An account of the joint military action carried out by the elves and the humans of Rhoderica against the Southren, by Peter Fey, the holy scribe who recorded the life of King David of Westaster.
Year of the Light 656
Year of the Sundering 154
The sight, which greeted the Southren as they advanced into the Valley of Lost Souls, must have turned their black blood to ice. Even those base creatures must have felt dread at the sight of the massed ranks of the allied forces; the joint human and elven army so vast that it stretched from the slopes of Eaglemount to the foothills of the Happenine Mountains. On the left flank stood the cavalry of Rosewall, their huge warhorses demonic in green armour. To the right was amassed the yeomanry of Rosewall and Gorwentia and behind them the trained militia of both kingdoms. Holding the centre, numbering double the troops mustered by Rosewall and Gorwentia together, waited the red armoured infantry of Westaster. Behind them stood the famed cavalry of King David, their ruler resplendent in his gold armour at their head. Never before had the kingdoms of East Rhoderica taken to the field together. In the Hundred Year War against the elves it was commonplace for two kingdoms to unite against invaders, though it was half a century since that war had ended. Such alliances were unprecedented in the lives of the subjects who filled the ranks of the human armies. Few of them would even be able to talk of parents who had witnessed such an occasion as they waited nervously for the Southren to attack.
The uneasy alliance was overshadowed by the arrival of the elves. For weeks rumour had been rife amongst the humans that an alliance had been struck with the fair folk, though not even their monarchs had been sure that the ancient ones would take to the field. As rumour had grown to expectation, many men of the West shuddered at the thought of standing with their flank exposed to the old enemy and questioned the wisdom of their rulers as they chatted by the watch fires at night. Yet when they saw the atrocities committed across their borders by the Southren, many more offered prayers to their soldier gods that the elves would answer the call to arms. Nothing could prepare them though for the sight of the full elven army entering the valley like ghosts.
The Elves marched silently between the Watchmen, the emerald needles that guarded the entrance to the Summerlands. First came King Rogan’s cavalry, two thousand knights clad in burnished silver, their steeds fearsome in angular armour. There were so many riders that their raised lances resembled a stark, leafless forest. The archers, following swiftly on foot numbered thirty hundreds. Then came the infantry in their red cloaks; swords and double bladed axes gleaming in the first light of dawn. It seemed to the Westlanders that the elves must have emptied the Summerlands of inhabitants.
As the sun reached its zenith the war bands of the Southren poured into the valley. Clouds of rain and lightning scudded above them, their weather sorcerers sending every evil they could summon against the allies. If the Southren felt fear at the mighty army ordered before them they did not show it. Blackheart, the Southren chieftain who had united the warring clans and set them on their conquest of southern Rhoderica sent his army racing up the valley. To the untrained eye the savages appeared to lack guile, relying on their weight of numbers for advantage, and it is true over thirty thousand of the green-skinned warriors flooded the Valley of Lost Souls that day. But every war band was a tight unit of a thousand warriors and each had a designated job. They broke left or right and swarmed a target with devastating effect as their leaders directed them with ragged flags.
As the Southren closed to within two hundred yards of the allied line King Rogan nodded to his aides. A volley of arrows, so dense that the sky was momentarily blackened, was let loose. The weather sorcerers immediately countered the act. Great gusts and gales were summoned from boiling clouds that now hovered ominously over the allied lines. Shuddering blasts assailed the soldiers and battered fiercely at the archers so that they found it difficult to release a second volley. Many arrows were forced to ground instantly, but many also found their mark amongst the front lines of the savages. A hundred yards to go and lightning lanced down from the black clouds, causing human and elven knights to lose control of their mounts. Many perished in the storm of unholy light that raked the allied lines. Humans and elves writhed in agony and the noise of the terrible thunder that accompanied the supernatural assault caused others to panic and break from their lines. These poor souls were next to perish as the mighty armies locked together in deadly embrace.
The black tide of the Southren hit the defensive wall with a sickening crunch, but the savages balked against the shield wall. In only a few places did the line buckle under Southren numbers and troops held in reserve hurried forward to plug the gaps. After thirty minutes of bloody attrition the shield wall still held. The allies stumbled over a thick line of corpses, populated by equal numbers of casualties from both sides, but the relentless rain of arrows from the elven archers was beginning to take its toll on the Southren, unable to escape the deadly rain in the press of those behind and the fighting line ahead. As some of the weather sorcerers fell the storm that raged above the allies waned. The Southren, unable to breech the shield wall and harry their designated targets began to lose discipline and momentum was fatally lost. Sensing weakness, King Rogan called to his aides and a horn blast soared above the din of battle. The elven cavalry sprang forward; their heavy mounts quickly gathering speed. King David gasped as he thought the warhorses would crush their own foot soldiers, but the elven archers and infantry allowed many paths to open in their ranks, only to form up again seamlessly after the cavalry raced through. King Rogan was in the vanguard that drove a wedge into the centre of the Southren hordes and not wanting to be outdone King David lead forward his own knights. They hit the Southren as they were still trying to recover from King Rogan’s charge and many of the savages were simply smashed aside or trampled under foot as the two cavalries drove deep into the heart of Blackheart’s army and then swept round in a mighty pincer movement. Banner after banner fell as the Southren turned their backs on the allies in desperate flight.
The unnatural storm abated and the thin vapours of broken cloud gave the savages no protection from the slaughter that followed. The cavalry of Rosewall joined the rout, which rapidly turned into a merciless hunt. Those Southren overrun by the horse soldiers were cornered by the allied infantry and executed, with no quarter given; the soldiers had seen too much of the cruelty of the savages for them to think of leniency. The cavalry charge carried the allies fully halfway down the valley before King Rogan and King David had the sense to reign in their knights. As the two leaders nudged their blowing horses towards one another they looked back towards their lines. The valley floor was carpeted with the dead of both sides, but the majority of fallen belonged to the Southren. Over half of Blackheart’s army lay dead or dying; the rest were in flight. The threat from the south had been smashed. An extensive search of the battlefield failed to turn up the body of Blackheart, but eyewitnesses reported that he withdrew wounded across the South Sea. Whatever his fate, he was never seen again in Rhoderica.
The allies celebrated their victory at Meadowgate, the red-walled capital of Rosewall. Men and elves drank ale, ate boar and sang ballads together. New songs were crafted telling of the Charge of the Kings, and willing women were in plentiful supply for the victors. Eidur, King Rogan’s brave and daring captain attracted many admirers, but fell foul of the elf-king’s wrath after bedding the daughter of one of the lords of Rosewall. Rogan was furious with Eidur for lowering himself to ‘human standards’ and ordered him to take Lady Eleanor as his wife and make a life for her back in the Summerlands. She became the first human woman to enter the East since the elves had conquered the former human lands, though according to all reports she lived a life of strict confinement there.
Eleanor gave Eidur a son to add to the two his late wife Alouaine had borne him. They felt no embarrassment for the half-elf, only pride and deep love. They named him Kirik, meaning peace in the elven tongue, and in time he took his place in history, a symbol of hope for both nations in the terrible era known as the ‘Night Ages’.