The river runs red with blood.
Instead of a dwarven caravan this autumn, the humans sent a new law-giver to sue for peace. Needing somebody to take all this siege junk off my hands, I agreed.
At that point, a vile force of darkness arrived. They spawned 4 goblin melee squads and 2 trolls, in a true envelopment. A planter and a tigerman were killed before they could make it inside. I wanted to finish them off quickly in the hopes that I could still get the dwarven caravan to arrive. I left the gates open and waited.
The law-giver went outside, saw the advancing hordes, and fled back within the courtyard. My marksdwarves rained bolts from above as the first squad of trolls closed in. My spear squad charged them once they crossed the gamut of cage and weapon traps, and quickly dispatched them. At this point the axegoblin squad arrived on the scene, and I committed the other two squads to the fighting. A single hammerdwarf racked up 5 kills, earning himself the title Granitenotched the Dutiful Dots before being tackled into the moat by a goblin. He killed that goblin as well before drowning. Another recruit would join him on the bottom of the moat before that was over.
At this point the squad of hammergoblins arrived. Though tired and wounded, my military charged them. No dwarves died, although more than a few suffered broken bones. The hammergoblins quickly broke and fled, cut down by my military. I was still hoping to get the dwarven caravan to arrive, so I dispatched my military to the river bridge, at the north end of which a squad of pikes and trolls was stuck. While I was waiting for the rest of the military to arrive, one of those dumb, dumb recruit axedwarves decided he wanted the axe the planter had been carrying, and took off to the north side of the bridge. He killed a goblin before a troll ripped his arm off. The rest of the enemies could now see my military, and a bloody scrum erupted in the middle of the river.
Between dodging off the bridge and being knocked off by enraged trolls, six dwarves drowned in the river. Of particular note was my militia commander, axe in hand, dragging a troll down with her. She hacked off bits and pieces of the troll even as she drowned, and the troll returned the favor. Most of the river was cyan, red, or a muddy mix of the two before they drowned. One of the trolls made it to shallow water after tackling a recruit in, and made it to shore in time for the goblins to order a retreat. The siege is lifted.
A baby-shield survives in my meeting hall, despite two thoroughly broken arms. A few of my military dwarves have names, including two marksdwarves and a swordsdwarf who has seven notable kills. "Doren Gearmute the Knives of Skinning." Five of the slain took out enough enemies with them to earn themselves titles posthumously. The population of the fortress just dropped from 81 to 69, and may dip lower depending how the hospitalized dwarves do. A few speardwarves have already recovered enough to resume their duties with the aid of a crutch. More than half of my military is dead or injured- I'm in the process of handing out battlefield promotions to cover the lack, and my second squad will be disbanded altogether as it only had a single survivor (the aforementioned swordsdwarf).
And now it is another winter without the dwarven caravan. Fun times.
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Topic: What's going on in your fort? (Read 6120886 times)