Memories of the Beginning of the Path
"The memory of serving the Motherland is what keeps the blade pure and the heart steadfast. Without the Motherland, there is no honor; without honor, there is no warrior."
These words I read every morning on the arch of the Knight's Academy barracks, and with each year, they seemed more faded, bitter on the tongue, like old iron.
11.13.384 A.E.
History loves to repeat itself, like a drunken minstrel who knows only one song about betrayal and necessity. Here I am again, trying to sort through my memories, to understand how we ended up in this astonishing dance of recollections.
War was looming over my kingdom of Monaria—not like a storm you can wait out under a roof, but like the shadow of wings from a massive dragon circling over a field before unleashing fire. The neighboring kingdom of Criver, with whom we had shared bread and oaths of loyalty for thirty whole years, was now sharpening its blades against us. The borders were already ablaze—villages on the outskirts turning to embers, the air thick with the smell of smoke and iron.
We, naive fools, clung to the thought that their emperor had simply lost control of his army, that this was temporary madness, like spring fever in young stallions. Deep down, I—a mere child—knew: it was a lie we told ourselves. The alliance crumbled to dust, like a sandcastle under a wave.
All this unfolded on the continent of Eskel—a land where ninety-five percent of the inhabitants were humans, and the remaining five were intelligent races whose voices rarely echoed in our chronicles. Eskel was vast and harsh: endless plains gave way to ridges of mountains sharp as fangs, and rivers flowed slowly, like blood in the veins of the world.
Monaria occupied the southeast of the continent—fertile fields dotted with golden ears of wheat, and cities with white walls that gleamed under the sun like pearls. The capital, Minral, was the heart of the kingdom: narrow cobblestone streets scented with fresh bread and heated metal from forges, and towering above it all, the castle—a silent guardian whose towers pierced the sky.
Kriver lay to the northeast, beyond the mountains, in cold and gloomy lands where forests of black pines whispered ancient secrets, and cities were built of stone as gray as their souls.
Over so many years of alliance, Criver had swallowed forty percent of Eskel. Their army was a war machine that knew no fatigue, and their ideology—a poison that tainted all life. They called themselves the "white people" and dreamed of a world where there would be no elves with their delicate songs, no dwarves with their deep mines, nor even us, the simple folk of Monaria, if we did not bow our heads.