North King
blech
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End of Empires - Update Thirteen
Wolf Pack
Ten Years
490-500 SR by the Seshweay Calendar
379-389 RM by the Satar Calendar
205-215 IL by the Leunan Calendar
Wolf Pack
Ten Years
490-500 SR by the Seshweay Calendar
379-389 RM by the Satar Calendar
205-215 IL by the Leunan Calendar
Ware! thou art never safe, for our kin lie eternal, waiting.
Words I, V
“Golden valley, silver dust
Steel swords, human rust.”
~Satar Couplet
“All shall tremble; peace is lost,
For the River Sesh is crossed.”
~Ancient proverb
My name is Aitah, and I am what you seek.
* * * * * * * * *
The emissaries cut a strange figure on the open steppe. Leagues of grass surrounded them on every side, blades of yellow green sprouting from the dark earth. To the south they could still see the far distant peaks of the Kothai, white peaks behind a pale blue haze; the the north, the clouds drifted light and quick across a summery azure sky. And here they were, a hundred men, some dressed in rich silks, some in plain, sturdy leathers, all wearing masks.
They had made their way west for months now, wandering away from the citadel of Arastephaion, meeting with the Redeemer of the Vithana and exchanging gifts, and finally striking out into the deep unknown. Their stated intent: to find the end of the Kothai, and in so doing, possibly find the end of the world.
And so they passed into the territory of the Vischa, disregarding the warnings of the Vithana, who assured them that nothing good could come out of the legendary homeland of their people.
The Vischa were surprisingly hospitable, accepting with grace the gifts the Satar offered from the “civilized” East, and agreeing to trade with the newcomers and their allies. Then, the Satar brought out their most prized possessions – the Kaphaiavai, the holy book of their people. With the Vischa looking on slightly bemusedly, they told the court of the great battle in the heavens – the one that was mirrored on earth below, and implored them to give their services to the great Taleldil, that he could ultimately triumph and Exatas could rule through the whole land.
The Vischa lord smiled understandingly, but he gently refused; his people, he explained, were still contented with their old gods, who had served them well enough in the past few centuries that he was confident they were alive and well.
The emissaries were disappointed, of course, but undeterred. They carefully began to take notes of their surroundings before continuing on. The Vischa heartland was a fertile river valley in a dry and level plain, much like the Sesh the Satar had only left months before, but their new friends assured them that this river was much longer than any they had seen before – running over thousands of miles before it finally tumbled into the great world ocean. The valley was home to a great number of subject peoples, though unlike in the Exatai, these people were not so much enslaved as simply subject to their horselord wills.
The Vischa lord made his home here, comfortably surrounded by a personal guard of several thousand, but his empire extended into the vast northern plain for many hundreds of miles, where a hundred chiefs owed him allegiance, the peoples of the steppe wandering as they had for a thousand years.
The Satar were eager to continue, but they were well aware their purses were not inexhaustible, nor were their vital supply of sumptuous gifts. The Kothai, the Vischa told them, extended for many, many more miles to the west, further than the Vischa themselves had ever bothered to travel. Annoyed, the expedition decided to cross the Kothai here and double back, hoping their attempts to convert these lands would be more successful.
One of the expedition refused to follow them, dreaming of the end of the world; he rode off into the literal sunset.
The rest took careful note of what the Vischa had to say of their known neighbors to the southwest – Naran, a small nation in a high pass that had held off the nomads though an extensive set of concentrated fortifications, and the Limach, who were wedged between them and the mighty Dulama to the south. The Satar had no desire to meet the Dulama, and thus passed to the southeast, entering into the deserts of the Hai Vithana.
When they arrived at the capital of the southerners, they found something quite astonishing. These Vithana welcomed them, and hosted them freely, but when they were seated for a royal feast, they found themselves at the same table as two other groups of emissaries – one, an Aitahist mission from the far northeast, another, an Iralliam mission from the Grandpatriarch himself.
Sadly, no one recorded the table conversation that night for posterity.
The Hai Vithana lord was presented with an interesting situation. All three religions had something to offer him, to be sure, and all three peoples had convincing arguments as to why he should take his place by their side. But ultimately, he had no particular interest in converting to any – not yet; he allowed each of them to leave three priests who could continue to tell him of the ways of their faith over the next decade so he could decide in his own time. The rest of the delegations were welcome to stay and enjoy his hospitality for a while, but ultimately they returned to their respective homes.
For the Satar travelers, it had been a frustratingly unproductive adventure, except in securing intelligence on their western neighbors.
Imagine their surprise when they crossed the border again...
Elsewhere, the Satar Redeemer focused his energies primarily on the construction of a new citadel on the border with the Moti, naming it Xephaias after the greatest of the High Oracles, and on the fortification of several of his cities against potential attacks.
* * * * * * * * *
In the north of the Savirai Empire, they say the moon is a mirror, reflecting the world below. As white sands snake through the desert, driven by endless sands, so the mirror turns white. As the dust turns gold under the stars, so the white becomes streaked with gold. And when the rocks surface from under this inland sea, the moon marbles smoothly, and the red beneath its sands shines through on clear nights. And so they do not call this land a desert. It is more than that. It is the Face of the Moon.
Here the call of human song might sweep across the desert for miles on a quiet night, breaking stillness as surely as any thunderclap. Here the dust rises into the air so thickly that at times a man can do naught but find low ground, pull their cloak over their eyes, and pray to some god to be merciful.
Here rose a god.
Where did she come from? No one is entirely certain. Whispers say many things, from west, from south, from, improbably, north. She was made a slave, and she was brought into the heart of the Empire of freed-men, and beyond that... we can say little.
The area had belonged to the Faith for a long century now. The Wards of the region had done their tasks well, stamping out little heresies here and there – the odd man who might claim that Manin had appeared to him in a dream, as though the Way were some kind of spirit who came when men beckoned – or one who referred to the old pagan gods as though they were anything other than dusty idols of a useless creed. Officially, the Empire was of another religion, but here the Faith ruled supreme.
Until she.
She was to be an acolyte at the temple as well, to learn the ways of the Faith and preach them as best she could. But she became something much more than that. She called herself Aitah, Aitah come again, a savior. No, the savior – the one who was halfway between us and the totality. Dream-kin of man. Or perhaps she was the face of Manin, manifested on earth, the way of the light incarnate, the path to righteousness in human form. Maybe she was all of them.
When the Plague came, it was said she could heal the sick. The Wards already tried to stamp out that belief before she had cured even a dozen – but that of course only meant more heard of her, more gained faith, more prayed. Driven from the temples, she assembled a little rag-tag band, and soon she began to rally whole tribes to her banner. The Wards pleaded with the government to help them, and so the emperor of the Savirai bade the loyal tribes assemble under the banner of his son.
When they marched on the new uprising, which had holed itself up the nigh-impregnable rock-fortress of Gurach, the stage seemed set for one of the bloodiest battles in Savirai history. But it was not to be; the Aitah offered an olive branch to the forces of the emperor if they would but grant her the right to travel freely to the capital with her faithful companion, Tauras. They consented, and she rode into history.
The meeting of Aitah and the old Emperor lies somewhere between myth and legend. Some say she told him of his ancestors, some say she told him of what lay in the totality. All say she opened his eyes, and brought him to the light, more surely than had any monk of Indagahor.
All that is truly certain that he immediately swore to follow her to the end, swore that the Empire would be Aitahist forevermore.
Naturally, this infuriated the Indagahor elite, who had worked so hard for so many centuries to ensure that the conquest of the Nahari would not deprive them of political power, and so they overthrew the ancient king, installing a puppet on the throne.
The Savirai dynasty had lasted for hundreds of years already; it had united the tribes by blood, knitting together the nomads into a confederation across the Face of the Moon. It had remained undefeated in half a dozen wars, toppling all its rivals in the east, west, and south, crushing the Nahari with relative ease. And at a stroke, the Nahari cabal had undone all that. Bad enough that their emperors had been hoodwinked by a southern faith – the northern tribes now saw the one bloodline that had retained their loyalty ousted from Hrn.
Of course, the Nahari had forgotten about the King's son, still in the north, still at the head of an army.
And, of course, Qasaarai himself was furious over the death of his father. He declared himself the new emperor, and bade the Aitah crown him at the Rock of Gurach. He clad himself in the golden mantle of the old Kings, and raised a mighty host. The Savirai tribes flocked to his banner, welcoming the new, most Savirai of princes. Many and more converted to the new faith as well; with the blessing of Aitah behind him, he led his army to the capital at Hrn and smote the feeble Nahari army that opposed him there.
Naturally, the south had already splintered to pieces, as different Nahari groups jockeyed for power in each of the cities, spurred on by Opulensi funds and prodded into fighting amongst themselves while all the various Empires were distracted by one another. It was quite difficult to bring together these groups under the banner of Qasaarai, for even with their disloyalty to the central “Nahari” government, the municipal governments were not eager to sign away their new found autonomy.
Nahar itself was one of the few that had remained loyal to the pretender's government, but it was far too close to Hrn and the great forces that Qasaarai could bring to bear. Kest, Aran, and Sealis all refused to join one side or the other initially, but their hands were forced by a number of factors. First, Aitah herself rode over the coastline and converted many by sheer force of persuasion. Second, the threat of the Opulensi worried merchants who might otherwise have desired independence. And, of course, thirdly, there was the not-so-small matter of the Aitahist army. Most immediately fell in line behind the new regime.
A few could not be immediately reached, of course, like Baharr, but even that state realized the only plausible way to remain free of the Opulensi menace was to align with the Savirai. A much more potent threat, on the other hand, was that of the still-Orthodox Maninist tribes in the far northwest; these could not be brought to heel quite so easily, and declared openly their intentions to fight against the Aitahist Savirai.
But these were minor distractions, and as soon as the Emperor brought even a decent fraction of his army up from the south to deal with them, it was expected they would fall.
The question, then, was where the Savirai might turn their eyes next, for there were no shortage of options – the traditional route against the Opulensi, of course, the struggling Sirans to the west... or perhaps somewhere else entirely?
* * * * * * * * *
Despite minor raids and counter-raids across the Kothari-Helsian borders, the Exatai of the East had been surprisingly domestic over much of the fifth century. Admittedly, this was less due to any strength of its neighbors, or some sort of new-found kindness in the Kothari persona, and much more due to religious turmoil that had beset the country again and again until they had finally converted to Iralliam for good – and even then, the country was clearly exhausted.
But the plague had provided an opening. Certainly, it had been anything but a boon for the Kothari themselves, but they regained their footing in fairly short order, while the surrounding nations seemed somewhat slow to recover. It was a chance.
And so, in short order, the Kothari Redeemer Vexanares led his armies over the Kothai in the name of Opporia, the bulk of his host to force the issue against the Zyeshu.
It seemed, however, that the allied states in the south had been warned somehow that the Satar might be invading, and numerous levies and regulars defended the fortresses against their approach. They were still insufficient to stop the Kothari, but they were sufficient to slow them significantly, allowing the cities behind the mountains to better prepare for their assault, and many in the region could also flee before coming under the rule of the Satar.
By the time Vexanares' host had crossed the mountains, he found a difficult country to conquer, full of secret paths and woods, a hundred castles offering resistance in some small measure. His cavalry especially suffered heavily in the woodland regions – which was, after all, essentially the region. The Zyeshu were unable to win pitched battles against the superior numbers, and their cities fell, but more than a few ambushes inflicted a heavy toll on the invading forces.
By the end, of course, it was clear that the Satar could not be stopped here, and many Zyeshu bent the knee to live to fight another day – and many also left the land for Zhish, Kilar, Jipha, Hanakahi, and the Opulensi Empire as refugees.
Bloodied but confident, the Satar continued onwards, attacking east into the Hanakahi peninsula, with another army crossing the Kothai and attacking down the eastern coast of the nation even as the Redeemer took the west. Unable to hold back the twin threats, and with significantly less favorable terrain than the Zyeshu had had, the Hanakahi were much less capable of resistance. Most of the interior of the state fell without much blood, as this heartland was both depopulated and devoid of much tree cover.
The cities and fortresses on the coastlines fringing the country were much more able to resist, and some of them continued to struggle on and preoccupy the Redeemer even as the capital of Hankahi proper fell to the invader.
Meanwhile, the Redeemer's general Tarkan Seralik carried the Satar war machine further west against the forces of Zhish and Laoash. Here, the Satar continued to have problems; the geography was still quite unfavorable, even if for rather different reasons, and the Zhish had used the time the fall of Zyeshu proper bought them in order to shore up their fortifications and ready their armies for the engagement proper.
Again, the Satar were triumphant in most of their pitched battles, defeating several Zhish armies, but these forces were able to melt away into the countryside and take refuge in the numerous castles. The city of Laoash in particular proved extremely difficult to subdue, and even when the Redeemer sent reinforcements, it resisted Satar attempts to reduce it. The Zhish, of course, have already appealed for help to their old friends the Jiphans and their somewhat dangerous neighbors in Kilar, reasoning that they are the lesser of two evils.
The Zyeshu refugees in the Opulensi Empire have already begun to take up work as artisans and musicians in their new home, all the while lobbying the government of that empire to do something against the Satar menace.
* * * * * * * * *
Perhaps with little better for the leaders to do, war has once again flared up in the Roshates. The Airani, annoyed by repeated insults from the Khivani and egged on by their nobility, launched a daring attack into the heart of the Khivani lands, managing to pillage a considerable territory before they escaped again. The quick raid was probably intended to draw out their opponents to fight the Airani in their own territory, but the Khivani were far more intelligent than that and simply secured the valuable parts of their frontier before searching for allies.
The other Roshates might have been keen to jump in on this war, but they were otherwise occupied – the Occarans with their new Aitahist minority, and the Bhari by a war of their own. To their north, the beleaguered Gallatenes seemed unable to force a decision against the rebels, which the Rosh took as a sign of weakness. Attacking quickly, he managed to take Sern without too much fuss, while on the other side of Gallat, the rebellion continued to flare as the cities grew more and more frustrated with the firm incompetence of the center.
Indeed, before long, Gallasa itself fell to them, the High Ward fleeing to the capital of Marona. The rebels took the opportunity to raise one of their own to the throne, and there could be little doubt in anyone's mind that the position was a meaningless one.
At the same time, the strongest of the Stettin nations took advantage of Gallat's instability and attacked across the border, seizing much of the valley and almost driving the Gallatenes completely out of the east. Other nations began to perk up at the possibility of an easy war, and rumors have begun to spread that perhaps Nech or Cyre will join the war next, or, indeed, the Evyni – though later events proved that to be an unlikely possibility.
Cyre, for its part, decided to take action against the Luskan, king Glynt deciding that the only way they could ever have peace was to remove the Luskan from their island entirely. Summoning the entirety of his military strength, his soldiers surprised the Sarrukh enclaves, stormed the walls, and massacred the enemy warriors within their bounds. A number of ships were found in the harbors, and though the Cyvians had little capacity for a growing fleet, they were happy to replace a few of their own vessels with the superior Luskan designs, selling the others to merchants.
At the same time, Glynt received an embassy from the tiny city-states of the Frelesti to his northeast, which he warmly received in his palace. They told the story of their own struggles against the Luskan, and proposed trade and an alliance between the two peoples.
The Frelesti continued along their merry way at home, with inter-city politics occupying a great deal of their efforts. Nevertheless, it was becoming obvious that the strategically positioned House of Aulfrelesti was becoming the dominant faction, and the northern people were not so far from unification yet. Simultaneously, the Frelesti began to raid their barbarian neighbors, capturing a number of slaves and selling them to southern markets. This worried many, who believed they should focus more on defense against the Luskan attacks, but these surprisingly died down for a while, the Luskan apparently having better things to do for the moment.
All, however, is not entirely well on the northern edge of the world. The rural areas of the Frelesti chafed under the seemingly deliberate persecution by city-dwellers, and several minor rebellions popped up, though the cities dealt with all of them quickly enough – for now.
* * * * * * * * *
Things in the East would quite probably never be the same again.
A new treaty between the Opulensi and Leunan empires turned the traditional trading rivalries on their head. Its stipulations were fairly simple – that the Opulensi and Leunans not place undue hardships on each others' merchants, that the two empires respect their respective spheres of influence, and that “cordial relations” reign forevermore. It was not an alliance, nor could it really be mistaken for friendship or indeed anything other than a pragmatically extended olive branch.
Despite this, the old standard of Leun preventing the Opulensi from overreaching themselves was suddenly off the table. The Eastern League states immediately shifted into panic mode, mobilizing their armed forces (ultimately, a good decision), and letting loose a flurry of diplomacy to try and secure some kind of new allies against the Opulensi threat.
By contrast, the Leunans had more or less secured absolute peace for the next decade, and took full advantage of it.
That is to say, like any self-respecting state with spare time, they had a coup d'etat.
The Emperor of Leun had finally succumbed to the plague immediately before the treaty; an interregnum was set up while a viable heir was sought. Initially, this was a cautious, guarded search, but with the Opulensi threat off the table, the various factions were essentially free to move against each other.
It seemed like this might lead to another north-south conflict between the various nobles once again, but before that could happen, a cabal of merchants read the signs and moved first. They seized control of the city of Leun proper, and set up a puppet emperor who was vaguely descended from... someone important or other. This was enough to secure their legitimacy, apparently, and their stranglehold over what was the greatest source of Leunan income meant that they also had significant power backing that up.
This coup, of course, did not please everyone, especially the aristocratic factions who had thought that this might have been their greatest chance to seize control of the country since the end of the civil war; they remained discontented with the new regime for quite some time.
Much more embarrassing and costly for Leun in the long run was a clumsy attempt to “seize control” of the military of the little state of Alar just to the north. The practical difficulties of such an operation were compounded by poor organization, and the plan failed miserably; the state immediately killed the majority of the Leunan agents within their borders, and signed an alliance with the age-old Leunan foe, Gadia.
The Farean state enjoyed obscurity and the freedom that obscurity tends to bring, expanding quietly across their home island (recently rechristened “Naelsia” or “New Helsia” in Faronun). Careful not to offend potential foes, they adopted a curious scheme for colonization, introducing merchants to various native villages, offering them protection from their foes, and in such a way taking control of much of the northern hills and northeastern plain in a relatively short time. Simultaneously, they created a new system of tracking goods that were shipped out of Farean ports in order to catch contraband; the scheme was naturally imitated by neighbors in quick order.
Despite this, here, too, problems surfaced. Piracy began to escalate extremely quickly off the coast of the island, and both Leunan and Farean traders came under repeated attacks – ironically immediately after the Leunans sold away a fair chunk of their naval forces and while the Fareans invested into numerous anti-piracy measures.
For their part, even in the middle of a fairly major war, the Opulensi cultural revival continued. The students of old Arasos continued to question the long-standing beliefs of the old religion, and indeed the Emperor himself was deeply troubled until he met with a pupil of the old monk who settled his thoughts on the matter. An influx of refugees from the Zyeshu and Hanakahi states, while they did not integrate particularly well, at least gave Epichirisi interesting street food, and moreover imported some of the better musical traditions of the cradle.
With problems engulfing many of the mercantile states of the region, the slightly more stable overland route through the Savirai gained a little more prominence, though of course this was not yet enough of a bounce to offset their losses from their own problems.
In the far north, the Tazari tribes began to unite under a single chieftain, though much of the prestige earned by this unnamed leader's military successes was lost after his attempt to convert the people to Indagahor – a religion which had little backing in the nation and came rather unexpectedly. Nevertheless, any sign of unity from their barbarian neighbor tends to worry the Acayan city-states, several of whom have begun to step up their frontier defenses.
One city decided to go rather further than its neighbors – Iolha used the distraction to attack their neighbors in Bacu, and put the city under siege while their other neighbors looked on with paralyzing indecision as the threat of the Tazari raiders grew.
Leunan embassies and trade missions began to the Parthe and the Kitaluk, with modest success.
The Parthe, an intensely tightly-woven society of numerous familial ties, began to expand into the north, and to encourage the cultivation of various plantation crops to try and make themselves into an even more valuable trade partner for both the westerners and the Kitaluk. Citrus fruits were grown on some plantations, but this ultimately proved less profitable than the native indigo dye, which soon became an intensely popular luxury throughout the Acayan cities, and even further west, as well as with the Kitaluk.
Though the Leunans attempted quite earnestly to find out exactly where the “Kitaluyans” came from, they were unable to determine much beyond the initial kernel of knowledge: that they came from across “a great sea.”
* * * * * * * * *
And also the slight brevity compared to other updates of mine lately.
