Oorah! (UST Marine Actions)

[Greywall]

Mwamdan

The unrestrained kithium assault out the UST defenders in a hard place, buildings were decimated as wooden splintered fragments flew everywhere from enemy fire. The UST had run out of boats and ships to board, the remaining 1,892 men would have to simply fight or die. The caravels took damage with two of them sinking, they fired what they could but had to leave the bay to avoid further kithium fire.

This was it, a last stand. The UST soldiers fought a desperate defense against their attackers. Ground was lost as chaos erupted into a mix of firefights and melee combat. They made the kithium pay for their lives but it was in vain against the larger force. Some tried jumping into the bay and swim away from the carnage. The survivors leaving via ship for noscovo watched in horror as the last remaining soldiers fought on. Eventually the gun shots and screams came to an eerie silence across the bay and the survivors knew that every man had died defending the last ground they could.


In the southern countryside, the UST insurgents had gathered a good 4,500 willing troops and some 30 field guns. They planned to raid kithium FoBs in the next few weeks.

[Greywall]

Casualties

UST: 1,923, 2 caravels
Kithium: 1,273
Frannerre: none

[callmedelta]

Bantari

General Lumine had eagerly awaited the return of the scouting parties he'd sent forth, longing for the relative safety of a city. What Lumine was not expecting to hear, however, was the fact that Bantari wasn't even in Union hands anymore; it was Kithium. That news wasn't bad, at the very least, but whether it was good remained to be seen. General Lumine himself would head up a small party headed towards Bantari to negotiate with the Kithium under a white flag of parley.

[VoxApocrypha]

The city of Bantari wasn't so much a city as it was a collection of stone and brick hovels that had barely survived winter. Fires raged in many of the core buildings in the town while the Kithium would throw corpses into the flames, getting rid of the bodies of the butchered UST soldiers that they'd practically massacred in their march on the town. Standing in the midst of the 'public square' would be the infamous Field Marshal Asur'Yani. She stood on a body, a large and blood soaked great-sword half-buried in the corpse of the commanding officer as she stared at the burning flames, eyes bloodshot and face covered in scars. Their large, bushy tail was scorched, their dense and heavy snow-leopard fur exposed in places where her once ornate uniform was ripped apart by knives, bayonets.. and so on.

As she closed her eyes, slowly leaning forwards, she'd start to pass into unconsciousness, before she heard the sound of a courier approaching. It was the horses. Always easy to hear.
"Daversh Commandeere!" She'd jolt up, and stare at them.

"What?" They'd ask with a hoarse voice.

"There is a foreigner. Not, UST. They have asked for Parley."

"..Nnnrr..."
She'd sigh. "I'll be there soon." She'd say, as she slowly pulled the sword out of the body, and would pull it up, putting it into a sheathe on her back, her rifle hanging at her side, barrel blown at its end and a smoking hole in the side from her own bullet exploding in the barrel.
She started to walk.

[callmedelta]

Bantari

General Lumine didn't quite know how to describe the sight of the Kith walking towards him. The first word that leapt to mind was 'beastlike,' but that wasn't exactly the best way to think of someone that would hopefully be an ally. At the very least, given the obviously brutal combat the Kith had been through, he didn't want them as an enemy.

White flag fluttering in the wind, twenty marines at his back, and with his own mostly pristine uniform a stark contrast to the Kith's, well, Lumine couldn't help but feel at least a little awkward. He tried not to let it bother him as he spoke. "My name is General Lumine, of the Kingdom of Franerre, and we've been invading Boamba from the South to use it's ports for our blockade against the Union of South Touli. I wasn't aware Kithium had begun their own invasion."

[VoxApocrypha]

"The Island belongs to the Kithium League, and always has. The UST's occupation had to be broken at some point." She'd say, as she stared at them, eyes examining them with a predatory gaze. "And similarly so it seems that you've come to do the same thing they have, and we're not in a great mood over it." She'd say, as she would rest her sword's sheathe into the frosty soil, tip sinking in some from the weight of the blade and that of the Kithium as she leaned on it. Emerging from the smoke behind her would be several squads of Kithium soldiers, holding their rifles at low ready, but not aiming at the Franerri.

"So explain to me, why would should not kick you off the island too in similar brutal fashion to how we're doing it with the UST?" She'd ask, a few cavalry men making their way through the billowing smoke. The wind was blowing it at an angle, casting a further obscuring view over the town in the distance and the road behind the Kithium.

[callmedelta]

Perhaps discarding his beastlike assertion was a bit too hasty. The Franerri marines behind Lumine tightened the grips on their weapons, though none moved to fire. "The first reason would be that you would be starting a war with Franerre," General Lumine said, holding up a finger, "The second-" Lumine held up another finger "-is that my soldiers are only going to be here for the duration of the war with the Union - Franerre doesn't have the desire for a colony, and the resources needed garrison the island could be better spent elsewhere. Once this war is over, you can have the place. We only want ports for our naval blockade to work out of for the time being. And lastly," Lumine closed his hand, "We haven't secured much of the island yet, to be honest. We landed at the village of Banridi at the southern coast, and have marched here since, only encountering minimal resistance, which I now suspect is because of your invasion. We don't have the manpower to do a full sweep and pacification of the countryside, so our strategy was just going to be to seize the main urban centers for the duration of our stay. We were going to seize Bantari, then march to Habudan, but if you've already secured it there's no point."

[VoxApocrypha]

"I would be starting a war with a country that's set armed troops onto Kithium Soil. I don't see any real reason to be afraid of the consequences."
She'd say, as the soldiers behind and around her would begin to advance, moving in front of her, shielding her with their bodies.

"You are being ordered to evacuate Razu of all Franerri soldiers and equipment. And if you do not, before you ask.."

"We'll kill you if you don't." She says, turning to leave as more Kithium soldiers filled in the new empty space, marching columns of Kithium troops visible making their way in their general direction from the town as the smoke would be blown in a new direction from the changing wind, the Kithium commander disappearing into the growing numbers of soldiers.

[callmedelta]

Beastlike, uncivilized, uncompromising brutes was a purely accurate term to describe the Kith, as it turned out. Lumine had plenty more to say on the topic, but with the Kithium commander's exit they would just fall on deaf ears. They likely were before, all things considered. General Lumine stood, appraising the Kithium forces assembled before him. He didn't doubt that his forces could fight off the Kithium here, but from what the Kith leader implied there would be a lot more than the soldiers here on this island. Still, it was all a moot point anyway. Franerre wasn't interested in this island any further beyond it's ports and it certainly wasn't interested in adding another enemy to this war. Still, as General Lumine turned to walk away, he already had an idea brewing in his mind. Once he had returned to camp, General Lumine gave his orders out to his officers. "We're leaving Boamba. Those damned cats are going to start a war with us if we don't, and no sense in us getting shot for no reason. Let them fight the Union here. What we need to make absolutely certain of, however," General Lumine smiled, "Is that we leave no trace of us behind. The Kithium told us to 'evacuate Boamba of all Franerri soldiers and equipment,' after all. So what if it takes us a few extra days, weeks even, to make sure that all of our equipment is gone?"

The Franerri Army began to slowly, meticulously cataloguing and packing all of their equipment for marching. At the very least, General Lumine did make sure to send a rider back to Banridi to ensure the navy hadn't left yet. While he was tempted to order them to move on Habudan, if the Kith did attack them Lumine wanted to be able to retreat under the covering fire of naval guns.

[VoxApocrypha]

The Kithium did not play nice with them. They marched onward anyway, and it was clear that the Kithium had brought an army a hell of a lot larger than either theirs or the USTs, as columns of immense size were starting to distribute themselves out in numbers that around Bantari, in numbers around 20,000, and more were filtering in as much as they were now filtering out. They as well, began to actively either force the Franerre to leave things behind if they did not hurry, often by threats. Though they seemed more focused on the country-side.

It didn't matter much to the Kithium. They'd effectively butchered most of the UST's effective fighting power, what was left was in the countryside hiding, performing hit and fade attacsk that were unlikely to be very effective in the long-term given the Kithium were likely going to just starve their enemy out. The towns were the main hubs of food transport, and if they didn't let anyone leave them, then food did not escape usually, and such they stuck to that idea. The soil here was impossible for anything other than very strong and stubborn trees to grow in and they did not produce fruit.

After a couple of days the Kithium would deliver the verbal ultimatum.
One day, or they'd be pushed out by force and made to leave the equipment they hadn't packed. The Kithium were not asking, they were going to force the Franerre off the island, and they had the numerical weight to make it clear that if they turned even half the attention of their army to the task the Franerre would likely get slaughtered.

[callmedelta]

General Lumine had caught the message loud and clear. The Franerri army would leave. As much as he wanted to, risking the lives of his men and starting a war for his own personal grudge would not have been a good idea, Lumine knew. Still, as the last soldiers left Banridi, he still had half a mind to ask the Captain to give the Kithium army garrisoning the city a final bombardment as they left. Still, he did not.

Razu was Kithium.

[VoxApocrypha]

The Kithium would advance at a steady pace across the rest of the Island. If they encountered resistance, they isolated it into pockets, and used their artillery to bombard it into submission or to soften it up before deploying infantry to clean the rest up. The countryside was eventually being combed by large forces of Marines and cavalry, and any outlying areas were evacuated into the main towns. A lot of towns on the island, villages and hamlets, were simply just evacuated via boat to the north, the damage to infrastructure being a bit too extensive to support long-term habitation.

Anywhere they decided to have fully evaucated got burned down in turn after about an hour in the clear, so that anything worth taking so that the UST could not eat was gone. They'd raze the buildings so the UST had no reliable shelter either, scattering parts of the buildings around after the flames died, using explosives or their own gloved hands.

[Greywall]

The UST insurgents were basically running out of supplies and fight. Raids went poorly and rarely brought enough food and supplies. Some began to desert slinking into the country side to hide out til the fighting was over. They had one base left, an abandoned temple in the southeast tundra, rough trenches marked outward manned by dirty and tired infantry. The last of their field guns pointing to the only entrance into the cold valley.

The insurgents would send non uniformed hunters to bring game that was quickly diminished by the hungry souls trapped here. The battle of Razu was long lost and these people were just trying to survive now. Barely a thousand strong left a few more would take the hazardous journey to hide in the country to avoid the chance of the kithium finding them.

Most felt they would be found and killed whether it be here in a final fight or attempting to hide from the horde that was on the island.

[VoxApocrypha]

The Kithium army began to assemble again. A force of about four thousand was gathered, and they began to march south towards the temple. This was their final destination, and behind them marched another small army of Cultists of whom had crossed over to start work on restoring the temple when they did get there. Sent ahead however would be some scouts, riding on horse back. If they did find the last garrison in the temple, they'd simply return to report it to their command.

Some of the deserters would be captured, though the Kithium seemed to have given up on executing them. They'd be thrown into the prison camps up north, without much in the way of abuse given, the Kithium having felt they'd brutalized them enough. Those who resisted were otherwise usually beaten to an inch of their life before being thrown into the camps themselves, or shot if they made it too difficult to collect and process them.

[Greywall]

Insurgent scouts reported the kithium movement back to command, “they know we’re here. It’s time to prepare ourselves, have the men eat what’s left of the good meat and let’s face this together.”

After a solemn night of eating and coming to terms with death, the men manned their positions and waited for the enemy.