The Midland Wars: The Oath Breakers

Sorry for the late Worldbuilding post this week, but better late than never!


The Dragon Guardians and Seekers are Betrayed
It is an unfortunate fact that one great downfall of fallen mortals is their greed. A greed for money, a greed for fame or a greed for power. After the Diminishing in Airthai, this greed became more and more apparent. For a time people were easily delineated into those who follow the Light and those who rather chose to follow the Shadow. Soon, however, this was no longer so. Betrayals to the Light could come from anywhere. Peoples drifted apart, became new nations, drenched the fields and plains of Airthai with blood and at last cried out for help. And so the Great Sundering of the Lands took place. But still some of those who followed the Shadow remained on the Continent. Keeping their blood vows, the Werlea did the work of the Lewjan and won many to their side. The darkness slowly crept across the Continent once more, leaving no kingdom untouched in however small a way.

After the return of Nasja to the city of Diuzisborg it became known to all that even some of the Dragon Guardians had fallen to the Shadow. Shunned by their dragons and by the Guardians, many sought their revenge by spreading rumours, but a few also set out on the road. One went to the Khallahna, where he was turned away by the Elders who still remembered the oath of the Dragon Guardians all too well. They would have nothing to do with the oath breaker and sent him away. This was before the Khallahna wars, when the House of Khallahna split into the Khalné, who followed the Light, and the Khalvér, who followed the Shadow. Not knowing where to turn, he set out further eastward to Trelkanor and then, towards the coast and the kingdom of Sëarë. It was to be his last journey, as he was set upon by robbers on the road to the Trelkanorian city of Ahrlëa, and slain for what little he had – a few coins, a coat of velvet and the Dragon’s Gift stone he still carried. Here his story ended, though that of the Dragon’s Gift he carried would still go on.

The Oath Breakers
The other guardians who left their home kingdom of Reiaghy took the merchant road northwards towards the Death Plain, Dumál, Treddian and, at last, Guldargan. Here, in the Midlands, they found the lands embroiled in war. Rumours of the wild dragons reached them and they made their way to the ruined Dragon Hall. Soon they found King Gile and told him that they could teach him how to tame the wild dragons and bend them to his will.  Gile jumped at the chance of learning the secrets of the dragons. Together, the shunned Guardians set out to the northwest to search for the dragons in the swamps north of the Great Wood, accompanied by a few of Gile’s guards.
But, while the shunned guardians – those who came to be known as the Oath Breakers – headed towards the swamps, one made his way back to Gile in the dead of night. Kneeling in front of the king of Guldargan and swearing his very life to him.
“I will teach you to speak to the dragon, to bind it to your will. When the others return with the dragon, you will be ready to slay your enemies and rebuild the empire your forefathers had seen in their dreams.”
Gile smiled at this and instated Lewja – for this is what the oathbreaker called himself in his arrogance – as his personal tutor and advisor. Lewja also had the mark of the black dragon tattooed on his face like the king. Some even said that they swore a blood oath to the Shadow.
Those who went to find the dragons; were faced with such wild beasts, that they could not control them. Their minds had turned to shadow, and even the words of Nasja had all but been forgotten. The dragons attacked the men who tried to speak to them and to bind them, slaying them and the guards. Their bloodlust were fuelled and it was after this that attacks on towns and cities started.
Gile and Lewja soon realised that none of the others were returning with a dragon and Lewja started to fear for his life. But Gile continued to learn as much as he could of the dragon’s tongue. However, when he had learned all that he could, he had Lewja slain. This was five years before Gile’s death. Gile would, in turn, teach his son, Galdra, all he could of the dragon’s tongue.

Links to previous Midland Wars posts:
Part 1: First Strike
Part 2: Sanctuaries
Part 3: The Rise of the Fáll
Part 4: The Southern Lands during the Midland Wars
Part 5: The Dragons and Guardians’ New Home

To read more about Nasja and the other Guardians, read “A Dragon’s Freedom” or “The Price of Freedom” by clicking on the links.

Worldbuilding Wednesday – The Dragons and Guardians’ New Home

In the previous weeks I have given a sweeping view over the history of the Midland Wars in Airthai. From the outbreak of the war between Guldargan and its neighbouring countries, to the Sanctuaries formed by the Keepers of Éamidtheo, Théotriewe and Holt Haliern, the vast change in the borders of the Midland countries and the rise of the Fáll. Then I turned my view southward once more to the Dragon City of the south and what happened to the dragons and their guardians and left the history with Guardians setting out to search for a new home among the Western Isles.

The Midland Wars – The Dragons and Guardians’ New Home

The ship the Dragon Claw left the harbour of Diuzisborg at dawn, accompanied by four Dragon Guardians – Nasja, Mairejath, Helagh and Nahshon – and the dragon Thayrla. Using the established trade routes, they travelled northwards along the coast before setting out towards the Western Isles from Black Harbour.  Six times they saw the enormous shapes of the Sea Dragons, but not once did they attack and the ship reached the Western Isle, which was called Aer Lharna*, or Moon Isle, safely.
On the shore was gathered a group of nine people. All were dressed in brown, white and green and each held a carved wooden staff. The staffs were all decorated with finely-wrought patterns in silver and green dragon tears were set into the wood. Upon their brows they wore the red dragon tears the Guardians called Dragon Gifts. The women among them wore long veils of such fine golden beadwork over their hair that it seemed as if their hair was of spun gold. All bore markings on their faces and arms, traced in green, unlike the black patterns seen on the continent.

Caythan told them how these were not permanent markings, but worn during times of trouble or when they fasted or mourned. Permanent marking – like those the Werlea (or Gile) had were shunned by them as they said that nothing in the world is permanent and therefore no permanent mark shall be placed on their bodies as all things will pass away before the final ending of the world.

These folk, the Dréothér, met the Guardians with saddened faces, saying that they had been shown this event in a dream. One, wearing many traces of green upon his face, chest and arms, spoke in the Dragon Tongue: “I saw great fields of golden grass burning; I saw a great many people suffer and I saw red dragons. Then I saw a ship bearing four lanterns being drawn to shore by a blue dragon. It has been very long since a blue dragon has visited our shores, let alone the Dragon Guardians of the Continent.”
The Guardians marvelled at the dream that had been given to these people and told them why they had come and of the wars raging in the Midlands of the Continent.

After seven days it was decided that the Dragon Guardians could come to join the green dragons and the Dréothér – or People of the Dragon – on the isle. But, it was added, some Guardians needed to remain behind in order to help the ship cross the ocean safely.
“It would be wrong to leave the coast so unprotected,” they rightly argued, “especially after being saved from the Sundered Lands and gifted the great house in Diuzisborg.” They also told of their worries about the wild dragons that now lived in the Midlands. The Dréothér spoke of text written even before the Sundering that told of how dragons were turned back to the light during the wars with the Shadow’s creatures.

At their return to Diuzisborg, Nasja told the Dragon Elder Lasnith what the Dréothér had told them. “If we do not have the texts they speak of,” he said, “the library of Holt Haliern will contain it in its vast libraries. There are many texts which have been forgotten by the world outside its walls and many date from before the Sundering.”
“You have seen them?” Lasnith asked.
“I have, though I never read them. The Keepers showed me much of the history of Airthai and the Midlands in the short time I was with them.”

After days of searching, Lasnith wrote a letter to the Wíslic of Holt Haliern with a heavy heart and Nasja and Mairejath took leave before Nasja set out to Holt Haliern. Nasja did find the text of which the Dréothér had spoken in the Sanctuary’s library and it was painstakingly copied as it had been many times before. But even with the care of the Keepers of Holt Haliern, a part of the book had gotten lost over the centuries and none of the earliest text still existed from which the information could be gleaned. So it was that Nasja returned to Diuzisborg with the text after many months. The text – which he had already studied as it was being copied – contained much information that would help them to save the dragons of the Midlands. But he also knew that he would not be able to do the work alone.

Those who studied this text and learned both how dragons could be brought back to the Light or turned towards the Shadow became known as the Dragon Seekers. Vowing only to help those dragons who had fallen or turned wild become themselves again, they set out to the Midlands when they were needed, often staying with the Keepers of Holt Haliern for long periods of time.

It was, however, also during this time that the Dragon Guardians and the dragons left their house and the shores of the Southern Lands for the Isles. Soon only a few were left who trained what few Guardians could be found among the people of the city and who travelled with the ships up and down the coast. Weary and saddened, they travelled to their new home. Within a few generations, even the Dragon Seekers would have left the Continent, leaving stories of the dragons to become little more than legends in the Midlands.

After the death of the dragon Skáhag many centuries later, the true majesty of these creatures were forgotten, replaced with the few tales of the wild dragons that was still told in the Midlands. Only on the Southern Coast did a few remember how the dragons had once kept them safe from the Fallen.

Next Week: The Seekers are Betrayed

Links to previous Midland Wars posts:
Part 1: First Strike
Part 2: Sanctuaries
Part 3: The Rise of the Fáll
Part 4: The Southern Lands during the Midland Wars

To read more about Nasja and the other Guardians, read “A Dragon’s Freedom” or “The Price of Freedom” by clicking on the links.

*For more about the moon and lunar folklore in Airthai, click here.

Photos courtesy of www.sxc.hu

Worldbuilding Wednesday – The Rise of the Fáll

In the previous two worldbuilding posts about the Midland Wars, I’ve covered the outbreak of the wars in part 1 and the forming of the Sanctuaries of the Keepers in part 2. This week’s post is a bit longer and covers the rise of those known as the Fáll in the Midlands, as well as the succession of Guldargan kings during these wars.

The Midland Wars – Part 3: The Rise of the Fáll

At the end of the bloody decades of the Midland Wars, the great kingdom of Guldargan had shrunk drastically, while Treddian, Aefterra and Tarathlon grew in size. Where Ealdfesten grew the most in the first forty years, much of the land had again been conquered by Treddian by the end of the Midland Wars.

The Death of Gile
Much land along the new borders of Guldargan was disputed territories and it is here that the Fáll of the Midlands came to be. These Fáll, as they called themselves, joined the bands of outlaws which had long roamed the plains. The Fáll were a dangerous rebel faction from the start and followers of Gile long after his body was buried beneath one of the battlefields of golden plain. For it was that Gile, son of Marcus, died seventeen years after taking the throne of Guldargan during a battle against Ealdfesten at the Great River. A legend of the Fáll held that his once loyal guard, Ryger, who had turned against him and went into hiding, had returned during that battle and had first drugged the king and then slew him during the night.

The eye-witness accounts of that battle, however, told that Gile had taken to the battle field for the first time on the sixth day. Knowing that he was fighting a losing battle, but having no where to turn and waiting for reinforcements, he realised that he had no other choice but to fight if he did not want his men to flee or to give up their arms.

Gile was escorted onto the battlefield by his personal guard and his men took heart, but before the sun reached its zenith in the sky and his son, prince Galdra reached the battlefield with reinforcements, the king fell.

Prince Galdra is crowned and the Fáll is created
At midday the prince reached the battlefield and the men of Ealdfesten was driven back for the time being. But a great blow had been dealt to the kingdom of Guldargan. In front of the soldiers of Guldargan and his personal guard, prince Galdra was crowned king by the Werlea-magician who had served the late king since the Midland Wars started. This was the first time since the Great Sundering that a servant of the Shadow crowned a king on the continent.

Galdra’s first order as king was to have the surviving members of Gile’s personal guard executed because they had failed to keep his father safe. He was a cruel man and ruler and much of Guldargan’s land was lost during his reign.

But it was also during Galdra’s reign that the Fáll rose to prominence in the Midlands. They were first a rebellious part of the soldiers of Guldargan, who called themselves the Sons of Gile. They also followed the Werlea and, while Gile had a black dragon tattooed on his face like the lords of the Werlea, they had the dragon tattooed upon their right arms. Because of this, they were called Fáll – the Fallen – by the others of the Midlands, both of Guldargan and the surrounding kingdoms who saw the folly in their ways. Even more of Guldargan’s lands fell into the hands of the surrounding kingdoms during this time.

Maeldra is crowned king of Guldargan
King Galdra had three sons, two of whom died before king Galdra was buried. His third son, Maeldra, was crowned after Galdra was killed in an ambush organised by Maeldra, his most trusted men and some of the Fáll who believed that Galdra had strayed from his path as true leader of the Midlands.

During Maeldra’s reign darkness enveloped the lands of Guldargan. Now only a crippled kingdom ruled by a cruel man, a new leader arose in the lands north of the Great River. Called Ikaira, in remembrance of the first of the Tellerassar – who stood against King Markus the Elder – this man from the kin of Aldrich rallied the people who did not wish to follow the Werlea to him. Soon he became very strong and it was said that he held so much Talent that none of the Werlea spells had any effect on him.

Maeldra sired a son by one of the Vídolf who had joined the Fáll as seeress and sourceress. He was named Markus, after the old king of Guldargan. Soon the time would come when Maeldra and Ikaira would meet on the battlefield and Maeldra knew what a king bearing the glorious name of Markus would mean to the people of Guldargan.

The Battle of the Shadow Plain
And so it was that, in the fifty-fifth year of the Midland Wars, King Maeldra of Guldargan met the forces of Ikaira on Argavér, the Shadow Plain. The battle was terrible, but Ikaira was victorious and took up the crown of Guldargan. Maeldra was killed during that battle and the Fáll retreated into the Great Wood. A semblance of peace fell upon Guldargan for a short time and the skirmishes with the surrounding kingdoms petered out and many diplomatic missions were sent to the surrounding kingdoms. By Ikaira’s request, the Keepers of Théotriewe and Holt Haliern helped to bring peace to the north of the Midlands and secure what little was left of Guldargan.

But this was not the end of the Fáll, for they crowned Maeldra’s young son Markus their king and believed him the one true king of Guldargan as he was a direct descendant of King Gile. They built a great fortress on the blood drenched plain of Argavér and secured much of the land around it for themselves through their dark magic. Soon all the land under the Fáll’s control was called Argavér or the Shadow Lands.

Maps showing the kingdoms during the Midland Wars