The Adventure of Brandar Odaron
Book 1: The Hidden Continent
Chapter 21 Invasion In The South
While the Leviathan of the North was crushing to death the doomed Admiral Lutros, a ghastly invasion occurred in the Southlands so horrible that it is held as one of the most sorrowful in all the history of the Sereghran. Yet, it is given here without the dirges and psalms which so often accompany the Tell.
From the Lowland Swamps came daunting numbers of monsters which the Elven Sereghran named Korligen, meaning “beasts of the marshes”. And these were mutants formed by the blasphemous blendings of Men and bog-dwelling animals.
Here were creatures like large long-snouted, crookedly-toothed reptiles, with long thickly-thewed tails but who walked upright upon land. And there were lizard-like things with swollen human heads, and giant slithering snakes with arms and legs, and many other monsters for which there are no names. But nearly all of them had fangs within rows of many sharp teeth, and long claws on hands and feet, and thick and scaly hides. Yet, there was one brute so fearsome that the Sereghran gave it a name of its own, calling it the Holgygros, which means “That Which Tears Apart”. And these were by far the most worrisome of the Korligen, for they were agile and surpassingly strong, and moved swiftly over wet or dry land; moving along waterways by stealth at night to leap out and devour unsuspecting Sereghran, most especially the children.
Taller than a man, a Holgygros walks upright and has thick and sinewy limbs, with webbed but long and sharp claws in place of hands and feet. And its head is like that of a nightmarishly misshapen fish. But its strength is such that a lone Holgygros can rip a grown man to pieces within seconds. And its hide is so tough that ordinary blades do it little harm. Thus, they were slain only by magic or by numerous and strong strikes.
The Korligen moved steadily north from the swamps, crossing the borders from Magadinos to Baersunthas. Then were the Lowland Elves and the Men of Baersunthas hard pressed to get rid of the monsters; for the Korligen did not fight in concert, as an army, but scattered about and ran amuck; spreading into the Lands where each dealt much death ere being felled by strong magic or by great strength of arms. But many alas escaped and hid themselves, for years emerging at whiles to do grievous harm.
Sad indeed were those fear-ridden times, as children were the most vulnerable, being snatched away while playing happily by some brook or stream or river. And the Sereghran were long hunting down the Korligen, as the unconscionable creatures got easily into inaccessible places where-ever there were sources of water. Then were the monsters found as far north as Mhirnas ere the Lands were made clean. Yet, folk in the South would go armed by twos to fetch water for many years thereafter; forbidding their young from going anywhere near even the smallest of ponds.
Upon the day the Korligen first emerged from the swamps, the Kobo about which Brandar was warned mounted an assault against the Borderlands west of the Tower of Magadinos. But as the Elven Sereghran of the Garrison there were aware of the coming attack they met the Kobo in force and defeated them soundly; chasing the few survivors all the way back into the Southern Wood. Yet, rejoicing over the victory was short lived, as the Elves now found that their Lands were being overrun by the Korligen. Then did the Elves ken that Modeus had sacrificed the Kobo so that the Korligen could more easily enter into the Lowlands. For, while the Kobo had been expected, wholly unforeseen was the coming of the Korligen from the swamps.
Meanwhile, a great army of vile Gobba, which the Elves had also discovered beforehand, was entirely defeated by the Lord of the Lowland Elves, Turlin Araun, whose name means “Master of Wisdom”. And so powerful was Turlin in magic, and so vast was his Army of Elves, and so intense the hatred of Elves for the Gobba, that the complete strength of that enemy was surrounded and slain without mercy. Then the Elves built a tremendous bonfire upon which they burned all of the bodies of the Gobba. And when the fire had died down, leaving a pile of gray ash and tangles of charred weapons, the Elves dug a huge pit in which they buried every trace of the Gobba; covering it over so as to form a low mound upon which they planted wildflowers. But Turlin ordered also that all trace of the battle must be erased, so that not even a rumor of the fate of those Gobba came ever back to their kin in the Mountains, far away. Yet Turlin had not imagined the coming of the Korligen, and was for months made busy cleansing his Lands of that horrid menace. And this oversight troubled him greatly, more especially when during the years to follow he received news at whiles of the troublesome Holgygros plaguing his land. But he then made it his mission to hunt them all down and destroy them to the very last.
Here, the Gobba had come due west of Askondor and were met upon a flat stretch of land between Dhwinos and Akouyein. And while the Elves were doing battling with them, and the Korligen were crossing the Borderlands, another deadly and unforeseen occurrence befell the Sereghran in the South. A company of Trollo from the Highlands defeated the Garrison at the Tower of Akouyein and took the Tower; slaying every Elven Sereghran they could catch, though a few escaped upon horseback with the Trollo chasing them for a full league southeast. But then did the Trollo turn back, which was a mistake on their part, as shall be seen.
Thus, calling off the pursuit, they took possession of the Tower and remained there overlong, instead of retreating to the safety of their Highlands, for their master, the Demon of Hulmanus, had promised them the Tower and its territory as their own, saying: “The Elves shall be crushed. And you shall become the new Lords of the Lands.” Thus, dim-witted as they are, the Trollo believed their master and began to behave as if the Lands were already theirs. And they set no guards, nor patrolled the region, and spent their time reveling, paying no heed to their danger.
The Elves who escaped, of which there were five, soon changed their course after making sure that the Trollo had stopped chasing them, and so came upon the Army that had defeated the Kobo. The leader of that Army was a Captain General named Heiden, who was troubled by the news from the five, and, while his Army had suffered great loss, and many of his remaining Warriors were yet driving surviving Kobo into the west, he warily led what forces he had with him, along with the five, and rode into the territory of the Tower, to see if the Trollo were yet there.
Now, Heiden sent a rider to beseech the Lord Turlin to send as many Warriors as could be spared; deeming that he now had not the strength to retake the Tower. But he ringed the Tower with Warriors concealed within the Jungle round, about so as to keep watch upon the Trollo. Then did he wait.
It happens that the Trollo assumed that taking the Tower meant all of the countryside was theirs for the pillaging. Thus were they in no great hurry, and remained in the Tower many days; supping upon Elf-meat and horse-meat, and greedily consuming all of the provisions, and drinking all the drink stored in the cellar. And this gave Heiden enough time for his reinforcements to arrive. But the leader of the reinforcements advised Heiden to wait a little longer, to see what the Trollo might do next, while he positioned his Warriors all about in the Jungle surrounding the Tower. Thus, when the Trollo began to come out in search of fresh meat, now thinking the Villagers in the area would be ripe for the picking, here they foolishly went alone, or at most two or three at a time. Then would the Elves, moving swiftly and silently, catch the wandering Trollo and slay them, over the course of several days, until there remained only a small group who had yet to come out; including their leader.
At last the Trollo leader grew suspicious, when none of his evil followers returned; imagining that those who had gone forth had found a fat village they were keeping for themselves. So then he roused what remained of his fellows and led them east, saying: “When I find those louts, I shall skin ‘em alive, and make a jerkin out o’ their hides. And they can die bleedin’ naked, whilst we go and take the village fer ourselves.” Yet, not a furlong from the Tower, he suddenly found himself and his cohorts surrounded by a large number of angry Elves, who quickly slew all of those Trollo without giving them the slightest chance to fight or flee.
There did Heiden himself swiftly slay the Trollo leader, at which he skinned the dead monster, and hung its skin upon a tree as a warning to any other Durwolc who may dare come again into the Southlands. And afterwards that skin was called “Heiden’s Hide”. Yet, even after the skin had long rotted away, the patch of wood within which stood the tree would keep that name, and so is it named to this day.
It then came about that Brandar, by means of his Aefarin, asked both Turlin and Phaedus to send north any forces they could to Vordurus when that Tower came under attack. But as those Lords were very busy fighting Gobba and Kobo, then the Trollo, and then also the terrible Korligen, they were unable to send to Brandar the number of Warriors which they could have otherwise. And that was an unfortunate turn of events.
In truth, it was later said that this was the purpose of the invasion in the South; to hinder Turlin and Phaedus from sending aid to the Warlord in Vordurus. Yet, the two sent what Warriors they deemed minimal, and that was better than nothing.
Now, it was reported, and set in a footnote in the Annals of the King at Sunthakis, that Flaven and Calaren, and other Mages, were at once aware of an exceedingly great spell cast upon the entire Hidden Continent at the beginning of the war. And while they believed that it must have come from Modeus, they could not fathom how it was that even this most powerful Demon could have gained such awesome magic, as the spell urged all evil monsters and creatures and beasts to move in accordance with his will. But in a later note, placed in the Annals after the Tale of the war, it is said that Modeus must have slain in sacrifice a great number of captured Sereghran, and with the dark mana obtained thereby beseeched the UnderLords to give him such power. And this likewise explains why so many of the enemy would fight to the death, heedless of their fate, but for the few whose deep cowardice overcame the will of their master, which also explains how the Korligen, not ordinarily inclined to act with mutual motivation, made their deadly way so far into the Lands, ignoring their inborn instinct to remain safely in the marshes. Only such a mighty magic could have so driven them so.
Evil indeed was the sacrifice of so many Sereghran at the Demon Lord’s castle in the North. And due to this, countless Sereghran lost loved-ones who disappeared without trace, since the Minions of Modeus had long been making off with captives.
Of interest is that similar behavior was observed among Durwolc who were sent against the Andarians in the Wars of MorLome. It was thus surmised that MorLome must have sacrificed vast numbers of people in order to increase his power. Yet, those victims were not Andarian prisoners, as there would not have been enough, nor Kaivarians, MorLome’s own countrymen, nor folk from the South of Weyilendeh, who were in league with the Sorcerer. They must have been people from the eastern coasts of Weyilendeh, captured by pirates against whom the Emissaries had fought, and which captives were sent over land west and then north to be sold to MorLome in Kaivar. Such were the unspeakable crimes committed by MorLome and his allies.