Farworld: The Free Traders of Fahren City (part 2)
Val the Vengeful earns his name.
Read about the origins of Fahren City and Valerie Fahren’s rise in Part One of The Free Traders of Fahren City.
12,007 AF
Valerie spread his family's riches far and wide across the continent, winning loyalties and trading knowledge from north to south. Though his letters never spoke of it, his travels even took him to Seahorse Isle across the Shallow Strait. There he made his way into an ancient Elfen enclave that many believed to be the mythical Magic Citadel from old legends. He referred to it only as the Secret Place, and even his personal writings tell us little. We know there was a library which dwarfed even Fahren College’s, and that Val delighted in the texts he came across and the Elfen friends he made there.
We also know that Val convinced the elders of the Secret Place that the time of Elfen seclusion was nearing an end, and that Elfs and Men could form an alliance that would bring everlasting peace to the whole of the world. It was here that he learned how to train doves to carry letters, a feat that had long been thought to be Elfen magic. And it was here that he set sail for Little Island, or Mirafellenhoren in Elfen tongue: the small island within eyeshot of the walls of Val’s home city. No Man in living memory had set foot on Little Island and lived to tell of it. Mirafellenhoren was the last home of Elfs east of the Shallow Strait, and the tribe that called that island their home was said to be the most powerful Elfen tribe of all. Many believed that it took the strength of all the other Elfen tribes and their magic to confine the Mirafor to that island, for they were a fearsome and warfaring tribe that was bent on the destruction of the world, responsible for the fires of the Fall.
We only have Val’s personal journals to tell us of his visit at Mirafellenhoren, as the Elfen scrolls of that island later burned, and without corroboration we cannot take all of Val’s claims at face value. We believe he spent three months treating with the Mirafor, and that the doves that flew to every corner of Ustayara departed from Little Island.
However, there are plenty of writers that will corroborate the events that followed Val the Vengeful’s time with those mysterious Elfs. On the first day of the last month of autumn 12,007, sentries spied a longboat departing from the Little Island, a sight that had not been seen in generations. In the city, all the ruling families gathered their compliments of guards and sent them to the docks. Were the cursed Elfs come to bring about a new war?
When rumor of the Elfen boat reached the streets, however, the cityfolk rejoiced, as they believed a tale that the coming of the Elfs would mean a time of justice and prosperity, that fall of the rich and the rise of the poor. This tale, we know now, had been concocted nearly a decade ago by a young Val and his studious cousin Janna, who had a great flair for performance and storytelling. They had weaved the tale from many myths, legends, and histories that even the most uneducated of children were told.
As it came closer to the docks of the City, the guardsmen breathed a sigh of relief when a white flag of peace was raised. But chaos ensued when the boat docked and fourscore armored Elfen soldiers - half a head taller than the tallest Man of the city - filed onto the city’s wharves. How could such a display of might be peaceful? Captains shouted to draw arms, guardsmen quivered in fear, merchant lords shouted contradictory orders to the captains of their guards. Meanwhile, crowds of commoners flocked to the area, grasping to grab a glimpse of their Elfen saviors.
It was then that a second flag was raised above the Elfen longboat: an orange flag bearing the emblem of the Fahren family, nearly identical to the flag that Francis Fahren had flown a decade before to the rage of his peers. The merchant lords cried out in anger as Valerie Fahren stepped off the boat next to a trio of beautifully clad Elfen Elders. The cityfolk cheered as the lords cried out “what is the meaning of this?”
“I have come to take my rightful place upon the throne of Fahren City,” Valerie replied, “and fulfill my destiny to rule all Men.”
There are conflicting accounts of how the battle started, if it can be called a battle at all. Some say a drunk-scared lord ordered his bowman to shoot. Some say a nervous guardsmen accidentally loosed an arrow, some say a lord urged his captain to knock and draw and when the captain refused the lord shot an arrow himself, or perhaps that a bowman took his lord’s order more seriously than his captain’s. Some say the cityfolk were swarming to get close to the Elfs and in so doing threatened to overrun the city guards.
All agree that first shot clanged uselessly off Elfen armor. With coordinated precision, the Elfs advanced upon the guardsmen and made short work of them. Seeing blades drawn on both sides, the cityfolk fled upon whichever street they could escape. Some were trampled in the stampede and some fell upon an errant guardsman’s blade, but Valerie’s account and the Elfen accounts assure us that the Mirafors defended the commoners and helped them to safety. There are no other surviving written accounts of the battle.
Almost the whole of the city’s strength in guardsmen was slaughtered in that skirmish, and two lords were arrested and executed at the order of Val the Vengeful. But many did escape, whether to the south or east on horseback, or on ship into the Quiet Bay.
But Valerie had foreseen this possibility and the traps he set in secret, detailed only in his personal journals, sprang upon the fleeing merchant lords. In his travels, the Vengeful Val had struck many deals, and with the doves sent from Little Island, set his plan in motion.
Those who fled south were met with an army of Men come up from the Foot, armed with swords bought with Fahren coin across the Shallow Strait. Those who fled west encountered horsemen from the Bromas and Prolin Clans, their ancient hatred put aside with a marriage arranged by Val, along with the promise of lands once the merchant lords had been slain.
Most shocking of all, those that attempted to flee on the water were intercepted by a fleet of Night Raider skiffs. The death-worshiping tribes of the north who feared only a quiet passing had never taken to the water in numbers before, preferring only to raid fishing villages along the shores. But now a fleet of skiffs packed with warriors swarmed the escaping merchant ships, ramming their sides and jumping aboard. These Raider boats had iron witch heads protruding from their bows which slammed into the merchant hulls, piercing them while the warriors leapt aboard and with cut down men and women alike on the decks.