Worldbuilding Wednesday – The Midland Wars

The ‘short story’ called “The Price of Freedom”, which was supposed to take place after the story “A Dragon’s Freedom” in order to move the overall story of Airthai forward a bit*, turned into more of a novel length work… but the stories of the kingdoms and peoples of the Southern and Midlands doesn’t end there.
After Gile received the crown some of his men decided that they could not longer follow him and the surrounding kingdoms saw an opportunity. And the paw-paw kind of hits the fan** for Gile – especially when he learns that he won’t be getting his hands on any more dragons and he only knows one order in their tongue (now quite useless, thanks to Ryger). This brings me to a time of great change in the kingdoms of the Midlands.

The Midland Wars – part 1:

First strike
The kingdoms of Ealdfesten and Guldargan already had a disputed border to the east of the capital city of Guldargan and when Ealdfesten learned that Guldargan no longer had any dragons, they were the first to launch small raids beyond their border.
When Marcus passed away and Gile became king, it was not even a fortnight before Ealdfesten attacked Guldargan with a large force of men and pushed their own border westward to the main city.

Through the next six decades various battles and wars were fought and the borders of the kingdoms of the midlands changed dramatically through these years. These wars are collectively known as the Midland Wars and would change not only the kingdoms and their people, but also the Keepers and their function in the Midlands for good.

After Ealdfesten’s attack, the kingdoms around Guldargan now took their chance and Aefterra – to the northeast of Guldargan and north of Ealdfesten – attacked Guldargan as well. While Treddian at first stayed an attack on Guldargan, they did attack when Ealdfesten had conquered all of the southern lands of Guldargan and had reached Treddians eastern border. The Keepers of Holt Haliern and Eamidthéo tried in vain to reach a compromise with Ealdfesten, but they would hear none of it and the bloodshed on the Southern Fields was great and the men from Ealdfesten burned a great swathe of the land as well. Because it was autumn and quite dry, the fire spread fast and many who were not soldiers lost their lives and many others their livelihoods. These people were both of Treddian and Guldargan (before Ealdfesten conquered the land), but with nowhere else to go, they made their way to the Keepers together to look for help.  

Next week: The Midland Wars, part 2 - Sanctuaries

*To get the “middle part” between “A Dragon’s Freedom” and “Yet untitled story” told… Stories just love getting out of hand!

**Yes, this is an accepted rendering of the “item + fan idiom”…