The Forgotten War (192 page)
491
Following the Battle of the Blood-soaked Banner an enormous Chiran presence is maintained in Tanaren City. Welcomed at first as liberators, as the years pass and Duke
Colbas Marschall imposes Chiran law on its inhabitants, resistance to them slowly grows. The Army of the Blue swells its numbers and attacks on Chiran troops on the streets of Tanaren City become
commonplace. Attacks are followed by bloody crackdowns and further attacks until finally, in a great uprising, the Battle of Tanaren City, the seventh great battle of Tanaren commences. The streets
run red with blood for weeks with People’s Hill being the focus of the worst violence. Finally, the Ducal Palace is stormed and Colbas hung from one of its towers. The Chiran army is forced
into a humiliating surrender and is banished from the city. The second (albeit brief) period of Tanarese independence commences. There is no Grand Duke, rather a Lord Protector elected on an annual
basis.
500
Chira, not an empire that accepts humiliation, invades Tanaren with Arshuman collusion. Thirty thousand troops slaughter all opposition and Tanaren City is stormed,
though most of the resistance has already fled. The Protector for that year is executed by disembowelment in the marketplace. A new Grand Duke, Monash Pretokan, a Chiran outsider is appointed. All
Grand Dukes from 500 to 655 are appointed in this manner and nearly all are little loved by the people.
509–44
The one exception to this is Travanor II. A Chiran general, he changes his name to that of a well- known former Grand Duke and attempts to assimilate himself
into Tanarese culture. He orders a great phase of new buildings throughout the country including a large expansion to the Ducal Palace. He instigates many more public and religious festivals, most
famously the Winter Feast ball. This time, however, is seen as a return to decadence after the bloodbaths and austerity of the previous century and the organised gangs of the Rose District
flourish.
521
Chira conquers Kibil, a land to the north hosting many barbarian peoples who fought for Tolmareon in his northern wars and were granted land there as a reward. They
seceded from Chira soon after Tolmareon’s death so their conquest was seen as well overdue by the Empire. Travanor, although a Chiran governor, grants them land in the sparsely populated west
and north of Tanaren. Ever aware of potential insurgency, Travanor sees them as allies to counter any attempt to overthrow him. The Emperor of Chira, for reasons of pragmatism, does not counter
Travanor’s edict.
540
Travanor authorises the title of Baron for a handful of the prominent men of Kibil.
561
Grand Duke Eginvald sells Roshythe to Arshuma.
562
Grand Duke Eginvald assassinated.
568
After years of persecution the Frach Brotherhood is granted official status within the Artoran Church. It is popular in Tanaren, especially in the east. Rumours
abound, though, that a resurgent Army of the Blue has infiltrated it and uses it as a front for agitation against their Chiran overlords. Since Travanor II’s death resentment against Chira
and the ineffectual grand dukes it has appointed since then has started to rise.
581–85
The time of Hangarath the Dubious – an oddity in the time of Chiran-appointed governors in that he was half-Tanarese nobility by birth, being related
to the Edringtons. If the Chiran Emperor thought this would calm anti-Chiran sentiment, though, he could not have been more wrong. As a child, some family members had plotted against the Grand Duke
and paid for it with their lives, leaving Hangarath with a mistrust of all things in the capital and an equal mistrust of Chiran justice. His brief reign was marked by a lack of adherence to both
Chiran and Tanarese values and so winning him his nickname.
582
The New Perego experiment. Named as the new capital for less than a week, Hangarath’s vision of a New Tanaren founders with his marble-importing ships.
602
An attempted coup at the Ducal Palace results in the death of the Grand Duke but is put down with ruthless efficiency.
652
The start of the War of Imperial Succession. Actually the third one of its kind but the only one to directly involve Tanaren. The Empire is riven by conflict as its
Southern and Western armies attempt to depose the new selfproclaimed Emperor, who is backed by the elite Imperial Guard. Many Chiran forces are withdrawn from Tanaren, leaving the incumbent Grand
Duke, Stavan Eterikan, vulnerable.
654
The Army of the Blue seizes its chance. Its membership is revealed and shown to include the Dukes Hartfield, Mesteia and Edrington. The populace rises up and Stavan
is executed. Aside from that, though, the coup is relatively bloodless; the Chiran army withdraw first to Arshuma and then to the eastern Derannen Mountains. A new Grand Duke, Premeash Uthka, is
appointed immediately and given orders to retake Tanaren City.
655
Uthka attempts to reinvade Tanaren. He enters Arshuma with twelve thousand men but is met by an equal Tanarese force at Hawks Moor just inside Arshuman territory.
Tanaren also have five mages provided by the College, the greatest number ever fielded by the country in battle, and are led by Duke Evan Mesteia and Donald Hartfield. Significantly, five hundred
of their force are Wych folk cavalry, persuaded into battle with the prospect of defeating their ancient enemy. As battle commences, ten thousand Arshuman troops line up on the horizon, but their
king, knowing that the Chiran Western Army is losing the War of Succession, does not commit to Chira as expected. Instead, he withdraws his troops in the early afternoon as the army of Tanaren
finally break the Chiran line. Grand Duke Uthka is killed by Evan Mesteia in hand-to-hand combat and the Chiran army withdraws before it is slaughtered. Tanaren is declared independent with Evan
Mesteia the first Grand Duke of the modern free era. Battle number eight of the great battles of Tanaren is therefore possibly its most important.
657
The men of Kibil attempt to secede from Tanaren. Defeated at Battle of Thetta.
680
A second, more serious attempt to secede made by the men of Kibil. After a victory over Tanarese forces in northern Morrathnay, veteran Grand Duke Evan Mesteia (now
Evan the Founder) rides out to meet them. A large inconclusive battle is fought at Mount Talman before winter sets in. The winter is an especially cruel one. The Grand Duke, based at Mount Talman,
is supplied by Tanaren City but the rebels soon run out of food and are forced to surrender. The Grand Duke takes hostages from them to ensure their loyalty, a practice that continued for a further
sixty years.
683
Death of Grand Duke Evan the Founder. One of the most popular grand dukes in Tanaren’s history, he also put into law the right of hereditary succession that
ensured that the Mesteia family continues to rule Tanaren up to this day.
752–73
The rule of Grand Duke Lenterian Mesteia, Leontius’s father.
760
Raids on Tanarese shipping by pirates operating out of Kudrey and Fash become so debilitating that war is formally declared upon them.
763
War of the Six Barons in the Tanarese heartlands.
765
Baron Corax Metgaart, whose lands bordered Lake Winmead on the Tanaren side, raises a large army and is goaded by rumours of the weakness of the Arshuman forces in
Roshythe into making an attack on the city. It then becomes apparent that King Aganosticlan of Arshuma, with tacit Chiran support, has been preparing for this moment for many years. Using
Corax’s assault as a pretext, he firstly kills the Baron and scatters his army before launching a full-scale two-pronged invasion of Tanaren. They advance as far as Athkaril, north of the
Marassans, and cross the Broken River in the south before they are halted. The Tanaren–Arshuman War, ironically called the Forgotten War by many of its participants, has started.
766–67
Tanaren slowly retakes some of the ground ceded to Arshuma. Tetha Vinoyen changes hands four times. It transpires that much of the Arshuman money has been
exhausted by 767 and so the invasion peters out. The Grand Duke, too, shows little interest in the war; failing to arrive to lead the counter-charge, he instead appoints two Prosecutors to lead the
resistance, Lukas Felmere in the north and Damian Calvannen in the south. Starved of resources, their gains are fairly minimal.
768
The Kudreyan pirates are finally brought to heel at Galpa, a small rocky island some two hundred miles from Tanaren’s northern coast. Some ninety per cent of
their fleet is taken or sunk, making this the ninth great battle of Tanaren.
768
The Siege of Fort Axmian. A beacon of resistance to Arshuman ambitions, Axmian holds out against a large siege until relieved by Barons Felmere and Vinoyen. Even then
the battle’s outcome was uncertain until Axmian opens its gates and the besieged forces sally forth to catch the Arshumans in a pincer movement.
769
Tetha Vinoyen retaken.
769–75
Both Arshuman and Tanarese forces engage in an attritional conflict in which little gain is made. Slowly, though, Arshuma is pushed back towards the
Whiterush River in the north and back beyond the Broken River in the south where Esric Calvannen succeeds his father as Prosecutor of the Southern War.
773
Leontius Mesteia becomes the fifty-second Grand Duke.
775–776
Events detailed in
The Forgotten War
take place. Chira annexes northern Arshuma but allows the lands south of Harshafan’s Belt to remain as a
Chiran client state. Despite the battle of the Dragon Princess ending the Forgotten War, the Grand Duke at first resists calls for this to be counted as the tenth great battle of Tanaren. In the
end he relents and the battle takes its place among Tanaren’s other legendary conflicts.
776
A new rebellion emerges in the heartlands of Tanaren. Baron Lasthena gathers many disaffected citizens to him and fights a guerrilla war from the Morrathnay Forest.
The future for all is uncertain.
A Note on the Artoran Church
It was a time of great darkness, of tribe against tribe, a barbarous time in which war and disunity was the norm and a man who commanded a settlement of twenty people
could call himself king. The names and functions of the gods differed from village to village; there was no morality, no direction and no blessed eternity for those called from this world. It
was a common practice to sacrifice the living upon great altars of stone to propitiate a good harvest, or prevent a bad one, to ward off pestilence, or to ensure a mild winter. Ignorance and
savagery, the true kings of the valleys of the Dragonspine, stalked the lands, unrepentant and unconstrained.
Now it happened in this time in the village of Codona that there was a pagan priest by the name of Abo. He was, by the standards of his time, educated and his mind was ever receptive to
new ideas. Once a year he, like many other priests, would head into the mountains, to live on nettles and wild berries and to commune with his unholy deities. He would then return after a month
or more possessed of a fanatical zealotry and the season’s sacrifices would start anew. This particular year he left the village just before winter became spring, saying he would be back
after six weeks, after the bluebells and the daffodils had started to die.
And yet he returned as they were barely beginning to flower. His eyes were wild and staring, his hair flowed behind him free and untamed, and his raiment was dirty and torn. In his hand
he held a staff of ebon wood; it was blackened and smoking, charred and burnt, as were his fingers. And yet his expression was beatific and full of rapture.
‘Hearken to me!’ he called to the villagers. ‘Hearken to me! For I have been chosen; I have seen that which has been denied to all others; the true names of the
Gods!’
And the villagers were perturbed by this revelation, for did they not already have their own names for their gods, their own shrines, their own rituals? And they challenged Abo over his
words. ‘What are you telling us? If what you say is true and the gods we worship have been shown to be false, how did you come by this proof? How were these new gods shown to
you?’
‘Peace, good people,’ said Abo. ‘Give me but a few moments and I will tell you. For two weeks I walked the trackless wilderness of the mountains. By day I travelled and
by night I prayed, prayed that the Gods would come to me and guide us all. But the Gods were strangely silent; it was almost as though their voices had been taken, taken by a mightier
power.
‘And then on my fifteenth night from the village the storm arrived. It started quietly at first, a distant growl of thunder in the mountains to the north, but as the night passed it
moved closer and closer, its fury unlike any storm I had ever witnessed in my life before. And as it approached its power swelled, until finally I stood at its raging heart, the rain an
inundation, the thunder booming off the mountain sides and the lightning – yes, the lightning – striking the Earth with an unsurpassed ferocity. As I stood beneath it, it reached
its zenith. Coincidence thought I, until I finally realised that this storm had been sent and I had been chosen. The storm had been sent for me! And as I finally understood, the lightning
struck my unworthy body and I was transported. Transported to the realm of the True Gods. And they spoke with me, told me their names and charged me with spreading the words of the true belief
among my people. Once they had finished speaking I threw up my arms in consternation. “But my people have their own gods – how will I persuade them to cast aside their old beliefs
and accept you into their hearts?” And they answered, saying, “When you return to your realm you will find a gift from us, use it wisely and not only will your people follow you but
others will join you in following the only true faith of man. Farewell, good Abo; you are charged with much, but the Gods chose you for a reason. Betray us not and unite the lands of men under
the Divine Pantheon. We will see you again at your final judgement.”’
‘And with that I passed out of consciousness into a sleep deeper than anything I had previously known. I awoke into daylight, lying on the rock of the mountain side. I was hungry
and cold. I stood and turned to walk back home when I beheld before me on the path – this.’
He held aloft the burning staff. ‘Look all of you upon the Staff of Justice and tremble at the power of the Gods!’ And with that he smote the staff upon the ground and
immediately the idols of the false gods in the village caught ablaze and burnt to cinders as the villagers watched in awe. The ceremonial hut was then set aflame and was reduced to ashes in
seconds. And at this the villagers fell upon their knees and proclaimed Abo as their prophet. Abo gazed at the prostrate forms and commanded that his words be set down by the village scribe.
And when the scribe was seated and prepared Abo began to speak.
‘Hearken to the words of the true Father of the Gods, the divine Artorus, the all- seeing and all powerful and leader of the Divine Pantheon...’
Opening canon of the
Book of Artorus and the Divine Pantheon
as codified by Grand Lector Abo IX of Chira
