History of Man -- Book I: Westrun Part 4

For the eight or nine generations spanning two centuries, the Tren had established themselves as the pinnacle of civilized men among the Nandi. At Treft, the City of Stone (formerly Ald Morin) the ways of the Vyrum were slowly disintegrating along with the architecture and wonders of the world they had built. The first generation of men who inherited from their masters were the best educated, but with each passing generation something more was lost. 

Within the first decade of inheriting the ald, as the Tren took over administrative and governing functions, they needed laborers and workers to assume their menial tasks. This fell to the more "savage" and uneducated Nandi that were allowed to become residents. A stratification occurred in society between those who could speak Vyrum and those who could not; with the former being seen as occupying a higher class of society.

Even this language skill was losing steam. New writing was very rare; understanding older writing was rarer. The Tren, as mere servants, had already spoken a low version of the language -- the words they used for communicating with their masters while serving was mixed with that of their native tongues and this pidgin was spoken in the kitchens and smithies and stables of the ald. The syntax and grammar of their low Vyrum already differed significantly from the original "high" Vyrum, but even as the purebred Tren proved reluctant to intermarry with their incoming Nandi population, the bloodlines were invariably mixed and so was the language.

Outside of Treft, in the City of Wood and along the plains, none of the ways of the Vyrum were known, let alone preserved. All that the Nandi had of "higher" culture was what came from emigres from Treft -- some of whom came as wealthy traders and others as the sons of daughters of Tren given to cement alliances with various tribal chieftains. 

Such had been Larec Redfist of the Rathor Confederation. His father was a Nandi warlord (perhaps descended from servants of Ald Biye -- the record is unclear) but his mother was the youngest daughter of a Tren merchant of Treft. With such "noble" blood in his veins, Larec was destined to become the sire of kings. Even Eiter, King of Treft in those years, was not pureblood Tren, for his grandmother was a Nandi "princess" whose father and tribe had been accreted into the city to patrol its walls and keep its peace.

In 3413ey refugees from across the Dagger Sea entered the social milieu of Westrun. Like the Tren, the Meni were the tamed human servants of the Vyrum Empire. They too had inherited alds and assumed the mantle of civilization. Unlike their Westrun counterparts however, the Meni of the Principalities were right at Ald Dovaris -- the center of what had been the Vyrum Empire. As a consequence of better education and perhaps great wealth, they almost seamlessly continued the governance and institutions of the previous age, albeit with shorter reach. 

For two centuries, while the men of Westrun were engaged in war with Urok and each other, these civilized men of the Principalities were developing noble Houses and contending with one another for control of the Empire. When the pretensions of one House proved unsuccessful, a lesser son led some 700 people in exile including a company of trained warriors, plus five score of the best trained and most capable administrators, artisans, architects and sages. Coming over the sea in a flotilla of makeshift vessels, Tal the Just made landfall at the charred ruin of Edgewater Fortress - the former Urok home in the Saltmarsh. 

The only rivals for their new land were a minor fishing tribe of the Rathor Confederation. At first the Meni named their settlement for Ald Casera, but the name among the Nandi would not take and slowly became known as Watersedge. The people which lived there were the Talir. A new fortress was built, the marshes were drained and agriculture to rival that in the Principalities was started.

The Rathor were unhappy with a new walled settlement between the Wody and the Brownbeck, but lacked the ability to assail it through miles of barely accessible marshland. Moreover the protected harbor of the Meni meant any siege was unlikely to cut off food and water. Westrun was astonished to discover humans who spoke High Vyrum and who were self-evidently of noble blood on their very doorstep. The Meni flourished and spread along the coast, actively avoiding conflict with the tribes they encountered.