The Halfblood King: Book 1 of the Chronicles of Aertu (34 page)

At the time that the Creator had divided the land from the sea, he had set aside a large island in the southwest sea.  The disobedient son and his followers had never the opportunity to lay hands on this one piece of land, so it was devoid of his foul creatures.  All was beautiful on the sparkling western isle and it was here that the Creator brought forth the first of the worlds creatures created in his own likeness, the first elves.  Innocent and naked were these first people, our forefathers and we wandered the island in that state for millennia.  The mild climate of our homeland provided for us in abundance and we wanted for nothing.  We met many of the Creator’s grandchildren during that time and they taught us many things about the nature of our fair island, but we knew not then the significance of these nature spirits.

One day, the first children of our Father appeared to us and they frightened us in their magnificence.  They told us, “Do not fear little brothers and sisters, for we mean you no harm and we have much to teach you,” and teach us they did.  They taught us to make tools and ornaments of metal, to hew stone and build with it and to domesticate the beasts and crops for which we had formerly hunted and foraged.  We raised the first elvish cities and writing and arithmetic came into being.  The first line of elvish Kings was established and the cities became centers of learning.  Our elder brethren taught us to forge swords, axes, lances, armor and steel tipped arrows and taught us the elements of armed combat.  We asked them why we would ever want to know how to fight, as we had never seen the need to fight among ourselves.  They told us then of the history of creation as it is written in this very text.  It was then that we learned why their number was uneven, with only six male and seven female.  They told us that our destiny would take us from our lovely island, to the brutal world to the east.  There we would need to fight.

There came a day, one-thousand two-hundred and fifty-five years from the day we began accounting for time that our elder brethren took their leave of us.  They told us of our brother races who came later, known as men, wandering the lands to the east across the sea and in need of their instruction.  They warned us in parting to beware of the Adversary and his minions.  Upon the conclusion of their instruction of men, our elder brethren were destined to leave this world and move on to others and finally to leave this universe to found their own.  The Adversary, however, would never leave and would continue to gain strength as he matured, someday perhaps rivaling that of the Allfather.  Thus, we were warned as our elder brethren left us for the world of men.  There, they became known as Gods, as men lacked the sophistication to see them for what they truly are.

Many centuries passed.  Our small boats gradually became larger and we ventured further out to sea.  Soon we developed seaworthy vessels able to cross the breadth of the ocean.  Our lovely island was becoming crowded and we decided to explore the lands to the east.  At first, the sheer expanse of the western coastline of the continent daunted us.  We landed our ships on the southwestern coast and encountered our first men.  They were much different from us, being very dark and speaking a rude sounding language.  They were friendly, however and it was soon apparent that they too had received some instruction from our elder brethren.  They knew of steel and they built small cities.  They told us of larger, richer cities of their people far to the northeast, along the shores of a huge inland sea.  We built our first colonies on this shore, as we were accepted by these people.

As we explored northward up the coast, we discovered that the men came in different races, unlike ourselves.  The men further up the coast, past the towering mountains, which divided south from north, were not so dark and their hair was straight and black.  Most did not greet us in a friendly manner.  The jungle dwellers attacked us with stone tipped weapons, for they knew not of steel.  As we moved north of the tropics, we passed another range of low mountains.  The people inhabiting the land north of these mountains were a completely different race of men as those of the jungles to the south.  These men were light-skinned, like us, but of a much more brutish appearance than any of the Men we had met previously.  These men were squatly built and immensely strong.  Their faces possessed thick, beetled brows and receding chins.  They had steel, however and they greeted us in friendship. They spoke to us of their Gods and we recognized descriptions of our elder brethren, just as we had to the south.  They became known in later days as westmen, to distinguish them from the other races of men, with whom they never mingled.  They told us also, of another race of men to the east, which looked more like

those we had encountered in the jungles, though of lighter complexion and more advanced in culture.

Yet another Race, unknown to us previously, came to our attention.  The men of the south encountered them as they explored the central mountains.  They later migrated to the northeastern and southeastern coastal ranges.  The men refer to them as dwarves and do not admit to them being men, nor do dwarves claim any kinship to men or westmen.  They seem to live anywhere there are high mountains.  In some ways they appear related to the westmen, however, they lack the receding chin, appearing more like a mix of westmen and men.  They are shorter than either of the other two races, seldom exceeding five feet and stockier even than westmen.  Dwarves are skilled miners and metal smiths, conducting huge excavations and living entirely underground.    They are fierce defenders of their territory, and  extremely suspicious of outsiders.  Few foreigners have witnessed the splendor of their underground cities.

Our people established colonies in the far southern lands of the continent and the men there accepted us as their overlords, thusly they became separated from their brethren to the north of the Great Southeastern Desert, adopting aspects of our language and culture.  The region became known as Sudea thereafter.  This relationship ensued for over two-thousand years.  Over that time, elves and men mingled their blood, even though elves could live many tens of centuries and men seldom lived as long as one.  Elvish maids would take husbands among men, only to become widowed in their prime, often marrying several times in their lifetime.  The same was true of the Elvish masters who chose the same route.  Heartbreak was commonplace among the Elvish rulers of Sudea.  Elvenholm sent pureblooded governors to preside over the colonies, often to the chagrin of the half-elf sons of former governors.  Over time, the population of Sudea had become so mingled that the men lost, for the most part, their dark complexions and looked much like their elvish masters.  Excepting half-elves, however, men did not inherit the longevity of their elvish forebears. 

In the year 3886, by our reckoning, our colonies threatened open rebellion against the Crown of Elvenholm.   The High Governor of the colonies neared the end of his life.  With the support of his provincial governors, he declared that his half-elf son would rule after him.  Since men multiply much faster than elves, the population of Sudea was far higher than that of Elvenholm.  Additionally, the spread of elvish blood among men introduced the talent of sorcery to their number.  The elvish King realized he would be unable to sustain a drawn out war with the men and elves of Sudea, so he acquiesced and allowed them to go their separate way.  Apart from the few who took an active role in the rebellion, the pureblood elves left Sudea and returned to Elvenholm.

By the year forty-five fourteen, elves became aware of the return of the Adversary to the world and once again, ships travelled to the shores of Sudea.  We discovered there, a great kingdom of men, stretching from the west coast to the east coast and surrounding the Great Southeastern Desert and far eastern mountains on three sides.  They were great maritime traders, sailing far up the eastern coast and into the inland sea to trade with the men of the far northeast and up the far northwest coast to trade with the westmen, as the inhabitants of that region became known.  Their ruler was the grandson of the High Governor who had rebelled.  They had retained and established a half-elf ruling class, by only allowing marriage among other half-blood families.  Half-elves, though not as long lived as elves, often surpassed five centuries.  Unfortunately quarter-elves and below tended towards the usual lifespan of Man.  The two kingdoms agreed to resume friendly relations and the Kingdom of Sudea agreed to help Elvenholm establish new colonies on the continent.  Though difficult fighting ensued for several years, we pushed the fierce men of the coast, north of the Blue Mountains, into the deep jungle.  Elves established colonies along the west coast, up unto the lands of the westmen.

Over the ages of our association with the lands outside our fair isle, we became acquainted with many other creatures and beings of which we knew not before.  These were the children of the Adversary and his minions, their failed attempts to copy the fair creatures of the Creator and his faithful children.  Foul beasts stalked the dark and lonely corners of the land.  Trolls wandered the mountains and goblins haunted the forests.  Cold, slimy creatures crawled the swamps.  Worse than these were the minions of the Adversary who walked the land, just as the faithful grandchildren of the Creator did.  These did always seek to bring havoc onto the fair creation of their sworn enemies.  After the departure of the children of the Creator, the Adversary himself walked again across the land, setting himself as a god over ignorant tribes of men.

In the year six-thousand, nearly fifteen centuries after our return to the continent, the Adversary brought war upon the lands of men and elves.  The wild men of the jungle were long under his sway and he brought three kingdoms of men under his control, as well.  The war lasted four years, ending when the Adversary was vanquished by the Crown Prince of Elvenholm, who would become King Aelwynn.  The final battle of the war took place on the shores of Lake Bul at the heart of the jungle, where the Adversary raised his black fortress, Immin Bul, as the seat of his power.  King Aleron of Sudea perished in the fight with the Adversary, but his death allowed the prince to cleave the enemy’s wrists with his great halberd, disarming him and then slashing his throat.  The Adversary’s minions were routed and driven from the field.  The Adversary himself was bound to his dark throne with chains forged with high sorcery and his gates we sealed behind us, with wards indissoluble even for the ones who set them.  So was the one who would usurp the dominion of his Father, imprisoned within his own unassailable stronghold, forever to wail in darkness.  His weapon of cataclysmic power, the axe Zadehmal, proved indestructible, even to the hottest flame.  Fearing to secure it in inhabited lands, lest it work to corrupt the denizens thereof, or to cast it into the sea, lest it find its way into the hands of a minion of the Adversary, it was spirited to the most desolate spot in all the world.  None other than the High Sorcerer of Elvenholm, Goromir, shrouded the way to all who undertook the journey.  It was he, who led the party to secure Zadehmal and he alone knew the location of its hiding.  Upon the journey’s completion, Goromir put his affairs in order and disappeared forever into the high peaks of Elvenholm’s Alban Mountains.

In the years that followed, elves, men, westmen and dwarves returned to life much as it had been in the years prior to the Great War.  The minions of the Adversary still abounded in the world at large, though they lacked the common focus they enjoyed under their Master.  The hobgoblins and half-trolls, bred from crosses with men in Immin Bul’s heyday, multiplied.  Their number was many times more cunning and dangerous than the original flawed creations of the Adversary.  The Children of the Creator stayed always vigilant to incursions of these most foul creatures. 

The Kingdom of Sudea began its slow decline.  The halfblood line of its kings dwindled and eventually expired.  Upon the demise of its last king, in nine-thousand four, the kingdom fractured, with a new kingdom established to the north and a steward minding the righteous throne of the lost line of kings.  Over this time also, elves and men grew apart, most forgetting the indomitable alliance of the Great War.  Westmen and dwarves kept to themselves as they always had.  Now, in the ten-thousandth year of our kingdom, we have little contact with the other races of the world.  Sudea, our once mighty ally among men, is but a shadow of its former glory, and the line of stewards still minds the throne in the absence of its king.  However, scholars have read in the stars, that a new age is upon us and the fortunes of men will change, we know not for better or for worse.

Appendix C

Historical Synopsis of Elves, Dwarves and Men of Sudea

Dwarvish History

In the beginning, we dwarves lived among the westmen in the Iron Hills far to the north.  They were similar, yet different, from us at the same time.  We preferred to shelter ourselves in caves year-round and seldom built shelters out of doors.  The westmen took shelter in caves, in wintertime, but preferred to range across the land during the summer, chasing the herd beasts they hunted.  Our people stayed in one place, making due with whatever game was available and storing food against leaner times.  For many centuries, we knew only the westmen as our neighbors.  They were half a head taller than we were and lacked a chin, but otherwise looked much like us.  We, each people, kept to ourselves for the most part.  The day came, when we became aware of a new people, Men, inhabiting the jungle to our south.  They were a dark people, taller even than westmen, but fragile in appearance.  They proved to be of vicious temperament, as if in compensation for their frailty.  They hunted and ate, like animals, any stranger entering their territory, displaying the heads of their victims at the entrance to their lodgings.  All those living on their northern borders feared their poison darts.

Because of our sensible, settled nature, we discovered the working of metal when others still fashioned tools of stone. First came copper, then bronze and finally steel.  Bronze and steel tools enabled us to enlarge our dwellings and dig new dwellings where no caves existed.  We became skilled miners, stone carvers and smiths.  Soon, we found that our homeland could no longer support our numbers.  Our hunters were forced to venture further and further afield, bringing us into conflict with our neighbors.  Therefore, our Clan Chieftains met together as a single body and came to a momentous decision; eight-hundred summers after we first began counting the years, our people embarked upon the thousand-league trek, which would bring them to the Blue Mountains, south of the Western Jungle.  The journey lasted a full year, as we slogged through swamps and crossed wide rivers, hacking our way through the trackless jungle, pulling our carts behind us.  We fought off marauding bands men the entire time and they learned to fear our swords and axes of bright steel.  We lost many of our number to the cannibals of the jungle, they making no distinction between the helpless maiden or child and the able fighter.  Finally, in what should have been the spring of the year eight-hundred one, we climbed out of the jungle, into the foothills of the Blue Mountains.  We encountered few men in the foothills, but we pressed on for higher elevation, because we knew the men would come eventually.  We found that we were still deep in the tropics, where seasons have no meaning and we settled in a fertile river valley, where the climate was as springtime was in our native land, high above the lands of men.