The Vanguard of the Crimson Duke.

[Cinnabar]

Swift and inexorable as Burel's forces advance into the heart of Derry, there is another force that moves faster yet, accompanying his armies and ranging out far in ahead of them. The Meadowford Guards, the Almarkian Horse and all other regiments of the Thessilanean army march, and Fear and Desperation form their vanguard.

In the days following the storming of the border outposts there is movement along the roads of Derry, in the towns and villages and through the mountain passes; westward they stream as the tread of Burel's army presses on to Wrexham. At first but a trickle of refugees heading away, a few prescient souls and their families fleeing the news of armies driving in from Thessilane; but as word of the massacre of the army sent to meet the invaders - and massacre it was, three hundred men simply wiped out of existence, buried and burned alive - that trickle becomes a river, and that river becomes a flood, sweeping down from the mountain passes towards the Ringwall, towards the border with Myrken Wood.

The forces on the border soon find themselves besieged by an undisciplined army composed not of infantry and cavalry, but of civilians - a harried host of the frightened and the dispossessed, carrying whatever of their lives and homes they can fit into handcarts or wagons or barrows or packs; old and young, hale and lame, merchant and farmer and craftsman and goatherd, all driven onwards by tales of Burel's relentless march, of his soldiers and horsemen and particularly his war-sorcerors.

The channellers of the Ducal Aegis become figures of dread, the mere rumour of their approach enough to see the refugees redoubling their pace, the imagined glimpse of a black-robed figure sufficient to have them fleeing on the edge of hysteria. There are incidents on the road - people trampled by panicked crowds, fights breaking out over what little food and shelter might be found with such a mass of humanity on the move, vegetable gardens raided for what meagre provender they might hold.

There is Fear on the road to Myrken, and Desperation close on its heels.

[Vanidor]

Amongst the Forerunners of the Ducal invasion there came a familial grouping. It seemed like four full families, a good forty people that moved as one. The only strange thing about these refugees were the fact that they were escorted by a band of hard looking men. Soldiers some could say, though they bore no banner nor wore any sort of livery to mark what nation they belonged too.

Some speculated that were simply mercenaries, using the turmoil the invasion had caused to make some easy coin. It seemed a true enough point, here, as the joined family seemed to carry all that they possessed within the confines of four heavily laden wagons. Wagons that had children hanging from them, women driving them, and men walking besides. The supposed mercenaries rode upon the backs of sturdy horses.

There was a fifth wagon with this strange collection, a simple affair that held what seemed like a long and slender box of heavy oak. To either side of the box were smaller chests, each item wrapped in heavy canvas and marked with symbolism that suggested they came from the nascent colony that belonged to New Dauntless. The mercenaries seemed to protect that last wagon as ardently as all the others combined.

Once they arrived at the Derry Gate set into Myrken's Ringwall, the mercenary that seemed to ride at the head of the group headed for the guards the kept that entry closed. The entry of refugees was a regulated affair, and they had been forced to wait by those same guards. Yet, there was mention of a message to the Constable-Governor, Cinnabar Calomel. And another mention of a woman, named Ariane, to whom many of these parcels belonged too. Talk of this, and the arrival of the Brotherhood Captain who commanded this section of gate, sped their passage through the wall.

Once they were through, it seemed as if the mercenaries would turn back and make a trip back towards the pass and back to the turmoil they left behind. As for the family? The group would move towards the makeshift camp that had been set up by the Shepard Knights and the Scouting Corps, while the other wagon, with it's strange cargo, headed towards Athine and Ariane of House Carnath-Emory.