The Adventures of Brandar Odaron
Book 1: The Hidden Continent
Chapter 27 Other New-Frontier Wars
The Sereghran had peace for more than twenty years after the First War of the New Frontier, during which time Brandar ruled as King of the Forest and completed all of his designs, both for the Border Towers and for Deunomis. And while Brandar was now a King, he remained also as Warlord.
Meanwhile, Ergon had rebuilt Geranost, but also built a port upon the shores of the Great Northern Bay, naming it Agereis, which means “Heavy Waters”, as the port is close to the mouth of Kelebros, which constantly deposits a dark silt into the Bay.
Calaren was now in command of all of the Towers along Kelebros while Jesan was in command of the Southern Borders, from Deunomis to Magadinos. And both of those Lords had been given large Armies of mostly young Sereghran which Brandar had equipped with highly magical weapons; from the Generals to the lowliest of Soldiers.
Brandar, of course, remained in command of his Main Force at Deunomis, which had become greater than any Army the Sereghran had ever before arrayed upon their Borders. And Brandar had placed his fellow Northrons in command of the Divisions of that Army, which were each huge, well-trained, and also highly magical. Furthermore, the Six were appointed as Errant Generals, whom Brandar decreed must be held as higher in rank than any other General on the Borderlands, even those chosen by Srabos and Aetas. But Tomas was the Warlord’s Second, and thus outranked even his fellows.
Naturally, while Brandar dwelt in his Tower, now called, as might be expected, the “Warlord’s Tower”, the other Northrons had built houses near to it for their families whom they had brought from Sunthakis; even Tomas, who had married that handmaid he had known before, and who had now given him three fine children. And Brandar had also found a woman that he loved, close kin to Flaven, though he refused to be married; for he desired to return to Andaria, some day, and find there a wife from among the Exiled Northrons, as was the long-held tradition of the Chieftains of the Dunjilarians. But while Brandar’s mistress, Vearta, cousin to Flaven, was uncomfortable with the arrangement, she agreed to it for her love of the Northron King. Later would she bear for him a son who was destined to become a Hero in his own right, but that is another tale.
Therefore, the Lady Vearta, of royal lineage, became known as the “Warlord’s Consort”, and was highly honored by the People, though not a Queen. Yet, she was treated as such. And Brandar gave to her all the authority of a Queen. But it happens that she would later become a Queen in truth, with a wide and devoted following.
As it was, while Brandar and Vearta never married, she bore to him three lovely daughters, and she was very happy, for Brandar took no other lovers, and they would remain together for well over two-hundred years of the Suns.
Now, the Forest had come to be filled with settlements, while the entire length of the Borderlands had become farming country. And Deunomis had grown so that it was like a small city, with many dwellings for Soldiers and Citizens within and outside of its wall. Yet, Dragon’s Den Hill remained bare, as Brandar would at times set there his grand Pavilion, in which he conducted ceremonies and held feasts and celebrations, and would have his most important official meetings and convocations that required a large space in the shade or shelter from rain. But otherwise the Hill was kept open to the sky with a well-managed covering of grass, and with flowers about its base.
Besides the Warlord’s Armies on the New Borders, the Kings Strabos and Aetas maintained other large Armies upon the Old Frontier, most especially at Vordurus and at the rebuilt Towers of Angust and Geranost, and at Kombros and the three Duchies; Baertunas. Baerhesperos, and Baersunthas. And Duke Phaedus at Baersunthas was charged with keeping the rivers Thinoss and Saronoss free of Korligen, and from any other dangerous creatures. But he was aided in this by the Elf-Lord Turlin, who kept large forces at Askondor and Akouyein and Dhwinos. Yet, besides the forces at those places, and at Baerakis and Sunthakis, the High Elves of the Northern Coasts kept armies at Windmere and Linguonon, while the Dwarves in the Southlands, nigh upon the Eastern Coast at Kindol, near Dragon’s Cliff Bay, constituted an Army of their own, for they would one and all take up arms at need. But there were also the People’s Brigades, which had never disbanded, but had grown as independent militias of which the largest were at Torquere and Domosus, with smaller Companies at Trabus in the North and at Cwellan and Mhinos in the Midlands, and also at all three Duchies. Indeed, the militias had become so popular that the smallest village could boast that a good number of their folk were “registered” members of their local Brigade. And while they were honored, they were not as well trained, nor as magical, as the Armies. Nevertheless, those men and women felt blessed by their memberships, and practiced often, and held games of skill, such as horsemanship and sword-fighting and archery. And long were they happy.
Thus, due to the great peace which ensued after the Devouring Assault, the wide prosperity the People enjoyed in that time, by extending their Borders to encompass the Forest, and the numbers of their Soldiery and Mariners and Brigadiers, the Sereghran became proud of their place in the world; deeming themselves mighty. And the study and glorification of war became a preoccupation with them; so much so that they took to sending their sons and daughters to spend at least one year in service of the Warlord upon the New Frontier. But Brandar, having come to consider such practice bothersome, would say: “We are Warriors, not wet-nurses!” Yet, he eventually consented after all to the establishing of training camps, called “Academies”, for the younger recruits.
This then is how the Sereghran were positioned at the coming of the Second War of the New Frontier, during which many of those recruits would fall; much to the sorrow of their kin. But that war was won by the Warlord. And he would win the next and the next, with each more destructive than the previous, so that he was victorious in the first four of the total of five of those Wars. And while the fifth was indeed yet another victory for the Sereghran, Brandar would not see its end, for he was captured therein, and taken to be imprisoned by Modeus in the North. And this is how that came about.
Here, the horrible Darkness upon the Land of Modeus had never cleared, nor moved nor shifted in the twenty-odd years of peace following the First War of the New Frontier. Indeed, it became ever more dense. And its edge grew all the more well-defined; making a great circle which went unbroken upon both land and sea. And as no Sereghran who entered it were ever known to return, the Soliders who must stand watch near to it named it the “Deel”, which means “Dark Dividing”, for they came to believe that it was the very door to the UnderRealm itself, come upon the face of the world by the deep powers of the Demon Lord. But no mystical nor magical eye could pierce the Darkness, nor any Wizard’s spell disperse it, so ever-present was that barrier, wrought by the most dastardly of fleshly Demons in that Age. But in later days, in Weyilendeh, Tingor the Eld declared that the Deel had been summoned by Modeus to stand as the Demon’s mocking answer to the God’s own Enchanted Mists.
Now, as for the beginning of the Second War, it happened one day that Brandar and Calaren, while riding and hunting along the River Kelebros, noticed a dark cloud rising into the heavens from the vicinity of the Demon’s Castle. And it moved east, despite the prevailing winds, but also kept expanding in size. Then it passed overhead where it blocked entirely the light of the Suns. And its shadow instilled in their hearts a deep sense of dread, until it had continued and thereafter made its way to the Jungle Lands. But the fear lingered for so long after it had passed that the two deemed that war was once more coming to the New Frontier. So, upon Brandar's return to Deunomis, he ordered that all the families of the men-at-arms upon the Borderlands, including his own, must remove themselves to the Old Frontier, or go into the Jungles, until the war was done. And just as they made it to those parts the invasion began, with more numerous enemies than had come in the First War, and which therefore resulted in the deaths of many a Soldier, and the destruction, once again by fire, of great swaths of the Forest. What is more, the dark cloud which Brandar and Calaren had seen they learned later settled upon the Jungle Lands past the Old Frontier, carrying with it a plague that rapidly swept through the Sereghran, with devastating effect.
So dire was that pestilence that more of the People died from the malady than would fall in the war. Therefore, the Second War of the New Frontier was named the “Flueres An-Bhunus”, which is the “Crushing Sickness”. And it killed a full quarter of the People of the Jungle Lands, and left many others with lingering sicknesses.
Nevertheless, Brandar won that war, though it was not celebrated due to the count of those who had fallen. And twenty-one years later the Third War was much like the Second, with yet again more numerous an enemy presence and widespread disease, and flames in the Forest. Thus also, but only ten years after that, the Fourth held to the same apparent plan with similar results, though also more destructive, to some extent, than the former. So it was that Brandar perceived a recurring pattern in the manner in which Modeus was making war upon the Sereghran.
With each war, the Sereghran would inflict bloody victory over the enemy; driving what survivors remained deep into the Southern Wood, or pursuing them far into the Foothills, or even into the Highlands, or chasing them into the Deel out of which the enemy in the North always issued. And yet, because of those victories, and the years of peace and prosperity they enjoyed between, where it had been over forty years since the Fourth War, the Sereghran grew rather haughty and over-confident; imagining in their pride that Modeus would ever be too weak to defeat them utterly. Then a great many began to speak of extending the Borders into the Southern Wood. And nothing Brandar and the other two Kings may say would dissuade them from such foolishness. So, it came about that the People’s Brigades began to place Companies in the South much too near the Highlands, expecting from there to embark upon a Quest of Expansion into the Wood. But Brandar had grown suspicious, over the years; believing, at last, that all of the New-Frontier Wars to that time had been but tests of the Sereghran’s strength, and also designed to trick them into adopting just such a sense of superiority, whilst the enemy mustered secretly within the Darkness behind the Deel and must therefore be achieving some unknown vastness therein, and also in the Mountains and on the far Wastern Coastlands, where the Sereghran never tred. And in this respect, Strabos agreed with Brandar, though Aetas was not so convinced. In any event, Brandar encountered much opposition when he warned against the Expansion, over which he had no control. Then many of the Lords of the Lands, all of them those who owned not an Aefarin, resisted his advice to strengthen the northern forces instead of sending so many Brigadiers and also Mercenaries into the South. And they took to drawing up secret plans for invading the Great Southern Wood, and discussing how they would divide amongst themselves the new Lands they would obtain thereby.
Thus, after forty and four years since the Fourth War, the Fifth and final invasion was sent against the Sereghran, where nearly all of the People’s Brigades, despite Brandar’s pleas, had been concentrated in the South along the Borders near the hills and the swamps. And as this war involved a more dire and terrible onslaught than any that could have imagined, many folk would not believe reports of it whence it had begun.
The Sereghran were confronted by an enemy more vast and more determined, and more evil than ever they had dreamed in any of the worst nightmares in all of their very long lives. And in that war all of the Sereghran People, and even the Seven, were to come face-to-face with their everlasting doom. For this was no mere test but was in fact a well-planned, long prepared, and continent-wide invasion in which the Sereghran’s defenses were breached in many places with the coming of the very first wave of many incomprehensible assaults. But as the Sereghran had but a brief warning in the form of a great earthquake, they were largely caught unprepared for what was to come; thus reaping the consequences of their lack of faith in their Warlord. Indeed, many Brigadiers, and all the townsfolk and villagers, and settlers and homesteaders who heeded not Brandar’s warning to flee eastwards after the earthquake were summarily slain without mercy everywhere the enemy came ravening over the Lands.
Nevertheless, the worst losses were among Brandar’s Northern Forces, owing that more of the enemy emerged from the Deel than came from the Foothills and down from the Highlands and the Mountains, and even the Great Southern Wood combined.