 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
THE HISTORY OF THE CHEREKS
It is evident that the Alorns have occupied the Cherek peninsula for
at least four millennia. The great Temple of Belar, the Bear-God of
the Alorns, at Val Alorn has been reliably dated to the eleventh
century and is a truly remarkable example of prehistoric
architecture. It appears that the Alorns were a fairly extensive tribe of
northern nomads who settled in Cherek sometime early in the first
millennium, and, although artifacts of the primitive Alorn culture
have been found in northern Drasnia and in the mountains of Car og
Nadrak, it is quite evident that the Cherek peninsula is their
ancestral home.
Runes dating back into antiquity have indeed identified the
country as Aloria, but this name appears to have been changed to Cherek
in honor of Cherek Bear-shoulders, a great king who reigned over
the Alorns at the end of the second millennium. Apparently a man of
enormous power, King Cherek held sway over a vast northern
empire extending from the Vale of Aldur to the polar ice and from
the west coast to the far eastern reaches of what is now Car og
Nadrak, encompassing all of Algaria, Drasnia, Car og Nadrak and
northern Sendaria as well as the Cherek peninsula.
In 4002/ apparently in accord
The exact cause is unclear, but during the later years of his reign
the empire of King Cherek was broken up into four separate
Kingdoms, and the Alorns withdrew from the east to the borders of
Drasnia.
The first contacts between Cherek and the Tolnedran Empire came
during the 25th and 26th centuries when Cherek pirates began
systematically destroying all Tolnedran vessels which strayed into
the Sea of Winds, and Cherek Berserks made landings all up and
down the west coast, sacking and burning cities in Sendaria, Arendia,
Tolnedra and Nyissa. The City of Tol Vordue at the mouth of the
River Arend was burned to the ground eight times during those two
centuries.
By the beginning of the fourth milennium, Tolnedran emissaries
had concluded a series of treaties and trade agreements with the
Chereks, and relations began to assume some semblance of normalcy
In 3097 the Accords of Val Alorn opened the sea lanes to the city of
Riva with certain provisos. (See the history of the Isle of the
Winds.)
Following the eventual opening of the Rivan commercial enclave, the
city of Val Alorn began a modest trade with the Isle of the Winds and
with Drasnia to the east. The bulk of Cherek commerce, however,
derives from the sea transport of goods from the Drasnian port of
Kotu through the Gulf of Cherek and the Cherek Bore in the Straits of
Sendaria around the hook of Arendia to the southern ports. Despite
the splendid system of highways constructed by Emperor Ran Horb II
stemmed
(see the History of Tolnedra), Cherek vessels, modeled on the long
narrow Cherek warships, move much more rapidly than the caravans
of other merchants traveling the thousand leagues from Boktor at the
western terminus of the North Caravan Route to the Sendarian port of
Camaar. Thus Cherek merchants can easily put their goods on the
docks at Tol Vordue or Tol Horb or even on the wharves of Tol Honeth
months before similar goods can arrive via the overland route. The