G

"Sir, I come back with grim news."
It has been six days since Ikra and his men left Kaph's fortress.  Before they left, Ikra sent his intelligence team, fastest of all the kingdom, to Fonam so he could get a better understanding of the situation there before his main army arrives.
"What is wrong?"  White flares spark around Ikra's pale face.      
"Fonam has been sacked.  The entire city torched to the ground."
Ikra's expression is unmoved, as though he was expecting this.
"And General Coarl?  What of his army?"
"Annihilated, by the time we got there their corpses were littered across the city and its outskirts.  We also saw Bastedine's standard."
Upon hearing Bastedine's name, Elektor steps into the conversation with great confusion and discomfort.
"Bastedine?  Ikra, what is he doing in our lands."
Ikra turns his head to his old friend, his voice softens.
"The Sessinds allied themselves to Ey.  They hoped to claim our throne and offer themselves to the east."
In the east lies a kingdom under the rule of the Ey family.  When a fourteen year old prodigy, Ey VI, rose to the throne he immediately initiated plans to conquer all the lands within his reach.  And his reach is far.  Through complete mastery of strategy, geography, and weather, Ey VI tripled his kingdom's size in six years.  On his twenty-third birthday, Ey declared himself the King of Kings and held a contest.  He conscripted men from his conquered lands and split them into ten groups.  He then gave each of these groups to ten men he thought promising.  He sent each of the ten and their groups to different parts of Chasy, one of the first neighboring kingdoms that Ey conquered, and had the ten of them fight each other.  The winner would be given the rank general and ownership of Chasy while the winner's men would be given a choice of officer rank in the military or a sizable estate.  Bastedine won only losing four out of his five thousand six hundred men army in seventy days.  It took Ey ninety days to conquer Chasy.  Bastedine refused Chasy, he told Ey he doesn't ever plan on settling down to govern anything.  During the height of Elektor and his fellow councilman's power, Bastedine was the only foreign threat they feared.  Between Ey and their kingdom sat Kraton, another kingdom.  Bastedine siege Kraton's capital for five hundred days before retreating after Elektor convinced his king to send the entire kingdom's army to aid Kraton.  But it didn't matter, Bastedine controlled so much of Kraton's lands that the king of Kraton had no choice but to bow and pay tributes to Ey.  It was around this time Elektor's king died and the kingdom fell into a power struggle.  At this time, Bastedine was forced to focus his attention to the south where an alliance was forming to fight against Ey.  Unbeknownst to them, Ey had built up an entire navy for this and while Bastedine and several other of Ey's general attacked from the north, the King of Kings and his navy knocked on their shores. Nevertheless, Bastedine's feat at Kraton's capital alerted Elektor and his allies though they soon became powerless to do anything.
"So since Sessind failed, Bastedine is coming in himself."
"HALT"  Ikra's voice echoed.  Before he could continue his conversation with Elektor he is interrupted by a dreadful screech.  A pitch high and foul.   
"MEN PREPARE FOR COMBAT"
Ikra's men draw their arms, the metals cling is unison.  His mages prepare their incantations and the beast handlers prepare their companions.  The dreadful screeching repeat itself, this time accompanied by the shaking earth.  The screeching grows louder and more fierce.  The ground trembles as the onslaught stampedes closer to Ikra's army.  In an instant, Ikra unleashes a cone of white flames in front of him, completely burning down everything in their path.  The enemy is now in plain sight.
Bird-like creatures running with the might of an ox.  In between them ride their handlers, a club in one hand and a whip in the other.  Elektor retreats to the back of Ikra's army.  Bastedine's first attack is here.  The first of many waves.