 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
fact, neither of the other Duchies could bring their full forces to bear
on the Asturians since the Wacites were engaged in a war against
Cherek in the northern reaches of Sendaria as a part of their grand
plan to extend their power to the north and the mimbrates were
engaged in their centuries-long dispute with Tolnedra in their
attempt to extend their influence to the south.
The Duke of Asturia then proclaimed himself King of Arendia
(2618) and called upon his fellow Dukes to come to Vo Astur to pay
him homage. It is difficult to determine if this maneuver by the
Duke of Asturia was a clever ploy designed to infuriate the other
two Dukes into a precipitous withdrawal from their foreign wars in
order to attack him or if it was the result of sheer, arrogant stupidity.
One is always tempted to believe the worst of an Arend, but we
must look at the results rather than the appearance.
The war of the three kingdoms followed, lasting for
approximately eleven hundred years. The Wacite and the Mimbrate Dukes
each proclaimed themselves King of Arendia and issued royal
commands similar to that made by the Asturian. Thus there were
three kings in Arendia, all contending.
The Chereks quite naturally took advantage of the preoccupation
of the Wacite Duke and bit off large pieces of northern Sendaria.
Similarly, Tolnedran generals took the opportunity to push seriously
weakened mimbrate forces back beyonct the River Arend,
eliminating for the time the threat of Arendish invasion.
The war of the three kingdoms was one of the darkest periods in
Arendish history. It was a time of alliances broken, of betrayal, of
surprise attack, of assassination and ambush. One example should
serve to illustrate. In 2890 the Asturians and Mimbrates had formed
an alliance against the Wacites, who were dominant at that time. The
expedition into Wacune was highly successful, and the Wacite
nobility was virtually wiped out. In the latter days of the campaign in what
is now south-central Sendaria, the Asturians suddenly turned on
their Mimbrate allies and annihilated them. Thus, with one stroke,
the Asturians had very nearly destroyed Wacune and had wiped out
a major part of the Mimbrate Army. To defend themselves and to
prevent the Asturian Duke from achieving the monarchy, the
Mimbrates immediately formed an alliance with the remnants of the
Wacites and concluded treaties with certain Cherek chieftains and
some of the western clans in Algaria. These freebooters assaulted
Asturia from the seaward and the landward side while the Mimbrates
attacked her southern borders and the Wacites struck from the north.
Asturia quite naturally collapsed and immediately formed an alliance
with Wacune to attack the now-dominant mimbrates.
As a result of constant attrition, the effect not only of the civil war
but also of the ceaseless attacks by Cherek seafarers and Algar
horsemen. the Wacite Duchy was finally so weakened that it was possible
in 2943 for the Asturians to move decisively against their northern
cousins at a time when the Mimbrates were preoccupied by a border
war against Tolnedra. The campaign was short and brutal. Wacune
was crushed, never to rise again. Vo Wacune was torn down, and all
surviving members of the Wacite nobility were sold to Nyissan
slavers, who carried them off to the south.
The savage destruction of Wacune by Asturia shocked the
civilized world, and the weight of sympathy of other nations was firmly
on the side of the Mimbrate Arends. The consolidation made
possible, however, by the elimination of the Wacite nobility and the
absorption of the Wacite serfs into the Asturian feudal system, made
Asturia virtually impregnable for centuries.