Amellen an'Mallanë

Amellen Mallanë, Second of His Name, was the man who defined his era. He was the ruthless, long-lived ruler of th e house Mallanë, who waged a
war that lasted a century out of his astounding one-hundred and thirteen year
reign.  He came to the throne a kind boy,
fighting a war he believed just, and left it a bitter old man who died loveless
and heirless.

When Amellen was born, his father Ellemén was among the most hated Reya in the entire history of their
house.  He had lost the majority of their land to the growing Laurëan Kingdom and had watched his empire burn.  Amellen grew up as a hostage of the Laurëan
court.  Born under the domineering
control of his mother, Amellen was granted the crown at an early age.  He was raised on the tales of the great Laurë
Réya and their mighty Palatines.

His first mentor was his
mother’s lover, who loved him as a son.
From him, he would learn the ways of honor and the art of war.  Amellen’s playmate were his two younger
brothers (Orenon and Sellon) and the year-older Evenne.  Evenne was a common.  She was the greatest influence in his young
life and one day, when his mother and her lover were assassinated, she became
his guardian under his new regent, his uncle Arell.  Arell saught to use her.to control the king.  It was she who taught him the courtly ways
and tales of the Paladins.  But she also
was the person to, secretly, assure him of a grand destiny.

Arell had designs on the
throne, and when his nephews proved themselves to be more competent then he
supposed, he attempted a coup.  This coup
failed due to the efforts of the teenaged Evenne and Arell fled into his
lands.  But Arell was of old stock and
called for an election, and was declared the Father of the Mallanë by
three/fifths of all the scions in the Mallanë realm.  He had an army of 20,000, gathered by the
High Scions of the nation.  Amellen
called the lesser scions, loyal to him and managed to call the landowning
clansmen from the lowest class.  He soon
had a host of 16,000 men.

For three years, the
boy-king and his uncle warred across the land, with the entire host of
Amellen’s scions being utterly extinguished at one point.  But Amellen, still merely a boy at the time,
marched alongside his men on foot and his remaining scions developed a new
school of Laurë warfare: Heavy Infantry moving quickly on foot, with the scions
marching side by side with the footmen.
This army eventually would make a desperate counterattack that divided
Arell’s forces and eventually defeat Arell at “The Battle of the Walls of Flesh.”  Arell was pardoned by Amellen but he was
executed later after a second attempt to seize the throne ended with a brief,
easily crushed revolution.  His lands
were granted to Amellen’s brother Orenon.

Amellen grew into a man
and slowly came to love Evenne, in an innocent, childlike way.   He kept her close at all times and when he
came to his coronation at the age of 15, he secretly began arrangements to
marry her.  However, due to the advice of
the regent, he realized the weakness of his political position and instead
married a princess of Laurë.  He spent
the next few years as a model king, ruling in an honorable fashion and
cultivating the martial Laurë culture, culminating in a brief punitive campaign
against the Varags of the north. In this time, Evenne became his closest
confidant and for her service, he married her to a minor noble.  His own marriage, however, was utterly
miserable and his wife took on a number of lovers instead of him.

Amellen’s reign changed
forever when the Reya of the neighboring kingdom of Laurë died childless.  Normally, such a dispute would be solved by
the election of another close family member with heirs of their own.  A new Reya, Pelenon, was to be elected.  Amellen, however, made the claim that his
mother, a Laurëan Princess and sister to the dead King, was indeed the eldest
sibling.  By this logic, she should be
the rightful queen, and him her rightful successor.

He could not know that
the war he started next would last for almost a hundred years and utterly
destroy his kingdom.  When the council of
Electors denied him, he determined to win his empire by the strength of his
honor and of his sword.

It was then his beloved
brother, Orenon, betrayed him and claimed the title of Reya and raised half of
Amellen’s old army to support him.
Orenon sought only to depose him and felt no malice for his
brother.  In his failed rebellion, ten
thousand men died.  Amellen was merciful,
and spared his brother but his brother persisted and when released, he merely
renewed his wars.  Thrice was he captured
and twice was he shown mercy and in his rebellions, 24,000 men would die.  The third time, Amellen did the only thing he
could: he ordered the execution of his beloved brother.

In this bitter ending to
years of civil war, Amellen gathered his countrymen and did the unthinkable:
Invaded the Reyan of the Laurë.
Amellen’s reformed the military, turning it into a standing, paid,
professional army that was far better trained than the Laurë.  Amellen won battle after battle, always under
impossible odds.  In time, most of the
north belonged to Amellen.  At first,
Amellen was lenient and tolerant, kind to the people.  He gained the support of the Rëlines and
marched an army of 12,000 into the heartlands.

But, alas, the bloodlust
of his foes manifested itself in the forms of gruesome executions and Amellen
soon found his policy of refusing to raid the nearby towns to be impossible to
maintain.  He marched home after three
years but was blocked by an army of 30,000 men.
He met them at “The Battle of the Red Fords” and won the most costly
victory of the war.  Over 20,000 men died
in those waters and most of their bodies were never rediscovered.  In this battle, Amellen is said to have been
struck in the knee and fell face-first into the river.  He nearly drowned and never forgot the taste
of his own men’s blood.  He lay among the
corpses for an hour before rallying his men, as his men viciously fought to
defend him.  Half of his 12,000 men were
dead or wounded by the end, but near 25,000 Laurëans had been killed or wounded
in the waters.  Stinking corpses floated
for days afterwards.  Among the lost was
Amellen’s second brother, who died protecting Amellen from three Laurëan
Scions.  It was his sacrifice that had
driven Amellen to rally and in thanks, he built the Gates of the Martyred Brother.

Amellen returned a
grief-stricken man and was inconsolable over the loss of his brothers and his
kin.  Amellen sought comfort from his
wife but she now despised him even more.
So Amellen sought the comfort of his true love, Evenne.  They were now in their late thirties, but his
love of her had not changed, and when her husband died, he sought her out and
secretly confessed his love of her.  And
to his horror, he found that she did not love him as more than a friend.  It was at this moment, that he realized that
he had never felt real love in his whole life and determined that it was too
late.  So Amellen lost his sanity and
conscience.  He banished his advisors
from his presence and set about an iron purpose: gaining the crown of
Laurë.  Nothing mattered to him but the
war and his previous mercy was gone when he went on his second great raid.  He led his army into the heartland, gathering
twenty thousand men.  In addition, he
hired and formed dozens of mercenary bands.
Most of these were merely bands of legalized bandits, who raped and
pillaged throughout the entire country.
These were named “The Ravenous Hyenas.”
Amellen, once the most honorable of men, allowed his men to engage in
unrestrained vices and soon, the countryside on the northern marches burned and
the inhabitants were forced into serfdom.
The armies sent to obliterate him were destroyed and whenever Amellen
went, he left a trail of crucified corpses behind him.

The Rëlines withdrew
their support and soon came to the aid of their Laurë brothers.  But Amellen’s army, known as “The Starving
Lions” proved too powerful and unlike the previous campaign, they refused to
return to their homes.  Amellen remained
in the lands for twenty years and when he was done, he had stripped the nation
dry.

The Laurë finally got him
to agree to a ceasefire and for a year, they thought that Amellen’s menace was
over as they saw he army leaving.  They
couldn’t have known Amellen had never left and even as the bulk of his army
crossed the border, he began a slow, stealthy march over the razed lands, to
Arraz.  There, he broke his oath and
launched a whirlwind escalade of the city and with hours, Pelenon I was
captured, along with his royal palace.
Amellen could not hold the city, and shortly withdrew.  But he proclaimed himself Laurëan Reya.  But to the shock of all Laurëans, he then
proclaimed himself Valén Amellen, and Repalatine of the West.  This brought the wrath of all the Reya upon
him and Amellen retreated into the north.
The “Alliance of Amellen” (ironically named) determined that they would
march into the Mallanë lands in their own, great armed raid of 40,000
Laurë.  Amellen ignored them for years
until at last, the Mallanë proclaimed his deposition as king and elected a new
Great Scion.  Amellen force marched north
where he met them at “The Battle of the Lion Banner” where Amellen fought the
Laurëan world to a standstill. Pelenon was returned home, but without the crown
of Aleran.

Amellen hanged his rival
and negotiated a peace with the other powers.
He continued his futile war for over fifty more years and as his death
knell approached, his cold heart became near malevolent and embittered.  When he died, he was found clutching the
crown ‘til his hands bled.  His “son” (a
child of his wife’s affairs) succeeded him and continued the war until his
death.  Two generations passed and the
Mallanë began the civil war known as “The War of the Name.”  The dynasty collapsed and the individual
houses all became Reya in their own right.

The Lion King,
Symon Bahan