In the days when Gorhald ruled Dynkyr alone, the Old Ones rose from the deep and made war upon all Erenth.
They came from rifts long sealed and waters long undisturbed. Their forms were not wholly known, nor their speech understood, but their intent was plain: the dominion of the younger peoples was to be broken and cast aside.
It was Gorhald who answered the call of the Vyrum and marched to war against those ancient powers. Twenty and one hundred companies of spears and hammerhands he commanded, and they stood firm against a fury that did not tire and a malice that remembered ages before stone was shaped by craft.
When the struggle deepened and the hosts of Erenth faltered, Gorhald sent word across the Four Lands and called for the return of the gifts of Mithril once given in peace. What had been ornament and honor was gathered again into his hands. These he caused to be melted and reforged into axe-blades, sword-edges, spearheads, and arrow-tips. The Fairy-witches of the Terani laid enchantments upon them, and the majk of their craft bound keen edge to ancient bane. Thus were wrought weapons that could wound those which common steel could not slay.
Long and terrible was that war. The last battle at Dry Rift became a grave for many nations. Upon Gorhald’s right and left the rulers of the Besnir fell, and the banners of their peoples were trampled into ash and salt. Yet the Stoneborn did not break.
When at last the Old Ones were cast down and their rising quelled, it was Gorhald who remained standing among the ruin of princes.
And it was there, upon the broken edge of the Dry Rift, that he found Enya of the Terani, a Witch of great renown. She had lost he who had stood beside her in battle and was filled with despair. At war’s end she would have cast herself into the waves rather than endure the silence that follows glory. But Gorhald bore her up and forbade it, speaking not of triumph but of endurance.
Thus was peace purchased, not by pride, but by the refusal to yield to ending.
Gorhald lived for seventy years as Regn after the Battle of the Dry Rift. In those years he watched the Vyrum Republic change in temper and in governance. The Senex gave way to factions, and old forms were recast in ways that troubled many among the Besnir. He saw the rise of new orders and the profaning of old rites. When the War of Four Nations broke upon Erenth, Gorhald closed Dynkyr once more and waited upon the justice of the Ere All rather than cast his people into another ruin.
He lived to see the Vyrum cast down and the dim years that followed.
Gorhald was Regn for five and ninety and one hundred years before he died, beloved among many nations. He was mourned by Dwarves and Besnir alike, and at his passing a feast was held in Dynkyr to which rulers of many peoples came. It was the last time any who were not Stoneborn entered those halls in fellowship.
He was succeeded by Fyveld the Regn.
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