Battle of Frankburg Bridge

Stagnekad recalled his forces from the east and west, leaving naught but skeleton crews to defend his gains in the riverlands and the Forest of Fangs. Then, as a diversion, he sent his three dragons east toward the Bekiskapan city of Nova Meskera. This, he reasoned, would keep the Bekiskapan from sending any reinforcements to support the garrison at Frankburg Bridge.

The Bekiskapan, sensing something was coming but not sure what, prepared to defend the bridge at all costs. They sent word to their allies all along The Oadü to ready themselves for a full-on assault on the bridges. Preparations were begun to destroy all of the other river crossings if necessary, leaving Frankburg Bridge as the only lifeline to the South.

The battle was fought on the bridge itself and on the lowlands of the Oadü’s north side—a marshy area known as the Fen of the Faithless. No fighting is known to have taken place in the city of Frankburg itself. The south side of the river, where Frankburg sat, had been held comfortably by the Hordes for months at this point.

At dusk on the evening before the battle, stormclouds rolled in from the west. A light drizzle fell throughout the night, which transformed into a steady rain by daybreak. And though these conditions would eventually spell disaster for the Bekiskapan, the showers were initially viewed as a gift from the goddesses. After all, their capricorn-mounted cavalry could use the water in the air to take flight. And that meant, in the Bekiskapan’s eyes, that all they had to do was defend the chokepoint of the bridge.

The Hordes, even though their nahnlaríx mounts were capable of shapeshifting into aquatic or semiaquatic forms, were deterred from crossing the raging Oadü by the now flight-capable capricorn cavalry. Stagnekad didn’t let on just how deterred they were, though. Instead, he ordered his own mounted units to patrol the shore and feign like they might cross at any moment. This he did to keep the capricorns and their icy breath occupied. Every once in a while, in fact, he gave the order for a small group to sacrifice themselves to the capricorns—just to let the Bekiskapan think the Hordes were as crazy and unpredictable as ever.

Meanwhile, Stagnekad split his ríxtahnian-clad special forces in two, lined them up along his side of the river, and ordered them to open fire on the Bekiskapan archers. This gave cover to the infantry, who began their push across the bridge.

Legend has it that a single Bekiskapan Triad held off the Horde advance for the better part of the day. The truth is that the Bekiskapan general, Kester Thidos, was smarter than that. She regularly rotated out the triad that was guarding the bridge. Nevertheless, the fact that it took only three people at a time to fend off dozens upon dozens of advancing kíndallans was impressive—and is a big part of why Bekiskapan culture is so revered in Eden to this day.

For a while, it seemed as though the battle would simply be one of attrition. And with the Bekiskapan’s magical body paint rendering them all but invincible to most of what the Hordes could throw at them, it seemed like it would only be a matter of time before the Hordes gave up.

Then the dragons arrived.

After a morning of shock and awe in far-off Nova Meskera, the dragons flew west over the plains of Nunya and Nalké, then south toward the battlefield, where they attacked the Bekiskapan from the rear. In the initial assault, they felled all but four of the capricorns. And yes, once they lost the element of surprise, the dragons were themselves decimated by the capricorn survivors, but the damage was done. Stagnekad’s cavalry transformed themselves to accommodate an easier river crossing, and the Bekiskapan were soon overrun.

The Bekiskapan archers did their best to slow the assault coming from across the river, but eventually fell back behind the infantry to let the triads try and do what they did best: kill things, and kill them quickly. For an hour or so, it seemed like they might be able to hold the shoreline, but then Stagnekad himself made it across the bridge and the crafty necromancer unleashed his final secret weapon.

Stagnekad knelt in the muck of the Fen of the Faithless and called back to life the fifty elven deserters who had been swallowed by the swamp eight years before. Bound now to the will of the enemy they’d fled from, the elfs and their ghostly weapons were just what the Monster Hordes needed to destroy the seemingly invincible Bekiskapan.

And yet, even as their comrades began to fall in great numbers to otherworldly blades—even as the Hordes began to overwhelm them and strangle or trample them to death—the Bekiskapan did not retreat. They did not surrender. They fought as hard as they could, for as long as they could, to stop the Hordes from advancing toward The Garden. And then, when that fight was lost, they gave chase until the moment that Augustus Might’s sacrifice in the Zone Forbidden set the Hordes free. The Bekiskapan and the Hordes traded blows until the very end, until the mind-controlled masses of the Hordes finally threw down their weapons, fell to their knees, and begged with tears in their eyes for mercy.