Be the Light - A story of an old elf and the history of the Jaddari

[Apelstav]

Be the Light
- the musings of an old elf in the fourth century after Revelation

He came with the dawn, they said, elf, man and harpy alike, though only the elves I spoke to would have lived to remember that day. More than a hundred years passed between when he walked down from the Mountain of Clear Sight and when we first met, upon the Field of the Sun's Providence, and another decade before I had the nerve to ask him what he saw there. Jaddar Jexiszuir but smiled and answered me "It isn't what I saw, Aredhel. I only needed some time to gather my thoughts".

He was the most remarkable elf I ever met. He was my savior yet his hand brought the death of my kin, he was my father, my brother, but most of all, I would like to believe, he was my friend. This is his story, and mine.

- Aredhel Eledaszuir

Welcome to my tale of Aredhel, an old elven soldier living out his final days in the Jadd Empire whilst telling the tale of his life. It is sort of an AAR, in the sense that I have a save file with a general named Aredhel that I recreate intermittently, but I've decided to use as much of the great work behind the Anbennar mod as possible. So even if a country disappears from the game I might pick up a lot of their story as if it played out in my game.

If you haven't yet, make sure to give Anbennar a try, and hopefully you'll enjoy mine and Aredhel's ramblings about Halann.

 

[Apelstav]

Prologue
The Century of Shimmers and the Decades of Devestation (1336-1446)
I - II - III - IV - V - VI - VII

Part I
The Decade of the Flashing Dawn (1446-)
 VIII - IX​

 

[Apelstav]

I

The Mountain of Clear Sight, as depicted by the Surani painter Kikud Hersekli​

The old elf puts quill to paper once more, seated upon the balcony. Here, the desert winds blew cool from the eastern mountains, far above the scorching lands below and the Holiest of Cities that stretched upon the slopes. He writes with fervor for a few lines before sighing, inspecting the words, then crumpling the paper and tossing it aside. It is the fifth ball of paper of today.

“Why do you keep doing that, Aredhel?” Taliandel asks.

Aredhel looks at the harpy, young even when counted by her kind.

“I was never a man of words, granddaughter. And I wish to keep true… for Surael, and for them”

He is uncertain if she understands. It is easier for the young, the truth, and its easier today than it was then. Should you leave some things buried or should you tell it as it was?

“Well, you've told me,” Taliandel seemed to notice the look in his eyes. “Well, you have, haven’t you? Don’t make me cross with you.” She stretches her wings, blue glinting in the sunlight. “You are too old to keep up with me”.

Aredhel smiled. He rarely did, these days, but she had a certain knack for making it happen.

“Oh, I have told most of it, but truly, there is too much to tell only over the years you have come to me here.”

“Well, just write it as you told it to me and add all the good bits you left out, then”.

They continued bantering for a few moments but eventually Taliandel stretched out her wings once more and said “I must go now. Mother is receiving our western cousins tonight and I couldn’t stomach another lecture about my responsibilities”. Then she smiled a bit wickedly. “They’ll all call on you tomorrow”.

He sighed. Dilara had always been one for duty. As was I, and so I raised her for that matter.

“And I expect you to have written at least five pages until tomorrow”.

She took off.

Aredhel sat there for a while, perhaps an hour, perhaps only moments. Time flowed ever more strangely the older he got, and especially so here, where so many memories haunted him. He thought for a while of happier days, many years ago, before all he had were his granddaughters.
Then he put ink to the quill once more and wrote…

----

The Banner of Sareyand, the Easternmost of the Sun Elven daughters of the Phoenix Empire​

I am Aredhel Eledaszuir, bastard son of Sareyand-that-was. I have been a soldier, a captain, a slave and a traitor. I have ridden from sea to sea beneath the sun’s radiance, seeing the marvels of this world that Surael fights for. I was there upon the day of the Sun’s Providence, as I was there when Brasan was liberated and when we crossed the Kharunyana. I have fought by the Devourer-of-Darkness and I have looked upon the face of the Divine Herald himself.

I have fought the darkness within and without, and I say that these things happened. May any who say otherwise do so openly, so the truth can be discerned in the Blessed Light of Surael.

I was born in Sareyand, the City of Ash, mightiest of all the Daughters of the Phoenix, yet I was born a bastard. My father was Eledas III Sarelzuir, the Black Prince, Eledas One-Arm, commander of the Ash Legions that remained of Jexis’ Empire, and when my father first met me he gave me to his soldiers and told them.

“See if you can make something useful out of him”

You could say that there was little love lost between us.

I believe that was when I was twenty years old, little older than Taliandel, my granddaughter, is now, but by how elves reckoned their age in those days I was but a child – and a sheltered one at that.

My mother was the daughter of a captain of the Legions, Aredhel the Elder, a respected man but of low station for an elf, but they were given a plot of land and a stipend when Eledas indiscretion was inevitably revealed. That was in the Year of Revelation, as far as I’ve been able to find out, only months before the Divine Herald descended from the Mountain of Clear Sight and revealed the truth of Suraels Blessing. But it would be years before news of the true faith reached Sareyand, and years more before I learned of it, and so I grew up in blissful ignorance at our small estate.

In those days my kind, the Sun Elves who had followed Jaher to liberate Bulwar centuries earlier, laid claim to be Surael’s Chosen. A people apart, ruling over the humans and so even if we weren’t noble, by Sun Elf standard, my grandfather was a respected man, having humans to work the fields for us, and giving patronage to the human landowners around our estate. Now, you might think that the humans were ill-treated, serfs or even slaves, but believe me, for I have seen both and lived a slave, and they were not. The elves were not cruel, only proud, arrogant and fearful. At least, they were not ill-treated by my grandfather, though there are stories, legends these days, about old elves who abandoned all tenets of Surael and brought even further shame upon our kind. No, our humans – what a filthy expression – were glad to serve, for their minds had been as warped as our own. But all in all, that led to a happy childhood, one without worry, nor fear, for I learned that I was Chosen too, that my blood was blessed, though my mother did not tell me just how noble it was for a few years.

The extent of the Phoenix Empire under Jaher​

This was the Century of Shimmers, perhaps the closest to a second golden age Sun Elf rule would see, for in Bulwar there was mostly peace. Taelarios of Irrliam was scheming to control the temples, yes, but he worked mostly in the shadows. Sad Sur fell to the Gnolls, but that was at the edge of our world and far from Sareyand. Our life was golden, wealthy and peaceful, even our family invited to great balls and feasts. The human merchants grew rich, the towns recovered after centuries of petty wars and the desert was mostly still and quiet. ‘Blessed be the Chosen’ people would shout when we travelled, and I would wave sheepishly, imagining myself some great hero merely by being born.

The Shimmers would last many a decade more, but my own little happy life would shift away much sooner.

It was at one of those balls I first met my father. He was not yet king, but I can still remember how the entire hall fell quiet when he entered, dressed all in black with a black masque depicting a gnollish ravener upon his face. It was a popular face at the time, for the gnolls were kept far from the elven estates. When he came, my mother was suddenly at my side, clutching my shoulders as if she wished to keep me safe, but my grandfather, perhaps moved by providence himself, went to greet the Black Prince of Sareyand. They spoke only briefly, then Eledas turned his eyes on me, black beneath black, and he smiled. That very night he came to our chambers. My mother attempted to protest but her father whispered something to her, then he said to me.

“This man is your father, Aredhel. You will obey him as you would me, and he will set you upon a path to greatness you could never achieve otherwise.”

Old Aredhel would of course be right, though perhaps not in the way he imagined. Now, I don’t believe that my grandfather had any fancies of me becoming Eledas’ heir, as I would much later be offered. He knew that I was a bastard, and that I would never claim the Blackened Scepter, but despite the many times I would curse the old elf, both in the years I trained with the Legion and during my time with the Gnolls, I can see his reasoning. My mother was young and eventually she’d want to marry again. If she bore children they would need a part of my inheritance, and even have the better claim to it, being trueborn. But a royal bastard could go far in the Legion. Where grandfather had only become a captain, I might even one day lead the Ash Legions on the behalf of my father or my future brothers, failing that I would certainly earn some land of my own. He was wise in the ways of his time, was Aredhel, if he only had known those times would come to an end.

Eledas III Sarelzuir, Last King of Sareyand-that-was​

So Eledas took me to Sareyand. He barely spoke to me on the way, preferring to keep with his retinue of fawners, but he did set one of his guards to teach me the basics of the spear. I was a fair rider for my age already, but I had never sparred properly either on foot nor on horseback. Thirendil was my first teacher at the soldier’s trade, and by Surael, did he intend to teach me proper. I can still remember the pain. Sore muscles, soft from a soft life. Bruises and cuts from when he struck true. Back then I thought he aimed to kill me, that grandfather had sold me into torture and humiliation, and whilst I didn’t teach my children in the way that he did – harpies are much less suited both for spear or for horseback for that matter, or even the bow – I must say that old bastard probably saved my life more than once.

When we got to Sareyand I was treated to the first of the three dinners I ever had with my father. He took me to his palace, had his servants – all elven – bathe me and clothe me in fine silks and then he sat me at a table fit for twenty, with only him in the room.

“You look weary Aredhel. Are you weary?”

“No, father.” He tsked at the moniker.

“You will address me as ‘my prince’, Aredhel. You might be of my body, but you are not a trueborn son after all. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, my prince”

“Good.” Eledas poured himself some wine before he laid out his plans for my life. “You will become a soldier, as your grandfather asked of me, but if you expect special treatment for being the royal bastard, you will find there will be none.”

“Yes, my-, I mean, no, my prince”

“The Legions are harsh to their recruits. It is necessary to build proper discipline and strength. Do well, and we might speak again. Do poorly, and the sands might just swallow you up. Do you understand?”

“Yes, my prince.”

We finished the meal in silence. The next morning Thirendil took me to the legions. Fate, or more likely Eledas, would have it that he would be my instructor, and every morning of the next ten years his bellowing voice would wake me.

----​

The two branches of his harpy kin were always slightly uneasy when they met. The Siadunan branch was so thoroughly elvenized, they looked hardly closer related to the Firanyan flock than they did to him, if one was able to look beyond the feathers. Still, they were all his, and they were all the family Aredhel still had in any meaning of the word. When they were all gathered last, when was it? Before … was born, when her mother was still a young hatchling, they had a great feast in his honor. Now they drank iced wine in the shade and spoke softly of their dead matriarchs. Aredhel had grown old, and he felt as if he had more memories than future left.

The Siadunan harpies, particularly those of the Elayenna Matriarchy would through their mating with elves grow ever more elven in their features​

“Your father was called the Black Prince?” Taliandel exclaimed, lifting her eyes from the papers. “I’ve only heard him called One-Arm”.

“Oh, that was many years later. After Zokka invaded and routed the Ash Legions. You see, Zokka tore off Eledas’ arm and ate it.”

Some of the younger hatchlings screamed in a mix of delight and terror. Dilara stared at Aredhel disapprovingly.

“He ate it? Just like that on the field?”

“Oh, the gnolls were quite different back then, just as the harpies were, or the elves for that matter. And Zokka was a particularly nasty soul in himself. Almost a Xhazobine.” Aredhel tried to give the mother a sheepish grin in apology but she was whispering something to her harpylen cousin. “But no, it wasn’t as if he tore the arm off and ate it just like that. He tore it off, roared to the sky and waved it about. Then I came in between them and my legionaries carried the King away to safety”.

Taliandel's mouth hung open. “You fought Zokka the Devourer-of-Suns and lived?”

“Well, I hardly fought him, I got in between him and my father, and Zokka pounded me to the ground with my father’s arm and then I woke up in chains. Zokka somehow found out who I was, and ate the arm in front of me. Then he sent some slaves to Sareyand with the charred bones, thanking Eledas for the meal. That’s how he got the name, you know.”

Dilara rose. “Well, grandfather, I believe the young ones might be needing their rest. We’ll be off then.” Her eyes fired daggers at him.

Taliandel remained when the others took flight, and Aredhel poured himself another cup of wine.

Zokka, the Devourer-of-Suns, Second to Last Gnollish invader of Bulwar​

“Grandfather… the elves. Did they really believe themselves Chosen by Surael?” Aredhel looked at her for a long while. Trying to explain himself, the shame he still felt for what his people had done. Then he let out a breath.

“Some did, and some didn’t.” She gave him a look. “There now, I’m not going to leave it at that. Have they taught you about how my people came to Bulwar?”

She sighed. “The elves came on great boats, migrants from the collapse of Aelentir a thousand years earlier. Some went to Cannor and lived among the humans there, but Surael led some to Bulwar under the great hero Jaher…”

“Yes, yes, I know you listen to your tutors. So, Jaher came to Bulwar, and he found a land in turmoil. Jaher was a great hero, that is right, and he freed the humans from gnollish dominion, and then he led his armies into Rahen and beyond, never to return.”

“Why did you ask then?”

“Well, what Jaher did was to conquer and set up his people as rulers, for he trusted them more than he trusted the humans. And then he died. But this hero, that the humans named Surael Reborn, had appointed the elves as his stewards, had he not? Who had Surael himself left to govern? The Sun Elves. Then he died, and the elves continued to rule. Then came Jexis, and her bloody reign, and then she died as well, but the elves continued to rule, and by this time, most of those who had known Jaher, truly known him, were dead.”

“So the elves started to believe what the humans said?”

“Some of them. Some saw the truth for what it was and wrapped their entire lives in that lie. But they all wanted to believe it – not only to keep power and to keep safe in their new lands, but because they felt Surael in their hearts but misunderstood his message. He wanted them to fight the Darkness, and they interpreted this as meaning that only they could fight. And in due time they started to believe that they could harbor no Darkness within themselves”.

They were silent, sitting there together for a while. Then he grinned at her.

“Oh, and some of us were just right old bastards…”

She threw her wine cup at him before she took flight, following her kin.

 

[HistoryDude]

And... a fourth Anbennar AAR... I'll follow.

It looks like the time of the Sun Elves came to an end. Is our protagonist a Sun Elf himself, or is he some sort of hybrid?

 

[Apelstav]

And... a fourth Anbennar AAR... I'll follow.

It looks like the time of the Sun Elves came to an end. Is our protagonist a Sun Elf himself, or is he some sort of hybrid?

Thanks!

Aredhel was born Sun Elf, but he is writing in the early 18th century after having lived with the Jaddari for some 250 years or so. My intent is to have the Sun Elves have become culturally fractured and more integrated with the other races. He would probably be considered a Surani Elf, but is quite cosmopolitan after having served the state for most of his life.

 

[Crushric]

Well, this is a welcome and interesting surprise! This seems to be vaguely historybook, but with a more personal touch because Aredhel was a first-hand witnesses to most of the events. Like Plutarch was to the Punic Wars, he can give first-hand accounts and opinions that you really had to be there to see.

It's a good use of an elven narrator. And I really vibe with the nicknames and internal theming. "Age of shimmers", "the black prince." It has a feeling that really captures Anbennar in a really cool way.

Looking forwards to seeing what you do with game screenshots.

And... a fourth Anbennar AAR... I'll follow.

It looks like the time of the Sun Elves came to an end. Is our protagonist a Sun Elf himself, or is he some sort of hybrid?

The AARtide begins. There shall be no mercy.

 

[Apelstav]

Well, this is a welcome and interesting surprise! This seems to be vaguely historybook, but with a more personal touch because Aredhel was a first-hand witnesses to most of the events. Like Plutarch was to the Punic Wars, he can give first-hand accounts and opinions that you really had to be there to see.

It's a good use of an elven narrator. And I really vibe with the nicknames and internal theming. "Age of shimmers", "the black prince." It has a feeling that really captures Anbennar in a really cool way.

Looking forwards to seeing what you do with game screenshots.


The AARtide begins. There shall be no mercy

The whole concept is mostly borrowed from Bernard Cornwell's 'The Warlord Chronicles' to be honest. Terrific books, where the main character was one of King Arthurs companions in a somewhat more realistic take on the Arthurian saga, and is later telling his much younger kinswoman about his life. Also had quite a decent Ck2 mod back in the day.

The Century of Shimmers is official lore, I think. It's somewhat difficult keeping up with the Anbennar Team sometimes, but I think most of the Bulwar fluff is still set besides the Harpies.

As for screenshots, I'm probably not going to use them. Have been making a few regional maps in Wonderdraft that I'll use and one day I'll get aroundbto making an entire Halann map I think.

Really liked your old Dartaxegerdim AAR btw!

 

[Apelstav]

II
​

Meeting my father was one of the strangest experiences in my life, and it would twist my mind – not only was I one of the Chosen, but I was of Royal blood, if tainted by my bastardry. My father’s treatment of me didn’t make me resent him, not until much later when I understood what true fatherhood looked like, and my first family would bear the brunt of that foolishness. For I saw the Black Prince as an inspiration, an elf I should aspire to be like – and surely then he would acknowledge me as his blood. So, bloody, bruised and aching, yet filled with pride born out of my inner Darkness I came to the soldier’s life.

My training was a grueling, dull affair, like the trade of the soldier remains to this day. Thirendil put me in with elven recruits of course, a company of a hundred youngsters, though all older than me. Older, stronger and harder. Then he told me to keep quiet about my heritage and to stop my bloody whining. So to my brothers-in-arms I became Aredhel Aredhelzuir, a bastard of an unknown father, lowest of our kind. That first year was as close to hell, at least so I thought then, though the world would show me wrong in later years, for I was weaker than my peers, less agile, soft and green and I thought them all hardened soldiers. I was so determined to prove myself those first few weeks, though the determination would be replaced with apathy eventually. Thirendil was little aid. He was the kind of sergeant that thought numbness was the same as strength, and he had us run until we fell, had us spar until blood was drawn and had us go for days without water nor food in the wilderness.

“Do you want glory? Then you must hunger for it!” he used to shout at us.

I was always the first to fail, that year, and he’d punish all of us for any perceived failure. I didn’t win any friends among the other recruits, initially due to them resenting my weakness, later due to me resenting them for not being as noble as I secretly was. But harsh as he was, Thirendil wasn’t out to torture us, as I believed. He was also the kind of elf who made sure you were alive to try again the next day, and the next, and in time I did grow stronger. Looking back, I understand that Thirendil wasn’t training us to be rank and file legionaries. He wanted us to be warriors, disciplined, yes, hard and fast, but more than that, he wanted us impressive. The Ash Legion was elven, but for every elf there were a hundred humans in the armies of Sareyand, and the Ash Palace wanted the humans to see the elves and remember that they were stronger, fiercer and better than them in every way. The Chosen must never break before the humans did, especially if we were to command human regiments. Most important of all, the humans must see that any of them would fail if put against one of us. Sareyand, and her Sisters, were built upon shifting sand and the Sun Elves knew it. That was the Dark taint at the very heart of Sun Elven rule, and that need to impress would lead the Ash Legion and Sareyand down the road to the Battle of the Shifting Dunes, and eventually the to the Second Burning.

A sketch found among Aredhel the Old's papers, believed to have been of Thirendil the Sergeant​

But the Scourging of the Suran was still half a century away, and the Revelation of Jaddar was only just spreading beyond the Szal-Zaid. Soon enough I was able to keep up with my brothers. The punishments grew less frequent, I learnt - and this was perhaps the best and most important thing Thirendil taught me - not to hurt when it wasn't necessary. We even started getting food during our marches. In two years time I could handle the spear well enough not the be embarrassed, and with horse and lance I was better than most of my seniors. The training went on though, for another ten years. Elves do view time quite differently from both man and harpy.

The day did come for our company to break apart though. My brothers celebrated whilst I awaited word from my father. He had apparently decided that even if I weren’t doing well enough for him to take an active interest, I was at least promising enough to be put to the test. My first command was as Watch Commander in one of the towers south of Hašr. It was a lone tower with a ring wall close to a small oasis, and a pleasant enough place and these days I believe there is a decently sized village there, growing dates and trading with the gnolls around the Harra, but even before Zokka’s rise the Surani and elves had learnt to fear the open sands. We were several days from any true settlement, me, my second, a significantly older and more competent elf than myself named Narzamar, and our twentyfive human soldiers. They had of course been drilled by elven officers, so they showed us proper deference and I treated them with the benign neglect my grandfather had shown our servants as long as they did not get to familiar.

Our duty was to keep watch, to ride out and meet the few caravans that made the trek up from Dašmatus or from Edušukeru, and if needed there was a beacon for us to light to summon reinforcement from other towers nearby. Few caravans came however. Even if they did not dare to attack Sareyand and the people along the Suran, the gnolls still roamed in our minds, and merchants prefered to by sea over the Raheni Gulf, through the Mašnsih lands to Azka-Sur, or even trade with the Raheni cities in the east. But when they came, we were there to interrogate them and guide them towards Hašr. Had they encountered Gnolls? Bandits? What news could they bring from beyond the Salahad? Were they going to Sareyand or were they due west, attempting to avoid our tolls before reaching Bulwar proper?

Aredhel's map of Sareyand-that-was, with the following notes on the back:

3. Old Aredhel's estate
4. Veharina's estate
5. The Watch-tower​

Some few times we were told of raiders, and even less frequently we were able to hunt them down. Human or gnoll. The first time I stood against a gnoll pack I thought I would piss myself, but Narzamar made short work of them, riding his horse into the thick and driving his lance through the snarling jaws of their leader. After that time I did well enough not to bring shame to my name, and I started to believe myself a proper veteran. Humans were a different matter, them we tried to take back alive to stand judgement in Hasr, accused of banditry and heresy but gnolls we killed to the last, for they were nothing but monsters to us then.

You see, neither human nor gnoll, nor harpy for that matter, remember what they used to be before the Revelation. Elves do, in a way, and maybe the dwarves do as well, but our minds slightly shifts over the centuries and it’s almost as difficult remembering what the world used to be like, as it is remembering how the world is now. Today there are occasional stories of gnoll bands far into the deserts or mountains, living as bandits, but I believe there has been at least a century, perhaps almost two, since a Xhazob sacrifice was made, at least in Bulwar. The gnolls of old were slavers and oppressors, first and foremost, but they were also fervent worshippers of the Malevolent Dark. And sometimes, the Darkness would manifest in one of their numbers and this gnoll they would name the Xhazobine. Half gnoll, half demon, the Xhazobine would rally all tribes to her, and they would follow her to the ends of the world. Feasting upon their dead enemies, offering the hearts of others to the Darkness and enslaving the unlucky survivors. So when we hunted down a pack, we did not weep for them as brothers who lost their way, nor did we seek to give them justice. We chased them with fire and steel, and we slew them all lest they grow into a threat strong enough to threaten Sareyand.

If we had hunted them with greater fervor, perhaps the world would’ve been very different today, but Surael made our pride blind us to bring forth what was always meant to be.

​

Painting of a young Aredhel the Ashborn, before he turned to the Light of Surael,
commisioned by his wife Veharina

After my small victories in the desert, I was stationed at the border to Azka-Sur, and I had apparently been deemed fit enough for a command of a hundred men this time. The message of my rotation was not from my father, but from Alarawel Vulzin, Commander of the Eastern Marsches and the Legion in the eastern lands of Sareyand. Again I was bitterly disappointed. Had I not shown my valor, driving our ancient foe back into the deep desert? Had I not shown I could lead, taking both my small troop and human auxiliaries almost to the Great Oasis in the south, burning out a dozen of Gnoll tribes? I was so very young. Narzamar listened to me rail against an undeserved boon without word. He was a far better elf than I would become for many years. Eventually I convinced myself that my father stood behind Alarawel, and surely it was his hand that moved me. He had seen that I had been tested, but one of the Sarelzuir line, bastard or not, had to do greater things than harrowing beastsand monsters in the hills. We were the heirs to the Phoenix, were we not?

I told myself that I had succeeded in winning his approval, that my testing wasn’t done, but soon it would be. Azka-Sur was claimed to be under the protection of the Ash Palace but in reality Erlian Surzuir ruled in his own right, in large part thanks to their alliance with the Dwarves of Seghdir. This meant that even if relations had mostly been peaceful for a century, a significant part of the Ash Legion was stationed there. It was an important posting, surely, not something given to just any elf still young enough to sit at his father's table at home. So I wen't east.

These were a happy few years, for between Hašr and Azka-Sur ran even then the greatest part of all trade between Bulwar and the eastern lands, and the town we were stationed in was rich and had a significant elven population. Now I attended the balls and the masques an officer, younger than any of my peers, which drew a fair bit of attention, especially from the local elfmaids, and I reveled in their attention. Among them were Veharina, who in a few years’ time would become my first wife, and mother of my only elven children.

----​

“I have elven cousins? You never told me you married an elf!” Taliandel looked up at Aredhel where he stood washing his face, head pounding after having finished off the wine himself last night. “Where are they?”

Aredhel wiped himself dry before answering. Remembering them. Trying to remember their faces, their voices, their being a part of his life.

“Oh, I never told you?" He sighed. "But then, it’s a story filled with sorrow, and one of very long ago. My sons were only boys, even younger than you, when I was taken by the Gnolls, and they never did find their way to the truth of Surael.”

Taliandels smile, perhaps thinking to have caught him out in hiding something from her, slowly faded.

“Are you saying that the Lightbringers…”

“No, nothing like that. Veharina, may Surael shelter her, for she never had anything evil in her except for what was put there by her unknowing parents, did die young, but not by the Lightbringers’ fires, but young Aredhel fled when Sareyand fell. We met a few times after that and he did live with me for a few years. But... things happened, and long ago he took ship west to join with the Exemplar heretics. And young Eledas and Varuir… well, in all honesty I do not know. Hašr was ravaged by Zokka, and then it faced the wrath of both the Ash Palace and us, when we invaded.”

Aredhel wiped his face again. The lie he told had only been a small one. Surael would forgive him, even if they couldn’t. For a few moments Taliandel looked as if she didn’t know what to say, distressed at his tears, feathers standing out. She looked away and scraped the floor with her claws and for a while an uncomfortable silence hung between them.

“You named your son after yourself? Isn’t that a bit pretentious?” and the spell of seriousness was broken again, and Aredhel could fall into their comfortable rut of easy banter.

“Well, Aredhel Aredhelzuir, son of Aredhel, has quite a ring to it, I think. Wouldn’t Aredhelanna be a fine name for a future harpy granddaughter, when we’re speaking of names?”

----​

When we first met, Veharina was almost old enough to be considered an adult, much to old for another dalliance, I thought, and I too young to start any true courtship so I took little interest in her, instead pursuing her younger sister, Variana. Variana was a fierce girl, wanting to join the legion herself though her mother and father disapproved, so took her to see my company at muster and riding with us on patrol. Veharina joined us at each occasion as, chaperoning her younger sister. At first, I reveled in Variana’s attention, for she seemed full of life, but for each time we met I found myself speaking more to her older sister than her, for Veharina spoke of other things than the military.

She told me of her journeys to Ginerdu and Anzabad, of meeting with the Dwarves of Seghdir when visiting Azka-Sur, and she awoke a wanderlust in me I did not know that I harbored. But most of all she told me of her family's estate. How the lands had been reclaimed from the desert over the century she had lived, of olive groves and horse flocks tended by her family, stronger and faster with every generation. This might sound like a strange thing, but I believe it is a very elven thing to be attracted to the slow cultivation of the land, to plant a tree and see it grow as you grow, and I saw a future for me there, between the Suran and the mountains. Travelling wherever and whenever I wished, with her to show me all the wonders she told of and returning to this ever-growing home, bountiful and peaceful.

​

Sketch of Veharina, found hidden together with several letters from Rezankand in Aredhel's chamber

As you most likely realize, my interest in Veharina was a selfish thing, not for her at all, but for what she could give me. Thinking back, I can’t really say why she took an interest in me. Perhaps it was the uniform, perhaps to spite her parents and her sister who all disapproved, perhaps she even saw in me some part of what I could become but never would for her. In the end it doesn't matter. We shared our first kiss in a glen close to the mountains, and after that I believe our love did blossom into... something, even if it never would be free of my selfishness or my pride. Our time would still have to wait though, for the years ran past us and I was to be rotated out north.

This time, I was given a proper command. I was proud and thought less of the father who wasn't there when I arrived at Azkabar. I had performed above expectation again and was promoted. In truth, all I had done was not to embarras myself, and just like me the Ash Legion was filled with unsuited commanders promoted on political grounds. My new senior officer, one of the last true veterans of Jexis’ legions didn’t even attempt to hide his contempt when I got to the Black Walls and presented him with my papers. But I had been given my place, and he couldn’t remove me, so he instead he sent me to hunt for harpy raiders along the northeastern border. Harpyhunts were, as I believe you will be quite pleased to know, dearest granddaughter, the silliest thing one can assign soldiers to do. The harpies were faster than our horses, could hide wherever there was even the slightest bit of elevation and, of course, could fly away the moment they caught even a look of a sandcloud. Many years later I would fight harpies properly, though with harpies of my own to command and scout, and I must say those wars were some of the worst I would ever face, but young and proud I set out determined to prove my senior officer wrong, and to prove myself worthy to one day wed Veharina and claim my true name.

----​

Taliandel put the papers down, having finished the last he’d written yesterday. “For saying that soldiering is dull and tedious, you sure spend a lot of time writing about it. And isn’t this supposed to be the story of Jaddar Jexiszuir? Not the story of some old elf who just happened to live very long?” Taliandel sounded tired. Maybe she was just going through the motions, trying to avoid any topics that might upset him again.

“Oh, I do, and it will be, in due time. And the story of Andrellion, of the Devourer-of-Darkness, of the Cinderbeard and the Vehari of the Bright Claw. And of Jaddareesa, of course. They will all fit, but so will an old elf who, through great bravery and skill, I might add, survived to sit talking to his granddaughter on this quite miserable morning”

Taliandel harpy jumped up, stretching her wings whilst walking over to the table he wrote at, putting back the papers in a neat pile. “Well, then you should get on with it” She paused. “Mother is taking me out east, along with aunt Haamida and my cousins. The Feng hasn’t responded to our messages and mother is afraid we might have insulted them somehow”

Aredhel felt his stomach sink. Alone again. He smiled to her.

“Well, take care. I’ve met fewer Feng than any other kind of harpy, but they are a bit strange in their ways, like all of Old Xiaken.”

She nodded.

“Well, see you in a few weeks, grandfather”

 

[Crushric]

This story reminds me a lot of the story of Bernal Díaz del Castillo. He was a Spanish conquistator who would serve alongside Cortest in the destruction of the Aztecs. As an old man, he grew tired of all the fake accounts from the new worlds and stories. So he took a pen and decided to write his own first-hand account of what really happened. He's biased, and doesn't try to pretend otherwise, and it's all what he remembered as a younger man on campaign.

But it's filled with oddly human moments. He was very self-conscious that he was not greatly educated and able to write poetically about his actions like many famous historians like Livy. And once, he told a story about the time he planted an orange free in Florida, just reminiscing about a small human moment, before he crossed that section out and apologized for telling such a normal story in-between what he expects his reader to think is a grand historical epic of war and conquest.

This is like that.

 

[HistoryDude]

That training doesn't seem to be very kind, but I can definitely still see nepotism in favor of our author.

It's nice to know a bit more about the personal life of our author too.

 

[Apelstav]

This story reminds me a lot of the story of Bernal Díaz del Castillo. He was a Spanish conquistator who would serve alongside Cortest in the destruction of the Aztecs. As an old man, he grew tired of all the fake accounts from the new worlds and stories. So he took a pen and decided to write his own first-hand account of what really happened. He's biased, and doesn't try to pretend otherwise, and it's all what he remembered as a younger man on campaign.

But it's filled with oddly human moments. He was very self-conscious that he was not greatly educated and able to write poetically about his actions like many famous historians like Livy. And once, he told a story about the time he planted an orange free in Florida, just reminiscing about a small human moment, before he crossed that section out and apologized for telling such a normal story in-between what he expects his reader to think is a grand historical epic of war and conquest.

This is like that.

I need to read that.

I'm finding it a bit difficult to give the young Aredhel a voice that rings through his own interpretation. Essentially I want him to think that he was a an asshole, since his later experiences, especially when being enslaved by Zokka, should change him into a different person that has his notions elveness shattered and replaced with the Jadd tenets, perhaps with a struggle to accept the younger Zokka as a brother. But I also want him to not be as bad as he thinks - the Sun Elves were a complex grouo and I want him to show the transition from Chosen to chosen, and not only in hindsight.

That training doesn't seem to be very kind, but I can definitely still see nepotism in favor of our author.

It's nice to know a bit more about the personal life of our author too.

Well they need some way to become the super soldiers of +10% discipline after all.

My initial thought was to do three pre-game chapters - training, first marriage (I want some reason to bring Rezankand into the narrative and thought a lost son would do nicely) and enslavement - but it's already gotten away from me and I'm hoping to keep it at three more after this, marriage, some time in Sareyand to get to know Eledas and then one with the gnolls.

 

[Apelstav]

III

The phoenix is sometimes seen flying over Bulwar, and has for millenia been seen as a benign herald of great change and rebirth,
here depicted by an unknown Aquatbari artist​

For the first few days after Taliandel’s departure, Aredhel did manage to write. Without her to distract him he found within himself a mania he thought long lost and the words spilled from him unto the papers like the rare desert rains upon the sands, overflowing. His fading was a slow thing. With every evening he drank a bit more wine than the last and every morning he stayed in bed a bit longer. Aredhel thought of going to the Djinn's Garden, where rare flowers from all over the Empire was in everlasting bloom, but decided there would be far too great a chatter there from all the pilgrims. He thought of trying to find Objara, the Harimari scholar he’d taken tea with a few times after coming to Ebbušubtu, but found himself wondering if she was still alive and decided he didn’t want to know. Then came the morning when he woke and decided not to get up at all. What was the point? Time had passed him by and all he'd cherished – all whom he’d loved – had vanished from this world long ago. She would have told him that he was being a fool. That the world was only what he made of it. His loneliness was one of design, and his at that, not one of fate. Taliandel looked so very much like her. For a day or two he attempted to live, for them if nothing else, but he failed again.

Veharina had told him he lived his life not for himself but for the approval of others. She'd meant his father, who would never give it lest to save himself. Aredhel had scoffed at her, but later, after her death, he had understood that she was right. Aredhel thought that he’d changed. He met Taliandel’s grandmother, and with her he found happiness and hope. He found purpose, faith in a better tomorrow and seen it come to be. Then she had died as well, but their children had lived, and the Empire – his Empire – had remained. And there had been Darkness to fight in the world, so many wrongs to put right. Aredhel had travelled the world, thinking that she rode with him in his heart, sharing his wonder and in his deeds. But maybe Veharina had been right all along. He tried telling himself that he couldn’t just give up, for wasn’t that the worst betrayal of Surael there was? Late at night he remembered that he'd been named both heretic and traitor more times than he could count. Aredhel had come to Ebbusutsu seeking rest, seeking memories and maybe even an old friend or two. Perhaps he had been seeking his tomb. The elves of Cannor used to have a mountain monastery for people like him, he had heard, and in younger days he had wondered how anyone could shut themselves away from the world like that.

His wallowing would be brought to an end not by thoughts of those who'd be disappointed by his weakness, nor by some inner strength yet untapped and undiscovered, but by the sounding of a thousand trumpets and by the banging of a thousand drums. Aredhel awoke. It was early morning – very early, the soft dawn light only just brightening his balcony. Head thick with wine, he went to look down expecting just another festival but saw instead a great black serpent against the blue shadowed valley outside the Holiest of Cities. Their torches moved slowly as the procession made its way through the Gate of the Dawn and in the sky danced beasts made of flame. A dragon with scales of living flame crossed paths with a chariot drawn by five great horses, eyes red like darkening embers. Unicorn and wyvern wove together an intricate pattern that left glowing letters in the sky.

Be the Light​

Above all a single phoenix sang.

“SHE COMES! SHE COMES! WITH THE DAWN SHE COMES! BEHOLD ERELESSA JADDARZUIR, HERALD OF SURAEL!”

Ogres were once one of the so called 'Monstrous Races' who had been hunted to the edges of the world, but would become the fiercest shock-troops of the Legions
here depicted in an Anbenncóster pamphlet titled "Is this your Salvation?"​

She was carried by a hundred hands, human, orcish, gnoll, and elven and at her sides walked six of the northern ogres, each with an axe larger than any other could even lift. Dwarven pipes called and he saw their fireworks shoot up between the magical constructs in the sky. In the middle of this bewildering cacophony sat the Erelessa. The glamours laid upon her made her appear in Aredhel's mind as if he stood beneath her throne. She was inordinately tall, twice the height of any elf ever to have walked upon Halann and her face shone with the warmth of the sun, fixed in a benevolent smile. The city answered her with ringing bells and thousands of voices singing to welcome the daughter of Jaddar home.

Aredhel decided to have a bath.

----​

The eastern reaches of the Harpy Hill’s were then Varhamari territory, in the sense that if you were to look at a map there would be a line going from the Segbandal Mountains to Lake Naza, above that line it would say Varhamar, or perhaps Akalšes, as the ancient city upon the northern bank of the Naza was ruled by a human king sworn to Carodir Varamzuir. In reality it was empty land. The few human settlers had long since fled south or west, unable to find an accord with the Firanyan flocks. The first time I crossed the border I expected there to be some sort of response from the troops stationed in Alkalšes, but it never came. They were far too busy dealing harpies further west, or eyeing the Free City of Bulwar, as both Sareyand and Irrliam did as well. Even these days, the harpy hills are considered a harsh land, the soil is thin and rocky outside some few areas of old Gelkalis, and I certainly thought so, having spent many years by the Suran and my leave close to Setadazar and her vineyards, but for a harpy of the Paravimvata I imagine they would seem green and lush, filled with game to hunt and clear mountain streams running down into the Bulwari heartlands. But then, when you read this you shall not only have seen Gankhenden’s valleys, but the floodplains and jungles of Rahen and the misty lands beyond.

As I mentioned earlier our hunts were hardly fruitful, but my time in the north would be, in a sense. Our intrusion into Varhamar seemed to incense my father, or maybe even old Eledas II, who still reigned from the Ash Palace, stirred from his lethargy and saw an opportunity to bind all of the rich lands around the Naza to Sareyand. I was recalled to Azkabar, received a commendation for my “good work”, though it was given through gritted teeth, and told to ready my men.

“Ready them for what, sir?" I asked my commander.

“We are going north, to take Akalšes, whilst the Black Prince leads the bulk of the Legion west to retake Traz Buranun.”

He was curt, and it might only be hindsight but I believe he knew what we would face.

Varhamar was youngest among the Daughters, and the weakest in terms of land and numbers to put in the field. But Carodir was a mighty sorcerer, one especially gifted in war magics and he had made himself a patron of many like him so Varhamar remained independent not only due to the careful balance of power maintained by the Sun Elves but also by a hidden strength all knew and feared.

I led my men, a thousand strong and now joined with another fivethousand human soldiers - as well as five hundred elven legionaries under the direct command of Iztralania the Golden, hero of the First Cinder War. It took us less than a week to reach Akalšes, and every night we younger officers drank and gambled and told stories of our postings. I was still a century younger than any other, but by now most had heard of me and were mostly interested in hearing of my experiences against the harpies. I of course embellished and bragged, how we had been under near constant harassment from above and how my valiant soldiers had darkened the skies with their arrows every time the harpies attacked. No need to tell that most of the times the attackers had been crows or vultures, or that most harpies we had seen at all had simply been flying away, several miles ahead when the arrows were loosed. I even found Narzamar among my peers, and we together told of our raids in the desert. I made sure to tell everyone of how he'd killed a hundred gnolls with his own lance, and he made sure not to mention how I almost pissed myself at our first skirmish, and we had drinks together and spoke as if we were old friends.

We reached Akalšes unimpeded, foraging the wealthy estates along the way, laden with plunder, and we made camp and started preparing the magi platforms, as well as towers and ladders for the humans. After having dined with Narzamar that evening I went to inspect my human soldiers, Narzamar coming with, and I found them at prayer as the sun set. They were all facing the setting sun, away over the western hills, and bowed to Surael in protestration. Then I heard Baraz, one of my sergeants singing in a low voice. I had seen the Dusk Prayer many times before then, and I had mouthed the different elven prayers to Surael myself, but this is the first time I can remember the words touching some part of me.

Your spear against the night
burning until the light
of The Sun shall arise
and vanquish all lies
And your Garden be built in Bulwar
​

Baraz looked up at me as he stopped singing, bowing his head down low. "Praise be to the Chosen!" he called and the Surani and Zanite soldiers echoed his call. They sounded reassured and I remember a small voice screaming deep inside of me that I wasn't. I instead answered "For the Surael and the Black Phoenix!" and they took up the call. Baraz smiled then. He would always be able to smile.

The war, if we are to call it that, was short, brutal, and I was back in Azkabar before three months had gone. The very next morning Iztralania rode up to treat with the Akal, offering him to keep his lands and his titles if he swore to Sareyand instead of Varhamar. The answer was not from the human king, but from Carodir's Wallbreakers inside the city. The ground beneath Iztralania the Golden, who had ridden with Elizar and Jexis, who had fought Darastarion, the young Phoenix of Dalarand, opened up and she as well as a hundred elves fell to their depth before it closed it maws against them. I hope they died that quickly at least, though I would not put anything passed Carodir and his ilk. There is much more to tell of the king of Varhamar, and little of it good, but that will have to wait.

As the legionaries' screams went dead, our own magi rose on their platforms, but lightning fell upon them as walls of fires arose to box in our camp. Cries of dread, pain and death was everywhere, and the heat of the magis' fire made my blood boil. My poor horse, a gift from Veharia, threw me off and ran through the flames, never to be seen again and I was trampled by booted feets, a kick breaking my nose. Then strong hands took hold of my shoulders and I was helped to my feet. Through watery eyes a saw a bearded face and put my weight on Baraz.

​

"Where are the banners?" I shouted at him. He replied but I only saw his lips moving, but he pointed to a great black banner advancing towards the flames. Through the chaos I saw that the Akal's forces were sallying beyond. Andrellion would once tell me that battle's were like flowing water, that you could see what would happen if you only looked at the land beneath it and the water that was flowing upstream. I saw our magis falling from the skies above like raindrops, and I saw the Varhamari troops beyond moving as a spring flood, and I knew the day was lost. I cried to Baraz to sound the attack.

The Battle of Akalšes would eventually become just a footnote in history, another small war where men and elves died for nothing, but there fell Iztralania the Golden and Nazramar, my friend who's father's name I've forgotten, and there died many others who could have lived and seen the world change to the better, or had children who would have carried their legacy to the Truth of Surael.

In the west my father fared little better, facing Carodir himself.

----
​

Ebbušubtu had not housed the Divine Herald for almost a century and the city came alive with light, with dancing and song. Aredhel stayed in his chambers that first day, bathing, dressing, looking at the wine bottles the servants brought him. He went to the Djinn's Garden and found it empty, and then he went up to the tree. When Jaddar had come here, before Aredhel was even born, he had found Ebbušubtu a ruin. It was said that it had been raised by one of the Djinn who once ruled over the ancient Bulwari, and maybe then the lands around it had been able to support its inhabitants, but by Jaddar's time only some few of the Mašnsih ever came here to shelter from sandstorms. But over the centuries, the ruins had been rebuilt, and now at least twenty thousand souls lived here, and hundreds of thousands of pilgrims came every year to meditate beneath and upon the Mountain of Clear sight. It required enormous amounts of grain and livestock, brought by caravan from Rahen. Aredhel wondered if Jaddar would've been flattered or dismayed.

The tree was not at the summit of the mountain, as most pilgrims believed, instead Aredhel wandered along a goat trail to the northern slopes, overlooking the open desert and the slopes of the Parimvata. There he found a small cave, barely enough to shelter in from the wind, and a single, gnarly cedar, and he waited.

----
​

Eledas II and Carodir met at Azkabar and signed another treaty of eternal peace, and it was proclaimed as a great victory across Sareyand. The Varhamari had been pushed back I heard people say, and when asked by officers down from the south I parroted the lie. But as I said, in a sense, the disastrous war would not be so for me, for many of the senior commanders of the Ash Legion died in Carodirs traps, both at Akalšes and outside Traz Buranun. My father survived of course, but this was when rumors about him being a craven actually begun.

I was given leave for three months and then told to head for the Azka-Suran border once more, this time as the overall Commander of the forces stationed there. This time the letter was from my father, though he adressed me as Aredhel Aredhelzuir and made no mention of our connection. I went home to my mother and grandfather first.

My memories of that visit are few, I was shaken from my experience at Akalšes, but my grandfather sat with me at evening, drinking in quiet peace. My mother and I went riding to see the estates during the days and I do recall one of our conversations quite vividly. I think we had been seeing one of the vineyards up by the mountains and were heading back home when I worked up the nerve to ask her:

"Did you love Eledas?"

She didn't answer at first, looking down at the road winding ahead of us.

"Eledas is to be our king, I love him still." she said in a neutral voice. "But no, not as two who create a life should love eachother. Not as I hope you love your Veharina, and she you."

Then she rode closer to me, and put her hand on mine and continued almost in a whisper.

"Power is a very alluring thing, Aredhel, and you are flying ever closer to it, but people who attain it often forget why they wanted it. They become hard and cold and only find meanings in little games."

I remembered the fires and wondered if that had been a little game.

The weeks ran by and I set out towards the south. I was still on leave, but with me I brought a human guard who would join me. Baraz was their sergeant, his hands still bandaged from the burn wounds he'd gotten in the war. When we reached Veharina we might have looked dusty and weary of travel, having gone the long way around the Ašranaz Desert to reach Hašr and the eastern reaches of the Suran, but I came now not just a upstart officer but as one of the highest officers in the Ash Legion, and I made sure to bring gifts fitting my station. Veharina and I were promised to eachother within a forthnight, and married within the year.

​

Aredhel's sketch of Baraz

One of those early nights, when I had only just arrived back we went to her olive groves and ate together, we brought one of her maids and Baraz as chaperones but as we were promised now we could kiss and touch openly without it causing a scandal. After a bit of too much wine we lay there beneath the trees and she spoke of our future whilst I thought of Akalšes and my father, and I didn't even notice when she grew quiet.

"You are different Aredhel." she said, taking my hand in hers.

"How?"

"You used to speak of fighting gnolls and you seemed so eager for it. You haven't told me anything about the north."

I pushed her hand away and said "It's getting late, we should go back lest your parents worry we rode off." But on the way back I told her about the fire, both at Akalšes and in my nightmares.

"The world is filled with so much Darkness, Aredhel. All we can do is try our best. Out by the mountains our humans' villages were raided, but they returned and rebuilt, so can you." And she went on about their struggles and their hopes whilst I thought only of being compared to the humans and withdrew from her again. I wonder now if Veharina regretted promising herself to me then, but our wedding day seems to me a happy one, and our days spent in Educ-Vacyn and Azka-Sur. It was only after it would turn all sour, when Eledas summoned me to the Ash Palace.

----
​

It was another two days before Erelessa came there, but Aredhel felt a strange peace as he looked out across the Far Salahad. It gleamed like gold banded with red copper beneath the sun, and in the moonlight it turned blue and black like the ocean, dotted here and there along the Golden Highway with small fires of travelling pilgrims and merchants. When he sat here last, several years ago, he had wondered from whence they came, who they were and what they sought here at the heart of Jaddar's dream. This time he just waited.

When she came, the Divine Herald wasn't alone. Aredhel heard the clinking of metal before he could see their company, but as they arrived a dozen of guards drew their weapons and cried out to him.

"Halt there, stranger! Who are you?"

Aredhel bent to one knee and held up his hands, in greeting and to show he was unarmed, and when he looked into her milky eyes Erelessa smiled. It wasn't the fixed beatific grimace of her glamour, but a true smile, and for a moment he saw the young elfmaid who had ridden her horse into the Golden Palace of Dhenijansar and told the ministers of the old Raj that they were to disperse, to be summoned back when she had reviewed their ledgers if she deemed them fit to have a place in her father's Empire.

​

Painting of a Cedar Tree, unknown artist, from the personal collection of the Divine Herald


"Uncle Aredhel? She took a step forward, looking surprised when she realised there was an armed Green Orc between them. "Oh, Urimguk, all of you, put you weapons down. This is my uncle Aredhel-" and she recited in her sing-song voice "the Ashborn, Conqueror of the Deepwoods, Shield-bearer to the Divine Herald and husband to Jaddareesa Elayenna. You have more titles of course, but those are the ones most in use these days, I believe."

Every name stung Aredhel a little. He hadn't been any of those things for centuries, but as the guards laid down their arms they fell to their knees. Urimguk exclaimed "Forgive me, oh Blessed One!"

A little while later Aredhel sat upon a silken cushion beneath Jaddar's cedar, sipping black tea. Erelessa preferred hers quite sweet and he tried not to show how poor he found it. She'd been raised in the desert, but had taken to Bulwari customs almost immediately, having spent almost all her life west of the Salahad.

"So, it's very nice to see you uncle. There are few I would've been happier to see," she looked up at the stars. "And here of course. But I'm guessing you knew I would come here and this is you seeking me out, so..." her voice shifted into that of the Divine Herald once more. "What do you wish of me, Aredhel Sarelzuir?"

Aredhel looked at her. They had spoken of her father and brothers, of his late wife and of friends long dead, and he had felt alive in the memories. Now he thought of his mother, and her words.

"Not all is a game, Erelessa. Can't I simply have sought you out for your company?" She looked at him, a brief hint of her eyebrows lowering, then fixed relaxation.

"Then I thank you. There are few who seek me out who don't wish something of me." There was hesitation in her voice.

When she left it was with a promise to come visit him as soon as time permitted, her guards bowing to him in full prostration. It made him quite uncomfortable.

 

[HistoryDude]

That dream isn't ominous or worrying at all... So many regrets could be coming.

Power does have a tendency to make men less sympathetic.

 

[Apelstav]

IV​

Every night after Aredhel lay awake, but the wine brought to him was left to warm. He had seen a God-Queen entering the city. He had chatted softly with an old elf beneath the cedar. Aredhels attempts at reconciling the two failed, and when he slept it was uneasily, walking the line between dream and reality. As so very often when he dreamt, ancient trees rose above him. They hid the sky, and even if he walked there alone he knew they were watching and he knew that somewhere, deep within the forest was the Light. Far off between the stems Jaddar rode bare-headed through the gates of the Ash Palace. His old friend's hands were wreathed in flames, white as fresh mountain snow. The old must be burnt away for the new to grow. Lifeless bodies lay about the Divine Herald, peaceful as if asleep, yet Aredhel knew they were cold as stone. There is forgiveness in the Light, Erelessa had told him then, but in his dreams her voice was a far off echo inside the choir of millions.

When he was awake, Aredhel wondered if this was what Jaddar had envisioned. He remembered the tears upon both their cheeks as they dug the graves, and he remembered the Jaddar who had gone unarmed and unarmored before the gates of Seghdir to treat with the Citrine Dwarves when the Long Siege began. Pride was necessary in a ruler, Aredhel had learnt to accept that, but it must always be tempered. But then, Erelessa had kept the Empire together for almost two centuries after the Divine Herald died. Whilst Andrellion warred and Jahid did his horrible work with the Lightbringers, she had led the Exemplary to rebuild. Erelessa had built better. Her hands had knitted their conquests into the Empire. A hundred peoples screaming of ancient hatreds, grudges too old to ever be satisfied, had found peace in the Truth.

Even then, it didn’t sit right with him, the way her guards had treated him. If all were chosen, if all were of Surael’s Light and would one day return to Him, did that not mean that all were equal? Jaddar had ruled because Legion, Sihrušam and Matriarchy had chosen him to lead, and as him, Erelessa had been acclaimed by the Exemplary as their head. Surely, the Empire must be governed by a strong hand, lest it falter and Surael’s Light and their peace fade into memory and song, but the image of radiance claiming unto divinity itself, God-Queen and Chosen in one was not of the Truth, was it? Could the Dark twist the Light into reflecting itself, like the magi twisted it for their illusions?

As a Sun Elf, Aredhel surely had believed the Light shone on him.

----​

I was not yet fifty years old when we were wed. It caused something of a local scandal and more than a few japes were made about Veharina stealing me out of the cradle. We weren’t the only ones breaking convention though. Sun Elf numbers had been slowly recovering since the Cinder Wars but there was a vested interest from every Daughter to increase them still more. The elder generations both disdained the eagerness of their children and encouraged them. Too many elves had died in the wars, childless, and the humans always had more children during their brief lives than the elves did even when living centuries. So even if, especially amongst the highest of the nobility, most still held off until after living at least a century and a half, or the even more proper two full centuries, those who did marry young and had children were able to rise through the ranks of whatever trade they chose, often received generous land grants and specific privileges were granted to both elven landholders and artisans. The ways of the Phoenix Empire were fading, and the Bulwarization of the Sun Elves had already started, even though relations between elf and human remained taboo.

You’ll be snickering at this, barbing me about my marriage to Jaddareesa when she was less than thirty. My answer would be this – elves grow as rapidly as harpy or human, and we didn’t run in swaddling for a century even in my youth, thank you. But when elf marry elf, it is a match made to last centuries, or at least so is the intent. Most who wed, no matter their longevity, do not imagine it a thing to break apart, when and if it becomes inconvenient. Marriage is not only the union of two people however, but a union of families and not only on the maternal side as is the way of most of your kindred to this day. When Jasiene took Jaddar, she bound the Elayenna to the Jaddarzuirs, did she not? That bond was the first stone that the Empire was built upon, for Jaddar’s daughter still leads the Empire and your mother still holds to that familial alliance with her. This is the true issue of elves marrying without forethought. Writing this I am expecting a tirade about me saying Jaddar marrying a harpy being a mistake. That is not what I wrote, and you are quite clever enough to see my point. These days many of my kindred marry at fifty of course, some even younger, and many take spouses from the short-lived races. But when elf wed harpy, for instance, even if that harpy is of an elven father, he weds with the knowledge that he will have to bury his wife one day. More than likely, he will have to bury even his children. It is not a future to be chosen lightly, and I’ve seen more than one happy couple find their love a bitter cup as mortality slowly dawns upon them.

After Jaddar's conquest of Bulwar couplings between elves and men would become more and more common, leading to a spike in half-elven populations.​

The year leading up to the wedding itself was one of slow healing and I learned, if I hadn't already, what it was to doubt. The fires of Akalšes, the screams of horse, elf and man held me from sleep, and in my waking hours Baraz’ burnt hands served a constant reminder. I heard the rumors of Eledas fleeing the field at Traz Buranun, leaving thousands to die at Carodir’s sorcery. When I tried imagining the Black Prince, the proud lord who had sent me to Thirendil, running away where my human soldiers had charged with me into fire and death, I decided it was all vile lies spread by Sareyand's enemies. I still listened though.

Veharina was my soothing balm, or rather she was my lodestone, lest I make her sound some sweet innocent who only sought to ease my suffering mind. That would be to do her memory a disservice. What she did was to show that the world could – would – move on. Life itself heals when lived. But as a broken leg that is not set correctly, I would require breaking again to be set right in the future. In time, the days with her and with my soldiers would ease the nightmares, though they still came. More than once I relived the only thing close to a conversation I ever had with my father. I told him I despised him, that I wished for him to love me,, that he was a fool and a coward and that I only wanted him to acknowledge me as his son. He never answered me. Not even the dream-image of Eledas Sarelzuir would give me what I wanted. When I was awake, Veharina showed me horse flocks, vineyards and olive trees that had been giving fruit since before Jaher landed in Brasan. She told me of how she believed them best refined and expanded, how they could be nurtured if you only planned and acted to make it happen. When I wasn’t with Veharina, Baraz and I drilled our men. He would put his pink scarred hands upon their shoulders. With jests and demonstrations he showed our young farmhands how to hold their shields in close formation and how to move together. Then he would have them put on a show of marching to pipes and drum and they would beam with pride as I nodded with the Chosen’s dignity. For them, past, present and future was a line of causation, and they already understood that inaction was allowing chaos to reign.

When our day came I was almost the proud elfling that left Azkabar for his very first harpy hunt. What doubts I had in my father faded away as the whispers of his failure did. Perhaps people had simply decided they preferred to be led by heroes rather than fools. When I, shortly before the wedding, received a letter from the Ash Palace congratulating me on my rise through the Legion and my upcoming nuptials, along with a generous land grant, my desire for Eledas’ love was restored. The bone had healed, but remained crooked. It always had been.

The grant itself was not unusual. As I said the Sun Elf way was to give land to their own make it easier for them to provide for their families. Our gift, however, would be one of the richest estates in southern Sareyand. The wedding itself was an equally grand affair. I had risen to prominence, in part due to my youth, and the local nobility gathered to congratulate Veharina and her family and to gawk at the youth who had risen to his command a hundred and fifty years too soon and who clearly was favored by the Sarelzuirs. Was I magically gifted? Had I saved Eledas' life? Wasn’t the line of my nose similar to the royal family’s? Mother fretted, my old grandfather beamed, and I felt the mysterious hero all seemed to want me to be. It only intensified afterwards when Veharina and I went down the Suran to our new lands and laid out the plans for the villa that was to become our home. Our neighbours would come to visit us, someone almost every month, and I played the firm military man turned gentry quite well I believe. Then we would decide to travel whenever my duties allowed. Veharina and I toured the Three Great Temples and visited many of Bulwar's great cities and for a while I would live the life I had imagined for me when I first decided to marry her.

----​

Several days went by before Erelessa came to his chambers, and when entering she was of course accompanied by her guards. Aredhel recognized Urimguk. The rest of them were new, or at least so he thought so. The daughter of Jaddar looked tired, but she strode through his chambers, telling all but the orc to remain outside the door as she went to Aredhel’s balcony and looked out across Ebbušutsu.

“Do you remember when this was just empty desert, Aredhel?” Erelessa grabbed the stone handrail and looked down. “Oh, I never liked heights like these. Give me solid ground to stand on, not a slab of stone hanging over empty air", and she retreated to the cushions at the chamber’s heart.

“I quite like it. Sometimes, when the winds wind about the mountain, you can almost feel the stone swaying like trees in a forest. And I always did like a view. Tea?”

“Yes,” and she looked to Urimguk just as Aredhel made his way to his own set “and some of the fruit.” The orc opened the door and spoke to his companions outside. Within a moment they brought in a tray of delicate porcelain cups, matching pot and several teas and honey, as well as a platter of cut melon and oranges. Aredhel barely had the time to sit down. The orc then made his way to the brazier and put water to boil. Aredhel attempted to grab the pot but received a stern look as Urimguk stretched for it.

Coffee had been grown and drunk in Bulwar for several centuries before the arrival of the Sun Elves, though tea had long been
popular even before Jaher's landing in Brasan. However, the elves brought their own specimens of tea with them, and the
drink became quite popular with the human nobility thereafter - and again so after the rise of the Empire and increased trade with Rahen and Yanshen​

“It is considered ungracious to bring your own food to another’s table.” Aredhel didn’t know if this was still the way of things, but he didn’t like feeling as if his old friend, perhaps his oldest friend yet alive, mistrusted him. “Even more so, not to allow the host to serve you.” Urimguk glanced to Erelessa who shook her head slightly and fingered one of the stones chained around her neck.

“Yes, of course. Urimguk hasn’t been to the eastern lands before, and the old ways are stronger in the Salahad, I have noticed.” She took the cup, sipped and grimaced before adding a spoonful of honey too it. “Aredhel took to them quite quickly when he came to us.”

“Of course, Blessed One,” the guard answered her. He spoke elven quite well.

Aredhel placed a third cup upon the table and poured. Then he nodded to the orc. “Sit and drink. ‘None shall be left wanting, who has embraced the Truth’,” he quoted. Urimguk remained standing, but his eyes darted to Erelessa who showed him to one of the cushions with a small sweep of her hand.

“It is also considered ungracious to give succor to the one and not the other, especially if the one given could be considered above the other in the eyes of the people,” Erelessa explained. “‘Let none say that you are unworthy if you hold to the Truth in your heart, for worth lies is faith, in deed and in true spoken words’. Is that not so, Aredhel?”

He smiled to her and took a sip of his tea as Urimguk shuffled a bit uncomfortably down by the table.

----​

Baraz soon grew old and left my service to return to his family. I don’t know what became of him or his, but hopefully he led a quiet life and ended his days surrounded by those who loved him dearly. He was with us to see the birth of my first son, and carved for little Aredhel a set of wooden soldiers, all with tiny metal hooks at their feet so you could put them together and have them move in formation. During her pregnancy I had shared Veharina's excitement, but Aredhel only ever cried when I picked him up, and the first year I spent most of my time at my duties, even if Veharina told me I only made it worse. But she also said it would pass, and was of course correct in that as well. As the Century of Shimmers was about to give way to the Dryness, Aredhel left his cradle, and I grew to love him. Whenever I would return home, he would come running to meet me down the road, riding with me back to Veharina whilst telling me of Jaher and the Sunrise Wars, of Darastarion of Dalarand and of Jexis and Elizar the Bloody. He would spend the nights showing me Jaher's battles with those same wooden soldiers, soon gone smooth from his touch. After another few years he met me upon his own horse and rode by my side instead. Thereafter, Aredhel started accompanying me to the soldiers. The humans surprised us one day, having had a small black uniform sewn for him, they named him the Ešgumar, or the Little Chosen, and cheered as he learnt the bow and spear with the elven tutors I hired for him. When he returned home Aredhel told his mother that he wanted to join the Legion, just like me. Veharina wasn’t pleased. She reminded me what the only actual war I fought in had done to me, and asked if that was what I wanted for our boy.

“Still, it is a good path for a bastard’s son to distinguish himself, and there hasn’t been so much as a whisper at the borders for years,” I answered her. I wanted to tell her that he was the blood of royalty, that he needed to be ready for the day when my parentage was finally revealed. The secret was still kept however, as my father had requested of me all those years ago. Aredhel would continue to train however. Had he been but a few years older he might have been with us to the Shifting Sands, but thankfully he was spared that at least. As for telling Veharina the truth, the time would soon come for that, for in my seventy-sixth year Eledas II died and my father, the Black Prince, was acclaimed King of Sareyand, and I received the letter I thought I'd waited for my entire life.

Aredhel Aredhelzuir, you are to present yourself and your family before the Ash Palace upon the Summer Solstice.

I was elated. Sareyand had mourned their monarch but celebrated the ascension of the Black Prince. He was young, ambitious, and in the military my comrades spoke of a campaign against Azka-Sur so that the Ash Palace could finally reign supreme and unquestioned in Far Bulwar. Or perhaps against the gnolls, to drive the demons south of the Salahad once and for all and then to drive those cursed heretics out east out of their holes. No preparations had been made yet, but surely the Legion would soon march out to conquer. That was my father’s intent, I would later learn, but Eledas would delay until the Legion was needed at home and the drive for conquest would never be. We did not know it then, but Sareyand would never again fight for any other reason than its very survival, and even at that she would fail.

That night, as Aredhel played in the garden, I brought the letter to Veharina and told her everything.

“You are the son of the Black Prin… of King Eledas?” she was upset. “You told me you didn’t know who your father was. That your mother kept it a secret to prevent a scandal.”

“He asked me to, Veharina. No, he told me to keep it a secret. He is royalty, a bastard son would’ve caused him no end of trouble, and besides, I would have been kept in the capital my entire life.” I wanted so for her to share my excitement. “But now he is king, and I am a respected officer of the Legion. He intends to acknowledge me as his son, Veharina.”

She sat there, her face in her hand, eyes closed. “That would make Aredhel… what, royalty? Noble? A little lord at least. He will have to stay at court. And I will to, will I not?”

“Yes, we will all go, of course, my love.”

“I don’t w… I don’t think you understand me, Aredhel. I don’t want to live at court, I don’t want my boy to be a little lordling, forever entrenched in the politics of the Ash Palace.” She took my hand. “It's ill enough that he wants to follow you to the Legion. I want us to live long and slow, husband, to have a peaceful life together. To see Aredhel grow up and be happy and free.”

I had wanted that life. The one she had shown me and that we’d led together these years, hadn’t I? When I sat there, thinking of it, imagining standing before the court as Aredhel Sarelzuir, it seemed pale in comparison.

“I want that too,” I lied, and saw that she knew. “But we cannot refuse him.”

Veharina knew that to be true. We had been summoned, and even if I hadn’t been so eager to go, even if we thought going would mean our certain deaths, refusing would’ve been unthinkable. So to the Ash Palace we went.

Sareyand would of course one day become the city of Jaddanzar, one of the many Courts of the Sun, and perhaps in the true sense of the word the capital of the Empire, but it was an old city already when Jaher came to it. It lies where the Avamezan joins the Suran and controls the caravan routes going from Bulwar through the Salahad to Rahen, and as Ebbušutsu, the Ash Palace was once home to the Djinn. Later, gnolls would come and claimed it as Proxacha Eklu. From there they ruled until the rise of the first Xhazobine, overlooking the city of Raxaklu. The Cinderbeard once told me that when the Gold Dwarves started digging in the fallen holds of the Segbandal they did not dig through caves but through ruins and forgotten glory. The riverbeds of Bulwar are much the same.

​

Bulwari, and later Sun Elven architecture would be heavily influenced by their ancient history with the Djinn,
beings of great and terrible power who once enslaved the humans until one of the Djinni themselves, Brasan, emancipated the Bulwari

When you follow the Suran north from Hašr you first come upon the a great hill overlooking the city, at the rivers northern bank, and it was from there my father ruled. The Ash Palace had once been the residence for Jaher’s governor of Sareyand, my great grandfather Eledas I, who later had rebelled against Elizar the Bloody when Jexis died in far off Anbenncóst. It had only become the Ash Palace when the governor of Setadazar and human magi conspired to kill the future empress with fire. Jexis lived, but was horribly scarred and covered her face with a golden masque ever after, they say. The Palace of Eledas would never recover completely either, and the part from where his son and grandson would rule was truly just a small part of the ruined whole. They planned reconstruction, and some work was done over the centuries, but there was always more urgent needs during the Cinder Wars, and the Second Burning would see even that small part that was in use ruined and forgotten until Erelessa Jaddarzuir refounded Sareyand as Jaddanzar. Ruins can of course be wondrous in their own right, and the foundation of the palace was as I said of Djinn design. Imagine, if you would, three great domes in a straight line from south to north, each with a gate facing the sunrise. The southern and central towers lie in ruin, their domes partially collapsed but you can still see the hints of enamel beneath layers of sooth and dust, and the one in the center still looms so high above you that to climb it you would have to pass twice the height that you did to get from the river to the hilltop. Twenty times the height of an elf. To enter even the courtyard you must ride through a gate of black and gold enamel, where painted marble statues of elven heroes and phoenixes stand with proud eyes. Passing through it you enter unto a place of peace and tranquility. At the sides there are trees to provide shade above ponds filled with pink lotus blossoms and colorful birds singing to the sun. The courtyard itself could have housed ten thousand men, standing shoulder to shoulder, and had, when my forebearers had wished to impress their peers. Such was the beating heart of Sareyand-that-was. A place of beauty and power, but only as a thin veneer painted upon what others had built before.

We entered on the night before the solstice. The legionaries at the gate saluted me when they saw my uniform and Aredhel barely managed to keep his mouth from falling open. I struggled a bit myself. When I last came to Sareyand, when father brought me from my home, we had not gone to the Ash Palace but to his villa outside the city. Veharina looked at the greenery and the birds and seemed less displeased than she had been on our journey at least. Soon thereafter we were given quarters and that night I was summoned before my father.

----​

“So, Aredhel, what is this display of manners for? Have you simply reverted to days long gone to keep the years from fleeing?”

Her bluntness took him a little aback. It was always difficult to read elven eyes when dimmed with age, but she looked at him without the smiles that had flashed only moments earlier when they spoke of their younger days.

Elves do not age after reaching maturity, nor do their bodies seem to wear in the manner of ours, however, among their eldest,
those who live beyond their third centennial, many seem to have their eyes clouded with age though this does not seem to interfere with their vision​

“I’ve been telling my granddaughter of my life, of Sun Elves and the old Raj, of Jaddar, and you of course, and of how the Empire came to be”, his eyes went to his writing desk and the papers upon it. “And it makes me think much of simpler times.” He took a bite out of an orange slice. Aredhel had always thought oranges must be sunlight made flesh. “But no, I will not hide that my intent was other than to amuse you with rustic charm.” He took a deep breath. “I didn’t like that display of yours, when you arrived.”

“That display of mine?” she chuckled, but then her tone hardened, jaw tensed. “And how is it that you feel that you are in any way entitled to an opinion of me? You once told me to trust in you, and then scurried away like some dying rat seeking a hole to die in. I haven’t seen you in almost a century and you presume to judge me?”

The orc started coughing, taking a mouthful of the just as Erelessa spoke, but his hand was immediately at the dagger strung across his chest. Erelessa held Aredhel with her milky white eyes, lips curled up into a snarl, but she did lift her hand to Urimguk who held.

Aredhel felt the weight of decades upon him. Shame mixed with guilt. Had he overstepped? Perhaps, but only because he had spoken as if their love for one another was as untarnished as it had been centuries ago.

“You are right call me out. I have failed many times, and grievously so. I thought I needed time think and reflect, I thought the world had moved passed me, but I allowed it to when I left. But my failures do not matter in this. When a member of the Sihrušam speaks, its head does well to listen.” She looked at him, her grimace almost turning to sneer. Erelessa had rarely shown him other than joy and the self-assuredness that seemed to run down her bloodline, not since she was but a girl at least. Composure and grace, fierce joy hiding steel beneath, that was the Jaddarzuirs. He held up his hands to her.

“Peace, dearest niece. Peace. I spoke too harshly, both to the Erelessa who taught me to fire a bow from horseback, as well as the Erelessa who leads the Faithful.” As he looked down at the table between them in apology, inclining his head, she gathered her face into a smooth mask.

“Erelessa”

He looked up at her.

“Not your dearest niece. My name is Erelessa. We can do away with the fiction that you are my uncle I think, though I named you so when I was young. If anything, you would be my brother, husband to my sister. We were once good friends, and I am fond of you Aredhel, but the world has moved on, and I’ve been forced to change with it,” she paused for a moment. “And I would rather not have your notions of what I should be thrown in my face when you weren’t there with me for it.”

“I am sorry, Erelessa.”

“So you should be. Now, tell me what you wanted to tell me. When a member of the Sihrušam speaks, its head does well to listen. To my knowledge we are the sole two remaining seats of the Sand Banner left, so be assured I will take your words under careful consideration.”

He looked at her, trying to find the threads of her being, trying to avoid stepping on any more open wounds, and so he did the only thing he knew how. He told her a story.

 

[HistoryDude]

I wonder how annoyed Veharina is at our protagonist's secret...

The comments on equality at the beginning are quite interesting. Are they foreshadowing anything?

I enjoyed the bit about the dangers of interracial marriages. That never seems to come up in fantasy settings much (well, Tolkien covered it a bit, but his solution to the only two elf-human marriages was "the elf chooses to become mortal for the human").

 

[Apelstav]

I wonder how annoyed Veharina is at our protagonist's secret...

The comments on equality at the beginning are quite interesting. Are they foreshadowing anything?

I enjoyed the bit about the dangers of interracial marriages. That never seems to come up in fantasy settings much (well, Tolkien covered it a bit, but his solution to the only two elf-human marriages was "the elf chooses to become mortal for the human").

Well, a few things.

She'd been raised in the desert, but had taken to Bulwari customs almost immediately, having spent almost all her life west of the Salahad.

Urimguk hasn’t been to the eastern lands before, and the old ways are stronger in the Salahad

If you know your Jadd Empire, but I'm going to spin the whole thing a bit. And its setting up the nature of the old Jaddari state a bit as well, but Aredhel is definitively not a reliable narrator

Thank you! Aredhel's eventual second marriage is really a defining aspect of his self-image, so felt kind of important to get him to talk about it. Veharina's narrative purpose is quite the same, to give some contrast, but I'm (and Aredhel, because he feels bad about it) trying to at least give her a sliver of a personalitt before I fridge her.

 

[Apelstav]

V​

Shame is a powerful thing. I have secrets. May Surael shine upon me, but don’t we all? Sometimes I even tell myself that in revealing them I would hurt the ones I love. This is of course only part of the truth, for whilst not telling all is not the same as lying, it might sometimes be. But I shall speak, and this that I will tell you now is not for us to discuss nor jape about. Some wounds never heal, and whilst leaving dead things be can give some respite, it will never be the same as true rest. I did not intend to share this, or at least to gloss over my last few years in Sareyand, but these days of your absence have had me wondering if it might not be good for you to know the extent of what I did when I allowed myself to be led by one unworthy. When I myself was unworthy. So, I ask you, my dearest granddaughter, old friends and whomever so might read this, to see in me the Light that would be kindled and maintained, and not only the ashes from whence I sprung.

The night I came to the Ash Palace I was led to my father by one of his servants. The corridors were still and cool, for the thick stone did not allow the heat of the day to penetrate it, let alone linger into the night. I was of course impressed. Here was the beating heart of Sareyand, home of the family I’d wanted to be part of for so very long. I imagined a young Eledas walking those halls, his wise old father guiding his steps. Even the Burned Empress herself had walked here when she was but a child, and here she would rise from the cinders like the Phoenix. Today I might look upon those walls and feel the sorrow emanating. A depressing place, in all its grandeur, and not only for its history. The Sarelzuirs had long embraced their 'ashen' heritage and had dressed their home in black and gold. Austere. Brooding. Hungry. Those are the words I would give it now, that house of my father, but in my youth I was quite taken by the harsh beauty of straight lines so very different from the remnants of the Djinni palace my great grandfather had attempted to emulate outside. It reminded me of the Ash Legion as they marched across the countryside. Even though our deserts may shine like gold beneath the sun, no matter the beauty of the Suran as it glitters of emerald and sapphire, or even the thousand rainbows in the city of Sareyand, where green and blue and orange enamel were cast against red and purple silks, there will always be an alure in that which is stark and simple.

I was led into the Golden Chamber, from deepest dark into glimmering fire. The room was famous then, for the wealth of Sareyand was as important for its identity as was the Ash Legion. Gold from the Segbandal had long secured the country together with the might of our arms. Only in Azka-Evran, in far off Baharšes was there an equal supply of gold in all Bulwar, and Baharšes was one of the weaker Daughters when Sareyand claimed preeminence. I would have been taken in by its grandeur, its golden chairs and tables, its walls etched with the history of my line and scenes of the then still lost Aelentir had it not been that it wasn’t my father who awaited me, but rather four of my peers. I knew them all, if not by face, then by reputation. Kelmondias of Kuokrumar, Taelar Neztezuir . I had even met Ladrindel at Akalšes all those years ago. My fancy of a meeting, long awaited between father and son died then. For a brief moment I wondered if these elves was Eledas’ brood as well, but I knew … was twenty years my father’s senior, so I dismissed the thought. I understood soon enough. Five officers and none of the highest command. What happens when a captain gathers his sergeants without his lieutenant? Nothing good for the lieutenant, usually. I was poured a glass of sweet white wine, ever the most popular during the summer despite the chamber being quite cool, and was greeted my fellows. Taelar’s hand was warm and slightly wet when I shook it, Ariatra trembled ever so slightly and squeezed my hand harder than was necessary. Anticipation hung in the air together with fright. I breathed it in and took position close to the golden walls depicting my great grandfather’s victory against the Loyalists during the first Cinder War, pretending at calm just as Ladrindel who lounged in a divan whilst casually eating grapes, even if she also eyed the doorways every few moments.

The Golden Chamber of the Ash Palace was decribed as 'A wonder within a wonder' by Eledas II,
though none of it would remain after the Second Burning some have attempted to depict it, though it is usually influenced by contemporary decor.​

My father kept us waiting, or at least it felt so. Dread and anticipation both tends to make each moment drag and linger, but suddenly the doors swung open. The others and I flung up and bowed to meet our king as he entered. The Black Prince of Sareyand had turned into a Black King. He looked much as I remembered him. Proud and fierce. His dark eyes had a depth to them, a wellspring in the shade, and I want to remember seeing cruelty in them but that is perhaps only the centuries twisting my imagination. He was, as his moniker imply, dressed all in black with golden embroidery upon his robes. He wore no crown, for that was not the custom of the Daughter’s no matter what later artists prefer to paint. Instead golden chains had been braided into his hair, holding pearls and garnets that dotted his dark hair and upon his brow shone a pale white gold ghostlight in the form of the phoenix. It was merely a glamour, of course, but it radiated authority and power.

“Ah, good. You are all here already,” Eledas said as if he'd only happened upon us. “Leave us.”

The servants who'd been serving us wine and rotating with small plates of food all went towards the door, walking as if choreographed in two lines at his sides, and then they closed it behind my father.

“You are of course wondering why I have summoned you. I appreciate that you are Legionaries foremost, as am I. The directness of the military mind is a resource I’ve sorely missed these months of governing Sareyand,” and he gave us a quick smile and looked each and every one of us in the eyes. “As I speak with you here tonight my soldiers strike against the enemies of the Ash Palace. Enemies inside the very Legion itself.”

A slight shift went through the air as Eledas spoke, a wind blew through the room and I imagined I could hear strings far off in the distance. I was, actually, for my father had his magi conjure and enchant both sound and appearance. I think the tune was called the Ballad of Blood, so named for its subject – Elizar – who had attempted to succeed his niece after Jexis’ death in the west, and it told the story of how he was defeated by the governors of Bulwar. It was a sad song, bemoaning the fall of the Phoenix Empire yet calling out Elizar’s unworthiness and the need for resistance. A whisper was heard, my own voice spoke inside of my head ‘Oh, how insidious they must be, those who would oppose our king. My king’. I looked at Eledas and saw not my father I wanted to love me, nor my liege to whom I owed my honor, but one blessed by Surael. The very image of elven dignity and strength.

It was, at least in part, more magic. Bulwari mages have long practiced to, if not match, then at least imitate the strength of the Djinn and the God-Kings of ancient days. When the Sun Elves came they had usurped the teachings of the humans, and with their greater magical gifts they had even improved upon them. It was nothing as grand as what would be applied in the days of the Cannorian Witch-Kings, nor the foul rune-sorcery of the dwarves of Thikindai that still hold that sorry land in thrall and in Darkness. It could make us tell ourselves things, dazzle and impress and perhaps win over one close to the cusp of surrender, but it could not make us believe what we did not want to believe. So here is the sad truth. I wanted to be led by him. I wanted Eledas to be worthy of the love and fealty I wanted to give him. I wanted him showered in glory, and to share in that, for if he was great, then so was I but what if the opposite was true? Who is he that serves an unworthy cause? So when he told us of how he’d had our superiors dragged out of their lodgings and executed as traitors I felt neither fear nor outrage, for Eledas named it a triumph and then it must be so.

Bulwari depictions of Djinn would vary greatly over the millenia after their fall and later banishment from the material plane,
here one is depicted akin to a Bulwari Akal (i. e. King) being served by gnolls.​

“There will be a time of turmoil in the land, for no matter the crimes of these elves, no matter the evidence I shall provide there shall be those who question my actions. This is why you are here. I have long planned for this and you all have a part to play in my quest to restore glory and honor to Sareyand. We shall quell the land, then we shall settle with our enemies. In Azka-Sur the Surzuirs defies us, guarded by the Hold of Seghdir, claiming to be an heir to the Phoenix whilst bowing and scraping for those dirt-shovelers. Further east the desert rats have named some elven bastard the son of Jexis, and blood flows all along the Golden Highway as they slaughter each other. I shall have none of it. No heresy shall be tolerated in the lands rightfully belonging to Sareyand. My voice echoed ‘Sareyand shall rule the world’ inside my head.

“What I require of you is this. I have need of loyal soldiers, to guard my realm, to strike down any who might oppose our rise and to reshape the Legion into the sharp blade that shall cut our enemies asunder. Only then may the land prosper under the Ash Palace. You,” and he pointed at Kelmondias. “In Azkabar and the north Carodir would turn to strike at our back if we were to march east. You shall take command of the city garrison and our forces stationed along the northern border. Ariatra, you shall…” and Eledas continued across the room until he got to me.

“And you, Aredhel Aredhelzuir, you shall remain with me. In your hands shall rest the command of my personal guard. You shall be my spear that I may point against my enemies.”

We fell to our knees and accepted eagerly and I would stand by his side.

Veharina waited for me when I returned. She sat upon our bed, her long hair braided for the night. She had so many questions yet my mind remained a blur. The honor of guarding my father’s life was mine. He had not named me his son, but he had given me a great boon. Veharina saw through it, but then she had neither listened to his enchanted voice, nor had she the desperate want for him that I carried.

“His spear against his enemies? He’s saying that you will murder his rivals,” she shook her head when I tried to protest. “No, Aredhel. You know it as well. He has executed the senior command, appointed by himself and his father. Do you really believe that was justified?”

Right then and there, I did. Her questions grew ever more pointed. Couldn’t I see the dishonor in what Eledas asked of me? I retorted that she mustn’t speak like that. What is honorable or not surely is for the king himself to decide.

“I believed, for all these years, that you had a bloody backbone, Aredhel. I see that I’m wrong. You are just a poor little orphan clamoring for his father’s love, aren’t you? Why is his approval more important than mine, or your own?”

I slapped her.

She fell to the bed and looked up at me. I will never forget the disgust I saw in her eyes then, and she stormed out.

Veharina slept in Aredhel’s bed that night. The morning after I went to her, weeping for her forgiveness. She wouldn’t even look at me for weeks. We would continue to live as husband and wife for a few more years, long enough for the life growing inside her even then to be born. Long enough for our third son to come, but what had been during our years in the south ended then and there. I have thought of that night many times. Of what would’ve been if I’d listened to her and in the following months aided her when she attempted to hoard money or buy horses so that we might run. We could have travelled to her friends in Azka-Sur, or even east to the Mašnsih. We could have left and I might have earned her forgiveness and forget the sting of her cheek upon my hand when I struck the mother of my unborn child. I don’t know why she didn’t go. Out of love for me? Perhaps. Love and hope are as powerful as shame. Perhaps she didn’t want to break me apart from our son and the one by then kicking in her stomach. It doesn’t matter in the end. I wouldn’t go with her, and she didn’t go without me.

----​

Erelessa had remained quiet. Still. Gazing at him the whole time without so much as a sound. Having mostly spoken to young harpies of late, Aredhel found her very elveness discomforting. The silences filled only with his own breath. It made him feel dull and slow.

“So what you wish to tell me is that you think that I have allowed myself to take the place of Surael in the hearts of the Faithful, and it is a taint upon the Truth, as the Sun Elves did in the centuries after Jaher and Jexis? That even a good person,” she looked at him. “No, not a good person, for that is not who you were then. A person with the Light of Surael within might be led astray by one such as I?” her voice was neutral. No anger, no wounded pride, she was just slicing through an argument. “You might very well be correct.”

“You agree with me?”

“Well, yes. But I also believe it inevitable. Necessary even. My father told us there must be one empire and one faith to fight the Dark upon our world. Do you believe that to be true?”

Aredhel nodded.

“We used to rule the Empire together. Jiyad... now, I know you didn’t like him, and neither did I, particularly. My brother took on and reshaped the Sun Cult into a priesthood that held to the Truth no matter what color the blood the mobs wanted spilled. Jaddareesa and Jasiene forced the Matriarchies into a federation that holds to this day. Despite your little adventure in the Deepwoods, I might add. You and…” and she continued listing how they had all contributed to the rise and consolidation of the Empire. “Now, only I remain. Father was of the Mašnsih as much as he was of the Legion, but in ruling he took much more from them than from the elves. He taught us to do the same, and we did. The extended family of the Divine Herald united. We had our small feuds, our arguments, but our love for one another ensured that we prevailed against all who opposed us,” she paused. “Then they started dying. I have my daughters of course, and they are of great aid, but two to replace…” she counted on her fingers. “A dozen? Maybe another half. I might be forgetting some of us. Besides, only Panoril has given me a grandchild.” She scratched the back of her head, her mouth twisting at the edges. “Do you know how I long for more grandchildren, Aredhel? Not to hold, not to cherish for the frail little Light they bring into our world but to see my succession secure. To see Jaddar’s elven line continue. Oh, don’t give me that look, your harpies are all very capable, I’m sure. As I am sure there are thousands upon thousands strong, intelligent and devoted enough to run the Empire among the Faithful. A fair share of them probably hold a few drops of our blood still, but do you for a minute think that any empire the size of ours would’ve held together without a ruler who reigned for centuries? Without the undisputed descendant of the Divine Herald seated at the head of the Exemplary?”

She let out a long breath and smiled as if she'd defeated him.

“May I speak, Blessed One?” Urimguk’s voice was a low rumble. Both of the elves looked to him. Aredhel had almost forgotten that the orc was there, but refilled Urimguk’s cup as he listened.

“I am Barumandi,” he started. “And one of the Faithful. My forefathers came to our land with the Darkness in them.” Aredhel nodded, remembering when he and Jaddareesa had first met orcs. A different, twisted kind within the Deepwoods. “They followed the Dookanson, Son of Darkness and Chains for he had wandered deep in the Dark and was strong. Orcs are drawn to strength much as flies are to honey. Their first liberation was by the hands of Corin of Castonath, blessed be her memory, and much like the Divine Herald saved the gnolls, Corin saved us. In the years after we even worshiped her as a goddess until the Truth came to our land and taught us that Corin was not divine herself, but Blessed by the only god. Was the truth not obvious? Had we not been enslaved by humans claiming to worship her as well? Orcs follow strength, and strength must be shown, and the enslavers were strong so we believed what they told us. Only in the Truth did we see that all of us must be strong. All of us must be as Corin of Castonath, as the Divine Herald, or try to be. They were strong, yes, and in fighting back we could be too. Only with Surael and the Truth did we prevail. But no orc would’ve followed to the Light had we not been able to look upon the heralds and see how they defied even Varina herself by sending Surael’s Light against her horde, sure that they had the strength to stand against the Dark.”

A sketch collected from Aredhel's writings upon his death. Labeled Urimguk, friend.​

“Thank you Urimguk. And my offer to have you sent to the Lightbringers still stand, for they could use one such as you. But perhaps 'drawn to strength as moths to the flame. People prefer to be likened to moths better than being likened to flies, I'd think.”

Urimguk nodded. "Yes, Blessed One. You might be correct. Orcs are drawn to strength likes moths to the flame."

Erelessa turned to Aredhel “What I want to say, what I believe Urimguk is arguing for as well, is that since I cannot be wherever and whenever I’m needed, I must rely on the Faithful to keep true. Hearts and minds are thickle things though, when the world is so very large and filled with Darkness and shadows. When they see me, when they hear of me, they must remember that at the heart of the Faith stands something as strong and old as the land itself, that will keep even if they falter. If I hold true, if I guide them towards the Truth, is that not worth a little theatre? A little inspiration, if we listen to my friend.”

“But how is that different from the Sun Elves? No, don’t defend yourself. It is an honest question. I do not doubt your intentions Erelessa, nor that you hold to the Truth. I wouldn’t even doubt Panoril and Jaddaritra, but what of all of the people down there. Is it right to lead them astray because it’s expedient? The orcs freed themselves with our aid, yes, but must you pretend at being a God-Queen to do so? And how many generations will it take before your heirs forget that it is spectacle?”

“Millennia, if we are lucky. And by then, who’s to say what shall be and what shan’t.”

They sat there, quiet and still for a while. Both thinking of what the other had said. They would not meet in this, Aredhel realized. Erelessa eyed his manuscript and opened the door for him to retreat.

“May I read it?”

Several hours later, after a light dinner had been brought up and the guard had changed outside Aredhel’s chamber, she handed the last page written off to Urimguk, who’d asked Aredhel’s permission before putting on a pair of reading glasses. The orc snorted a few times and scratched his stubbly chin as he read.

Erelessa turned to Aredhel, fixing him with those white eyes. “I’m going east in a few weeks, to tour Rahen and then to shall reside in Srmaya for a few years.” She paused and put her hand upon Aredhel’s. “I don’t think I’ll return west before I die. Don’t argue, old friend. The time is drawing near, for me as it is for you, and I leave my Empire to my girls. I would have you send me copies of this as you write it. I would remember you and our lives, and I would let Jaddaritra read so she could learn of what we gave to the Empire. I would even send copies to Panoril in Jaddanzar. We might disagree on certain aspects of my rule, but the Empire is almost as much yours as it is mine after all. They should read your words and know my thoughts are not the only way.”

Aredhel sat there. Mute at first, then he was able to nod.

“Of course, Erelessa. Whatever you want of me.”

By most it would’ve been taken as an off-hand remark but Erelessa looked long into Aredhel’s eyes. She looked across his chamber whilst tapping her chin with her fingers, then she turned to him and smiled. Triumph, kindness and relief mingled in that smile.

“Well, if I can ask anything, I would have you go to Jaddanzar. You can bring your grand-daughter and introduce her to mine.”

----​

My fathers intent was to march out against Azka-Sur, and soon. The eastern city state was only held by their long alliance with the Dwarves, and though he never said it I have often wondered if his father’s failure to capture the city spurred him on. “My father was weak, allowing Sareyand to suffer indignity after indignity. I will not be weak,” he said once. With weakness, I believe he meant that Eledas II, for all his faults, refused potential ruin for hard-bought glory. My father had already been running the Legion mostly independent of his father for many years, but he wasn’t finished after the solstice. I was sent out to make sure the victims of his proscpritions went away quietly. In Azkabar the human commander, deemed to close to Kelmondias' predecessor, met with an unfortunate accident whilst we were inspecting the Black Walls, in Hašr another had his horse fall upon him as we rode to inspect the watch towers out in the desert. Most who remained resigned with little prompting, choosing to live out the rest of their lives upon their country estates. Some of them would still have to die, Eledas decided, and I understood that his enemies were particularly those who had wealth enough to spread around, great landholders and ancient families who'd held privileges since the days of Jaher himself. In their stead Eledas would put elves whose loyalty was only to him and most of the estates reverted to the crown. My father’s legacy has not been kind to him. Especially in what was Sareyand he is remembered as a cruel ruler, and his failure against Zokka would again have him branded a coward, but that was still a decade away when we started to feel the touch of the Dryness. Then Eledas remained popular, for he toured his kingdom and held court in every city he visited. The wealth he garnered was mostly put against increasing the numbers of the Legion, though his way of gaining that gold led many an elf off from the military path, but he also built aqueducts and hospitals. He improved the roads and he rebuilt the bazaar in Sareyand as well as those in Avamezan and in Hašr. Had it not been for what would come, most would probably remember him as a good ruler and his sins would’ve been forgotten or glossed over. But then Surael would shower us with his wrath and the old order would die.

​

As we prepared to enter Azka-Sur, the first harvest failed and the invasion was postponed for next winter. Rioting soon broke out in the streets of every major city, even Sareyand itself. My newly established Palace Guard and I was sent out to quell it, and quell it we did. My elven soldiers were not loyal to me in any sense of the word, they were Eledas’ own, and resented me being raised above them. Their lack of respect was apparent, and it made me want to prove myself more than a figurehead appointed by the king but when I was faced by row after row of human women calling for bread, I faltered. We stood at the Great Bazaar, the heart of Sareyand. I had the Guard form a shieldwall, akin to the phalanxes of old, and approached the humans to order them to disperse. They were led by a greying grandmother and her two daughters, and as I spoke with the authority of 'King Eledas III', she simply tapped her cane against the stone and said “We only want food for our children. Surely the King must protect us, may Surakel shelter him,” and the crowds started chanting “Eledas!”. I glanced at the elves, felt their eyes upon me, and I reiterated the order for the crowd to disperse. Instead a stone was thrown at me. It missed. I drew my sword and cut the old woman down and then the Guard charged. Blood ran through the streets of Sareyand that night and a few that followed, but the citizenry soon learned. Afterwards my soldier's nodded respectfully and I heard them speaking of 'How we showed those traitors'. We were what Thirendil had taught me to be – stronger, faster and more deadly than any human artisan or poorly trained guardsman could ever hope to be. By my life and all my hope of salvation in the Light, forgive me, but did we show them just that. I can barely remember my mother’s face, but those frightened and dying wails echoing through the streets still remain.

The Ash Palace did not only use force however. Eledas attempted to bring in grain from Kheterata, ever the savior of Bulwar during times of famine, but the War of the Ember Queens soon closed of Brasan at the mouth of the Suran and no grain would come. Still, force had shown itself effective and the riots died down during summer as many of the Mašnsih came to settle and had their flocks claimed as prize for crossing the river. They told of harpies and elven lancers harrowing any who would not swear to this Jaddar Jexiszuir and the birdwomen was said to serve him both as concubines and in the field and by now the entire length of the Golden Highway beyond the Nabilsu Mountains was under his control. We had long known that the Mašnsih were heretics and that they harbored elven deserters from the old wars, but it seemed to me the whole world had gone mad then. Elves coupling with harpies, what a thought. Most seem to believe that Jaddar came down from the Mountain of Clear Sight, revealed the Truth of Surael to the massed humans, elves and harpies and was acclaimed as the Divine Herald that very day. Then he waited patiently for a century, seeing Zokka and Tluukt claim half of Bulwar, them driving the Szal-Yazkur from the Harra. He heard of the Taelarian Heresy and the troubles out west whilst doing nothing. It would of course be a very elven thing to do, you might jest to relieve some of my tension as you read this particular part of my story, but even so it’s far from the truth. The Century of Shimmers was in the Far Salahad a century of war. It is largely forgotten today because none want to remember, but Jaddar did, and so must we. We should never forget that the triumph of Light and Truth was dearly bought by brother fighting brother.

Eledas announced his intention of marching east. Instead of invading he now wrote letters to Azka-Sur calling for their aid in reconquering the Far Salahad once and for all and I was told to prepare my men for a winter campaign in the eastern sands. We would bring order and the Light of the Chosen to the desert, and many of the Mašnsih refugees would serve us as guides and auxiliaries. Yet again his plans would be thwarted not by force of arms, but by his own subjects. The cities remained still as the second harvest failed, but the farmhands rose out in the country. They marched on the capital with nothing but scythes and rusty spears, demanding bread, land and justice as their kin in the city had.

“Let them see that not even their own will hold to this treachery” was my father’s words for us as we left.

We met them along the Avamezan. They were perhaps five thousand, men and women. Children. When they saw us approach they joined hands, dropping to the ground in prayer. They sang songs exalting the Chosen and sent one of their leaders, a veteran from the armies, forward. He had a long scar running the length of his face but looked haggard rather than wroth or demanding. He asked for the aid of the Ash Palace, for us to save his folk from starvation. I drove my spear through his chest and sounded for the attack. I was far gone into the Dark by then. Arrows rained from our human forces before my elven riders charged and pushed the peasants into the river. As many drowned as were slain by steel. With innocent blood on my hands I would ride back to my wife and children and there pretend we remained a family. I remember reading to Aredhel and Eledas the very night I returned to Sareyand. Veharina still talked to me, still touched me and taken me into her bed a few times after I struck her. That night I started sleeping in a separate chamber, claiming that I had to rise so early and disturbed little El. She told me she understood and looked relieved, saying that our third son held her awake at night with his movements inside of her. Our marriage ended that night. I do not know if she saw something of what I'd done in me, or if she was finally convinced by the rumours spreading of the Black Hound of Sareyand.

Western Bulwar at the treaty of Gemisle, 22 years before the Revelation at Ebbušutsu. The borders remained essentially unchanged until
the Gnoll Invasions​

The Dryness would subside in another few years. The war between Elizna and Irrliam ended as Varhamar and Sareyand sent missives to the former declaring that they would enter the war on the side of Irrliam to reopen Brasan to Kheteratan grain. The greatest troubles were over for the Ash Palace it would seem, but for Bahar it had only begun. Baharšes and Birsantanšes had ever been at the other’s throat, for Aquatbar had once been sworn to its older sister before wresting free. Tales of starvation, of attempts at land reform and human rebels roaming in the countryside reached us. The humans prayed in the streets, for the rebels or for the Chosen I do not know, whilst the Guard were all in an uproar, almost jubilant. Eledas announced his intention for us to march across the continent to Bahar and quench these human upstarts. Of all Bulwar, northern Bahar was most stricken both by the Dryness and the troubles that followed in its wake. Distant news of the Greentide into Escann would reach as far as Sareyand before the Battle of the Shifting Sands, but even then we couldn’t imagine that hosts of goblins and Black Orcs would one day pour out of abandoned Shaztundihr. Now it was only humans, but for me and all Sun Elves, that was worse than anything.

The Great Rebellion started as a chaotic thing, several armies of human veterans from the Bahari Wars roamed the countryside as both Baharses and Birsartanses attempted to implement the same land reforms that Eledas II long ago had done in Sareyand, making the human free farmers into little more than serfs to their Sun Elf lords. Dartaxes would only rise as their sole commander in later years, propped up by both the Sebhuliam, a fanatic sect opposed to the rule of the Chosen, and a gathering of magi led by Masnsih mystics. We only knew that human armies marched against two of the Daughters, and that put each and every one at risk. Both Irrliam and Varhamar promised aid in an intervention and the Legion gathered outside of Sareyand. As we did, so did gnoll raids increase along the southern border. At first Eledas simply diverted his part of his forces south to fend off what we believed to be mere bandits emboldened by the Masnsih’s civil war and perhaps starvation around the Harra. Then came word of how the Szel-Yazkur had been driven away from the oasis entirely, word of a gnoll male, Zokka, who called green fire from the skies and had the desert winds blow storms against his enemies. The raids increased in number and in strength and soon large parties of gnolls would cross the Suran and set the protected lands beyond ablaze.

People whispered of a Xhazobine again risen in the south, the dreaded foe of all Bulwar. And his horde marched upon Sareyand. We would meet him in the Ašranaz desert, and there would end the tale of Aredhel Aredhelzuir, until he was reborn as I.

 

[HistoryDude]

Well, it seems as if Aredhel has a dark side, as does Erelessa. Why didn‘t Veharina leave? Was it actually love or was it something darker - like fear?

In addition, was that a hint of a King Arthur-like figure that I saw mentioned?

 

[Apelstav]

Well, it seems as if Aredhel has a dark side, as does Erelessa. Why didn‘t Veharina leave? Was it actually love or was it something darker - like fear?

In addition, was that a hint of a King Arthur-like figure that I saw mentioned?

Both, fear of Eledas and fear of change. Elves aren't good at uprooting, mostly. She is overall meant as a mean line of what a Sun Elf is - a bit slow and stagnating, viewing Bulwar as their garden to slowly cultivate, assured in their superiority and tales of their predecessors great deeds, but not at all evil in any meaning of the word. Aredhel views Sun Elves mainly as his father and himself, but he is aware that they weren't all bad. Even Eledas wasn't a terrible ruler, just somewhat callous.

Well, and because she was introduced so I could showcase a spawnable nation of Sun Elf conquistadors in not-South-America through an elven son, then I decided she was a plot device for a particular moment I'm setting up, and only then I decided to give her a personality since I generally feel fridging is a bit of a worn trope!

Corin? She's Anbennar's postergirl. Maybe a mortal who mantled a disgraced god and started a civil war among the main pantheon of not-Europe, maybe something else. The in-game Jadd faith (the Truth in the narrative, since Jadd seemed reminescent of Mohamedan and an exonym) is very light on dogma, they basically like the sun, dancing, ethnic and racial equality, conquest and killing anyone who refuse to like the above mentioned things. However Jaddar kills Zokka only a year after Corin kills the leder of a great orcish horde, though she dies, and almost at the same time not-India is invaded by hobgoblins who enslave mages and use them as weapons. Noone is really there to stop them though. My Jadd faith explains Corin in saying that she was alike Jaddar, but died - especially when converting corinite orcs

 

[Apelstav]

@HistoryDude - Since you seem to read (and, which is really appreciated btw, comment on) a lot of AARs, what's your general take on my chapter lengths? I've been a tad inflationary with each one.