Lore:Triumphs of a Monarch, Ch. 3

Chapter 3: At the Gates of  !


For a dozen years after the  , the kingdoms of   were at peace, and the merchant ships of  , Daggerfall, and Sentinel traded near and far to all the ports of  . In my father's hall of business in Wayrest I learned of the tracking of shipments, the balancing of accounts, and the fluctuation of currencies, but   knew the nature of the world, and he was not content to have his son learn only of the ways of peace and trade. Every morning I sparred with the Cumberland Master of Arms, and every afternoon the weather permitted I rode a warhorse, exercising with the    . It wasn't just practice: for two months every summer, I traveled as lieutenant of the mounted escort of the   Caravan, and a half-dozen times we fought off hill bandits,   raiders, and   war bands.

I was fortunate to have spent so much time with a hilt in my hand, for in  , when I was but twenty,   the Black Drake spread his wings in   and mustered his feral tribesmen to war. Erupting from their mountain lairs like ants from a kicked anthill, the Reachmen howled down into  , burning and looting. After only three days' siege, Evermore fell to this horde. The land was pillaged and its people massacred.   held out longer, but eventually it was also overrun by the heathen swarm. Within days, they were across the   and bearing down upon Wayrest.

Then all were grateful that King   had built new walls and battlements around Wayrest, for the town had grown so that it had burst the bounds of the old walls. Throngs of people swarmed in from the countryside, and soon it seemed that all Menevia,  , and   were within the city walls. But when the Reachman storm burst upon Wayrest, the crowded conditions seemed a small price to pay for protection from the fury of those  -loving heathens.

Thus began the epic  , when for fifty-seven days and nights the   s of Stormhaven manned the walls and repulsed the savage assaults of our terrible opponents. The Reachmen, lacking siege engines, were unable to breach our new walls and take the city by storm, and lacking ships they were unable to blockade our harbor and reduce the city by starvation. Stalemate: was Durcorach's invasion of High Rock at an end?

Indeed, no: your Reachman warrior, though fearless and fierce, is not as a rule very patient. The Black Drake left enough troops in the revetments around our walls to keep us bottled up inside and simply marched off west into  . Taken by surprise, the newly-independent city-state of   fell and was sacked. And then Durcorach turned his eyes south, toward Daggerfall.

Fortunately, King Gardner heeded my advice to use our merchant ships as transports for the Heavy Dragoons. That was how I found myself at the head of the lances of Wayrest's finest as we charged into the rear of the Reachmen massed before Daggerfall's city gates. All Bretons know how the Black Drake's warriors were caught completely by surprise, how I smote Durcorach and tore down his Unholy Banner. They know of the sortie of the Knights of Daggerfall in which King   finished the work we'd begun, scattering the broken army of heathens like autumn leaves before a gale.

Only one fortnight after that I watched, head bowed, as the kings of Daggerfall, Camlorn,  , Evermore, and Wayrest signed the first Daggerfall Covenant.