A rather dark tale, one of vengeance and great oaths, the kind that never dies...no matter how long it takes for them to reach out and claim those responsible...
This cursed place is as much a part of history as it is a place in the land. Aveldans revere this place with a dark intensity and speak of its only sparingly. Even then, this is spoken of only in the greatest of curses or oaths. It harks back to the great Amazon Warrioress Omphalea, also called the Mother of Five Battles. In 331 BCY Boruumahr, she returned home from a victorious campaign against the invading nomads in the north only to find her steading nothing but burnt wreckage and her seven daughters raped, multilated horribly, and hanging from ropes tied to the center beam. Her fury was boundless—as great as her sorrow and lust for vengeance. Overpowered by a great outpouring of spirit and fire, Omphalea uttered the first horrible words to this fell curse, each falling from her lips like cursed thorns to blight the blood of the soil underneath her feet. With each daughter’s name she proclaimed for vengeance, the ground darkened, and with crawling tendrils expanded until the last cogent and horrible part of the curse was spoken. At its end, the ground was like blood and formed a cursed blight on land where no seed could take root. Omphalea too was not untouched: Her eyes were the color of the soil and her voice a whisper screamed from a deep void. Fearful of her but bound by love and duty, her sisters did not abandon her then or later as she swept from the ruins of her home to slay those who had taken her scion and life. Her end was as tragic as her daughters, as the calling on such powers calls upon a great price, one that devoured her mind, body, and soul before its course was ended. Thus was the first Blood Curse sworn in Avelda, soiling the ground where it was sworn, tainting it forever to a sanguine hue.
This story is rather one of those folksy tales that always abound. People repeat them in hope it will teach its moral to those they believe are involving themselves in foolishness. Perhaps you’ll mind this tale better than the others who have heard its warning...
Even for the most prepared, there is a new surprise. The local inhabitants of Maeraine always shake their heads and implore those who think they have beaten the dangers of the Black Bite Forest to reconsider. Alternatively, at least to make out a will and leave their possessions with someone they trust. "Oerdly Joss", they will mumble, "he too thought he had it beat". "An emperor’s ransom", Oerdly would crow to any that would listen as he assembled his goods and precious seeds to plant. When his friends would speak of the dangers and the long list of the missing and dead, he would counter with his litany of preparations: one for all the dangers they could name or remember. When someone could name something he had not considered or prepared for, he would reluctantly nod acceptance to stay and begin immediately on fixing something to counter the point brought up. One day no one could gainsay him and the townsfolk stood with his wife as he rode away, his wagon trundled with the goods he had prepared to counter any threat. For the months that followed, there was no word when the event occurred that they had feared: a magic sending appeared to his wife, set up by him through magic on the event of his death. With a solemn face, his wispy image told his wife of his month’s long triumph to circumvent the danger of the Black Bite Forest and raise a successful crop of trees. At least, until the fateful day when he went to harvest his secluded and safe crop and found, to his surprise, the trees objected to his harvest of their fruit and slew him with their ponderous weight. So, to any who dare the forest and think they have prepared for everything, the kind townsfolk tell them the tale of Oerdly Joss and hope they’ll learn the wisdom he did not.
With an eye on ever adding to the vast pattern of history in Khaas, this week we have pulled out a small excerpt concerning the nation of Arduin and the Nexus Wars!
There are few in the east of Arduin who do not know the Crystal River. The clear, frothily flowing waters of this river are an avenue of trade, travel, and military use in current day, just as they have in every age of Arduin. So strategic is this river to the eastern portion of the kingdom that it has featured in nearly every major conflict to a lesser or greater degree. One conflict of note that raged on its banks was the Battle of the Foam Stallions, a small part in the greater whole of the bloody Wars of When. While some know it from the memoirs of their forefathers who shed blood and tears in that battle, most know it from the time when the great bard Fire Eyes Darkness Weeps composed and sung the ballad the “Ride of the Gallant Froth Horses” at Tai Taowyn after the first year of founding the city of Talismondé. During that time, there was a sense of piquant desire to give homage to the brave Elven ones who died defending their home, a home from which the new Arduin was being built. This popularized the song, and the others about the same battle, the “Deed of Shaldonness”, and the “Lay of the Elven Eleven Hundred”. While these songs are not sung with the same frequency or desire as back then, they are still heard from time to time in the inns and ways of Arduin.
As in many tales, the words of the song vary depending on who sings it while the truth of the battle does not. The Elven General Almari Shaldonness had led his band of 2200 Elves to the newly named Weeping Wood with the words of the queen echoing in his ears, “let no man pass on your life!” For twenty years, this was their battle cry and they let none pass their woods. Yet, their numbers dwindled and yet always the throngs of men grew larger. Soon an army came for which the burning arrows and blades of Elves could not wither. Onward this army marched, a composite of fierce and hardy Morvaenians, Hyrkhallians, and Viruelandians all in one array of 21,000 strong. After days of devastating battle on each side and rapid losses to the Elves, Almari devised a plan and gave the marauders the desire in their hearts—to close with the stealthy Elven guerrillas! Retreating rapidly towards the Crystal River and taking increasingly worse losses, General Almari stoically continued to lead the wave of men into a muddy shallow area. When enough poured into the wet area, he gave the signal and the Elves turned and ran at full sprint towards an outcropping of stone. With cries of victory, the men charged after, not realizing that the final part of the trap was sprung by the weight of their pounding feet. While the Elves had harried and fought in the woods, the general had sent his strongest Elves and engineers to dam this part of the river. The heavy thuds of the feet of the charging men were the triggers to shake loose the stones and timber, sending cascading foam-crested waves to send them to their doom.
The full “heart” of that army died that day, swallowed under the hooves of foam-crested waves released from broken dams. General Almari swept the rest of that army away, driving them from Arduin. Still, while they celebrated mightily that day, the Elves knew more would come. They were not wrong, either. Not but two months after another army, even greater swept through their land, and while their bravery and sacrifice was no less those days than when they fought previously, Elven might did not carry the day and they gave ground before the onslaught of foreign mailed might.
A short introduction is in order. The following was originally set for the World Book but editing removed it for continuity and structuring reasons. Not to let any scrap of info go unrevealed, we provide it here for you review and as an insight into one of the customs of Ithalos.
"Around the Sorrow and Bright Blade Rivers persists an old tradition, harkening back to when both rivers were named after the Ithalosian Monarch Vilal Kynnyn for his two legendary blades. Supposedly, the monarch lost his famous “Bright Blade” on the verge of battle to a thief, but his guards were able to slay the miscreant before he fled too far. Alas, the thief had cast the monarch’s famed blade from a bridge and it was lost in the churning waters of river beneath.
Now, the king was wroth that evening while his enemies laughed and plotted for his doom at the break of light. Yet, the king, no matter how deep his ire, was wily and wise. He turned misfortune around in a way the enemy could not foresee. On the morn, when the armies gathered for war in the cold mist that clung to the low hills, his enemies were dumbfounded as the sun burned off the mist and lit the river like fire. Calling out to them from a nearby hill, King Vilal Kynnyn said boldly that they would feel the light of his blade no matter how they tried their treachery. The monarch then released the dams he had commanded built and swept a low, but powerful wave of water down towards his foes, all the time with the river shining and sparking like flames! As the enemy panicked and its troops milled about demoralized by the seemingly overwhelming attack, King Vilal rode them down twirling his famous blade "Sorrow" in one hand and a mighty hammer in the other. Before an hour was spent more than half of the enemy were slain and the rest were sent fleeing for the trees.
That evening, he recounted the tale, speaking how he had commanded half his soldiers to work all night damming the river, while telling the other half to fashion clay and grass “boats”. These he ordered filled with “mirrors” of polished brass. In the morning before the battle, while the mist lay on the land, he had them loose the little clay “boats” with polished brass mirrors, so that as sun's rays fell on them it would light the river like flame. Combining this with breaking the dams utterly unnerved the enemy, who feared he had someone how mastered the river to his power.
Every year on the 22nd of Khoros, the Ithalosian people who dwell along the river will commemorate this battle and light its length with clay and paper boats to bring “light to the king’s shining blade once again”. The display is quite beautiful at first light when the bobbing boats are released to catch the sun. A similar tale involves the king’s blade “Sorrow”, and is an echo to this one but involving the shattering of his blade over the remorse of accidentally killing his son while enflamed with battle. Those who dwell near both rivers relive these acts, taking the day to honor this legend of their first monarch."
For a view on something different than covered so far and following in the same theme mentioned previously, here is a small tale about Bards and the Master Words of Power. It speaks about the supposed forefather of all Bards, Dzor Khorenin, and how he lost the Master Words of Power to the Greater Demon, Oolnydragen, the Demon of Whispers.
Bards and the Master Words of Power
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