[Aristeia: Total War Epic Cycle/AAR] The Tale Of House Kalydon [ON HOLD]

[McScottish]

Chapter I: A Doom Is Set - Part I

The line of Kalydon has ever been an unhappy one, even before the ravaging of the Aitolian lands by the Hus Kalydonios caused the kingdom to be torn apart by civil strife. Before that gigantic boar, sent by selfish Artemis herself to punish King Oineus, struck the lands of the terrified ruler and gave need for the pursuit of a hunt by the finest warriors in all of the kingdoms near and far. It is Thoas, son of Andraimon, grandson of that same Oineus that concerns us now, he and his own line of blood which, as we shall see, was destined to be no more blessed by the Gods than that of his murdered grand-sire.

It was to Thoas that the kingdom passed then, the Curetes who had come before having wrought their vengeance on the line of Aetolus, son of Endymion and the first ruler of Aitolia, the lands of those who dwelt in Pleuron and Olenos and Pylene, in Kalydon of the rocks and Khalkis beside the sea-shore, since no longer were the sons of high-hearted Oineus living, nor Oineus himself, and fair-haired Meleagros had perished.

Thoas, oh Thoas, willing taker of but unwitting slave to the Oath of Tyndareus, sworn so that you may protect Menelaos if the need should be so. How could you have foreseen the ten years of blood, gore and death which awaited you in the east? Caused by the abduction of that suitors bride, young and headstrong Helen, blessed of Aphrodite, who Alexandros snatched from the clutches of her rightful husband and bore away to far off Ilion. No, you could not have foretold it, not even had you been a seer yourself, gathering the mountain men of fractured Aitolia and sailing with forty black-sailed ships into strange lands to fight a war not of your own doing...who could not forgive you for what you would do next? Who but the Gods.

************

“Leagros,” murmured the King of Kalydon and rightful ruler of all Aitolia, “come, boy, and help me with my armour.”

He was a tall man, taller than most mortal men, a hero amongst warriors and a man who had seen too much death. Thick black hair grew on his stout jaw, his dark eyes blinking beneath equally thick brows as he stood and tossed a vessel of water over his head, his curled hair tossed about to shake off the most of the clinging moisture. On his body he bore a number of scars, on his broad shoulders and back, on his arms and legs, and on his chest as well, but none of these were as bad as the wound which he would soon inflict upon himself.

“My armour!”

I hastened to him, my young breath coming in gasps from my throat as I lifted high and helped fit the bronze of his breastplate about his body, the Kentaur so expertly adorning the front polished by my own hand so that it shone with the intensity of Helios when the light of the sun hit it. His helmet was next, another master-work of bronze with an open face and a high bronze crest which only gave him yet greater height than his foes. No-one could mistake him for anything but a leader of men, a ruler and a champion, the way which he held himself and his bronze-tipped spear showing all others that they should kneel to him or pass into Hades.

“Any change today?” Came the same question he asked each morning, in the same rich and deep voice, “we have had them inside their city for months and still they refuse me.”

My king was troubled, I knew, and for good reason. After landing south-east of the city of Troy, the southernmost of all the Achaian kings and their armies, he had received word from King Agamemnon of Mykenai to destroy the Mysian king Teuthras by driving him back to his city of Teuthrania and keeping him there until he rotted. Thoas knew this king, he knew that he was not a coward and would not stay behind his walls forever, and that when he burst forth with his Mysians and their Kikone allies that only intervention by the Gods would be able to cease their slaughter of his bronze-clad Aitolians. This king of a rough land was no coward, but the Kikone, bearers of wickedly curved blades and masters of the javelin, were a foe beyond the present condition of his strained and already weary warriors.

The skin which draped across the entrance to the tent was thrown back, a sweating man, the lochagos of my kings army, burst inside and shook his head from side to side. I had never seen him, a veteran of a hundred battles, so shaken and so nervous, so uneasy that just to be near him enveloped you in the very same feelings of despair and misery.

“They are amassing, lord. Nearly twenty-thousand strong, their peaked helmets blinding us with their glare and two of their own lords standing before them. The men are troubled, they know Demeter bears no love for you, and in this fertile land they start to think that you shall be undone.”

“Is that all, my brave captain?”

“They say we should leave, now, whilst we still can. That we did not come here for some Spartan whore and the jealousy of one man for another, but to fight and win...so far we have fought, but there had been precious little glory for any of us.”

Thoas, though not a man to be crossed, was a calm and reasonable ruler who was much-loved by his warriors and his people for fair judgement. I could see that he was thinking, his eyes shifting this way and that, the captain trying to look anywhere but at him, and my own never leaving his disquieted face framed with dampened locks of hair. What could he do, my king? He had sworn an oath, to break it would mean leaving the shores of the east and returning to his own lands of rocky Kalydon, but this act would let slip the daimon Hybris from her bonds, and she would follow Thoas as his own shadow.

“Tell the men to prepare to leave, we will sail to Achaia, land in the domain of the Ainianes and then return to Aitolia.”

Had I said anything it would not have been heard, I was simply a young boy of seven-and-ten who washed the feet of my lord and polished his armour, but I could feel a sense of foreboding in the air, a sudden change, even as men outside the tent rushed here and there in the blazing sunlight, a doom had come upon us then and all I could do was pray.

[Derbiean]

Derbiean! Derbiean! He's here, he's there, he's every ing where!

Subbed as per my friend and will rep when i pimped it around enough

[McScottish]

Derbiean! Derbiean! He's here, he's there, he's every ing where!

Subbed as per my friend and will rep when i pimped it around enough

Just one question Derb, mind if I call you Derb, why is it that you seem to sub to all my threads? I mean, my writing isn't that good that I should have such a devoted stalker fan. Just curious as to why you always seem to appear on my AAR threads, as if by magic?

[Derbiean]

Just one question Derb, mind if I call you Derb, why is it that you seem to sub to all my threads? I mean, my writing isn't that good that I should have such a devoted stalker fan. Just curious as to why you always seem to appear on my AAR threads, as if by magic?

Well i always enjoy what you write so thats why i stalk you But nah seriously i do like what you write about and how regularly you update the stories, i imagine you have alot of research to do for these AARs and from doing research for my own AAR/story i know its alot of work, finding info, selecting what is relevant to your story, finding the balance so you don't get bogged down in the details etc.

So me stalking errr i mean following you from AAR to AAR is my way of showing you some appreciation for all the work you put in

[McScottish]

Chapter I: A Doom Is Set – Part II

For months we travelled across the wine-dark sea, Hybris and her children pursuing us at every moment, watching and waiting for the time when they would take their revenge on the son of Andraimon for his breaking of an oath and his desertion of his brother Achaians to the edge of cold Trojan bronze. I saw my great lord Thoas turn from the hero of Kalydon to a person that I could hardly recognise, all the happiness seemingly drained from him day-by-day by an unseen force, his very spirit seeming to shrivel and wither like dying grapes upon the vine.

“Tell me, do you think my decision was just? Did I offend the Gods?”

When he asked me this, his face grave and his hands shaking slightly, I did not know what to say. All I could do was to take his large hand in my own boyish palm and console him with thoughts of his wife, Iphis the beauty, and his only son, handsome and smooth-limber Haimon. These did much to ease his pains, but still he let his mind gnaw at him like a rodent at an unburied body, tossing and turning during those brief times when Hypnos would be gracious enough to weave his spell over the King of Aitolia, waking with a yell and glaring with fierce eyes about him before returning to slumber. Sometimes, during those hours of light when he strode back and forth between the rowers of his ship, he would perch himself on one side and sweep his gaze over the horizon and the shapes of the other black-sailed vessels.

“I did do the right thing,” he would say more to himself than any other, “did I not save the lives of all these men?” If I was nearby then I would agree with him, willing to do anything to raise him up to the man he once was.

Thankful as they were, the men from the cities of Aitolia, at least those that owed allegiance to Kalydon and the king who reigned there, some had began to speak amongst themselves as warriors will do when there is no-one to fight. They had began to say that King Thoas had been damned by the Gods, that they should return to Phrygia, or even that Thoas should be thrown overboard before they returned back to the land of their births. It was just the talk of nervous men, so knew Thoas and myself, but it was also dangerous, for had Thoas been a more savage ruler he would have taken those men and flayed them alive for their traitorous babbling. As a just and benevolent ruler, however, he simply assured them that he was not cursed and that when they reached Aitolia he would show them.

Oh Thoas, blameless king of Kalydon.

************

I met him, or at least saw him, first when we had landed at the farthermost end of the Spercheios and proceeded inland through Ainiania. The Ainianes lived in the valley either side of the river, and occupied the low ground to the north. Their neighbours, the Oetaeans had made their settlement on the southern and opposite shore.

Neither peoples troubled us as we waded ashore, our legs thigh-deep in water from the swollen river, each man looking warily about him as he walked cautiously beside his spear-brother, no single warrior moving away from his fellow in those early days. The further we went, taking what food we needed from the land about us, and what drink from nearby streams and brooks, the more we expected to be assailed whilst we slept. We were not, and rather we saw well-nigh a single native of either land, their fighting men taken by a hundred lordlings to the lands from whence we had just sailed, to live and die by the spear, arrow or sword.

The one who I speak of came into our camp on the third day of the fifth week of travel, as we neared the other side of a pass through the mountains which lead from Thessalía and into north-eastern Aitolia, the spirit of the men raised and songs from home being sang about the fires which twinkled in the night.

I was sitting on a rocky outcrop, my legs dangling from it and my youthful eyes piercing the darkness to pick out the shapes of men shifting from fire to fire, sharing their evening meals and honing their weapons. It would not be expected by most that, so close to their own lands, a man should sharpen and prepare his weapons, but a warrior knows that you are never truly safe and that a dull sword blade or spear tip will fight away not even the of smallest foes.

“Are you not Leagros, bastard-born of the king?”

My body flinched as I swivelled about, clutching the hilt of the bronze knife I kept at my waist, my eyes focusing on someone standing not the length of two arms away from me in the nights black veil. I could pick out his shape, that of any middle-aged man, although this one surely bore the physique of an athlete, perhaps a runner? A petasos, the soft-edged hat of a traveller, obscured his face, but I could see a pointed beard and the locks of hair beneath the rim, a chalmys thrown back over one shoulder and a smile on his lips. It did occur to me to ponder why anyone would be wearing a travellers cap in the midst of the night, but my lips moved faster than my mind.

“I am he, and who may you be, who conceals yourself beneath a petasos and knows my name?”

“I am one,” he said gently, his voice like a wisp of air or a soft breeze, “who comes to tell you of what you have been granted to know.”

“You speak in riddles, tell me what you would and then leave me to my isolation.”

“As you have it, son of Thoas, then know this. Your father, king now of Kalydon, shall not be king much longer, for he shall go go to the place where the serpent dwells beneath the rock, the adversary of gleaming Apollôn. There he shall be struck down by one who the Gods favour, and a new king you shall have, though with much mourning and sadness.”

“You dare to threaten my king!” I half-yelled, rising to my full height and flourishing the knife as menacingly as I could, “what gives you the right to do such a thing?”

“I make no threats,” came his reply in that same lilting tone, his entire body unmoved by my show of what I thought was strength, “but by this kerykeion I do claim the right to speak what I have been instructed to tell. Now you know, and change it you can not, that too you must know. Farewell, Leagros.”

Though I did not look away, my eyes staring straight at him, it was as if I were temporarily relieved of my sight and blind to the world, that strange figure vanishing from the spot where he stood. My hair stood up on end, the skin of my neck crawling, and there could be no mistake. Thoas would die.