The Halfblood King: Book 1 of the Chronicles of Aertu (35 page)

Our people prospered and multiplied and we spread throughout the northwestern slopes of the Blue Mountains.  At the northern part of the range, we were deep in the tropics and could settle at very high elevations, where the air grew quite thin.  However, as we spread to the southwest of the range, we left the tropics and saw the return of the seasons.  It was then that we discovered that the seasons inverted in the southern half of the world.  What we had thought should be the months of summer, were in fact, the winter months.  We had crossed the equator, but we grasped not the concept at the time, thinking that the world was flat like a plate.  It was not until most recently, that the Sudeans sailed eastward from the inland sea, only to come, many months later, upon the western shores of the jungle, proving that the world was round.  The southwest reaches of our mountains were dry and harsh, but they were rich in good iron, so they drew our people there as well.  Soon we found our way through the mountains and settled the southeastern slopes as well.  We dug deeply into the mountains in search of metals and precious stones.  Our excavations expanded into cities, deep within the earth.  We learned to tame the wild oxen and goats of our mountains and as well, we began to till the fertile soil of our mountain valleys, clearing the great forests to grow barley and rye for bread and beer.  Our people multiplied and spread throughout the Blue Mountains.  The separate clans united into two kingdoms, the Northern and the Southern, which in turn were tied together in bonds of kinship and mutual cooperation.  It was thusly that we stood in the year fourteen twenty-five, when the gods of men and elves found us.

The Gods came to us in our mountain holds and we greeted them cordially, for they spoke to us in our own language.  It soon became apparent that these were beings much like the nature spirits we had already encountered, but of greater magnitude.  We did not worship the nature spirits as some among men and westmen had, so we were not inclined to worship these new arrivals either.  They told us as much, saying that they did not require our worship and that we should venerate only their Father, the Creator of all things.  They said that they would soon leave our world, to go on to build their own worlds, as their Father had done.  They came only to instruct the peoples of the world in those things that they needed to prosper.  The peoples of men and westmen were still living in savagery at this time and we knew not of the elves, who were civilized, but had not yet come to these shores.  The Gods saw that we had already learned much of what they had come to teach us.  They helped us to refine our methods, but spent much more time among men and westmen; as they had much further to go in becoming civilized.  One of their number, however, Gurlach, was intrigued by our people and spent much more time among us than the others did.  He is known among the other peoples, as the God of the Forge, for it was he who was tasked by his father to teach the working of metals.  Since we were already accomplished smiths in our own right, he was able to teach us much more advanced methods than he could to the other peoples.  He taught us to work metals unknown to the rest of the world, in crucibles sealed from the outside air, over fires of unimaginable intensity.  Dwarves learned to work metals lighter than steel, but many times tougher, and to make incredibly tough steel that would never rust, or steel that could withstand the heat of a typical forge without deforming.  It is because of this relationship and our thankfulness, that dwarves venerate Gurlach alone among the Gods, along with the Creator.

The Gods departed our lands exactly five-hundred years after their arrival, in the year nineteen twenty-five.  We were saddened for Gurlach to leave us, but he said it must be that way.  He warned us of the likely coming of the Adversary, who only awaited their departure to begin his quest for dominion over our world.  He told us also of two new mountain ranges far to the east, as yet unsettled by men.  In the year nineteen thirty, we mounted expeditions to colonize the White Mountains of the northeast coast and the Green Mountains of the southeast coast.  The men of the east, living on the shores of the inland sea, were long friendly to our people and let us pass unmolested.  The mountains, on the other hand, we found to be infested with trolls and other foulsome creatures.  The creatures of darkness had multiplied in the empty lands, which we had not allowed to happen in the Blue Mountains.  Two brigades of warriors were sent from the twin kingdoms, one to each range, to clear the way for the colonists.  By nineteen forty, the task was complete to our satisfaction in the Green Mountains and a thriving colony was established there.  The task proved much more formidable in the White Mountains, however.  That range stretched far to the north.  The trolls of the far north grew larger and more ferocious than their southern cousins.  Though we established a strong colony in the south of the range by nineteen forty, it took an additional twenty years of vicious fighting to subdue the northern trolls sufficiently to allow our expansion in that direction.

By twenty one sixty, the Green Mountain colony had advanced to the point of self-sufficiency and an independent kingdom established under members of the Southern Kingdom’s ruling family.  Soon afterward, in twenty-two hundred two, was the White Mountain Kingdom established, under a branch of the Northern Kingdom’s ruling house.  Thus, the White Mountain dwarves share stronger kinship with the Northern Blue Mountain dwarves, while the Green Mountain dwarves are more closely connected to the Southern Blue Mountain dwarves.  Due to their separation by five-hundred miles of open sea and our dwarvish mistrust of boats, the Green Mountain and White Mountain kingdoms have not grown closely together, though they are closer geographically to each other, than either is to their parents.  This does not mean, however, that there are no bonds between them, as all dwarves the world over are bound through kinship to one another.  We have accounted for our lineage since we were but few in numbers, living in the Iron Hills and have retained that record now for ten-thousand years.

The world remained relatively peaceful, with the exception of some minor wars among men, several of them caused by elves, for nearly two and a half millennia.  We kept the wild men of the jungle at bay and had generally good relations with our other neighbors among men.  As ever, we labored to keep the dark creatures that haunted our mountains at bay.  Our first contact with elves occurred in twenty forty-one.  They were tall and much fairer in complexion than men were, more like unto us in that respect.  They seemed to us a strange people, aloof in their dealings with others, projecting always an air of superiority.  They were indeed far more advanced than men were, but upon comparison, our calendar was one-hundred seventy years older.  In addition, they, like men, lived in savagery until the Gods came to teach among them.  They claim to be the elder race of our world, or so the Gods told them, but they have no concrete evidence to support that claim.  They do possess uncanny powers of perception and sorcery and so they seem to share some kinship with the Nature Spirits or the Gods.  Aside from anything that may be true of the elves, dwarves were the first Race of this world to rise from savagery by our own wits.  We stayed out of the wars of men and elves that occurred over the ages, letting them settle their own scores among themselves, that is, until the coming of the Adversary.

Sometime after the year five-thousand, we began hearing rumors of a new sinister power moving in the world.  He roamed among men, swaying many to his cause, especially those primitives who had rejected the Gods and continued to worship the unsavory spirits inhabiting the dark corners of the world.  When he came to us, we had been warned already of his coming and we rejected his overtures.  What needed we, power and dominion over the other Races?  We had dominion over our mountains and that was enough.  In sixty-one seventy, outright war broke out with the Adversary, involving every kingdom of this world.  Suspecting, rightly, that our extensive tunneling connected the northern and southern Blue Mountains and thus provided a direct route from his jungle stronghold to the southern lands of men, his forces attacked the Northern Kingdom.  He had early brought the men of the Jungle under his sway, arming them with weapons of steel.  Along with them, he had also the men of Kolixtlan and goblins and trolls he had bred by the thousands.  We held the Blue Mountains from him, thus doing our part for our allies among the free peoples of the world.  Our kin in the White Mountains harassed the men of the Thallasian Coast that had also come under his control.  The Adversary was finally defeated in sixty-one seventy-four and the sorcerers of elves and men imprisoned him within his own fortress at Immin Bul.  Our friend, King Aleron of Sudea, lost his life in the final battle, as did many of his kinsmen.  His line lasted another three millennia before dying out just over eight centuries ago, but his kingdom never regained the splendor it had in the days before the Great War, when it was the mightiest of the kingdoms of men.

Our lives returned to much as they were before the war.  We kept to ourselves, as we always did.  The elves retreated to their coastal lands and their island in the west, meddling no longer in the affairs of men.  Men, as they always had before, began once again to squabble among themselves in petty conflict.  Westmen, always peaceful, returned to their placid, pastoral existence in their northwestern lands.  Therefore, it stands, in our ten-thousandth year that the free peoples of the world, who once united against a common enemy, are again fragmented and concerned only with their own affairs.

Appendix C

Historical Synopsis of Elves, Dwarves and Men of Sudea

Sudean History

In days past, our forefathers walked the land in savagery. We wore clothing of animal skins and hunted the forests and plains with spears and arrows tipped in stone.  We made war among ourselves, for we knew not of government.  We lived by hunting and foraging, for we knew not how to farm.  We wandered in this fashion for uncounted ages, for we knew not writing, or the counting of years.  We encountered spirits in the lands of our birth and we learned much of the ways of nature from them.  We learned as well, that not all of these spirits were to be trusted. Some were tricksters, or worse and often meant us harm.  Many among us worshipped the spirits and raised them up as gods and goddesses, for we knew not then their true nature, that they were the grandchildren of the Creator.

There came a day that a new set of beings came into our midst.  These newcomers were far more powerful than the spirits of nature to which we were accustomed.  Many among us accepted them as Gods, though they never revealed their true nature to us.  Our new deities numbered thirteen in all, six Gods and seven Goddesses.  We knew not at that time the reason behind the uneven number.  They taught us many things, the smelting of metals, rearing of livestock and the growing of crops.  Our numbers multiplied and our rude villages became towering cities of stone.  For exactly five-hundred years, the Gods walked among us and then they left, telling the people that they must depart, never to return.  There was much weeping upon the departure of our Gods and we continued in their worship, hoping futilely that we could convince them to return.  During our time with the Gods, our people spread from the hot jungles of our ancestral homeland, into the empty lands to the south.  The few scattered bands of men we encountered there quickly became assimilated into our own numbers and our kingdom stretched from the mountains and sea of the north, to the frozen wastes of the south and from the west coast to the east.  Men even ventured into the forbidding wastes of the Great Southeastern Desert, taming the camel and becoming one with that harsh land.

During the year of six-hundred twelve, a new Race arrived on our southwestern shores.  They were tall and fair of skin, many having blond hair, as of yet unknown among our people, for we were a dark Race at that time.  We knew them as elves and we accepted them as overlords unto us.  They revealed to us that they too had been pupils under tutelage of our Gods, but for far longer than we had.  They would reveal unto us the true nature of our gods as the children of the Creator and the nature spirits as their children in turn.  They would also reveal unto us the reason for the gods’ uneven pairing and the nature of the Adversary, he being otherwise unnamed and the one missing from their number.  The seat of our kingdom lay over one-thousand leagues to the northeast, at Cop, on the shores of the inland sea.  Our king chose not to accept the overlordship of our elven friends and brought war upon us southern men who had.  The elves possessed powers of sorcery akin to those of the spirits of nature and used their powers to forge magical weapons for their allies among men.  The forces of our former king were defeated in the year six-hundred twenty-one and the Province of Sudea established, being all the land south of the parallel defining the southern border of the Great Southeastern Desert.  For over two millennia, our people prospered and our numbers multiplied.  The blood of the elves mingled with our own, even spreading into the populations north of our borders.  Over time, Sudeans came to resemble their elven masters more than they did their northern cousins.  With the spread of elvish blood among men, came also the first sorcerers among men.

In the year tenty-six thirty-one, in order to avoid outright rebellion, the Kingdom of Sudea was established, its capital at Arundell, freeing us from thralldom to Elvenholm and the elven King.  The provincial High Governor was declared King of Sudea, with his half-elf son as heir apparent to the throne.  The halfblood caste was established and members of halfblood families were forbidden to marry among the families of lesser men, else they lose their status in the ruling caste.  The halfbloods lived not as long as those of pure elvish blood, but their lifespans far exceeding those of men.  628 years passed with no contact between the Western Isle of Elvenholm and the lands of men.

During the first six centuries of our independence, Sudea’s men prospered and multiplied.  We pushed our borders far to the north, flanking the desert on its western borders, coming even to the mountains of the dwarves.  We controlled the entire east coast of Elmenia unto the inlet to the inland sea.  We took what we had learned of ships from the elves and improved upon it.  Our people became great mariners, the greatest the world had ever known.  Sailors travelled both coasts, even braving the ice-ridden seas of the far north to navigate the waters of the northern inlet that divides the lands of the west from those of the east.  Sudean ships made their way even to the northern slopes of the impassable mountains dividing our lands from those to the north, trading with the strange people of Kolixtlan, in the jungle interior.  Our tongue became the language of trade for merchants the world over and in many lands, it became as commonplace as the native tongue.  Our armorers, rather than being common smiths, were sorcerer smiths, forging terrible weapons of immense power, as had the elvish smiths of old.  As our civilization approached its zenith, the elves returned to our western shores.