History of Man -- Book 1: Westrun Part 10

In 4204ey, barely 14 years after the War of the Half-goblin Kings, the Goblins were again rallied to the cause of sacking Westrun in the Great Goblin War. Under Bariq Broketooth, the goblins pushed the cavalrymen of Balduren behind their walls and made incursions in force beyond the Saar Mountains. Not since the retaking of Ald Morin one thousand years before had the people of Westrun known such fear. A combined army of the Earls of Westrun managed to push the Goblins back onto the Southwestern Plains, where they could only prey upon the people of Balduren.

To commemorate the victory over the Goblins, Simmon the Builder, High Priest of the Decadon commissioned the expansion of the Grand Temple in Peakshadow in 4211ey, a project intended to take ten years. From the start, the expansion project would be plagued by material shortfalls, weather delays and accidents. These setbacks would continue for the next 160 years. Many in Peakshadow claimed the Dwarves of Oromir were jealous of the grand edifice that mankind was creating and sabotaged the work. No evidence for this was ever found.

In 4224ey, animated with a religious fervor, the Goblin armies returned with the so-called Chanters' War. The goblins took for their standard a crude depiction of the Collosus at Talir, believing it to be the god of their people and a marker of their rightful home. The goblins believe that a certain war chant renders them all but invulnerable. 

Their forces drove hard to retake and resettle Edgewater Fortress, which once stood within view of the great statue. They had a prophecy which said if they could retake their ancestral home, it would never again be lost to them. Once again a combined army of the Westrun Earls repelled the goblins. This time an alliance with the Marksmarshall of Balduren saw the goblins driven back behind the Graymantle Hills far in the West.

In 4236ey Fergus the Lame, youngest son of Ferag, Lord of Sudhall stood to inherit his father's house. His older brothers having been slain in the Dancer War, Fergus set out from Sudhall to see the ratification of a new pact to join all of Westrun together. He began with only one nominal supporter -- Jarl Rigus of Wanderhalt who still owed fealty by five hundred year old oath and intermarried blood. Fergus promised Rigus (his distant cousin) that the latter would be released from his oath, if the pact cannot be ratified by five others within five years.

4238ey Fergus won an official finding from the Grand Temple of Heaven that Heimos is no longer ruling the Eight Kingdoms through his vassals, the twenty-five Earls. Therefore mankind had the right to recognize mortals as Kings once more. 

In 4240ey Fergus began the Wars of Ascension. These were a series of low-level conflicts and confrontations that eliminated minor tribes and smaller kingdoms across Westrun, while ratifying and providing legitimacy to larger ones. Rather than set himself up as a conqueror, he extracted oaths of loyalty from those he defeated. They were not loyal to him nor to his line, but to a five-part pact of mutual defense. 

Within 10 years the Eight Kingdoms Pact joined the kingdoms of the Boldish, Rathors, Menes and Saks to those of Talir and Treft. It also recognized the Jarl of Wanderhalt and the Marksmarshall of Balsrest as Kings of much wider expanses called Collonia and Balduren.

In 4266ey after nearly fifteen years of negotiation and disputation, Fergus was elected as the first High King of Westrun -- a largely titular office with only theoretical power.

4272ey saw the Edict of Artifice issued by the Priesthood of the Grand Temple of Westrun and this sent shockwaves into the newly formed Eight Kingdoms Pact as the men of Balduren and Collonia did not recognize the Grand Temple, nor its Decadon.

4286ey Fergon succeeded his father as High King of Westrun -- a title still spoken with something of a smile.