After weeks and weeks on open sea, land was sighted.

We hit shore somewhere near what is now the Havet docks; that city was only erected later, in the same foundations as our outpost after we had been chased from it. Being a scout, I was one of the first dropped off on the beach, before the ships themselves were brought in. It was after nightfall. The white softness of the sand was strange, and I even took off my boots to see what it felt like between my toes. Sand just didn't occur like this in Vuzsdin, so I left my boots in the rowboat while I explored.

When I first saw the seashells, I thought at first they were only strange crystal formations, until one of them got up and started walking away. There were also crabs and seahawks and other strange creatures that I now know as jellyfish washed up on the beach. Yet there was no sign of any ‘mari or other humanoids, not even an abandoned sandal or piece of fishing net.

The crabs reminded me of some of the albino crustaceans that we farm for food back in Vuzsdin, so I smashed one with a rock and cooked it over a fire for my dinner that night. It was no chef's gourmet, but after weeks of hard tack from the ship, it wasn't too bad. The jellyfish, on the other hand, were absolutely vile. And if you think cooking made them better, it made them WORSE.

After spending a night and a day on the deserted beach, I reported back to the ship with the all-clear. The ships were brought right up onto the beach, and after everything useful had been unloaded, they were burned. There would be no getting back to Vuzsdin that way. Oddly enough, no one thought much about it. We were akor’mari, the strongest race in existence, too strong to need a retreat, and besides, we were under orders.

The army set up camp on the beach that night, in spots that I and the other scouts had confirmed as being secure and out of sight. Yet there was no rest for us scouts. We got to scale the cliffs and continue into the rest of the mountains.

The Clanging Heights(1) are high, and while they have enough trees that they are comfortable enough to agoraphobic akor’mari, the air is still very thin and hard to breathe. Here I was, a trained and conditioned Seeker, and just hiking for a mile in those mountains winded me. I remember thinking this would be very bad for the rest of the soldiers if they had to fight up here. We had to get down out of the mountains, and quickly. It would not be that easy, of course, as we had objectives in the mountains.

I wasn't one of the scouts tasked with finding the hidden gates of Steinheim, or even part of the many units that swooped in to try and surround it. Nah’Ke’tzin, the heartland of the Surfacer ‘mari, was the goal of my own unit. After finding the best trails over the mountains, we would carry onward, and so I cannot tell you much about what happened during the siege. Yet perhaps I can tell you a little of it, from the bits I had overheard during the officer meetings, where I would receive my scouting orders for the next day.

Because of the overabundance of metal in Steinheim and the under-abundance in the ilph’mar city of Rising Heath(2), the two towns kept up a thriving trade in those days: the wood and grown foodstuffs of Rising Heath exchanged for the craftsmanship of the Little Folk in Steinheim. Caravans were continuously coming and going between the two cities. To weaken both targets, we would have to cut them off at the throat.

It was too tedious to hunt down every single caravan out there, murdering all the survivors, then hiding the remains. Instead we surrounded Steinheim with a blockade, to take out the incoming caravans as they came; their supplies would be an added bonus for our dinner plates. Rising Heath, in the other direction, would begin to wonder what had happened to the Little Folk merchants, but by the time they noticed their absence, it would be too late. In the meantime, Steinheim would begin to starve, and Rising Heath would be deprived of the legendary Little Folk weapons.

That was the plan, at least. As I understand it now, the stout defenders of Steinheim surprised us, using great machines to collapse the mountain floor under our feet. Yet, it was only one arm in the great assault. The bulk of the army, including me, would already be deep into Nah’Ke’tzin by then.

Ah, my throat is growing dry, and even an akor’mar would like to do the telling of Nah’Ke’tzin justice, so you’ll forgive me if I speak on that another day.

1 Known to the Surface mari as Dzil’Ke Balahn, or Mountains of the Belltower.

2 The official name is Tsin’Ke Halahigi. I use the Common translation here. Some scholars also translate it to Rising Home, as most of the buildings of the city are quite literally perched high in the redwood trees.