*Captain Palendros tapped his foot impatiently. Yyumi had fallen easily, but in many ways it had fallen to quickly. Aside from short sieges of towns, and a few skirmishes with the local militias, there had been no real battles. The professional soldiers had mostly fled, the villages had been burnt to the ground. The one blot on the opening campaign had been the utter failure to stop the soldiers from fleeing down river from the capital. A few Imperial troops had stayed and died to delay the Hegemony, while the rest of their companies fled down river, a swift chase had followed, but not enough boats could be mustered, and those that did catch the enemy, could not kill without risk. Casualties were evenly split and those who slowed to do battle bought time for their fellows. Foldus no doubt had word by now. From there the whole Empire would have been alerted. His soldiers had reached the desert borders now, and begun skirmishes with the Foldian border guards, and his fleet had burned the eastern towns of Foldus, within a week or so the support fleets should have arrived. All in all, he was pleased, but the consequences of failing to prevent the withdrawl....he would deal with those when the time came.
IN FOLDUS:
Gregor Ironfist was not happy, this the second month of the invasion had only one positive aspect. Far more of the Yyumi Garissons had escaped than had initially been believed. They were swiftly sent down river into Numidars to spread the alarm. Ships were launched from ports by now, crossing the sea to reach Agropanios. The Empire would be up in arms very soon, but it would take at least two months or more to launch reenforcements to where they would be needed, and there would be no gaurantee that many of them would respond, since there may be more fleets following. They probably wouldn't be needed, word had arrived from as far south as Orulan that troops were mustering and some were already on the march. Within another month a hundred thousand men would be ready to hurl themselves into the fight. If they did not falter, then the delaying tactics in Foldus would buy enough time to counter attack. He watched from the tower window as ships filled with refugees went down river, as he watched the peasants streaming out with backs bowed with their cherished belongings, squalling infants of several races still in their mother's arms, he pondered what failure here would mean, without the time bought by battle, those weighed down ships would not get far, and the consequences of failure would make the river run red for miles....
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