Ancient Lloroi texts make occasional reference to the province of Vultelina a name meaning "Land of the Castle Builders." It was a gentle, rolling country whose castles had become an anachronism in the prevailing peace of Lloroi rule.
Then came the Cataclysm. The earth split, thrust and buckled with high, anticlinal mountains. The darkest of dark ages fell over the torn land and even the name Vultelina survived in a few foreign manuscripts only. The rare hints we garner from neighboring lands suggest that brute savagery reigned. Says the fragmentary Annals of Groat: " . . .two-legged beasts from the east, wildest of the wild men . . . "
The surviving traditions of the barbarian states set up on the ruins of Kalruna-Sasir (as ancient Muetar was called) imply that some of the conquerors came out of the former Vultelina. Rude as these men were, they were not mere "two-legged beasts" by the sixth century after the Cataclysm. This suggests that a higher grade of tribal life was slowly evolving in the Border Forest and the Mountains of Ice.
By the time that the Oyarostar dynasty was established at Basimar, written mention of the Border Forest became frequent. Several important groups existed, alternately quarreling and allying with one another. Of these, the Ctoliboci tribe gave Basimar the most trouble, raiding for livestock and women, then retreating into the tangled forests.
But the Mueta were not great historiographers and their information concerning the Border Forest remains vague and prejudiced. Better material issues from Groat in the mid-tenth century. A young nobleman, evacuating the city in the wake of the approaching "abominations of the land and the horrors of the air," fled along the edge of the Border Forest and fell into the hands of the Ctoliboci tribe. He labored in their villages for five years as a slave until he escaped to Basimar. In EXILE, his memoir, Helico says: "Small villages are the characteristic unit of habitation for the Ctoliboci and their neighbors. They are composed of small groups of real or nominal relatives holding their lands in common.
"A warlike family, said to have come to our village some eight generations ago, established itself there as a chiefly group with claim to considerable spiritual and temporal power. Oddly enough, village disputes are settled within the families concerned or by the pressure of public opinion. The chiefs take no part and, indeed, are expressly excluded. They are regarded, and regard themselves, as war leaders and controllers of certain ceremonies. Oftentimes tribes which are defeated in war are given chiefs chosen by the victor. The easy acceptance of such outsiders allows an aggressive people to form a hegemony over a wide territory. But the forest people are incapable of establishing a kingdom upon such a base, and a defeat or disgrace will do away with the conqueror's authority."
Of religion, Helico reports: "The tribesmen worship their gods more out of fear than love. This is especially true of the god of the underworld and earthquake, Aegatti. Upon each winter solstice the barbarians build a long structure resembling a mountain, which they i set aflame. Thereupon, the able young men of the village chew upon . an intoxicating root called tistrya and perform a frenzied dance around the fire. It continues until one of the dancers is carried away by his fanaticism and throws himself into the blaze. The tribesmen believe that it is better that one man be sacrificed to Aegatti's cruel hunger than that he should send a new Cataclysm and extinguish the lives of all men everywhere."
Farther south, the Mountains of Ice gave rise to a number of even wilder tribes. Living in a land where life was a constant struggle against men, beasts and starvation, they became skilled hunters and built their settlements on hilltops encircled with crude protecting walls. From these strongholds they raided the people of the valleys and forests. The most important of the hill tribes was the Bisini, pictured as long-haired savages wearing cloaks of scraggly black wool who pursued a life of hunting and warring on their neighbors.
In the eighth century traders from Adeese began calling on the tribes of the Scab Forest. Soon, having appraised the dominant position for the hill tribes, they extended their contacts to include the Bisini and other groups. It was the Adeesi that gave the region a name: Zehr-hu-Pon ( "the Wild Mountains" ).
Opulent Adeese, ruled by a merchant class oligarchy, was a city-state extending from the Dry Mountains to the Altars of Greystaff. The domain required slaves in vast quantities--not only for private service, but also in the mines and public construction gangs. The hill tribes welcomed the chance to sell captives in exchange for civilized baubles and weapons. They ranged far and wide, seeking prisoners, even warring on one another for that purpose. These conflicts eventually placed the Bisini in a dominant position.
During one of the frequent visits of Adeesi traders to the area of Split Rock Pass, the merchants noticed tin ore amid the gravel of a dry run. Tin was an element in great demand in Adeese, for use in alloying bronze and other metals. The powerful trading city of Khuzdul had up to then monopolized the deposits of tin in the Dry Mountains at the expense of Adeese, Zefnar and Jipols. Adeesi agents drew up treaties with the Bisini to mine the tin and build a fort south of Split Rock Pass. This fort they named Marzarbol ("Heart of Tin").
Relations between the mine operators and the tribesmen gradually deteriorated. The Adeesi often regarded the hill men with contempt and cheated them in their business transactions. Then, too, agents from Khuzdul worked to incite the tribes against the Adeesi, suggesting that they should drive out the insolent foreigners and work the mines for their own profit. All these provocations exploded in violence when several Bisini were beheaded in Marzarbol on the charge of thievery. The hill men swept down on the mining camps and put the Adeesi to death with terrible torture.
For a time the Bisini attempted to mine the ore themselves, but because they lacked the skill and knowledge to do so, production totally broke down.
Two years after the massacre at Marzarbol, the tribes of the Scab were overawed by long columns of infantry and armored cavalry moving in flashing streams of steel and brass. They hurriedly sent gifts to the Adeesi and were stunned to discover that the army was led by a champion whose fame was rumored even in the remote forests--the immortal Black Knight. The Knight granted them generous terms of surrender in exchange for auxiliaries and scouts. The Scab men complied with enthusiasm, for the Bisini confederacy had preyed upon the forest for a long time and tribal animosities ran deep.
The Bisini chieftains responded to the invasion by gathering their warriors, but quarrels over leadership and dignities cost the barbarians precious time.
The Black Knight's ingenious victories in the forbidding terrain of Zehr-hu-Pon are described in his own account, THE BISINI WAR. He defeated the barbarians when they chose to fight and rooted them out when they declined to do so. Each victory brought more defections from the Bisini vassals and allies. In two years the Black Knight had done the near-impossible, extending the sway of Adeese north to the Wanderer River. The mine owners returned with a vengeance, sending the enslaved Bisini themselves down into the pits. Almost as notorious for its cost in human lives was the construction of an aqueduct stretching from the Wanderer to Adeese and irrigating the lands in between.
Adeese held Zehr-hu-Pon by a ruthless application of force, but colonization was not without its benefits. Chieftains' sons, brought to Adeese as hostages, were educated as Adeesi and sent back to rule when their barbarous fathers died. These men became sponsors of a civilizing mission among the upper classes of the province. As hereditary chieftains became more cultured, many received titles from the Adeesi government. Of these, the order of dukes was the most important, that rank being granted a regional jurisdiction. The lower ranks of society learned the civilized arts too, but mainly a coarse form from service in the city-state's army. Many military positions became available to barbarous types as the Adeesi people grew less warlike themselves.
But Zehr-hu-Pon remained Adeese's captive bride. Adeesi governors and generals installed in Fortress Marzarbol and Grugongi ("Heap in the Hills," as its garrison christened it) earned the natives' detestation by their corruption and their ruinous conscription of men and material. Thus, though the people of Zehr-hu-Pon benefitted from the Adeesi's cities, public works and arts, they plotted to achieve their independence. No able leader acceptable to the whole province appeared, however, and piecemeal revolts were easily crushed.
Except for a flood of refugees from Kalruna-Sasir, the tenth century invasion of Minaria by the "abominations of the land and the horrors of the air" affected no more than the extreme western borders of the province. That century also saw the decay of Adeese's borders and political system. Southern barbarians had extinguished all its settlements south of the Sea of Zett, while corruption and factionalism paralyzed the government. Finally Esheq, a half-barbarous captain of the mercenary Ginnui tribesmen, slaughtered the oligarchs and established a personal tyranny. Only one important nobleman, General Kedron, escaped execution. He rallied the rural people and held the northeastern border country for a time. Finally he retreated into Zehr-hu-Pon.
The Ginnui gave pursuit, but Zehr-hu-Ponese serving with Kedron helped decoy them into a mountain defile where an ambush waited. After the decimated Ginnui fled, Kedron interrupted the flow of water through the great aqueduct. He rightly guessed that crop failure in Adeese's parched lands would increase Esheq's political problems.
Next, Kedron laid siege to Marzarbol, incompetently held by one of Esheq's creatures, a man detested in Zehr-hu-Pon. The treachery of a spy opened the gates for Kedron's forces and he took possession of the city.
Kedron's efficient and honest administration impressed the Marzarbolites, who offered him the ducal tiara, their symbol of local authority. And local authority was all that remained in Zehr-hu-Pon, for the local dukes had risen up and expelled the last of Esheq's garrisons. A hundred men now ruled the Mountains of Ice.
Abandoning any thought of returning to Adeese, Kedron took up his ducal rank in earnest. For the remainder of his reign he sought to place the surrounding country under the aegis of Marzarbol. He enjoyed only limited success, but the wealth of Marzarbol's tin mines made him the most powerful duke in the Mountains of Ice.
Kedron's descendants pursued an aggressive policy, bribing or coercing
lesser dukes into vassalage. A similar course of action was undertaken
by the Petevars, the rival dukes of Heap. Petevar power steadily
grew, but the scarcity of resources in the Scab denied them some of the
Kedronites' advantages.
Although the Kedronites continually extended their sway, they never claimed
to be anything more than the first among equal dukes. Occasionally
their enemies stirred up resistance by suggesting to the lesser dukes of
the Mountains of Ice that the Dukes of Marzarbol were actually plotting
to establish a kingship.
During these years, dukes great and small behaved as robber barons.
Lord battled lord for loot and all of them made forays into foreign lands.
The most ambitious raid of this type was conducted by Proerno, the Petevar
duke of Heap. It had fateful consequences for the future of Zehr-hu-Pon.
Proerno swept down on Adeese--once again debilitated by political problems--and
laid siege to the city. The duke appeared on the verge of winning
his opulent prize, when a firestorm invoked at the Altars of Greystaff
laid waste to his army. The duke survived, but died a fugitive on
the road when he fell afoul of Shucassami raiders.
As it happened, the heir to the tiara of Heap was Duke Lango of Marzarbol,
Proemo's cousin. At any other time the succession would have been
opposed by the independent southerners, but with Heap denuded of its soldiery,
with barbarian raiders in the Scab Forest, a union with Marzarbol was the
lesser of two evils.
The wedding of Marzarbol with Heap utterly changed the political complexion
of the mountain country. Suddenly a credible state had come into
being. Almost spontaneously it acquired a new name, derived from
the old regional term Zehr-hu-Pon, but full of new meaning: Pon.
Even the title of "duke" no longer seemed to fit the Kedronites, and common
usage soon promoted them to "a dukes. "
In theory, Pon extended from Heap to the Wanderer River, __ in the latter
twelfth century little more than half of it owed direct homage to the Kedronites.
Hardly had Lango accepted the tiara of Heap before he brought the prestige
and power of Pon against the willful independence of the dukes. Many
submitted peacefully when they realized the old days were gone; others
defended their freedom with arms. It was often their own subjects
who undid these, envying the tranquil prosperity of the archdukes' dominions.
By the time Lango's successor died, the authority of the archduke was respected
everywhere south of the Wanderer River.
Meanwhile, neighboring Muetar had fallen into impotence. The archdukes
waged a predatory, if sporadic, war upon it. Their depredations gave
the Muetarans a new word for "slaver": Poni.
The strong rule of Egalon put an end to the easy days of Ponese raiding
in Muetar, but already the duke of Marzarbol was eying other victims.
For centuries the barbarians of the Border Forest had remained free but
disunited. As civilization sent its feelers into their forests, they
became debauched with drink and demoralized by foreign ideas. The
tistrya root was widely abused outside the religious context. The
weak later Oyarostars had bought peace on the border with bribes, but these
bribes ceased in Egalon's day. Seeking a new source of tribute, the
Ygelis, the then-dominant tribe, raided the Dwarves' territories.
Ambushed at the Battle of Ram Mountain, the cream of the Ygelis' young
manhood perished.
The ruin of the Ygelis plunged the tribes into a new struggle for supremacy
in the Border Forest. The confusion played into the hands of Besor,
Egalon's son, who plunged into the forest with thousands of men-at-arms,
burning the native villages and their crops. When winter came, the
starvation was frightful.
But if Besor hoped to eliminate an annoying neighbor, he miscalculated.
The tribes now desperately needed food and protection; they had nowhere
else to turn but to the archduke of Pon. Archduke Diivois sold his
support dearly, making most of the tribes swear allegiance. To force
the good behavior of his new vassals, Diivois established a fortress in
Crow's Nest Wood. Furthermore, he encouraged his vassals to harry
the tribes that remained independent. These finally submitted to
his protection, in exchange for peace.
Unfortunately, at the moment of Diivois' supreme glory, the Kedronite rule
came to an end.
All the dukes of Marzarbol had been famous patrons of the arts. But
even more than his forebears, Diivois worshipped beauty. His rich
bounty brought him the wonders of Dwarven art, Trollish craft and Man's
creation.
Then, one day there came a magician to Diivois' hall carrying a strange
crystal object. It was one of the One Hundred and Nine Lenses with
which the Lloroi priests of old had gazed upon unworldly realms.
"Look into the Lens, Your Grace," said the magician, "and see wonders beyond
imagining." Diivois complied, and immediately stood transfixed with awe.
Days turned into weeks and Diivois did naught but stare into the Lens.
He took no note of state affairs or his friends, and would scarcely eat
a bite. When doctors forced the Lens away from his eyes, the relatively
gross appearance of the real world made him scream with horror. He
died a horrible death, and his daughter Sinda took the throne.
Without a strong, commanding hand, Pon suffered revolts and lawlessness.
At length, necessity forced the teen-aged archduchess to wed and divide
her rule with a powerful duke named Altias. From their union sprang
the Ioljans, the present ruling dynasty.
Their neighbors having become too powerful to raid, the Ponese labored
to develop their own country. Hired Dwarven prospectors found important
deposits of copper and silver in the Ponese mountains. Then, too,
the dukes had some success in luring southern caravans to Heap, where the
crushing duties of Shucassam could be avoided.
Shucassam replied with warfare and intrigue among Ponese factions.
It took all the ingenuity of Archduke Phalor to suppress dissent and rebuff
the Shucassamite menace. A present Pon is in need of a respite to
regain its old energy, but its subjects have every hope this will be accomplished
in the reign of Phalor's son, Luppi Ioljan.