Nations and Empires - Library

Welcome to the Library of Scrolls

2007-02-28T20:00:00.000-08:00

This page will be used to post scrolls that are available in various libraries. In the future, there may be reason to have different pages for different libraries, but for now the most important scrolls are in all of them. Any player who is an Ulor or other high government official in the Zekresh Empire may read these and be presumed to have requested them from a library and received them without requiring gamemaster intervention.

Any other player should probably buy a copy in the nearest market place. Commonly available scrolls of this kind generally cost one bayla. It is not necessary to wait for gamemaster intervention, just post which scrolls you are buying and indicate that you paid one bayla each. Go ahead and read (or even download) the scrolls, don't wait for an answer. You can also sell the scrolls in most marketplaces for about the same amount if you wish, again without waiting for gamemaster intervention. Or you can keep the scrolls and start accumulating your own private library. (Remember, if civilization falls and libraries are no longer available, this page will be taken offline and only players who have scrolls they downloaded will still be able to see them.) An Ulor or other high official who can borrow these scrolls from a library for free may have a copy make by paying a scribe one bayla to make a copy. (Then download it.)

(There may be OOC notes at the top of a scroll indicating the language the scroll is written in or other information. These will be in parentheses. Scrolls where no language is specified should be assumed to be written in the Zekresh language if they are in English and no language is specified in an OOC note. Also, translations of Zekresh terms into English are often given within a scrolll, sometimes with parentheses, sometimes not. These are, of course, not part of the actual text of the scroll since the scroll itself is supposed to be in Zekresh, not English, so anyone who can read the scroll already knows what Zekresh words mean. For example, the online document may say:

a Gurikanan ya Sishan (the Captaincy of the lands of Sish. Sish means Tides in the local language)
a Gurikanan ya Argan Tros (the Captaincy of North Fireland)
a Gurikanan ya Argan Inuva (the Captaincy of South Fireland)

The part in parentheses is a translation of the Zekresh and an explanation of something that is common knowledge in the Zekresh Empire. The actual scroll should be assumed to read simply:

a Gurikanan ya Sishan
a Gurikanan ya Argan Tros
a Gurikanan ya Argan Inuva

The parts of a scroll that are given only in English should, of course, also be assumed to be in Zekresh in the actual scroll.

(Notice as you "scroll down" a document, that in this format, there are no "pages". The documents do, in fact, read like continuous scrolls.)

The Last Village

2007-02-11T07:11:00.000-08:00

By the scribe Ganigan of Fervanan
Written in the 41st Year of the Reign of Emperor Cledman VI

First came the rumors, too extreme to be believed. Then came reports that could not be entirely ignored, saying a new enemy was uprooting civilization itself in the South. Then came speeches and orders from the government. The gates of the great fortress opened and imperial soldiers marched to suppress the barbarians in the South. Behind them, the people felt secure again.

Then came terrified refugees streaming away from the horror with wide staring eyes and expressions of shock permanently stuck on their faces. Dozens of refugees passed the marching soldiers. Whole families came together with bundles of belongings tied to the backs of donkeys, oxen and horses. Then hundreds of refugees, some with no belongings, some alone and out of their minds with fear. Then, around some bend in the road, the marching soldiers came upon nearly a thousand refugees coming the other way. These had no animals, no belongings, no families. Most had only the clothes on their backs. Some didn't even have that. They were not walking. They were running. Some were still bleeding from wounds recently inflicted. Others were scarred with burns. Some of them were still screaming in terror at what had just happened to them. Shrieking women ran past the troops, desperately trying to escape from what was coming north right behind them. Beyond the last of the running refugees, the road was empty, but the sky was full of smoke and the sound of drums in the distance.

The officers ordered the imperial soldiers to break out of their marching column and assume a battle formation. Seven regiments poured onto the field that would soon become a battlefield. In all, three thousand soldiers of the Zekresh Empire stood ready, dressed in armor and carrying spears and shields. Many also had swords. Gurikan Falan (Captain General) Ildanyva sat upon his horse, surveying the scene and listening to the sound of drums. Ildanyva was the commander of all Imperial Army troops in the Overseas Provinces. Not all of them were here, but these seven regiments were by far the strongest Imperial force on this side of the Eastern Sea.

Then the drums fell silent all at once. There was nothing but the sound of the wind and a bird calling from the woods at the southern end of the field. Ashes were slowly falling on us from out of the sky.

Yes, I was there in that line, holding a spear and waiting. I am Ganigan and this is my story.

I am of mixed Ferrilyan and Verronese ancestry, but I was born and raised here, in the Overseas Provinces. I am from Falanalish Province. My father is a scribe employed by Ulor Quagganuk, the governor of the province. I had a falling out with my father and went away to join the army at Kast Vyloresh, the great Imperial Fortress that is the Imperial Army's headquarters in the Overseas Provinces. It is also the anchor that secures the Empire's hold on the lands south of Shasa Uvaligadna, the Biting Fish River, those lands that are called Kast Vyloresh Province, named after the fortress.

That fortress ended decades of war with the Tresh tribe of barbarians and led to twenty years of peace. Then, as our settlements moved further and further south, we began to have trouble with a new tribe, the Ralban.

We had come to that obscure field on that day to stand beneath a cold, grey sky watching ashes drift down from above and teach the Ralban a lesson they would never forget. We are not some tribe of savages that they may raid or intimidate. We are civilization. We are the Vyloran Zekresh, the Zekresh Empire. We are the greatest power in the known world. Indeed, the mightiest realm that has ever stood.

Though I had been a soldier for four years, I had never fought a battle. The Empire had brought peace.

A soldier named Stevanuk stood nervously in the line beside me, looking at the great general on his horse and glancing at the forest where the sound of the drums had been coming from. Stevanuk was the sort of soldier who was more at home gambling in the barracks than standing on the battlefield. He was smart, but cynical, cunning, but unwise, handsome and appealing to women, but a heartless cad. He often had the other soldiers laughing, but the joke was always at someone's expense. Somehow, in my years in the army, he had become my best friend. Now, he was out of his element. So was I.

Then, without another moment to contemplate anything, there was a movement in the forest across the field from us. I saw a bush move and heard a murmur along the line of soldiers. I saw a man emerge from the bushes. He was dressed in animal skins and carrying a spear and a barbarian-style warclub. His face was painted red with streaks of other colors. Then I saw more such men emerging from the bushes all along the treeline.

They poured out of the forest onto the field. A hundred of them, five hundred, a thousand, more. They were a huge barbarian horde. I saw that one of them had blood on his hands. I saw that a young warrior was running ahead of the rest, eager to fight us, but looking back to make sure the others were coming right behind him.

"Points down!" shouted Ekanor (Lieutenant) Firthyva. It was the order to lower our spearpoints towards the enemy. We did so, almost in unison.

As soon as we did this, the Ralban warriors began to cry out with their bizarre, bloodcurdling warcry. Then they all ran towards us with murder in their eyes. The ground shook beneath their feet there were so many of them. For a moment, I wondered if there were more of us or more of them, but I could not tell, the battle was far too large for me to see it all.

Then the enemy was upon us. One of them knocked my spear aside with his warclub and thrust his own spear at me. I blocked it with my shield. He raised his warclub and I thought I would die, but more barbarian warriors behind him pressed forward and he was pushed past me. Other barbarian spears and clubs struck at me, some hitting my shield, some my helmet, one club struck my right arm, causing me great pain and knocking the spear from my hand.

I was shoved over by the mass of enemy warriors and fell to the ground. I raised up my shield to ward off the blows they directed at me and pulled out my dagger which was my only remaining weapon. It was perhaps fortunate for me that there had not been enough swords for all of us because a sword in that crush of bodies would have been as difficult to use as a spear. The dagger that had seemed a poor substitute for a sword turned out to be extremely useful. I slashed at their legs with it while they pounded my shield and helmet and legs with warclubs. Enemy warriors fell one after another all around me and on top of me as I slashed open their legs and feet. I even had a chance to stab a few while they were on the ground.

I crawled like mad, trying to get back towards our own lines and someone stabbed me in the back with a spear while I crawled. My leather and iron armour prevented the spearpoint from going into me very far, but I was wounded. I fell to the ground, bleeding and hurting while a warclub struck my iron helmet again and drove my face painfully into the ground.

I heard the familiar voice of our regimental commander, Gurikan (Captain) Ardimuk shout, "Kantora Denelesh, BARZAN!" followed by hundreds of shouting voices. "Kantora Denelesh" means "Sixth Regiment" in Zekresh, the language of the empire. That was my unit, of course. "Barzan" means "attack."

Our forces had withstood the enemy attack and were now trying to counter attack. The barbarians were driven back. One of them fell dead beside me with a gruesome spear wound through his eye. I called out to the soldiers for help as they stepped over and around me. One of them tried to pull me to my feet. My legs hurt too much for that from where I had been struck by warclubs, but I managed to crawl back behind the line of our spearmen and out of the way of the fighting. I had lost my shield and spear. I still clutched my dagger in case the enemy got to me here somehow.

There were other men from my unit just behind the line who were also badly wounded, most of them far worse than I was.

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, Stevanuk came to me saying, "Ganigan, are you alright? Can you walk?"

"I don't think so," I said, "They hit me in the legs."

"I'll help you," Stevanuk said. He gave me his spear to use as a crutch with my right hand while I put my left arm over his shoulders so that I could lean on him and he could partly hold me up while I limped along as best I could.

In this way, he helped me get further away from the fighting. It was still close at hand. I could hear men screaming in agony from wounds and shouting and striking blows. I heard the barbarians give their war cry again and they came on by the thousands. I glanced in that direction and nearly sagged to the ground in despair. There were so many. How could we ever beat them?

"Just keep walking," Stevanuk said. I kept expecting him to put me down and return to the line, but he didn't. When we were quite some distance from the fighting, some other soldiers passed us, running away from the battle. They weren't even wounded.

"You can put me down here," I said to Stevanuk.

"No, keep going," he said.

"How far?" I asked.

"Until we are out of sight of the officers, then I hope you can run," Stevanuk said.

"What?" I asked in surprise, "aren't you going back to fight?"

"Are you?" he asked me.

By then, the worst of the pain in my legs was fading and I could begin to walk again. They had not broken my legs, it just felt like they had. "Yes, I'll go back. Give me a minute..."

"You go back if you want to, I'm getting out of here while I still can," Stevanuk said.

"Don't say that. They'll all think you're a coward," I said.

"I don't care what dead men think of me," he said, "Look back there, we're getting slaughtered. They outnumber us at least four to one. This is hopeless."

I looked back. The enemy was pouring through gaps in our lines. Our battle formation was falling apart. I saw an enemy warrior holding up a severed head which was wearing an Imperial Army helmet. From where we were then, I could better see how many enemy warriors we faced. It was incredible. The whole field was full of them and still more were coming out of the forest. I know we had three thousand men and our force was small compared to that horde. We weren't the only ones who noticed this. I saw hundreds of our men starting to break ranks and run, even the officers. Other officers were giving orders to pull back and regroup.

"I'll pull back and regroup," Stevanuk said, "I'll pull back all the way to the fortress."

"We can't just run away," I said.

"You'd better start running," Stevanuk said, "Or I'm going to just drop you and run by myself."

I looked back at the battle. Right before my eyes, our whole line was collapsing under a new barbarian onslaught. I thought that the battle would last for hours, but it seemed to already be turning into a disaster.

There were so many barbarians that they were already coming around the end of our line and attacking our men from behind. Some of these barbarians were now between us and our army. As I watched and Stevanuk tried to convince me to abandon our duty and flee, our whole right flank began to disintegrate as the men were attacked from in front and behind. As the line gave way, a thousand screaming barbarians poured through the gaps and around the line and attacked our army from behind. The whole Imperial force was in danger of becoming surrounded. In any event, there were now far too many barbarians between us and our troops. We could not go back.

I gave in and went with Stevanuk. Not too long afterwards, I saw a white horse go by with Captain General Ildanyva himself riding it, followed by a group of terrified-looking officers and hundreds of troops running to keep up.

"Running away is fine if you're a general," Stevanuk said cynically.

"Don't try to pretend he is the same as you," I said to Stevanuk spitefully, "There's a big difference between leaving when the battle is over and leaving when the battle has barely begun."

"Yet the battle ends when he runs," Stevanuk said, "That way a general cannot leave until the battle is over. So he can't ever be a coward now matter how soon he runs."

"Shut up," I said to him. I, at least, had fought the enemy as best I could. I had been behind the enemy line, on my back, hacking at them with only a dagger and certain that I would die, just trying to take as many of them with me as I could. Only by a miracle did I get out of that alive and even then only with serious wounds. I only realized the next day how serious my wounds were.

Despite his faults, Stevanuk had saved me from going back into a battle that was already lost. He also helped me limp along with the retreating troops. He never did drop me and run as he had threatened to do. If he had been a thorough coward, he would have done that. I am sure he could have gone much faster without me than with me. As it was, I could not easily move fast enough to keep ahead of the enemy. The only thing that saved us was that the enemy stopped to pillage and burn every farmhouse and settlement along the way. Stevanuk and I barely stopped for anything. Even when darkness came, we kept going most of the night and didn't sleep at all the first night.

I kept hoping that our regiment would come up behind us on the road and we could rejoin them. I saw three or four men I barely recognized from the 6th Regiment, but none that I knew well and no large groups of them.

By the second night it became clear that all the surviving imperial soldiers had already passed us. At times we caught sight of hundreds of Ralban warriors far behind us on the road. There was nothing between us and them but about three talong of distance. There was no sign of what had become of our regiment.

By the second night, my legs hurt and I saw that they were black and blue with terrible bruises, but they were no longer the main problem. I would have run on my bruised legs except that the pain in my back where a spear had stabbed me had become far worse. I had been bleeding from that wound ever since the battle and I had begun to feel faint. Three times I blacked out and fell. Stevanuk caught me each time.

"You can't keep going," Stevanuk told me.

"I know," I said, "Go on without me. I've still got my dagger. I'll take a couple of them with me when they come." I knew that was the expected thing to say, the brave thing, but in fact I felt a cold terror of facing such a ruthless enemy all alone. We had heard that they were fond of torturing captives, especially by burning them alive. I'd use that dagger to cut my own throat before I'd let them do that to me.

"No, we'll get off the road and hide in the woods," Stevanuk said, "We'll wait until they've passed by and then try to find our way across country, avoiding the roads."

I agreed and that's how it began. While we were still on the road, we were still part of the retreating army. The rest of them were far ahead of us on the road, out of sight, but they were there. Once we got off the road, it was only a few minutes before we heard the voices and the footsteps of the Ralban horde passing by. Now we were not with the army any more. We were on our own in territory overrun by the enemy.

We waited there in the bushes for hours. I was horrified to realize that not all the enemy were on the road. Some of them were coming through the woods, perhaps looking for more farms to loot. None of them found us that day and for that I am truly grateful.

While we were waiting for them all to pass by, I passed out from exhaustion and did not awaken until late the next afternoon. By then my wound had stopped bleeding, but hurt more than before. I removed my armour and shirt and Stevanuk looked at the wound. He said the skin around it was reddish around the edges and leaking pus. We both knew that was a bad sign. It was not healing well. I kept my shirt off because I could not bear the pain of anything rubbing against the wound as I walked.

Walked is perhaps the wrong word. I staggered more than walked. We came to a farmhouse and found it reduced to a smoking ruin. There were four burned and blackened corpses tied to a tree around which a fire had been built. Two of them were small children. We soon departed from this grisly scene.

We came upon more farms like that one, but no more corpses. I prayed to Gilhalnan that the folk who lived there had fled before the enemy arrived. We veered further and further east in hopes of finding a farm or settlement that had not yet been attacked. We went on for days, finding water in streams and eating our dwindling supply of food that we had brought with us on the march. Eventually, we came upon a farm that was not destroyed and the family there took us in. They fed us and gave us a place to sleep.

After a few days, the family that lived there decided they must flee to the north for fear of barbarian attack. They let us stay in their house while they were gone. We stayed for over a month, because only then was my wound healed enough to move on, but we spent most of our time hiding in the woods and only coming to the house to get food and cook it. We had blankets from the house, but we dared not sleep in the beds for fear that we would awaken to find Ralban warriors attacking us.

One day, just as we feared, two dozen Ralban warriors arrived without warning, ransacked the house and set it on fire. If we had not been hiding in the woods, we would surely have been slain.

After that, we went north, seeking some new refuge from the enemy. We came upon several farms inhabited by naive folk who did not fully understand the danger that confronted them. We told them the army had been defeated and no longer stood between them and the barbarians. Their faith in the power of the Imperial Army was far greater than the actual capabilities of that army. We did not stay with them long. We went north, ever northwards, hoping to get to some place where the army still held out, even if we had to cross the Biting Fish River and go to Falanalish Province.

Eventually, we reached a river, but it was too small to be the great Biting Fish River. Stevanuk observed that it was flowing northwest and said it was sure to flow into the Biting Fish River at some point so we followed it. It does, indeed, flow into the Biting Fish River, but before we got there, we came to a collection of farms along the river. They were close together in a land that was mostly uninhabited even before the attack. We had come to one of the "Kromosteko Yostesh", the "Eastern Settlements".

Beyond the Eastern Settlements lies only the Tresh lands and the barbarous unexplored interior of the great eastern continent. The particular place we had come to was named "Shasy Kligit" which means "Crooked Creek" in Zekresh. It was named after the river that flowed through it. It was the same river we had been following. We would have passed by the settlement and continued on except for what we found there.

To our amazement, we found other soldiers from the Imperial Army there. They were from the 2nd Regiment of Kast Vyloresh. They had also been at the battle and had fled north afterwards, just as we had. There were twenty two of them led by an officer of the rank of ekanor (lieutenant). His name was Konigak

Lieutenant Konigak had already organized the soldiers, the local farmers and a large group of refugees to build up defenses. They had already constructed an earthwork fortress and were cutting trees and building a palisade wall to make it into a real fort. A system of signals using horns was established so that farmers anywhere along Crooked Creek could rapidly sound the alarm and it would be relayed to Lieutenant Konigak. In the event of an attack, everyone was to go immediately to the fort.

Stevanuk and I were greatly relieved to reach this place and we began to feel some measure of security. It was foolish of course. There were only twenty two real soldiers there, twenty four, counting us and we had recently seen an army of 3,000 decimated by the Ralban. Fortunately for us, most of the enemy had gone to beseige the great fortress of Kast Vyloresh and the provincial capital in the West where the Biting Fish River reaches the sea. Some of the refugees had come from near there and told us of this. They also told us that Captain General Ildanyva and Ulor Halimuk, the governor of Kast Vyloresh Province, were besieged in the fortress by the barbarian horde.

Though the news that barbarians had ravaged nearly the entire province was difficult to take, one other bit of news hit me harder. Lieutenant Konigak said that he was sure that the Sixth Regiment had been overrun and wiped out during the battle.

For the past four years, the Sixth Regiment had been my home, my family, my life. Now I learned that they were all dead --- all of them except for me, Stevanuk and a few others who had run before it was too late to run. What had become of Lieutenant Firthyva and Captain Ardimuk and all the others? They were almost certainly still lying on that cold field, not moving since the day of the battle.

Lieutenant Konigak noticed that I was very upset. I hope I did not look like I was about to cry, but it was very hard news to hear. Konigak said, "They fought hard and they died with honour. A soldier cannot expect any more than that."

Perhaps it was the news of the massacre of my regiment. Perhaps it was the news that Ralban warriors were destroying most of the province, leaving only the fortress and the Eastern Settlements as vestiges of civilization in this unforgiving land. Perhaps it was that my wound was nearly healed. Or perhaps it was the strong words and inspiring willpower of Lieutenant Konigak, but I found a new resolve to fight the Ralban savages.

I can remember the sort of speeches Konigak would give to us. He would say, "This is not just a war for one settlement or even one province. At every border throughout the Empire, we face the same choice, the light of civilization or the darkness of barbarism and chaos. This Empire has stood for over thirteen centuries. It has grown until it encompasses all the civilized nations of the known world. It has not been the task of our generation to build the Empire, nor to expand it. The task that falls to us is merely to hold on to what we have been given by the great generations of the past. It is no small task. All across the known world this great struggle is raging. This is the great question of our time, shall the Empire stand for centuries to come, or shall it fall, now, in our time. There is no greater issue in all the known world than this, for if the Empire falls, so shall civilization fall. Every man must answer that question for himself. Will you uphold and defend the Empire? The separatists, usurpers, bandits, pirates, rebels and barbarians all have the same answer: NO. We, the loyal men of the Empire must give our answer. What is your answer? Will you uphold and defend the Empire?"

"YES!" we all cried out.

"Good," Konigak would say, "Now the battle lines are drawn. Let us hold this line here at Shasy Kligit. The borders of the Empire itself have been pushed back to this creek. If we do not stop the barbarians from crossing this creek, there will be no natural obstacle where we can set up a defense anywhere in the Eastern Settlements. Either we fight them here or the Eastern Settlements are lost. And with them perhaps what remains of the province of Kast Vyloresh. If we do not hold them here, where will we hold them? In Falanalish Province? Or will we let them take that as well? How many provinces will be lost before we do our duty and defend our civilization from the darkness? This is it. This is the place. This is the time. This is where we must fight for the Empire with all our strength and no matter what it costs us. If we die here defending this creek, this border, this Empire, we will have done all that we could hope to do in this life. If we hold this line, we shall have preserved civilization."

By such speeches, Konigak not only rallied the troops and gave us a new fighting spirit, he recruited more soldiers from the refugees who had clustered there, seeking protection from the soldiers and food from the farmers.

The farmers were reluctant to provide food. Konigak berated them for their shortsightedness. "What good will your stockpiles of food do when the Ralban come? My men are willing to fight and die here, to protect you and your farms. The least you can do is provide us our last meal."

It was not only one meal and Konigak still had to threaten to have the farmers flogged in order to get some of them to provide supplies, but Konigak was right.

Things started to go well under Konigak's leadership. The men among the refugees helped us work on constructing a palisade wall for the fortress while we armed them as best we could with sharpened sticks and clubs. While the men worked, Konigak ordered the farmers to provide shelter, food and assistance to the women and children among the refugees.

More and more refugees were pouring in from the ravaged areas. They all had terrifying stories of massacres and destruction. The more of them arrived, the more I felt the importance of our effort to make a stand there.

But there was one farmer whose view of all this was backwards. His name was Tever. He was of Ilanian ancestry, which may have influenced his views. He provided food at first and sheltered some of the refugees. Then, Tever refused to provide any more food for the troops. Other farmers followed his example. Lieutenant Konigak had Tever captured, bound and flogged.

When we went to bring Tever to the fort to be flogged, we found a young man among the refugees at Tever's house. His name was Trafanin and Konigak drafted him into the military along with all the other refugee men.

I got to know Trafanin during his brief time with us. I found out that he had fallen in love with Tever's daughter Tremainia. Perhaps this explains Trafanin's sympathy for Tever's treasonous ideas.

Trafanin also told me that he didn't want to be a soldier, despite how much the Empire needed soldiers at that particular time and place. I found out that Tever had filled his head with traitorious ideas. Apparently when Tever had heard the news of the battle, his first thought was not sympathy for us soldiers or fear of the Ralban, but some ill-considered treason. As I learned from Trafanin, Tever spoke boldly about the idea that since the Empire had proven itself unable to defend the settlers from barbarian attack or to maintain control of the province, that the local people should be free from imperial rule. Some of the other farmers had listened to him before Konigak arrived. After Konigak and the soldiers came, Tever seemed to be alone in this. Well, almost alone. Trafanin seemed to still agree with him.

I was not surprised one morning to discover that Trafanin had run away. Konigak sent some men to search Tever's house, but Trafanin was not found. I hope the Ralban captured the traitorious coward.

I also began to feel far less friendly towards Stevanuk. How could I condemn Trafanin's cowardice and not despise Stevanuk for his? I spent more of my time with another soldier I met there. His name was Havuk and he was as solid as a tree trunk. Somehow, I felt certain that no matter what happened, all the barbarians in the world could never kill Havuk. He had been a soldier all his life and was the son of a soldier and the grandson of a soldier. His grandfather had been one of the original soldiers of the 2nd Regiment of Kast Vyloresh when it was first formed. His father had fought in the Tresh wars with the legendary Captain Krulmuk who had commanded the 2nd Regiment of Kast Vyloresh in those days and had risen through the ranks to eventually become commander of the entire Imperial Army.

As much loyalty as I had felt for the Sixth Regiment, now I felt only sadness at their fate. The Second Regiment was older and far more respected because of its legendary exploits under Krulmuk in the Tresh wars. Ever since then, it had been considered the most elite unit in the province. One day I told Havuk this and he laughed and said, "Well you should join us, then."

"But how can I? Everything is chaos, there's no officers of the Sixth left for me to ask permission from and..."

"We've got one officer left," he told me and then bellowed out, "HEY KONIGAK! Ganigan here wants to join the Second Regiment!"

"You've been in the Second Regiment ever since you got here. Get back to work!" Konigak shouted back as we were working on the palisade wall.

"There you go. Now it's official," Havuk said with a grin.

Though Konigak acted like this was his idea, he made a big show of telling the new recruits about the history of the Second Regiment and telling them that they were part of it now. I think it lifted their spirits some.

A few days after that, Stevanuk came up to me with a conspiratorial grin and said, "Guess what lives in Crooked Creek?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Frogs," he replied.

"So?"

"That doesn't mean anything to you? Frogs, as in frog racing? Gambling? You know?"

Yes, I knew. As odd as it sometimes seems to civilians, the Zekresh Imperial Army has a secret obsession with frog racing. It's secret because the officers banned it long ago. If you've ever seen how the soldiers act about it, you'll understand why.

I'm sure that if we were allowed to race horses or dogs or something else, we would go for that, but it's not allowed. Frog racing isn't allowed either, but frogs are easy to find just about anywhere and more importantly, they are easy to hide from officers during inspections. Stevanuk, being a gambling man, of course was a diehard frog racer.

So even though we were working fourteen hours a day at hard manual labor building the fort and though we needed every ounce of strength and every minute of rest, we ended up sneaking out of the camp at night to catch frogs. There were only four of us the first night. Aside from Stevanuk and me, there were two other soldiers named Garoman and Yatya. By the light of a small fire, we cleared out a small bit of open ground, drew two lines two paces apart, put our bets in a helmet and lined up our frogs behind the starting line.

Stevanuk said, "Go!" and we all released our frogs.

I wasn't even surprised that Stevanuk's frog hopped straight for the finish line while the other frogs were still behind the starting line. My frog managed to get in one hop and another one did two before Stevanuk's dasher reached the finish line. By that time, the other two soldiers were shouting encouragement to their frogs, then shouting at Stevanuk accusing him of cheating. When Stevanuk reached for the helmet with the money in it, Yatya tried to stop him and a fight broke out.

I had to help Stevanuk. Despite his faults, and they were many, Stevanuk had saved my life. I jumped into the fight and pulled Garoman off him. Garoman turned around and slugged me in the mouth. Stevanuk took that opportunity to grab the helmet and dash back towards camp. Yatya and Garoman both stood looking at me menacingly.

"What did you help him for?" Garoman demanded, "He cheated somehow, he must've."

"He saved my life. I owed him one."

"Yeah? Well he left you behind and I feel like killing you," Yatya said.

I tried to act nonchalant as I said, "Alright. I guess I don't owe him one anymore."

Yatya and Garoman both laughed and Garoman slapped me on the back and said, "You're a funny guy. Help me find a better frog for next time and I'll forgive you."

I had a busted lip from the fight, but I went to the frog race the next night, anyway. There were twice as many soldiers there. Of course, Stevanuk's frog won again. The other soldiers wouldn't let Stevanuk leave with their money until he agreed to four rematches and after his frog won three of them and was heading for the finish line on the fourth, Garoman ran out on the raceway and tried to stomp on Stevanuk's frog.

The frog jumped just as Garoman's foot was coming down so he missed. He kept trying to stomp it and the frog kept jumping towards the finish line. Yatya then ran out and stood on the finish line, at which point Stevanuk's frog started jumping back towards the starting line while all the other soldiers burst out laughing. Stevanuk ran over and tried to shove Garoman away from the frog, but Garoman kept trying to stomp the frog. Meanwhile all the frogs were jumping every which way dodging Garoman's stomping and Stevanuk's feet. Then some more soldiers ran onto the race way trying to stomp Stevanuk's frog, but it was too fast for all of them and jumped entirely off the track and into some bushes and got away. Stevanuk cheered at first but then went searching through the bushes and realized he had lost his prize frog.

After that he lost his temper and attacked Garoman and the two of them punched at each other and then ended up on the ground wrestling. The soldiers, having no more frogs to bet on, promptly started placing bets on whether Stevanuk or Garoman would win. I bet a dovek on Garoman and won.

Lieutenant Konigak heard about it the next day and ordered Stevanuk to be given three lashes of the whip for breaking the army regulations against frog racing. Yatyva volunteered to be the one whipping him.

I didn't hear about any more frog racing after that. But it was a brief moment of distraction from the deadly peril that we knew could strike at any time. A few days later, it did strike.

We were working on the palisade wall and had it nearly finished when we heard the distant horn from the south. It was one of the farmers giving the signal Konigak had established. Two short blasts on the horn followed by a long one signaled that Ralban warriors had been seen. After a pause, this was supposed to be followed by another signal to indicate the approximate number of enemy. But there was no further signal. I never found out why.

Within minutes, farmers and refugees who had heard the signal were running for the fort and all of us soldiers put down our tools and started putting on armor and picking up weapons.

We were ready in time, but not all the civilians made it to the fort. We heard screaming from the south and saw smoke rising from the farmhouses. I realized that the enemy was not hurrying towards the fort and probably had no idea it existed. If only it were finished we could hold them off. But they had come too soon. I looked nervously at the gap in the palisade wall. There, only a pile of sand about waist high blocked the way. They could get over that easily enough. Lieutenant Konigak ordered ten men to guard the gap. I was reassured to see that Havuk was among them. He would not fall, I told myself. Nor would he falter. I was sure that no matter what happened, a man like Havuk would never turn and run like Stevanuk.

When the enemy did come, we were dismayed. I had hoped it was only a small raiding party, perhaps a couple dozen like the group that destroyed the farmhouse Stevanuk and I had stayed in on the way to Crooked Creek.

No, it was a far larger group than that. I had my hopes up when only six or seven showed up, but they called out to others behind them and my heart sank as I saw Ralban warriors coming out of the forest everywhere.

Despite Konigak's emphasis on the importance of Crooked Creek as a natural obstacle, we did not have nearly enough men to hold the creek against them. There were well over a hundred that I could see already and possibly many more behind them. Perhaps Konigak had hoped more refugees would come and join our force before we ended up in a battle like this. I saw some sort of leader among the Ralban warriors give a signal and all of them gave out their terrifying warcry and ran towards the water. I noticed a sour expression on Konigak's face as he watched them wade across the creek.

"Hold the fort at all costs!" Konigak shouted.

The enemy could not see the gap in the palisade wall from the direction they approached. Konigak had taken the precaution of completing the side facing the expected enemy advance first. The Ralban seemed to have no experience with fortifications. They charged the wall. Though it was terrifying, it was also madness. They leaped up and some caught hold of the pointed tops of the vertical logs that made up the palisade wall. Few could hold on. Two managed to scramble up onto the wall with the help of their friends below. They were fierce and determined, but killing them was easy as they tried to get over the wall and stand up. We were just standing there waiting. I had lost my real spear in the previous battle and had replaced it with just a pointed stick, but I stuck one of those savages with it, just as they had stuck me. He shrieked in pain and I stuck him again, pushing him off the wall with a jab to the chest. He landed badly and did not get up. The other intruder met Garoman's sword. Garoman hacked off his head and tossed it contemptuously at the barbarians below, then threw the body off the wall at them as well.

This enraged the savages and they began hurling spears and rocks at us. One soldier was hit with a spear, but it failed to penetrate his armor. Garoman laughed at them and taunted them. The enemy did not lack bravery, though. Several more tried to climb the wall, despite what had happened to their fellows. This time, their comrades hurled more spears and rocks and some shot arrows at us while six or seven tried to climb the wall at once. They met spears and swords and even a farmer's axe. None of them got over the wall. The ignorant barbarians didn't even know to make ladders. Then again, they didn't have to. All too soon, they discovered the gap in the palisade wall on the far side of the fort.

I realized as they shrieked with joy and gave out their warcry that it would be a difficult fight. I realized just before they attacked that we did have a chance. They had to come through the narrow gap since they had not mastered the wall. They could not attack us all at once, but only a few at a time. In fact, my fears that they were part of an endless horde, were ill founded. They were more than a hundred, but that was all. We were outnumbered only two or three to one and we had the fort.

The first Ralban warrior through the gap was impaled by Havuk's spear. The next few were also killed. But the enemy swarmed through the gap, heedless of losses. I saw one of our soldiers fall, then another. An enemy warrior struck Havuk on the shoulder with a war club, but he kept fighting. Lieutenant Konigak called out men by name to reinforce the gap. He didn't want to leave the wall undefended.

Konigak himself stood at the gap, just behind the first line of soldiers and three times he cut down Ralban warriors with his sword as they tried to get through. I was alarmed to see an enemy spear jab Havuk. He stumbled, but did not fall. Two other soldiers did fall. Konigak called Yatya and Stevanuk to take their places and reinforce the gap.

Yatya ran to the gap. Stevanuk walked. By now, at least twenty enemy warriors were lying on the ground at the gap and six of ours. With our attention focused on the gap, we nearly missed the attempt by twenty or more enemy warriors to climb the walls. Once we noticed them, it was a simple matter to repel them, even though there were fewer of us on the wall than before. Now they understood the problem better. When I ran towards three Ralban warriors trying to climb the wall, they realized they could not get up in time and dropped back to the ground before I could kill any of them. I shouted at them and another one threw a rock at me.

Then, suddenly, they stopped attacking. I looked at the gap. We had lost two more. One of them was Yatya, writhing on the ground with a terrible wound in the gut from a spear. There wasn't much we could do for him or the others. Konigak urged us to pile up things in the gap. Branches, firewood, baskets, stones, corpses, anything. This, we did. Then we waited. Konigak gave us more words to inspire us, but his words had lost their power as we watched Yatya and two others dying of their wounds. By nightfall, Yatya was dead and we put his body on the pile of corpses at the gap. I took his spear and his shield so I wouldn't have to be fighting the enemy with just a pointed stick anymore.

The civilians were terrified. Some of the women and children taking refuge in the fort could not stop crying. As darkness came, the fear seemed to grow. Konigak's words about this being a struggle against the darkness of barbarism now seemed to take on a literal meaning. For when the darkness came, so, too, did the barbarian warriors.

The moved stealthily and were already climbing the walls before we noticed them. How they achieved that I shall never know, but Garoman shouted an alarm and we all took up our positions. I jabbed at them with my spear and killed at least one. Stevanuk was on the wall with me at first, but soon the enemy was at the gap again. Lieutenant Konigak ordered men off the wall, but not the same men. I thought he would call Stevanuk down, but instead, he called me.

I rushed to the gap and stood beside Havuk. I couldn't see the enemy clearly in the dark, but fiendish shapes kept throwing themselves at us, shrieking the Ralban war cry. I held out my spear each time, as did we all. Five, eight, ten and more went down. Then they began throwing spears at us in the darkness. One stuck my shield and I was momentarily glad that I had it. The man beside me was injured and fell. Another man stepped up from behind to take his place. On my other side, Havuk still stood fast, like an oak.

The enemy charged again and once more we gave them nothing but spear points. This time, though, they must have done something different. One of them managed to squeeze past us in the dark and the fighting. Suddenly there was an enemy warrior inside the fort attacking our little battle line from the left side. Havuk and I were on the right, but Lieutenant Konigak ran forward to kill the man with a sword. Just at that moment, though, when our attention was distracted, a great shower of rocks, spears and arrows came at us out of the darkness followed immediately by another charging horde of shrieking barbarians. My shield protected me, but other men in the line fell. Havuk and I held for a moment, stabbing the enemy with our spears, but to my left, the line gave way and Ralban warriors poured into the fort while the women and children inside screamed.

I was knocked in the head with something, but my helmet partially protected me. I saw Havuk stabbed again with a spear, then again, but the last one was blocked by his shield. I was shoved backwards by the mass of enemy and I tripped somehow. From the ground I saw three enemy warriors attacking Havuk who by now stood alone at the gap. They jabbed him repeatedly. I am sure his armor protected him from some of it, but one got him in the leg and I heard him shout. He fell to one knee and a spear jabbed him in the chest. Then he fell and I knew we were lost.

"On the wall, everybody on the wall!" I heard Konigak order. The soldiers may have tried to obey, but someone, perhaps a civilian, opened the gate and tried to run. There were few, if any, Ralban warriors on that side now. They were too busy attacking through the gap on the other side. I heard someone yell "Fall back!" and I thought it was Konigak. I saw Stevanuk and at least two other soldiers run out through the gate as enemy warriors ran past me and started jabbing at the mass of civilians with spears to the sound of agonized shrieks.

In the darkness, I picked up my spear and ran for the gate. I saw enemy warriors ahead of me trying to capture some of the women and I stuck one of the enemy in the back with a spear and kept running, leaving my spear impaled in him. I made it out of the fort and sprinted like mad through the forest in the darkness. You may call me a coward, but where were you when Kast Vyloresh cried out in vain for reinforcements? You could have been there with me, any of you who may now dare criticize those of us who were. Perhaps you are not a soldier. Most of the men who fought at that fort were refugees armed only with sticks. Or you may prove yourself by going there now and trying to reclaim it from the barbarians. I will accept no criticism from any man who has not faced the murderous Ralban himself.

Yes, I ran. I fell back, I retreated into the darkness. When daylight came, I realized that I had been running southeast and I turned northeast to make up for it. Along the way, I came across an older man who was also fleeing from the Crooked Creek massacre. I recognized him. He was one of the refugees. He had volunteered to be a soldier even before anyone told him that Konigak had ordered all able bodied men to serve. Alas, this one was not able bodied. He had been captured and tortured by the Ralban and Konigak told him to rest and recover. Maybe he should have let him fight. The man said his name was Sharnyva. I asked him if anyone else had survived. He said he thought some had, but he didn't know who. I did. If anyone made it out alive, it was Stevanuk. I had thought that Havuk, the man of strength and valor would be the last man standing, the one the Ralban could not kill. But I had seen Havuk cut down by the enemy at the gap. The one the Ralban could not kill was Stevanuk, the disreputable one who was quickest to run. In that moment I hated him.

Sharnyva and I agreed that we should go east. Neither of us were from the Eastern Settlements so we did not know our way, but we knew which direction the sun rose and that was the way we went.

We passed through the wilderness for days. We had no food. We veered north in search of water and came to a large river that I knew must be the Biting Fish River. We got water from it, but were careful not to wade in. The Biting Fish River is named after a vicious little fish that will often give you a painful bite. A bunch of them together can kill you. More serious are the river monsters. I am told that across the sea in the rest of the Empire, that river monsters are rare. Some people actually think they are just a legend. In the frontier areas back across the sea there are still river monsters, but new arrivals in the Overseas Provinces always tell us that the ones we have here are much larger and far more numerous.

We didn't see any river monsters, but that means little. River monsters are fond of hiding with only their eyestalks peeking above the water. They will creep closer and closer without causing so much as a ripple, and then, when they are close enough, they will rush at you and grab you with their claws and pull you under the water to be drowned and eaten. Or so I am told. I've never actually seen one except for the peeking eyestalks and it's usually hard to tell if they are river monster eyes or just floating debris.

We dared not walk along the river bank due to the threat of river monsters, but we did approximately follow the river, heading upstream, eastward. Sharnyva borrowed my dagger in the evenings and carved a walking stick from a tree limb that could serve as a weapon if the need arose.

I don't recall how many days we had been walking when I saw a thin column of smoke. It didn't look like a farm being burned down. It was more like a cooking fire. Sharnyva and I had almost given up hope that there were any more settlements out this far east, but obviously someone was there. We approached it cautiously.

Before we reached the source of the smoke, we found ourselves surrounded by at least fifty barbarian warriors. I was terrified and drew my dagger. Sharnyva prepared to fight with his walking stick. The warriors were stern men, dressed partly in animal skins and partly in woven garments of unfamiliar design. They carried bows and arrows, spears and war clubs. I noticed that they had painted their faces blue and green with a darker pattern like vines or roots on top of that. The same colors and pattern were on the arms and chests of some of them as well.

Sharnyva had been tortured by the Ralban barbarians and seen them kill his whole family. He thirsted for revenge more than any man I have ever known. At that moment, he looked like he was possessed by a demon. I prepared to kill myself to avoid capture, but then I recognized the style of their clothing. They were barbarians, but not Ralban. "They're Tresh" I said.

Sharnyva didn't seem to understand at first. He was breathing heavily and holding his walking stick as if he might charge them with it. "They aren't Ralban invaders. They're the tribes who live here. We've been at peace with them for twenty years."

Sharnyva blinked and looked at me as if witnessing some unexpected magic.

The Tresh warriors did not speak Zekresh. They didn't understand Verronese either, which I tried to talk to them in when Zekresh failed. They communicated among themselves in some language of their own. They communicated with us by means of gestures. They pointed northeast and started walking. The ones coming up behind us held their spears forward as if to drive us before them.

We went with them and came upon an even larger group of Tresh warriors. I realized that the woods were full of them.

I thought they were taking us to their camp or village or wherever they came from. Instead, they took us to Yostan.

Yostan is one of our settlements. "Yostan" means "Eastland". It is, indeed, the farthest eastern settlement in all of Kast Vyloresh province and for all I know, the very last one that has not been destroyed by the Ralban.

It consists of only three families who live in three crudely built houses. When Sharnyva and I arrived, it was also the home of several refugees who had fled from the Ralban attacks just as we had.

The Tresh warriors deposited us there as if it were the place to put people like us. Without a word, they left. We were soon greeted by the settlers. The children came out to see us even before the Tresh warriors left. The children of Yostan have no fear of the Tresh. Neither do the adults, I soon learned.

The three men who founded the settlement were Altook, his brother Quagganuk and their friend Sarman. All of them are of Frayeth ancestry. I don't really understand the difference between the Frayeth and the Zekresh since they speak the same language and have the same religion and customs, but they are some sort of rural cousins of the Zekresh.

"Welcome to Yostan," Altook said as he greeted us, "The last village in Kast Vyloresh."

"The last village?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"Isn't it? Where did you come here from?"

"Crooked Creek," I said.

"We heard the Ralban attacked Crooked Creek a week ago, killed everyone and burned all the houses. Then they hit Gamukan and the other settlements."

"Who told you that?" I asked.

"Refugees like you. A little girl from Crooked Creek and two women from Gamukan. Unless Green Hill is still standing, we're the last of the Eastern Settlements except for a few scattered farms."

"They'll come here next," I said with alarm, "We have to escape."

Altook said, "You can escape whenever you're ready, but the Ralban won't come here."

"Why not?" Sharnyva asked.

"We're deep in Tresh territory. I made a deal with the local chief to be able to build our farms here. The Ralban won't dare attack them. If they do, it would mean war with all the Tresh tribes. So long as the Ralban don't want a war with the Tresh, they can't get to us."

"They got to all the other Eastern Settlements according to what you just told us."

"All the others were outside Tresh territory."

"I don't trust the Tresh either," Sharnyva said.

"They brought you here safe and sound, didn't they?" Altook said. He had a point.

Altook offered us a chance to stay there for a while. His brother let us sleep in his house. They didn't have beds for us, but that would have been to much to ask. Warm food, a blanket and a roof over our heads were more than we had expected to find out here.

There was a certain sense that we had come to the edge of the world. The land continued, but civilization did not. Whether or not this was truly the last village in Kast Vyloresh province, it was a certainty that there were no more settlers east of here. Altook said the Tresh had told him they didn't allow anyone else to live in their lands and at times regretted having given permission for the establishment of the Yostan settlement.

That night and the next day, we met all the other people in the settlement. There weren't very many. There were only six adult settlers. Altook, his brother Quagganuk, their friend Sarman and their wives. They had quite a few children, all of them young. In addition to these and Sharnyva and myself, there were only three other people there. One was the little girl from Crooked Creek. Her name was Terivanit. She was only eleven years old. Somehow she had survived the attack on Crooked Creek and had made it through the wilderness all the way here. The other refugees were two women named Marganit and Gilit. As Altook told us, they had come to Yostan from Gamukan, but neither of them was from there. They were refugees who had stayed in Gamukan for a while before the Ralban attacked Gamukan, killing everyone they could and putting the buildings to the torch.

On the second night, Sharnyva and I were at Altook's house sitting by the fireplace. It was astonishing how peaceful this place seemed. It was almost another world from what was going on everywhere else we had been. Whereas Lieutenant Konigak had infused us with a sense of urgency and the idea that we were fulfilling some sort of destiny to defend the Empire, Altook's attitude conveyed a sense that he and this place were beyond all worldly concerns. He was untouched by the invasion and had every expectation of remaining perfectly secure no matter what happened to every other settlement in the province.

Altook said, "We really have nothing to worry about here. As terrible as the invasion is, it will not reach us. The Tresh will not allow it."

Sharnyva said, "Then if they can't reach us here, we should go forth and get revenge on them. We can use this place as a safe haven and hunt them down."

"Hunt them down?" I asked, "Are you mad? Didn't you see what happened at the fort? That was soldiers with a fort. What could we do, just the few of us here?"

Sharnyva said, "I will not rest until I get revenge. I cannot forgive..." he seemed like he might have been about to say something else, but he stopped.

Altook said, "You can go attack the Ralban if you like, but don't try to come back here if you do. The Tresh don't want a war with the Ralban. They won't let you attack them from here. Neither will I."

"What do you mean by that?" Sharnyva said, "You don't have any sort of authority over me. Who do you think you are?"

Altook didn't answer him directly. Instead, he turned to his brother and said, "I told you we should have named the settlement Altookan. If the place were named after me, people would show me more respect."

"We settled that years ago," Quagganuk said with sudden annoyance, "I wish you would stop bringing it up."

Altook said to Sharnyva, "Listen here, I created this settlement. From the beginning we've been so far out here that we're pretty much on our own. We don't pay the farm tax. We don't even bother to pay the tariff when we trade with settlers in Falanalish across the river. Nobody ever comes here to try to collect it. In fact, no government men of any kind have ever come to Yostan. Until now."

"What do you mean?" I asked. He was looking at me.

"You're a soldier. That makes you the first government man to ever come here. Maybe the last as well. And you come here disarmed, running for your life, needing our help. Isn't that true?"

"Don't talk to about me running if you've never faced the Ralban," I said angrily.

"I didn't mean to offend you," Altook said, "All I mean is that unless you plan on taking over single handedly, I'm a law unto myself out here. Yostan might as well be its own province with me as Ulor (governor). In fact, now that there's so much distance and so many Ralban between us and the Empire, I would have to strain my imagination to think that we're even still part of the Empire."

"What?" I asked in shock.

"It's kind of up to me, you see. Because there is nobody, and I mean nobody, out here telling me what to do. So maybe I'm just a farmer. Or maybe I'm the Naltor of Yostan," he said with a smile. Quagganuk laughed. "Naltor" means "Prince" in both Zekresh and Frayeth.

Sharnyva said, "Don't be ridiculous."

Altook said, "The only reason you have a place to stay here where it's safe and there's a roof over your head is because of me. Prince or farmer, I'm in charge here."

Sharnyva said, "You are the master of the house. And I am a guest. I'll refrain from insulting my host."

Altook looked askance at him, but didn't comment on that.

I said, "I'm not here to tell you what to do, but why would you want to not be part of the Empire anymore? I mean, if you had a choice."

"I do have a choice," Altook said.

Quagganuk said, "He's not asking about that. He's asking why."

Altook nodded and said, "Alright, I'll tell you why. It's not complicated. I look around me and all I see are my lands and those of my settlement. Beyond that are the Tresh lands. I can be on my own. I can separate from the Empire and they wouldn't even know or care. If you could be the master of your own destiny, answerable to no one, lord of your own lands, a prince of your own little nation, wouldn't you do it? Who wouldn't want to?"

"I never thought about it," I said.

"Give it a thought. It grows on you. In fact, why don't you stay with us? You seem like a decent enough sort of fellow. Become part of Yostan."

"I'm a soldier, not a farmer," I said.

"Sure. Why don't you be the commander of the Yostan Army."

"You have an army?"

"Not yet. But you could be our first soldier. As more refugees come, you could recruit others. That's the thing, see. We have lots of land here and I could probably trade with the Tresh for more. Didn't matter when it was just the three of us and our wives and kids. The refugees change things. Sure, it's only the five of you so far, but from what I've heard, there's likely to be more, lots more. Everyone who's still alive in eastern Kast Vyloresh is likely to end up here sooner or later. By the time Imperial authority is re-established in Kast Vyloresh, if it ever is, we could build this place into something impressive. With our alliance with the Tresh, we could remain independent no matter what the Empire says."

I said, "Let me think about it."

"Go ahead," Altook said, "Take all the time you need. There's no hurry."

Another couple days went by and the Tresh warriors came again. They had found another refugee wandering in their territory and brought him to Yostan. He was a middle aged man named Yokh. He had come from Gamukan. Altook took him around to meet everyone. It turned out that he already knew Gilit and Marganit from their brief stay in Gamukan. Then, later, Altook told Yokh about how he and his brother and Sarman had founded the settlement eight years earlier. He boasted of not paying taxes, of carrying on trade with Falanalish province and of his diplomacy with the Tresh.

"They're not even really called Tresh, you know. That's what the Zekresh call them. Their own name for themselves is Gidagakeli."

"Is it?" Yokh asked.

"Yep," Altook said. He looked Yokh over and said, "I like you. You're Frayeth, like me. You know, this place is already getting to be like some sort of Frayeth principality. As you can guess from our names, my brother and I and Sarman are all Frayeth. So is that guy Sharnyva. Even the little girl refugee. The only Zekresh people here are those two women, Marganit and Gilit. And maybe this guy here," he gestured towards me.

"I'm not Zekresh," I said, "My father is Verronese and my mother is Ferrillyan."

"Alright then," Altook said, "To Hell with the Zekresh and their Empire. What is that to us out here?"

Yokh gave me a look that said he thought Altook was insane. I just nodded and smiled. Yokh played along, but the next day he came to talk to me.

"That man, Altook, he's crazy."

I said, "I think he's just been out here alone with his little group too long."

Yokh said, "He says he's in charge here. Are we going to put up with that?"

I said, "What does that even mean? I don't care if he calls himself Naltor (prince). I wouldn't care much if he called himself Vylor Yostanesh (Emperor of Yostan)."

It was supposed to be a joke, but Yokh didn't laugh. He said, "He and his brother and their friend control all the food, all the houses, all the tools. They are the only ones with seed for crops. That's not just his imagination."

"That stuff they own. They built those houses. They grew the food."

"Yeah, that's what they said at the place I was at before this. It sounded reasonable at first, but then they said us refugees had to do our share of the work. Only they decided how much work we should do. Next thing you know we're like slaves doing whatever the farmers tell us and begging for them to give us anything in return. Well one day we turned the tables on them."

"Yeah? Where was this?" I asked.

"Gamukan," he said.

"I heard that got overrun by barbarians."

He shrugged, "It did. The things I'm talking about were before that."

"So what do you think we should do?" I asked.

"Same thing we did at Gamukan. We refugees armed ourselves with whatever we could find and one night we dragged them out of bed and told them that from now on, we were going to get equal treatment or they were going to get a beating. Everything went smoothly after that."

"Are you suggesting we do that here?"

"It might be needed, but I don't think we have enough refugees here. Then again, you are a soldier. With your help, maybe..."

"No. I have no reason to do that. At least, not yet. Let's see how things go," I told him.

So we did. The very next day another refugee was brought to us by Tresh warriors. It was Stevanuk.

I was not sure whether to be happy or angry when I saw Stevanuk at Yostan. He looked like he was desperate and terrified of the Tresh warriors. When they left, he calmed down a little. He seemed very glad to see me and said so. When Altook's wife, Teelinat, offered him food, he ate it like a starving man.

Yet the very next day, he was back to his old self regardless of what he had been through in the meantime. Unlike the others who were skeptical or hostile toward Altook's pretensions, Stevanuk listened respectfully as Altook again talked of being Naltor of Yostan. Instead of challenging this in any way, Stevanuk seemed to get a gleam in his eye and a tone of excitement in his voice.

"You could really build something here with all the refugees coming this way," Stevanuk said, "I passed at least two dozen that were heading this way already."

Altook seemed surprised, "Two dozen?"

"Maybe more. There's probably hundreds, maybe thousands. They don't know you're here, but maybe if we went out and told them, we could collect more people. Save them from the Ralban, I mean, but bring them here and make them citizens of Yostan."

"Yes," Altook said, leaning back in his chair by the fireplace, stroking his scraggly beard."

"We could do what we were doing at Crooked Creek. Draft all the able-bodied men among the refugees and form them into a regiment."

"A regiment? I doubt we'd have enough..." Altook started to object.

"Yes, a regiment. We'll call it the 'Kantora Yostan Ikesh' (1st Yostan Regiment) and we can arm them with primitive spears and clubs like we were doing at Crooked Creek."

I was amazed, rather than discouraging Altook, Stevanuk was taking it much further than Altook himself had.

"In fact, Prince Altook, I would be honored to serve as the commander of the first regiment. I would not presume to any higher post, but I see that you have no higher officers so I am also available to serve as Gurikan Falan (Captain General) of the entire Yostan Army.

Altook nodded, "Yes, you are right. I want you to command my army."

Stevanuk smiled, stood up and bowed to Altook.

"How soon can you start?" Altook asked.

"Right away. My first act will be to appoint a second in command. Ganigan," he said, looking at me, "will you take the post?"

"Let me think about it," I said, trying not to show how outraged I was at Stevanuk's behavior.

The next day I asked Stevanuk what he was doing and pointed out that Altook's talk of independence for Yostan was treason against the Empire.

"I know that," Stevanuk said, as if it were not important, "the thing is, I think this really is the last village left and he's obviously the boss here. But did you listen to what he said? He said they don't pay the tariff when they trade with people in Falalanlish Province."

"So what?" I retorted.

"So, how can they trade with anyone in Falanalish Province? It's across the Biting Fish River."

"I don't know," I said.

"Either the people from there come here or the people from here go there, but somebody has got to have a boat. I'm not serious about this Yostan Army crap. I just want to get Altook to trust me so I can find out how to get out of here. If there's any way across that river then I'm going to find it and get out of here. Are you with me?"

"Oh yes," I said, "for that I'm with you."

Stevanuk and I organized the "Yostan Army". It consisted of the two of us, plus Sharnyva and Sarman. We tried to get Yokh to join, but he wouldn't. Altook called Stevanuk a Gurikan Falan (Captain General) and Stevanuk called Altook a Naltor (Prince) and it was all quite fanciful and absurd, especially considering the tiny size of the settlement of Yostan. But Stevanuk was right. Altook had a boat. Stevanuk managed to get this information by suggesting that we also have a navy and that I be put in charge of it.

The day after that, Altook appointed me commander of the Yostan Navy and showed me where the boat was hidden. That night, Stevanuk and I crept out of Altook's house and went to the place near the Biting Fish River where the boat was hidden. We removed the branches that Altook had placed over it and hauled it to the water.

As we were doing this, I said, "You know, I feel like we're just stealing his boat. It feels wrong."

"He's a traitor to the Empire, you said it yourself," Stevanuk said, "Anyway, you should have mentioned this earlier."

"If we take the boat, nobody at Yostan will have any way to escape," I said.

"Altook isn't letting them use the boat to escape anyway. He didn't tell any of them he even had a boat. Look at it this way, are you a soldier in the Imperial Army?"

"Yes," I said.

"Isn't Altook a separatist rebel who it is our duty to oppose?"

"Yes," I said, but it sounded strange for Stevanuk to be talking like this when he had been Yostan's most ardent patriot for the past two days.

"And isn't this boat a vessel of the separatist Yostan Navy?"

"Yes, but..."

"We're Imperial Army troops capturing an enemy naval vessel. We should be given an award for it. It's not stealing."

"I'm not going to argue with you," I said, "You always have an answer for everything."

"Right. Get in the boat and I'll push us off," Stevanuk said.

I did so and Stevanuk pushed us off from the riverbank with a paddle. Then we both began trying to paddle the boat, but neither of us had much experience at boating so the boat mostly just drifted with the current.

I looked at the dark water suspiciously, "Are there river monsters around here?"

"Who knows?" Stevanuk said, "There probably are. Biting fish, too. You know what that means, don't you?"

"No. What?"

"It means you should stay in the boat until we get to the other side," Stevanuk said sarcastically.

Shortly after that, we bumped into something solid under the water and I was terrified that it was a river monster. I felt around with my paddle and there was nothing there. Whatever it was seemed to have moved away.

"Can river monsters overturn boats?" I asked.

"Shut up and paddle for the north shore," Stevanuk said.

We did and to my relief, we made it. Both of us got out of the boat and away from the river as quickly as we could. Then we started walking. We were now in Falanalish Province. Once we were away from the river, we stopped and rested until daylight. Then we walked further and soon found a group of farms. There was no sign of barbarian invasion here. This place was as peaceful as could be. We were able to buy some food from the local farmers. Stevanuk paid for it with the money he had won frog racing.

We continued our journey all the way to Fervanan, the provincial capital. We went to my father's house there and were able to stay with him for a while. When my father heard our tale, he scolded me for having run off to join the army in the first place. Then he urged me to come work with him as a scribe. I gave in. Unlike most people, I do know how to read and write. My father taught me this so that I would always have a way to earn a living. I felt some duty to go back to Kast Vyloresh and continue my service in the army. My father said ordinarily this would be my duty, but that this was impossible. The last remaining troops of the Kast Vyloresh garrison are beseiged by barbarians in the fortress and nothing less than an army can break the seige. From what I had seen and what he told me, it seemed that Kast Vyloresh Province doesn't even exist anymore, not really.

After the army retreated to the great fortress of Kast Vyloresh, the provincial capital was left at the mercy of the barbarians. As the barbarian hordes approached, every boat and ship available was crowded with refugees fleeing to Falanalish Province across the river. The barbarians arrived before the boats could finish their work and the screams of those left behind could be heard all the way across the river here in Fervanan which by then was crowded with thousands of refugees.

According to the last refugees to get out, the last large group of imperial soldiers is trapped in the fortress along with Halimuk, the governor of the province, Captain General Ildanyva, most of the surviving military officers, government officials and soldiers and a crowd of civilian refugees. That was months ago. We have no idea if they are still holding out or not. Ulor Quagganuk, the governor of Falanalish Province, sent a military expedition to try to get to the fortress. They were attacked by so many Ralban warriors that they had to turn back without ever reaching the fortress.

Around that same time, Stevanuk had befriended a group of refugees. They were bitter and angry men who had lost their wives and children in the barbarian invasion. They wanted revenge above all else and were heedless of the risk. They reminded me of Sharnyva back in Yostan. Stevanuk told them about Yostan. He said he knew a place where they could cross the river and find a safe haven from which to attack the barbarians. He would take them there, for a price of course. I don't know if he actually went back there with them. If he did, they should not trust him. He might just leave them there. Stevanuk will never change. He is a weasel.

If he does go, I would like to ask him what is going on at Yostan. Is it really the last village south of the river? Has Altook really made his settlement into some kind of little principality?

It all depends on the refugees. Will they agree to be part of an independent Yostan under Altook's leadership? Will they help build it from nothing into greatness? If this appeals to them, will they accept Altook as the leader or will some new leader emerge from the refugees and take over? Perhaps the refugees will remain loyal to the empire and dash Altook's daydream. Perhaps they will hold on tenaciously to Yostan as the Empire's last outpost in the province and make it the center of resettlement and the province's new capital. Perhaps some ragged refugee will become the province's next governor by this method. Or perhaps the relationship with the Tresh will be mishandled and the defenses of Yostan will be too weak and the Ralban barbarians will come and destroy Yostan as they have destroyed the rest of the province. Perhaps the Ralban and others like them will destroy the Empire and civilization itself while the Empire's leaders and soldiers fight among themselves for control of a falling Empire. I do not know. I can only wonder and wait for news.

I have decided that my army days are over. At my father's suggestion, I have begun work in the provincial treasury, recording tax receipts. It is boring, but after what I have been through, boring seems good. Then it occurred to me to use my writing skills to tell the story of what happened to me and to the province of Kast Vyloresh in the barbarian invasion. So I have written this scroll to tell my story.

The end.

The Scroll of Nemt

2007-02-10T03:20:00.000-08:00

The Scroll of Nemt
Mission to Kopixer

by Ekanor Arno
of the 3rd Kantora Zekresh

I am Ekanor Arno, an officer in the Imperial Army assigned to the 3rd Kantora Zekresh. I was witness to many of the events described in this scroll, but this is not my story. It is the story of my commander, Gurikan Nemt.

Nemt is the scion of a very old family that has lived in Zekran since the beginning of the empire and has lived in the area longer than that since they trace their roots to the native Shell People who are indigenous to the area where the Imperial Capital City of Zekran now stands. Shell People are considered fully Zekresh since the Zekresh are simply the people of Zekran and Zekran's original inhabitants were a mix of Frayeth, Shell People, Cliff People and Seagull People. Of these, only the Shell People are indigenous to the site of the city. All the others came across the Gateway Waters from the South.

As is the custom of his own people and nearly everyone else in the Empire, Nemt has no last name. Nor do I.

Nemt has made his career in the Imperial Army. He began as an officer because his father purchased an officer's commission for him. (They are routinely bought, sold and traded and only rarely based on merit.) Not just any commission, but command of the prestigious 3rd Kantora Zekresh (3rd Phalanx from Zekran). This commission carries the rank of "gurikan" (captain).

For those of you who are not soldiers, these are the ranks of the Zekresh Imperial Army:

kantor = spearman
ekanor = assistant (lieutenant)
gurikan = leader (captain)
ekanor falan = high assistant (lieutenant general)
gurikan falan = high leader (captain general)
gurikan falanorata = leader above all (field marshal)

Ranks in the Imperial Navy are almost the same:

tamlish = seaman
ekanor = assistant (lieutenant)
gurikan = leader (captain)
ekanor falan = high assistant (vice admiral)
gurikan falan = high leader (admiral)
gurikan falanorata = leader above all (grand admiral)

Because he was stationed in the capital city, came from a prominent family and carried out his duties competently, Nemt caught the attention of Field Marshal Krulmuk, the commander of the Imperial Army. Krulmuk is also a member of the Stavuk Vyloresh (Imperial Council.)

Nemt's family is so well connected socially that they are routinely invited to the Emperor's parties. The Emperor is very fond of parties and drink. Nemt was attending one of these parties and happened to be sitting near the Emperor when the festivities were interrupted by one of the Emperor's advisors coming in to tell the Emperor, "Your majesty, riots have broken out in Salan Kopixer because of the famine there."

The Emperor looked annoyed rather than concerned and said dismissively, "Don't we have someone to take care of that?"

The advisor said, "You mean the Ulor. He has resigned."

"Well..." the Emperor began, but then seemed at a loss, "can't we get someone to replace him?"

Nemt immediately volunteered, "I'll do it!"

The Emperor blinked and looked over at him as if to rebuke him for interrupting. Just then, Field Marshall Krulmuk leaned over and said quietly to the Emperor, "He's a good man, your majesty. He would make a fine governor."

The Emperor's expression changed. He smiled and said, "So be it. Congratulations young... what's your name?"

Upon being told, the Emperor said, "Congratulations Ulor Nemt. Now, let's have more wine and less talk of provinces and such."

Krulmuk winked at Nemt and later told him it was a shrewd move to volunteer for that position, but that it would be difficult. Krulmuk said it would be almost impossible to just go there and take over. The situation out in Kopixer was dire. Krulmuk promised, and later arranged, for Nemt to take the 3rd Kantora Zekresh with him in a convoy of navy ships along with two shiploads of grain. Krulmuk told him that there were three phalanxes of imperial troops in Kopixer whom he could take command of, but it would be best to bring the 3rd Kantora Zekresh just to have at least one reliable unit. There was no telling what shape the provincial garrison phalanxes would be in.

Nemt was already supervising the loading of his troops into the ships when he received this message from the Lord Chancellor notifying him that his appointment had been made official:

Greetings Nemt,

You have been appointed Ulor of Salan Kopixer (Kopixer Province).

The effective date of your appointment is Oron 1, Salga 5, Adonsik 40 Vylor Cledman VI. (Day 1, Month 5, Year 40 of the reign of Emperor Cledman VI)

Kopixer province is relatively new. It was conquered in the 9th year of the reign of Emperor Cledman II which was 173 years ago.

It is province number 52 on the standard province map. (The Lord Chancellor's letter had a map with it. A link to the map is below. It was this map:
http://photos1.blogger.com/x/blogger2/6312/324847301494804/1600/488147/ZekreshEmpire04.gif
)

Kopixer is bordered on the West by the Shasa Liss (Snake River). It is bordered on the North by Sligifter Province, on the East by Frangees Province, on the Southeast by Blib Showatan Province and on the South and Southwest by unsettled barbarian lands beyond the frontier of the Empire. The boundaries are shown on the map by a light blue line on the West representing the river and by black lines on all other sides. The red dot or square marks the provincial capital, Arinixervolt, which is located on the East bank of the Shasa Liss (Snake River). The Province is about 775 Talong (about 400 km) wide from East to West and about 1175 Talong (about 600 km) wide from North to South. There has been no census taken, but the population is probably nearly 100,000 people, most of them from the Kopixer tribe after whom the province is named. There are also a considerable number of Sligifterians and Frangees. There are very few Zekresh people in the province.

In the language of the Kopixer people, kopix means poison. Kopixer means "poisoner" which is their term for scorpion. Large scorpions are commonly found in the province and they are the totem animal of the Kopixer Tribe. "Arinix" means trade and "volt" means town. Arinixervolt means Trader Town.

The province is arid, tending towards desert in the south, but the lands along the Shasa Liss are arable and under cultivation.

May fortune smile upon your endeavors. Long live the Emperor!

Rubanya Cledman,
Lord Chancellor of the Empire

The Imperial Navy provided 18 galley ships (propelled by both oars and sails) for the journey. 16 of these carried the men of the 3rd Kantora Zekresh while two more carried grain to provide famine relief and to replace seed grain reportedly stolen by the rioters. There were 800 men of the 3rd Kantora Zekresh. A kantora is supposed to be 1,000 men, but only two kantoro (kantoro is plural of kantora in the Zekresh language) are actually at full strength. These two are the Kantora Solurenesh and the Kantora Ramoro. The Kantora Solurenesh (the "Golden Phalanx") was the Emperor's bodyguards. The Kantora Ramoro (the "Lions Phalanx"), also known as the 1st Kantoro Zekresh, is Field Marshall Krulmuk's own phalanx which he has turned into an elite unit.

All the other phalanxes in the army are under strength. Often the phalanx commanders report higher numbers of men than are actually in the unit so that the Empire will allocate money to pay men who don't exist. The phalanx commanders then pocket the extra money.

The men of the 3rd Kantora Zekresh are armed with swords and spears and equipped with shields, helmets, breastplates and chain mail tunics, all made of iron.

The newly appointed Ulor of Kopixer was assigned a translator and advisor named Danask who was in Zekran, but is originally from Kopixer Province. He is a member of the Kopixer tribe and can speak their language fluently.

The ships provided by the navy were not in the best shape. The ropes were frayed, the sails were moldy and they stank and leaked seawater.

A ship had reached the city of Zekran just before the convoy was to depart. The ship brought a report that rioting in Kopixer had turned to outright rebellion.

Shortly after hearing this, Ulor Nemt and his men were ready to set off on a journey of over 6,000 Talong to the port of Osim in Zamarula Province from which they planned to march to Kopixer.

The Ulor's advisor, Danask, turned to Ulor Nemt just before the convoy was to head out into the Gateway Waters and set a course for the Western Sea. Danask asks, "Is there anything else we should do to prepare or should we head out now?"

Nemt confidently replied, "I see no reason to waste time with so much work to be done. Cast off the mooring lines and set course for the Port of Osim."

Danask and I went to the sailors to convey to them Nemt's orders for the ships to cast off and set course for the distant Port of Osim on the other side of the Western Sea.

The sailors informed us that only the troops were under Nemt's direct command. They said the ships and sailors were under the command of Ekanor Falan (Vice Admiral) Otunuk. Upon hearing that Nemt and the troops are ready to depart, Admiral Otunuk invited Captain Nemt to join him aboard his flagship and then gave the order for the ships to set sail.

The two ships carrying grain were small galleys (galleys have a single square-rig sail and a row of oars along each side). Fifteen of the ships carrying the troops were large galleys. The flagship was the largest of all. It was a bireme, a galley that has two decks of oars and therefore is much faster in battle.

The flotilla of 18 ships carrying grain and the 800 soldiers of the 3rd Kantora Zekresh cast off the mooring lines and floated out into the Gateway Waters, heading West, towards the slowly sinking afternoon sun.

Vice Admiral Otunuk was friendly and seemed competent. He also had aboard his flagship fine wine and a number of delicacies which he was quick to share with Captain Nemt.

Nemt was polite, but thought it necessary to subtly remind the Vice Admiral that he was Ulor Nemt, not just Gurikan Nemt. While it was true that an Ekanor Falan (Vice Admiral/Lieutenant General) does outrank a Gurikan (Captain) even if one is in the Navy and the other is in the Army, no military officer outranks an Ulor. An Ulor is not generally empowered to give orders to the military, but can command the garrison force in his own province during an emergency. More importantly, there are no circumstances under which any military officer is empowered to give orders to an Ulor. Nemt did not mention all this. He didn't have to. He just corrected one of the naval officers who called him "Gurikan Nemt" and said he preferred to be called "Ulor Nemt" now. The Vice Admiral seemed to take the hint and began calling him Ulor Nemt after that.

The first day of the voyage seemed to be going well. So did the second and third days. By the fourth day Nemt noticed that they were still in the Gateway Waters, but was told by the sailors that this was normal. On the eigth day they finally caught sight of Lisal Koppa (Clam Island). Passing that island would mean they were finally out of the Gateway Waters. It took nearly a day to pass the island. Nine days had passed, a full velasik. (In the Zekresh calendar a week has nine days and is called a velasik. It is based on the cycle of the velaska, the "traveling star".)

At this rate it would take a long time to get to the Port of Osim. Ulor Nemt had been aware that the journey was more than 6,000 Talong, but it was taking longer than he expected. Furthermore, Vice Admiral Otunuk insisted on having the ships remain within sight of land rather than going the shorter route through the open sea. This added distance to the trip, making it easily more than 10,000 Talong.

The ships also had to stop for food and water four times as the flotilla crept along the coast. But this did give Ulor Nemt a chance to see a large part of the empire at first hand. It also emphasized to him just how large the empire really was. Just beyond Clam Island, they came to ancient Ilania and made their first stop at Nysarinda, the provincial capital of Ilania. Nysarinda stands on the North bank of the Warna River where it meets the Western Sea. The old city is surrounded by an ancient defensive wall, but the city has long since grown beyond the wall. Ilania was once an independent principality more than a thousand years before the Zekresh Empire was founded. Ilania existed centuries before the Frayeth Empire began. The Frayeth Empire had preceded the Zekresh Empire, though the Frayeth Empire was much smaller.

The ships sailed onward, coming to the coast of Ravelonia, another ancient land that had once been an independent principality millennia ago and was said to be the home of the gods. Beyond that, they came to Varlan Province and stopped over at Bakoy Varl (Port Varl), the capital.

Bakoy Varl was a backwater of the Empire, a small, economically depressed town. After taking on food and water at Bakoy Varl, the flotilla moved on to Nyarlan Province, the land of the Dog People. It was so named because it had once been the realm of a fierce tribe of wildmen for whom the dog was their symbol and totem animal. Beyond Varlan and Nyarlan was Barylan Province, a vast underdeveloped territory where forest gave way to open plains. The next province was Ovam (Savannah) Province and beyond that Ovam Vyex (Far Savannah) Province which lived up to their names by being nothing but open savannah country as far as the eye could see. There was virtually no farming in evidence. These provinces were inhabited primarily by nomadic tribes, ruled over by garrisons of Imperial troops and a small coterie of Zekresh officials. After a stop at Bakoy Halmuk, capital of Ovam Vyex Province, the flotilla moved on to the still more desolate country of Vindaroyan Province, named after the nomads who were virtually the only inhabitants of this flat, treeless wasteland. By now the weeks at sea had begun to wear on the men. Morale was low and there was grumbling in the ranks.

Then they came to Upinthen, the province named for the Rabbit People. In the East, Upinthen was open savannah like a thousand Talong of coastline before it, but in the West, it had some settled farming villages and scattered clumps of trees. The next province was Frangees Province where the flotilla stopped yet again for food and water at Serat Frangees (Frangees City). Frangees Province was even more arid and desolate than the savannah provinces and Serat Frangees was barely more than a small town despite being named a "serat", the Zekresh word for city. It was during the stop at Serat Frangees on the 1st day of the 6th month after 31 days at sea, that the sailors discovered that both shiploads of grain being carried by the fleet had become moldy and inedible after all these weeks in the holds of leaky ships. It is possible that some of the grain could have been used as seed grain if it were planted soon, but none of it was edible any longer and therefore could not be used as famine relief supplies.

Vice Admiral Otunuk asked Nemt whether the fleet should turn back to get more grain. He said there might be some available at Osim which he estimated could be reached by only seven more days of sailing.

At Serat Frangees, there were refugees from Kopixer Province. The news that the food riots had turned to outright rebellion was nearly a month old by the time it reached Zekran. With most of another month passed since then, the situation in Kopixer had deteriorated greatly. Refugees reported that the garrison troops had suffered huge desertions and that one phalanx, the 2nd Kantora Kopixer, had lost all discipline and joined in the rioting, then gone on a rampage pillaging farms and villages all up and down the Shasa Liss (Snake River).

Nemt's advisor, Danask, said he saw several options and asked Nemt which of them seemed best:

(A) The news that the food riots in Kopixer had turned to rebellion must have been nearly a month old when the reports arrived by sea at Zekran. If the flotilla presses on, it will have been approximately two months from the time that the rebellion actually broke out until you can get there with your troops. Press on no matter what before Kopixer province ceases to be a part of the Empire.

(B) Turn back, return to Zekran. Each province seems more desolate than the last (well, almost). Maybe being an Ulor is too difficult.

(C) Dump the moldy grain in the sea and turn back, but stop at every port along the way and buy or confiscate grain until the ships are full again and then reverse course and head for Osim as originally planned.

(D) Press on to Osim and try to obtain more grain there. If more grain can be found there to replace what was lost, proceed to Kopixer, otherwise give up and head back towards Zekran trying to find more grain along the way as in option (C).

(E) Do something else.

Danask suggested option (D) Press on to Osim and try to obtain more grain there. If more grain can be found there to replace what was lost, proceed to Kopixer, otherwise give up and head back towards Zekran trying to find more grain along the way.

Nemt was not willing to turn back. He chose to do something else. I was standing on the deck of the ship beside Danask when Nemt told us, "We will continue to Osim and attempt to restock the grain in the port. If this is not possible, however, we will continue to Kopixer without the food relief. I cannot allow the province to become further loosened from the grip of the empire before we arrive, and find it especially troubling my forces may need to engage and subdue other imperial ranks. Before leaving Frangees, I shall offer to transport a few refugees, pending their understanding of Zekresh, as their return may signal a sign of faith to others and calm the situation without excess military operations."

Ulor Nemt then went ashore at Serat Frangees with an escort of eighty armed guards from the phalanx. He spoke to the refugees from Kopixer and offered safety and transportation to any who wished to return, if they knew how to speak Zekresh.

Twenty two refugees volunteered to return with the troops and immediately asked for food. Since the expedition had plenty of food for its own needs and 22 more is of little consequence, they were fed.

The refugees boarded the ships and the fleet sailed on. Seven days later, on Oron 8, Salgan 6, the fleet arrived at the port of Osim, capital of Zamarula Province. Grain was in short supply there as well. The famine was affecting the entire region.

Ulor Argif of Zamarula donated a small amount of grain for famine relief in Kopixer. Ekanor Falan (Vice Admiral) Otunuk was able to obtain more from the huge navy base at Osim. There was also an army administrative headquarters in an old fortress under the command of Gurikan Falan (Captain General) Guvalnuk. There were plenty of soldiers in evidence at the fortress, at least a thousand, and a Captain General of the Imperial Army was sitting around drinking wine while all Hell was breaking loose in the next province. In fact, crowds of starving refugees from Kopixer were gathered outside the gates of the fortress begging for food and yet inside the fortress all seemed to be business as usual.

Ulor Nemt managed to remain somewhat polite as he inquired of Captain General Guvalnuk why he was not doing something about it. Captain General Guvalnuk immediately took offense and said that if his troops moved from Osim that Zamarula Province was likely to rise in revolt as well. Also, he claimed it was not his responsibility, that he was only an administrative officer and that operational command of provincial garrisons lies with the provincial commander. He insisted that the chain of command from the provincial commander bypasses the regional headquarters and goes straight to Field Marshal Krulmuk in Zekran. He smiled and said this is because the Emperor doesn't trust the regional commanders not to raise an army and try to take over the Empire. Provincial commanders have too few troops to be a threat.

Nemt's own experience in the Army, and mine, did not include any regional headquarters because we were stationed in Zekran which not part of the regional headquarters system. In Zekran, there wasn't even a provincial commander. Field Marshal Krulmuk was in direct command of the local troops.

Ulor Nemt learned from Captain General Guvalnuk that the provincial commander in Kopixer was Ekanor Falan (Lieutenant General) Krevimuk who had been out of contact with Guvalnuk for seven weeks now. There were rumors that Krevimuk was dead and his troops had all deserted or joined the rebels, but Guvalnuk assured Ulor Nemt that this was unlikely and advised him to disregard irresponsible rumors.

Ulor Nemt took what grain was available and set off with his troops for Kopixer. Kopixer has no coast and is about a thousand talong inland from Osim. Fortunately, the Shasa Liss (Snake River) is navigable and flows along the Northwest border of Kopixer Province and forms the Eastern border of Zamarula Province, then flows into the Western Sea at Osim. This makes it possible for ships (especially those such as the galleys under the command of Vice Admiral Otunuk that aren't dependent upon sails) to travel up and down the river. Otunuk offered to take Ulor Nemt, his troops, the grain, and the refugees as far upriver as Arinixervolt, the provincial capital of Kopixer. That's as far as seagoing ships can go upriver.

The flotilla moved up the river slowly as the sailors rowed against the current with sails furled. Vice Admiral Otunuk explained that with the twists and turns in the river, the trip would be about 1,200 talong and going against the current would take about 20 days. Going back downriver with the current would take less than a week. The only other option was to go by land which would not be any faster and would be far more arduous.

Ulor Nemt noticed that some of his troops were under the impression that they would be through with living in cramped quarters aboard ship when they reached Osim. There was still more grumbling when they learned that they faced twenty more days on the ships. I reminded the men that the alternative would be to march 1,200 talong and the men quieted down. They did not appear to be on the verge of mutiny. Their discipline was still strong. They were just complaining as soldiers are prone to do.

As the ships moved upriver, I saw a steady stream of refugees going the other way. Ulor Nemt encouraged some of them to go back and gave a few a ride on the ships. Some of the refugees seemed glad to see the troops. Others seemed beyond hope. They were just skin and bones, trudging along the dusty road towards Osim with no possessions except the ragged clothes on their backs. Some were clutching crying children or a few possessions. Imprecations to them to return to Kopixer were met with wide, staring eyes and defeatist comments. Danask translated what they say because hardly any of them spoke Zekresh.

One refugee said, "It is too late. We will all die. If you had come two months ago, this could have been stopped. Even a few weeks ago, all was not yet lost. Now, it is too late for us."

On Oron 20, Salgan 6, the twelfth day going up the Shasa Liss, soldiers could be seen on the shore. They were Imperial troops of the 1st Kantora Zamarula. They were guarding villages from the refugees. Dozens of corpses were being dumped in the river. The troops had no compunctions about killing Kopixer refugees who caused trouble.

Further upriver, still in Zamarula Province, the villages along the river had been burnt to the ground and looted. Armed bandits fled on horseback at the approach of the ships. Kopixer refugees and Zamarula farmers alike had been victimized by the bandits and then fought with each other for what the bandits didn't loot. No one aboard the ship spoke the language the Zamarula people speak, but Danask could talk to the Kopixers. They said the bandits were coming from Kopixer. There was no point in pursuing them on foot since the bandits were on horseback.

The ships moved further upriver. By the end of the second velasik (9 day week), Danask and Otunuk were fairly sure the ships had passed into Kopixer Province. There, the villages were burnt down long ago. Farm land was not being tended. Everything seemed to have reverted to barbarism. Even the land was returning to wilderness. Weeds were already growing in the fields and amidst the ruins of the farmhouses.

Those of us on the ships told the few people we saw that the Imperial Army had arrived to restore order and that we were bringing grain for famine relief. A few weary refugees turned up to claim some grain when the ships stopped, but after pounding it into a foul mush and eating it cold, they staggered downriver, heading for Zamarula to join the other refugees there.

On Oron 28, Salgan 6, the twentieth day on the river, the ships arrived at Arinixervolt, the provincial capital. It is a small town ringed by a defensive wall with an Imperial Army fort overlooking the town from a hill within the wall. In the first sign of hope, crowds of cheering, desperate people poured out of the town and ran to meet the ships. Imperial soldiers also came out of the town. They were looking ragged, ill-fed and ill-disciplined, but they were not mutinous nor in complete disorder. They were members of the 1st Kantora Kopixer. Ulor Nemt was glad to learn that they were still holding the capital together with the remnants of the 3rd Kantora Kopixer and they were still under the command of the provincial commander, Ekanor Falan (Lieutenant General) Krevimuk who was there at the fort at Arinixervolt.

The soldiers from the local garrison informed Ulor Nemt that the city was effectively besieged by rebels and bandits who were attacking anyone who went very far beyond the city walls. They urged Ulor Nemt to go to the fort and meet with Ekanor Falan Krevimuk.

Ulor Nemt quickly set about the work of saving the town of Arinixervolt from famine, chaos and rebellion. First, he split the Kantora into two parts, one under the command of Ekanor Garon which he sent to the city, and the other under the command of myself which was entrusted with guarding the ships. Ulor Nemt told us not to assume the local garrison was on our side so we were on the lookout for treachery and ready for a fight.

Ulor Nemt then gave a speech to the crowd of people who had come out to the ships to meet us. He made them listen to the speech before he gave them any food.

Of course, I don't remember his speech word for word, but the key points were these:

-While I would like the famine to be over, my priority is to restore
order and security, not to feed everyone, regardless of how complementary
these goals may appear.

-Imperial power holds mandate over all regions of the empire, including
kopixer, regardless of proximity to the central power structure.

-I act personally as a direct extension of the emperor, and am above
reproach for the time being.

-Any form of insurrection will be punished severely.

-Kopixer province will endure.

He ordered us to distribute a little bit of relief grain, while Ekanor Garon's men offloaded the rest quickly, and stored it somewhere in the city under heavy armed guard. Meanwhile, Nemt attempted to find out what was going on before distributing any more. This prevented the people from rioting or starving, but didn't deplete our supplies much.

The populace listened to the speech with sullen expressions and a bit of grumbling. When some food was handed out, they went wild, but when they realized we were only giving out a little, they became very alarmed. Mobs of people followed Ekanor Garon's soldiers who carried the food into the city. Some of the soldiers had located a warehouse near the market place that had already been emptied by looters. Ekanor Garon ordered his men to take it over and store the grain there with a hundred soldiers guarding it.

A crowd lingered around the warehouse and began to grow larger. The people were begging ever more urgently for food.

Meanwhile, Ekanor Falan (Lieutenant General) Krevimuk came to meet the new Ulor. He hastily informed Ulor Nemt of the situation. Here's what he said:

He was down to 421 soldiers in the 1st Kantora Kopixer and only 16 men from the 3rd Kantora Kopixer. There were none from the 2nd Kantora Kopixer. The unit mutinied over a month ago. Many of the troops were now with the rebels.

It was not clear whether the rebels had any political goals or not. They had spoken vaguely of the Kopixer peoples becoming independent of the Empire, but they had done nothing to set up an independent government. Their actual focus was on pillaging food from any place they could get it. When there was none to be looted, they hunted in the wild lands like so many other people had been doing because of the famine.

Krevimuk said that if large amounts of food could be brought into the province quickly, that would solve most of the problems. The famine would end. Political unrest driven by desperation would abate and if Imperial forces had plenty of food while the rebels were still starving, the rebellion would end quickly.

Krevimuk said he thought the rebels might even surrender en masse for just the promise that they would be fed while being held prisoner. He said he would have made such a promise himself even though it would have been a lie, but it would have been too obvious a lie to be convincing. Now that ships full of grain had arrived, the rebels might believe it. Or at least some of them.

Krevimuk was horrified to learn how little grain the ships had actually brought. "That won't even feed Arinixervolt for a week, much less the rest of the province! What's worse, many farmers haven't been able to plant anything. That's partly because seed grain has been looted from so many of them. It's probably already too late to plant this year. This virtually guarantees that the famine won't end when harvest time comes. Without a lot more famine relief than the Empire is ever likely to send, tens of thousands more people in the province are going to starve to death. There may be nothing we can do for them at this point. But if the chaos and rebellion continues to interfere with farming, the whole province could become almost entirely depopulated. Already some significant percentage of the population has fled to other provinces or beyond the borders of the Empire."

Krevimuk suggested sending the ships back immediately for more grain wherever they could get it. He suggested using the grain we brought to feed the troops. If more grain could be brought fast enough, he suggested it should be given out for use as seed grain only. If it arrived too late or if there was enough, then people should be fed, with first priority going to farmers who were still working on their farms. The vast majority (over 95%) of the population were farmers, but the few who were not were concentrated in the provincial capital and other towns. Krevimuk said the craftsmen and such from the town would be first in line for relief supplies, but were less important for stopping the famine. Krevimuk seemed to hold craftsmen, "money grubbing merchants" and other townspeople in low esteem. He says the townspeople had some hope of making a living somewhere else for a while. The farmers were nothing without their farms. Krevimuk suggested offering to transport townspeople to Osim if they wanted to go.

Krevimuk also advised launching an attack on the rebels as soon as the troops could be fed. He suggested using all our troops and all his own in an combined attack on the rebels lurking just outside the city.

The Ulor's advisor, Danask, suggested accepting Krevimuk's plan.

Nemt agreed and took Krevimuk's advice. He gave orders to feed the troops, send the
ships for more grain and ship townspeople to Osim if they wanted to go.

In addition, Nemt thanked Krevimuk for his counsel, and reaffirmed his belief
that Krevimuk had done all that he could to prevent rebellion in the province and that Nemt did
not blame him for the woes of the area, even if others do. Nemt also asked Krevimuk his opinion of
conscripting some locals, despite their potentially weak physical condition and lack of training, to aid with fighting rebels until more food relief arrived.

Krevimuk said, "Conscription of local people will not be necessary. Promise to provide food to anyone who joins the army and you will have all the volunteers you need. We do not have weapons for them, but most of the townspeople have armed themselves already because of the chaos and the danger of being robbed of food. They don't have military weapons, but you can get armed volunteers just by feeding them. Give them enough food that they can bring some home to their families and you will win their loyalty. At least, for the duration of the famine."

Nemt agreed to proceed to raise an army of half-starved volunteers with ad hoc weapons.

In the meantime, many people did volunteer to go to Osim and the fleet left to take them there and bring back more food.

Ulor Nemt and Ekanor Falan Krevimuk were in agreement. An attack should be launched against the rebels by all available forces as soon as the troops were fed. Unfortunately, due to delays and logistical problems, it was nearly dark by the time all of the Kopixer garrison forces were fed. The attack was postponed until the following morning.

Before dawn on Oron 29, Salgan 6, the day after Ulor Nemt and the 3rd Kantora Zekresh arrived in Arinixervolt, over 1,200 Imperial soldiers assembled in Arinixervolt. The order of battle was as follows:

3rd Kantora Zekresh 800 men
1st Kantora Kopixer 421 men
3rd Kantora Kopixer 16 men

The troops marched out of the city gate in good order just as dawn was breaking in the East. They headed Northeast seeking an enemy base camp reported by Krevimuk's spies. Ulor Nemt and Ekanor Falan Krevimuk, both on horseback, led the troops.

Twelve Talong Northeast of the city, the Imperial forces came upon the base. Krevimuk had thought it impossible to surprise the enemy since rebel spies were believed to be watching Arinixervolt day and night and ambushing all traffic coming in or out. Yet this day, the Imperial forces were able to march up to the rebel camp while some of the rebels were still asleep. When Imperial forces were about four Talong from the rebel camp, the rebels cried out the alarm and assembled their forces hastily. Their force appeared to be about 300 men, mostly a rabble of bandits, thieves and desperate men with a small number of deserters from the 2nd Kopixer Kantora amongst them.

With a nod from Ulor Nemt and a sharp command from Ekanor Falan Krevimuk, the Imperial forces advanced. The rebels stood their ground at first, but then began to waver as the Imperial forces lowered their spears and the rebels saw just how badly outnumbered they were. Rebels began to break ranks and run, first one at a time, then in small groups. Then the whole rebel line began to give way.

Gurikan Ondiluk, commanding the 1st Kantora Kopixer ordered his men to charge the enemy. As the 1st Kopixers charged, the other Imperial units were ordered to do the same.

Rebels tripped over each other trying to get away, but many of them could not escape because others ahead of them were retreating too slowly. The rebels were overtaken by the Imperials. After the first few rebels got spears in their backs, others turned and fought desperately. The shrieks of men being impaled on spears and cut open with swords were a bit of a shock to Ulor Nemt who despite his military career, had never seen actual combat before.

He was also alarmed to see the entire Imperial force thrown into disorder at the first sign of resistance from a fleeing enemy. Ulor Nemt found himself in the middle of an affray that resembled a riot more than a battle. Then Ulor Nemt's horse began kicking at Imperial troops who had accidentally stuck it with their spears. The troops panicked and backed off, but Nemt was thrown from the saddle by the panicked horse. He lost his grip on his sword in the process and it went flying. Nemt landed hard and was dazed and in pain. No one stopped to help him up.

In the confusion, the horse ran off and soldiers rushed past him, stepping on him and tripping over him until he struggled to his feet. He could no longer see what was happening, but someone shouted, "Look out! They're coming this way!" and the imperial soldiers began to run away in total disorder. Rebel bandits and 2nd Kopixer mutineers seemingly from nowhere ran forward and attacked Imperial troops. Nemt tried to make his way to a group of Imperial soldiers who, with raised shields and terrified expressions on their faces, were trying to mount some kind of defense as they retreated. Nemt could not reach them and found himself surrounded by enemies. A soldier rushed up beside him. Nemt thought the soldier was there to help him until the soldier grabbed his arm and said, "You're a prisoner now, officer". Nemt realized the man was a mutineer on the side of the rebels. Three other rebels nearby cheered at the sight of this. Nemt's armour was obviously that of an Imperial officer, but likely the enemy did not know they had actually captured the Ulor of the province.

Nemt wrestled his arm free, grabbed the mutineer's spear and tried to pull it from the man's hands, but to no avail. Some sort of weapon struck Nemt from behind inflicting great pain, but not much injury due to Nemt's armour. Nemt let go of the spear and ran, dodging enemy spearmen and then tripping over a wounded man. Nemt pulled a sword from the wounded man's hand, turned and saw eight rebels coming at him with spears and ran as fast as he could in the direction he had seen his own forces going. A bandit armed with a hatchet and using a makeshift wooden shield tried to block his way and Nemt struck at him viciously with the sword. The sword struck a glancing blow at the shield and the bandit backed off. Nemt fled until the men chasing him gave up. By then, he was no longer in the main battle. Seeing groups of Imperial soldiers fleeing, he raced to catch up with them and assume command again.

Nemt ordered the Imperials to halt and they did. He got about thirty of them to form a battle line and to move towards what seemed to be the main action, but they were obviously afraid and Nemt feared they would bolt if attacked in strength. Nonetheless, he was able to get them to advance. They came upon a dead rebel with his face cut wide open as if by a sword. Blood was everywhere. As they moved towards the only fighting they could still see, they came upon more men, some of them horribly wounded and begging for help. As far as Nemt could tell, all of them were enemy so he passed them by.

As they advanced towards what Nemt thought was the main battle, it turned out to be a minor skirmish involving no more than three dozen men on each side. The arrival of Nemt's small force set the rebels to fleeing. By now it seemed that most of the forces on both sides had fled, the Imperials fleeing mostly Southwest towards town and the rebels fleeing East and Northeast. Dozens of dead and wounded men were left on the battlefield, some limping away, but most of them lying on the ground in the blood and the dust, crying out in agony and clutching their wounds.

Nemt's men became anxious and urged him to let them go link up with the main Imperial force before the rebels counterattacked. At least two dozen rebels could be seen now on a hilltop to the East, possibly part of a larger force rallying for just such an attack.

Nemt took his small force Southwest and soon linked up with Gurikan Ondiluk, commanding the 1st Kantora Kopixer, or what was left of it. He had gone into the battle with over four hundred men, but now had only a hundred with him. Gurikan Ondiluk said he had seen troops from the 3rd Kantora Zekresh heading back to Arinixervolt with prisoners and was trying to decide whether to go that way himself.

Ulor Nemt asked where Krevimuk was and Gurikan Ondiluk did not know. Together Nemt and Ondiluk decided to lead their forces back to Arinixervolt.

Upon arriving, they found that Krevimuk was not there, but over three hundred imperial troops were there. Nemt and Ondiluk tried to get the troops organized again into units instead of just the panicked mob they had been. Krevimuk eventually returned with hundreds more troops saying he thought the battle had gone well. Still more soldiers straggled in throughout the day. The defenses of the city were organized against the possibility of a rebel attack, but as more and more troops returned, it became increasingly unlikely.

Nemt thought long and hard about what happened. First, he attempted to learn what the outcome of the battle had actually been. It was not clear at the time. Secondly, he tried to determine why his troops had so quickly been thrown into disorder.

Nemt asked the officers what they had seen and was dismayed at the completely contradictory accounts of the battle. Some said they saw hundreds of dead on the battlefield. Others said there were no more than half a dozen dead and a couple dozen wounded. Other estimates were in between. Some thought the rebels had been massacred. Others thought the Imperials had lost more men than the rebels.

Nemt ordered a count of his men the next day. In the first count, there were only seventeen men unaccounted for. They were later found elsewhere in the city. To the astonishment of both Nemt and Krevimuk, every single one of the 1,237 Imperial soldiers who went into the battle came back. None of them were even badly wounded. More than a few had bruises and minor cuts, but that was all. There was not a single real casualty on the Imperial side. Furthermore, the Imperials had brought back 38 prisoners.

Krevimuk took twenty men on horses and went back to the battlefield. He found over two dozen dead men dressed as Imperial soldiers and nearly a hundred dead rebels and bandits. Of those who could be identified, all the dead Imperials turned out to have been mutineers from the 2nd Kantora Kopixer who had fought on the rebel side.

On the third day after the battle, Krevimuk and Nemt compared their observations and concluded that they had in fact won a resounding victory. It had not felt like it at the time.

"If we could have kept the me in good order and pursued the enemy, we would have utterly crushed this rebellion right then and there," Nemt said.

Krevimuk said, "We may still have crushed the rebellion. Though our men were dismayed, the enemy must be even less eager for another fight like that one. I'll spread the word in the ranks that we killed over a hundred and lost not a single man. It will help bolster their confidence and fighting spirit."

By the fourth day, famers from the outlying areas were able to reach Arinixervolt unmolested by bandits. Krevimuk's spies reported that the rebel force had been scattered by the battle and was not known to be regrouping. Some were said to have fled across the Snake River to Zamarula Province, thinking the Imperial Army was chasing them.

Nemt said, to Krevimuk, "I don't know if I've told you, but that was my first battle. It seems that it was a complete victory. I really don't understand why it seemed like a defeat. We didn't lose a single man."

Krevimuk said, "I've been in five other battles. That one was actually the easiest for me. The fact that you were unhorsed and nearly captured may have affected your impression of the battle."

Nemt said, "It's not just that. Even before that, our troops were thrown into complete disorder as soon as they met the enemy. And the enemy was already retreating before the first blow was struck."

Krevimuk said, "Well my own men have had enough fighting and one good meal wasn't enough to overcome the privations of the famine. I had to threaten to flog them to get the troops to march into another battle. Your men were eager for the fight, but that's only because they'd never been in one before. Your men from Zekran were as inexperienced as new green leaves in springtime. They didn't know what they were in for."

Nemt objected, "They're one of the finer units in the capital. I'd call them an elite unit. They have more discipline than most, but out there they seemed to have no discipline at all."

Krevimuk laughed, "I've seen that before. Your men had parade ground discipline. That's not the same thing as keeping your wits in a fight. They'll do better next time. Don't blame yourself. There is no substitute for actual combat experience. Ever. The whole Imperial Army has the same problem. Until this rebellion broke out, I had never seen combat, yet I gained the rank of Ekanor Falan and was appointed garrison commander for a whole province. And I rose through the ranks instead of just buying a commission like so many other do. The Empire hasn't fought a serious war since the nobles revolt and that was nearly a hundred years ago."

"If there's another war, we're not ready. Back in Zekran they think we are, but we're not," Nemt observed.

Krevimuk said, "Don't fret about it. We don't have any serious enemies anymore either. You saw what we're up against. That rabble we scattered was the most serious rebellion against Imperial rule in my lifetime. A few hundred half-starved men plus one phalanx of inexperienced troops put them to flight without losing a single man."

Nemt concluded, "Then our situation is much better than I had feared."

Krevimuk said, "militarily yes, but the famine is not so easily defeated."

The War of the Duel

2007-02-06T21:50:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, centuries upon centuries ago, before the Zekresh Empire began, before the first stone was laid to build the Imperial City of Zekran, there was a duel between a prince and an emperor.

This was a time when the Frayeth Empire still stood on the Southern Peninsula, but it was in disarray due to internal discord, wildmen attacks, and an invasion by the army of Prince Toralin of Corinweld. Prince Toralin had recovered the Lost Crown of Ilania and by its power and authority had unified all the ancient peoples of Ilania, the Gavrinians, Tuladorians, Sarindans, many Frayeth clans and several powerful tribes of wildmen including the Grogians and led them in a relentless war to defeat the Frayeth Emperor Dulimuk.

Prince Toralin succeeded in his quest and at the battle of the Seagull River he defeated the Frayeth Army and had Emperor Dulimuk surrounded. Emperor Dulimuk refused to surrender. To the dismay of his knights, Prince Toralin challenged Dulimuk to a duel, promising that if Dulimuk won, Toralin's life would be forfeit, the Lost Crown of Ilania would be Dulimuk's and all the lands of ancient Ilania would become part of the Frayeth Empire. For these stakes, Dulimuk agreed that if he should lose, not only would he be slain, but that the title of Frayeth Emperor would die with him. This promise was sealed with a curse sworn to by both Dulimuk and Toralin upon the Lost Crown of Ilania that unending woe and decrepitude should befall anyone who sought to undo the results of the duel that had been agreed upon. All of the generals and warriors of both Toralin and Dulimuk who were present also swore to abide by the results of the duel and that the endless wars between the Frayeth and the nations of Ilania should end forever on that day one way or the other.

The duel commenced. Dulimuk was a mighty warrior armed with the finest sword and armor that Frayeth craftsmen knew how to make. Nonetheless, Prince Toralin of Corinweld's armor was said to be a suit of ancient magic armor inherited from Rando, one of the original sixteen knights of Corinweld who were given magic weapons and armor supposedly by Ravelon himself, the God of Magic. Emperor Dulimuk was not dismayed by this since he did not believe in Ravelon or any other Ilanian god. He prayed instead to Gilhalnan, The Goat God of the Forest and Father of the Gods.

Prince Toralin wielded the sword known as Corinbek (meaning Raven's Beak in Gavrinian), an ancient weapon with a legendary ability to pierce armor. This weapon was said to have originally been given to the knight Dalin by Ravelon, the God of Magic in ancient times. The Emperor struck the first blow and it rang off Prince Toralin's armor without so much as denting it. A second and third blow the Emperor struck, also without effect. Then Prince Toralin replied in kind. The first blow from Corinbek clove the emperor's iron shield in twain. The second took off the emperor's sword hand. The third blow clove his helm and smote the emperor a mortal blow from which he fell dead upon the spot. Thus ended the Frayeth Empire.

Though the duel was supposed to end the fighting between the Frayeth and the Ilanians, it did not. Some of the Frayeth warriors who were present at the duel broke their oath and risked the curse to resist Prince Toralin's attempts to subjugate the Frayeth. Other Frayeth warriors who were not present at the duel continued to fight. Some of them claimed the title of Frayeth Emperor. Prince Toralin was enraged at this since it broke the terms sworn to by Emperor Dulimuk and his men at the duel. Eventually, Prince Toralin himself took the title of Emperor of the Frayeth Empire to attempt to impose his will upon the Frayeth. From that day forward, Emperor Toralin had not a day of peace for the rest of his short life. In addition to revolts by his own supporters and the Frayeth, the powerful tribes of the Fire People waged war against him successfully. Within seven years, both the Frayeth Empire and all Ilania were laid waste by endless wars and strife. Emperor Toralin was assassinated by poison. It was said afterwards that Toralin was destroyed by the curse he himself had sworn to along with Dulimuk. Some legends say that the last thing Toralin heard as he was dying from the poison was the sound of Dulimuk's ghost laughing at him.

Emperor Toralin's son Raylin also wore the cursed crown of Ilania and took the title of Emperor of Ilania and Frayethay. Emperor Raylin's rule was so despotic towards the Frayeth that many Frayeth fled across the water to North Peninsula. The coast of North Peninsula on the Gateway Waters came to be known as Frayethay, the land of the Frayeth. The lands of the Frayeth Empire had once borne this name, but no longer. After only six years wearing the cursed crown, Emperor Raylin ruled only a wasteland. In frustration, he went to the Seagull River at the site where the duel had been fought and renounced all his titles and cast the crown into the river whence it was again lost.

The History of Money

2007-02-05T19:19:00.000-08:00

By Asnalyva, Lord of the Exchequer
40th year of the Reign of Emperor Cledman VI

Before the invention of coins, other things were used for money. Some used animal hides, especially in the North Valley Region. In Ulawan, bits of white quartz were sometimes used. Many tribes along the Gateway Waters used a certain type of rare shell called a Kazin shell. These originated with a tribe at the Northeast end of the Gateway Waters who became known as the Shell People because of this. Kazin shells were used as a medium of exchange not only among the Shell People, but also among the Moss People, the Mushroom People, the Crab People, the Slythians, the Verronese and on the South side of the Gateway Waters, were also used by the Cliff People, the People of the Tides, the Fire People, the Starfish People, the Clam People, the Seagull People, the Frog People, the Raven People and the Green People. Undoubtedly Kazin shells were also in use as money by other groups as well.

The oldest known coins are from the ancient principality of Ravelonia. These coins are of both gold and silver and bear an inscription in the ancient Tuladorian language and bearing an image that is supposed to be Ravelon, (the God of Magic) according to the inscription. On the other side, they bear the image of the ancient castle of Ravelonia. Though invariably very worn, the image and inscriptions on these coins show skill of craftsmanship that is unknown today. These coins are smaller than Zekresh coins, but they weigh about one and a third liff (about 2 oz.) and are made of pure gold. Similar coins have also been found made of pure silver.

Coins of other ancient realms also exist, notably silver coins minted in the Principality of Ilania and the realms of Corinweld, Groglinth and old Frayethay. From a later era are the coins of the Frayeth Empire which ruled the northern portion of the South Peninsula some two thousand years ago. Frayeth Imperial coinage consisted primarily of three types of coin, the gold "Solur" which bore the image of a goat on one side and the reigning Frayeth Emperor on the other. These coins were originally about 2 liff in weight and 100% gold. In the later days of the empire, the size was reduced to 1 liff and the gold content to as little as 25%. The second type of coin was the silver Dayil which was also originally pure and 2 liff in weight and was reduced progressively to half a liff in weight and less than 5% silver. The third type of coin was the Dovik which was originally 2 liff in weight and pure copper. These were reduced to one fifth of a liff and less than 50% copper by the end of the Frayeth Empire. The official exchange rate between these coins was 1 Solur = 6 Dayil and 1 Dayil = 24 Dovik through most of the history of the Frayeth Empire, but it varied at times.

Coins from Toralin's brief Empire also exist. These were 1 liff in weight, but only 5% silver.

There are also silver and copper coins of that era from Ravelonia, Ilania, Corinweld, Groglinth and also primitive copper coins bearing no writing, only symbols. Some bear the symbol of the frog and are believed to come from ancient Grogia whose name actually means "land of the frog". Others bear images of fire and are believed to have been made by ancient Kikali priests whose religion used fire as a symbol.

In the earliest days of Zekran, before the Empire, Zekran minted no coinage and foreign coins circulated, especially those from the old Frayeth Empire.

The earliest coins minted at Zekran were minted by Firthyva and bore the image of a single sword with no inscription. These coins were made of nearly pure silver and weighed about one and a half liff.

Other warlords of this time also minted obscure coinage, often bearing only symbols with no inscription. The most recognizable of these are those bearing the image of Kast Yvar which were minted by the warlord Yormuk. In this era, the Slythians minted their first coinage, both silver and gold, bearing the image of the Viper God. The Verronese minted copper coins in this era.These are emblazoned with the image of a bear's paw print on one side and crossed battle axes on the other. They also minted similar coins in silver with the image of a bear on one side and a ship on the other. Coins were still being minted in this era by Ravelonia, Ilania, Corinweld, Groglinth and Grogia. All of these were more sophisticated than those found on North Peninsula, but the Ravelonian coins no longer demonstrated the level of skill that they had in earlier times.

The last Zekresh coins struck before the declaration of the Empire bore the image of Iyatyva and the inscription "Naltor ya Zekran arend Nass Umrug" ("Prince of Zekran and Nass Umrug")

When Iyatyva's son Yatyva I, declared himself Emperor he had silver coins struck bearing his likeness and inscribed with the words "Yatyva, Vylor Zekresh" (Yatyva, Zekresh Emperor). These were the first coins struck by the Zekresh Empire. This coin came to be known as the "Yat" or in plural form, the "Yato", derived from "Yatyva". The Yat weighed one and a half liff and was of pure silver. It was a large coin, but not as large as the 2 liff silver Dayil of the Frayeth Empire had been.

The silver Yat was the Empire's only official coin until the reign of Marivuk I. During his reign, the warlords he appointed began to mint copper "dovek" coins. The earliest of these bear the inscription "Aylorkern ya Timbelan" (Warlord of Timbelan) and the name of the first such warlord. Later, other warlords began minting "dovek" coins of different sizes and purity, but all containing some copper.

In the reign of Yatyva IV, the Emperor began minting copper "dovek" coins intended to replace those issued by the warlords whose power the Emperor was trying to curb. These were about one and a half liff in weight and of nearly pure copper. They bore the image of the old Imperial Palace at Zekran and the inscription "Dovek Vyloresh" ("Imperial Dovek"). These coins were both larger and more pure than those issued by the warlords. Emperor Yatyva IV also minted a replacement for the silver "Yat" which was one and a half liff in weight and of about 90% silver. This coin was modeled on the old Frayeth silver Dayil, but the Zekresh coin was called the "Bayal" (plural form "Bayalo") and was the antecedent to the modern Bayla. The official exchange rate was 40 doveko to one bayal.

Yatyva IV had spoken of wanting to issue a gold coin so that Zekresh Imperial coinage would mimic the trimetallic system of the old Frayeth Empire. Unfortunately, the Zekresh Empire simply did not have enough gold at the time to make this worthwhile. Yatyva IV's son, Yatyva V, captured a significant quantity of gold from the King of the Vipers when he conquered Yishil and used this to realize his father's ambition of adding a gold coin to the Empire's coinage. The new gold coin bore the image of Emperor Yatyva V and was called the "Vylor Soluren" ("Gold Emperor") because of this. The earliest such coins weighed one and a half liff, like the Bayal and the Dovek and were nearly pure gold. Yatyva V noticed that the market rate of exchange between copper and silver varied from the official rate, causing silver coins to disappear from circulation and to be drained from the treasury as merchants hoarded them or melted them down. Yatyva V changed the official exchange rate to 42 dovek to one bayal and established an official exchange rate between gold and silver at ten bayalo to one vylor soluren. The idea came from the high priests of Gilhalnan who said that the gods had decreed that the relationship between the metals was the same as between the cycles of the seasons, the cycles of the moon and the daily rising and setting of the sun. Each of these astronomical phenomenon had an associated unit of time. The cycle of the seasons was the adonsik (year). The cycle of the salga (moon) was the salgan (month) and repeats ten times during each adonsik. The rising and setting of the sun occurs each oron (day) and this occurs forty two times during each Salgan. (Yes, this is different than on Earth.) Therefore, the priests of Gilhalnan said, the metal that is the color of the sun at the Summer Solstice (gold) is equivalent to an adonsik (year) and is worth ten times as much as the metal that is the color of the moon (silver) which in turn is worth forty two times the value of the metal which is the color of the setting sun (copper).

So Emperor Yatyva V decreed an official exchange rate of Imperial coinage of 1 vylor soluren = 10 bayalo and 1 bayal = 42 doveko. This ignored the two festival days of the Zekresh calendar which occur at the solstices and are not part of any month. There are actually 422 orono (days) in an adonsik (year). (On Earth it's 365.24 days per year)

The logic of this and the cosmic and religious connotations of it caused this system to remain in effect for a century. When the Marivuk Dynasty was overthrown by warlords and the Tarno Dynasty began, the Emperor Tarno I had no interest in maintaining cosmic exchange rates. He needed more money, and fast. He debased the coinage and adjusted the exchange rate to 1 vylor soluren = 12 bayalo and 1 bayal = 50 doveko.

The coinage was further debased throughout the Tarno Dynasty until the coins contained only about 75% of the metals they were supposed to be made of. Then, during the 1st Zekran - Ilania War, Emperor Ardimuk I became desperate for money to finance the war. He maintained the size and metal content of the gold vylor soluren, but steadily reduced the bayal to about 50% silver and the dovek to about 50% copper. He didn't change the official exchange rate, but he ordered the treasury to stop giving out gold coins for silver ones. The vylor soluren then went out of general circulation. During the 2nd Zekran - Ilania War, Emperor Ardimuk I again debased the coinage radically, this time reducing the silver bayal to only 33% silver content while the dovek remained unchanged. This move worked because the silver content of the bayal (3/4 of a liff) had been worth far more than 42 doveko. This situation persisted with additional reductions in metal content of the bayal and the dovek for fifty years until the conquest of Ravelonia under Emperor Tarno IV. Now, for the first time, the Empire had gained possession of significant gold and silver mines. The state of the coinage at that time was disastrous. The gold vylor soluren was still 75% gold and still weighed one and half liff, but the Imperial treasury had long since spent them all and had no gold to use to mint new coins. The days when the Imperial treasury would give out gold coins at a rate of 10 or even 12 bayalo to one vylor soluren were almost forgotten, but the official exchange rate remained the same at 12 bayalo to one vylor soluren. The silver bayal was no longer silver and now contained less than 10% silver and was almost entirely base metals. The dovek remained about 50% copper.

The 50 to 1 exchange rate between the dovek and the bayal translated into a 562.5 to 1 exchange rate between silver and copper when the actual value was about 100 to 1. This caused the bayal to be called a "hollow coin" because it did not contain the value or the silver that it was supposed to. This occurred because the Imperial treasury was collecting a multitude of small taxes that could only be paid with doveko, but paid its largest expenses with increasingly debased bayalo. This was immensely beneficial to the Imperial treasury in the short run. The longer term result was that doveko were hoarded and the bayalo were increasingly seen as nearly worthless.

With gold and silver mines now under his control, Emperor Tarno IV proceeded to reform the coinage first by increasing the copper content of the dovek from 50% to 75% of its weight, but its weight was reduced from one and a half liff to one liff so that it contained exactly as much copper as the old dovek. This increased the purity of the coins, but made them of equal value and they circulated at parity.

The bayal could not be so easily fixed and was instead replaced with the new "bayla". The bayla was the silver equivalent of the new dovek. It was the same weight (1 liff) and purity (75%) as the new dovek except that it was silver like a bayal was supposed to be. Now that merchants had been shocked into paying closer attention to metal content of coins by the debasement of the bayalo, the Imperial treasury sought to restore confidence in the coinage by issuing coins with a higher metal content. A new gold vylor soluren was issued that also contained 75% precious metal (gold), with a weight of 1 liff. It was significant that for the gold coins, this actually represented a reduction in value since the old vylor soluren had also been 75% gold, but weighed one and a half liff while the new coin weighed only one liff.

The new exchange rate was 1 vylor soluren = 16 baylo and 1 bayla = 60 doveko. This system of money remained essentially unchanged for nearly two and a half centuries. Then came the Bear Wars. Emperor Vergriman II paid off war debts denominated in baylo by changing the exchange rate from 1 vylor soluren = 16 baylo to 1 vylor soluren = 30 baylo and then paying the debt in gold.

Upon the accession of Larinyva I to the throne, this rate was returned to the previous rate of 1 vylor soluren = 16 baylo and 1 bayla = 60 doveko. However, under Emperor Yatyva XVII debasement of the coinage began again and the precious metal content of the coins began to drop below 75%. In the reign of Yatyva XX, exchange rates were expanded again to 1 vylor soluren = 18 baylo and 1 bayla = 64 doveko. Similar changes to exchange rates and reductions in the precious metal content of the coins continued in small increments until the reign of Larinyva IX, last of the Larinyva Dynasty, when the metal content was just below two thirds (66.5%) and the exchange rates stood at 1 vylor soluren = 26 baylo and 1 bayla = 124 doveko.

Then Emperor Cledman I came to the throne, starting a new dynasty and, as had become traditional at the start of a new dynasty, he reformed the coinage, bringing exchange rates back to near market rates at 1vylor soluren = 18 baylo and 1 bayla = 70 doveko. It has been the policy of the Cledman Dynasty Emperors to adjust exchange rates periodically to reflect alterations in market value. This has not stopped the Cledman Emperors from further debasing the coinage. The 66.5% precious metal content was slowly eroded by successive Emperors until Emperor Cledman V who reduced the coinage to 50% precious metal content and set exchange rates at 1vylor soluren = 20 baylo and 1 bayla = 72 doveko. The only change to the coinage made since then was in the 10th year of the reign of Emperor Cledman VI who changed the exchange rate to 1vylor soluren = 20 baylo and 1 bayla = 75 doveko.

Essay on the Imperial Navy

2007-02-05T19:06:00.000-08:00

by Ekanor Falan (Vice Admiral) Otunuk
40th year of the reign of Cledman VI

The Zekresh Imperial Navy is the supreme naval fighting force in the known world. It has had no serious rival since the Bear Wars eight centuries ago. Even then, Imperial ships were far superior and the Bear Tribes had to make up for it with vast numbers of longboats. They had no large ships and did not have the technology for biremes, rams, napthalene, or gangplanks for boarding parties. The Zekresh Imperial Navy had all these technologies back then and subsequently developed advanced navigation techniques, accurate maps and faster ships with three decks of oarmen called triremes. With the destruction of the last of the Silway Siliken pirate fleets in the last century, (in the 23rd year of the reign of Emperor Marvinuk I), the navy has no real enemies. Nonetheless, the Navy has continued to serve a vital function exploring, transporting troops, preventing piracy, and providing the primary link between the Overseas Provinces and the rest of the Empire.

There were some important naval actions in the distant past, but very little real naval warfare in recent centuries.

Before the Empire, Zekresh naval forces consisted of primitive boats full of warriors. In the time of the Wars of Fire, Zekresh forces were led by Zekryva himself, founder of what later became Zekran, the Imperial Capital City. But in those days, Zekresh naval forces were not more advanced than the primitive boats of the Fire People, nor more numerous. For nearly five hundred years after the Fire Wars, Zekresh slowly improved the size and quality of its Navy. But during the Firthyva Dynasty, the Fire People still had a strong enough navy to attack Zekran by sea, defeat Zekresh naval and land forces and pillage Zekran. This was still nearly fifty years before the Zekresh Empire was proclaimed.

Naval forces played only a supporting role in the earliest conquests of the Frayeth lands and of Slythia, but they were slowly building up their capabilities. When the Empire was proclaimed, the navy was still just a few primitive boats, but it was built up. Three centuries later, the Imperial Navy had a vast fleet, but the ships were small and primitive by modern standards. They faced an enemy whose ships were larger and more advanced: the Ilanian Royal Navy.

The most sophisticated naval foe ever defeated by the Imperial Navy was the Ilanian Royal Navy which was equipped with biremes, triremes, napthalene, metal tipped rams on ship bows and gangplanks for boarding parties. Fortunately the Imperial Navy possessed a much larger fleet. This was before the Bear Wars and the Imperial Zekresh Navy did not yet have any of these technologies at the start of the war.

The Ravelonian Navy was also technologically sophisticated, but was even smaller than the Ilanian Royal Navy and was easily overcome.

After the defeat of the Ilanians and the Ravelonians, the Imperial Navy adopted their technologies and tactics and captured and reused some of their ships. All this was put to use a couple centuries later to defeat a less advanced foe who had invaded the Empire, captured two entire provinces and laid seige to Nass Umrug, a major city near the Imperial Capital at Zekran. Enemy naval forces even raided Zekran twice, but were repulsed by the Imperial Navy.

This was the Bear Wars and the invading forces were the Bear Tribes who had not only resisted an Imperial effort to annex them, but had invaded the Empire. The seige and blockade of Nass Umrug by the fleet and army of the Bear Tribes posed a dire threat to the Empire. It was the third major Imperial port to be attacked by the Bear Tribes in this manner. The other two fell to the enemy and the Imperial Capital City of Zekran was next. The Imperial Navy defeated the enemy naval forces at Nass Umrug, thereby allowing relief of that port city by sea and the seige ended. Imperial forces then drove the Bear Tribes all the way back to their own territory and within a year had annexed a large part of it. The final defeat of the Bear Tribes required another eight years of war, but eventually it was done. The Imperial Navy prevented the Bear Tribes from building a new fleet and provided logistics and transport for the Imperial Army during the conquest.

Had the Imperial Navy not learned the naval secrets of the Ilanians, the Bear Tribes would have won the battle of Nass Umrug and probably captured Zekran.

All of these battles were eight centuries or more ago. The only recent foes at sea have been pirates and smugglers. Since the defeat of the Silway Siliken pirate fleet in the last century, pirates rarely have more than one or two ships operating together and are easily scared off or defeated. Pirates still haunt the Western Sea, especially on the Far Coast (the West side) and usually have ships that can outrun all but the fastest Imperial Navy vessels. Thus, dealing with pirates is typically a matter of chasing them off or catching them by surprise in port, not fighting them at sea.

Smugglers almost always surrender when caught rather than fight the Navy.

In its entire history of more than 1,300 years, the Zekresh Imperial Navy has never lost a war.

Though the Imperial Navy faces little opposition at sea and has had almost uninterrupted peace for about eight hundred years, its officers are well aware that sea transport is absolutely essential to the economy of the Empire as well as for its political unity. It is because the Empire can transport large armies by sea to almost any part of the Empire that rebels usually dare not strike openly and inevitably lose if they do.

The Story of the Bear Wars

2007-02-05T19:05:00.000-08:00

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.

The Second Zekran - Ilania War

2007-02-05T18:59:00.000-08:00

by Steldranuk

When the Treaty of Corinweld ended the 1st Zekran - Ilania War, this brought peace only to the enemies of the Zekresh Empire, not to the Empire itself. Emperor Ardimuk I signed the treaty because he was beseiged at Corinweld Castle and his army was cut off from the Empire by the rebellion of the Kikali tribes. The treaty allowed him to withdraw his army from Corinweld, but the retreat back to the Empire was a foray into hostile territory. Emperor Ardimuk's war-weary troops marched into Argan Iluva (South Fireland) to find it wholly in the hands of rebels and a powerful army of Kikali tribesmen arrayed against them. The leader of the rebels, a man named Ralan, offered the Emperor and his troops free passage out of Kikali lands on the promise that the Empire would never again try to rule them or Sishan.

The Emperor refused. Enraged, the Kikali rebel army attacked. The Emperor's army withdrew to positions centered on a hill known as Ardin Most ("Round Hill" in Kikalan) and the village of the same name beside it. Kikali forces outnumbered the Imperial troops at the Battle of Ardin Most and were stout of heart and desperate to win their freedom and avenge the wrongs suffered by their people under the Empire. But the Kikali men had not been allowed to follow their peoples' warrior traditions. Instead, they were learning anew the ways of battle and trying to relearn from elders the skills needed for battle.

The Emperor's soldiers were battle hardened by over five long years of war and had just come from fighting enemies far more deadly than the Kikali rebels. Ensconced on the high ground, the Emperor and his men repulsed every attack and the Kikali ferocity only worked against them as they continued to throw themselves against a strong defensive position. The Kikali rebels broke their strength and the next day, the Emperor struck back, driving the rebels before him and scattering them. Ralan narrowly escaped capture and went on to lead Kikali resistance for years to come, but the rebellion was thrown down by the Battle of Ardin Most and subsequent battle of Tarmat ee Taval in which Imperial forces retook the city of Tarmat ee Taval from the rebels and re-established Imperial rule over Argan Inuva. From the port city of Tarmat ee Taval, the Imperial troops were able to re-establish contact with the rest of the Empire with the assistance of the Imperial Navy. Reinforcements were soon pouring in and the Emperor began a ruthless campaign of crushing the rebellion and killing all who had been associated with it. He advaned from Argan Inuva to Argan Tros, then to Sishan.

At the Battle of Serat Trayakir in Sishan, the Emperor met a new enemy. Not only were there Kikali rebels who had fled there and Sishan rebels, there was also a small army that had marched there from Logoran. The army from Logoran consisted of some soldiers recruited from Logoran, but others had come from other parts of the Empire and even from Ilania. The Ilanians had, indeed, withdrawn their troops from Logoran as required by the Treaty of Corinweld, but they had left in their stead, the grandson of Alimuk the Pretender. Alimuk had fled to Nysarinda at the beginning of the reign of Tarno I, over half a century earlier. There, he had maintained his own Imperial court in exile for the rest of his life and his son had done the same. Alimuk the Pretender had taken the "reign name" of Yatyva IV, denying the legitimacy of all the Marivuk Dynasty Emperors including Yatyva IV - Yatyva IX. He denied also the legitimacy of all the Tarno Dynasty Emperors including Yatyva X. Thus, when Alimuk passed away, his son took the reign name of "Yatyva V". The Pretender Yatyva V was, by the time of the 1st Zekran - Ilania War, an old man, so his son, went to fight Ardimuk the Avenger. The son was also named Yatyva and called himself "Naltor Kervus Yatyva" (Crown Prince Yatyva).

For Crown Prince Yatyva, this seemed to be a chance to defeat Ardimuk and overthrow the Tarno Dynasty, putting his father on the throne and restoring, once and for all time, the original Iyatyva Dynasty to the throne of the Zekresh Empire. It was not to be. These high hopes did not make up for a smaller, less experienced army, demoralized allies and inferior tactics. Ardimuk's army easily defeated the army of Crown Prince Yatyva, the Sishan rebels and the remnant Kikali rebels who fought with them. Crown Prince Yatyva was captured and Ardimuk beheaded him with Ardimuk's own sword which was thence forth known as "Naltor Trivak" (Prince Killer).

With the Battle of Serat Trayakir, the rebellion in the South Peninsula was reduced from a dire threat to a chronic irritation. The Battle of Serat Trayakir took place in the 7th year of the reign of Emperor Ardimuk I. After that battle, Ardimuk appointed a new Gurikan for Sishan, marched into Logoran, scattered the remaining rebels there and appointed a Gurikan for it as if it had always been a Gurikanan (Captaincy) when in fact, it had been an Aylorkernan (Warlordship). But the Aylorkern ya Logoran was dead and all his family slain in the war and the subsequent rebellion so there was no one left to inherit the title anyway.

Ardimuk renamed Logoran as "Logoria" when he made it a Gurikanan because that was the name for it that the local people used. For the same reason, when Ardimuk re-established Imperial control over the lands of the Fire People, he changed the name of both provinces from Argan Tros (North Fireland in Zekresh) to Kikalan Tros (North Kikali Land) and Argan Inuva (South Fireland in Zekresh) to Kikalan Inuva (South Kikali Land). He also changed some of the practices of the Imperial government so that they would be less oppressive to the Kikali and hopefully make the idea of rebellion less popular there in the future.

Ardimuk I used the peace that followed the suppression of the South Peninsula rebellions to build up the military forces of the Zekresh Empire on land and sea as much as possible. He also made every effort to establish strong alliances that would be helpful in the event of a future war with Ilania.

In Nysarinda, the Iyatyva Dynasty pretender "Yatyva V" was enraged at the death of his eldest son at the hands of Emperor Ardimuk. Though Prince Aran of Ilania may have welcomed peace, the pretender Yatyva V thirsted for vengeance. His younger son was named Zekryva in honor of the founder of Zekran. This Zekryva was now called the "Naltor Kervus" (Crown Prince) by the Iyatyva exiles. While Ardimuk built up his military forces, Zekryva sent spies and agents into the Empire to stir up rebellion. His men found the Kikali rebel Ralan and made an alliance with him.

He also made an alliance with people of the Forest Tribes near Lorekan who plotted rebellion. Then he hired Slythian assassins to kill Emperor Ardimuk I. Three times, the assassins struck, first with daggers, then with arrows, then with poison, but on each occasion, Ardimuk emerged unscathed.

Ardimuk's guards captured some of the assassins and eventually determined that the House of Iyatyva in Nysarinda was responsible. He also blamed the warlords. There were three warlords left, the warlords of Kast Yvar, Yormukan and Flitran. They were still too powerful for an Emperor to oppose. Though the Imperial Army now was even more certain than before to prevail against them in armed conflict, the warlords still possessed significant armies and the fortresses of Kast Yvar and Kast Yormuk were strong and would require lengthy sieges to capture. The warlords were well aware that every Emperor of the Tarno Dynasty had sought ways to abolish their titles and strip them of their power. The three remaining warlords were firmly allied with each other and the warlord of Kast Yvar had a marriage alliance with one of the leaders of the Bear Tribes. This made it too dangerous for the Emperor to move against the warlords directly. A war between the Imperial Army and the warlords could not be resolved quickly since it would require besieging Kast Yvar, the strongest fortress in the Empire, and also Kast Yormuk, another strong fortress. The Imperial Army could not do this and also defend against an attack by the powerful Bear Tribes. The possibility that Ilania or the other Principalities would enter the war was a further deterrent. Therefore, the Emperor took no action. Zekryva in fact was rebuffed by the warlords. They rejected his offer of an alliance against the Emperor.

Ardimuk built up Imperial military forces and contemplated a way to break to the power of the warlords. He realized that the primary reason he was worried about the warlords was because Kast Yvar and Yormukan were so close to the capital. The danger could be removed simply by moving the capital. Though Zekran had been the capital of the Empire and home of the Zekresh people before that, there was nothing to stop him from moving his court to some other location.

In the 8th year of his reign, Ardimuk I had a new fortress constructed at Serat Trayakir. It was called Kast Trayakir, the Gateway Fortress. Though Zekran remained the official capital of the Empire, the Emperor took up residence at Kast Trayakir and moved all the high officials of the government there. This move allowed him to keep a closer watch on developments in Sishan, where the fortress was located, and also in neighboring Logoria and Kikalan Tros. Most importantly of all, the fortress was on the South Peninsula where there were now no warlords left. The warlords were not much farther away than they had been, but now a thin strip of sea separated their armies from the Emperor's residence. None of the warlords had any naval forces at all and the most powerful of them, the Aylorkern ya Kast Yvar, was landlocked. The Emperor had already been building up the Imperial Navy throughout his reign and since the Peace of the Fens had been building larger ships using the style and techniques of the Ilanian Royal Navy in hopes of someday matching them. There was no danger that the warlords could match the growing power of the Imperial Navy and without the ability to cross the Gateway Waters, their troops could not threaten the Emperor. Just to be sure, Ardimuk issued the Warship Decree in the 8th year of his reign, prohibiting any Aylorkern or Gurikan from building his own warships. Notably, the Bear Tribes also were now separated from the Emperor's residence by sea. Of course, the Emperor was now vulnerable to attack from the South. It was in that direction that he once again turned his attention.

The emphasis on increasing the strength and sophistication of the Imperial Navy was not only to thwart the warlords. It was also the cornerstone of the Emperor's strategy to defeat Ilania and win mastery over the Principalities. Ardimuk intended to bypass Grogia and Corinweld which had stood in his way before. This time, he would strike Ilania directly from the sea. It could only be done if the Imperial Navy were more powerful than the Royal Ilanian Navy. But the Zekresh Empire was far larger than the Principality of Ilania and possessed much greater resources. Ardimuk was sure that if he devoted sufficient resources to the task, that he could make the Imperial Navy the greatest naval force the world had ever seen and by that means conquer Ilania.

Ardimuk strengthened his alliance with the people of Clam Island and, by means of generous payments, convinced them to allow him to build an Imperial Navy base at Lisatrom. He copied the designs of the bireme ships used by the Ilanian Royal Navy. He also made a marriage alliance with the Ogdalin of Warna which arranged the marriage of Ardimuk's daughter to the son of the Ogdalin of Warna. Ardimuk did not mention the Decree of Tarno which precluded any children of that marriage or their descendants from ever ascending the Imperial throne. Also, since Ardimuk's daughter was only twelve years old, he had plenty of time to break the treaty before the actual marriage was to take place four years later.

In the 9th year of the reign of Ardimuk I, all was ready and the Emperor himself boarded a ship called "the Sword of Vengeance" and set sail for Ilania. The fleet carried with it a vast army of Zekresh Imperial troops.

Ardimuk was still not entirely confident that his navy could defeat the Ilanians so as soon as the fleet reached the coast of Ilania, he ordered the army to land and begin marching to Nysarinda. The attack caught the Ilanians by surprise. They had been prepared for a war, but not an army landing from the sea. The Ilanians scrambled to defend their country while the Ilanian Royal Navy set out in force to defeat the Zekresh Imperial Navy and prevent any more landings of troops. A running naval battle between the two fleets took place all the way from the landing sites back to Clam Island with both sides maneuvering among the small islands in between. This became known as the "Battle of the Islands". Losses were heavy on both sides. The Zekresh Imperial Navy lost far more ships and men, but the Ilanians had less ships to lose and were so weakened by the battle that they dared not engage the main Zekresh fleet again for the rest of the war. Both the Ilanians and the Zekresh continued building ships throughout the war, but the Zekresh shipyards produced far more ships and the Ilanians fell further and further behind.

Unfortunately for Ardimuk, the Battle of the Islands had given the Ilanians temporary control of the waters along their coast while the Imperial Navy fleet anchored at Lisatrom and repaired damaged vessels.

The Ilanian Royal Army fought a delaying action and slowed the advance of the Zekresh forces until the Corinweld army under Prince Darin arrived to attack Ardimuk's left flank. Ardimuk retreated back to the sea and fortified a position there. Once again, he found himself far from the Empire and cut off by hostile forces as he had been in the previous war and in the Kikali revolt.

Fortunately, the Ogdalin of Warna entered the war and advanced on Nysarinda, forcing the Ilanians to retreat towards their capital and freeing Ardimuk to deal a crushing defeat on the Corinwelders and then resume his advance. The Zekresh Imperial Army and their allies from Warna reached Nysarinda and lay siege to the city. Once again fearing the specter of Zekresh domination of the Principalities, Prince Elgan of Ravelonia entered the war on the side of Ilania. The Zekresh Imperial Navy had by then returned in strength and was trying to impose a blockade on Nysarinda. Though they prevented resupply of the city and its defenders by sea, they were unable to stop the Ravelonian Navy from bringing food, arms and Ravelonian knights and soldiery by means of the Lion River which meets the sea at Nysarinda.

Ardimuk continued the siege for four months and the Zekresh Imperial Navy strove mightily to block Ravelonian ships from reaching the city via the river, but they were unsuccessful. Ultimately, Ardimuk had to give up the siege when an army of Groglinthers and some Grogians arrived with a new army from Corinweld. The war raged all across Ilania and would have been lost but for the constant supply of reinforcements brought in by the Zekresh Imperial Navy which increasingly had mastery of the sea. The fighting slacked off during the Winter months, but resumed again the following year. Again Ardimuk advanced on Nysarinda and besieged it with the help of an army from Warna. This time, Prince Elgan of Ravelonia invaded Warna and the Ogdalin of Warna withdrew his troops to defend his lands. Ardimuk was again thrown back from the very gates of Nysarinda. Leaving his army to hold its position in Ilania, Ardimuk sailed to Lisatrom where his navy had brought more reinforcements. Among these were soldiers of the warlords which had been conscripted on orders from Ardimuk. Ardimuk met with Elindana, the Eka-dalan (high chief) of the people of Clam Island and proposed to him a joint attack on the Grogians, ancient foe of the Clam Islanders. The Eka-dalan agreed to this and Ardimuk sailed for Shalthan, capital of Grogia with a new army of new Imperial recruits, conscripted soldiers of the warlords and Clam Islanders. Since Shalthan is surrounded on almost all sides by water, the strength of the Imperial Navy was brought to bear and it quickly fell to the attackers.

Gilatanda, the Ek-talan of Grogia, abandoned the fight in Ilania and returned home with his warriors. In the meantime, the Zekresh Imperial Navy sailed up the Grog River and raided the city of Groglinth, capital of the Principality of Groglinth, provoking Prince Thon XIV of Groglinth to call back his own soldiers from Ilania.

Ardimuk left Elindana, the Eka-dalan of Clam Island, in command of the allied Zekresh and Clam Island forces at Shalthan. Ardimuk then returned to the main Zekresh army in Ilania and resumed the offensive. Again he besieged Nysarinda, this time for eight months during which famine struck the besieged city as the Zekresh Imperial Navy made it more and more difficult for Ravelonian ships to get through. At the same time, Grogian and Groglinther forces besieged the occupation forces at Shalthan, but could not make their siege effective because the Imperial Navy provided supplies to the troops so that only the populace suffered. The Grogians soon abandoned this tactic and instead began infiltrating warriors into the city from the nearby swamps. Shalthan was retaken by the Grogians and there were heavy losses amongst the Zekresh and Clam Islander forces. Not coincidentally, almost the entire military forces of the warlords of the Empire were lost in that battle which was known in Imperial records as the Third Battle of Shalthan. The first was the raid on Shalthan by Clam Islander forces in the First Zekran - Ilania War, the Second Battle was when Shalthan was captured by Ardimuk. Of course, many other battles had been fought there previous to Zekresh involvement in the area and the battle is known to the Grogians as the Battle of the Liberation of Shalthan. Elindara, the Eka-dalan of Clam Island was killed in the battle.

Two months after Shalthan was retaken by Grogian forces, Prince Aran of Ilania attempted to escape his besieged capital in a Royal Ilanian Navy ship and head upriver to exile in Ravelonia. He was captured by the Zekresh Imperial Navy and forced to order the defenders of Nysarinda to lay down their arms. They were on the verge of defeat anyway which is why Prince Aran was trying to escape.

With the fall of Nysarinda and the capture of Prince Aran, Ardimuk thought he had achieved victory, but the war was not over. Ravelonian forces had advanced deep into Warna and were still on the offensive. Prince Darin of Corinweld was still in the field against Ardimuk in Ilania with an army of Ilanians under the command of Lord Talan of Rondinia who also promptly declared himself Regent of Ilania. The Grogians and Groglinthers soon returned to Ilania to join the fight there.

The war dragged on for another year, but Ardimuk held on to Nysarinda. With the Ilanian Royal Navy virtually destroyed, the Imperial Zekresh Navy now turned its attention to Ravelonia. The Ravelonians suffered defeats, but were not destroyed. They were unable, however, to prevent the Zekresh Imperial Navy from raiding their coast and drawing troops away from the invasion of Warna. Only the rapid action of Varl cavalry in the service of Ravelonia prevented several Ravelonian towns from being captured by Zekresh troops who attacked by sea. The Ogdalin of Warna repulsed the Ravelonians and he and Ardimuk forced Prince Elgan of Ravelonia to agree to a peace treaty. The warriors of Warna then invaded Corinweld, forcing Prince Darin of Corinweld to leave Ilania and agree to peace. Ardimuk was now free to use all his strength against his three remaining enemies: Lord Talan's Ilanians, Ek-talan Gilatanda's Grogians and the knights and soldiers of Groglinth, who were now commanded by Thon XV, the new prince of Groglinth who had just assumed the throne.

Unlike his father, Thon XV had no desire to continue the war. His country had lost many men and he considered victory impossible. Ardimuk offered Prince Thon a separate peace and despite hysterical objections and death threats from Gilatanda of Grogia, Prince Thon agreed and withdrew his forces from the war. The Imperial Army and the warriors of Warna, as well as more warriors from Clam Island, now battered the army of Lord Talan, encircling him and besieging him at Tanikia Castle in Southern Ilania. Ek-talan Gilatanda of Grogia refused to join Lord Talan there. Gilatanda's strength had always been in the ability to maneuver and to resist enemies in swamps, not in castles. Gilatanda reluctantly withdrew Northwards into Groglinth, pillaging as he went in retribution for what he considered Prince Thon's betrayal. Gilatanda raided Imperial forces repeatedly from Groglinth, but Lord Talan soon surrendered and Gilatanda retreated across the Grog River into Grogia. Thus, the 2nd Zekran - Ilania War ended with all of Ilania in the hands of the Zekresh Empire.

Ardimuk the Avenger then imposed crushing taxes on Ilania, forbid the construction of large ships there, and made the Principality of Ilania into part of the Empire as the Gurikanan of Ilania. He appointed his son, the Imperial Crown Prince, as the first Gurikan of Ilania.

Upon his return to Kast Trayakir, his first act was to issue a decree limiting the number of soldiers that warlords could have in their service. Since the warlords had all lost nearly all their men, they dared not resist. The Emperor, however, dared not abolish their titles because they still had enough men to hold their castles against the Imperial Army long enough that the Emperor had to fear foreign attack, especially from the Bear Tribes. Unlike every other major power in the known world, the Bear Tribes had remained neutral in the Zekran - Ilania Wars. While the Imperial Army had suffered grievous losses that would take years to replace, the warriors of the Bear Tribe had been untouched by the fighting and could unleash vast numbers of warriors on the weakened and weary Empire if Ardimuk provoked them by moving against their allies, the warlords.

The Emperor contented himself with limiting the size of the Warlords' armies. He also made minor reforms that increased the jurisdiction of Imperial magistrates at the expense of local judges appointed by the warlords. New Imperial taxes collected by Imperial officials left the people with little ability to pay taxes levied by the warlords. The Emperor took over the maintenance of roads and bridges and with them the collection of tolls. This had been the prerogative of the warlords. Little by little, the power of the warlords was being eroded. At the same time the smoldering rebellion in the Kikali lands was being suppressed, the Imperial Army was being rebuilt and the Imperial Navy was being made larger than ever before.

But as Ardimuk consolidated his power and built up his military forces, the world changed. Everywhere, people beyond the borders of the Empire woke up to the danger that one day the expanding Zekresh Empire would come to their lands. The Bear Tribes began to build their own fleet of small ships. All of Grogia became an armed camp. Southern tribes beyond the Imperial frontier began assisting Kikali rebels. Above all, Ravelonia, the most ancient civilized nation, used all its knowledge and experience to turn the world against the Empire. Little by little, the nations of the world allied themselves with Ravelonia and formed an alliance against the Zekresh Empire.

At the same time, the occupation of Ilania required a large number of troops and became a drain on the Imperial treasury. The Empire soon found its own allies tied down or unreliable. Warna found itself surrounded by enemies. Clam Islanders began to talk of ending their alliance with the Empire and the removal of the Imperial Navy base at Lisatrom.

The conquest of Ilania had shocked the world. The Principality of Ilania was already ancient before the Zekresh Empire was founded, before Zekran was even built. Ilania was old even before the old Frayeth Empire was founded. Ilania and Ravelonia were the two pillars of ancient civilization that had always stood and it was thought would stand forever. Now one of them had fallen, but the older one still stood. Prince Elgan of Ravelonia gathered about him as allies all the nations that feared further expansion of the Zekresh Empire. Grogia, Groglinth and Corinweld now made alliance with him. So, too, did the Ag-dolin (paramount chief) of Om-ulawa whose realm lay in the White Mountains to the south of Ravelonia. The Og-dalin of Ana-dron joined this cause, threatening Warna from the East. The Ag-dolin of Om-lokotra also joined this alliance, threatening Warna from the South. Yenthitia and Pilania also joined this alliance. They were distant kinsmen of the Kikali tribes and inhabited the lands just to the south of them along the coast. They were in a position to invade the Kikali lands and assist the Kikali in any new rebellion. If the Zekresh Imperial Army attacked Ravelonia, the Yenthiti and the Pilani could jeopardize three provinces and threaten Kast Trayakir.

Beyond the White Mountains in the West, the tribes of the Fox People and the Dog People also joined the alliance. The Fox People were ancient allies of Ravelonia whose warriors had assisted Ravelonia in the recent war. The Dog People were kinsmen of the Fox People. In addition to this formidable alliance, Prince Elgan sent his ships far and wide bearing diplomats to find other nations threatened by the Zekresh Empire and bring them into the alliance. By this method, the Fog People whose lands lay on the East Coast of the North Peninsula, joined the alliance. Most alarming to the Zekresh, the Bear Tribes joined the alliance.

Ardimuk had no doubts that if he should attempt to gain any further territory, that he would be at war with the entire alliance and that its strength was vastly greater than what Ilania had ever been able to command. It was entirely possible that such a war would destroy the Empire. Ardimuk, though famous as a warrior, wisely kept the peace.

Any ambitions he may have had to further expand the Empire were entirely thwarted. For the rest of his reign, he did not attempt to conquer any new territory, but focused instead on consolidating what he had.

The occupation of Ilania destroyed an old order that had stood since the beginning of history. Emperor Ardimuk ordered the imprisonment of the entire royal family of Ilania, but they were more numerous than he imagined. The entire nobility of Ilania was related to the royal family and the royal families and nobles of the other Principalities were related to them as well. Such was the result of many centuries of marriage alliances. A few members of the Ilanian royalty became outlaws in their own country and were hunted down by Imperial troops. Others fled to Corinweld, Groglinth and Ravelonia. An Ilanian government in exile was established at Corinweld. It was led by Lord Avern of Trevania who was a member of the royal family and declared himself Regent of Ilania while Prince Aran was imprisoned by the Zekresh.

Ancient temples of several religions at Nysarinda and other parts of Ilania were pillaged by Imperial troops during the war and the occupation. Some of them were demolished. Others were turned into temples of the Zekresh religion. Ancient orders of priests and priestesses were slaughtered or made into refugees. The noblemen were thrown out of their manor houses and castles and killed. Their families were brutalized and shipped back to Zekran as slaves. Vast riches, accumulated in Ilania by the royalty, nobility, merchants and bankers of Ilania were pillaged. Artworks of great sophistication were destroyed or looted and shipped to other parts of the Empire. The ancient library at Nysarinda had been burned down when Imperial troops looted the city after its surrender. Much ancient knowledge was lost forever. Scribes and scholars braved the flames to salvage as many scrolls as they could. But these were divided up among the scribes and scholars and what was left of the great library was now scattered and hidden away in cellars or taken abroad to other countries. The bankers and merchants of Ilania joined the diaspora and were scattered among various nations. The greatest banking houses of the ancient world and the greatest merchant families lost fortunes that had been built up over the course of fifty generations.

Amidst all this chaos, the poverty-stricken population of Ilania had to adjust to a new way of life as a province of the Zekresh Empire. The institutions of their society were destroyed or went underground to continue in secret what had formerly been proudly displayed in the open. Remnants of the royal family became rebel leaders. High priests became the leaders of secret outlawed cults that were denounced as blasphemous by the official religion. Bankers who had lost everything became murderers, stalking soldiers of the occupation for revenge. Scholars of arcane secrets became beggars on the streets.

In the midst of all this, the Iyatyva Dynasty's Imperial Court in exile also went underground when Nysarinda fell. They became one of the most desperate underground organizations. Unlike the Ilanian royalty, they had no real support among the Ilanian public and little financial resources. They turned to crime. This was the origin of the "Tiva" organization.

Ardimuk I reigned for 33 years, the last 23 of those years were peaceful, but he is primarily remembered for the conquest of Ilania. Upon the death of Ardimuk I, his son ascended the throne as Emperor Ardimuk II. In the second year of his reign, he inadvertently admitted publicly that Prince Aran of Ilania had been killed in the dungeons of Kast Trayakir years earlier. This outraged the Ilanians and, more importantly, cleared the way for Aran's son, Duran, to proclaim himself Prince of Ilania. Duran was in exile in Corinweld, but returned to Ilania and led a rebellion against the Zekresh occuptation.

Ardimuk II suppressed the rebellion ruthlessly and Duran again fled abroad. During the suppression of the rebellion, he ordered a renewed hunt for all members of the Ilanian royal family, especially Duran. He threatened Corinweld with war for harboring Duran and some of the others. He ordered all members of the Ilanian royal family who were captive in the dungeons of the Zekresh Empire to be executed as well as all noblemen and their families, not only those in captivity, but all of them. Most of the nobles fled Ilania to foreign countries, especially Corinweld and Ravelonia, but many were killed.

Corinweld dared not risk the wrath of the Zekresh Empire by again welcoming Prince Duran after the Ilanian rebellion failed. Now Duran went instead to Vizartan in Ravelonia. There he continued to scheme against the Empire, but now his schemes turned not towards rebellion, but to directly striking the Emperor. A year after the rebellion in Ilania had been crushed, a group of Ilanian rebels managed to sneak into Serat Trayakir and to attack the Emperor's carriage as he passed through the streets of the city. The attack was unsuccessful, but the Emperor ordered harsh reprisals. 500 Ilanians were killed in retaliation. The next year, another Ilanian was caught trying to climb the walls of Kast Trayakir. He was taken to Nysarinda and publicly tortured and executed. One hundred other Ilanians were also killed as retribution.

Then, one day, in the sixth year of his reign, Emperor Ardimuk II was found murdered in his bed, stabbed to death. His guards were also dead, their throats had been cut. The assassins appeared to have managed to get into the castle, kill the guards silently, murder the Emperor in his bed and get out again without being seen. It was an impossible feat. It also probably didn't really happen that way. Rumors spread that the assassins were invisible ghosts who could walk through walls. The Emperor's younger brother promptly took the throne as Emperor Ardimuk III and vowed revenge for his brother's assassination. He immediately ordered 1,000 Ilanians slaughtered in retaliation. This was done.

Some months later, as the new Emperor carefully reviewed the precautions taken against assassination, he discovered that three of the personal bodyguards of the Lord of the Exchequer were not who they had said they were. Before they could be arrested, they fled the castle, but the Imperial Army and Navy were called out to search for them on land and sea and prevent them from getting far from Serat Trayakir. One was recaptured while crossing the Gateway Waters. The prisoner revealed nothing, even under torture, but the master of the vessel he had been a passenger on revealed much. The three imposters who had been hired as bodyguards for the Lord of the Exchequer were known to be Slythians. The Lord of the Exchequer himself was a Slythian. They were thought to be members of families long loyal to the Empire, partly of Zekresh blood and veterans of the Imperial Army. It was discovered that the men they claimed to be had disappeared and that the three men who took their places and then obtained employment as guards for the Lord of the Exchequer were actually members of a Slythian cult called the "Keevalista".

The Keevalista was an secretive sect of the Slythian Cult of the Viper God. "Keevalista" means "secret fang" in Slythian. The Keevalista was known for assassinating its enemies and trained many of its members in the ancient Slythian arts of assassination. Though the captured imposter had died under torture without revealing anything, unusual weapons found in his possession were later discovered to have been made by and for members of the Keevalista. The Imperial Army descended upon the Keevalista in Slythia, but they were hard to find. The Keevalista had always been secretive, but now disappeared completely. Only a few were captured and those few revealed nothing. Other Slythians who were neighbors and family members of the Keevalista members told Imperial inquisitors about meetings with foreign visitors and Keevalista members paying off old debts with Ilanian silver coins. Exactly what happened may never be known, but Emperor Ardimuk III concluded that his brother had been slain by three Slythian assassins sent by the Keevalista who infiltrated the bodyguard of the Lord of the Exchequer in order to get inside Kast Trayakir. On the night of the assassination, they did not sneak into or out of the castle undetected. Instead, they began their midnight mission from the Lord of the Exchequer's room, just one floor below the Emperor's. After the deed was done, they did not attempt to flee, but merely returned back downstairs to their jobs as guards of the Lord of the Exchequer.

It was assumed that the Keevalista had carried out the assassination in exchange for a large payment from Prince Duran of Ilania. Many years later, additional information came to light which indicated that the sum paid to the Keevalista was truly vast, a king's ransom. The Keevalista became more powerful after this incident despite the Imperial government making every effort to find and kill every last member of it. Keevalista members were discovered to have suddenly become heavily involved in financing plots and rebellions throughout the Empire. Now it was clear that the vast amounts of wealth that they had suddenly acquired were payment for more than just the assassination of the Emperor. Though nearly all of the Keevalista's money was in old Ilanian coins, it became less clear exactly who had paid them and for what. Though the Emperor had assumed Prince Duran was behind the assassination of his brother, there is no doubt that it was the Tiva, not Duran, who were conspiring with the Keevalista to finance rebellions and treason throughout the Empire. The assassination increasingly appeared to be just the first step in a much larger scheme to destroy the Empire. It is unknown where the Tiva could have obtained such large sums of money and it is widely speculated that the conspiracy did include Prince Duran who contributed what was left of his family fortune to the plot. Likely the objective was not only to kill Ardimuk II, but to overthrow his whole dynasty and return the original Iyatyva Dynasty to the Zekresh throne as well as to regain independence and revenge for Ilania.

After eight years of hiding from assassins, suppressing rebellions and attempting to kill off the Keevalista, the Tiva and Prince Duran and other Ilanian royalty and nobility, Emperor Ardimuk III himself died. There were no marks on the body and he had not been known to be ill. The cause of his death remains a mystery. Some say it was a sudden illness, but of course, there is speculation that he was poisoned.

The First Zekran - Ilania War

2007-02-05T18:58:00.000-08:00

by Steldranuk

Ardimuk was already a grown man by the time he became Emperor and refused advice to take the reign name of Tarno IV. Instead, he ruled as Ardimuk I. Ardimuk had fought at the side of his father in the war to overthrow Princess Lanit and had also commanded an Imperial Army that suppressed a minor rebellion amongst the Crab People. Upon assuming the Imperial throne, Ardimuk I immediately began preparations for an undertaking he had long urged upon his father: war against the Principality of Ilania and the Principality of Corinweld. These were the ancient enemies who had destroyed the old Frayeth Empire and made the Frayeth people into destitute refugees driven to desperate refuges such as the crude fort that later became Zekran. For his desire to avenge this ancient wrong, Ardimuk soon earned the nickname, "Ardimuk the Avenger".

In the second year of the reign of Emperor Ardimuk I, all was ready. Ilania lay in the center of a group of ancient states which at times were unified, such as under Prince Toralin of Corinweld in ancient times. At other times, they would strive against one another for supremacy in an ever-changing set of alliances. The main states in this group were Ilania, Ravelonia, Corinweld, Groglinth, Nawarna and Grogia. Fortunately for Ardimuk, they were not always allies. Ardimuk chose to attack Grogia when he did because, at that time, Ilania was allied only with Groglinth. Nawarna and Corinweld were allied with Ravelonia against Ilania and Grogia was neutral in that conflict and allied only with Groglinth. Though it was obvious that an attack on Grogia would draw in first Groglinth and then, inevitably, Ilania itself, the fact that there was no direct alliance between Grogia and Ilania meant that there might be time for a swift campaign to crush one or even two enemy states before Ilania's army and navy could fully enter the battle. Then Ilania itself could be more easily defeated. In support of this objective, Ardimuk made an alliance with Ravelonia, ancient rival of Ilania, and another alliance with the people of Clam Island, ancient enemies of the Grogians.

The Shasa Zirra (Seagull River) was all that stood between the Aylorkernan of Logoran, which was Zekresh territory and had been part of the ancient Frayeth Empire, and the territory of the Grogians to the South. East of Grogia lay the lands of the Fire People which were now also Zekresh territory. Beyond Grogia, along the coast, lay Groglinth, ally of both Grogia and Ilania and beyond that, Ilania itself.

No river barred the way into Grogia from the East, but Ardimuk feared that bringing an army through the lands of the restive and disloyal Fire People would inevitably result in the Grogians getting advance warning of the attack. Instead, Emperor Ardimuk I envisioned crossing the Seagull River in force, rapidly marching through Grogia, forcing a crossing of the Grog River and invading Groglinth before Ilanian troops could respond, if they chose to enter the war at all. He expected that Ilanian troops would respond, if not in defense of Grogia, then when the Zekresh forces crossed the Grog River and invaded Ilania's ally Groglinth. At that point, his secret treaty with the Principality of Ravelonia would come into play. Prince Elgan of Ravelonia had agreed that if Ilania declared war on the Zekresh Empire and sent troops away to the North, that Ravelonia would attack Ilania from the South and induce its ally, Corinweld, to attack Ilania from the East.

Emperor Ardimuk had no doubt that Ilania would fall, he only hoped to capture the Ilanian capital, Nysarinda, before Ravelonian forces did. He hoped to defeat the Ilanian Royal Army rapidly in Groglinth and advance to Nysarinda.

Instead, the element of surprise was lost before the army marched, the crossing over the Shasa Zirra was resisted by Grogian warriors, and the invasion of Grogia became a difficult ordeal. Eventually, Imperial troops did invade Grogia from the East, but by this time, it made little difference. By then, the river had already been crossed and the advance from the East took place too far North to strike the rear of the Grogians and instead merely reinforced the Imperial forces after having taken an unnecessarily long route to get there.

The Grogians, also known as the "Frogs", were led by a man named Gilatanda. Gilatanda bore the title of "Ek-talan", an ancient title among the Grogians meaning "high chief" or "king". (Grogia means "land of the frogs" in all three of the main ancient languages of Ilania and in modern Ilanian. In the language of the Grogians, the name for their own country is Ne-Jivam which also means "land of the frogs")

Gilatanda, the Frog King, was a fearsome warrior who personally led his warriors in battle wielding their traditional axes. More devastating by far was their archery, for the Grogians were excellent archers. In the swamps which cover substantial portions of their lands, the Grogian archers would ride upon small, flat boats, propelled by poles swiftly over the muddy waters and swamp grasses while Imperial troops floundered, almost immobile, in hip-deep mud. Knowing his advantage in the swamps, Gilatanda always retreated into swamps when superior Imperial forces attacked him and always, he triumphed in the swamps. Imperial forces bypassed the swamps at their peril for then Gilatanda's army would emerge to strike unexpectedly from the flank or the rear of the Imperial forces.

Emperor Ardimuk I personally led the invading forces into Grogia and was greatly dismayed by the unexpected ferocity and skill of the Grogian warriors. His advance through their country was so greatly delayed that circumstances turned against him long before he reached the Grog River. The Clam Islanders did raid the coast of Grogia, but not nearly with the effect the Emperor had desired. Also, the Clam Islanders had boasted that they could hold the Ilanian Royal Navy at bay with their greater numbers of vessels and alleged superior seamanship. In fact, the Ilanian Royal Navy had much larger and more advanced ships while the Clam Islanders had little more than large boats. The fact that the Clam Islanders had more boats than Ilania had warships was of little consequence. Two weeks after the first Imperial soldier crossed the Shasa Zirra, Ilanian Royal Navy ships were in the Glivo Trayakir (Gateway Waters). They soon began raiding the coast of Logoran, then Slythia and even Frayethay.

The Zekresh Imperial Navy met them in battle, but despite its own much superior numbers, was soundly defeated in the first battles. The Ilanian Royal Navy was threatening Zekran itself when their fleet was called away by news that Ravelonia and Corinweld had entered the war and that the Ravelonian Navy was blockading Nysarinda.

Ardimuk had finally crossed the Grog River, triggering the provisions of his secret treaty with Ravelonia that they would enter the war. The Zekresh forces by then were battered and harried and unable to even hold their position on the left bank of the Grog and were promptly repulsed by Groglinth forces and Ilanian troops that were already in the country. This army of Groglinthers and Ilanians pursued the Zekresh as they retreated into Grogia and were attacked on the flanks wish renewed vigor by Grogian warriors under Gilatanda. To the dismay of Emperor Ardimuk and Prince Elgan of Ravelonia, Ravelonia's ally, Corinweld, refused to enter the war and remained neutral even though their army was perfectly positioned to strike Groglinth while its army and most of Ilania's were in Grogia.

As a consequence of the retreat of Zekresh forces and the neutrality of Corinweld, the Ravelonian army was defeated by the Ilanians.

Ardimuk sued for peace. This was agreed to in the hastily arranged "Peace of the Fens". The treaty agreed to a return to prior borders and an end to the fighting with no long-term settlement of grievances or even promise of peace.

The peace did not even last until the end of the year. Ardimuk blamed Corinweld above all for the failure of his invasion. He was also well aware that Prince Varin of Corinweld had promised Prince Elgan of Ravelonia that he would enter the war and that Prince Elgan was furious about it. Thinking that Varin had no allies and could not hope to stand alone against the Zekresh Empire, Emperor Ardimuk began assembling a new army in Argan Inuva (South Fireland) which bordered Corinweld. Little did he know that Corinweld's unexpected neutrality was due to a secret treaty of alliance with Prince Aran of Ilania.

The invasion went well at first and Zekresh forces besieged Prince Varin in Corinweld Castle, but Ilania soon entered the war and broke the seige. The Zekresh Imperial Navy had used the opportunity of the brief peace to begin construction of larger Ilanian-style warships. None of these were finished by the time war broke out, but the Ilanian Royal Navy missed their chance to raid the coasts of the Empire by remaining in their home waters to guard against an expected attack from Ravelonia.

Prince Elgan of Ravelonia was in fact unwilling to enter another alliance with Ardimuk since he had gained nothing and lost much in the last war. Groglinth and Grogia soon entered the war on the Ilanian side. Groglinth sent troops to help defend Corinweld. Grogia sent warriors across the Shasa Zirra to attack Logoran, but they were soon repulsed.

The war then became a war of attrition. The following year, the 3rd year of the reign of Ardimuk I, Zekresh managed to renew its offensive and beseige Corinweld again, this time capturing it and Prince Varin who was forced under torture to give up his lands to the Zekresh Empire by signing a scroll known as the "Dungeon Abdication". Prince Varin's son Darin claimed the crown of Corinweld nonetheless and led Corinwelder forces against Zekresh. The Ilanian Royal Navy now sallied forth to attack Logoran, raiding the coasts and drawing forces away from the Grogian border. As planned by Prince Aran, the Grogians then attacked Logoran, not across the heavily defended Shasa Zirra, but by sea, escorted and transported by the Ilanian Royal Navy. Ilanian troops also participated. Logoran was soon overrun. Aylorkern Havimuk of Logoran fought valiantly, but could not hold out forever against such an onslaught. Emperor Ardimuk, perhaps influenced by his father's ambition to see all the warlordships abolished, sent minimal reinforcements and even ordered the Zekresh Imperial Navy to keep most of its ships on the defensive on the North Shore while the Ilanian Royal Navy pillaged the coast of Logoran.

Ardimuk cynically watched the enemy ravage Logoran, besiege its warlord in his castle and eventually capture him. Ardimuk directed all reinforcements to the Imperial Army force at Corinweld, consigning Logoran and its warlord to doom. This strategy was unimaginable to Prince Aran of Ilania who took news of his victories in Logoran as signs of profound Zekresh weakness and directed his own reinforcements increasingly to push the advance in Logoran, weakening his forces in Corinweld. All the while, Ardimuk offered every inducement to Prince Elgan of Ravelonia to get him to enter the war. Failing that, he made an alliance with the Ogdalin of the Warna Nation, who feared Ilanian dominance if Corinweld fell to Ilanian forces.

With the help of Warnan troops, Zekresh forces took all of Corinweld in the second year of the war, the fourth year of the reign of Ardimuk I. They then advanced into Ilania itself. In the meantime, Ilanian forces had captured and killed Havimuk, the Aylorkern ya Logoran.

Warnan and Zekresh forces were well on their way to capturing Nysarinda when the Ilanians withdrew some of their forces from Logoran to reinforce their homeland. Then Prince Elgan of Ravelonia contemplated what the world would be like if Ilania were to not just be weakened, but conquered and reduced to a province of the Zekresh Empire. Fearing such an outcome more than he feared Ilania, Prince Elgan convinced the Ogdalin of the Warna Nation to withdraw most of his troops from the invasion. When this happened, the invasion bogged down.

Ardimuk pressed on relentlessly, retreating when he had to, but advancing again each time. Another year of war dragged on. Prince Aran of Ilania now prepared a new scheme with Gilatanda, the Ek-talan of Grogia and Thon XIV, the Prince of Groglinth. In the third year of the war and the fifth year of the reign of Ardimuk I, Grogian and Groglinther forces struck East from Grogia into Argan Tros (North Fireland).

The tribes of the Fire People rose in revolt upon the arrival of Grogian forces in Argan Tros. The rebellion spread faster than the Grogians could march until Emperor Ardimuk and his army were completely cut off from the Empire. The rebellion spread to Argan Inuva and even to Kikali soldiers in the Imperial Army in Corinweld and Ilania. Ardimuk was forced to retreat to Corinweld where he was beseiged at Corinweld Castle by Ilanian and Corinweld forces.

With these developments, Prince Elgan of Ravelonia again feared Ilanian supremacy and entered the war on the Zekresh side. At Elgan's urging, the Warna Nation also entered the war on the Zekresh side once again. The Ravelonian Navy struck a devastating blow at Nysarinda and the Ilanians were forced to call back all their naval forces to defend the capital. This allowed Zekresh Imperial Navy forces to act with impunity, bringing troops from the North Peninsula to Argan Inuva to suppress the revolt and send an army to the relief of their besieged Emperor at Corinweld Castle. An overland attack from Warna by Warna and Ravelonian forces compelled Prince Aran of Ilania to withdraw some of his forces from the seige at Corinweld. Warna and Zekresh forces were then able to reach Corinweld first and lift the siege. Ardimuk knew this was his chance to crush Ilania, but likely at the cost of losing all the rest of the Zekresh territories in the South Peninsula as rebel armies, especially Kikali ones, were growing stronger and bolder by the day.

Ardimuk also feared that if his army did reach Nysarinda with the help of Ravelonia and Warna that those fickle allies would again snatch victory from him at the last minute. Instead, Ardimuk called for peace negotiations to give himself time to suppress the rebels and develop a new strategy. The negotiations took place at Corinweld Castle and the resulting agreement was called the Treaty of Corinweld. This time, Ardimuk found it necessary to promise that his forces would never again attack Grogia, Warna or any of "the principalities" (Ravelonia, Ilania, Corinweld and Groglinth). The Treaty of Corinweld was signed in the 6th year of the reign of Ardimuk I.

Warlords of the Empire

2007-02-05T18:27:00.000-08:00

(OOC: scroll written in Zekresh)

An examination of the rise and fall of the feudal warlords of the Zekresh Empire during the Marivuk and Tarno Dynasties.
By Yavuk the Scribe
Written in the 20th year of the Reign of Yatyva XXII

The Marivuk Dynasty

Marivuk I came to power by overthrowing his wife's cousin, Yatyva III, who had become widely despised for his dissolute ways. Marivuk's rash action put him on the throne, but it also set a dangerous precedent. Marivuk was not even related to the royal family by blood, only by marriage. For this reason, he was called "The Husband Emperor". His reign was beset by plots and rebellions by those who wished to use his own violent methods to put a more legitimate emperor on the throne. Marivuk I crushed these ruthlessly and appointed warlords to watch over various parts of the Empire and to be ready to suppress insurrection at a moment's notice. These warlords ("aylorkerno"(plural) or "aylorkern" (singular) in Zekresh) were the beginnings of the feudal nobility of the Zekresh Empire. They were also the beginning of the division of the Empire into provinces. The use of the titles "lord" ("aylor" in Zekresh) and "warlord" ("aylorkern") as titles of nobility in the Empire began with Marivuk's warlords. There were originally six such warlords. Their titles were:

Aylorkern ya Nass Umrug (Warlord of Marsh Bay)
Aylorkern ya Frayethay Yost (Warlord of East Frayeth Land)
Aylorkern ya Kast Yvar (Warlord of Haven Fortress)
Aylorkern ya Uvinshakh (Warlord of Interior)
Aylorkern ya Lushan (Warlord of Mossland) ("Lush" is from the language of the Moss People. In Zekresh it's "firiad")
Aylorkern ya Timbelan (Warlord of Mushroomland) ("Timbel" is from the language of the Mushroom People. In Zekresh it's "noggaf".)

Their names were:

Anamuk ya Nass Umrug
Gamuk ya Frayethay
Yavuk ya Kast Yvar
Talimuk ya Uvinshakh
Posenyva ya Lushan
Limt ya Timbelan

Descendants of Olomuk and Yormuk began to exploit the fact that "aylorkern" was also the term used to describe Olomuk and Yormuk when they tried to rule all of Frayethay, Olomuk from Zekran, Yormuk from Kast Yvar. From this time began the first attempts by Olomuk's heirs to claim the title "Aylorkern ya Zekryvan (or Zekran)" and the dispute between Yormuk's descendants and the Zekresh nobility over the title "Aylorkern ya Kast Yvar". Both the Olomuk and Yormuk families tried to also claim the title "Aylorkern ya Frayethay." These families' constant reference to their ancestors led to the development of the last names "ya Olomuk or Yolomuk and ya Yormuk". The "ya Yormukan" family is descended from the Zekresh warlords of Yormukan, while the "ya Yormuk" family are descended from the warlord Yormuk who predates the Zekresh Empire and was not ever part of the Zekresh nobility.

Marivuk I spent twenty years suppressing rebellions and was never able to accomplish anything else of note. His only hope was that his son would not have the same problems. This was a well founded hope since the primary objections to Marivuk's rule were that he was not a blood relation of the Emperors and that he came to power by means of armed rebellion. Neither of these handicaps would be true of his son. Marivuk's claim to legitimacy was that his wife, Ernavit, was a royal princess. As her son, the new prince was a blood relation of the earlier Emperors. To emphasize this, Marivuk named his son Yatyva, after the earlier emperors.

Upon Marivuk's death, his son, Yatyva, ascended the throne at 19 years of age as the Emperor Yatyva IV. Before he could even be crowned, rebellion broke out. Yatyva saved himself and his dynasty by fleeing from Zekran as rebel forces seized control, riding to Kast Yvar and raising an army. He then led that army to Nass Umrug and Yormukan, rallying loyalists to his cause and crushing rebels until Zekran was isolated. By the time he reached Zekran, his forces vastly outnumbered the rebels. The rebels abandoned Zekran without a fight and their lands and other property were confiscated and given out to the new Emperor's loyalists along with the new title of "aylor" meaning lord). There were dozens of ayloro created by Yatyva IV, the exact number is not known. Yatyva IV also reformed the coinage, issuing a new silver coin called the Bayal to replace the earlier "Yat" and a copper Dovek coin to replace those minted by the warlords. The achievements of Yatyva IV in his first year on the throne impressed nearly everyone, especially since he was so young at the time. Rebellions were not a major problem for the rest of his reign.

Yatyva IV reigned for 19 years and was succeeded by his son, Yatyva V. Yatyva V waged war against the Viper People in the 6th year of his reign. The war continued for four years, but in the end, the Viper People (Slythians) were defeated and at the Peace of Yishil, Konigak, the "King of the Vipers," agreed to cede a small part of his territory east of Yishil to the Empire as well as his offshore islands. Two years later, war broke out again, and this time, Yishil was taken by Imperial forces along with all the territory of the Viper People. King Konigak was killed. Many of the Viper People fled west. A new King of the Vipers arose and established a stronghold at Hidden Bay (Nass Mysktia). His name was Ferigon. Ferigon and his Viper warriors attacked the Empire in the 17th year of the reign of Yatyva V. The subsequent war lasted for five years. During this war, warriors of the Bear Tribes to the north of Ferigon's realm came to his assistance several times. Ferigon's demise came when the Bear Tribes were no longer willing to support him. Nass Mysktia was overrun by Imperial forces and when Ferigon, King of the Vipers, fled to the territory of the Bear Tribes, the Bear Tribes captured him and handed him over to the Empire as a gesture of goodwill.

Emperor Yatyva V appointed two new warlords to rule over the conquered territory. Their titles were:

Aylorkern ya Slythan (Warlord of Viperland)
Aylorkern ya Nass Mysktia (Warlord of Hidden Bay)

Their names were:

Alimuk ya Slythan
Dramuk ya Nass Mysktia

During this time, the Empire was also expanding to the North at the expense of some small tribes who mostly fled northwards as Frayeth and Zekresh settlers came into their lands. The new territories in the North were added to the lands of the Warlord of Interior and the Warlord of Kast Yvar.

The Emperor's encouragement of expansionist policies ended with his death in the 23rd year of his reign. His nephew and successor, Yatyva VI, "The Pious", was devoted to internal matters such as reforming the system of taxation and establishing state control over religion. This was done by creating an official "Zekresh" religion separate from the Frayeth religion to which it was virtually identical. The public practice of all other religions was banned, thus putting the high priests of the Frayeth religion at a disadvantage. Those who cooperated with the Emperor were made high priests of the "Zekresh religion" and allowed to perform ceremonies in public. The others were made into outlaws. Many were put to death.

Yatyva VI was also the first Emperor to use a "reign name" which was different from his actual name. Yatyva VI was actually called Balimuk before he became Emperor.

In the 8th year of the reign of Yatyva VI, the Emperor died of a fever and his son ascended the throne as Yatyva VII. Yatyva VII ruled for 16 years, but had no memorable accomplishments other than to be the father of Yatyva VIII who embarked upon the most ambitious expansion of the Empire yet. Yatyva VIII set as his goal the recovery of the lands of the old Frayeth Empire in the South Peninsula. For this, he was known as "The Reclaimer". Since these lands could only be reached by sea and the Empire's naval forces were small and primitive, this was an audacious scheme. Yatyva VIII ordered a vast shipbuilding program. In the 5th year of the reign of Yatyva VIII, the Empire launched a seaborne invasion of the lands of the Cliff People and the Seagull People, both of whom had been vassals of the old Frayeth Empire four centuries earlier. This was successful, but holding the territory and transplanting Frayeth and Zekresh settlers there was difficult and expensive. Still, in the 20th year of the reign of Yatyva VIII, the Emperor was able to spare the troops, ships and money to address another old grievance by waging war on the Crab People on the Northeast Coast. The conquest was successful and Yatyva VIII next turned his attention to the most ambitious invasion plan of his career, the seaborne invasion of the Fire People. This was to obtain revenge for the death of Zekryva and the sufferings of the Zekresh and Frayeth during the Fire Wars. The Fire People were excellent sailors and possessed a large fleet so the invasion had to wait while the Imperial fleet was built up. It was also contemplated to attack overland from the Cliff People territory. Then, in the 28th year of his reign, Yatyva VIII died without having carried out his plan to invade the Fire People.

He did create three new warlords:

Aylorkern ya Logoran (Warlord of Cliffland)
Aylorkern ya Zirran (Warlord of Gulland)
Aylorkern ya Flitran (Warlord of Crabland)

Their names were:

Izdanuk ya Logoran
Ushinyva ya Zirran
Balimuk ya Flitran

This brought the number of warlords (not including Zekran) to eleven. The territory of an aylorkern was called an aylorkernan (Warlord Land or Warlordship) not a Salan (province). Zekran was not included because it was ruled directly by the Vylor (Emperor) not an Aylorkern (Warlord).

Yatyva IX succeeded his father Yatyva VIII. Yatyva IX found it difficult to hold together what his father had built and a scheme to invade the lands of the Tide People in preparation for the much dreamt of conquest of the Fire People failed. The scheme did not fail militarily, though it might have because the Tide People had an alliance with the powerful Fire People. Rather, the Aylorkern ya Logoran (Warlord of Cliffland) refused to participate and without his assistance, the scheme was deemed unworkable. This showed, however, that even the newer warlords now had the power to defy the Emperor himself. The more established warlords were more powerful still.

A series of conflicts between the Emperor and the warlords was not resolved in his lifetime, but came to a head at his death. After 20 years on the throne, Yatyva IX passed away, leaving the throne to his son-in-law, Andyva, who was in Logoran (Cliffland) at the time. Before Andyva could return to the capital, some of the warlords who despised Andyva took action. Troops loyal to Tarno, the Aylorkern ya Frayethay Yost (Warlord of East Frayeth Land) and Posenyva, the Aylorkern ya Lushan (Warlord of Mossland) entered the capital and allowed the warlords to set up a new government. The warlords quickly established the "Stavukya Aylorkerno" (Council of Warlords) which ruled while the Imperial throne was vacant. Andyva went to Nass Umrug and declared himself Emperor Yatyva X, but he was swiftly arrested for treason by soldiers loyal to the Aylorkern ya Nass Umrug and beheaded. (Historians do not consider him to have ever actually been an Emperor and the reign name of Yatyva X was used by a later Emperor of the Tarno Dynasty.)

Since Yatyva IX had no sons and his sons-in-law, nephews and grandsons all could claim inheritance only via female line succession, the Stavukya Aylorkerno (Council of Warlords) issued a decree banning female line succession. This was ironic considering why Emperor Marivuk I had started creating warlords in the first place. On the other hand, it gained some political support and provided a fine excuse to disenfranchise all of Emperor Yatyva IX's close heirs. Although there were more distant heirs, the whole Marivuk Dynasty owed its rule to female-line succession by Marivuk I and his son and were therefore declared ineligible for the throne by the warlords.

This was, of course, a move to keep the warlords themselves in power. At first, they spoke of restoring the original Iyatyva Dynasty, but after so much time had passed, it became very debatable which descendant of the Iyatyva Dynasty Emperors should get the throne. The one with the strongest claim, a man named Alimuk, proclaimed himself Emperor Yatyva IV and pledged to abolish the titles and authority of the warlords. Because he considered the entire Marivuk Dynasty illegitimate, he ignored the fact that there had already been a Marivuk Emperor named Yatyva IV and others up to Yatyva IX. Other candidates were more palatable to some of the warlords, but within the first two months of rule by the Stavukya Aylorkerno, the warlords had already formed into two factions with each faction backing a different candidate for the Imperial throne. It was obvious that their preferred candidates were pawns of the most powerful warlords who had become faction leaders. The leaders were Yalimuk, Aylorkern ya Nass Umrug and Tarno, Aylorkern ya Frayethay Yost. Neither faction backed Alimuk, the new Yaytva IV.

Yalimuk's troops, together with those of the Warlord of the Interior, the Warlord of Kast Yvar (Haven Fortress) and the Warlord of Timbelan (Mushroom land) marched on East Frayethay to attack Tarno. But Tarno had control of the capital and called out Imperial troops to assist him. Also, Posenyva, the Warlord of Lushan (Mossland) was on his side and fought the troops of Torimuk, the Warlord of Timbelan to block them from reaching East Frayethay. At this point, the Warlord of Slythan (Viper Land) joined the fight on the side of Tarno, sending an invasion force to invade Aylorkernan Nass Umrug. Yet again, the role of the Viper was to strike Nass Umrug a fatal blow from behind, just as it had in the days of Yormuk and again in the days of Iyatyva. This time it was not the Viper People themselves who initiated the attack, but the Zekresh warlord of Slythan who raised an army of Viper People warriors and Zekresh knights.

This surprise attack from the lands of the Viper caused Yalimuk to split his forces and send some back to defend Nass Umrug. He went into battle in East Frayethay with a reduced force and lost. Yalimuk and the warlords of Kast Yvar and the Interior were captured, imprisoned, and later beheaded. Their candidate for the throne was also beheaded. Alimuk fled across the Gateway Waters to the domain of Ushinyva, the Warlord of Zirran (Gulland). There he searched in vain for the fabled Lost Crown of Ilania in the hope that it would allow him to magically command obedience and thereby regain the throne.

Once Tarno was in control of the Stavukya Aylorkerno with no strong forces opposing him, he cast aside the pretense that he had any real interest in restoring the Iyatyva Dynasty to the throne and caused the Stavukya Aylorkerno (Council of Warlords) to declare him Tarno I, Zekresh Emperor. Thus began the Tarno Dynasty.

The Tarno Dynasty

Tarno I, "the Warlord Emperor", is said to have come to the throne "dripping with blood" because of all the violence involved in his rise to power. The fighting was not yet entirely ended when he first put on the Imperial crown. His first decree was to ban female line succession to the Imperial throne, thus confirming as Emperor what he and the other warlords had decreed as the Stavukya Aylorkerno. This was intended to legally block any heir of the Marivuk Dynasty from pursuing any claim to the throne. His next priority was to stamp out any further threat to his authority. This was done by dispatching the Imperial Army and some of his own troops from East Frayethay to Nass Umrug to assist the Warlord of Slythan in capturing it. Then, with the Slythan troops and more troops from Lushan, Tarno led this vast army to Kast Yvar and laid siege to it. The seige lasted for six months and tied up most of the troops available to Tarno. When it was over, he besieged the smaller fortress at Lorekan.

Meanwhile, the warlord Posenyva of Lushan conquered Timbelan with only his own troops despite having sent some to assist in the siege of Kast Yvar. Tarno rewarded this deed by allowing the warlord of Lushan to permanently annex Timbelan to his Aylorkernan. The new Aylorkernan was at first called the Aylorkernan of Lushan and Timbelan. (Aylorkernan ya Lushan arend Timbelan), but was soon renamed the Aylorkernan of Yormukan in honor of the much earlier conquest of both those lands by the warlord Yormuk.

On the South Peninsula, Alimuk was claiming to be the Emperor and had the support of Ushinyva, the Aylorkern ya Zirran (Warlord of Gulland). In addition to the Zirran troops, he raised a new "Imperial Army" out of his supporters, deserters from the regular Imperial Army, and local levies. With this force, Alimuk the Pretender invaded Logoran, the Lands of the Cliff People. With minimal help from Imperial forces, the warlord Izdanuk of Logoran defeated this invasion, then defeated an incursion by Fire People from the South, then invaded and occupied Zirran (Gulland), forcing Alimuk the Pretender and Ushinyva, the warlord of Zirran (Gulland), to flee into exile in the Principality of Ilania, further to the South. With this move, Alimuk threw away all hope of popular support in the Empire because of the ancient enmity between the Frayeth and the Ilanians.

For this great victory, Emperor Tarno I allowed Izdanuk, the Aylorkern of Logoran (Cliff Land) to permanently annex Zirran (Gulland) to his territory, thus putting all Imperial territory South of the Gateway Waters under one warlord.

Tarno annexed Aylorkernan Nass Umrug into his own territory of Frayethay Yost and renamed it Aylorkernan "Frayethay". He replaced the warlord of Kast Yvar with Dulimuk, the general who had rallied the Imperial Army to his cause. He replaced the warlord of the Interior with his own brother, Durno.

This whole episode is referred to by historians as the "Battles of the Warlords" and lasted less than a year during the 1st year of the reign of Emperor Tarno I.

With or without popular support, Alimuk remained the clearest legitimate heir of the Iyatyva Dynasty, the first Imperial Dynasty of Zekran. His claim became incontrovertable after many other members of his family were killed back in the Zekresh Empire. He and his descendants maintained a separate government in exile in Ilania with the support of the Prince of Ilania. This was a cause for increased hostility between the Zekresh Empire and the Principality of Ilania for many years.

Tarno spent the first few years of his rule consolidating his power. This involved killing or imprisoning all the leading heirs of the Marivuk Dynasty and, ironically, the Iyatyva Dynasty. Tarno understood that the process which had brought him to power could just as easily put a different warlord on the throne and lead to civil wars in every generation. To solve this, he built up the Imperial military, ostensibly for war with foreign enemies. In the 8th year of his reign, Emperor Tarno I sent that military to attack the People of the Tides by land and sea. This led immediately to war with their allies, the powerful Fire People.

The war raged for three years. During this time, the Emperor conscripted the troops of the warlords and sent them into battle in the South Peninsula so that the warlords would find it difficult to overthrow him even though most of the Imperial military had gone off to war. The war proved far more difficult than expected, but ultimately, the Fire People's lands were invaded and occupied. The Fire People never surrendered and resistance continued for generations, but they were annexed to the Empire. Their territories were so large that the Emperor did not think any one warlord could rule them all. He also was worried about the ability of warlords on the other side of the Gateway Waters to defy Imperial authority. Ushinyva, the former warlord of Zirran (Gulland), had already done this and even harboured Alimuk the Pretender and aided his rebellion.

Instead, he decided not to appoint any more warlords. He divided the lands of the Fire People in half and gave each of these new territories the name "Gurikanan" (Captaincy) instead of Aylorkernan (Warlordship). The lands of the People of the Tides were also made a Gurikanan. The three Gurikanan were called:

a Gurikanan ya Sishan (the Captaincy of the lands of Sish. Sish means Tides in the local language)
a Gurikanan ya Argan Tros (the Captaincy of North Fireland)
a Gurikanan ya Argan Inuva (the Captaincy of South Fireland)

Each Gurikanan was placed under the control of a military Gurikan (captain). The key difference between an Aylorkernan and a Gurikanan was that a Gurikanan was not a hereditary feudal fiefdom. It belonged to the Empire, not to a warlord and his heirs. The military officers who ruled there knew that they could be removed at any time by the Emperor. Their sons would not inherit their position.

(In those days "Gurikan" (captain) meant a military leader. There was no system of organized military ranks. Later Gurikan became a relatively low rank in the Imperial military. The terms for higher ranks such as "Ekanor Falan", "Gurikan Falan" and "Gurikan Falanorata" did not exist in those days.)

After ruling for 19 years, Tarno I abdicated the throne in favor of his son. This was to minimize the danger that warlords would rebel when Tarno I died. His son, Tarno II, ascended the throne while his father was still there to protect him if need be. By the time the elder Tarno actually died, Tarno II had been on the throne for seven years and was firmly in power.

Unfortunately, Tarno II also died just a few months after his father died. It is speculated that once the father was dead, the son was assassinated by poison. There is no proof of that.

Nonetheless, when Tarno II died, he left behind two young daughters named Lanit and Janit and an infant son named Yatyva. The warlord of Yormukan immediately moved troops to the capital, but was thwarted from taking over by the Imperial military and troops from Aylorkernan Frayethay. Troops soon arrived at the capital from the Aylorkernan Uvinshakh (Warlordship of the Interior) under the command of Durno, younger brother of the late Emperor Tarno I.

Durno declared that he would support the legitimate heir, the infant, Yatyva, and thereby gained the support of the Imperial Army whose primary objective was to avoid a civil war. The infant was declared Emperor Yatyva X. Durno then ruled as regent while the Emperor was an infant. Yatyva X is known as "Yatyva the Child" because he was the first child Emperor and also because he never grew up.

When Yatyva X was 13 years old, he perished from an illness. The regent, Durno, was now heir to the throne because Tarno II had no brothers nor any other sons. The Princess Lanit had other plans, however. Though she was only 18 years old at the time, she was married to Zanyva, the Warlord of Slythan, a marriage alliance her father had arranged to keep Slythan loyal to the new Tarno Dynasty. On the night that Yatyva X died, the regent, Durno, was assassinated by Slythian assassins in the service of Princess Lanit. She had also won the loyalty of the Imperial guards who were from Aylorkernan Frayethay. Durno, being from Frayethay himself, trusted them more than men from the Aylorkernan he had been given in the Interior even after all these years. The trust was misplaced. The troops assisted Princess Lanit in seizing control of the Imperial palace, capturing the crown and placing it on the head of her own son, Olimuk, in a hasty coronation ceremony. He was derisively referred to by his opponents as "the Princess's Emperor".

Olimuk was the only grandson of Emperor Tarno II, princess Lanit's father, but he was banned from the throne by the decree of Tarno I against female line succession because his relationship to the late Emperor Tarno II was through Princess Lanit. Princess Lanit met this challenge head on by deciding that her son would take the reign name of "Marivuk II". By boldly naming him after the The Husband Emperor, founder of the Marivuk Dynasty, Princess Lanit declared that he would follow in the footsteps of Marivuk I and ascend the throne by virtue of female line succession regardless of what any law might say. The original Marivuk created a dynasty that had held onto power for 133 years despite a similar ban and he wasn't even a blood relative of the royal family. Olimuk, now Marivuk II, was the only grandson of the most recent adult Emperor. But he was not himself an adult. He was only three years old. His first and only decree was to agree with his mother's suggestion that she be declared regent until he was an adult. Within two days, the Imperial Army was obeying orders from Princess Lanit and by the time they heard from Durno's son, the rightful heir, Princess Lanit had a stranglehold on power in the capital and was executing people for disobedience. It was too late for the Imperial Army to back Durno's son now. Durno's son Verno was not a child, nor was he a fool. He had also just inherited the title of Warlord of the Interior from his father. He turned back from the capital when he heard what was happening there and returned to his fortress at Lorekan in the Interior. There he penned kind messages of well wishing and sent them along with gifts to Princess Lanit. He acknowledged Marivuk II as Emperor and Princess Lanit as regent and seemed to present no threat to her authority. But he would not come to the capital when summoned. He claimed to be too ill. When spies confirmed his illness and other matters became more pressing, Princess Lanit postponed plans to take action against him.

Princess Lanit had other more obvious threats to her power as rebellions broke out against her rule in Frayethay, Logoran, Yormukan and Kast Yvar. Within a year, all the conquered Fire People and Tide People of the Gurikanano were in revolt and garrisons in the West mutinied. Late in the 2nd year of the reign of Emperor Marivuk II, the Warlord of Yormukan openly rebelled against Princess Lanit. She sent the Imperial Army to besiege his castle at Kast Yormuk. All through the winter, the siege continued. Then, when Spring came, Verno marched to Kast Yvar with an army. The warlord of Kast Yvar raised an army of his own and together they marched to Zekran which was poorly guarded because so many troops had been sent to suppress rebellions and besiege the warlord of Yormukan. As they approached Zekran, some of the Imperial Army units there mutinied, making defense of the city impossible. Princess Lanit and little Emperor Marivuk II got on a Slythian ship and set sail for Yishil where her husband, Zanyva, ruled as Warlord of Slythan. Unfortunately for Princess Lanit, the Imperial Navy also rallied to the cause of Verno, the legitimate heir to the throne, and her ship was intercepted and she was captured.

When Princess Lanit was brought before the victorious Warlord Verno, she claimed he could not become Emperor now because he had already recognized Marivuk II as Emperor. The most he could do, said she, was to replace her as regent, and even that, only if he could coerce the child into issuing a decree against his own mother. Eventually, Lanit said, her son would grow up and he rule as Emperor. Verno acknowledged that Marivuk II was the Emperor. Then he had the child and Princess Lanit killed, declared the throne vacant and had himself crowned Emperor because he was the legitimate heir via the male-line only theory of succession just as he had been before Marivuk II toddled his way onto the throne. Verno took the reign name of Tarno III.

Although some historians consider Marivuk II to be technically not part of the Tarno Dynasty or not even legally an Emperor, he is usually included in the Tarno Dynasty and Tarno III permitted Marivuk II to be listed as his predecessor on official lists of Emperors.

Tarno III set as his main task securing the throne from conspiracy and coup-de-etat. Since he had seen clearly that no law could stand in the way of a determined aspirant to the throne who had command of troops, he set out to ensure that there would only be one army and that it would always side with the legitimate heir.

Tarno III first sent the Imperial Army to the Aylorkernan of Slythan to overthrow Zanyva, the warlord there. The Imperial Army found that Zanyva was furious at the killing of his wife and son and hot for revenge. To accomplish this revenge, Zanyva was raising an army of Viper People from his own territory and from nearby Nass Mysktia by telling them that he would lead them in a war against the Empire. Emperor Tarno III stopped this rebellion with words instead of battles by proclaiming that if the army of Viper People continued their rebellion that they would eventually be slain, but if they rallied to the cause of the Empire and turned against Zanyva, that the Emperor would remove the warlords from power in Slythan and also Nass Mysktia and never send warlords to rule them again. Instead, he would appoint one of their own countrymen to rule Slythan as a Gurikan and another to rule Nass Mysktia. Upon hearing this, the army of Viper People turned against Zanyva and killed him. They also forced the warlord of Nass Mysktia to surrender to Imperial forces.

The Emperor Tarno III kept his promise. The Aylorkernan Slythan became the Gurikanan Slythia. The name was changed from Slythan to Slythia because the Slythians themselves call it Slythia. Slythan is a Zekresh version of the name. Nass Mysktia was also proclaimed a Gurikanan despite the protestations of its former warlord that he had not joined in Zanyva's rebellion. The Emperor said it did not matter. The warlord's sacred duty had always been to stop rebellions against the Empire within their territory. The warlord of Nass Mysktia had failed to do so and the Emperor claimed the right to remove any warlord for such a failure. Tarno III was pursuing a plan to put an end to all the warlords and their private armies. He saw this as the only way to secure the throne for his descendants.

Next, Tarno III abolished the title of Warlord of the Interior, changed the name of the territory from Aylorkernan Uvinshakh (Warlordship of the Interior) to Gurikanan Uvinshakh Voint (Captaincy of the Peninsula Interior). He was free to do this without angering any warlords since he, himself, was the Warlord of the Interior in addition to being Emperor. He had also inherited the Warlordship of Frayethay and turned that into a Gurikanan as well.

Of the eleven warlordships that had existed when Yatyva IX ascended the throne, three were annexed to others in the reign of Tarno I, four more had now been abolished by Tarno III, leaving only four. These were Kast Yvar, Yormukan, Flitran and Logoran.

The Emperor was now in a much stronger position relative to the warlords, but two of the remaining warlords (Kast Yvar and Yormukan) were dangerously close to the capital. Tarno III considered simply abolishing them by decree, but he knew it would mean civil war and that would make the Empire vulnerable to foreign enemies. At this time, there were two foreign enemies who were sufficiently strong and near enough to pose a considerable threat to the Empire. One of these was the ancient enemy, the Principality of Ilania and its neighbors and sometimes allies: Ravelonia, Nawarna, Corinweld, Groglinth and Grogia. The other was the Bear Tribes who were vast in numbers and ruled a large territory Northwest of the Empire.

Tarno III was able to weaken the power of the warlords further during his reign by means of minor decrees, but he was not able to whittle down their numbers any further. After twelve years on the throne, he passed away from a fever. His son, Ardimuk, was the clear heir and his succession was not contested.

How the Empire Began

2007-02-05T18:06:00.000-08:00

This is the story of how the Zekresh Empire began.
By Yavuk the Scribe
Written in the 18th year of the Reign of Yatyva XXII

The Wars of Fire

Two generations after the War of the Duel, new Frayethay was prospering on the coast of North Peninsula when the tribes of the Fire People began to raid them and the tribes of wildmen nearby such as the Marsh People, the Shell People and the Moss People. The raiders would come by ship along the coast. During these wars, most of the Frayeth people in the new Frayethay fled inland away from the coast and established fortified places.

The largest of these was the fortification known as "Kast Yvar" (Fort Refuge) after which Salan Kast (Fortress Province) is named. Another one was established by Zekryva, the leader of a group of Frayeth warriors who fled inland from the coast. The fort they built was known as Kast Uvinshakh (Interior Fort) and was located a day's march inland from the present site of the city of Zekran.

Fire People actually attempted to set up a permanent settlement on the coast nearby in lands that belonged to a tribe of wildmen called the Shell People. The Shell People had been friendly to the Frayeth and their lands were the farthest Southeast corner of North Peninsula, closest to the lands of the Fire People across the waters on South Peninsula.

The Frayeth warriors of Kast Uvinshakh raided the Fire People's camps and settlement and were in turn attacked and besieged by the Fire People. Kast Uvinshakh withstood all these attacks and served as a rallying point for Frayeth resistance to the occupation of Frayethay by the Fire People. Ultimately, the raids from Kast Uvinshakh made the Fire People's settlement near the present site of Zekran untenable and they left. Zekryva and his men then moved to the coast and built a new fort there called Kast Olalga (Coast Fort). They built ships and used this fort to launch raids by sea against the lands of the Fire People and their allies, the People of the Tides. In response, the Fire People and the People of the Tides besieged Kast Olalga for four months, but failed to take it. Zekryva's victories against the Fire People made him a legendary figure among the Frayeth, but he was killed soon after the seige of Kast Olalga while participating in a raid against the People of the Tides.

The First Dynasty

After Zekryva's death, Kast Olalga came to be known as Kast Zekryva (Zekryva's Fort). Under the leadership of Zekryva's successors, Kast Zekryva became a settlement and not just a fort.

Partly because of the protection of the fort and partly because of its strategic location on the Gateway Waters, Kast Zekryva eventually became the major port on that coast. The Frayeth warlord Olomuk made it the capital of his short-lived realm. The oldest title of Zekresh nobility still claimed by anyone is the title of "Aylorkern ya Zekryvan" which is still claimed by the alleged descendants of Olomuk.

Because Kast Zekryva was Olomuk's capital, the lands he ruled were called Zekryvan, meaning lands of Zekryva. It was then shortened to Zekran. Although Olomuk's effort to unify the Frayeth lands failed, a generation later, another Frayeth warlord named Firthyva succeeded in seizing control of Kast Zekryva, conquering Kast Yvar and unifying Frayethay. It was in this time that the old fort of Kast Zekryva was severely damaged in an earthquake. The stones of the fort were then used to build a defensive wall around the city. With no fort there anymore, the name Kast Zekryva made little sense, but since it was the capital city of the lands of Zekran, people called it Serat Zekran, which means City of Zekran.

The Firthyva dynasty

Firthyva and six of his descendants ruled Zekran for more than a century. By the end of the Firthyva Dynasty, Zekran had grown into a medium sized port city and still ruled all of Frayethay, but it split apart into warring factions.

Firthyva was the first ruler of Zekran to mint his own coinage. The coins were of silver and bore the image of a sword, but no inscription.

Yormuk's Conquests

During the time after the collapse of the Firthyva Dynasty, a powerful warlord arose at Kast Yvar named Yormuk. Another warlord named Sinamuk vied with him for control of Frayethay. Sinamuk's capital was the port city of Nass Umrug (Marsh Bay). A series of weak leaders ruled Zekran during this time. Meanwhile, Sinamuk and Nass Umrug were menaced by the a tribe of wildmen calling themselves the Viper People while Yormuk and Zekran were attacked by another tribe of wildmen called the Moss People who were later assisted by their allies the Mushroom People and the Crab People. The Fire People even raided Zekran one last time during this period and pillaged it.

Zekran was occupied by Frayeth troops loyal to Sinamuk who had taken the forbidden title of Frayeth Emperor and declared Nass Umrug to be the capital of a new Frayeth Empire. It was during this occupation of Zekran by Sinamuk's troops that the people of Zekran began to think of the Frayeth troops as foreigners and themselves as properly a separate nation and not just a part of Frayethay. In Zekran, the leader of this nationalistic movement was a warrior named Natosamuk who led the resistance against Sinamuk's occupation forces in Zekran.

Natosamuk allied himself with Yormuk of Kast Yvar to try to evict Sinamuk's troops from Zekran. Yormuk at that time was at war with Sinamuk. During this struggle, Yormuk allied himself with the Viper People to keep Sinamuk and Nass Umrug under pressure while Yormuk's own army took Zekran from Sinamuk and then marched boldly into the lands of the Moss People and the Mushroom People, conquering both and also driving the Crab People northward back to their own lands. It was because of this conquest that the lands of the Moss People and the Mushroom People are today known as Yormukan, the lands of Yormuk.

But the effect of Yormuk's brutal occupation of Zekran was even more profound. Though Natosamuk and his resistance fighters had been talking of Zekran as a separate nation and not part of Frayethay, most of the people of Zekran seemed to have thought of themselves as Frayeth and of Zekran as part of Frayethay. Only after Yormuk's warriors pillaged Zekran as if it were nothing more than a wildman encampment did the people of Zekran seem to view both the major Frayeth factions as foreigners and themselves as something else. Natosamuk's resistance movement became a popular cause and his ideas that the Zekresh people were a separate nation from the Frayeth caught on. Indeed, Zekran's residents were not just Frayeth, but a mixture of people from several nations, notably the Frayeth, the Cliff People and the Seagull People, all from South Peninsula, who had been loyal subjects of the Frayeth Empire in Emperor Dulimuk's time and the indigenous Shell People of North Peninsula who had lived in the area since before the arrival of the Frayeth. From this mixture emerged a new nation, the Zekresh.

Natosamuk formed an alliance with the hated Sinamuk and regained independence for Zekran with his help and a popular uprising against Yormuk's garrison while Yormuk and his main army were away fighting in the lands of the Moss People.

Natosamuk became the leader of Zekran upon the surrender of Yormuk's occupation forces. Natosamuk took the title of "Naltor ya Zekran" ("Prince of Zekran"). Yormuk attempted to hold Yormukan (the lands he had just conquered from the wildmen), retake Zekran, and also assist the Viper People in attacking Nass Umrug. He was unable to do all this and only barely kept Yormukan while the other efforts failed miserably. Yormuk continued to rule Kast Yvar and Yormukan to the end of his days, but he did not have the strength to conquer Nass Umrug or to reconquer Zekran. In time, Sinamuk defeated the Viper People and beseiged Kast Yvar. Zekresh troops helped break the seige to prevent the unification of Frayethay.

The Iyatyva Dynasty and the Empire

Natosamuk was a brilliant leader, but he died in the seige of Kast Yvar and left no heirs. Leadership of Zekran fell to Iyatyva, the founder of the Iyatyva Dynasty. Iyatyva continued the alliance with Kast Yvar and also made an alliance with the Viper People against Sinamuk's so-called Frayeth Empire which was really only the city-state of Nass Umrug. In the eleventh year of his reign, Iyatyva led a combined force of Zekresh troops, Frayeth rebels, Viper People warriors, Mushroom People warriors and troops from Kast Yvar to conquer Nass Umrug. When Iyatyva captured and killed Sinamuk, the self-proclaimed Frayeth Emperor, Iyatayva resisted the temptation to take the title of "Emperor" himself since he considered himself Zekresh and not Frayeth and he was aware of the Curse of the Duel which seemed to work against anyone calling himself the "Frayeth Emperor." Sinamuk had met his doom while holding this title, after all. Iyatyva called himself "Naltor ya Zekran arend Nass Umrug" ("Prince of Zekran and Nass Umrug") rather than emperor.

In the 19th year of his reign, Prince Iyatyva died and his son, Yatyva, became prince of Zekran and Nass Umrug. Yatyva exploited or possibly instigated an attack by Mushroom People on Kast Yvar. The warlord of Kast Yvar welcomed reinforcements from Zekran. Once inside Kast Yvar, the Zekresh troops took over the fortress in a treacherous move. Yatyva then made it part of his realm which now included all of Frayethay. In the 9th year of his reign, Yatyva suppressed a revolt by Sinamuk's son, Ninamuk, in Nass Umrug who claimed his father's title of "Frayeth Emperor". Upon the execution of Ninamuk and his rebels, Yatyva took the title of "Emperor" for himself, but out of nationalism or to avoid the Curse of the Duel, he declared himself to be the "Vylor Zekresh" (Zekresh Emperor) not the "Vylor Frayeth" (Frayeth Emperor).

Yatyva then had to supress a revolt of the Moss People in Yormukan to make the newly proclaimed empire secure. Yatyva's son, Yatyva II expanded the boundaries of the Empire slightly and fought an inconclusive war with the Viper People on the Western frontier. Yatyva II was succeeded on the throne by his son Yatyva III. Yatyva III was known for neglecting the affairs of the empire in favor of his personal pursuits and amusements. For this, he was overthrown by his cousin's husband, Marivuk, in the twelfth year of his reign. Thus ended the Yatyva dynasty. This was the first violent overthrow of a Zekresh Emperor. It would not be the last.

List of Emperors

2007-02-05T18:05:00.000-08:00

What follows is the list of the rulers of Zekran since it was founded until the present day which is the 40th years of the reign of Emperor Cledman VI. The name of each ruler is preceded by the number of years of his reign.

Warlords, Princes and Emperors of Zekran

Before the First Dynasty

3 Zekryva I (was a "warlord", not an Emperor)

7 First Interregnum. Seven years separated Zekryva's death from Olomuk's rule

6 Olomuk (ruled as a "warlord", not an Emperor.)

?? Second Interregnum. A generation passed after Olomuk before the rise of Firthyva.

Firthyva Dynasty

118 Firthyva I, "the Unifier" and his successors

Natosamuk (one man, not part of any dynasty)

7 Natosamuk (was "Prince of Zekran", not an Emperor)

Iyatyva Dynasty

19 Iyatyva (was "Prince of Zekran and Nass Umrug" not an Emperor)
20 Yatyva I (reigned 9 years as Prince and an additional 11 years as Emperor)
42 Yatyva II
12 Yatyva III

Marivuk Dynasty

19 Marivuk I "The Husband Emperor"
19 Yatyva IV "The Son"
23 Yatyva V
8 Yatyva VI "the Pious"
16 Yatyva VII
28 Yatyva VIII, "The Reclaimer"
20 Yatyva IX

Tarno Dynasty

19 Tarno I, "The Warlord Emperor"
7 Tarno II
13 Yatyva X "the Child Emperor"
3 Marivuk II "The Princess's Emperor"
12 Tarno III, "The Restorer"
33 Ardimuk I, "Ardimuk the Avenger"
6 Ardimuk II
8 Ardimuk III
36 Tarno IV
2 Tarno V
15 Ardimuk IV
23 Yatyva XI
18 Talinyva I
43 Talinyva II
6 Yatyva XII
27 Ardimuk V
3 Ardimuk VI
17 Ardimuk VII
30 Yatyva XIII
2 Yatyva XIV

Vergriman Dynasty

21 Vergriman I
17 Vergriman II
48 Vergriman III

Larinyva Dynasty

27 Larinyva I
15 Larinyva II
21 Larinyva III
21 Yatyva XVI
13 Yatyva XVII
23 Zekryva II
8 Zekryva III
15 Natosamuk II
26 Iyatyva II
20 Iyatyva III
36 Zekryva IV
23 Yatyva XVIII
9 Yatyva XIX
9 Yatyva XX
15 Yatyva XXI
21 Yatyva XXII
15 Zekryva V
24 Zekryva VI
26 Larinyva IV
17 Larinyva V
21 Larinyva VI
36 Larinyva VII
14 Larinyva VIII
25 Ardimuk VII
24 Larinyva IX

Cledman Dynasty

38 Cledman I
14 Cledman II
27 Talinyva III
12 Talinyva IV
30 Marvinuk I
29 Cledman III
14 Cledman IV
15 Cledman V
40(+?) Cledman VI