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The diplomats of the Borunes also made their way to the north
and established relations with the Chereks and Drasnians at Val
Alorn and at Boktor. The Chereks were eventually persuaded to
cease their attacks on Tolnedran shipping in the Sea of the Winds,
and a healthy three-way commerce soon developed as goods from
Drasnia moved in Cherek vessels from Kotu through the Gulf of Cherek
and the Cherek Bore to the port of Camaar in what is now Sendaria for
transshipment to Tolnedran vessels. Profits to all three nations were
enormous as a result of this arrangement, and the Chereks soon
discovered that more could be made in honest trade than could be
reaped by piracy.
The question of trade with the Isle of the Winds, however, was much
more difficult to settle. The Chereks continued their blockade of the port
of Riva unabated for reasons which are largely unclear. It was generally
assumed that the Isle was either a Cherek colony or a Cherek
protectorate, but neither assumption now appears to be correct. Though
the Rivans are Alorns as are the Chereks, the Drasnians and the Algars,
it would appear that they are a separate people independent of Cherek.
The blockade, which frustrated generations of Tolnedran and Sendarian
merchants seems to have had some religious significance which was
incomprehensible to Tolnedran diplomats. Finally, in the Accords of Val
Alorn in 3097 as a part of the brilliantly wrought treaty which normalized
relations between Cherek and Tolnedra, the blockade was lifted and
Tolnedran vessels began to call on the port of Riva.
It had generally been assumed that the Rivans had been a tacit party
to the Accords of Val Alorn, but this quickly proved not to be the case.
Merchants landed on the rocky strand of that inhospitable isle only to be
faced with the grim and unscalable walls of the Fortress of Riva itself.
The gates of the fortress remained closed, and the Rivans refused to
even acknowledge the presence of the merchants.
It was the last Borune Emperor who mounted the disastrous .assault
on the city' proving perhaps that even the noblest line deteriorates in
time. Five legions were dispatched to Riva to force the gates of the city'
and a horde of merchant vessels hovered in the bay, awaiting the
opening of the gates. There is, it may be observed at this point,
something decidedly unhealthy in the Tolnedran character. While he is
normally a solid, sensible man, the average Tolnedran grows positively
frantic when his impulse to trade is frustrated. There have been
occasions when Imperial forces have been used to open relations with
stubborn people, and it has been observed that some merchants, driven
beyond sanity by their eagerness to be first, have actually dashed ahead
of the forefront of the legions waving their wares and importuning the
startled opposing warriors. This impulse ' this greed, if you will - is what
raised the disaster at Riva to such colossal proportions.
At the first assault of the legions upon the gates of the city, the
Rivans emerged and systematically destroyed not only the five legions,
but every vessel in the harbor as well. The loss of life and goods was
incalculable.
When the news was brought to Ran Borune XXIV in Tol Honeth, the
last Borune Emperor, in a fury prepared to launch the full might of the