"Kernia" by David C Colvin

Prologue

“Oh sham til akam’da’d ikieurm lyert…sephteli teloutse”

Elven proverb..translated into the language of man it reads “Those who shape, who mold history…are shaped and molded by history themselves”

     I am going to tell you a story…a fable…a tale.  Shush now, I do this for a living..For a copper or two, I will recite an epic poem by Cloiert, the elven mage and composer.  For a mere silver dragon coin, I will weave you a tale of love and mystery set in the old cities of the North.  For a gold?  A gold piece…well..for a gold piece I will spin a lengthy tale for you.  Come bring your chair to the fire.  Bring the wine as well, you pour and pay…I will tell the story…the story of the hero of the Second Dynasty of Amar…Kernia Illina.  You say she was a traitor..no no…..she was a hero.  Let me tell the story…then you judge for yourself..  give me the bottle..

A word of peoples and history…

     Before we begin our tale, a small word about the elven people is necessary, since our story concerns itself with many of their affairs.  The elves as a people have long been disjointed.  There are fifteen tribes or clans, dating back nearly fifteen hundred years to the times of the Great Kings of Nabruef and the First Dynasty of Amar.  Not since then has there been a united government, never have they seen a land that could truly be called an elven one.  A council was formed, nearly four hundred years before the days of this tale, ostensibly to prevent inter-clan war, but this SleenTrof (literally, Council of Fifteen) held no real power, political or ideological for that matter, and was only successful in preventing major civil wars; smaller wars were fought between clans for months or even years.  But in the scheme of the world, the elven people were as peaceful as such a conglomeration of different peoples can be.  Odd that the race who is said to have brought forth beauty, language, poetry, art, and, of course, magic could not work out petty differences and unite such a noble breed.

     The lands claimed by the elves were the rivers and valleys among the Azacoth Mountains.  In the north, the lands were very mountainous, suitable only for farming the most resilient of crops.  The middle and south lands were flatter and it is here where most of the elven cities were built.  These acted as trading posts mostly, somewhere the various tribes could conglomerate and trade goods and usually maintain the peace long enough to make their gold for food and other necessities.  The cities had been proclaimed by the SleenTrof to be neutral zones and therefore safe from wars and violence.  The oldest city amongst these was Amar.

A word on The Great Wars of the Acheu-Reglar, or in the Elven language, the Dark Years. 

     There was no warning for the Confederation of Man.  The Minotaurs came from the Genshi Mountains and Wastes, sweeping over and devouring the land. Like a volcano spewing forth its load of ash, they rolled over the northern territories, destroying, killing, plundering, never relenting, never satisfied.  Their warriors were fierce, their capacity for making war quite brutal.  The Confederation of Man, or Yanselpher was the first of the civilized nations to behold the grim spectacle as they watched five of their northern cities fall to the Minotaur brood before they could mount an army and send it to defend the land.  The Battle of Capris ended in a complete route of the human forces, the city burning, and the Minotaur still advancing.  Yanselpher’s king, the great statesmen Palodine, sent diplomats in all directions, pleading with allies, and offering to treat with former enemies.  The Minotaur problem, he argued, would only be a Confederation problem as long as the Confederation stood..then it would become the dwarves’ problem, then the elves’. 

         Palodine himself came to the SleenTrof and made an impassioned plea for assistance in this war.  He made allusions to the past, when Man and Elf had fought side by side against the evil Crusicans of Lagrt and worked side by side in the Alliance of Westbourne, which restored order and peace during the civil war within the Confederation itself.  Such was his eloquence, the SleenTrof felt moved to action.  Lead by Useris, representative of the Satise Tribe, the Council called upon the leaders of the various factions, tribes, nations, and peoples of elvenkind to meet and discuss a united alliance with Yanselpher.  The great meeting was held in the ancient city of Amar.  The bickering was such has never been seen…ages old rivalries were brought up..indeed, when you take a people such as the elves, who live for upwards of two or three hundred years, hate and bitterness tend to feaster.  No progress was made for three weeks, even a few deaths had resulted from bad blood taken too far.  Yanselpher held off the advancing Minotaur horde.  Town after town and city after city fell to the barbarian host.  Their army stopped its advance long enough to split their numbers, the main army advancing deeper into the Confederation, and a smaller force heading east.  Virtually unmolested, they cut a swath of destruction through the elven lands and soon were poised to march upon Amar.  The delegates’ personal guard forces and the city guard held off the creatures until they had evacuated the main part of the city and had fled.  The Siege and destruction of Amar, along with yet another impassioned speech by a desperate Palodine, finally brought home the point: The Minotaurs, left unchecked would rampage across Rundi and destroy everything in their wake.  The Fifteen Tribes began to talk, really talk ….and finally emerged, declaring the Second Dynasty of Amar.  The tribes would be unified under a single ruler and a newly empowered SleenTrof.  The Republic of Amar was founded…encompassing all the elven-held lands right to the border of Yanselpher.  The elven people finally had a government and a unified land of their own.

     After this feat of political cunning, marshalling a military force wasn’t difficult and soon the Army of Amar marched on and retook the city.  This became the new capital and Useris was made the first Emperor of Amar.  Two years of fighting and bitter war finally gave the allied Confederation and the Republic a foothold and they began to drive the Minotaurs back north.  For the first time, the barbarians were retreating.  The dwarves from the Kingdom of Saucoth, known for their mystical and magical weapons lent their mighty machines of war to the allies.  For another five years the war raged..both sides took heavy losses and if it not for what happened at Tourlaine, Amar and Yanselpher may have lost the war, leaving the human and elven civilizations a footnote in a historian’s bible. 

Prologue II

     The Battle of Tourlaine. 

     Ask any old elven military veteran and he will speak on the subject of this battle with an air of respect bordering on reverance.  Ask an officer of the armies of one of the shorter lived races: humans or dwarves; and they will expound on Tourlaine with the pride of a man who has studied a subject in depth and wishes to impress the listener.  Tourlaine was a fort, now covered over with weeds, falling apart, being slowly reclaimed by the countryside.  But during the Acheu-Reglar wars, it was a military outpost.  It sits at a crux between the oldest lands of the Confederation of Man, the Serthea Mountains, and the old elven borderlands on the Pilgrim Trails.  The fort controls the flow of the River Serthea, and was a major re-supply station.  It was a key location in the defense of the city of Oakenshire, a Confederation city of some importance.  The Minotaur launched an attack on the stronghold of Oakenshire thirty miles to east.  To protect this city, almost the entire force from Tourlaine was ordered to march to the coming battle.  A garrison of 52 was left behind…18 humans and 34 elves.  The commander or renshi was a young human officer named Soril Keton.