The Battle of Brennan's Ford was the kingdom's attempt to hold the line, and the line did not hold.
The king positioned his reduced force of twenty-two thousand soldiers at the ford where the Brennan River crossed the provincial road, the natural choke point that defensive doctrine identified as optimal for a force that needed terrain's assistance to offset an enemy's advantages.
The barbarians did not use the ford.
They brought their thundermakers to the ridgeline above the ford and fired into the defensive positions from elevation. The dwarven-forged balls struck the earthworks, each impact pulverizing the packed earth, the earthen walls disintegrating under sustained bombardment that the barbarians' unlimited ammunition supply allowed them to maintain for hours without the reload-rate anxiety that the Threian crews experienced with every ball they fired from a diminishing stockpile.
