Lamar IV, High King of the Ullwish people, sat on his throne and listened gloomily to his advisors.
“The
Fenkish barbarians press close on the city,” they said. “Famine
threatens the land because the harvest has failed. The harvest did not
fail in the northern hills, because the rains there were good. But we
cannot bring the grain from those regions here, because the roads are in
too poor a shape. The roads are in too poor a shape because of there
are no funds to repair them. And there are no funds to repair them
because most of that money went into building up the navy for the
invasion of the Islands of the Mist. The rest went to the reconstruction of the Holy Temple of the Hooded Saviour.
“The
people are in unrest,” they said. “Daily, they gather on the streets
and mutter against the Crown. Daily they say there is no grain to be had
for their coin and they look at the price of cloth and meat, and they
gather and mutter. And all the while the Fenkish barbarians press on
from the south. All lands south of the Great River are already gone.
”Something must be done,” they said.
So Lamar IV, High Ullwish King, using the navy he had created for the purpose, invaded the Islands
of the Mist and after a short battle annexed them to the Empire. Great
was the booty anticipated in guano and slaves, and great the
celebrations indeed.
“The Hooded Saviour himself guided me,” said Lamar IV.
But there were no slaves because the survivors of the Islands
of the Mist ran away into their honeycomb of limestone caverns, there
to take up arms against the invader. There was no guano because the
cliffs proved far too dangerous in the winter storms.
And
the Fenkish barbarians, made bold by the sending away of the army to
invade the Islands of the Mist, pressed even closer to the city, and the
coffers of state grew emptier and emptier, and once the aftereffects of
the celebration wore off the people murmured more and more.
The country was ripe for revolution.
So
Lamar IV, High King, sent his remaining armies east to attack the
Mountains of the Dawn, where gold could be found in the rivers, or so
the whispers said; and the Fenks grew closer and closer.
Lamar
IV was on a hunting expedition when the people finally rose and burned
his palace and drove his ministers out. And he was still out when the
Fenkish barbarians threw themselves on the city in ferment, sacking and
looting and burning. Lamar IV watched, and he knew why this had all come
to pass.
"They were not worthy of my genius,” he said, and rode away. Copyright B Purkayastha 2008
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