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network of highways which linked Sendar and Camaar with Darine
on the northeast coast which faces on the Gulf of Cherek. This action
produced glum faces in Val Alorn, but the King of Cherek (which
country nominally held Sendaria at that time) quickly perceived that
the improvements in Sendaria would enormously increase the
taxbase in that district at no cost to the Cherek treasury. The legion-built
highways effectively broke the Cherek monopoly in the transport of
goods from Boktor to Camaar. The fact that Cherek vessels were the
only ships in the world at that time able to negotiate the savage and
treacherous currents of the Cherek Bore was no longer the
dominating reality of the northern trade. It was now possible for Sendarian
merchantmen to ply the coastal route from Kotu to Darine and then
to transship overland to Camaar on the new highway. The increase
in trade and the lowering of prices resulting from the development
of healthy competition gave an enormous boost to.the economies of
all nations involved.
THE FIRST HORBITE DYNASTY 3761-3911
(150 years, 6 Emperors)
It is a tribute to the wisdom of the aged Ran Borune XII, the childless
last Emperor of the SECOND BORUNE DYNASTY, that the
transition of power to the Horbites at the end of his reign was so smooth.
Always innovators, the Borunes for the first time took a direct hand
in the choosing of their successors. The name of Ran Horb I was
carried to the Temple before the old Emperor died. Although once
again certain members of the Council bewailed the loss of an
opportunity to sell their votes, Ran Borune XII was so beloved by the
people that none dared oppose him. Thus, in no small measure,
we have the Borunes to thank for perhaps the greatest Emperor
Tolnedra has ever had.
While Ran Horb I was surely a competent and vigorous Emperor
in the manner of the Borunes, it was his son, Ran Horb II, whose
accomplishments stagger the imagination. Because Ran Horb I
married late in life, Ran Horb II was a mere seventeen when he
ascended the golden Throne. It was widely assumed that his youth
would make him easy to beguile by the older and more
sophisticated members of the court. Such quickly proved not to be the case.
In 3793, the young Emperor concluded the secret Treaty of the Plain
with the Mimbrate Arends. Perceiving that the endless Civil War in
Arendia had become a hindrance to the development of the west
and a disruption of trade and commerce, the Emperor sided with the
weaker faction, the Mimbrates, and joined in the final destruction of
the Asturian Arends. The Emperor let it be known in Cherek and
Algaria that the legions stationed in Sendaria for the maintenance of
the highways built there by the Borunes would no longer hinder the
movement of raiders upon northern Arendia. Thus, with their forces
divided, the Asturians were no match for the assault by the
Mimbrate Knights across the southern frontier of Asturia and the
diversionary movement of a Tolnedran column along the coast.
Then began in Arendia a war of attrition against the Asturians which
lasted for almost twenty years.
Meanwhile, Imperial negotiators, urged on by the Emperor,
concluded the Algarian agreement with Cho-Dom the Old, Chief of
the Clan-chiefs of the Horse People. The agreement caused a wave
of consternation among the merchant princes of Tolnedra, since