by Gondalin
The Zekresh conquest of the Verronese took nine years. It is called the "Bear Wars" by the Zekresh and the same name is often used by Verronese as well. Some Verronese refer to it euphemistically as the Imperial Annexation.
The war began in the 3rd year of the reign of Emperor Vergriman II. According to Verronese accounts, the war began with an unprovoked invasion of the southeastern lands of the Bear Tribes by Imperial Army troops attacking from Slythia and the interior. This initial invasion was quickly and strongly repulsed and the Imperial Army was entirely thrown out of the territory of the Bear Tribes.
With this display of strength by the Bear Tribes, their sometimes allies, the Slythians, rose in revolt against Imperial rule, especially since the war had denuded Slythia of Imperial Army troops. The Zekresh began a ruthless suppression of the Slythian revolt and the Slythians appealed to the chieftains of the Bear Tribes for assistance. The Bear Tribes came by land and by sea, a vast horde marched from the bear lands while a vast fleet of small long boats arrived by sea. Imperial forces fled and all of Slythia was quickly liberated from centuries of Zekresh rule. The chieftains of the Bear Tribes met with the descendants of the old chieftains of the Slythians and together they decided to end the Zekresh menace once and for all. The warriors of the Bear paused only long enough for their Slythian kinsmen to gather up arms before the horde and the fleet advanced into Frayethay with the intention of laying waste the those lands, uprooting the towns and cities built there by the Frayeth and the Zekresh, handing the lands back to the Marsh People who originally dwelt there and then moving on to Zekran to raze it to the ground and enslave its arrogant people.
The warriors of the bear and the warriors of the viper were both much aggrieved against the Frayeth and their Zekresh kinsmen and sought bloody revenge. They cut a swath through Frayethay that left not a single farm untouched or a single Frayeth alive where the horde had passed. Remnants of the Zekresh Imperial Army fled before the onslaught and refused to give battle, but the long boats of the Bear Tribes moved more swiftly than the Zekresh could flee. The Bear Tribes came by sea in their long boats and landed warriors east of Nass Umrug, so that they would stand in the path of their enemies and force them to do battle or to surrender. The Zekresh instead halted their retreat and retired to the fortress at Nass Umrug.
Warriors from the long boats surrounded the town and soon the main horde arrived by land. Nass Umrug was beseiged. The warriors of the Bear had never attacked a fortress before and were unfamiliar with siege warfare. The Slythians were of great help in this regard and together the horde of the Bear and the Viper developed methods for capturing a fortified Zekresh city. They intended to put this knowledge to use against Zekran which lay just a little further down the coast.
The seige lasted for months. The Zekresh Imperial Army attacked by land from Zekran. Nass Umrug was their largest city in those days and they could not afford to lose it. But the Zekresh Imperial Army was again beaten.
The siege progressed, but then the Zekresh tried a new tactic and attacked by sea. The Zekresh Imperial Navy had much larger and faster ships than the people of the Bear and the long boats were smashed by Zekresh rams and set afire by an unnatural fire that could not be put out and could even set water on fire. The warriors of the long boats fought as best they could on the sea while the main horde of the Bear and Viper watched helplessly from the shore. In the end, the long boats were rammed, sunk, burned, drenched with a rain of arrows and boarded. By every method of sea warfare, the Zekresh whittled down the much larger fleet of long boats until few remained. These fought bravely while the warriors on shore attempted to build more boats. But it was too late. The Zekresh Imperial Navy broke through the blockade and provided supplies and reinforcements by sea to the fortress of Nass Umrug.
Efforts to re-establish the blockade failed. Too many long boats had already been destroyed. The chieftains of the Bear and the Viper were not willing to abandon the war, but they knew that to advance on either Zekran or Kast Yvar while leaving an enemy army behind them at Nass Umrug was folly. All the more so since the Zekresh Imperial Navy could bring in even more troops by sea and strike the horde from behind, breaking any seige that might be attempted against the mighty fortresses of Kast Yvar and Zekran.
Unwilling to give up in defeat, the chieftains led their warriors in a determined assault on the walls of the fortress at Nass Umrug. Many warriors were lost and in the end, the attack failed. The Chieftains led the horde back to Slythia to attempt to build a new fleet, but the Zekresh Imperial Navy raided the improvised shipyards and burned the ships. Then the Zekresh Imperial Army came with renewed confidence and much greater numbers than before. There was a falling out between the Bear chieftains and the Viper chieftains. Under these circumstances, the Bear chieftains were not willing to give up the lives of their sons and kinsmen to defend Slythia, so they returned home.
For a brief time, there was peace, but then the Zekresh Imperial Army invaded again. The war raged for years across all the Bear lands. Sometimes the Zekresh advanced, sometimes they were driven back. Sometimes there was peace, but always war broke out again. At first the Zekresh could not hold the territory they captured, but then they began to build garrison forts in the occupied lands.
The Zekresh managed to conquer all the lands up to the Bear River and to establish a system of forts connected by good roads to hold the land. For a while, the lands beyond the river remained free, but in the later years of the Bear Wars, the Zekresh Imperial Army advanced into these lands while the Zekresh Imperial Navy raided the coast relentlessly and prevented the Bear people from fishing at sea. This brought famine to the coast, where most of the Bear people lived. The Bear Tribes were driven inland and northward until only North Bearland remained free.
For a time, the warriors of North Bearland continued to resist and obtained assistance from the Smoke People. It is said that Imperial diplomacy arranged for ancient enemies of the Smoke People to attack them. The people of the Crying Moon and their allies, the Hummingbird People attacked the Smoke People from the North. The Imperial Army then invaded North Bearland once again. This time at the battle of the Snowy Meadows, the last army of North Bearland was encircled by a much larger Imperial force and defeated. On promises that they would be allowed to go home if they put down their weapons, the warriors of North Bearland surrendered. They were then massacred by the Imperial Army and the bodies left strewn across the Snowy Meadows where they had fought.
The Imperial Army then advanced into the lands of the Smoke People from the south while their warriors were fighting enemies in the north. In this way, the Smoke People were quickly and easily conquered and their lands were annexed into the Empire.
