Stirrings From the North

Hi!

With the completion of my Children of the Moon allied warband I am going to try and get a battle report done in the morning featuring the Boar Company carrying out a punitive raid on a local tribe.

The Northern Lands Bordering the Axeblades

Gripped in a winter that has lasted an entire year due to the Death, the tribes bordering the Dwarven holds hunting grounds have been badly depleted of game. The Dwarves have begun sending groups of hunters into these forested regions in search of fresh supplies to help feed their kin who remain in the Hold.

Surprisingly the tribes have taken offence to this and recently have begun killing any Dwarves they catch. The Boar Company has been dispatched to punish the worst offenders, a tribe affiliated with one of the smaller packs of the Children of the Moon. This tribe, the Durotii, have been particularly savage in their resistance to the Dwarves and have even overrun several Dwarven frontier camps and putting all the inhabitants to the sword. The Boar company has been dispatched along with several guides to locate the Durotii and deal with the troublesome tribe once and for all.

The Durotii are currently led by Lurmattii Greymourn, an ambitious chieftain keen to use the situation to enhance his own standing within the region. The driving force for the uprising of ill will however, comes from Varg Wolfjaw, a somewhat shadowy druid that has been whipping several of the local tribes up in an attempt to drive those who do not worship the Earth Mother or her sister the Moon from the region.

Grimli shivered and drew his cloak more closely about him, the dark forest and endless snow was beginning to get on his nerves. The boar company had been hunting the renegades for several weeks without success and he silently cursed the supposed guides, who he was half convinced were lost and simply leading his troop in circles.

'Curse all trees and feckless scouts!' he grumbled, his breath steaming in the frigid air. Despite it being near noon, the sun was blocked by thick cloud which once again threatened snow and the companies going had been slow as time and again their quarry had eluded them with almost contemptuous ease.

Flint, his second in command grinned in response through a beard which sparkled with hoar frost. 'Worry not my lord, we will find the scum soon and bring retribution for the crimes they have committed. They will rue the day the Boars were set upon them!'

'Aye,' Grimli replied, 'I will not soon forget the mutilated corpses of our kin left to be picked over by scavengers. They shall pay a dear price indeed but we need to find them first!'

Both Dwarves turned as a third Dwarf approached. Wrapped in heavy furs and skins, the new arrival seemed impervious to the biting cold and moved with an economy of movement that betrayed him as one of the scouts Grimli had employed to help with their mission.

'Greetings my lord!' the Dwarf saluted lazily. 'I think we have found the ones you are looking for!'

'Damn you Ferrik, you had better be right this time!' fumed Grimli, 'otherwise I will have Gunnar feed you to the Wildling!'

Ferrik chortled, seemingly impervious to the threat. 'It is them my lord, I have seen their druid too. They are camped near a stone circle just under a mile from here and I have Murdo sat watching them still.' Murdo was the companies other guide, a taciturn individual even for Dwarven standards. He was the opposite from his garrulous companion and could at least be trusted to keep quiet and not alert their targets to the Dwarves presence.

'At last!' Enthused Flint fingering his heavy boar headed pickaxe. 'Payback!'