>> Who even has the ability to spot armies moving around, and get word
>> back before they arrive?
>
>Now here the "home field advantage" works in the Heortling's favor - unless
>the Lunars are willing to exterminate everyone within miles of their paths
>of advance, the heortlings *will* know that there is more than just a
>raiding or tax-collecting force going through. "The hills have eyes" as they
>say, and a shepherd up on a hilltop has a long view. Not to mention the
>advantage of having fliers. So the "Heortling High Command" will soon get
>reports fo the Lunar column(s) moving south.
As it's part of Fazzar's army for the invasion of Heortland nobody's going to miss that marching south - indeed the King of the Volsaxi (? Broyan) meets it in battle before falling back to WW. Since OiD says Kallyr was at WW at the start it implies she was with the Volsaxi army.
I'm a bit dubious about there being a "Heortling High Command" at this point, I think it's just the Volsaxi tribal ring with a few outsiders like Kallyr. Indeed the reason she's there could be that she brought Broyan the information that a Lunar army was on the way.
>> Have we figured out the routes the various besieging forces would
>> take to get there?
>
>Have you decided where they come from in the first place? Is this purely a
>"Sartar Occupation Force" endeavour, or do we pull in units from Tarsh (or
>farther away yet)? There will probably be some sort of mustering point to
>gather the scattered "Occupation Force" units, so squads and companies will
>first make their way to (a) central location(s), then from there march down
>to Heortland. Being Lunars, they'll most likely use the existing roads,
>rather than going overland (as much as possible, anyway...).
From KoS (pg 148)
In 1619 the Lunar armies marched southward. The first opponent
was the army of Volsaxland which was driven into the walls of
Whitewall. Jorkandros......was given command of the siege. The
rest of the army pushed on, assaulted Smithstone, then marched
down the river to Karse.
So initially the defenders are what's left of the army of Volsaxland while the attackers are a force detached from Fazzur's army. My thoughts are that the initial force is not there to take the city but to bottle the Volsaxi up so they can't threaten the Lunar lines of communication.
-- Donald Oddy http://www.grove.demon.co.uk/
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