The Narrator posted:

Sunday May 23, Near Myrgard

I think Soulblighter lost his nerve when the Tain shattered. To him, only a few seconds passed between the invocation of the thing and its sudden destruction, while it took us two days to escape the caves inside it.

Anyway, he didn't stick around to figure out what went wrong.

Messengers reached us today saying that Maeldun has lost Bagrada and that The Deceiver crossed the mountains at the Stair of Grief. Worst of all, what's left of the Nine had it out with The Head, which had apparently been double-crossing them ever since they pulled it out of the ground last summer.

Something like a civil war erupted back west, too, as thousands of our own men unexpectedly rose to defend The Head. Two of The Nine were killed, which makes them something like The Three now, if you also subtract Murgen and Cu Roi, who did not escape the destruction of the Tain, and the others who have died this year.

The only good news is that Alric is still alive, and will join us tomorrow.

This far east, the Dwarves with us are closer to their occupied homelands than any of their race has been in fifty years. Not expecting to return, many of them have decided to give up their lives rather than abandon their country once again to the Ghôls who have overrun it.

What follows is their story.