The Second Urok War and the Rangers of Old

by Tandis of Peakshadow

In the year 3231 the Urok chieftain known as Greatjaw stirred in the Accursed Place. He led a great Horde out from the Goblin Kingdoms and down upon the Southern Marches. The horsemen of the Marches could not contain him. Many tribes were swept aside as the Horde pressed deeper into the Plains. The fertile fields of Westrun were his aim and he left misery in his wake.

The Westruners could not withstand the Horde. They were scattered and their fields were sown in blood. The mounds of the Uroks were raised and thousands of people were carried off as slaves. But the other races were spared this fury, for Greatjaw's command was that the Elder Races should not be harmed. So the Horde did not broach the borders of Deepwood, Mistwood, Festog, Oromir or Dynkyr. Greatjaw knew that the kings of the Elder Races had retreated from the world of men. For the Kings felt that the humans ought to prove themselves worthy of the mantle they sought to carry.

In that day there were only two great cities -- one of wood and one of stone. For Rath and Peakshadow had not yet been built by the Dwarves as gifts to the younger race. Under Greatjaw the Urok lay seige to the city of wood, Menea and to the city of stone, Treft. Round about they cowed the settlements and tribes between them. So mankind languished and knew the dread of slavery under the yoke of the Urok. This time is called the Age of Darkness, because the younger race knew the terror that came by night. To this day, the night holds special terrors in the hearts of young and old alike.

But there were some among men who would not be cowed, nor would they be shut within the safety of the Dwarfgifts. These men became vengeance to the Urok. They formed companies which ranged out across the plains. They found shelter among the trees, and safety upon the hills, and security behind the rocks. These men were they which wreaked havoc upon the Horde and put many of them to the sword. These men were they which brought fear to Greatjaw's heart.

Finally the Lords Continuous came -- beings of great power born of the Elder Races, dressed in robes of white and possessed of great power. They took pity upon the plight of Westrun, and pity upon the plight of mankind. Though these Lords would not directly join battle, they sought the bravest and greatest among the men and taught them many secrets forgotten since the making of the world.

The men who were taught by the Lords Continuous became heroes among men. They were called the Nightstalkers by the Elder Races, and Rangers by their own kind. Among the Horde they became the Dustrkhunbagk or "badgers with two-swords". Though they were greatly outnumbered by the Horde, they could not be defeated, for they would not stand and fight in pitched battle. Rather they hunted the goblins and visited terror upon them, appearing as if from the grass and disappearing like the dew. Their fury fell with a hail of arrows and they closed with and destroyed their foes with singing steel in each hand.

For eight years the Rangers cut to and fro across the plains and left no sign of their passage, except for the grass stained with the blood of their enemies. Their successes brought more to their side. Scattered men and freed slaves forsook their families and tribes, binding themselves one to another as Rangers first. In time, their power grew and their numbers increased. So that finally the goblin chieftain was forced to retreat. Greatjaw and his minions fled from the plains and flew back across the Southern Marches to their Accursed Place. They were all the while harried and worried by trailing Nightstalkers. The official end of the Second Urok War was 3239, when a company of Rangers slew Greatjaw and placed his head upon a pike.

As the years passed, men raised more cities on the example of Treft, but the Rangers would not rejoin their tribes and families. For the lives of these Nightstalkers had been bound in blood and they preferred the company of their own brotherhood. Among themselves they shared the secret knowledge of the Lords Continuous. Their loyalty was to their fraternity, first and foremost. Regardless of their name and nation, they made their own orders of precedence and knew a freedom that came from the absence of station.

The Rangers strode across all the Four Lands, bringing Urok low whereever they could be found, and living as free men upon the spoils of their campaigns. But in time, the Lords and Kings which had been saved by these men grew suspicious. They feared the secret power that had been the gift of the Lords Continuous, they feared the binds of brotherhood that knew not national bounds. So important men everywhere opposed the Rangers at every turn. These men of wealth would not brook the Nightstalkers passage through, nor quartering upon, their lands.

So the companies were disbanded and the men kept to their own counsel and each returned by and by to the countries of their origin. The Rangers are little remembered now, though some calling themselves by that name still travel, thither and yon, trading on the name of those heroes of old.