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Myth of the Month

October 2005

Three Documents, one event

Second part next month!

A Letter to the Duke

Your humble servant General Danshavlas of Grumya sends this message.

As a token of your army's great victory, in your hand you hold the sacred dagger of the long-sought King of the Savage Plateau. To the savages this is incredibly powerful and important, for it is their founding god, their creator, called Gor, or sometimes Gorgor.

The Koralint Bay is a spectacular sight, like a land of giants. The immense Arkat Volcano lies to the left, in the west and towers above the clouds in a great green cloak. To the north rises the Uz Plateau, where the Lord of Night broods and hates us. Its steep cliffs are a hundred feet or more tall. Incredibly, far behind and towering over all was the snow-capped Dragon Mountain. And to the east, the stark cliffs of the Savage Lands, backed by bleak mountains and the tall, ice-capped castle of the gods.

Voromosteles "of the green hand" relays these: Volcano at 20; Plateau 15, and see Vesetris line 42; Dragon Mountain, 25! "...and she wept three days, surrendered;" Castle 15; Deep 12, but untouched by burn.

On the propitious day the Forward Eastern Army landed at the mouth of the Uxeler River, and within the day secured the fort. No one was present, save for a thousand corpses long decayed. They did not attack us. Because the cliffs are so difficult I sent the Senthen bowmen in small boats upriver where they landed and scouted for the enemy. The cowards of course never appeared, and so within a few days the entire army followed and assembled at the place that I have named Saint Ostar Field, for the day we landed.

One week later the sorcerers began their fires. Its ignition was hotter than their best minds expected, and so several hundred of my best men were burnt to death in the explosion. But on schedule it swept outward rapidly, leaving nothing but ash covered ground and rock behind. The army followed and scouted through everything. We killed almost everything that we found alive. The contingent led by Bishop Froaler of Beregor allowed the escape of a large flock of leather winged creatures. The Derel Guards were destroyed by one behemoth that had to be dispatched by the wizards. But we found many people, and these of course were the ghost bandits of the plateau. We found two places that were gateways to someplace, which the clerics damned with the holy book, and the Warcrafter sealed with magical stone.

After 25 miles the fire went out. Within its area we killed 42 people and others of the bandits, and their ghosts were hanging from the Yimpish Nets. The clerks read the Grand Statement, and then translators stood on the edge of the circle where the ash met the trees, and they shouted it in the mountain language of the bandits.

A little while later an old man came out of the woods to the north. He is the king of these people, who he called the Hartings, as in the old devil's legends. He came with his two wives, and with trembling and tears he begged that we stop our magic or else the other half of his people would be killed. He was dressed in furs and leather, and his chain mail was weak and plain iron. One of his wives was young and beautiful, and the other old and ugly, and both were scantily dressed. The king surrendered this weapon, the sacred weapon of his people. The beauty and skill it has is impossible for these savages to do, and so this was either truly what they said-a thing made by the gods of old; or perhaps it is something imported from the Golden Empire, past the dragon lands.

His name is Beserid, and the sorcerers determined that he was truly who he said he was. For King Beserid agreed to all we said, and he swore that he and his tribe would ever after obey the Great Father to the west-that is of course to you my Great Duke Malmakan. Certainly now you may extend that map of yours to include the Savage Plateau!

The king led the army through the rest of his domain. They have no cities or forts, and their two towns are pathetic bundles of sticks and rocks. In the first one, called Urmart, the men destroyed an idol to their wind god, and at the second, called Kersted, burned an idol of naked genitals. Before we returned to Saint Ostar Field many others among them had come forth to see us. They are a small people, dark-haired and -eyed. But their men are puny and weak, and they have only avoided us because of their magic.

I believe, after a month in the company of King Beserid, that it was not they who destroyed the fort and its brave guardians. Beserid first singled out the behemoth we slew. When I explained that such a huge thing would have ruined the castle, he said that it must have been the Kitings-the monster men that live father north, towards the dragon lands. He was quite afraid of them, he said, and was worried that with half his tribe dead they might not make it through the winter. I gave him my deepest regrets and said I would leave behind some food for his people at our fort. I gave him a flag to wave when he came to the fort. It is of your Service Household, of course.

But the uz, the servants of the black prince, are certainly the greater foe in the region. I believe we have credited many deeds to the Hartings that had been done by the uzings. I can not believe those peoples were ever capable of destroying either Anixman's army, nor the fortress. They are truly dangerous, as the bearer of this letter shall bear witness. He is the sole survivor of three lances who met eight of the krjalki on a road in the daytime.

The land that we burned is useless to supply food. The wild forests, the Larnti Forest said the king, cannot possibly provide sustenance for more than a few hundred people. Hence I withdrew the army. One thousand men, mostly from Beregor and Theuz are now stationed in the fortress, under the command of Bared of Serenenth. The Bishop of Beregor is there as well with his household, for magical defense. Also, Severin and his band.

The fleet shall sail this calm and beautiful bay and in the name of Makan and Duke Malmakan, collect loyalty and tribute from whatever other miserable natives live hereabouts, as has been ordered.

So, I am happy to report that we shall return to the port, as scheduled, but with the army.

In the grace of my lord and my God, I shall ever remain truly your servant, Danshavlas of Grumya. IOL, IOV.

Excerpt from the Nobility of Emperors

The mystery of this was solved decades later when a scholar was combing his records and came upon the famous letter now called the "Danshavlas' Link," translated above.