"Hum… it goes well," Grimm replied, wiping his hands with a rag. "I've reduced the chance of the mechanism jamming and failing to fire, but we ought to think of something more permanent than this." He gestured toward the improvised workshop, crammed with parts, springs, and polished tubes.
"Tell me what you need. You know I can obtain anything within my influence in the Empire," I said, looking over the plans spread across the worktable.
"I need more competent assistants," Grimm grumbled. "I cannot stand the lack of discipline of these 'half-dawi.' We may share blood, but they do not share the essence of the true dawi. Many of them ought to have taken the Slayer's Oath, for their work is that terrible… and their lack of faith in Grimnir is unbearable." He cast a look of disgust at the dozens of helpers shuffling parts back and forth.
"Are they really that bad? They seemed competent enough to me," I said, watching the dwarfs working in the small workshop beside the camp.
"To an umgi's eyes, perhaps," Grimm muttered, wiping his hands on a greasy cloth. "But to a true dawi, all their work reeks of imperfection. And I can overlook minor flaws when inventing something new—but these are beginner's errors: failing to handle the forge properly, mistakes in basic fittings… things they ought to have learned before they let their beards grow. What happens to these 'half-dawi' born outside the mountains? They don't carry clan discipline in their blood."
"I'll try to get you real dawi. I thought they'd be useful when I recruited them in Altdorf. I didn't mean to cause you grievance," I replied, regarding the workers with more patience than conviction.
"Thank you… I know you don't want trouble. But make sure they can actually work properly," Grimm answered. "And if you can, bring me a mobile forge. Speak to a runesmith and commission something light, that can hold a steady temperature. I'd also need a rune-etched cart to transport it. I don't want to start from scratch every time we halt. Right now, I produce one or two shotguns a day at best."
"I'll speak with my contacts in the mountains and get you what you ask for, Grimm. In the meantime, you'll have to make do with what we have. And I need you to invent something new for me—something that makes my forces far more effective against multiple enemies," I said, pointing at the parts and plans.
"What do you need, umgi? Better powder?" the dwarf asked, leaning over a barrel as he hammered a piece into place.
"Not just that. I want a new weapon—something easier to load than a musket. Musketeer units are efficient, but they require training. If we combine the rapid-fire mechanism you use in shotguns with the power and range of a musket, we could create a weapon that lets a common man—with little training—bring down dozens in short order." My smile widened at Grimm's reaction.
"What do you have in mind?" the dawi asked with genuine interest, picking up one of the pieces I had handed him days earlier.
"Do you remember the ammunition I gave you to convince you?" I said, pulling out one of the special bronze cartridges I always carried. "That innovation in loading capacity—the fulminate and its primer—is the key. I need you to build a musket with a mechanism similar to the shotgun: something that fires this ammunition reliably. It shouldn't be impossible for you to make a couple of prototypes for testing. I'll test their accuracy myself; we'll also fit a scope from Hochland long rifles to improve a marksman's aim."
Grimm fell silent for a few seconds, thoughtful. "If it can be done, I already have an idea for a system that might work… Give me a few days and I'll see what I can give you. In the meantime, bring me skilled hands of a true dawi. We're not far from Karaz-a-Karak: go ask for smiths. You could even request aid from an apprentice guild; they'll do a far better job than my current assistants."
Meanwhile, I decided to reassign Grimm's dozen helpers. I put them to work on construction duties. Those dwarfs executed orders and raised structures with a precision and speed far beyond my own men—far better suited to building bridges or palisades than handling delicate mechanisms.
With orders sent for proper smiths, I began moving the troops for the next campaign. My plan was to establish a firm frontier: the Starnek River would serve as a dividing line against the other princes, and to secure it I had to take at least two key cities controlling its banks. One would be a challenge similar to Akendorf; the other, smaller, ought to fall within days if we executed the maneuver properly.
For now, everything depended on mobility: garrisoning strongpoints, consolidating supply lines, and leaving the new colonization zone in the hands of trusted captains until the dwarf smiths and engineers could finish their work.
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If there are spelling mistakes, please let me know.
Leave a comment; support is always appreciated.
I remind you to leave your ideas or what you would like to see.
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