Summer of Steel: The Road to Ruin
The spring fighting had ended with Hengst and his Dûrlingar warriors claiming the initiative. The early battles of this campaign are available
here.
The March of Hengst
After his son's triumph in late spring, Hengst sensed opportunity and moved to exploit it with ruthless speed. Rather than waiting for the full muster of his British allies, he marched immediately with a compact but formidable force: his elite housecarls, the witch Morgatha and her legions of shambling undead, and the remnants of his son's battle-hardened army.
The strategy was brutally simple—push up the old Roman road with all haste, reaching Arthur's capital before the British king could bring his reserves to bear.
But the wily Sagramoor's scouts had already brought word of the Dûrlingar movement. The Moorish general moved to block the western approach along a series of low, undulating hills. Both commanders believed they held the initiative. Neither had reckoned with the weather.
The Battle of the Mist
From the Chronicle of Camlann:
"They camped on facing ridges, each watching the other's fires burn through the dusk. When dawn broke, God had drawn a veil across the world. In that grey shroud, the dead walked unseen, and brave men's hearts turned to water. Islands of earth floated in seas of cloud, and in the depths between, shapes moved that had no right to move at all."Overnight, both armies had made camp on opposite ridges. When morning came, the land lay smothered beneath a dense, clinging mist. Visibility shrank to mere yards. As both forces advanced, all they could discern were ghostly shapes in the murk and the occasional hilltop rising like a floating island above a sea of cloud. For the Britons, the fog brought special terror—within those mists, the insubstantial undead drifted silent as smoke.
The primary effect of the weather, beyond the fear it sowed, was the complete disruption of both armies' deployments. Flanking units drifted off course, becoming separated from the main body. When the mist began to lift as the armies closed, both battle lines were fragmented and broken—a circumstance that would cost Hengst dearly.
Yet Hengst, advancing blindly through the murk, remained unaware of how badly the mist had scattered his formations. His tactics were characteristically straightforward: charge along the entire front, break the British resolve, and march swiftly on Arthur's capital. Despite the limited visibility, it was the Dûrlingar who struck first, crashing into the British line. The howling dead, urged on by the necromancer witch Morgatha, caused the greatest terror among Arthur's loyal warriors.
The Fight Back
After the initial shock drove them back, the Britons found their courage and fought back with renewed determination. The mist's disruption had given them an unexpected tactical advantage. Hengst's army was small, and the broken formations created gaps that allowed the numerically superior Britons to isolate and overwhelm pockets of the enemy with minimal support.
Where the British counterattack struck, dwarven units shattered. Hengst himself found himself nearly surrounded, his standard in danger of being taken. Spotting a gap in the closing British ring, he and his death guard fought their way clear of the encirclement. But the battle was lost. The initiative had shifted once more.
From Brother Aldhelm's Chronicle:
"When the mist lifted at last, the field was a charnel house. The Dûrlingar withdrew in disorder, leaving their dead upon the ground they had thought to claim. Sagramoor's men were too exhausted to pursue with vigour, but victory was theirs nonetheless. The old Roman road would not see dwarf feet that day."
The Battle of Wolves' Wood
After his defeat in the Battle of the Mist, Hengst fell back to a wooded area straddling the old road. Here he could concentrate his forces along a narrow frontage, gaining, he hoped, some tactical advantage. His position was strengthened by the arrival of the pretender Modred, who brought cavalry to guard his more exposed flank.
Taking up position at the centre of his line, Hengst planted his standard near an old Roman milestone bearing an eagle motif—an edifice the dwarf chieftain considered a favourable omen.
From the Chronicle of Camlann:
"At the Wolves' Wood did Hengst make his stand, beneath the eagle of lost Rome. The trees themselves seemed to reject the abominations in his host, and the very earth rose against the walking dead. It was a day of axes and of blood, where heroes fell, and traitors paid the price of their ambition."This would be no battle of sophisticated strategy. Sagramoor understood that only one path led to victory: continue up the road and burst through Hengst's strengthened position at the milestone. With this in mind, he deployed his best troops at the centre and began his advance, his flanks covered by Galahad's light cavalry on the right and the fierce Welsh warriors on the left.
Clash of Arms
The first clash came, unsurprisingly, between the British housecarls and Hengst's Death Guard, supported by the undead legion. But this day, the dead would find no fortune. The necromancer Morgatha struggled to maintain her hold over them or replenish their numbers. Some mystic force pervaded the ancient woods, rejecting these abominations of unlife. The undead wavered and dissipated like morning fog.
The battle became a brutal struggle along the main road itself. Slowly, the Britons began to push the dwarves back. At one desperate moment, arrows struck Hengst's armour—they failed to penetrate, but he was forced to invoke mighty deeds simply to preserve his life.
On the flanks, fortune also favoured the Britons. The Welsh slowly drove the undead from the woods into open ground. On the right flank, Galahad charged Modred's cavalry, and the two champions met in single combat—a duel that would cost the pretender his life. With Modred dead upon the field and his forces struggling, Hengst recognised the inevitable and withdrew to his coastal fortress.
Now the dwarf chieftain faced a grim calculation: should he attempt to hold the fortress through a siege, or abandon it and return to the Isle of Vectis to plan a new campaign for the following year?
For Sagramoor, victory had secured the southern hundreds of Arthur's kingdom, but his men were near exhaustion. His own decision loomed: should he, so late in the season—early September now—attempt to lay siege Hengst'st's stronghold? Such an undertaking would certainly require Arthur's support and, more importantly, his elite guards.
From the Annals of Caer Sulis"
"Thus ended the summer campaigns, with the Dûrlingar penned upon the coast and the pretender Modred lying cold upon contested ground. The witch Morgatha had fled, her dark arts proven insufficient against the ancient powers that slumber in Britain's soil. Yet Hengst remained unbroken, his fortress strong, and autumn would bring its own trials".Observations from the Summer Campaigns
These two summer engagements proved markedly different from the cautious spring battles. Where the spring conflicts were drawn-out affairs of probing and manoeuvring, these were head-on clashes of terrible violence—especially the final battle, which became a true bloodbath. Many heroes either barely survived through the use of mighty deeds or, in Modred's case, failed to survive at all.
The Battle of the Mist demonstrated how numerical superiority can overcome elite forces, particularly when the battle line becomes divided. The fragmentation allowed the Britons to exploit gaps and bring superior numbers to bear at crucial points, supported by better dice rolls, ultimately giving them the edge.
The Battle Wolves' Wood was a more straightforward affair. Simply put, the dice favoured the Britons that day. Hengst should have recognised his ill fortune when he threw two double ones on his risk-to-throw. This "Twist of Fate" was a warning of what was to follow. Though his mighty deeds saved him from fighting's worst effects, from that moment forward, the battle seemed lost to him.
Ironically, Modred's death also robbed Hengst of much of the propaganda value he had sought in this campaign. No longer could he claim to support a rightful British king against a usurper. He was now simply another would-be conqueror of these isles, following in the footsteps of the departed Roman masters.
From Brother Aldhelm's Chronicle"
"As summer waned and the harvest moon rose full, men on both sides sharpened their blades and wondered what autumn would bring. The war was far from over, but the balance had shifted. Whether Hengst would withdraw or make a final, desperate stand remained to be seen. The chronicler's hand grows weary, but the tale continues…"The summer season has concluded with the Dûrlingar contained but not destroyed, their chieftain cornered but defiant. The question now is whether the autumn will bring siege, withdrawal, or some unexpected turn fate's wheel.
Autumn's Respite: The Rains Come
From the Annals of Caer Sulis, as recorded by Brother Aldhelm:
"With September's turning came the rains, as if Heaven itself wept for the blood spilled upon British soil. The old Roman roads, which had borne legions in their pride, now ran with mud thick as porridge. No army could march, no siege could prosper. Both king and chieftain looked to their walls and their hearths, and welcomed winter's coming truce."
The autumn rains arrived early, and by mid-September the old roads had become clogged with mud, making the movement of men and supply wagons both difficult and dangerous. Arthur, though victorious in the field, proved unwilling to commit his forces to a siege so late in the season. Winter campaigns were the province of desperate men, and the British king was not yet desperate.
For his part, Hengst was content to sit behind the walls of Noviomagus, waiting for spring and the arrival of fresh ships from the homeland. His coastal fortress remained secure, his core forces intact despite the summer's reverses. He had lost the pretender Modred and failed to seize the old Roman road, but he had established a foothold in Britain that would not be easily dislodged.
And so, as the year turned toward the dark months, an uneasy stalemate settled over the southern coast. The campaign's first season had concluded.
From the Chronicle of Camlann:
"Thus did the year of blood draw to its close. The Dûrlingar held their coastal stronghold, the Britons held the road and the interior. Neither had won decisively, yet neither had lost all. It was a settlement born of exhaustion and autumn's rain—a peace that both sides knew would last only until the hawthorn bloomed white again."
The Chronicler's Reflection
I chose to end the first round of this campaign at this point, primarily because I lacked Dark Age fortifications in my collection—a siege would require resources I did not possess. Therefore, like Hengst himself, a seasonal break suited my circumstances admirably.
Coincidentally, this conclusion produced a strategic landscape remarkably similar to the historical Jutish settlements in post-Roman Britain: a foreign force established in coastal strongholds, the British controlling the interior, and both sides gathering strength for the next round of conflict when spring returned.
The Jutes' holdings in post-Roman Britain.
From Brother Aldhelm's final entry for the year 495:
"The leaves fall, the fires are banked, and warriors on both sides return to their halls. But swords are not yet beaten into ploughshares, nor spears into pruning hooks. When the spring comes, and the snow melts from the hills, the war will wake again. Until then, we wait, and we watch, and we pray."
The campaign continues...
