The year was 1282. Covenant had been destroyed and the great library razed. Among the most irreplacable works burned in the devastation was the last surviving copy of Forgall's Bestiary. So it was that my master, Antero, sent his students all over the land to gather knowledge for inclusion in Antero's Bestiary.
I was assigned to study the bre'Unor, arguably the most dangerous assignment of all. But I was surprised when I got a chance to talk to the bre'Unor, and found that their love of history exceeded my own. The bre'Unor exist now only as a few wandering clans, each consisting of less than thirty of their race. The leader of the largest clan, a group of over a hundred, is named Gor-Ash. It was this clan that I first encountered.
But the bre'Unor had their days of glory. There are tales of times when the bre'Unor roamed the Ermine in their glorious thousands, when they were the undisputed masters of the Ermine, and no one dared enter the darkness of the Old Forest. Tales from these times abound, and the bre'Unor clans guard their stories jealously. Anyone caught revealing a story to a rival clan, apparently, is punished by death. I witnessed one of these executions during my travels. I will not speak more of this except to say that the method involved wolves...
My fir'Bolg guide was clearly nervous as we crossed the Meander, the river seperating the fir'Bolg lands from the bre'Unor. Countless thousands of bre'Unor and fir'Bolg met their demise along its shores, and in ages past the river often ran red with the blood of the hated enemies. There was a good chance we would have been killed instantly, but instead the bre'Unor were curious, and in a language that seemed more fit for a wild beast, they asked us our purpose. My guide had a rudimentary understanding of their speech, and communicated our mission.
I was brought before Gor-Ash and made to tell many tales. I told of Muirthemne and its days of glory, and the fall of Ceiscoran. I told of the Heron Guard's struggles at Bagrada, of the fall of Cormorant, and the struggles on the Plain of Scales. I told of times long past, and distant memories of half-forgotten childhood stories. I told the tales of all the battles of the Great War, and the stuggle against the Fallen. Every single story from known history I knew was extracted from me over the course of five days. Gor-Ash and his men listened carefully, intently, and I was asked many times to repeat parts of my tales. At last Gor-Ash was satisfied. "You have made our clan twice as powerful with these stories," he said. "We shall be able to trade them among the other clans for service in war should the time come. Now I will tell you one of our stories."
Gor-Ash dismissed all his cohorts, leaving me alone with the giant warrior and my guide. "I am not the first to wear the name Gor-Ash," he said, "Nor shall I be the last. I am merely a mortal, but innumerable seasons ago, there was a legendary figure among our people who wore the name Gor-Ash. He was the first. He was created from the flesh of the b'Y'laggo herself, and united all the clans under his rule. Since that time, every leader of our clan has taken the name Gor-Ash."
"Gor-Ash fought in many battles and slew many hundreds of fir'Bolg. But his greatest battle was his first, because the fir'Bolg were not afraid of him. After this battle, they hardly dared stand against him, and his legend spread like fire through a thicket. This is the story of that first battle..."
I sat long into the night listening to the stories from this one battle, and to the stories of the first great bre'Unor hero. The stories have been passed down for countless generations. Perhaps they have been embellished, exaggerated, and added onto over the years, for Gor-Ash speaks of a bre'Unor warrior six cubits tall, flanked by fire-wielding bre'Unor priests and walking trees. But I am not one to judge the validity of the story. And so I record now into Chapter 13, Section Three of Antero's Bestiary, in the exact words of the bre'Unor leader,
The Legend of Gor-Ash
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Any inconsitencies? Comments? Contradictions? Please let us know soon!
-Ares
