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Aerion sat quietly in the saddle for a long moment, his tactical mind calculating the variables. The Stormcloaks were undoubtedly already aware of their approach, a column of a thousand men and a herd of mammoths was impossible to hide in the snow. "We divide the regiment," Aerion finally spoke, his voice calm and absolute over the howling wind.
He pointed down toward a large, sheltered basin slightly set back from the main approach to the fort, protected by high rock walls on three sides.
"Praefect Quintus, you will take command of two hundred legionnaires and the entirety of the supply train. You will move into that basin immediately and begin constructing the encampment. Dig the trenches, pitch the tents, and establish a secure perimeter."
Aerion then turned to Valerius. "I will take the remaining eight hundred men, my personal retainers, the apprentices, and the mammoths. We are not going to test their defenses. We are going to launch a massive preemptive strike right now."
Quintus lowered his spyglass, turning to stare at the Captain in sheer, unadulterated surprise.
"With all due respect, Captain," Quintus protested, his veteran caution overriding his deference. "Are you absolutely certain about this strategy? We are looking at a fortress designed to hold off thousands. The Stormcloaks have an entire army stationed in that region, easily numbering in the tens of thousands between the fort and the reserves in Eastmarch. You want to launch an immediate, frontal assault into an elevated chokepoint with only eight hundred men?"
Aerion let out a low, dark chuckle that vibrated ominously behind his bronze mask.
"Do not make the mistake of taking me, or my beasts, out of your equations, Praefect Quintus," Aerion replied smoothly, pointing a gauntlet toward the eleven armored mammoths waiting patiently in the snow. "This is a preemptive strike, designed to inflict maximum psychological terror and structural damage. It is not a grinding war of siege. You build the camp. I will handle the carnage."
Quintus hesitated, deeply uncomfortable with the aggressive, seemingly suicidal split of their forces. He looked over at Valerius.
Valerius, who had stood on the walls of Whiterun and watched Aerion single handedly obliterate a Stormcloak army, did not share the older Praefect's concerns. Valerius simply met Quintus's eyes and offered a slow, profound nod of absolute reassurance. 'Trust him,' the look conveyed. 'He is not a mortal commander.'
Quintus swallowed hard, yielding to the Captain's authority. "Understood, Captain. I will secure the encampment."
"Good, now move out," Aerion commanded.
The regiment immediately split. Quintus rapidly barked orders, breaking off the fifth cohort and the heavy supply wagons, steering them down into the sheltered basin to begin the grueling work of setting up tents in the frozen dirt.
Aerion turned his attention back to the massive fortress looming in the snow.
The Stormcloaks inside Fort Kastav had indeed noticed them. The deep, guttural blast of Nordic war horns echoed across the plateau, carrying over the howling wind. The fortress instantly erupted into a frantic hive of activity. Thousands of Stormcloak soldiers poured out of the interior barracks, rushing to man the ramparts, stringing their heavy bows, and frantically loading massive iron bolts into the defensive ballistas.
"Dismount," Aerion ordered his retainers and apprentices.
He slid off Revan, handing the reins to a waiting legionnaire. He walked purposefully through the heavy snow toward the massive, steel clad alpha mammoth. He didn't bother looking for leverage, he grabbed the thick leather harnessing and hauled his massive, armored frame up onto the wide expanse of the beast's skull, securing himself behind the iron banded tusk guard.
"Tribunes!" Aerion's magically amplified voice boomed over the wind. "Lock the shields! Form a tight, defensive phalanx directly behind the herd! Do not break formation, and do not advance past the beasts!"
The eight hundred legionnaires moved with flawless discipline, locking their heavy rectangular shields together to form an impenetrable, crimson cloaked wall of steel directly behind the eleven mammoths. Lydia, Jenassa, Eisa, and the four mages took up positions in the immediate vanguard, shielded by the massive bodies of the beasts.
Aerion raised his gauntleted hand, his golden eyes locking onto the heavy stone walls of Fort Kastav.
He didn't order a slow march. He bypassed the traditional siege tactics entirely.
Aerion reached deep into his dimensional inventory, forcefully tearing open the conduit to the Eye of Magnus using his skill. The sheer, overwhelming rush of infinite Magicka flooded his veins, illuminating the jagged slits of his bronze mask with a blinding, ethereal blue light.
He raised both hands toward the fortress.
"Witness the might of the Empire," Aerion shouted loudly.
He unleashed a dual casted, overcharged Elemental Blast.
Two massive, crackling spheres of highly unstable plasma, a terrifying amalgamation of superheated fire, freezing frost, and raw arcing lightning, tore from his palms. They screamed across the snow covered plateau with the velocity of cannonballs, leaving glowing, melted trenches in the snow beneath their flight paths.
The massive spells struck the southern curtain wall of Fort Kastav simultaneously.
The explosions were absolutely apocalyptic.
A blinding flash of white light temporarily erased the blizzard, followed a fraction of a second later by a concussive shockwave that physically staggered the legionnaires standing a mile away. The heavy, reinforced stone of the fortress wall did not just crack, it violently shattered. Massive, car sized chunks of jagged stone and splintered timber were blown inward, obliterating the defensive ramparts.
Dozens of Stormcloak soldiers manning the wall were instantly vaporized by the heat, while others were shredded by the high velocity stone shrapnel or violently thrown hundreds of feet into the air.
The deafening roar of the explosion echoed through the mountain peaks like the wrath of the gods.
Inside the fortress, absolute, paralyzing terror gripped the rebel command. The wall was breached before the enemy was even within bow range. Believing they were under attack by a massive battery of unseen Imperial siege engines, the Stormcloak commander made a desperate, fatal tactical decision.
"SALLY OUT! SALLY OUT!" the frantic orders echoed from the shattered courtyard. "ENGAGE THEM IN THE OPEN BEFORE THEY BRING THE WALLS DOWN ON OUR HEADS!"
The heavy iron portcullis at the front of the fortress shrieked as it was hastily raised. Thousands of hardened Stormcloak veterans, screaming feral battle cries to mask their terror, poured out of the gates. They scrambled over the rubble of the shattered wall, forming massive, overlapping shield walls on the snowy plateau, desperately trying to establish a defensive line to protect the breach.
Aerion stood tall atop the alpha mammoth, his mask glowing with residual magicka. The enemy had abandoned the absolute safety of their walls and marched into the open field.
"ADVANCE!" Aerion roared.
He sent a surge of pure, primal aggression through his Animal Affinity. The alpha mammoth let out a deafening, earth shaking trumpet, lowering its massive, iron sleeved tusks. The other ten armored beasts followed suit, and the herd broke into a terrifying, thunderous charge.
The eight hundred legionnaires marched in lockstep behind them, a wall of crimson and steel pushing inexorably forward through the driving snow.
The preemptive strike hit the Stormcloak defensive lines with the catastrophic force of a localized earthquake.
The alpha mammoth collided with the center of the rebel shield wall. The heavy iron and wood shields simply exploded on impact. Men were violently launched thirty feet into the air, their bodies broken before they even hit the snow. The massive beast trampled directly over the screaming survivors, its steel plated feet crushing chests and shattering limbs into the frozen mud.
The other ten mammoths spread out, bulldozing through the chaotic, frantic ranks of the Stormcloak infantry, grinding their hardened veterans into bloody paste.
The alpha mammoth collided with the center of the rebel shield wall. The heavy iron and wood shields simply exploded on impact. Men were violently launched thirty feet into the air, their bodies broken before they even hit the snow. The massive beast trampled directly over the screaming survivors, its steel plated feet crushing chests and shattering limbs into the frozen mud.
The other ten mammoths spread out, bulldozing through the chaotic, frantic ranks of the Stormcloak infantry, grinding their hardened veterans into bloody paste.
The Stormcloaks, realizing they could not stop the beasts with shields, broke formation and swarmed the mammoths in a desperate, suicidal frenzy. Hundreds of rebels hacked wildly at the thick, coarse hair on the beasts' legs with heavy battleaxes, while archers poured jagged bone arrows into the flanks where the steel armor plates didn't quite overlap.
Aerion, standing untouched at the absolute epicenter of the carnage, became a maestro of life and death.
With his left hand, he maintained a continuous, pulsing aura of Grand Healing. The golden, warm light washed over the mammoth herd endlessly. Every time a Stormcloak axe managed to bite into flesh, every time an arrow pierced hide, the golden magic rushed in, instantly knitting the muscle, sealing the wound, and restoring the beasts to perfect, painless health. They were immortal, unstoppable engines of destruction under his absolute care.
With his right hand, Aerion systematically dismantled the Stormcloak rear guard.
He hurled massive, overcharged Fireballs into the densest clusters of rebel archers trying to regroup near the fortress gates, the explosions turning the snow into hissing steam and incinerating dozens of men. He cast sweeping arcs of Chain Lightning that bypassed the heavy iron armor of the Stormcloak berserkers, electrocuting entire squads simultaneously.
But sheer physical destruction was only part of the strategy. Aerion wanted absolute chaos.
Maintaining his connection to the Eye of Magnus, he raised his right hand toward the sky and tore open the fabric of reality.
With a series of deafening, spatial thunderclaps, forty glowing purple rifts fractured the blizzard above the battlefield.
Forty Daedric Atronachs stepped through the tears. Fourteen towering Flame Atronachs hovered above the snow, hurling spiraling pillars of fire. Thirteen massive Frost Atronachs waded directly into the Stormcloak lines, their icy fists crushing skulls and shattering spines. Thirteen crackling Storm Atronachs rained continuous, devastating lightning bolts from the sky.
The Stormcloak army, already reeling from the immortal mammoths and the apocalyptic magical bombardment, completely shattered under the sudden, terrifying assault of a literal Daedric army.
"HOLD THE LINE! WEAPONS FORWARD!" Valerius bellowed from the rear.
The eight hundred Imperial legionnaires functioned perfectly. They did not break their tight, disciplined phalanx to chase the routing rebels. They held their ground, presenting an impenetrable wall of heavy steel shields and thrusting their weapons with ruthless efficiency, executing any desperate Stormcloak soldier who managed to slip past the mammoths and the Atronachs in an attempt to flank the formation.
Aerion's retainers and apprentices fought with lethal synergy from the safety of the Imperial vanguard.
Lydia anchored the center, bashing a frantic Stormcloak officer to the ground with her shield before driving her sword through his throat. Eisa danced through the falling snow, the Pale Blade humming, freezing the blood of any rebel foolish enough to charge the line. Jenassa stood slightly behind the shield wall, her ebony bow singing a deadly, continuous rhythm, scoring perfect headshots on the rebel commanders desperately trying to rally their broken men.
The apprentices, operating comfortably at the Adept level as Aerion had demanded, provided flawless, surgical artillery support. Onmund and J'zargo hurled precision Ice Spikes and Lightning Bolts to pick off the most heavily armored targets, while Brelyna and Eirik maintained defensive wards to protect the legionnaires from stray arrows.
The battlefield was a horrifying, deafening symphony of absolute slaughter.
Whenever a large pocket of Stormcloak infantry attempted a desperate, coordinated flanking maneuver around the edges of the Daedric chaos, Aerion simply pulled on the magical reins of his Animal Affinity. He wheeled the massive, armored mammoths around with surprising agility, sending the tons of steel and ivory crashing into the flanks, instantly crushing the counter-attack before it could even formulate.
For forty five minutes, Aerion subjected the Stormcloak garrison to a relentless meat grinder.
The snow of the plateau was stained a deep, muddy crimson. The shattered remnants of the southern curtain wall were burning. Hundreds of Stormcloak bodies littered the field, and the survivors were routing in blind, screaming terror, fleeing back through the broken gates of Fort Kastav and barricading themselves in the deepest, darkest cellars of the stronghold.
Aerion stood atop the alpha mammoth, his chest heaving slightly as he severed the connection to the Eye of Magnus. The golden light of his healing aura faded, and the forty Daedric Atronachs vanished back into Oblivion with a series of sharp, spatial pops.
He surveyed the devastation through the slits of his bronze mask.
The outer defenses of Fort Kastav were completely and utterly broken. Their defensive linewas annihilated, their morale was shattered, and their commanders were dead. The preemptive strike had achieved its objective flawlessly. He had caused a disturbance so massive that the entire region would be paralyzed by panic.
It was more than enough for one afternoon.
Aerion raised his gauntleted hand high into the freezing air.
"SOUND THE RETREAT!" Aerion commanded, his voice magically amplified to cut through the moans of the dying.
The Imperial war horns blew a long, descending, organized blast.
The eight hundred legionnaires did not break formation. They simply took one synchronized step backward, keeping their shields locked and their weapons pointed toward the fortress. They executed a flawless, disciplined tactical withdrawal, slowly backing away from the carnage, completely unharried by the broken enemy.
Aerion commanded the mammoth herd to turn. The massive beasts lumbered slowly back toward the safety of the ridge, leaving the burning, shattered ruins of Fort Kastav bleeding in the snow.
They marched cleanly and efficiently back down the mountain pass, arriving at the sheltered basin just as the sun dipped below the peaks.
Praefect Quintus and his two hundred men had worked miracles in the frozen dirt. A massive, heavily fortified Imperial encampment had been erected. Tents were pitched in perfect rows, heavy wooden barricades secured the perimeter, and massive watchfires roared in the center of the camp, offering vital, life saving warmth against the freezing wind.
As Aerion, the mammoths, and the unbloodied eight hundred legionnaires marched into the camp, Quintus stood near the command tent, his jaw slightly slack as he took in the fact that the assault force had returned without a single visible casualty.
Aerion slid down from the alpha mammoth, pulling the mask of Krosis from his face. He walked up to Quintus, a dark, incredibly satisfied smirk touching his lips.
"The outer walls of Kastav are shattered, and their defensive line is broken, Praefect," Aerion reported smoothly, clapping a gauntlet onto the older officer's shoulder. "Ensure the perimeter is secure, and let the men rest by the fires. We continue the siege tomorrow and showed them even more hell."
The freezing, biting winds howling off the mountains and also the blizzard battered the heavy canvas of the Imperial command pavilion, but inside, the air was thick with the heat of brazier fires and the adrenaline of a successful strike.
Across the sprawling, sheltered basin, the majority of the one thousand legionnaires were settling into a tense, heavily armed rest. The quartermasters had distributed hot rations, and the Quaestors had organized a strict rotation of patrols to monitor the perimeter. But in the center of the camp, the absolute command structure of the newly formed regiment had gathered around the tactical map.
Aerion stood at the head of the heavy wooden table, his golden eyes sweeping over the faces of his officers. Praefects Valerius and Quintus stood to his right, while Tribunes Hrogar, Livia, Arcturus, Joric, and Sabina filled out the circle. Behind Aerion stood his retainers, Lydia, Jenassa, and Eisa, alongside his four battlemages.
"Let us begin," Aerion's resonant voice cut through the ambient noise of the camp. He looked directly at his second in command. "Praefect Valerius. I want a comprehensive status report on the eight hundred men who accompanied me into the attack."
Valerius stepped forward, clutching a frost chilled ledger, his face a mixture of lingering disbelief and huge pride.
"The casualty report is unprecedented, Captain," Valerius stated, his voice tight with emotion. "Of the eight hundred men who marched into the open field against Fort Kastav's counter attack, we doesn't have any fatalities. None of our men are dead."
A collective, stunned murmur rippled through the new officers from Solitude. To launch a frontal assault against a fortified mountain stronghold and return without a single body bag defied every known metric of Imperial warfare.
"It is a miracle of the Divines," Valerius continued, looking at Aerion with absolute reverence. "We do, however, have injuries. The Stormcloak berserkers fought with desperate fury. We have approximately forty men with light injuries, lacerations, bruised ribs, and minor frostbite. We have twelve men with heavy, critical injuries, mostly severe trauma from warhammers and deep spear punctures that managed to bypass their shields. The field medics have stabilized them in the triage tents, but they are in agonizing pain."
Aerion offered a slow, reassuring nod, his demeanor projecting the calm, protective authority of a seasoned commander.
"They held the line, and they will not suffer for it," Aerion promised. "As soon as this council adjourns, I will personally visit the triage tents. My Restoration magic will knit their bones and seal their lungs before the night is over. They will march with us tomorrow."
He leaned forward, planting his gauntleted hands on the edge of the map table. "Now, we transition from the preemptive strike to the absolute conclusion of this siege. The Stormcloaks are bleeding, their outer curtain wall is shattered, and their morale is deeply fractured. How do we break them entirely?"
Praefect Quintus, his weathered face illuminated by the brazier, was the first to speak. He pointed a scarred finger at the wooden marker representing Fort Kastav.
"Captain, I must admit that the magical bombardment you unleashed today was something entirely out of this world," Quintus began, his voice carrying the deep respect of a man whose worldview had just been violently permanently altered. "You blew a hole in a reinforced mountain fortress in seconds. Because of that breach, the fundamental difficulty of this siege has been reduced by several degrees."
Quintus dragged his finger from the breach toward the interior keep. "But it does not mean the fortress is not dangerous. The Stormcloaks still outnumber us significantly. They likely have thousands of reserves huddled in the interior courtyard and the deep cellars. If we push a thousand men through that narrow breach tomorrow, we are walking into a fatal kill box. I strongly suggest a cautious approach. We maintain a heavy shield wall outside the breach, use our archers to bleed them dry, and force them to sally out to us again."
Tribune Arcturus, the broad shouldered Nord from Solitude, slammed his fist on the table. "Cautious? Praefect, they are terrified! If we sit outside and wait, they will use the night to barricade the breach with rubble and timber! I say we push aggressively. We take the mammoths, smash through whatever is left of the courtyard defenses, and flood the interior before they can organize a proper shield wall!"
"An aggressive push leaves our flanks entirely exposed," Tribune Sabina countered sharply. "If we flood the courtyard, their archers on the remaining towers will rain arrows down into our ranks. We need a balanced approach. Send the heavy infantry to secure the breach, use the mages to suppress the towers, and then push forward room by room."
The war ten instantly dissolved into a heated, rapid fire debate. Valerius and Livia argued for maintaining the phalanx, while Joric and Hrogar debated the merits of using the mammoths to collapse the remaining gatehouse. The officers were deeply invested, their tactical minds clashing over how best to utilize the godlike weapon standing at the head of their table.
Aerion listened in absolute silence for two full minutes. He absorbed their strategies, noting which officers favored preservation and which favored momentum.
Then, Aerion raised a single hand.
The debate ceased instantly. Silence crashed back over the tent.
"I appreciate your tactical insight everyone," Aerion said smoothly, his golden eyes moving from Quintus to Arcturus. "I will abdicate the extreme ends of this argument. We will not sit outside and wait for them to recover, nor will we blindly charge into a kill box. We will execute a perfectly balanced, overwhelming assault."
Aerion reached out and tapped the space on the map representing their current encampment.
"First, the security of this regiment overnight is paramount. The Stormcloaks may attempt a desperate night raid. Therefore, when this meeting concludes, I will raise a massive wall of solid permafrost entirely around this basin. We will sleep behind an impenetrable fortress of our own making."
Quintus blinked, his mouth opening slightly in disbelief, but he wisely kept his silence.
"Tomorrow at dawn," Aerion continued, tracing a direct line from their camp to the shattered breach of Kastav, "we march. Just as we did today, I will lead the vanguard using the eleven armored mammoths. I will personally bombard their defensive lines and suppress their archer towers with heavy magic."
He looked directly at the Praefects. "The one thousand legionnaires will follow directly behind the herd. But you will not break into small squads to clear rooms. You will fight in tandem, forming a single, massive, two line phalanx. No man breaks rank. No man charges out alone for glory. You fight tightly, you push forward as a solid wall of steel, and you let the beasts break their heavy formations."
Aerion stood up straight, his presence dominating the canvas room. "I will assess the momentum of the battle from the vanguard. I will be the one to decide if we possess the sheer kinetic force to end the siege tomorrow right then and there, or if we must pull back and extend it for another day. But if you hold your lines, I anticipate we will sleep in their barracks tomorrow night."
The sheer, arrogant audacity of the plan hung in the air.
Praefect Quintus could not hold his tongue. "Captain... forgive me, but we are still talking about one thousand men against a garrison that easily numbers between five and ten thousand. Even with your magic and the beasts, pushing a single phalanx into the heart of their fortress... it defies all conventional logic."
The three new Tribunes murmured their agreement, their eyes wide with disbelief at the staggering numerical disadvantage.
Aerion simply let out a low, dark chuckle that vibrated with absolute confidence.
"Conventional logic died the moment we shattered their wall, Praefect," Aerion replied smoothly, a terrifying smile touching his lips. "Just hold your line tomorrow. Believe, and see."
He allowed the weight of his promise to settle before adding a final, chilling addendum.
"There is one final danger you must all be explicitly aware of," Aerion warned, his voice dropping into a grave register. "The amount of blood spilled on the plateau today was massive. The chaos, the screaming, and the sheer volume of magical energy released into the atmosphere... it is a beacon. There is a very high probability that the smell of slaughter will attract a dragon down from the peaks."
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[Main Panel]
Name: Aerion
Race: High Elf (Altmer)
Health: 1030/1030
Stamina: 1070/1070
Magicka: 980/980 [External Capacity & Regeneration: ∞]
Level: 267
Skills: Animal Affinity (MAX LEVEL), Fast Skill Levelling (MAX LEVEL), Fast Magic Mastery (MAX LEVEL), Instant Shout (MAX LEVEL), Dragon Master (MAX LEVEL), Eye Of Magnus (MAX LEVEL), Summon Dragon (MAX LEVEL), Destruction (Fire(+7)/Lightning(+5)/Frost(+4)) (Level 0/0/0), Restoration (Healing(+4)/Purify(+2)) (Level 0/98), Alteration (Level 43), Illusion (Level 62), Conjuration (Necromancy/Summoning(+3)) (Level 37/0), Persuasion(+3) (Level 92), Smithing(+1) (Level 79), Sneak(+1) (Level 64), One Handed(+2) (Level 0), Two Handed(+1) (Level 29), Lockpicking (Level 55), Archery(+1) (Level 0), Enchanting(+1) (Level 23), Light Armor(+2) (Level 42), Block (Level 70), Pickpocket (Level 8), & Heavy Armor(+2) (Level 0)
Shouts: Fus Roh Dah (Force Balance Push), Tiid (Time), Krii (Kill), Feim Zii Gron (Fade Spirit Bind), Su (Air), Laas (Life), Yol Toor (Fire Inferno), Kaan (Kyne), Zul Mey Gut (Voice Fool Far), IIZ (Ice), & Faas (Fear)
[Inventory Panel]
1x Small Sack, Poacher's Axe, the Golden Claw, Arvel's Journal, Inkwell & Quill, Thief Book, Parchment Rolls Of Mammoths Farm And Loan, Ebony Claw, The Mirror, Ring of Pure Mixtures, Grand Soul Gem (Filled), Deed to Tundra Homestead, Dawnbreaker, Traveling Backpack (Supplies), Vampire Armor, Vampire Boots, Movarth's Golden Ash (Unique), Potion of Healing, Mage Boots Of Weight, Master Robes Of Destruction, Staff of Jyrik Gauldurson, Gauldur Black Bow, Dwarven Battleaxe, Mehrunes Razor Hilt, Mehrunes' Razor Pommel, Stone of Barenziah (1/24), Mehrunes' Razor Blades, Iron Circlet of Ruby, & Iron Circlet of Emerald
2x Common Soul Gem (Empty), Black Soul Gem (Empty), & Potions of Plentiful Magicka
3x Potions of Minor Stamina, Petty Soul Gem (Filled), Potions of Minor Magicka, Grand Soul Gem (Filled), & Greater Soul Gems
5x Mod Chests
8x Iron Arrows, Ancient Nord Arrows, & Common Soul Gem (Filled)
9x Potions Of Minor Healing
10x Lesser Soul Gems
12x Black Soul Gem (Filled)
Weight: 49.79 KG / 885 KG
Septims: 255,867