Greetings one and all,

This is my account of the "Raid on the Borderlands", the first major action the Legion of House Manticore participated in. Cpt. Cmdr. Corwin has writen his account of this and this account will not entirely agree with his. He will remember it his way and I will remember it my way, the truth being in the mind of the reader.

First, a bit of background on some prior events. I had recently been elected Regent of the Duchy of Dragons' Haven (the Duchy is now a Barony, but that is a tale to be told by somebody who was there for those events). At the Coronation, I was approached by several realativly new members of the Duchy, with whom I also happen to work at the unit my unit supported. They told me that they had decided to become my guard force. Duchess Morgana already had her own guard, made up of her own fighting company, the Black Dragons. I was not a member of any companies myself, having not found any that suited my beliefs, so I took them up on their offer (not that they gave me much choice). Frankly, thier attitude was exactly what I was lookling for and I joined them before the end of my reign.

One of the things I had decided to do (in addition to my improving the A&S in the Duchy) was conduct a raid on the closest group to us that wasn't in the Celestial Kingdom, the Principality of the Borderlands (Waco, TX). I started talking about it in the group, made up some strip maps to get people there, and (most importantly) called thier Prince to find out if anything was happening on the day we were to raid them so they could get maximum participation from thier people. I had visited the Borderlands once a year prior and they had been a large group. The entire day had been spent on field battles of various sorts, so I made up a battle plan accordingly: Black Dragons and Wolf Pack/Sarecens were to be on the right as both of these units were fast moving skirmishers and would be good for flanking. I put Legion and Mordorok on the left to act as an anvil as both of these groups were good at shield walls. I left the Teutonics as a reserve as they were the smallest company and I couldn't be sure what they were capable of. I also encouraged my people to bring as many spears and siege engines as we could field. All of this planning was to be for not

We caravaned up there and arrived before most of the Borderlands people. We waited for a while and many of our people started to make remarks about how we had already scared them off. When thier Prince finally arrived, we still outnumbered them by about half (We had about 30, they had about 20). He said that this was all he really felt they could expect (unbeknownst to us, they had been having political problems resulting in a population drop). He suggested we start the fighting.

"Give us 15 minutes to go hide in the woods."

"Uh, what woods?" I asked, already watching my well thought out plans crumbling. Seige engines and spears don't do well in woodland terrain.

"Those woods behind you."

"Sure, no problem, make it 20." I said with a smile, envisioning my own Teutoburger Wald with my side as the Romans. I gathered the fighting company commanders to make some quick decisions.

There were two paths leading into the woods. I grabbed two of the youngest people we had and told them they were my scouts. I sent them into the woods with instructions to tell me where the enemy was.

They returned shortly therafter. The first one ran up and said "thier in there!"

"Thanks, how many are there and what are they carrying?"

"Uh...."

I'd been in the Army for three years and had already forgoten that most civilians had never heard of a SALUTE report! Fortunately the second one had better instincts:

"I saw three guys, all armed with twin swords."

I told the Legion and Mordorok to follow me down one path and had the Teutonicts, Black Dragons, and Sarecens/Wolf Pack go down the other. At this point, Wyldcat (now Sir Wyldcat) approached me and told me his Sarecens would follow thier own plans. I rolled my eyes, said "whatever", and proceded into the woods. Sgt. Marcus, who had eclared himself to be my personal bodyguard tried tried to stay close to me.

About 100 yrds. in we encountered our first enemies. This was not apparent at the time as it was a couple of our own people. I moved ahead of the group to ask them how they'd gotten ahead of us when they jumped me and cut me down before I could think. Fortunately the rest of my side counterattacked and beat them down like the traitorous scum they were. It didn't register at this point that both of them were newly made Sarecens...

One of our healers resurected me and we continued on after Marcus repremanded me not to do things like that. We came upon our first Borderlands contingent a little further up the path. They had placed themselves at the top of a steep hill in a shield wall with thier Prince behind them (he was playing a mage). A spell duel raged for several minutes until Corwin commanded the Legion to advance up the hill. The Borderlanders broke and ran. When we got to the top, Duchess Morgana and her Black Dragons had broke through the other side causing them to disperse into the woods. After quickly regrouping our forces, I dispenced new orders. The Legion set off alone, following the route we thought the Borderlanders had taken. The Black Dragons were about 50 yds behind us. up the trail I saw Wyldcat in the woods to my left.

"Hey, Wyldcat, how far ahead of us are they?" I asked.

With that, the Sarecens attacked. The Legion, not having time to deploy, were slaughtered. The Sarecens plans were not to kill me though. They planned to capture myself and the Duchess. In the battle, they had mannaged to cut off my left arm so I could not cast any spells. In the process, I almost killed Wyldcat as he jumped to try to kill me (he thought I was somebody else). After losing my arm, Marcus put me against a tree, the better to defend me. He was killed seconds later. Wyldcat jumped at me. I stuck out my dagger to try to impale him and I swear he levitated out of the way! I was placed under the guard of the two youngest Sarecens and marched off. From behind me I could hear the Black Dragons attacking the Sarecens and beating them back. This distracted my two guards. They kept slowing down, being more interested in the fighting than guarding me. I kept walking the same speed. They kept slowing down. Finally I ran around a bend in the path and didn't stop running until I happened accross our two luckless healers. These two young ladies had gotten separated from us and gotten lost. They restored my arm and I tried to lead them back to the rest of our units. Unfortunately I encountered the retreating Sarecens first. I told them to run while I held them off. Needless to say I was recaptured (the two young ladies escaped though). This time they tied me to a tree. Fortunately, the Legion appeared around the bend just in the nick of time. They managed to back the Sarecen shield wall up enough that Corwin was able to cut me free. I fell in behind the shield wall and we proceeded to give them a hard time. There were actually very few losses on either side at this point, both sides being very proficient at shield walls. Shortly therafter the time of the game was up. The Prince approached me and asked if we could simply call it a draw. As it had been a rout for the last hour or so, I said no.

At the next Emerald Hills midreign I made it a point to give King Logan of the Celestial Kingdom "his share of the loot", a 12 pk. of  Dr. Pepper we had spray painted gold, in front of King Forrest of the Emerald Hills. I gave a little speech and that was that. King Logan shared the sodas with King Forrest at the feast that night.

Sr.Lt. Alexandr von der Wagenburg, House Manticore, Phantom Division

Lord Styles Magesbane, fmr Regent, Duchy of Dragons' Haven

James Schardt