Read volume I of this series here. Read volume IV of this series here.
In 822, not long after the conclusion of the Coronation War, a warlord from the east began ravaging Ardonn. He may have been a Lakeland despot, but most legends tell that it was Emrys, an ancient king cursed with immortality who ruled Ardonn before the Exiles arrived, and who had an unquenchable thirst for revenge against the descendants of those who took his kingdom. However, this was most likely a later mythologisation of the real, mortal invader, constructed at a later date by Ardish propagandists.
Regardless, it is clear that this warlord posed a significant threat to the peace and prosperity of not just Ardonn, but all the kingdoms between the Alps and the Cris. His ability to conquer was unparalleled, and all who stood against him fell to his horde.
King Carol knew he had to face the warlord, and much to his surprise Queen Aelda marched to his aid and promised her allegiance in return for her hostage son. Carol agreed, and while most lords and kings of the Exiles retreated and hid within their forts and castles, Carol and Aelda marched against the common threat.
Near Everlynn their combined force stood against the warlord in a great and terrible battle. It was a massacre, and the men of the Twin Kingdoms fell in droves to the invading horsemen. The battle was a disaster. The survivors retreated to the sea, and what ensued was yet another slaughter, remembered as one of Ardonn’s darkest days. Hundreds were cut down on the beaches and in the surf, and it was said that for weeks the shore was stained red with blood.
Fortunately, Carol, Aelda, and a handful of others escaped in their ships and sailed for the Capital of Ardonn, where they took refuge as the invaders ravaged the countryside. For three years it seemed that all hope was lost as the people within the Capital’s walls slowly starved, until Carol — with the aid of his Godspeaker, Godwin — developed a plan.
The details of their plan are lost, though there is much speculation. What is known is that Carol lured the invaders into battle somewhere far to the north, and then returned triumphant. He was hailed as a hero, his divine bloodline evident, and many of Ardonn’s allies offered their swords and knelt to Carol, proclaiming him High King.
As part of their agreement Carol returned the boy Godheart to Aelda, but the queen rejected Carol’s offer of vassalage. Instead, for the next eleven years, Ardonn and Aedonn waged periodic, seasonal wars against one another, with neither gaining any significant ground. It was, the old folks said, like the days before the River Wars.
In 832, Queen Aelda had her husband executed. It is said that she found him in bed with a servant girl, and in a fit of jealous rage demanded his death. Some say she did the deed herself. With King Godheart’s death, Beglen’s nobles elected a prominent lord from among their number rather than one of the previous king’s sons, fearing — should Aedonn and Beglen be united under one ruler — a repeat of the disaster their kingdom suffered in Aelda’s first war against Ardonn. Aelda launched an invasion of Beglen in an attempt to install her son, but it was a terrible failure and did not last beyond the summer.
The wars between Ardonn and Aedonn resumed for the next four years, until in 836, Queen Aelda was murdered in her bed chamber. It was an assassination that sent waves of astonishment throughout the Exile kingdoms, though some felt it was inevitable.
There were rumours that it was Aelda’s three sons who orchestrated the murder, as after her death the brothers convinced the Kingsmoot to divide the kingdom between them. For a few years they ruled their shared realm effectively, united in their efforts, but soon enough their differences pushed them apart. Without their mother as a common enemy, they turned against each other.
The first crisis was in 839. King Elwulf of West-Aedonn proved himself wholly ineffective at dealing with the constant Maricari coastal raids, and he was always calling upon his brothers for aid. They felt the Maricari were a domestic responsibility, and that any king worth his name would have little trouble with pirates. In the summer of 839, Godheart of North-Aedonn and Cured of South-Aedonn marched to depose their brother and subsequently split West-Aedonn between them both.
Elwulf offered little resistance, instead leaving the defence of his realm to the earls, most of whom saw little point in wasting lives and silver fighting to defend a coward. Elwulf abandoned his crown and fled to the sea, where his ship was (ironically) set upon by Maricari pirates and sunk.
By 840, however, Godheart and Cured turned against one another as well. They cleanly divided West-Aedonn along the River Aed, as initially agreed, but a dispute arose over who should control the prosperous and strategic city of Aedmouth through which the river flowed.
Their dispute could not be settled diplomatically, so the brothers went to war. Cured called upon his allies in the south, Bullhorn and Applehall — the last two independent kingdoms south of the River Aed, besides Cured’s.
Godheart, however, made use of the relationships he had developed during his time in Ardonn. Carol, who since Aelda’s death had been building his kingdom’s strength and wealth, intervened militarily on Godheart’s behalf, invoking his ancient (and questionable) rights as High King of the Exiles to enforce order among the disparate lords.
The ensuing war lasted two seasons, with light skirmishes and raids in the first, and devastating battles and sieges in the second. Godheart and Carol defeated Cured and his allies in 842, but not without significant struggle, which earned Cured somewhat favourable peace terms. He was to surrender all of Aedonn to Godheart, and in return, he would be made Lord of Beglen with generous liberties (only nominally, of course, for that kingdom was not yet under Carol’s control). So too the kings of Bullhorn and Applehall recognised Carol’s high kingship and swore to him, with similarly generous terms.
In exchange for Carol’s aid in his war, King Godheart of Aedonn also swore an oath to Carol and recognised his overlordship, and thus became Lord Godheart of Oldford. Such a change in title, especially for a man of Eored’s line, would have been deeply humiliating for a man of substantial pride — but Godheart was not such a man. He was content with his lordship, and Carol was a good king worth serving.
There were a handful of independent, stubborn lordships and earldoms throughout the lands between the Cris and the Alps, existing in isolation or on the fringes, but Carol’s new vassals swiftly conquered them and brought them into the High King’s new realm.
Beglen was the only Exile kingdom left sovereign, but much of it was wasteland and ruin, still recovering from Carol’s ravaging during the Coronation War. Almost immediately after Cured’s submission the displaced lord sought to press his claim on Beglen, with Carol and Godheart’s enthusiastic support. All saw it as the path to peace between men who had once been enemies.
The ensuing war was swift, and no battles of note were fought. Beglen found itself too weak to resist the overwhelming forces of Ardonn, now fat and swollen on the wealth and manpower of its new subjects. By 844, Beglen was subjugated and the numerous lords and earls of the Exiles were at last under the banner of Carol the Great.
For the first time in history (a thing that had not even happened in Eomund and Eored’s day) the Exiles were united under a single king: Carol Eomunding. Carol readopted the style of ‘king,’ and the various subjugated monarchs became mere lords. The title of High King was renounced by Carol and quickly fell out of use, as it was reckoned there was no longer any need for a High King.
For there was, after all, only one king among the Exiles — and he was, forevermore, the Lord of Ardonn.