Rest of the autumn went in recovering and cleaning. All the dead had been hauled away and the corpses of goblins had been butchered to meat, bones and leather. There was still some blood where the battle took place but nobody had any interest of actually cleaning those splatters, and as the sun were shining the blood dried, making it more or less impossible to clean afterwards.
As the military organization had took some heavy losses with the deaths of Keywalls and Yegg, Stronghammer decided that it would be a good time to do some reorganization. Rar took the place of military commander, the position held by Keywalls before her death. Ahra was assigned to be the leader of the archer squad, which was renamed to Gravel of Autonomy, and he got four other guards under his command. All guards assigned to squads were given full set of iron armor, which included breastplate, greaves, gauntlets, high boots and helm. The archers were also given possibility to pick any type of crossbow they wanted. The minimum number of archers stationing at the walls during any given time was also raised to two.
The second tier of walls was also completed, forming a narrow passage from both sides of the mountain to the entrance. This passage was to control the movement of any assaulting group, forcing them to approach the entrance under the fire of bolts. Both mouths of the passage were also trapped with giant axe blades and two bridges were constructed, which could be raised in case of siege. Later there small passage was also added which was leading towards the volcano, and the plans were to construct a bridge across the crater to give more or less safe passage to the criminal cemetery even when the fortress was under siege.
Another group of prisoners had also arrived, six criminals guarded by two soldiers. Stronghammer was thankful for their arrival, as the military of the fortress was still in rather poor condition and wouldn't survive against bigger assaults.
Dwarven caravan also came, and with them came the liaison. For Stronghammer's surprise the liaison wasn't same as last autumn, or so he was told. Well, basing on the stories he had heard, it was no wonder if that female had been removed from the position with such an attitude.
Before meeting the new liaison Stronghammer went to deal with the merchants. The storage of the fortress was still in disarray, so only four full bins of trading goods had been hauled to the depot, but that was enough to buy some alcohol, wood, iron and several stacks of bolts. The leader of the caravan was happy, though she had hoped a bit better revenue.
The liaison was surprised when she heard the tale Stronghammer told her about the assault and especially how the whole fortress had joined together to slaughter the goblins, even though only few of them were wielding any kind of weapon. She also promised that more prisoners, personnel and guards would be sent as soon as possible, though specific schedule she was unable to give. Well, at least Evercage would get more dwarves, which was enough to him.
While Stronghammer was meeting the merchants and liaison, the miners had finished engraving the tombs of Keywalls and Yegg. There were some disagreement whether the dead prisoners would also deserve better eternal resting place, but the guards weren't interested in changing their minds, and so the prisoner grave stayed where it was.
Author
Topic: Evercage, the dwarven prison [Dwarf Fortress Advanced v. 0.3.6 COMMUNITY] (Read 31601 times)