The Forgotten War

by Howard Sargent

  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 Many Chiran forces are withdrawn from Tanaren, leaving the incumbent Grand Duke, Stavan Eterikan, vulnerable.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.

  Appendix II:

  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

  And so the Artoran religion took root in the foothills of the Dragonspine Mountains. It spread quickly among the multitude of tribes in the area, partly through the force of personality shown by Abo, who carried the word from village to village, and partly through military conquest as converts swelled the size of the army of Codona. Soon all other gods in the region had been forsaken as the Artoran Church was fully established, with its more recent adherents including the tribes that would eventually found the city of Chira.

  At first the Pantheon included the Holy Trinity of Artorus, Camille and Elissa, along with Meriel and Sarasta, and with Keth and Xhenafa serving as the gods of the underworld. As the Chiran city-state expanded its influence other gods were added, such as Mytha the war god of Anmir and Hytha the sea god, first worshipped after these landlocked peoples finally saw the coast for the first time. Hytha was taken from many sources and can be portrayed as a great warrior male fighting Uttu, god of storms, or as female, a pacifier of the tempestuous oceans. His/her status as Mytha’s sibling is also a later modification to the accepted canon. Lucan, god of magic, was also an amalgam of many gods, hence his many different aspects.

  Finally in the year 224 (Chiran chronology), the Grand Lector Abo IX drew all the disparate theological strands of the Artoran religion together and formally codified them in the Book of Artorus and the Grand Pantheon, which would be the standard book of prayer for the next seven centuries. Forty-seven different deities are named, each with his or her own section ranging from a mere two pages (Otton, god of streams) to the 1,093 pages devoted to the teachings of Artorus himself (taking up fully half of the final book). The teachings of Camille, Elissa, Meriel and Lucan appear in an abridged form, as they actually have their own books, separate from the Book of Artorus; indeed the Book of Meriel alone is over 2,000 pages long and is constantly updated with any new developments in the art of healing. Mytha, though mentioned in the Book of Artorus, is worshipped separately; his teachings are kept secret by warrior priests whose identities are also shrouded in mystery.

  CHURCHES

  Most villages have only one house of worship. These are nominally called a house of Artorus, though in reality all the gods are worshipped under the same roof. Rural churches are staffed by one Artoran priest, possibly assisted by a sister of Meriel, there to heal the sick. The sisterly order ensures that each one of their number is based no further than ten miles from the next. Every villager, however rustic, knows where his nearest sister of Meriel is.

  As well as priests of Artorus there are two sisterly orders, those of Meriel and Camille. Camille, goddess of wisdom, is popular in Chira, but far less so in Tanaren, where Elissa has taken over many of her roles. The Order of Camille in Tanaren City is therefore tiny. Strangely, there is no order representing Elissa, the duties of midwifery being dealt with by the sisters of Meriel. Recruitment for this order is never a problem, for the church provides a refuge for women regularly beaten by their husbands, a refuge that becomes permanent if they join the sisterly order. Proof of persecution (old injuries, bruises) are required before the order can accept them, though further investigation is often required as it has been found that some women deliberately injure themselves in order to join, and live the spartan, but secure, life of a sister.

  Other religious houses include houses of Hytha, present in all fishing villages, which serve as little more than places for families to leave offerings to seek protection for those at sea, and houses of Xhenafa, where the dead are prepared for their fune
ral rites. In truly wild and remote places can sometimes be found houses of Jhuna, goddess of the wilderness. They are little more than paddocks or groves enclosed by wicker fences. Who their priests are and what exactly goes inside them are secrets few city folk know about or wish to discover, though lurid supposition and fanciful imaginings have kept many a wandering minstrel housed and fed for an evening.

  MONASTERIES

  Whereas churches sit at the heart of the community, monasteries are much more aloof affairs. They function as retreats, havens for quiet contemplation and study. Here the books are produced from primitive printing presses; here are devotees of the faith educated, and here are theological arguments and theories advanced and the great church libraries maintained. In the past these were the first ports of call for the Grand Duke if he required answers to one of life’s great imponderable questions. Nowadays, though, it is the universities to whom he usually turns first. Walled and separate from the populace, these are communities in their own right; even the colleges of the mages are modelled loosely on such institutions.

  Appendix III:

  A Note on the Tanarese Nobility

  Tanaren is ruled by a grand duke, ostensibly a king in any other parlance. The position is usually held by a member of the Mesteia family, though before the year 491 there was a provision in law for one of the other ducal families to take the reins should there be no suitable Mesteia heir (the other dukes would elect an heir secretly). From 683 this provision was removed, allowing the Mesteia family to rule in perpetuity no matter the age or infirmity of the heir.

  Under the grand dukes are the dukes. Descended from Tanar’s generals, the position is hereditary and brings with it large armies and estates. The three ducal families are the Hartfields, Edringtons and Marschalls. There was a fourth family, the Hartwigs, but the title was stripped from them following a treacherous uprising.