LEGENDS OF CALRADIA: CONQUEST
Written & Narrated By: Sir Owen of Ruluns
Authors Note: This is a story I've been working on for some time now along with its Machinima-FanFilm counterpart I'll be posting on Youtube here in the next few weeks. The Story is set in the Fictional world of Calradia from the PC game Mount & Blade: Warband. I specifically used a personally modified version of the player made mod "Floris Expanded" for both game play footage in my Machinima and as reference to locations, noble names and to use as inspiration for the most accurate and detailed description of the environment and outlying area in most battles, the events during the battles and so forth. So with that said not much is really "Native" in this story.
Disclaimer: I do NOT own rights to "Mount&Blade", "Mount & Blade: Warband" or the mod "Floris Expanded". This is a not for profit fan fiction purely for entertainment purposes and unintended for purchase and/or distribution beyond this website. I do claim rights to several of the characters within the story however but on the large scale the majority of the characters, settings, place names and locations belongs to Taleworlds Entertainment and/or Paradox Interactive and/or the DevTeam for "Floris Expanded" which will be listed in full in the end credits of my Machinima counterpart to this story once posted on Youtube
Rated MA (Mature): Brutal Medieval Warfare|Strong Language|Suggestive Themes
-Prologue-
Its was just before the dawn of January 14th, 1359 that I realized, Archon the Maker, had truly abandoned our cause and our people. Having suffered the loss of the majority of our kingdom to the Rhodoks and their allied coalition with the Nords over the course of two years of warfare, Swadia as a whole, was feeling the loss of those fortresses. Moreover we felt the loss of the Lords and noblemen who ruled over them and the soldiers, serfs and innocents whom served under them. Though it was once a great and powerful nation which commanded the respect, admiration and even at times, the fear of the other five Kingdoms; Swadia had become a shadow of its former glory, it's people reduced to the confines of their seemingly eternal imprisonment: Dhirim. It was the name of our sanctuary and the name of our prison . Home to some, a place of trade and learning to others but for the thousands of soldiers who stood guard, garrisoned on the walls and at the gates, it would forever be the name associated to our legacy.
Centuries from now, young scribes and scholars attending the institutions and academies that now litter Calradia will be taught the history of Swadia. When our names are spoken, they will not say Edwain, a skilled blacksmith and horseman, no, they will say Sir Edwain, captain of the finest cavalry company under Lord Stamar of the Kingdom of Swadia, killed during the final battle of the Siege of Dhirim. It was always destined to be the name whispered in our ear as the maker would take us into his bosom and carry us to the heavens to rest in eternal peace. Likewise, even now it is the name that haunts those of us who survived that day.
I can still remember the stories I had heard about Dhirim as a boy; the ones told by the traveling merchants and distant village elder's made me imagine it to be a city made of gold and that it had been blessed by the divines as the birthplace of humanity, though as I grew older my childlike gullibility faded. It didn't take long for me to come to the conclusion that if half the words flung from the lips of a minstrel's imagination were true the world might have been taken over by mystical beasts posing as men centuries ago. While stationed there just after Uxkhal fell, it was easy for me to see what set Dhirim apart from the other three major trade capitals of the Kingdom of Swadia. Dhirim had everything the other three cities had, except bigger. The Castle keep was bigger, the Tavern was bigger, the town square was at least a dozen times bigger than the one in Suno, and lastly the Templique Tres Divinitas, or the Temple of the Three Divines in the common tongue. It was the grandest temple I'd ever laid my eyes upon. From its stone sculptures and relief carvings on the stone pillars to the stained glass art within the mass hall and the scrolled Iron gates around the temple's graveyard, it was possibly the greatest structure ever made by mankind. I can still hear the ringing of the bells, as pure as any temple's bells ever rung. It had three, specifically one for each of the three bell towers at the top of each wing of the temple. Atop the wedge-shaped roof of each tower, protruded the symbol for that wing's specific divine. One wing, one tower, for each of the Triumveratas' of our faith. Engraved and scroll carved buttresses connected the seam between the base of the tower and the temple wing's mass hall. It was a sight to behold. Enough so, to make even the most worldly of hearts doubt their disbelief.
Between the stories and legends and its central location with trade routes leading to all known major cities within the six kingdoms, Dhirim was the prime target of many an attack. Usually the first to be assaulted during the early phases of a war with any of the eastward kingdoms, its tall, thick walls withstood centuries of siege-warfare without being weakened or breached. Only once, had the city of Dhirim changed hands of kingdom. Near 150 years after its final construction, a great leader amongst the Khergit Steppes united his people and led them against the Swadians. It was the closest any nation had ever come to taking Dhirim by force. At the time, only the King of Swadia, the Baron of the city and the Baron's elite retinue knew of the passage ways below the cities' surface. Suffering incomprehensible attrition, the city was surrendered to the Khanate of the east, under peaceful negotiations. Though what the upstart war-leader didn't know was that the very next night, the Baron and 300 of his best knights planned to retake the castle using the labyrinth from the entrance near Emirin. The city was retaken by force in a single night, and the Khan of the Khergit Steppes was captured and sentenced to death ending Swadia's war with the Khergit Khanate. Scholars from all reaches of Calradia have often studied this history lesson, as have military strategists, which is why we were unable to use this tactic, even had we knowledge of how to navigate the seemingly endless corridors of the cities underground.
As it stood, just before the city fell, all of the Lords of Swadia; at least the ones still alive or not being held captive, had gathered in defense of Dhirim and declared martial law within the city and issued a curfew to help prevent looting and theft. Desertion went without mentioning, with the only fortress left to Swadia, being completely surrounded by enemy lines, some of which, were as close to the walls as 30 feet, there was nowhere to desert to. We had just under ten-thousand soldiers and men at arms garrisoned within the city walls, the majority of which were lower caste, commoners, forced to sleep in the vast labyrinth of dungeons and causeways under the city, I was among them.
Though, they were times of desperation, criminal activity was met with swift justice at the business end of the headsman's axe. Food was so scarce after the first month that even the rodents of the cities dungeons and causeways were considered a delicacy reserved for the nobles, who had already eaten most of the horses and other domesticated farm animals running around. Hunger was such, that it was a commonplace scene to see a man digging with his bare hands only to pull a worm from the earth and make a meal of it. What drew my ire more than anything was our enemy. While we fought amongst ourselves over insects and scraps, plagued with disease and malcontent, with flaring tempers and crowded conditions, our enemies danced, drank and sang songs of merriment adding insult to injury. I tried to stay optimistic, but the mask I wore in front of the younger recruits, the face I put on for the sake of morale, the uplifting demeanor I commanded, my smile, all would fade when I found myself in solitude. And when I looked into the eyes of my friends, my countrymen, I saw through their masks; the faces they wore to disguise their hurt. I could see their fear, their doubt, anguish, pity, self loathing, their unquenchable thirst for the enemies blood and their desire to exact vengeance, to seek retribution. I could feel the woe they carried with them, for their loved ones lost, the sorrow bore for the brother's they've had to watch die, holding them in their arms in their last moments, telling them lies to comfort their passing; for these were the same emotions, the same conflicts that I hid behind my own masks, of which I wore many. The only consolation I found in the days that preceded those times and even long after the siege was when I put quill to parchment.
For near a year after I enlisted, my unit had seen more combat than many of the other war-parties had. But for all of the war and death we witnessed, of the men we'd slain and the blood we'd spilled, they were as an ant mound to a Fortress by comparison to the horrors we endured at Dhirim. It was unspeakable and time seemed almost countless. Each day that passed felt as a week to those of us within the city. Months could have gone by, possibly, but for the few of us who yet survived and lived past that awful chapter in Swadian history, in truth would not truly know themselves, for the memories of the events that took place during the siege drove many of us to the brink of insanity.