Jon immediately began sprinting as fast as he could back to the city, he even transformed into a bear so he could run faster. As soon as he got into the gates he beckoned to the guards to close them. Knowing that Jon was the Squire to Jarl Svygard, as had made a name for himself amongst the raiding party this Winter. Hearing the gates closing, Jon rushed off to the Jarls' tower as fast as his legs could carry him.
As Jon burst into the doors of Jarl Svygard's room, he was finally able to try and catch his breath, as his lungs were burning like fire.
"Godsdamnit, what is the meaning of this?! Speak, man!" Jarl Svygard was not dressed, as he had been woken up in his bed, a woman on either side of him.
As Jon finally was able to speak, he finally said, "There are thousands of men camped outside the city, some very well armed, most not so much, maybe peasants! They are a day's march from our spot in the woods with as many men and supplies they have, I think I even saw a large ballista! They are preparing to attack!" Jon said as fast as he could.
"Thousands?! What do you mean?! How do you know they are in the thousands?! Can you even count that high?!" The Jarl's anger was being replaced with fear rapidly asking questions anxiously, eyes wide open.
"No, I can't count that high, but I know the size of their camp was several times larger than what ours was when we first arrived here!" Jon exclaimed. He was anxious as the men had not fought in months, only practicing their forms and light sparring.
"OUT! Let me get dressed, I will be there momentarily! RALLY THE MEN!!! By the Gods, OUT!" Jon had never seen Jarl Svygard so flustered and caught unaware. He did not take this personally as any sane man would be flustered coming out of a drunken sleep to hear thousands of angry men wanted to kill you.
Jon immediately began running to his camp screaming along the way for every man he saw to arm himself and get to the walls. Jon was rushing to find his father and let him know what was happening and as soon as he got to the camp, he saw his father getting some ale from a pitcher. "Father, there are thousands of men outside the walls about to besiege us, arm yourself and come to the wall as fast as possible!" Jon explained to Raska the severity of the situation. Upon hearing this Raska finished off his ale horn, looked at the pitcher of ale and proceeded to finish that too.
On the wall, men were ready, looking out at the open field waiting for something to happen. The men took shifts waiting for something, anything to happen. After a whole day of rotating shifts, someone began yelling. "FIRE, FIRE!!! SMOKE ON THE HORIZON!!!" The cries were repeated by the men manning the walls. Soon the Jarls and the new king, Jakon Sve, knew about the smoke and the upcoming siege.
Within the next day, the Golden Isles men had marched into the field and drew their siege lines. Jon was nervous at the vast amount of men in the field. The whole field was covered by men. Educated men of the Jarls estimated the men to be around five-thousand men strong. That meant that they were outnumbered five to one. Jon knew they were greatly outnumbered, however they had six powerful mages here that the Golden Isles men did not know about.
The new king and the Jarls had a meeting on the tactics of the siege defense, in which Jon, Raska and the battle mages were all apart of. Once the frantic leaders were calm enough to let someone else speak, the mages began laying out a plan to use all of their magical powers in tandem. The ritual called for the lives of three goats and the mages needed to synchronize their energies and visualize their goal. The visualization was easy, however to get six people to perfectly synchronize their energies was a feat on it's own.
After hearing the plans, the Jarls agreed, although the new king was hesitant, but ultimately agreed, for fear he would lose authority in front of his peers along with his new holding. Preparations were made and Jon began to practice synchronizing his energies with the other mages.
Jon was doing well, as he had achieved two aspect of energy change and broken the barrier of his bodies limitations on energy. Upon feeling his energies directly, all of the mages were shocked, as his energy capacity was only slightly lower than theirs, who had been practicing magics for decades.
After a few days of practice, the mages were able to successfully synchronize their energies, now they all needed to visualize something the same way, making their six individual minds unilaterally focused on one thing, increasing their powers by many times over.
On the day the ritual was held, the Golden Isles men began their siege, launching bolt after bolt at the great walls and rampart. The bolts did little on the walls, as they were very thick, multiple rows of stones layered with mortar were impenetrable to this ballista. These walls would not fall in a thousand years from this attack. Only one bolt was able to actually kill a single man, as the bolt struck him directly in his stomach, ripping the man in half and throwing both halves of his body over the edge of the wall, landing with a wet thud.
The Golden Isles warriors began trying to push a great siege machine they had built in the woods, rolling it closer and closer, they saw it was a big gate smasher. Big enough to possibly push in the gate enough for men to slip through.
Jon and the five other mages began the ritual, chanting in an Old language. The goats were sacrificed, throats slit and their blood drained into a large black bowl over a fire, as the blood began to boil, the chanting intensified as the six men began to synchronize their energies. Once their energies were synchronized, they all began to focus on the blood freezing, icy winds of the Winters of the North. They visualized the thick ice over the fjords that made fishing and travel by boat impossible. They visualized the blizzards they would get and then they visualized the field in front of the castle and the men frozen in place. They called upon Woden, and Tor and Freyja to bring these winds. They called upon the cardinal directions and the elements assigned to them. They called upon the earth to take the ice and help their cause.
Suddenly the fire was blown out by a whipping wind. Ice cold winds began whipping around the room as snow materialized from nothingness, the six kept chanting and calling upon these forces as the spell was being strengthened, like a small fire being stoked before it rages into a bonfire.
Soon the wind and snow began to go through the ceiling and up into the sky. The sky turned a nasty color of grey and green and winds began whipping so fiercely that a couple of the Northmen manning the ramparts were actually picked up and thrown over the edge by the fiercely strong winds. Very soon, the temperature started to drop. The temperature outside was so cold if your nose was running, the mucus would freeze inside of your nose. No man could be on the ramparts as the snow began to fall, the winds were bending tall trees back and the smaller ones were snapped or uprooted. The Golden Isles men had to fully retreat from the city and some men were literally frozen where they stood. The Golden Isles men had to seal off their tents as some could not escape fast enough and their only chance was to build fires in their tents to try to stay warm enough to survive.
As the storm raged on outside, the Northmen were fine in their city, as every camp picked a house and stayed inside, taking advantage of the massive amount of food in the supply rooms. All of their pantries were full of breads, cheeses and dried or salted meat and fish. The ale kept running and the water was melted from the snow and boiled to be purified and drank. The Northmen were used to this weather and knew how to cope with the freezing cold. The Golden Isles only got this weather once in a lifetime if even that frequently.
The blizzard lasted 6 days and once it passed, all of the Northmen returned to the wall to see men frozen like statues in place some running from the walls, some huddled in fetal position trying to stay warm. Over the field they saw the tops of frozen tents peaking out from the snow. All the men that could not retreat were dead, as almost two-thousand men perished in the effects of the spell.