The Battle of Everstone Bridge

"We have dared to challenge Maelcrest rule in the north at every turn. Now, on this hallowed stone and mortar, we expel forever this tyrant and restore the northern lands to the glory they demand." Lord Kittrick Gallamoar

The Conflict

Prelude

(All writings herein penned by Daric Gallamoar, second son born to Kittrick Gallamoar during his reign as king of Hian)
The closing of autumn, 717 AD, saw all question of which force would win the War of Broken Blades answered with finality.
After initially folding to the pressure of the boy-King Symon (II) Maelcrest's assault, Lord Kittrick Gallamoar (as he was known then) rallied northern strongholds and armies to his cause and managed to push his southern adversaries past the point at which they had invaded in the first place. Having freed all northern Hian of southern aggressors, Lord Gallamoar beseeched the then-undeclared Lord Falk Lokil to join his cause in ensuring the Maelcrests would never wrongfully encroach upon northern territory again.
At the time, my father knew little of what that aim would mean for him by war's end.
Lord Lokil was eager to see the Maelcrest grip on the north tested, and seeing the full strength of the Gallamoars, he readily called all nine Gap clans to arms. This combined force of Gallamoar, Lokil, and Strom came to the town on the precipice of the largest bridge in the world, where just beyond the stones' beginning, the swords and lances and horses of the Maelcrests, Lorens, Whitecrests, Mettians, and Venns awaited.

Battlefield

How does one describe Everstone Bridge as it deserves? On my travels, I have seldom gazed upon its vast array of bricks quarried from all corners of the world. When either sunrise or set blushes upon it at just the right angle, one could swear the world fills with scarlet stars tethered to the galaxy of the bridge's foundation. Even the tiniest reflective sediment held within its stones glitters, lighting a beacon to shine over all the Celvi Expanse.
But I wax poetic here. The site of my father's greatest military conquest is not merely a place of sublimity; it was also of irreplaceable import to the success of both armies' campaigns. Securing the bridge would allow the victorious force to have another land pathway around the Celvi Expanse, and certainly a much more direct path than the roundabout western route. In addition, the towns stationed on the bridge (Felmun to the north and Garicci to the south) provide vital resources from shipping routes along the eastern coast of Hian. Without Everstone Bridge, Kittrick Gallamoar could not hope to triumph.
It is no exaggeration to say it stretches as far as an eye can see. Not even through a looking glass could a person standing on the south end of the bridge catch a glimpse of the northern end.
And for all its length, its width could consume most any caravan. At times, it towers hundreds of feet above otherwise violent waterfalls, and others lowers nearly to the earth (like Felmun and Garicci).
Quickly enough, one could conclude two armies could fight an entire war and never leave the bridge. Indeed, the possibility occurred to my father to try to keep the forces from the south confined to the bridge, but in doing so, he concluded, he would forever galvanize the people of Felmun and Garicci against him, even if he should achieve victory in the war at large.

Conditions

This is merely my speculation, but another reason King Kittrick refused to use the bridge as the sole battlefield to carry out the rest of the war was the onset of a fierce northern winter. Niivaren has never been a warm month in our record, but the year 717 proved harsher than most. Indeed, even some of the waters broiling below the bridge froze even before the battle began in earnest.
The warriors of the north, particularly the Lokils, take pride in their endurance in the face of winter's bite, but my father was pragmatic to the end. He knew, while his army would know the cold better than any southerner could dream, the northerners too would grow overly fond of the idea of returning to their hearthfires if they did not push south quickly enough.
Snow fresh-fallen lay as new brick and road on Everstone Bridge. Light and wind-whipped it remained for the duration of the battle, and its depth was enough to waylay the strategic retreats of the southerners, whose cavalry and infantry were ill-prepared for snow of such significance.

Start Date

18th of Niivaren, 717 AD

Ending Date

19th of Niivaren, 717 AD