PART ONE

The rise of Veloth power under Ayden Vai was unheralded and unforeseen, and it took the world completely by surprise. One could place the Septim Empire a distant second, next to the Oceanic Khaganate but the old Cyrodiil Empire was born of previous empires before, already possessed of a vast sweeping country with innumerable manpower and resources. When the third era came to a close, Ayden Vai was merely one among a number of other obscure Velothi khans, and neither he nor his tribe had any reputation whatsoever outside of the barren plains of Vvardenfell, where they and their fellow Ashlander barbarians lived on horseback among their flocks and herds. Neither in civilized nor semi-civilized Tamriel, nor in civilized nor semi-civilized Akavir, was he known or feared, any more, for instance, than the wild Dremora hordes from the Marshes of inner Skyrim, the Dreaded Wild Hunt Bosmers of Valenwood, or the Aldmeri Dominion of ages past.

The Septim Empire, the greatest civilization and military machine known to man and mer at the time in Tamriel, held sway but a succession of inept emperors combined with political and moral corruptions at the highest levels of government steered the empire towards an impending decline, and subject nations all around it were plotting to take back their autonomy while jealous and ambitions legion generals with their loyal armies in far flung posts all throughout the empire plotted to seize the ruby throne. The land of the Bretons was a feuding feudal patchwork of kingdoms, dukedoms, and princedoms. The land of the Re Gada was divided between Totambu nationalists and Imperial adherents, the Forebears and the Crown nations respectively. The reigning King of Sentinel, a Forebear sovereign, Lhotun the Lucky, made his aspirations very clear in conquering independent Crown territories, ruling the western half of a large desert country known as Hammerfell. Summerset Isles was made up of several Altmer kingdoms. Racked by bloody rebellions, social, and civil unrest, Summerset was a torn land. The rich forested land of Bosmeria is a nation of warring tribes with no national cohesion--each clan a law unto itself. The Nords of Skyrim were themselves a nation of warring kingdoms, princedoms, and chiefdoms, off and on organized into a kind of loose confederacy that managed to expands east and westwards into new lands. Elsweyr and Argonia were tribal nations of betmer who were not easily ruled over by the Septim Empire. In Morrowind, the Dunmer were one race but of many nations. In the west, bordering the marches of Cyrodiil was the Emirate of Hlaalu, that province of Dunmer merchants and trader, who were the Empires' allies and supporters of the Septims' reign. In the southern heartland was the fabled capital of Morrowind as well as the Emirate of Indoril. Its legendary farmland and bountiful grazing were a boon to both the farmer and the herder. It was from Mournhold that ancient Chimer and Velothi kings ruled Morrowind. Further south of the Indoril nation was the Emirate of Dres; also a nation of merchants who plied the slave trade and warred with Argonian tribes to the south. In outer Morrowind, Septim's justice and the Imperial legions dominated these lands but in the north central region between the Amu and Dirya rivers lay the great steppes of Vvardenfell, where was found the Velothi-an untamed nation of warring tribes of horse-lords, emirates, and khanates where Ayden Vai, a man of the Cheremisa plains from the Rayylani clan of the Kir'ghuz Tribe long destroyed by Imperial legions, who would one day rule Vvardenfell through inhuman charisma, cunning, ruthlessness, and overwhelming military might. To the east of Vvardenfell past the Dirya, in the Marrarun (The land beyond the river) reigned the Telvanni Shahdom; an aggressively expansionist military power with ambitions to the west. They possessed advanced technology and siege engineering derived from the eastern Akavir and Dwemer constructs of yore. And in Akavir, the Jade Empire of the Ka Po' Tun, was probably superior in civilization and in military strength to any nation of Tamriel, surrounded by lesser nations of various Akaviri races.

Into this world burst the Velothi. In an astonishingly short time, Ayden Khan spent the early years obtaining first the control of his adopted nation of Redoran warriors and the Ashlander nomadic tribes, to form an irresistible force of Redoran heavy cavalry and Ashlander archer cavalry. Next, he established the absolute supremacy of his khanate over all its neighbors. Finally, his work complete, his supremacy over the wild mounted herdsmen and aristocratic warriors was absolute and unquestioned. Every formidable competitor, every man who would not bow with unquestioning obedience to his will, had been ruthlessly slain or worse, and he developed countless numbers of able men who would live and die for him, who were willing to be his devoted slaves, and to carry out his every command with unhesitating obedience and dreadful prowess. Out of the Veloth horse-bowmen and horse-swordsmen he speedily made the most formidable troops in existence. East, west, north, and south he sent his armies, and under his immortal rule, he conquered every nation and people. None could hold their own against the terrible Velothi horsemer and their subject allies. Everyone feared the Great Khan and his armies. The Khan put to the poisoned sword, King Helseth the Usurper of Mournhold, he annihilated numerous Breton, Altmer, Cyrodiilic, and Nordic kings, chieftains, and other potentates, and ruthlessly crushed so many Khajit, Bosmer, and Argonian tribes. Ayden even put to death the last Septim Emperor. Securing the greater part of eastern Tamriel, Ayden brought low Lhotun, the King of Hammerfell, , and killed the all-powerful Heavenly Emperor Pu Wu the Mighty; ruler of the Jade Empire of the Far East, just as they sacked the principal cities of Cyrodiil, Skyrim, High Rock, Hammerfell, Summerset Isles, and the nations of Akaviri.

They were inconceivably formidable in battle, tireless in campaign, and on the march; utterly indifferent to fatigue and hardship, of extraordinary prowess with bow and sword. The Khan and his armies, marched incredible distances and overthrew whatever opposed them. They struck down the Nords at a blow and trampled the land into a bloody mire beneath their horses' feet. Here now is the story of the greatest of the great rulers whose rule is everlasting.

EARLY LIFE
Ayden Vai was born in the year of 400 into the Rayylani clan of the Kir'ghuz tribe; a mix of Dunmer and Nibenese nomads of the Cheremisa steppes. The shamans of the clan declared that the infant was destined to rule the world. It was said that when Ayden came forth from his mother's womb, in both hands he was grasping blood clots; an auspicious sign that the blood of millions would be shed by his hands. Ayden was but a young boy when his Dunmer father, a hard fighting Gulakhan, lost his life in a battle over cattle. His Nibenese mother killed herself before becoming a forced bride to her late husband's rivals. His clan was torn apart and was given over to the main Kir'ghuz tribe with client status. Despite or perhaps because of the early trauma, he thrived and learned the martial and equestrian skills that would save his life many times over and forge an empire one day.

As kids, he would gather his brothers and likeminded ruffians and roam the windswept plains and practice mounted archery and master the hunt for game. Then the Septim Empire sent in its legions to claim the barbarian land in the name of the Emperor and Akatosh. In their native lands, the Kir'ghuz fought valiantly and bravely, but the manpower of the legions was seemingly limitless and they had made alliances with hated Nord tribes to attack them from the north. Nearly to the man, the tribe was wiped out. Those that survived fled to Cheydinhal but never to live as nomads. Ayden, a brave boy of 13 years, speared a legionary knight off his horse, killing him. Taking his horse with a reflex bow and quiver of arrows, Ayden took flight from the legions, killing or wounding three legion cavalry that pursued him and the rest of his brothers.

In their escape, Ayden became separated from his brothers and was later caught in an ambush by Jarnhold Nords who enslaved and tormented Ayden. The Jarnholds put him in a cangue and used him wretchedly for two months, they intended on either killing or selling him to the Cyrodiil slave market, but Ayden, clever and patient, waited for an unwary guard to come near him. He tripped and beat him to death with the cangue--hitting the Nord so hard that the cangue broke loose. Ayden fled again on a fleet mount again with bows and arrows outran the bulk of his pursuers and shot down the persistent.

Ayden had found his last remaining younger brothers and took care of them. On his own, surrounded by brigands, wild animals, and enemy nomads, carved out a hard scrabble life for himself and his two younger brothers but in time, formed a band of raiders whom he commanded to great effect, plundering eastern Cyrodiil and Dunmer settlements east and west of the Valus Mountains. The Empire was roused to action and employed all its manpower into destroying the Qara-Jebe band (Black Arrow) and its mysterious leader, Ayden. Ayden killed many of His Majesty's soldiers but in one battle, he was reduced to ten warriors including himself and faced a brigade of a hundred legion knights. It was a bloody fight that resulted in the death of the legionnaires, the loss of his entire band, and he himself wounded and the last of his brothers killed. The remaining members fled to the southern heartland of Cyrodiil where the name of the Black Arrow bandits would live on. Ayden escaped capture by donning the dress and uniform of one of the slain legionnaires. All by his lonesome, he decided to seek fortune in the east; the home of his ancestor's ancestors, in Morrowind, in Marrarun, the land beyond the river, nearest the Vvardenfell steppes.

RISE TO POWER
Ayden made his new home as a young man of eighteen in the Redoran ulus deep in the heart of Vvardenfell, a land of green steppe, rolling hills, and black desert a.k.a. Ashlands; whose center was a 400 mi wide corridor between the two greatest rivers in Morrowind, the Amal and the Dirya. He resided in the territory of Ald'ruhn, in a village called Kesh--the heart of Redoran domains. The Redorans were a warlike Ashlander tribe in the olden days, known for their ferocious cavalry charges. They were conquered by the nascent Almsivi Empire under Vivec the Rogue-Emperor and in exchange for their arms and domains; they adopted the Almsivi faith--forming a half-settled, half-nomadic culture. They were still very much warlike and paid homage to the old ways. Ayden's people were the Redorans. Though he had Velothi blood but was rejected by the nobles for his Kir'ghuz background. The Redorans held sway in the western half of Vvardenfell which formed the Marrarun. To the east were the Telvanni Emirates; a profligate and double dealing lot of warring urban dwelling emirs who dominated the Jade Road; where caravans from the East brought exotic commodities, from silk to slaves, everything could be had for a price. The extremely rich Telvanni guarded it jealously from the other emirates. They were erstwhile allies of the Manghuks, a mixed breed of Dunmer and Toghan people--descendants of a Kamal horde that invaded centuries ago. They worshipped various gods of Akaviri and the eternal blue sky and roamed the Angaraland steppes south of the Hunger Steppe, east of the Telvanni Emirates but owing to external pressures from the Jade Kingdoms of the Ka Po' Tun peoples, the Manghuks migrated west, lured by Telvanni coin, who sought to wipe out the Redorans, allowing the Manghuks to settle in Redoran and Ashlander lands. There was conflict within the Redoran ulus. Tensions boiled over between the settled nobility in the towns and villages and the nomadic, military aristocracy in the east. The more nomadically inclined aristocrats scorned the settled people as "qura'annas" (half-breeds or mongrels), to which was returned by the western Redoran, calling them "Jetes" meaning robbers or bandits. Eastern and Western Redoran was divided by Red Mountain, where the powerful demon lord Dagoth Ur and his minions held great power and sent its vile hordes to plunder both parties equally. Tensions were further escalated by privileges granted to the military by previous emirs. These imposed crippling burdens on poorer members of the local population, who were forced to feed, clothe, and arm the warriors. The current Emir Athyn Sarethi declared his support for the settled farmers, traders, and agriculturalists at the annual qurilitay (council). And the Barlass Tribe of the Redoran ulus (Ayden's adoptive tribe within House Redoran) was in accordance with his policies but Sarethi's rival for power and greatest detractor, Bolvyn Venim, a brash and blustery warlord supported the militant aristocratic nomads of eastern Redoran. Vvardenfell was cleft in twain, to the west, Marrarun, to the east, the Telvanni Emirate and nomad infidel Manghuks battled against settled Redoran Emirs of the west whilst the Redorans themselves bickered among each other. In the southern heartland of ancient Morrowind, the Cyrodiil Imperial legions of the Septims invaded centuries ago and held in its yoke, the heartland Dunmer and the Great Houses, imposing Imperial culture, trade, and rule of law in the west and south-central part of Morrowind. And to the north, existed the Ashlander Tribes in the Kara Kum, in lands mixed with black-sand deserts and seas of purple-green grass. They were completely nomadic hordes of Veloth mounted herders, hunters, and warriors who worshipped many of the old Daedra gods but gave particular reverence to the Moon-and-Star Goddess Azura, the mother goddess of the ancient Velothi. Few Veloth south of Kara Kum thought them anything but mere savages and the Redorans in recent times launched religious crusades against the "Daedra worshipping heathens." Ashlander chiefs and petty khans returned the favor with raids on caravans and settlements of Great House Veloth and sometimes destroyed those armies sent from the south--such was their ferocious might and cunning on the open plains. This was the chaotic world that Ayden lived in.

He earned placement within the Redoran Emirate as a quartermaster, whose responsibility was to round up mer for the Emir's army. This position he earned while acting as a herder for Kesh, he and a bunch of fellow herders drove off a horde of Telvanni raiders who assaulted a Redoran baggage train. The noble within had his wife stolen by the Telvanni chieftain and Ayden impressed everyone when he single handedly slew the chief, the remaining raiders, and rescued the Redoran noble's wife unharmed. He was the scourge of warring nomads, bandits, and raiders precisely because he lived the life of such a rogue in his early youth and knew well the tactics and hold-outs of the brigands. His valor, cunning, and might was known from Vvardenfell to Kara-Kum. In Bal Isra, he was among friends and the Redoran people shared their family hearths with the famed outlander. He befriended the likes of Trey of High Rock, a man much like himself who grew up as a slave who was forcibly traveled for thousands of miles until he was bought at a Redoran slave mart and used for his skill at herding, something he acquired as he grew up in the slave caravans and Alandro Sul, a young man and superb hunter and archer, whose wife and child were killed by a Manghuk raiding party. In 418, he married Marobar Uvlen, daughter of a well to do herder. Such were his accomplishments but he was spurned for his mixed blood and would never rise in the Great House of Redoran not to speak of that he was a retainer in a client tribe and not of Redoran nobility. Yet there was no stopping Ayden's ambitions for he was a man of unconventional means.

In the serene and savage Bal Isra valley, Ayden honed his skills of the steppe without which his dreams of world domination would be naught. An age-old proverb dictated his every action: 'Only a hand that can grasp a sword may hold a scepter.' Self-advancement in this brutal world was unthinkable without excelling in the martial arts. Though he was a low ranking retainer, the aura of destiny and overpowering charisma he possessed as well as his familiarity with steppe customs impressed the Ashlander tribes to the North, a people who were peerless horsemer, an untapped resource of formidable manpower that every Emir overlooked, deigning them mere savages. Already Ayden recruited Ashlander warriors to his cause.

In 420, the Grand Emir of the Redorans, Athyn Sarethi, was assassinated by the Telvanni, some suspected collusion with Bolvyn Venim, Athyn's son-in-law who married his daughter-Venim was a rival to his power and an eagerly ambitious Redoran warlord. The Manghuk Khan, Uldiz Khoja, invaded from the east to conquer the heart of Vvardenfell. Haij Beg, the Chief of the Barlass Tribe, that ruled the Bal Isra valley, decided to flee. Ayden accompanied his leader as far as the Amal, where he asked to be allowed to return home. Ayden declared that he, with a body of men, would prevent the invading Manghuks from seizing more land. He convinced his Chief.

Rather than fight against the invaders, the pragmatic Ayden offered his services to the Khan. It was a supremely audacious about-face, but his offer was accepted. Henceforth, he would be the Khan's vassal ruler and was given titles, wealth, and women to accompany the honor. At the age of 20, Ayden successfully claimed leadership of the entire Barlass Tribe. On a dime, he turned against his cowardly former chief and had him and his subordinates gored at the end of his warriors' lances during a night raid.

To strengthen his position, he contracted an alliance with the aforementioned Emir Venim, the son-in-law of the late Grand Emir Sarethi and aristocratic ruler of Balkh, Northern Ald'ruhn. Venim was leader of the Qara'unas Tribe. Ayden and Venim had a secret pledge to rid Marrarun of the Manghuks. To strengthen the alliance, Ayden married Venim's sister, Aljai-as much as it secretly pained Venim to give his sister to whom he regarded as a half-blooded mongrel.

The Khan purged the place of local leaders and appointed his son Ilyas Khoja as Governor of Marrarun. Ayden would not stand for being second in command. Ayden maintaining a placid nature gained an audience with the Khan and slew him with a hidden dagger and his two bodyguards in his yurt. Ayden did another about-face and rallied the people of Ald'ruhn. Ayden and Venim spurned the Manghuks and turned outlaw. Though both went their separate ways for the time being, Venim consolidated power in the north and Ayden's Barlass Tribe, ever faithful, kept his treasure and harem under guard in Bal Isra. Though both men left Ald'ruhn in rebellion against the Manghuk occupiers, Ayden was a wanted man and had to bide his time in the south.

Ayden adventured in the heart of Morrowind. He roamed across the south with greedy intent, working as a highwayman, thief, and bandit and the scourge of all three alternately. He spent time as a mercenary in the pay of Great House Emirs, served a short stint as a legion auxiliarist, an Imperial Cult Priest and Tribunal Imam--strong-arming the faithful pilgrims disguised as a man of faith; robbing the male worshippers and ravishing the females. He even became a Morag Tong assassin and had the ear of the Grandmaster Eno in Vivane, a solid ally of the Redorans. It was fortunate that he learned the tricks and trades of an assassin for he was assailed one night at an inn. He killed the two assassins who were members of the Dark Brotherhood--a splinter faction of the Morag Tong. Curious to know who was behind the hit, followed the trail to the Queen of Cities, Mournhold, the fabled capital of Morrowind found within the province of Deshaan, nestled in fertile river valleys in what was known as the Granary of the East. Ayden fell in love with the city and the surrounding region and vowed one day; he would make it his capital.

With aid from Morag Tong agents, Ayden discovered it to be none other than King Hlaalu Helseth, a usurper on the throne who reputedly poisoned his uncle, the former King of Morrowind, propped up by Hlaalu-Imperials, and his heir Talen Vandas. Helseth heard of Ayden's exploits in the land of Vvardenfell, in Marrarun. A place regarded by southern Dunmer as a land of half-civilized and savage steppe nomads. Helseth did not desire a renegade warlord traipsing about his domain and sought his death through a Dark Brotherhood contract. Ayden did not take it to heart.

Maintaining a non-plussed demeanor, Ayden cut a dashing and heroic figure, regarded by many of the Dunmer maidens and courtesans, to be unearthly handsome, he impressed all at court with his air of power and dignity, something that Helseth, with his sullen demeanor, scratchy voice, and frail shoulders, could only hope to project. Nonetheless, Ayden, after cleverly dodging all of Helseth's courtly methods of assassination, convinced Helseth of his honorable intentions in the land of Mournhold--outmaneuvering and outwitting Helseth in his own court, the King bit his tongue and hired Ayden into his service. Helseth sent Ayden against a rebel Dres town, while in fact, Helseth already had an alliance with House Dres through his marriage to Lady Dinara Dres. It was a suicide mission in which Helseth ordered the Dres Lord to attack and kill Ayden with his superior forces. Arriving in the desert province of Sistan, Ayden was greatly outnumbered but showing again his unrivaled genius and outrageous daring, he swallowed a basin of wild boar's blood before parlaying with the Dres lord. During the meeting, Ayden vomited back up the blood, the Dres lord and his captains, thinking that he was dying, let their guards down and late in the night; Ayden ordered his mer to fall upon the hapless Dres, slaying them nearly to the last. Ayden sought succor with rebel Argonian tribes on the borders of Argonia and Basra, leading insurrections against the slave holding Dres whom were despised by the lizard folk. Ayden returned to Mournhold, much to the dismay of Helseth who nonetheless rewarded him for the attempt. Ayden was given command of troops to put down a rebellion of Indoril warrior monks in the territory of Ganja and Hlaalu rebellions in Narsis. Ayden was awarded with riches enough to return to Vvardenfell and fight against the Manghuks.

Ayden returned to fight the Manghuks. He became known for his brilliantly inventive battle tactics. In the final battle against the Manghuks, he ordered his mer to light hundreds of campfires on the hills around the far larger forces of his enemy to convince them they were surrounded. When the foe fled, he ordered his mer to fasten leafy branches to their saddle sides to stir up dust clouds as they gave chase, giving the impressions of a huge army on the move. The foe was fooled and Marrarun was his.

In 423, the Battle of the ash mire, tensions were visible between the two aspiring warlords, Ayden and Venim-resentment, rivalry, and jealousy abounded and it negatively affected the outcome of the battle. Ilyas Khoja, the former Governor of Marrarun invaded again and battle was met. Ayden had the upper hand but Venim held back his reinforcements and turned what could have been a devastating rout into a barely won and costly victory for both Ayden and Venim. The Manghuk force was crushed, Ilyas Khoja was killed through an arrow through the heart, but the two men lost a great deal of mer. Ayden hated Venim for he could not be trusted.

In 424, Ayden and Venim successfully and brutally overthrew the independent Sorgun reign of Maar Gan and installed themselves as the new rulers. The Sorguns hated both Telvanni and Manghuks and successfully overcame Ilyas Khoja's siege forces. Hovering like vultures around the weakened city, both men quickly seized power.

Though Venim was the senior man, Ayden was winning a personal following. His Emirs and soldiers, Ashlanders and Redorans, encouraged by his generosity in distributing plundered treasures, loved him. Venim was mean-minded--to recoup the heavy losses incurred in the Battle of the Ashmire, he raised a punitive head tax on Ayden' Emirs and followers, so expensive it was beyond their means. Venim's avarice didn't escape notice but Ayden's star was on the rise.

Between 424 and 425, Ayden and Venim officially split after exchanging fierce words and were unofficially at war. Ayden used these years profitably. He consolidated his popularity w/ his Barlass tribesmen and cast a shrewd eye over other sections of society whose support he would need if he were to govern alone: the Almsivi clergy; the nomad aristocracy of the steppes; merchants; agricultHoral workers; the settled populations of cities, towns, and villages, hurt by endless conflict. Venim though alienated his subjects w/ heavy taxes. His decision to rebuild and fortify the citadel of Balkh was a provocative insult to the nomad aristocracy who opposed settlement. They saw in its broad walls the defenses the rise of Venim's power and the decline of their own.

Around 426, Ayden gained countless followers. Outnumbered five to one, Ayden gave battle with his small army against the entire Manghuk Horde and crushed them entirely; slaying the new Khan Arat Zhengi, the commanding general who took the mantle of Khan. Ayden seized his harem and the treasury of the Manghuks. Among the most valuable of the spoils was the youthful Borta Sai, daughter of the last Kamal Khan of Khojend, she was also a princess of the Zeng Sai line--that mighty warlord who nearly overthrew the Jade Empire in the East two centuries ago. It was customary for a victorious leader to help himself to the harem of a defeated enemy. Ayden wasted no time in availing himself of the privilege. Ayden took the long view. He knew her worth when he'd one day invade Akavir and his marriage to Borta would bolster his status among the Kamal Tribes whose support he'd use to help conquer the Ka Po' Tun and their Jade empires and kingdoms.

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The wives and concubines of Ayden Vai
Ayden was well known for being an avid collector of wives and concubines as he was of treasures and trophies from his many campaigns. Though he was not monogamous by any means, the greatest love of his life was Chani Ai-Matuul, a very gorgeous woman-child of the steppes, daughter of the Urhan Khan, and possessing a calm and pleasing personality, wise and insightful. Ayden sought her counsel more than once in his everlasting reign. She was the Great Queen and Chief Wife of Ayden and none but her children through Ayden could inherit Imperial titles and land. He married so many in order to cement alliances and placate vassal rulers but once he achieved the Golden Khan of Resdaynia-Emperor of the World, he eschewed secondary wives altogether with the exception of his queen wife, reducing the other wives to concubinage. As his power grew, so did his lust for women such that he had one queen but thousands of concubines of various ranks, which can be explained in more detail in the "Imperial Registrar of Heavenly Ladies," a log of all of Ayden's concubines.
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The mixed blooded invaders, crushed and destitute, fled back east, never to invade again. With the Manghuks repelled, Ayden sought to remove the last obstacle to supreme power in Marrarun. Ayden rode north at the head of his army skirting past the dreaded Red Mountain wherein the demon lord Dagoth Ur and his Sixth House fiends held sway. There were an ancient evil that Ayden would have to deal with in the months to come. Assured of the destiny made manifest to him by Azura through the dervish Sendus Sathis of Shuran, Ayden rode on north, where his army surrounded Venim's capital at Balkh. Eventually, the walls were breached and Ayden's army cut loose. Venim was ruined. Emir Bolvyn Venim was a capricious and cruel ruler who slew his own guard officer in his household on a whim. That officer happened to be the brother of one of Ayden's chiefs, Kay Khusrau. Ayden let Kay kill Venim and he washed his hands of the matter. Ayden was victorious and Balkh was his. He gave unto his army the spoils.

Ayden seized the late Venim's treasure and harem. It pleased Ayden to no end that he had in his possession Venim's widow, Saray (32), and his 14 year old daughter, Khanum, including his sister, Aljai (22) that was given to him in marriage. Ayden's domination of the Venim clan was complete.

PART TWO

NEREVAR REBORN
It was during the time Ayden was establishing his hold over Marrarun when he heard from his spies that an unknown band of raiders skirmished with a legion patrol. The general of the Moon moth Fort in Saray sent a legion to find their stronghold and put them to the sword. Instead the legion was ambushed by a band of Sixth House horrors in a seemingly abandoned castle and many of the Imperials were captured and subjected to the flesh warping tortures of Dagoth Gares, vassal kin of Dagoth Ur. The flayed skins of the fallen legion was sent to the fort-much to the horror of the general that he forbade any of his men to venture into the territory. Ayden scorned the Imperials as cowards and vowed to rid his western demesne of this vile warlord.

Ayden's tumens fought a horrific horde of Sixth House warriors, many of whom appeared less than human; products of generations of incist, inbreeding, flesh-crafting, and mutilation. Yet the discipline and the tactics of Ayden's troops prevailed over the greater number of Sixth House fiends. Ayden exterminated Gares' forces but Gares, though slain personally by Ayden, breathed his last foul cloud of breath in the presence of Ayden and a couple of his sword bearers. They were infected with Corprus. It was a fate worse than death-condemned to live as an immortal twisted monster. Ayden's sword bearers started mutating horribly and went insane. Soldiers put them out of their misery yet it only put Ayden in a coma, everyone grievously lamented this pale turn of events for many thought that it was a matter of time before the disease took hold of him for no one infected lasted longer than a week. And yet weeks went by and Ayden's beautiful face and figure was not twisted. Such was Ayden's indomitable will power and strength of mind. His devoted aides and companions kept his condition secret and sought the advice of Imams and Ashlander wise women. They all declared that he be taken to the Shrine of Azura where it was said that the first Khan Indoril Nerevar, royal signet ring, the Moon-and-Star, lay buried, waiting for the chosen one, Nerevar reborn, to come and claim.

A huge train of Ayden's people took his comatose body, carefully concealed in a litter, and made the long hard march into the heart of the Ashlands, putting to death any caravan or people who encountered the Velothi train. It was part army and part pilgrimage for many people came to believe in the prophecy of Ayden as Nerevar Incarnate. Upon arrival to that sacred shrine of dusk and dawn, Ayden's intimates took his body inside the cavern and bathing him in cave water scented with Primsa flowers, kept a vigilant watch while the adherents prayed fervently for three days straight. On the fourth day, a miracle happened. Ayden's shot up wide awake as if from a nightmare. Several physicians and mendicants examined him and found that he was free of all ill effects; he retained many of the other beneficial side effects of that divine disease. Ayden discovered that his senses were keener, his strength and stamina were nearly ten times that of a regular man. His metabolism, so efficient, that he could ingest the foulest poison and not affect him in the least. His sinew, though as malleable as before was tough as daedric armour, his bones likewise. If he lost limbs, eyes, or other parts, they would regenerate. Diseases couldn't affect Corprus afflicted victims and the same applied to Ayden. And most miraculous of all, he was immortal, forever young at the age of twenty-eight. He rose up and stood before the faithful outside the shrine and raised his crescent sword; to the fanatical cries of joy. Immune to disease, poison, aging, and superhumanly tough and powerful, he was a god among men and mer.

There was a cave within the shrine known to the ancients as the 'Cavern of the Incarnate.' And so Ayden did. None but Ayden entered and when he reemerged, witnesses say that Ayden himself appeared awed and thunderstruck, touched by the divine yet again. On his right hand, he bore the magnificent ring of the Moon-and-Star, the royal signet ring of his predecessor, for all to see. Everyone bowed down before their Khan and the Incarnate. No one could deny this.

THE FALL OF HOUSE DAGOTH
The Velothi were once Altmer, those mer who held sway in the fabled emerald kingdoms of the distant west. Once the merish people were one people of the Elfohney but overpopulation, petty kings, and stagnant traditions enforced by priests and cadis, tore apart the fragile unity. Soon a dissident faction known as Chimer led by their famed prophet Veloth advocated change but all they received were repression and tortures. Hardened by adversity and inured to injustice, they murdered, pillaged, and [censored] in the name of their gods Boethiah, Azura, and Mephala and all other manner of Daedra, great and small, both good and bad. They were forced out of their ancient homeland and St. Veloth was resolved to find a new homeland far to the east. He led his people through lands unknown and braving hostile natives, creatures, and the elements, they settled in one place only to be displaced by a rival alien tribe or native population. Adopting the nomadic way of life, they became mers of the saddle; masters of the hunt, whose skills at mounted archery saved them from near annihilation, enslavement, and all manner of abasemants, throughout their long exodus. Veloth, a long lived mer, was a stooped and venerable man when they arrived in what was supposed to be the land of milk and honey. What they found was a mixed blessing.

In the time before time, preceding the first era, there fell from the sky a small meteor that made land fall in the heart of Vvardenfell, the land of Veloth and Dwemer nomadic tribes that grazed the northern grass steppes since time immemorial. The land of Vvardenfell, once a fertile green land, was blasted asunder by the great meteor fall, forming an enormous mountain where the meteor hit in the center of Vvardenfell--spreading outward from there-- creating what is now the black desert known in the west as the Ashlands, throughout most parts of the savage and beautiful land and dead center in Vvardenfell lay the Red Mountain region where the meteor struck hard. They first arrived in Vvardenfell and scratched the salt of the earth to survive in extremely harsh conditions. Over the years, their golden skins turned ebony ash and their features sculpted by the stinging winds from the north. Many tribes fled south to Morrowind in the Deshaani heartland. The northern tribes, fractious and warring, were blocked by the southern tribal confederations, and made Kara Kum their home. The southern mer adopted the sedentary life and became the Great Houses, each ruled by their own Emirs. Those in the north resumed their nomadic way of life, they were called the Ashlanders (or Velothi), and each was their own tribe ruled by their Ashkhans.

It was part ash desert and part oasis, it was a land nonetheless rich in pasturage, minerals, and exotic wildlife, a place worth fighting for. But Veloth died soon after, and with him the unity that banded the Velothi together, they fought each other for land, slaves, and women and against the native Dwemer of the Red Mountains, a highly advanced, inventive, and insular people who spurned the newcomers. The land of Morrowind was a great swath of steppe nestled between western Tamriel and eastern Akavir, and invaders from both sides, time and again, sought to take these lands from both Veloth and Dwemer. Both races fought savagely against the invaders but none more formidable then the Atmoran-Nords from the artic north. Hordes of white men, big and bearded, sporting crossbows, axes, and long swords, exploded into Morrowind and overran the Velothi and Dwemer. The Nord King was Harald Half-Hand a.k.a. the Mighty and he beheld these lands of Tamriel as befitting his warlike people. He disdained the natives and sought naught but to enslave or kill them if they resisted. His depraved son, Norring the Pig, feasted on what the Nords called "dark meat", beautiful Dunmer slave maidens who were killed, cooked, and served to him at banquets. The Dwemers of the north were holed up in their mountain strongholds, the Ashlanders melted into the endless steppe, while the ancient Nords sipped their mead amid the Gash Highlands of northern Morrowind, haughty in celebration.

But one mer, Indoril Nerevar of the Great House Indoril of Mournhold, was destined to unite the tribes and great houses and repulse the Nord invaders in the name of Veloth. In the dead of winter, when the Nords typically campaigned in the spring and summer, rested during this time, fattened by loot, content, and complacent. Nerevar united the Great Houses and the Ashlander tribes under his command. Nerevar arranged an alliance with the Dwemer King Dumac and together, they struck against the enemy unexpectedly. The Veloth and Dwemer bathed in Nordic blood, slaughtered the men and took their women as slaves. In retaliation for the Nord crown princes' atrocities, the merish victors feasted on "white meat", the cooked flesh of Nord maidens.

Morrowind was liberated but the aging King Harald, enraged by the surprise attacks sent his armies to take back Morrowind. It was a bitter and closely fought battle but Nerevar, a dauntless and inspiring war leader, rallied his mer constantly and prevailed many a battle. The Nords could not contend with a united army, the Velothi heavy cavalry and mounted archers proved the bane of the Nord foot warriors and the Dwemers' advanced siege machines brought down the walls of the Nord fortresses with ease. King Harald beside himself with grief, died without heirs. His monster of a son was rightly slain by a hysterical Dunmer girl who freed herself from her bonds with a dining knife and gutted the man. The elective moot, riven with corruption and self-interest could not decide on a successor. With no imperial command, the Nord armies stood helplessly. The Kings Nerevar and Dumac seized the initiative and brought about great slaughter against the enemy. And so the borders of Nordica (or Skyrim) were confined to their present day eastern boundaries.

Nerevar and Dumac beheld each other as brothers in arm and together, with the general consent of their people, formed the nation of Resdayn, to be jointly ruled by Velothi and Dwemer monarchs. Both sovereigns feasted together at great festivals, both parties gave each other princesses and concubines. Voryn Dagoth of House Dagoth, Nerevar's most loyal and gifted general was most taken by the Dwemer hosts and married Dumac's granddaughter. He above all loved the Dwemer for their engineering talents and innovations. They enjoyed their favorite sport together of throwing javelins at fleeing Nord prisoners. Nerevar placed great stock in the grand alliance but others of his council, namely Vivec the Poet, Almalexia the Queen-Wife of Nerevar, and Sotha Sil the Tinkerer, cautioned Nerevar against the insular Dwemer and their mysterious ways.

Gradually, the relations between the two races cooled seemingly without reason. Emir Voryn sent spies to ferret out their secrets and what was relayed to him, shocked him to his core. Dumac's engineers and artificers had found the meteor that struck Morrowind back in the First Era. They cracked it open to find a crystallized ruby red heart shaped object of alien design, about the size of an overripe melon. The heart seemingly exerted an influence over people who came in contact with it, so strong, that the Dwemer became brainwashed. Soon, thousands of Dwemer worshipped what they believed was their god Lorkhan's heart, their God of Reason and Logic. But far from espousing reason and logic as they had before contact with the heart, they set about enacting gruesome bloodletting rituals, scarifications, and mutilating one another. The chief engineer Kagrenach, who seemed most susceptible to the heart's power, became misshapen and twisted and through him, the heart extended its dark influence over King Dumac. Soon he was found to be worshipping at Lorkhan's heart, kept under heavy guard in his palace.

Voryn called a qurilitay and presented his spies' story on the recent events in Dwemeria. Nerevar's first general, Vivec, and his Queen-Wife Almalexia, could scarcely believe it but sought any excuse to make war on the Dwemer. Nerevar himself expressed outrage at the accusations that the civilized and logical Dwemer engaged in such barbaric and inhuman behavior for he was so trusting of his friend, Dumac. Nerevar's councilor, Sotha Sil, though corroborated Voryn's accusations with spies of his own. Sotha, a profane and pragmatic philosopher, surmised that the heart perhaps was dropped from the Oblivion behind the starry night, sent by the devil gods of the void whose intentions were to manipulate merkind to its doom. With that, his councilors argued for war but Nerevar, still hesitant, requested that both he and Dumac meet at the Qarabagh plains in southern Vvardenfell. At their meeting, Nerevar and the Tribunal were stunned by the appearance and manner of Dumac. He appeared a raving madman and became furious at the mention of Lorkhan's heart. Heated words were exchanged; Dumac struck Nerevar across the face.

Emissaries and councilors on both sides intervened. Swords were drawn but Nerevar called a halt before blood was spilt. Tempers cooled but the alliance was shattered.

Nerevar was furious and his councilors were completely taken aback. Some time passed, and Nerevar learned that a Velothi colony bordering Dumac's realm was sacked and razed to the ground. The people horribly tortured and murdered. Few survived but the told the names of those responsible, "Dumac!", "Kagrenach!" Nerevar, in a rage, yelled, "Death to the Dwemer," and called upon his councilors to mobilize his army.

Nerevar personally led the invasion army, into Red Mountain. It was believed that the Heart overtook all the Dwemer for they all fought with an inhuman fanaticism; the men throwing their women and children into the fray to drive a wedge into Velothi battle lines. It was costly and bloody, yet Nerevar had the upper hand and one-by-one, reduced the cities of Tureynulal, Odrosal, and Vemynal--meeting slaughter for slaughter. Yet Nerevar was faced with the daunting task of besieging King Dumac's citadel and his hordes of Dwemer fanatics. Nerevar sent his main army to invest the walls. Many Veloth and Dwemer met bloody deaths but at the same time, Nerevar sent Ashlander scouts to probe a weak wall behind the main defense. Nerevar led his elite troops and successfully breached the wall and fell upon the defending horde. King Dumac and Kagrenach led the last of their disciples against Nerevar and his companions. Nerevar slew Dumac but his foe dealt him a grievous wound and the rest of his troops annihilated the last remaining Dwemer in Red Mountain.

With the genocide complete, the Veloth rejoiced but were saddened at Nerevar's injury. He was in the process of healing but that not stopping him, he called a qurilitay. He made his councilors swear an oath that they would never mess with the God's heart. Though they swore oaths; Almalexia, Vivec, and Sotha-Sil, had already laid eyes on that evil heart and possibly twisted their minds. They desired the power of Lorkhan's heart. Vivec and Almalexia gave free reign to their baser emotions. They carried on a torrid love affair behind King Nerevar's back. She wanted the Heart's power and Vivec wanted her. She whispered in his ear, "Slay the king and you can have me." Together they plotted to take power for themselves and consolidated support among their kinsmen. They poisoned that most illustrious and grandest of kings and put the blame to his trusted minister, Sotha Sil. Sotha taken completely by surprised was arrested and executed before he could speak out against the usurpers.

Voryn Dagoth, who never fully trusted Vivec or Almalexia, saw it as blatant regicide. Nerevar had no heirs and Vivec, with the support of the army, named himself Khan. To the horror of Dagoth and his kinsman, in less than a month, Vivec took Nerevar's widow as his Queen-Wife. Dagoth called them out as vile traitors and unlawful usurpers. He took his people including the bulk of the Ashlander Tribes and split from the Khanate. To bury their evil deed, they sought the death of Lord Dagoth and his people. Vivec and Almalexia sent their armies against his ancestral citadel, Kogo'ruhn, in Kara Kum. The Morrowind forces invested Kogo'ruhn after many months of siege craft and put to the sword the men and women of the tribe unmourned, Dagoth Tribe. The children were given to the Indorils to be raised. Yet by some Herculean measure, Dagoth, his cousins, and the elite bahadur-knights broke through the Morrowind army and rode fast to Red Mountain.

Through a circuitous route, Dagoth sought the power of the heart in a last ditch effort to defy Vivec and Almalexia-killing the honor guard left by Vivec at the cost of all his brave knights and cousins. He himself, savagely wounded, gained entry into the Heart Chamber and touched his hands to the alien orb. He called upon the power of the heart to live beyond death to avenge Khan Nerevar and destroy Vivec, Almalexia, and their Indoril kin. This he did before Vivec's troops forced entry into the chamber and slew Dagoth--burying him along with his cousins, unceremoniously in a forgotten Ashmire.

The gleeful murderers, Vivec and Almalexia, rejoiced at their ill-gotten fortune. The power of the Heart granted them everlasting life and through propaganda and manipulation, became demi-gods worshipped by their kinsmen of the Indorils. Yet the other tribes, great houses, and clans would not be fooled. They spurned the blasphemous sovereigns and they paid for their defiance with the unrelenting force of Morrowind's ruthless heavy cavalry and the royal mounted archer corps. Together, Khan Vivec and his warrior queen Almalexia, at the head of their vast army, reduced the rest of Morrowind piece by piece, tribe by tribe, and state by state, putting to the sword, hundreds of thousands. They conquered the Deshaani heartland of Morrowind with Mournhold as their capital yet northern Vvardenfell and its native warriors, the unmatched horsemer of the steppes resisted Vivec's encroachment. Vivec and Almalexia were content with sending the occasional raiding party in the Kara Kum to punish the rebel tribes.

And so began the golden years of the second era, and the ageless sovereigns, Vivec and Almalexia, had set themselves up as gods on earth-creating a new religion called ALMSIVI; Each syllable containing a bit of Almalexia, Vivec, and Sotha-Sil's name. In honor of that faithful and hapless minister who fell victim to their treachery, though this didn't stop Vivec from having the Sotha tribe wiped out-men, women, and children, to cut off loose ends. From this cult of worship, Vivec and Almalexia developed an elaborate system of lay preachers, Imams, and military orders called the Ordinators whose job it was to keep the faithful in line, by whatever means necessary. The worship of ALMSIVI spread all over the southern heartland. It was strongest in the heart of Mournhold where the Imams called the faithful to prayer every morning.

And so the Tribunal, as they were called minus Sotha-Sil, enjoyed prosperity and reaped the benefits of false godhood, such was the extent of their deceit. Every year for hundreds of years, they made the sacred pilgrimage to bathe in the light of Lorkhan's Heart--content with the security of their reign. Yet a dark power festered over those long years, Dagoth Ur and his closest kin arose from their ashen graves, maddened by dreams of vengeance and bloody nightmares. The Dagoth Lords that rose from the dead were no longer human in appearance or character. Some say Lorkhan's Heart granted Dagoth the power of resurrection and the ability to broadcast his evil dreams to all Dunmer throughout Morrowind and through subliminal commands, he directed long lost descendants to journey to Red Mountain to rebuild the citadels and began anew, House Dagoth also known as the Sixth House. It was said that Dagoth and his chosen lords had the power of All-Flesh; to shape themselves or others into beings of exquisite beauty or freakish horrors. Voryn now known as Dagoth Ur, extremely patient and sagacious, bided his time, building his own army of Dagoths.

In the year of 2E 288, Vivec and Almalexia, along with a battalion of royal Ordinators made their last pilgrimage to Dumac's citadel to worship at the Heart. Dagoth with his army ambushed the royal party. Slaughtering the Ordinators and capturing Almalexia. Vivec barely escaped with his life. As to the fate of Almalexia, it could only have been a terrifying and miserable one that involved a slow agonizing death at the hands of Dagoth's flesh-crafters. Vivec was rattled to the core. Nonetheless, he mobilized his armies to attack Dagoth Ur and Red Mountain and again fell prey to ambush. Vivec was slain in battle and the Ordinator armies' fanatical resolve broke with the death of their sovereign and routed. The Sixth House horde slaughtered a great many Ordinators. The lucky ones were killed; the unfortunates were carved and shaped into horrific monsters or blobs of deliquescent pus.

Though Dagoth Ur had his revenge, he was made an inhuman monster whose memory of those ancient times grew twisted. He did not know who he was or what he was doing. He was part wise general and bestial savage. One day, he devised a plan to consolidate power in Vvardenfell and conquer all of Morrowind. The next day, he'd scrap the plan and spend hours flesh-crafting captured prisoners and war brides that his raiding hordes brought for him. An activity that pleased him greatly and he encouraged it among his heartwight kin. So legendary was his evil that few tribes alone would risk Dagoth's wrath than to attack him at his citadel on Red Mountain.

Ayden knew that he could never truly rule Vvardenfell with a monster like Dagoth Ur at his borders. Especially since he killed one of his cousins, Dagoth Ur would not sit idle. Ayden engaged his scholars and Ashlander wise women to gather the old lore on the Dagoth fiends; he employed his scouts and spies to discover the locations of Dagoth's vassal kin rulers. Delegating command of several tumens to his choicest and loyal generals, he gave them orders to seek out and destroy all Sixth House bases. From the Sungaar swamps of the West Gash, to the Dwemer caves of the Northern Ashlands, to the mountain bases of the outer Red Mountain, to the sea coves of the Qara Sea, to the outskirts of Vivane, Ayden's soldiers destroyed the fiends wherever they were to be had.

The time was ripe for Ayden to declare before the Ashlander tribes that he was Nerevar Reborn Incarnate, according to the ancient prophecy held dear by the Urhan Tribe, who accepted him as their Khan. As tribute to his leadership, Ayden's loyal Ashkhan Sul-Matuul, who disavowed his title in favor of Ayden, for the humble title of Emir, gave his daughter Chani in marriage to Ayden. She was a wonderful women, absolutely beautiful in body, face, and mind; possessing an energy and spirit to complement Ayden's character. He declared that by Azura, he would wipe out the Dagoths once and for all but he required their submission to his rule and his alone. To all the tribes east of Red Mountain, the chiefs were loathe to give up their power but Ayden was not without allies in the black steppe. His overpowering charisma convinced the central tribes to be joined into what Ayden called his 'Veloth Horde.' 'One-Tribe-One-Nation-Under-Moon-and-Star,' by the ring of dusk and dawn that Ayden wore symbolizing his intent to rule over all Velothi, but those furthest from the Dagoths and not receptive to the formation of the Veloth Horde Khanate, Ayden would bring them into the fold, one way or the other.

There were many tribes such as the Alghuzz Ashlander tribe of Lake Qara who were herders and pure pastoralists who rode the finest and fleetest mounts. The Cankali Tribe were hunters of the reed forests of Mangyshlak and masters of the ambush and fierce melee fighters. The Kipchak Tribe of the Qarabagh (the land of purple grass) was rich by the taxes they earned through the Jade Road routes that passed through their lands. The Jawhar Tribe of Merv Mountain were expert skirmishers and way layers of trade and pilgrimage caravans. The Ilyat Tribe of the Molag Mar wastes knew nothing but total war; a ruthless war-loving tribe that attack anyone who crossed into their lands. It was these tribes that Ayden would form his Veloth Horde through charisma, intimidation, and brutality.

Ayden led his tumen of the finest Kipchak-Redoran archer cavalry and Kashik heavy cavalry. Ayden rode into the eastern Marrarun and quickly seized upon the strength and weaknesses of the tribes. The Alghuzz and Cankali fought each other over some prized pasturages. Ayden sent his emissaries to negotiate with both tribes. The Alghuzz would agree to a temporary alliance against Dagoth Ur if Ayden would help them fight against the Cankali. The Cankali also stated that they would agree to a temporary alliance against the same if he Ayden would help them fight against the Alghuzz. Ayden agreed to both tribes keeping the separate agreements secret from one another. On the eve of battle, Ayden promised the Alghuzz to bring reinforcements in the heat of battle and promised the Cankali the same. But Ayden triple-crossed both the Alghuzz and the Cankali, as they were locked in battle he brought his forces to bear on both of them, slaying the old khans and their gazakhans. He replaced the old chieftains with those of his choosing and the tribes came under his power. Thus, Ayden went from strength to strength, claiming tribe after tribe. Such was the phenomenal magnetism and charisma that he inspired some tribes to join peacefully. Others he conquered by the bow and sword. Others he resorted to diabolical measures, slaying stubborn chiefs with concubine assassins. The rich Jawhar Tribe he engaged to meet in open grassland and the Khan Kaushad and his party were ambushed and slaughtered. The chiefs of the warring Ilyat Tribe he had slain by assassins and their adherents slaughtered in battle. With all the tribes under his sway and commanded by chieftains' faithful to Ayden, he drew upon these people to amass such an army of horse lords that could shake the pillars of heaven. Ayden marched back to Red Mountain, a desolate waste that promised nothing but misery for Ayden's troops but morale was sky high and their resolve was unshakeable, Dagoth Ur and his minions had to be destroyed.

Ayden, the master of deception, sent the main force marching straight towards Dagoth Ur's citadel yet his famed general, Alandro Sul, disguised in Ayden's armour made the enemy think that Ayden himself was leading at the front and Ur's cousins and their generals saw an opportunity to crush the upstart. Alandro thwarted the ambush just before heading into a narrow pass and fought the enemy at their flanks with bitter resolve and then retreated. The Sixth House army, numbering in the tens of thousands gave chase, seeking to destroy the routing army were suddenly blindside by the real Ayden and his Kashik who hid behind some hills and drove a wedge in the ranks of the Sixth House. Alandro's army regrouped and rushed back to fall upon the hapless foe. This time the Dagoth army routed and it cost Dagoth Ur his entire army. Few of the Dagoth Lords escaped from the vicious battle those that survived barricaded themselves within their fortresses only to be invested in time and raze to the ground.

Wherever Ayden's armies tread on that desolate black sand, they conquered, putting to death age old monsters of a sordid past. Ayden and his bahadurs led the assault on Dagoth Ur's citadel, routing the defenders and slaying the fiends. The fanatical resolve was nothing as to the irresistible force of Ayden and his mer. To the jaded observer, it seemed history was repeating itself. Just as Khan Nerevar put to death his archenemy King Dumac and his sinister architect Kagrenach so too did Khan Ayden put to death that hoary beast who was once a noble general, the one most faithful to Nerevar. At the cost of several lives of his warriors, Dagoth Ur was subdued and Ayden plunged his crescent sword in his black heart-killing him a second time. Dagoth Ur's corpse was hacked to pieces and burnt to ash.

It was a tragic replay of the events of the First Era when Nerevar and the Tribunal put to death the corrupted Dwemer and their chief lord yet Ayden vowed neither he nor his people would be slaves to that infernal heart. He would break the cycle. Immune to the power of Lorkhan's Heart since his miraculous recovery from the dread disease that Dagoth Ur's creatures spawned, Ayden shattered the heart with one powerful blow with a great mace. All the pieces he ordered to be picked up and put in a hot furnace to be burnt until not even the ashes remained. Thus Ayden and his Velothi warriors did a service to mankind.

It was a harrowing experience for all but it was the sweetest victory for it was just and rightful in the eyes of all. Ayden acquired enormous prestige in his followers who were legion upon legion now. He had laid low an evil so ancient and entrenched that Vvardenfell breathed a sigh of relief. The herders and pastoralists could now roam the lands outside Red Mountain freely and there were untold treasures hidden and waiting to be discovered. For Ayden, this was but a stepping stone to greater glory. His ambitions were greater than that of a self-styled prophesied hero. His was the dream of empire and dominion.

PART THREE

THE ASH KHAN OF VVVARDENFELL
The undisputed master of the Vvardenfell uplands and having the utter devotion of the people, Ayden moved on to Vivane and quickly overthrew the hated Ordinators. Upon their capture, the Archcanon Saryoni demanded that Ayden should not shed the blood of the faithful if he would give unto him the holy city of Vivane. Ayden agreed but in that inhuman cunning and total ruthlessness, he forced all the Ordinator warrior monks into a massive grave pit and buried them alive, declaring that he was true to his word, that not a drop of Almsivi blood was spilt. Saryoni was taken aback by the cool ruthlessness of a man who could feign civility and converse with Mournhold scholars, Daedra dervishes, and poets with sparkling intelligence yet could order the slaughter of thousands of enemies and innocents alike when provoked and was such a terror on the battlefield that few warriors had the courage to face him in battle. Saryoni meekly submitted and Vivane was spared utter ruin.

Ayden exhibited shrewdness and adherence to tradition by installing a puppet Archcanon, Suyur Tamish, as governor. This was no more than a formality as all knew that Suyur ruled in Ayden's name. All power lay with Ayden alone. On 427, with the blessing of the Qurilitay of Balkh, Ayden crowned himself Imperial Ruler of Vvardenfell. With the blessing of the Corprus cure, his strength greatly amplified, nearly impervious to conventional attack, and forever young, at the age of 26, he was the Lord of the Ash Spawn warriors of the steppes, Lord Nerevar reborn, and destroyer of the foul Sixth House.

At the time of his enthronement, Ayden was master of a small swathe of north-central Morrowind, surrounded by hostile forces. Ayden's goal was to reunite the fractured Khanate of Morrowind under his self-styled, 'Veloth Horde.' He wore the mantle of 'Nerevar Reborn' lightly, he sought to transcend prophecy and become his own master in his bid to rule all of Tamriel and all the known world.

Ayden led campaigns against the Hlaalu Dren dynasty in the fertile region of Qashkar, southwest of his position and against the Telvanni, east of his position whose continued depredations against western Marrarun, Ayden was resolved to end. He attacked Telvanni in the east, now taking his armies south into Qashkar. His priority was to expand and consolidate his base.

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Nomadic Loyalty
Ayden knew well that constant warfare was the most effective way of retaining the loyalty of the nomadic tribes, uniting them under the banner of plunder and booty. Tribal leaders challenged his authority, resenting their loss of power occasioned by his rapid rise. Such moves were frustrated by Ayden's clever consolidation of his armies. He and Venim amassed powerful forces during their alliance, and on Venim's death, his forces were transferred to Ayden's command, who now presided over a huge body of fighting mer, including the Qara'unas Ashlander armies, the biggest in Vvardenfell. Further support came from the settled population, for whom war was anathema, stability and prosperity a cherished dream. They knew, as feuding tribal leaders could not, that a strong ruler could impose the peace that would allow them to flourish. Warlords preceding Ayden were either nomadic khans themselves ruler of their tribes who claimed dominion over the settled people who after a generation or so would grow soft--losing the confidence of still savage hordes who would eventually swallow them up, begetting a never-ending cycle or settled kings who employed the nomads but whose loyalty was proportionate to how much they were paid in loot or money. Ayden was a breed apart from other would-be conquering warlords, kings, or emperors--he internalized the ancient prophecies of Nerevar Reborn held dearly by many of the Ashlander Tribes; the one ruler who felt kinship with his nomadic subjects as well as his settled ones. Ayden mixed power, prophecy, religion, and deception together combined with his phenomenally charismatic personality to forever retain the fanatical loyalty of the Ashlander Tribes, especially when he became immortal and superhumanly power after his dreaded Corprus cure and crushed the hated Dagoth Lords and the Sixth House. No matter what policies he undertook or how he treated his nomadic subjects, they worshipped him as a God among gods. Still it was a prudent policy of his to richly reward the Ashlander Velothi who were the main force in his army.
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In 428 Ayden struck against his eastern neighbors. His adversary was the Telvanni Emir, Khizr Goren. Ayden inflicted several heavy defeats against the Telvanni. Khizr was forced into vassalage until he was kicked out by Drothan, another Telvanni usurper who possessed great military prowess and was a forceful leader. Nevertheless he was savagely beaten by Ayden so badly that Khizr returned, taking advantage of Drothan's flight from Ayden's army, to seize power again, only to be chased back once more.

Unable to keep up with his retreating army, Khizr Goren was left in a forest by his officers with several concubines and enough food for several days. He was never seen again. Drothan, on the other hand, retreated west and sought refuge in Black Saray, the Kingdom of the Qara-Dzungars straddling the Valus Mountains. He was supplied with money and mercenaries by Imperial backers to continue his fight against the Dreaded Ayden Khan of the Ash Spawn. He was a consistent thorn in his side but his days were numbered. The rest of his story will be told later.

Ayden installed a puppet Emir, Kuarn Chagah, to rule Telvanni in His name. Emir Chagah gave his sister Tukal-Khanum to be Ayden's wife. In tribute to her royal blood, she became his second queen and was known as Kichik Khanum, the Lesser Lady. As Ayden's power and riches grew, the size of his harem and household swelled in proportion. More importantly, he controlled the primary purchasing centers located within the Telvanni ulus that the caravan routes of the Jade Road passed through--making him very rich in person and likewise for his Khanate.

During these years, Ayden attacked Qashkar for two reasons; the first was to unite Vvardenfell under his rule and the second was economical. Qashkar straddled the caravan routes linking Akavir to the Bothnian Sea and therefore enjoyed great prosperity. Gaining Qashkar would reap huge revenue, which in turn would fund further expansion. If Ayden annexed the region, securing his borders to the south, he would be free to lead his armies beyond the Marrarun into the heart of old Morrowind.

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The Strategy of the Great Khan
In the earlier days, he sought to keep his armies constantly employed and consistently rewarded throughout his warlord years. It was intended to minimize tribal opposition to his leadership long enough for him to fulfill the prophecies of Nerevar Reborn and when he did and became Khan of Vvardenfell, he effectively halted the millenia old political culture of shifting alliances and tribal conflict. The tribal chiefs became his permanent vassals in his immortal reign and their Ashlander kinsmen were ultimately loyal to Ayden and he had final say over tribal matters. There were a few chiefs who rebelled but were killed by their own kinsman and replaced by docile chiefs. It was a truly unique and dynamic military system that retained that Velothic fiber of the Ashlanders and the organizational ability of the settled Tadzhiks that made the growing Veloth Empire under the immortal Ayden so powerful.

Secondly, he lent to his campaign of conquest, a quality of reclamation and unification under the old rule of the First Era, the reinstatement of the Khaganate, that was successful in rousing the nationalist fervor among various Dunmer groups including the Velothi, such that he turned the tables on the most powerful dynasty of Hlaalu that had ruled for nearly four centuries albeit with backing from the Septim Empire-making them seem like the transgressors and interlopers along with the Cyrodiilic Empire.
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Qashkar was a prize worth taking. Emba and Balmora were two great cities. The lucrative trade enjoyed by Vvardenfell bypassed turbulent Marrarun. Prelude to the invasion, Ayden sent a letter to Vedam Dren, the Lord of Qashkar and direct vassal of the Emperor Uriel Septim; demanding the return of Velothi lands. Vedam replied that 'since Suran had been conquered by the sword, only by the sword could it be taken away.' This rebuff handed Ayden the Casus Belli he had been looking for.

In 429, Ayden's army marched south. The army of Hlaalu soldiers and the 80,000 legion cohorts sent from the forts in Deshaan were sent out to meet Ayden were outmaneuvered and slaughtered at the Jahoon River. Vedam considering surrender was dissuaded by his vassal lords and Imperial advisors. In spite of their greater numbers, the rest of Vedam's army was svckered into a deadly ambush of ebony arrows, javelins, darts, and heavy stones launched from catapults by Ayden's forces hidden in a dense thicket of trees. After which, Ayden invested the city of Emba and all the men in it were butchered--their wives and daughters thrown into slavery. The city was plundered and torched.

Vedam's brother Orvas succeeded him and recognizing Ayden's power came to terms, promising to send Vedam's daughter, the beautiful and royal Ilmeni Dren as a wife for Ayden. Ayden returned to Ald'ruhn and waited. Orvas betrayed his promise. Later that same year, Orvas Dren broke from vassalage to rebel in Balmora. Ayden surrounded Balmora with his army. A desperate Orvas challenged Ayden to a duel. Ayden accepted. Ayden, dauntlessly and recklessly, rode ahead of his armies to the siege point, taunting Orvas to make good his challenge. Orvas lost his nerve and in shameful cowardice, refused to come out. Ayden spurned his enemy, stating that no quarter shall be given the city and left to the great cheer of his mer. Balmora was sacked and Orvas was killed along with many of Balmora's citizens. Ilmeni was sent north with treasure to Ayden. All of Vvardenfell was under his power.

BATTLE OF THE ASHKADIAN PLAINS
Ayden knew well that Emperor Uriel Septim VII would not let the slaughter of the eastern legions go unanswered and sure enough, the Emperor mobilized his legions from the eastern part of the empire and from the heart of Cyrodiil, onward he sent his army of a staggering 250,000 legionnaires commanded by Warhaft the Great, supreme general of the expeditionary legions whose sole purpose was to seek out and destroy Ayden and his Veloth Horde. Rather than retreat to inner Vvardenfell and fight a guerilla war of attrition against an Imperial force that would re-occupy Morrowind, Ayden's forces met Warhaft's to settle the issue on the Ashkadian Plains, south of Emba, in 430.

Here now did Ayden and his faithful Velothi arrive at the fated final battle to determine who would rule Morrowind. Under any other leader, their men would have thought them mad, faced against so many numbers; 40,000 against 250,000+ but none would question Ayden for he was the Light of the World, whose presence simultaneously empowered the men under him with sublime confidence rousing them with a feverish fanatical morale in the pitch of battle and instilled absolute fear in enemy potentates, generals, and armies, such a Warlord of Terror was he.

Ayden, at the head of his Kashik Cavalry, rode hard to the right of his army, and seemingly off the battlefield. The great general Warhaft, conqueror of Skyrim Nords and Hammerfell Re Gada, assumed that this obscure tribal khan turned tail and ran from his mer so he ordered his legionary knights, the cr?me of the Heartlander crop, and great many of his light infantry to envelop him and ordered the first wave of his legion cohorts to rush the Redoran line infantry and overwhelm them. Ayden and his cavalry turned left at a right oblique, a move which the legion cavalry barely kept up with.

Warhaft's first wave fell upon the stout shields and stouter arms of the Redoran infantry. The Redoran ranks utilized long spears they kept hidden until the last moment of the engagement and countless legion soldiers were mowed down like wheat to the scythe. Warhaft, taken aback, ordered the second wave to advance with spears at the ready. Meanwhile, with the legion knights and light infantry still in hot pursuit, Ayden ordered a sudden left turn back onto the battlefield at a left oblique angle, and all that time, Ayden and his wild riders, concealed the Erabenimsun javelin mer and skirmishers who kept pace with the horses at a light gallop. When Ayden made the left turn, the legion knights turned to pursue but were instead enveloped by the Ashlander warriors, and mired in a vicious fight from which they would not soon emerge from.

The second wave of soldiers met much the same fate as the first. Every ten legionnaires died for every Redoran. Warhaft looked back on his vast army to find them quaking with fear, he ordered one of his generals to bring the men up to fight-an increasingly difficult task. With the bulk of the legion cavalry swarmed by Ashlander warriors and the gaps left by advancing regiments, Ayden and his Kashik pressed hard, slashing and stabbing their way to Warhaft, on his chariot, surrounded by his guards, could not see to their left for Ayden and his mounted warriors kicked up such a cloud of dust. Over the rancorous din of battle, Warhaft could hear a powerful voice screaming an alien language. Ayden and his cavalry had cut through several lines of legion troopers and outfought their heavy cavalry so quickly and decisively that the enemy were cut down where they stood and now he ordered his Kashik to unleash their arrows into the next rank of enemy soldiers that happened to be the Imperial Guard surrounding Warhaft. Before General Warhaft could act, his loyal bodyguards and attendants were shot down by phantom arrows. A blood splattered Warhaft had just enough time to see a colorfully armored warrior mounted on a black mare, wearing the sacred Ebony Mail of the First Era and gold tinted glass helm with red plumes, wielding a wickedly sharp crescent sword, lopping off limbs and heads with extraordinary grace and celerity. He was beautiful beyond belief, an angel of death, and a true paragon of a warrior-khan. Warhaft could not believe what he saw. It would be the last thing he would ever see.

Ayden lopped off the head of the legion's greatest general, his body unceremoniously hitting the ground with the thud of a melon hitting the ground. One of Ayden's lieutenants grabbed the Ruby Imperial Standard from the General's chariot and cast it down, much to the dismay of the legionnaires and their captains. Their general had fallen and they all broke and fled for their lives. The Redoran soldiers and the second wave of Imperial soldiers were locked in a heavy battle doing honor to their Khan despite being outnumbered when a Minghan of Ashlander mounted archers held in reserve by the Redoran captain called them out to take the legionnaires by their rear. The lethal arrows found purchase in the unprotected flanks and rear of the legion cohorts, and they too fled with their comrades. Ayden and the rest of his army pursued the fleeing legionnaires, hacking and slashing the wretched Cyrodiils. The rout lasted many hours pursuing them all the way to the Valus Mountains until there was not an Imperial left alive.

It was a heroic victory for the Khan and his horde and a crushing defeat for the Imperial legions intent on killing the horde and reclaiming their dominions. Ayden annihilated half the manpower of the Septim Empire and Emperor Uriel Septim VII was beside himself with grief. Ayden also captured a prize almost as sweet as victory Herself: the capture of the youngest of the Imperial crown princes; Enman Septim who rode at the head of the legion cavalry. He was unhorsed and captured by Ashlander foot warriors when Ayden outmaneuvered him early in the battle. Ayden used Enman as a political prisoner and the threat of invasion of Cyrodiil territory to force a peace between Him and the Emperor Septim. Uriel and the Elder Councilors agreed to an extended White
Peace yet Ayden kept the young Septim prisoner to ensure the Empire's adherence to the peace. Ayden treated his Imperial captive amicably, enticing him with hard drink and Velothi maiden-concubines in his royal yurt. Enman was easily debauched and became Ayden's creature. Enman became so indulgent the year following the death of Emperor Uriel Septim VII that he took his death owing to excess consumption of hard liquor. The fortunes of war smiled on Ayden. Now that he pacified the Septim Empire, his western borders were secure and he was free to continue his conquest of Morrowind.

...THE GREATEST AND MIGHTIEST OF EMPERORS
Three hundred miles to the south, the city of Mournhold within the province of Deshaan remained under the control of Ra'athim Hlaalu Helseth, self-proclaimed King of Morrowind and leader of the Ra'athim dynasty which had governed the city and much of lower Morrowind as vassals of the Cyrodiils since the beginning of the third era. Mournhold, an exotic synthesis of Dunmer and Imperial culture was famed for its grand bazaar, parks, architecture, public buildings, art works, vast temple constructs, and many other wonders of Mournhold. This, then, was the city Ayden now resolved to conquer.

Galloping across the steppe, fording rivers, and threading his way through rocky passes, Ayden's envoy delivered a summons for Helseth to appear at his qurilitay at Ba'alkh, effectively declaring himself a vassal. Helseth was enraged at the summons and rashly slew the envoy. It was particularly galling to the young usurper king for it wasn't long ago that Ayden was a roving mercenary in his service. Helseth's impromptu killing of Ayden's envoy had given him the Cassus Belli he'd been looking for. Ayden declared war on Helseth but Ayden expected such a petulant reaction from Helseth and had already entrusted command of several tumens each under Alandro Sul who invaded from the west and Trey of Bal Isra who invaded from the east and Ayden at the head of his imperial armies invaded from the north, escaping all detection from Helseth's spies and scouts whilst effectively employing his own in detecting enemy strengths, positions, and weaknesses throughout Helseth's kingdom.

Helseth mustered men for battle but his wise mother and captain-general Tienius Delitian warned him that no one who had fought Ayden had prospered. Helseth relented but reports came from the north that Ayden himself with his army was marching south along the Shipal-Shan passes, plundering local towns and settlements. Helseth realized it was perfect ground to stage ambushes to destroy the Velothi army yet Ayden too knew this and by speedy gallopers, ordered his two generals to converge on the outskirts of Mournhold and wheel back around to catch Helseth from behind. Helseth and his generals underestimated the speed of Ayden's army such that Ayden performed a counter ambush that denvded Helseth's huge army of Hlaalu and Dres contingents. Ayden's captains then signaled to the Dres commanders to abandon their liege at the height of the battle.

Ayden had long before worked behind the scenes to sever the alliance between Helseth and House Dres by offering the Dres the locations and secret hatcheries of the Argonian rebels and at the bloody height of battle he ordered their defection and the Dres lords returned to Sistan. Such was Ayden's masterful double-dealing. Helseth, a man of consummate cunning and intellect, was undone by a man with an inhuman cunning as diabolically wicked as Boethiah and an intellect as deep and unfathomable as the infinite expanse as Oblivion Itself. Helseth's forces were hit in the rear by Trey and Alandro and he was surrounded. His trusted generals and soldiers all were slaughtered and Helseth, attempting to flee on horseback, was tackled by a brave Ashlander warrior and presented before the victorious Khan Vai.

They rolled Helseth into a carpet, tied it up, and carried it on horseback but not before Ayden took Helseth's robe, armour, and helmet and wore them for himself. He ordered all his mer to don the armour of the Helsethian soldiery and bear the Ra'athim royal standards and in this manner Ayden's main force rode to Mournhold in disguise as the victorious Helseth and his army while his two generals secured the borders.

Ayden's imperial speaking soldiers cried out to the guards on the massive walls of city that they drove off the wretched barbarians. Ayden/Helseth ordered the last of the Helsethian guard to put down their weapons and kneel before him. In one fell swoop, Ayden's soldiers executed the enemy soldiers. To the amazement of everyone in the city, especially Barenziah and Dinara, Ayden revealed himself before the people, announcing the defeat of his rival and his new rule as Khan of Morrowind--sovereign over all Veloth, declaring that Mournhold would be his Imperial capital. The transition went about smoothly; despoiling the Hlaalu nobles of their wealth and rewarding his army for the victory they achieved. Akin to Bolvyn Venim, Helseth had a lot of enemies among the Ra'athim clan, being as he killed the former king and the intended heir who were kin to the Ra'athim. As with Serjo Venim, Ayden kept his hands clean whilst he handed over Helseth to the family of the former King Llethan who killed Helseth with much agony. He added the former queen mother Barenziah and the widow Dres Dinara to his growing harem.

HAI RESDAYNIA!
By seizing the Deshaan province and its premiere capital city Mournhold, Ayden drove a wedge between the ancient Hlaalu and Dres emirates. The ruling Indoril emirate in Mournhold was weakened greatly by Helseth and his Hlaalu-Dres allies so that Ayden easily swept aside the remaining Indoril princes and married off the daughters either to himself or to his generals. The Almsivi ruler of the Almalexia temple districts within the great city, Archcanon Gavas Drin, was an instigator and zealous autocrat who imposed temple rule on the citizens in his district. Ayden ordered him to inscribe a phrase in the Mourninghold minaret, "The Khan is the shadow of the gods above." Some say Ayden had his agents intentionally inscribe, "The Khan is a shadow," giving Ayden reason to put to death the last of the Almsivi rulers for the insulting epithet. Drin was clapped in irons and hanged in the public square. So indomitable was his authority and unquestioned was his rule, that Ayden could put to death a holy sovereign at the merest provocation. In 431, Ayden was officially invested and proclaim sovereign Khan over Morrowind.

Ayden spent two months resting in the fabled capital. It was a much deserved rest for a man who campaigned in the saddle unceasingly for several years. Generously, he gave onto his army a goodly portion of the treasures of Mournhold. Such was the revenue coming from the Telvanni ulus that Ayden lowered taxes for all the citizens, earning him much praise and loyalty from the common people. The local aristocracy was generally spared after paying a huge ransom. When Ayden conquered the Kara-Kum, all the Ashlander tribes conferred upon him the title of 'Khan of the Veloth Horde.' The bravest and hardiest of men and the choicest and comeliest of maidens were given to Ayden as yearly tribute by the chieftains, without Ayden asking for it! Not only did he have an eternal supply of women to enjoy and to breed his own tribes of faithful sons and daughters. He possessed a near limitless reserve of steppe fighters who served and obeyed him without question and whom he rewarded generously. It was such a unique combination of civic duty, nomadic loyalty, standardized organization combined with the mobility and ferocity of the Ashlander, and the overwhelming cult of personality of Ayden's that he possessed his own colossal war machine that he alone could command and direct at will, regardless of how he treated his nomadic subjects or whatever policies he undertook. Such was the fanatical loyalty of the Ash Spawn warriors of the steppes. Ayden had truly come into his own.

The sons of the Ashlander chieftains he received at his court became his Qapukulu or "court slaves." Their natHoral skills at mounted combat and archery were further honed by the finest war masters and cavalry trainers to such a degree that they became the greatest heavy cavalry in the known world next to his elite Ashlander mounted archers. Thus in his early reign, he focus heavily on military spending, hiring soldiers from the cities, towns, and villages of Deshaan to staff his infantry and ordering craftsmer, engineers, and mathematicians to construct the finest siege machines. He sent for Chani to attend him at his court and it was a passionate reunion for the mighty warlord Khan had been away from the harem for so long. Several nights they spent in each others' loving embrace. However the affairs of state had finally to intervene and Ayden once again took to the saddle.

Following the coronation, the city of Itil; which lay south of Mournhold, rebelled under the leadership of rebel Ordinators and its leader Fedris Hler, former Steward to the Archcanon Drin. Itil would pay dearly for rebellion. The city fell. Fedris Hler was captured and roasted alive over a small fire. Its citizens were massacred. The garrison of 10,000 Ordinators were taken prisoner. Rather than execute them on the spot, Ayden chose to make an example of these rebel warrior monks. A tower was constructed and the 10,000 prisoners forced into it-piled alive one upon the other with mortar and bricks, so that these miserable wretches might serve as a monument to deter others from revolting.

Invigorated by this dreadful act, Ayden led an army of one hundred thousand into the southeast province of Morrowind. Tear, its prosperous capital, mounted a valiant defense--the fighting so fierce that Ayden threw himself in the fray, at great personal risk, hacking away the limbs and heads of countless foes with his crescent sword. When his horse was shot from beneath him, he vowed revenge. Sistan already held painful memories, for this was where he was wounded while fighting as a hired sword in the service of the late Helseth. Whatever his feelings, Tear felt his fury, and the capital of that province was pitilessly razed. The citizens of Tear sued for peace, which Ayden granted on condition they surrender all their weapons. When this guarantee was given, he drew the sword against them and his army fell upon them all. He laid the city to waste, leaving in it not a tree or a wall and destroyed it utterly, no mark or trace of it remaining.' Men, women, and children perished in the slaughter.

Such an act of utter ruthlessness in sacking the Dres capital made it clear to all the other Hlaalu and Dres rulers that resistance was futile and Ayden, more or less, succeeded in conquering all other cities in the heartland: Kama, Mora, Bukhari, Narsis, Merv, Ganja, and Saray, with little bloodshed Wise and sagacious--Ayden knew that he had to make a bloody example to convince the other rival lords to spare their people the slaughter that would surely come for resisting Ayden for no ruler who ever fought against him lived. Ayden returned to Mournhold to receive the submission of all the Great House lords and invest them as his vassals. There was great celebration because Morrowind was united under one ruler. Ayden called for a month of celebration in the Kani-gil plains. There was feasting, whoring, and drinking on an unprecedented scale. Ayden ordered the daily races to commence and he lowered taxes greatly, much to the delight of the people. Two weeks into the bacchanolian revelry, news came from Saray of Atmoran reavers attacking Saray. Ayden Khan, enraged, mobilized his army and traveled north to Saray in 431.

Aah, my eyes! :wacko:

First off, spacing in between paragraphs so the reader's eyes don't explode. These forums make it hard to read when it's like that. I will read it now, just giving you a helpful heads up first :thumbsup:

PART FOUR

THE GREAT HUNT
He repulsed the reavers from Saray and followed them to former Frostmoth legion fort, which they used as their base of power. He conquered the Atmoran reavers, the wolves of the sea, earning the loyalty and arms of the Thirskian Nords. The Chief of the reavers boasted that he had slaughtered the Frostmoth Imperial legions and conquered their fort. Ayden invested the fortress and put to death all the men and enslaved the women and children. The chief was captured and interrogated. When pressed, he admitted that his people had not conquered the legions in Solstheim. They did not even engage in battle with them. The reavers found the remains of several thousand Imperial legionnaires on a plain north of the Frostmoth legion fort; slaughtered and mutilated by an unknown army and all within the fortress itself were similarly killed, their bodies clawed and gnawed upon. The reavers simply took it for themselves. When the chieftain told all that he knew, he was nailed to a wooden ass, skinned alive, cut to pieces, and then boiled alive in a cauldron. Ayden's agents, acting in his name, had already a mining colony named Rayy struck in the Hirstaang Forests but was repeatedly attacked by the Burgundii tribe; a race of berserker Nords, madden by over-consumption of mead and exposure to the elements.

Diverted from his aim, Ayden rode to the southwest after a night of feasting at the Thirsk mead hall where Ayden drunk all the other Nords under the table. Ayden crushed the Burgundii and committed a great slaughter upon them. Finding another obstacle in his path, the Broniki Nords, a nomadic horse-lord tribe akin to the Velothi . Ayden, outnumbered 10 to 1, crushed them too--taking Chieftain Suarn's daughter, Lempi, a gorgeous Nabokovian creature, as a concubine. Crossing the Frald River, north of Lake Fjalding, Ayden and his Companions battled wolves and bears as much as Nord marauders and finally coming upon Campus Skaalara.

The Skaal were an animist tribe led by their Chieftain Tharsten Heart-Fang, who worshipped wolves and bears, they were shocked at seeing the ash-skinned merish warriors in their hold, and even more that they were led by a bronze-skinned manmeri. They told the Veloth that it was Hircine and his dreaded hounds who were responsible for the destruction of the Frostmoth Imperial legions. Ayden, convincing Chief Heart-Fang and his councilors of his sincerity, commiserated with the high folk of the Skaal and the troubles with the dreaded Hircine, a warrior-king of demonic strength who wielded a huge spear, he stood over seven feet tall, wore a bone mask over his face, his voice the sound of death. He ruled over the north half of Solstheim, Old Atmora, and the eastern fringes of Skyrim. The Hounds of Hircine were his shock troops that claimed only what they killed and only killed everything--savage and inhuman warriors said to mate with wolves to produce offspring that were half-man and half-wolf. To be captured by Hircine's Hordes was a fate worse than death. Prisoners of war were skinned, roasted, and eaten alive. Hircine's dominion spanned north from Moesring Mountains to the frozen wasteland beyond. A vast yawning expanse into the unknown to the north, populated with indigenous nomadic groups both Merish and Nordic - Falmer, Rieklings, Slaav, and Vaanir - these men and mer of the tundra may once have belonged to their own tribes but they all became Hircine's Hounds. They drunk of the Daedra Princes' blood and most were driven into a slavish animal like state to varying degrees, but a few made the transformation into a werewolf - that hulking bipedal wolven beast of great strength and ferocity--Hircine's prized pets. The bulk of his armies consisted of mounted warriors but the Hounds, the werewolves, were the heavy infantry in a manner of speaking.

Ayden and his mer could scarcely believe their ears. It was enough that they battled the Sixth House horrors and the Dagoth lords but an actual Daedra god on earth preying among mortals in the flesh something to be seen to believed. But nevertheless, whomever or whatever Hircine was, he had to be dealt with once and for all. Not too long after Khan and Chief struck the war pact, Ayden's scouts had barely enough time to warn their lord of an advance army of Hircine's bearing down on Campus Skaalara. Werewolves overran the Skaal defense and seeing the Khan's golden yurt, they rushed into the yurt to kill the outlander Khan but found no one. They fell into an ambush-the yurt was soaked in pitch and ignited by fiery arrows. The surviving hounds retreated back through Hrothmund's pass in the Moesring Mountains.

Tales of the dreaded Hircine were a bit unsettling. It seemed impossible for the Daedra Lord of the Hunt to be made manifest on earth, preying on earthly denizens but Daedra or not, this menace of the tundra had to be dealt with for the fiendish host made forays even beyond Solstheim, into Vvardenfell even-on a never-ending quest for plunder and slaughter.

So in the dead of winter, instructions were issued from the imperial yurt. The Lord Khan had ordered the army to march north. Hircine was to be found and engaged. So far there had been minor skirmishes that were fought in Ayden's favor but he was sure that these were mere feints on the part of Hircine. Now Ayden was resolved to settle the issue in battle.

Without question or protestations, Ayden mobilized ten tumens (roughly 100,000 mer) and prepared the march into the great unknown icy wastes. Some of the emirs thought that Ayden's decision to hunt out the Daedra Prince of the Wild Hunt amid a raging winter on his ground; in some of the most inhospitable terrain imaginable comparable to the ashlands, was folly. There was no way of knowing where or when Ayden would happen upon Hircine's Hounds. All he could be certain of was that it was bigger than his own. At least, Ayden had some element of surprise on his side. No one expected an army to cross the tundra during a raging winter.

Hircine had his own spies. Through his powers of Animal communion, the beast creatures of Solstheim became his eyes and ears. Envoys arrived from the court of Hircine, presenting Ayden with nine magnificent horses and a Nord skull handsomely bejeweled and fashioned into a drinking cup. Hircine's message was one of contrition. He sought only to plunder the Skaal. He had no cause to be at war with Ayden and promised large tribute in a couple weeks time. Ayden recognized Hircine's overture for what it was, merely a ruse to forestall him. He would have none of it.

Onto the frozen tundra, Ayden's tumens now advanced like a falling shadow. Bristling with tension, the mounted archers pressed on in forced marches, still hoping to surprise and fall upon Hircine's Hounds. But around them the horizon was limitless, and instead of the massed ranks of crazed nomad warriors and werewolves they stared instead at dry ground with only the meanest grazing for the horses. It was a dispiriting sight. After three weeks in these vast plains, the horses were so fatigued with the great way they had gone, and the scarcity of water, that they were reduced to extremity.

By Sun's Death, after crossing Sarthuul River, they were at Hvitkald Peak. Here Ayden ordered an obelisk to be erected as 'a lasting monument to posterity'. It recorded the size of the army he was leading against Hircine, Daedra Lord of the wolves, and the date of its arrival in these mountains. This was also a distraction, perhaps deliberate, from the increasingly dire situation in which the army now found itself.

After almost four months' march from Rayy, Ayden's scouts scanned the horizon in vain for their enemy. Hircine's Hounds had melted away into the farthest recesses of the tundra and, just as the generals had feared, Many of Ayden's native soldiers were Sughdians trained at Mournhold. Elite mounted warriors par excellence but having settled down from nomadic life they were dependent on supplies, which were fast running out. The price of a sheep from the traveling market that accompanied the expedition had soared to a hundred drakes. Soon there were none left. There were Ashlanders among them that proved their worth in scrounging the barren land for edible roots, herbs, wild grasses, occasional eggs, and rats. These they supplemented by horsemeat, whenever an animal succumbed to the desperate conditions. It was very risky for Ayden and his army about to fight its most testing battle deep behind enemy lines.

The men were weak but in the course of their campaigns, even the urban city dwelling Tadzhik among them reverted back to their nomadic heritage. It was feared that Hircine's Hounds, well rested, provisioned, and entirely familiar with the terrain, would choose this moment to rise from the shadows and cut them to pieces.

It was a desperate time for Ayden, and a critical test of his leadership. Though the Ashlander Velothi and the Sughdians would die for their Khan, the client tribal cavalry of Solstheim required his overwhelmingly commanding presence to prevent them from rebelling due to starvation or, as they beat a frantic retreat towards Rayy, certain defeat by the Hounds of Hircine. Hircine's feral spies were well aware of Ayden's tenuous position. Ayden could not turn back now.

The first priority was to feed his mer. Hircine, as he had already proved so cleverly, could wait. Summoning his senior officers, Ayden gave commands for an Ashlander hunt. Riders galloped off to the emirs of the left and right wings, instructing them to lead their men forward steadily in a half-circle. Those soldiers in the center remained where they were. The distance between the wings in this army of one hundred thousand was so great that it took one full day just to complete the circle. When the men of the left wing joined with those from the right, encompassing an area of many square miles, orders were given to close in. The men marched inwards, each dreaming of the next meal of meat. Before them ran startled deer, hares, wild boars, wolves, and antelopes, probably elk too, since the chronicle mentions a type of gazelle the Velothi had not seen before, as large as a Nix Hound.

When the circle had shrunk to the required size, the order was given to halt. Ayden rode in first, as was customary. He was an incredible shot and a peerless horseman. Riding full tilt at one moment, almost stationary the next, he unleashed his arrows at his quarry. To loud cheers from his mer, he brought down a number of deer. Once the god-emperor had had his sport, it was their turn. For hours the hunt continued. The slaughter was immense that day, the dinner sumptuous. For days to come, the camp was wreathed in smoke as the heavy smell of game rose into the night sky from bubbling cauldrons. All the worries were quickly forgotten. The grumbling among the Solsthiem-Nord tribal cavalry subsided. The Ashlander hunt also had the added benefit of depriving Hircine of many of his spies. It is unknown whether Ayden knew of Hircine's power to commune with animals at the time.

With his army well fed and approaching the borders of old Atmora, Ayden chose this moment to order a general review of his troops, a move calculated to instill discipline and confidence. When the army of one hundred thousand had been brought into formation, the splendidly dressed Khan appeared before them on horseback, wearing a gold crown encrusted with rubies and carrying an ivory baton tipped with the carved golden head of a bull. Starting his review with the left wing, he made sure the soldiers were all properly equipped with a saber on their left side, a half saber on their right, as well as a lance, a mace, a dagger, and a leather shield, each man carrying a bow with fifty arrows in his quiver. The horses were decorated with Khajit skins.

There was a carefully arranged choreography and score to accompany the review. When Ayden arrived in front of each tumen, the emir, be he senior officer, son of the Khan, dismounted, threw himself to the ground, kissed the earth, told his ruler what excellent condition the troops were in, and professed their undying love and loyalty. The review lasted the whole day, at the end of which Ayden pronounced himself content with the state of his army.

After all the recent hardships, the successful hunting expedition had galvanized the mer. Even the Solstheim Nord warriors became truly enamored of Ayden Vai. From the Khan's great kettle drum came a roar of thunder across the tundra, picked up and echoed by the drums of the divisions. Banners and standards fluttered over this elite fighting force. Firsts were clenched and arms were raised. Over the drumbeats came another deafening roar, this time the cry of war, 'Surun! Surun!', running from the tip of the left wing to the end of the right. A bristling half-silence fell once more over the army, and in the cold grey of dawn it moved north in battle formation.

Unknown Atmora lay ahead. It was an empty place, whatever the time of year. The Solstheims called it the Land of Shadows. It was said that no one sees the people who live in the place. 'Here the days are long in summer and the nights are ling in winter.' Said the Skaal shaman Korst Wind-Eye. Would this be where Ayden happened upon his enemy, or was Hircine, always several marches ahead, luring the Velothi onwards to their destruction? The alien landscape, dense with fog and sodden underfoot, offered no clues to these men of the steppe.

Only scouting parties, sent ever deeper into enemy territory, would resolve the issue. Trey the Swift, one of Ayden's best generals, requested to be sent on such a mission. Ayden consented and the daring Velothi Breton set out on this dangerous mission. Traces of human life started to reveal themselves. First of all a track, which led to the still-warm embers of half a dozen fires. The news was sent back to Ayden who dispatched a detachment of expert scouts to join the party. North they galloped, scouring the plains for telltale signs, until they reached the Torbol River, a tributary of the Ortish which flows into the arctic North Sea. On the far bank they saw more fires, seventy of them, and another set of horse tracks, but no other indications of life.

Shar Daid, A Erabenimsun Ashlander with a reputation for great bravery, was sent to bring back more definite news. After riding for two days, he came upon some thatched huts and hid himself away during the night. The next morning a man rode out, and was instantly seized by the Ashlander and taken to Ayden. Although he knew nothing of Hircine of his army, ten days before he had seen a group of ten armed horseman camping nearby. The scent was becoming stronger. Ayden sent an advance party of soldiers to find and capture the horseman. When surrounded, they resisted fiercely but prisoners were taken and new intelligence extracted. The first skirmish had been fought.

The great Veloth army now wheeled west towards the enemy. In early summer, it reached the Horal River. Ever suspicious that the guides could be leading his mer into an ambush or other misadventure, Ayden disregarded the crossing places they suggested and instead swam his men, mer, and horses over less obvious locations. The situation was not yet hopeless, but with each day that passed it was becoming increasingly dire. More than four months out of Campus Skaalara, and still the Velothi had not engaged Hircine's Horde. Time was now of the essence. Ayden had to keep on the move lest he leave himself open to a surprise attack by Hircine. He had to force Hircine to battle or bring his own army into cultivated land before the end of the summer; delay was Hircine's finest weapon and he made full use of it.

Another week of hard marching and riding saw Ayden's weary men at the Tamara River. Here a party of scouts rejoined the main body of the army with news that they heard the enemy. At last, battle was getting closer. Prisoners started to be brought in, each of them carrying intelligence of some value. One was delivered by Trey. Another captive reported how the dreaded Lord Hircine had communicated with and controlled the animals of the frozen steppe--using them to spy on the movements of the Khan and his army and how furious He was when Ayden had ordered the great hunt to feed his army for it scattered all other animal life away from the path of the Veloth army. Ayden and his mer were only too relieved to learn that they robbed Hircine of a major advantage and might've wound up in a deadly ambush had not Ayden had the presence of mind to order the great hunt.

As the two armies maneuvered in search of advantage and the Velothi braced themselves for the long-awaited encounter, the order went out not to light any fires at night. At each camp, the soldiers were instructed to dig defensive positions and mounted guards were assigned to patrol the perimeter. The separate divisions were to remain in battle formation. Warlike music on the drums and trumpets now accompanied the daily marches. 'When this vast multitude began to move, it resembled the troubled ocean,' said Trels Varis.

Still there was no sight of the Hound of Hircine. Moving north, it had devastated the countryside before it, trampling the ground into a quagmire to the misery of the Veloth horses who followed, and systematically stripping the land of what little sustenance it offered. Mists descended on the chilly marshes, lowering the mood in Ayden's camp. It was another moment for the Emperor-Khan to take charge, regain the initiative and inspire his disconsolate forces. First there had been the hunt, then the fabulous review. Now he called his senior officers together once again, gave them words of encouragement and fine robes of honor, and had new weapons distributed among the troops, including armor for man and beast alike, shields and fresh bows and arrows.

Both sides mounted ambushes against one another. Prisoners flowed this way and that, each with reports of the enemy's whereabouts. In one particularly brutal clash, a number of Ayden's officers were killed. A retaliatory raid was launched by the Khan himself, and all those who had fought valiantly were generously rewarded, the bravest receiving the highest honor of tarkhan.

Although it was now summer, the conditions were still grim. 'The air was so dark, the clouds so thick, and the rains so great, that one could not see three paces,' the chronicle reported. Then, after a week of pea-soup fog, the skies cleared abruptly. It was midsummer and the men had been marching for almost five months over a distance of eighteen hundred miles. These sons of the ashen and grazeland steppes had ventured so far north that the long summer days seemed endless.

Reports were streaming in now of enemy sightings. Ayden made final preparations for war. The Veloth divisions moved forward in precise battle formation, based on the traditional plan of a center and two wings, but with the additions of a vanguard to each wing and a vanguard and reserve for the center. Trey was given command of the center. Ulms Drathen led the vanguard of ten thousand before it. Assaba-Bentus, Ayden's Erabenimsun Ashlander companion, was proving to be an exemplary officer, commanded the left wing with his troops from Molag Mar. Pir Chanu'ur led the right. Athyn Sarethi, the aged but most loyal of emirs, commanded the vanguard of the left wing. Ayden himself took charge of the rearguard.

Forward they marched, the sunlight shimmering on their armor so that they resembled 'the waves of the tempestuous sea'. And then, as the horizon unfurled before them, out of the dancing light rose the horned standards of Hircine, half a mile away. The enemy, at last, was ready to do battle. Death was in the air, but after all these months of anticipation, hunger, exhaustion, frustration, and impatience, the Veloth army felt not fear, but relief, even in the face of this terrifying and slavering horde of half men, half beast warriors bearing makeshift clubs made from human and merish flesh and bone or some bearing their own natHoral claws. These were the shock troopers of Hircine's army and his most fearsome troops. In the rear and sides of Hircines' army were the mounted warriors and archers of various tundra tribes who out of fear or worship served their dark master. The rhythm of feint and counter-feint, pursuit, and calculated retreat, looked as if it had finally run its course. One way or another, the fight for supremacy between Ayden and Hircine would be settled.

But there was one last ruse to be played. As the two armies faced each other across the divide, Ayden gave orders very publicly for his sumptuous tents and pavilions to be unpacked and erected, and his carpets laid out. It was a deliberate show of contempt for the foul horde, and an exercise in psychological warfare typical of his imagination and audacity. According to the chronicle, although Hircine's forces were far more numerous than the Velothi, this eleventh-hour performance shattered the morale of the human servitors and enraged the wolven beasts.

The early hours of midsummer 432, the dark lines of the two armies stretched for several miles into the half-light until they merged with dark earth and the pale horizon and disappeared altogether. Here and there angular protuberances rose from this dark mass - a lance, a standard, a guard on horseback. A disturbed hush hung over the lines of war, hinting at calamity.

On the Veloth side, Ayden rode out in front of his army, dismounted, kissed the earth and prayed for the assistance of Azura. The soldiers, with quickening heartbeats and throbbing temples, broke out into spontaneous roars of 'Surun, Surun, Surun'. The Daedric dervish Sendus Sathis of Shuran stepped forward to add his blessings to the imminent battle. Around him the drums started to beat and the trumpets sounded their terrible call. The holy mer prostrated himself on the ground, recited a passage from the suras and scooped up some dirt. He faced Hircine's Horde and his voice rose to shouting pitch. 'Your faces shall be blackened through the shame of your defeat,' he yelled. Then he turned to the Khan he had served so dutifully for several years, and his voice lowered almost to a whisper. 'Go where you please,' he said, 'you shall be victorious.' The drums and trumpets struck up again, rising in a crescendo, the battle-cry 'Surun, Surun' filled the sky and Tamriel shuddered as her greatest armies thundered towards each other across the divide. The following words are from Trels Varis:

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Then both armies came in sight of one another and were charged with the lust of war. The dreaded Hircine set his wolves upon the ranks of the Khan's army. The beasts roared and the undaunted Velothi roared back. Man for man, the hounds ripped to shreds four or five Skaal warriors for everyone of their numbers lost. But the Ash born warriors of the fable black desert steppe fought as one mind, one body, under sun-and-star. The foot warriors formed ranks and bore spears at the last minute as the wolven horde charged-the hapless beasts impaling themselves on the hedgerows of deadly spears and lances. Soon piles of hacked and gored massive fur and flesh piled up along the Velothi ranks. The second wave of beasts battled smartly and some jumping over the spear ranks but were met with the famed Sughdian warriors of Mournhold. Ashen throats were slashed by claws, limbs rended by same, or men and mer bitten savagely while hammers smashed wolven skulls, axes deprived the beasts of heads, and swords buried deep into the great briasts of the howling werewolves. The warriors opened the ranks and the mounted arches loosed massive volleys at the third wave of wolves who were slaughtered greatly, their
bodies bearing arrows as a porcupine bears its many quills. Blood poured over the plain, until the earth was rent and the heavens light the four seas. This struggle lasted about three days.
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Battle began with a charge with a charge from Ayden's right wing under Pir Chanu'ur against Hircine's left. The fighting was furious but indecisive, with neither side breaking through the ranks of the enemy. Horses careered wildly at each other, their riders unleashing vicious volleys of arrows at their adversaries. At closer quarters, the sabers and scimitars were unsheathed, and steel blades and claws rained down from the sky, slashing through anything that opposed them. In the general melee that followed the first attack, Ayden seized the advantage on the right flank and in the center. In response, Hircine directed his right wing against the Veloth left led by Assaba-Bentus, detaching it from the main body of the army with the aid of his greater numbers and threatening to engulf it completely. But then, in the heat of the action, just as Hircine looked set to carry the day, Ayden and his legendary Sughdian cavalry blasted through the thinned ranks of the enemy and charged at the right flank of Hircine and his bodyguard cavalry. Ayden saw Hircine in all his unearthly glory. He wore a mask with horns protruding from the temples. He wore chainmail over a robe that barely contained the pure muscle underneath. He bore a large spear and was mounted on a creature Ayden and no one else had ever seen before; a giant saber-toothed tiger.

Ayden and his mer bowled over Hircine's cavalry and Ayden tore into the Lord of the Hunt with his crescent sword and opened a bloody gash across his chest. Hircine and Ayden fought savagely but Ayden's quickness and a hidden dagger prevailed. He repeatedly stabbed this giant of a man if you'd call it that. Ayden, in a bloody reverie, drank of the lord's blood and unmasked him, revealing a horror that can not be described in words. Suffice to say that after the battle, Hircine's corpse was burnt to ash.

Hircine was dead and his horned standard was felled to the ground, throwing the rest of his dwindling army into confusion and chaos. Panic descended on the mortal warriors of Hircine and soon theat vast army was in headlong flight, chased and cut down without mercy by the rampaging Velothi. 'For the space of forty leagues, wherever they pursued nothing could be seen but rivers of blood and the plains covered with dead bodies,' wrote Varis. A hundred thousand men and women lost their lives at the battle of Kundraag. And countless beasts, transformed by the bodily essence of Hircine, were extinguished from the face of Tamriel and for the good of all that is holy.

Crap! I lost the formatting when pasting from Word. I'll try to correct.

PART FIVE

The long march was over. Ayden kissed the earth and offered up thanks to Azura for delivering him this famous victory. Once more he and his army tasted the sweet fruits of victory. The emirs and princes of the lood stepped forward to congratulate him. His young son by Chani sprinkled gold and precious stones over him. The booty collected by Hircine over several lifetimes of man were collected. The poorest soldiers plundered more horses than they could take back to Morrowind. There were camels, guars, sheep, and cattle. Those Nordic nomad men and women who had not been butchered were instantly thrown into slavery. Five thousand boys were chosen for service in the Imperial household. The most beautiful girls and women were destined for the harem.
When Ayden had drunk the blood of that dangerous Daedra god-quite against the advice of his emirs, he knew that he had gained that same power over animals that his adversary had possessed. It took twenty mer to put lines around the great tiger beast that was Hircine's mount and still the beast struggled. Ayden walked right up to it and with a mental command, called the beast to rest and kneel. And so it did, much to the awe of the assembled troops. Ayden mounted the beast and rode it up and down the plains. It was as fast as the fastest steppe ponies known to men and mer. The Velothi cheered. Ayden would name his new mount, Gundai. The shamans declared that the Great Khan had the power to command the beasts and animal fen as well as men and mer. The Khan ordered all deer in the surrounding area to convene in front of him and kneel and so they did. Ayden performed several other acts with the animals and left no doubt in anyone's mind that through the death of Hircine, Ayden acquired the power over animals, to communicate and control their actions. If Ayden had become more than human after the War of the Sixth House, he was truly a god in the eyes of his people.

Ruthless in his prosecution of war, Ayden was lavish in his celebrations of triumph. Orders were given for a grand festival on the banks of the Fjalding River near Campus Skaalara. Row after row of warriors sat inside the handsome pavilions in front of golden platters heaped with roast horse-meat, toasting their invincible Khan and reliving their battlefield heroics with tall stories. At their elbows stood the most desirable captives, beguiling women dressed in silks, filling their crystal cups with wine, filling and refilling them until, unable to drink any more, the warriors collapsed on the ground or grabbed a companion for the night and staggered heavily back to their tents. For a full month they sank into these blissful excesses, forgetting the fatigues of war, losing themselves in rousing music, bumpers of wine and deep embraces. It was not known if Hircine the god was truly dead or his soul cast back into Oblivion. Whatever his end, his horde had been destroyed and his hold over the Solstheim settlements and the northeastern most cities of Skyrim lifted; Windhelm, Lokken, Voggar, and others. These Ayden would visit in time and conquer. Now the threat to Vvardenfell, the land between two rivers, had been removed. The mission had been accomplished.

It was found that the Skaal Chief Tharsten Heart-Fang was killed in battle and that a new chief was to be selected. Ayden's army, supplemented by Nord warriors of Thirsk, played a big part in the succession. Ayden desired the precious ore Stalhrim from the Skaal whose fundamentalist priests guarded it jealously from mercantilism. Ayden supported Lassnr Half-Hand, son of an exiled Skaal, as Chieftain, one who was not bound by religious prohibition to make a few pieces of gold. Ayden helped him engineer a coup that gave Lassnr the chiefdom. Ayden became master of Solstheim.

Thereafter Ayden went from strength to strength, seizing the mead benches from countless chiefs of countless nations, killing the chieftains and his thanes, sacking their settlements, and seizing their women. At Hrothmund mead hall, high up in Moesring Mountain, Ayden and his band were well received by the chief and they stayed and drank around the Hearthfire. It so happened that the chief had a young and beautiful daughter. Everyone in the meadhall was drunk, but Ayden kept his wits about him. He seduced her and took her upstairs to her father's bed chamber, where he congressed her peach. His father staggered in and caught them in the act. There was a big fight, several Nord heads rolled but Ayden and his warriors had to beat a retreat but they came back when the Hrothmund Nords lest expected it and ambushed them and Ayden took the girl as a body slave.

Ayden celebrated his territorial acquisition in the Thirsk mead hall, drinking nightly until he was himself drunk. Needless to say he had outdrank all his Nordic friends under the table?consuming a total of 50 pitchers of honey mead, so hearty and tough was his constitution that the Corprus Cure gifted him. So loud was the drunken revelry that the great black beast called the Udyfrykte awoken from his hundred-year slumber. The beast tore through the hall, killing several Nord warriors, the Thirsk Chieftain, and a few of Ayden's companions before it was driven back. Ayden, enraged at the bloody intrusion, staggered out of the hall and to the lair of the black beast where he beat Udyfrykte to death with a frozen Nord leg and tearing its monstrous heart out and placing it in the hall as a trophy. The Thirskians hailed Ayden as there one and only chieftain-khan--a warrior and king like no other. Ayden took Svenja Snow-Song as a slave bride who would manage the affairs of the mead hall while he named a vassal to rule in his absence.

Such was their love and devotion to their absentee ruler that months after he left, the Thirskians fought off a "conquest of liberation" by their mainland cousins from their Atmoran ways, preferring the rule of the eastern Khan and his Velothi to the rule of more familiar brethren. The vassal chief would send the Khan, without prompting, yearly tribute in the form of rich furs, Stalhrim artifacts, honey mead, and women.

Though rich in Stalhrim ore, it was mainly the private hunting grounds for Ayden and his Imperial family; hunting the many bears, wolves, and Nords that protested Ayden's dominance of their Northern lands. Most of the time, Ayden did not need to garrison troops in the land, the Nords of Thirsk, extremely loyal to the Khan, formed what they called the "Golden Band", a band of Nord warriors who fought for the glory of Ayden Khan and for the love of fighting and plunder. They kept a kind of terrorized security throughout Solstheim, brutalizing other Nordic tribes that survived Ayden's first rampage. When rebellions grew out of hand for the Golden Band, Ayden's tumens stepped in and killed every rebel tribe, chieftain, and warrior with terrifying celerity.
Solstheims Nords were a minority, outnumbered by the savage creatures of the forests while the Golden Band of Thirsk, thrived and expanded, as long as they were loyal to the Khan of the Velothi Horde. The opportunities for fighting and plunder dwindled with the near-extermination of non-allied Nords. The warriors of the Golden Band look to the southwest with designs of attacking their domesticated cousins of Skyrim, which was well in keeping with Ayden's foreign policy for he hated the Nords as a race and desired their extermination but he knew the time wasn't right yet and bade his Golden Band warriors to be patient, rewarding with money and mead in the meantime.

WINDS FROM THE EAST
By late autumn of 432, Ayden had spent almost two months in Mournhold but aside from enjoying his growing harem of lovely houris, he was by no means inactive. The various architectHoral works - the fabulous parks, gardens, and palaces - lent further luster to his imperial capital, which was beginning to multiple in size and riches during his reign, the Pearl of the East, Mournhold would soon be the envy of the world.

These extravagant improvements had occupied only part of Ayden's time, however. Always the restless conqueror was looking ahead, gathering intelligence; he sent spies east to the little known Akaviri nations and west to the Cyrodiilic Empire and the western Tamrielic nations. He provisioned men and planned future conquests. For the first time in his life, no doubt since the time of Emperor Uriel Septim V, his eyes turned east to perhaps the mightiest ruler on earth, the Jade Emperor of Ka Po Tun. It was the chance to win untold glory and riches by defeating the Emperor and conquering the Jade Empire in the darkest corners of the world.

With that object in mind, Ayden had ordered fortresses to be built in his eastern frontier regions in the shadows of the spectacular Tir Shan Mountains, and in the neighboring city of Ashpara. He sent his trusted generals to ensure that the land could supply the needs of the army when it marched through en route to Ka Po Tun. After overtures to the troublesome Manghuks, Ayden had concluded a treaty with their khan, Khia Khota, a cessation of hostilities celebrated by his marriage in 432 to the khan's daughter, princess Tukal-Shanun. The way east was open.

All these preparations had been set in motion by 432. Though Ayden is a keen opportunist, he knew that the Far East Jade Empire would have to wait. The Cyrodiilic Empire still threatened-that, Skyrim and the other brute nations of the west would have to dealt with before Ayden could send his forces too far east. But as providence would have it, diplomatic envoys and a princess from the land of the Tang-mo arrived at Ayden's court in Mournhold. This Tang princess, Nariko, was the daughter of Chief Shen of the noble clan of Monke-nu from the Kingdom of Ferganji in the north part of Tang-mo. She was a gorgeous exotic beauty with bronzed skin, tell-tale Akaviri eyes with the epithetic fold, green color, with long flowing red hair, and a body to rival any obelisk. Ayden was intrigued by his foreign guests and even more intrigued by Nariko's tale of woe.

To the east in the lands of Akavir, between the lands of Vvardenfell and the Ka Po' Tun Empire, also known as the Jade Empire, is the country of Tang-mo, the land of the Tang. Militant and aggressive, the Tang-Mo were made up of several kingdoms and within them confederations of tribes and clans, half-settled and half-nomadic. Tang-mo was a march border state that spent their time serving as vassals under the Jade Empire or violently overthrowing the rule of the same and opposing invading Kamal hordes consistently. Owing to great internal civil wars and disasters in the Jade Empire, The Tang-Mo grew fully independent for many a year and developed their own sedentary form of central rule with a king at its head.

Ferganji was ruled by a blood-soaked tyrant-king named Bothan who had killed his father whose father had killed his grandfather to usurp the throne. Fratricide was commonplace in Ferganji royalty but this particular king was brutal and capricious beyond all other rulers. He violated tribal law and religion by forcing his subjects to conform to Ka Po' Tun style rule, culture, and religion. Nearly all the tribes rebelled but Bothan's monstrously huge army crushed all in their path. King Bothan would tolerated no resistance even if he reduced his own kingdom to a wasteland.

So far Bothan has made good his decree. His massive armies swallowed many rebel tribes, forcing some to adhere to his New Ka Po' Tun style of rule, but many tribes still resisted. One particular clan of an already decimated tribe, the Monke-nu clan, Nariko's clan, of the Yueh Chueh tribe, had been the only clan to resist Bothan's armies so far and Bothan was determined to annihilate the clan. This she told Ayden all that had happened in her country. Ferganji was in a state of civil war and insurrection. She and her kinsmen heard tales of a powerful khan in the west and here now was with the Khan.

She was a great beauty and her warmth, passion, and combination of desperate strength and fragility was intoxicating and would easily rank her as one Ayden's top ten favorite wives. Her offer was her hand in marriage to the Khan, the "heavenly blade" family heirloom, and possession of her people and lands if Ayden and his Horde could destroy the hated Bothan and his armies.

It was a great offer but not without its dangers, these Tang-Mo possessed great war beasts and countless manpower, Ayden knew it was risky yet there was another big incentive for making war on the Tang-Mo. In the Telvanni ulus, Ayden controlled the purchasing centers where the trade routes of the fabled Jade Road ended but he controlled few of the trade routes. If Ayden fought and conquered Bothan and his Tang armies, Ayden could seize the Jade Road itself and a great many trade routes. Doing so would make him incredibly rich beyond imagination. Ayden accepted Nariko's offer.

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Ayden's shadowy tendrils
Ayden was no one-dimensional warlord. He employed his emissaries, diplomats, spies, and assassins to great effect. During his adventures and misadventures in Deshaan province while escaping the Manghuk retaliation, Ayden plied the thieves guild trade and even joined the secretive Morag Tong assassins guild. He made contacts with many shadowy figures throughout old Morrowind and even had the ear of the Morag Tong Grandmaster Eno Hlaalu. He used his diplomats to sow dissension among the Ra'athim and Dres lords and even break the alliance between the Helseth Monarchy and the Dres Emirs.

The Septim Empire had its own formidable intelligence network throughout Tamriel known as the Imperial Blades but Ayden, a highly intuitive and perceptive man, discovered the identity of the head of the eastern blades in Morrowind, one named Caius Cosades. When Ayden was newly arrived in Morrowind, this Caius sought to use him to fulfill the prophecy of the Nerevarine. Ayden knew this well and so killed the man but not before learning the identities of all the other Blades agents and their assets. In time as Ayden became Khan and grew more powerful, he replaced the Blades with double agents and soon he usurped the entire network and turned it against the empire itself without the Imperials' knowledge.

Ayden's agents adopted the guises of the nobility, clergy, soldiers, tradesmen, and commoners. From the lowly farmer, herder, thief, and brigand to the mercenary, criminals, pirates, and prosttutes to the legion soldiers, merchants, entertainers, gladiators, philosophers, and scholars to the high born and notables such as the Archbishop of the Nine Divines, a legion general, a governor or two in outer Cyrodiil, and even members of the Elder Council. But no group more important than the hero worship cult of Talos; that first grand emperor Tiber Septim a.k.a. Talos Stormcrow. A succession of mediocre emperors made the cult more political and its adherents, a great many who were legionnaires, officers and enlisted, sought to place a stronger man than Uriel Septim VII on the throne. Ayden's agents infiltrated the cult, and through them made contacts and alliances with its members. The emperor's men caught wind of one of their plots to assassinate his Majesty and their ranks were brutally culled, persecuted, tortured, and killed. It was Ayden who turned on them while warning the few and the powerful Talos cult members he desired to cultivate as allies for their gratitude in being warned against Septim justice.

The cult went underground and merged with the mysterious Mythic Dawn cult. It was more militant and subversive than before, whose sole objective was the death of Uriel Septim VII. Ayden's agents within the cult controlled it and through them corrupted the highest levels of government in Cyrodiil and even wooed the 2nd crown prince Ebel Septim into their fold.

To undertake the invasion of Ferganji, Ayden had to insure the Septim Empire wouldn't invade Morrowind in his absence and so set in motion events that would destroy the 400 year old Septim dynasty and keep Cyrodiil mired in civil war. By the time he became ruler of Morrowind, he had already had agents in place throughout all levels of Cyrodiil society.
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PART SIX

Ayden put the idea to his emirs. What was their opinion of this most audacious campaign against an enemy across the snow-capped mountains? They were troubled. 'The rivers! And the Mountains and deserts! And the soldiers clad in armor! And the elephants, destroyers of men and mer!" They said. Ayden further stated:

"The whole country of Tang-mo is full of gold and jewels, and in it there are seventeen mines of gold and silver, diamond, ruby, emerald, tin, iron, steel, copper, quicksilver, plants which are suitable for making clothes, aromatic plants, and sugar cane. It is a country which is always green and verdant, and the whole aspect of the country is pleasant and delightful. Now, since the inhabitants wicked inwahs and divided by civil war with a spurious king at their head, it is right for us to conquer them."

General Alandro lent credence to the Khan's words. 'Tang-mo is an extremely rich place through which the Jade Road runs through it. Whoever controls the Jade Road, controls the flow of goods and wealth east and west of nirn, and becomes rich beyond measure, making us economically as well as militarily superior to the Septim Empire.

The Khan nodded in agreement. His mind was made up. He sent Alandro to put the holy city of Mukkan under siege. The quartermasters once again turned to the business of raising an army of 80,000. Then in early spring of 433, the emperor called the traditional qurilitay at which he made clear his intentions and ordered the mobilization of the Veloth Horde.

TANG-MO
Once more the plains around Mournhold echoed to the thunder of arms. A thick pall of dust hung over the army as ninety thousand soldiers maneuvered into position. Ninety thousand men and mer, awaiting the emperor's command, pondered the battles ahead. Among the devoted Ashlander horsemer, there was no questioning or hint of fear among the Veloth nomads of Vvardenfell. They gladly lived and died for Khan Ayden Nerevar Incarnate and were fearless and fanatical in war. Among the non-Ashlander veterans of all races, there was bluff confidence and a certain heartiness, a resignation to the will of Ayden and the expectation, never disappointed over the years, of great reward. Ayden's generosity to his soldiers was famous the length and breadth of Transoxiana. 'I saw that my rise to power,' The Khan is supposed to have said. 'entailed the necessary division of spoils to my soldiers.' This he had done assiduously from his early days as a desperado and mercenary to the height of his glory as the immortal God-Khan. The battle-hardened men remembered the lavish spoils from previous campaigns. If they fought valiantly again, they would win honor and new riches. All knew that a soldier distinguishing himself exceptionally in battle, be he the most junior infantryman or the greatest emir, might be awarded the exalted title of tarkhan. It was a prize worth fighting for.

Ferganji lay a thousand miles to the southeast as the crow flew. In practice it was much farther, given the complicated maneuverings and battles that would have to be fought along the way. Their marches would take them across some of the most treacherous terrain on earth, over the mighty Gansu Mountains, known to Indoril geographers as the Great Roof of the World, bigger even than Skyrim's Throat of the World, with 25,000 foot peaks soaring into the heavens. Here lived the warlike Kvayya tribes which no man had ever subdued. As the emirs had warned, there were rivers and deserts which guarded the approach to Ferganji. And even if they managed to overcome all these natHoral obstacles, they would then face the dreadful beasts of Tang-mo, the colossal armored elephants of which blood-curdling tales were told. They could uproot trees and houses, crash through walls, impale men and mer on their sword-like tusks and rip heads clean off with their trunks. From lofty castles on their backs, Tang soldiers rained down arrows upon their enemies. It was a staggering challenge that Ayden was more than ready for, even if his quaking emirs were not.

90,000 interwoven destines lay on these plains. Some young men and mer, with tightly drawn, implacable features looked forward to war with a quiet assurance. Plucked from small, obscure lives on the steppes, in the towns and villages among the deserts and mountains, all of them steeped in poverty, they knew that by joining Ayden's army they were serving a God Himself.

Amid the smoke of the campfires that glowed like fireflies in the night, among the sweet smell of roast horse and mutton, the talk was all of war. Wizened veterans would have boasted of their past heroics on the battlefield, telling tall stories to credulous neophytes and describing with as much detail as they could muster how they would give these inwah a slow and excruciating death. Others probably spoke of the treasures they would steal from Ferganji, and slaves they would make of their enemies and the beautiful women they would despoil. And as these stories dissolved into the night, the silent young men who dreaded this campaign more than anything in their short lives must have struggled to control a mounting fear. Among the Ashlander warriors, there was no such fear. For them their only desire was to serve their Holy Khan.

Khan Vai was troubled by no such doubts. He moved, as he knew, under Azura's protection, raising the sword of Veloth against the inwah. His intelligence told him everything he needed to know. Fratricide, rampant since the death of the previous two kings before Bothan and torn Tang-mo apart. The country had degenerated into petty kingdoms. Ferganji, ancient treasure-house of the empire, was locked in civil war with the greedy King Bothan trouncing the rebel tribes that defied him. The state of the country was an open invitation to an invader. The invitation was accepted, and in early spring 433, the order to march south was given. 90,000 soldiers - sons, husbands, fathers, grandfathers - said their prayers and set their eyes towards the Great Snow Mountains.
When Ayden arrived in Termek in the spring of 433, the city was rising from the ashes left by Zeng Sai in 255. For centuries it had thrived at the crossroads of Akavir, a prospering Jade Road emporium, with caravans streaming through en route to the markets of Kherson, Mournhold, and Tang-mo to the south. Well before Almsivi arrived, Termek was also a cradle of many religions; Daedric, Tantric, Tengri-ka, and various forms of ancestor worship brought west across the mountains of Veloth and east from the Jade Empire by the currents of trade. Xuan Zang, a Ka Po' Tun monk who passed through the Iron Gates on his way to Termek, counted more than a dozen monasteries during his visit to the city. Within the city walls, that ran for seven miles, were something like 1,100 monks reached Termek shortly before the other religions were brutally swept off the stage by the Almsivi invasion lead by Vivec and Almalexia in the closing years of the First Era. With the fall of the Indoril and Almsivi hegemony over Morrowind brought about by the rise of Ayden, Termek assumed its more religiously cosmopolitan nature, with added emphasis to Daedric of course, and became fully integrated within Ayden's territories.

In the first and second centuries, though surrounded by great mountains and almost a thousand miles from the nearest coastline, the city found unlikely fame as a port. The boats it built and exported plied the length of the Dirya. By 368, a century after the Kamal sacking, new Termek was 'a large and beautiful city, abounding with trees and water', not to mention a palace, a prison, a fine canol, and city walls with nine gates. Its markets heaved with merchants and customers seeking the city's famous soaps and perfumes. 'It abounds in graqes and quinces of an exquisite flavor, as well as in flesh-meats and milk,' Trels Varis explained. 'The inhabitants wash their heads in the bath with milk instead of fuller's earth; the proprietor of every bath-house has large jars filled with milk, and each man as he enters takes a cupful to wash his head. It makes the hair fresh and glossy.' Ayden and his army enjoyed the fruits of Termek until the order to march was called again. Ayden had a bridge built to cross the Dirya and as soon as he and his army had reached the other side, the structure was immediately dismantled. Both the Amu and Dirya were defining, semi-closed borders for his inner empire.

Swiftly crossing the Dirya, Ayden led his army southeast, for 150 miles they marched on until they reached Andarab, from where the Roof of the World rose before them in all their dreadful splendor. Here Ayden left the main body of his army and took a smaller mounted fighting force thirty miles east. As snow fell around them, they crossed the Kwai pass which at 12,600 feet was the natHoral defense of the marauding Kvayya tribes. Ayden had to deal with this warlike race to secure safe passage to and from Tang-mo.

Here on the Roof of the World, amid the icy peaks and passes of the Gansu, the weather deteriorated rapidly. But Ayden's mer were extremely hardy warriors from the black desert and steppe who also braved the terrible winters of the Solstheim campaign and tolerated the cold as best they could. Nonetheless, horses slipped and stumbled to their deaths. Casualties were high. Traveling by night to avoid losing their foothold on melting ice, the expeditionary force pressed on. In places they came upon precipices which were impassable without ropes. They could not bring all their horses and Ayden had to walk on foot like the humblest infantryman. The whole body of men and mer was now unmounted. Still he would not call a halt. Whatever the difficulties, and they were mounting by the day, the mountain inwah had to be subdued before he would turn his thoughts to Ferganji.

At last the small force reached the home of the Kvayya tribes and stormed their mountain stronghold. The fighting was fierce and Ayden lost a considerable numbers of men, a guarantee, if only the Kvayyas knew it, that he would be merciless in victory. Surrender came too late for them, however, and before long the snows of the Gansu were marked with spreading stains of blood and the trademark towers of skulls. Only now would Ayden rejoin his main army and resume his southerly progress. Up to this point, everything had gone according to plan, just as the Khan had assured them. The defeat of the wild Kvayya tribes, warriors who had refused to bow before the Almsivi emperors and Tiber Septim himself, had been sudden and complete. There was no reason to expect the battles which awaited to be any less successful. They had crossed the Roof of the World. The worst of their journey was over.

Ayden ordered the army to continue south in three divisions. Ulms Drathen took the left wing towards Ferganji. Trey led the vanguard to clear the way through hostile territory. Ayden himself ranged south to meet Alandro, who was occupied with the siege of the holy city of Mukkan. By fall, the Khan reached the Iriyan River. A bridge was constructed and within two days the army had crossed the great river. But more obstacles lay ahead: First the Jammu and shortly afterwards the Chanab and Rahj Rivers. Ayden's emirs had warned of the difficulties of overcoming these natHoral defenses which guarded the approach to Ferganji. None proved a significant obstacle, however. The army pressed on.

By late fall, Ayden stopped at the Sutjel River for his rendezvous with Alandro. Mukkan had mounted a vigorous defense before it fell to the Veloth invaders. After a siege lasting three months, conditions inside the city were intolerable. 'The inhabitants were in such great want of victuals, that they were constrained to eat unclean things, and even dead bodies,' wrote Varis. Outside the city walls, the situation of Alandro's men had been scarcely better. Racked by diseases not known to the Veloth in the subtropical regions of Tang-mo, the great majority of his horses had perished, prompting a rebellion by the recently conquered local rulers. Only when news of Ayden's imminent arrival reached the rebels did they think better of their rising and withdraw in rapid flight. Alandro was congratulated by Ayden for subduing the enemy. His reward was thirty thousand fresh horses and command of the right wing.

Closing in on Ferganji, Ayden swept through Punabi, driving all before him. He took particular care to take revenge on those who had risen up against his First General. One by one whole towns and villages emptied in terror as the conqueror approached, put them to the sword and burnt them to the ground. At Bhutan, refugees from Dipalan and Pajan crowded beneath the city walls as Ayden's army bore down on them. Their efforts to flee were in vain. Those who escaped the massacre were beaten and carried off as prisoners. The slaughter was so intense the city stank with rotting corpses.

By winter, Ayden was poised to strike. Everything on the path to Ferganji had fallen to him. It only remained to seize the greatest prize. At Loni, north of the city, he set up camp and surveyed the terrain from raised ground above the Jumma River. 'A great city, where men skilled in various arts are gathered; a home of merchants, a mine of gems and perfumes,' Ferganji lay invitingly before his army. Though she had been weakened by internal division, with her walls was an army of 30,000 horse, 50,000 infantry, and 200 elephants equipped for war.

The first skirmish came when Ayden's reconnaissance party of five hundred cavalry was attacked by the forces of Bothan, King of Ferganji. The Velothi held off the Tang and returned safely to camp, but there were important consequences. First, Ayden had managed to tempt Bothan into battle, albeit little more than a scuffle. This augured well. After the relatively long siege of Mukkan, Ayden was minded to take Ferganji as quickly as possible. He did not want to be forced to sit and wait for the city to surrender from starvation. Far better to lure Bothan into a pitched battle and settle the issue without delay. Second, the rush of troops against the Velothi had been met with roars of approval from the 100,000 Tang taken prisoner en route to Ferganji. Such was the fervor of their reaction, born out of hopes of liberation, that Ayden, not wanting a rebellion in his rearguard, gave orders for each and every one to be killed on the spot. The command was to be obeyed on pain of death. Even the holy men traveling with Ayden's army were required to act as executioners.

Perhaps this unexpected butchering of captives added to the sense of foreboding within Ayden's ranks. Certainly there was fear among his men. Of greatest concern were the mighty Tang elephants, of which they had heard dark stories in Mournhold and had now seen for themselves in the opening skirmish. Covered in heavy plate armor, carrying flame throwers, archers, and crossbowmen in protected turrets on their backs, and armed with tusk-mounted scimitars that were rumored to be poisoned, they made a terrifying sight. Arrows and sabers were no use against them. The veterans of Ayden's army who had battled the Sixth Houses horrors and the Hounds of Hircine, were little fazed by the sight but the newest soldiers among them were beside themselves.
None had ever seen a battle with elephants, and on the subject of their dreadful aspect, and the power of their deeds, they had heard exaggerated accounts of these strange animals, hence they entertained great fears about them. It was yet another test of Ayden's leadership and tactical acumen. The emirs and officers needed to be reassured. A strategy for combating the elephants had to be devised.

Ayden ordered his soldiers to dig deep trenches, reinforced with ramparts, to protect their positions. Next, he had men fashion caltrops, three-pronged iron stakes, which were then strewn across the elephants' path. Guar and buffaloes were tied together at the neck and feet by leather thongs and lined up in front of the trenches. Camels were also roped together with wood and dried grass on their backs. The archer were told to concentrate their fire on the exposed riders who controlled the elephants. With the preparations complete, Ayden gave praised to Azura and the priests gave their blessings to the troops. Ayden vowed that Ferganji would be theirs for the taking.

In late winter 433, King Bothan's army marched through the gates of Ferganji to give battle beneath a heavy sky. The Tang troops drew up with the elephants in the center, each beast carrying its deadly contingent of men armed to the teeth. Both sides drew into the traditional formation with left and right wings, a center, and an advanced guard.

Ayden had stationed himself on high ground overlooking the field of battle. As was customary in the final few moments before the fighting began, while the tension occasioned by the imminence of bloodshed bristled among the opposing armies, the emperor dismounted, threw himself onto the ground and beseeched Azura for her blessings once again. He had done all he could. The rest was left to fate.

'So hot a battle was never seen before,' Varis reported. 'The fury of soldiers was carried to great excess; and so frightful a noise was never heard: for the cymbals, the common kettle-drums, the drums and trumpets, with the great brass kettle-drums, the drums and trumpets, with the great brass kettle-drums which were beat on the elephants' backs, the bells which the Tang sounded, and the cries of the soldiers, were enough to make even the earth shake.' Amid this terrible cacophony, the skies darkened as Ayden's archers loosed their arrows against the Tang right wing. King Bothan responded by directing his left wing and vanguard against the Veloth right, but in a brilliant maneuver they were overcome at their flank and rear by Ayden's vanguard. After losing several hundred men in their first charge, they broke in rout. Ayden seized the initial advantage.

Watching the scattered ranks of his left wing in retreat, Bothan gave a prearranged signal. The plain shook with thunder as the war elephants lumbered forward in tight formation, the heavily-armed men in their miniature castles poised to strike. Pounding the ground as they approached the Veloth lines, the huge armored beasts struck fear in Ayden's men but they stood fast nonetheless. Following orders, the mounted archers directed their fire at the riders, but still the elephants advanced.

Ayden had made preparations to deal with these exotic beasts of war. It was time to unveil them. The emirs ordered the camels bearing bundles of dried grass and wood to be driven forward. As the elephants approached, the loads were set alight and the camels rushed forward in panic. Suddenly the elephants were being charged by roaring camels on fire. Their response was instinctive. They wheeled round in terror and charged headlong into their own troops, trampling them to the ground, impaling themselves on the vicious caltrops and causing mayhem among the Tang lines, as men and horse were crushed underfoot the great beasts.

The valiant Alandro led a charge at the head of the right wing, and soon the Tang were in full retreat, cut down without mercy as they sought the safety of Ferganji's city walls. A mercenary Ka Po' Tun warrior named Kao Kun, "The Black Whirlwind," who had long served Ayden, distinguished himself by single-handedly overcoming an elephant and marching it back as a gift to Ayden. So impressed by the man's bravery that he awarded him the title of tarkhan. The Tang were, in a very short time, totally routed, without making one brave effort to save their country, their lives, or their property.

The battle was over. This was Ayden's fifth greatest victory, the forth being his defeat of Helseth and his armies in Mournhold, the third being his defeat of Hircine and his wolven horde, the second his victory over Dagoth Ur and the Sixth House, and his greatest victory so far being that against the combined might of the entire eastern Imperial Legions led by the legendary General Warhaft. So great were the heaps of corpses that the battlefield resembled a dark mountain and rivers of blood rushed across it in mighty waves.

Ayden and his army marched across the most forbidding mountains of the world, crossed rivers, and deserts and brought one of the richest cities in the world to its knees. Its cruel and powerful king had been unable to defend it from Ayden and his Velothi. Bothan was later found dead among a vast heap of his fallen soldiers; trampled to death in his chariot by a rampaging elephant. The Tang, who had repulsed the Kamal nomadic hordes, time and time again were undone by far smaller forces of mounted Veloth horsemer led by the greatest warrior-khan in history.

As the battlefield smoldered around him, Ayden moved smoothly from the pain of war to the pleasures of peace. The day after the battle, he entered Ferganji in triumph. His standard was erected on the walls of the city and the sumptuous imperial pavilion unfurled and pitched. Into it filed the trembling ministers, court officials, priests, and men of letters, confirming the formal surrender of Ferganji and pleading for their lives now that their king was dead. Beautiful music played around the Khan as he spared them in return for a crippling ransom.

How sweet this victory must have been as one, one by one, the hundred or so surviving elephants were brought before Ayden and made to kneel in submission and bellow their greetings to him. Once they had paid their respects to the new master of Ferganji, they were sent to the seat of his empire in Mournhold. Messengers accompanied them, spreading news of this famous victory to the farthest reaches of Tamriel, while in the temples of Ferganji, the prayers were called forth in Ayden's name.

With these agreeable formalities over, it was time to move on to the serious business of calculating - and then removing - the treasures of the city. Ayden's officials were busy collecting money and belongings from the inhabitants of Ferganji. The Tang were astonished at how the terrible ash spawn warriors and their Khan had defeated with ease the greatest army in Tang-mo. People were fearful of the Veloth who had never seen a Dunmer before. Such was Ayden's authority through his governor Adibal Hainna that the people meekly surrendered to the common soldiery. Men forgot their honor and gave away their wives and children to the lusts of the army. Many of the Velothi marched out of the city with a column of 150 slaves. The poorest soldier seized at least twenty. They were shocked by the sheer opulence of Ferganji's treasures. There was gold and silver without end, jewelry, pearls, precious stones, coins, and rich clothing; so much, said Varis, that words could scarcely describe it all. Ayden acquired the choicest treasure, girls, and women of Ferganji.

For two weeks Ayden remained in Ferganji, accepting the surrender of local Tang princes and adding their gifts to his lengthening train of treasure. Master craftsmen and masons of Ferganji, renowned for their excellence, were thrown in chains for the return march to Mournhold. The chronicles remark on one present which particularly impressed Ayden, a pair of white parrots, which for years had graced the antechambers of the Tang kings.

Then, abruptly, the Khan gave the order to leave. Adibal Hainna was established as governor of Ferganji his duty it was to restore the agricultHoral works and commercials sectors of a ruined northern Tang-mo. For Ayden, the glory of conquest came a close second to the all-important administration of empire. Adibal Hainna constructed a series of forts and watchtowers all along the easternmost front.

Laden with booty, the army made laborious progress on its northward journey, sometimes as little as four miles as day. This was to be no leisurely return, however. More battles awaited the Velothi. There were still many more inwah to be killed or conquered. First the army swung round to the northeast, sacking the stronghold of Meraat before reaching the Ganji River and slaughtering forty-eight boatloads of Tang in addition to an undisclosed number of Ka Po' Tun. Into the foothills of Kerma and the Kash Mountains, Ayden's forces continued, fighting twenty or so pitched battles and plundering profitably wherever and whenever the occasion presented itself. The Tang ruler of Kerma submitted with promises of a vast tribute. The Tang Raja of Jammu, the High Priest of Tancrit was captured in an ambush and hastily converted to Daedra worship. An expedition was sent against Lahora to punish a prince who had already submitted to Ayden but had conspicuously failed to reappear as instructed. Lahora was seized and the careless prince executed.

By early spring of 434, Ayden had satisfied his lust for war and treasure and expanded his eastern borders well enough. In the first days of spring, as the trees blossomed in welcome, Ayden crossed the Dirya and at Termek was met by the bulk of the Imperial household. Here was the Great Queen Chani, his most beloved wife. Closely followed by Tukal-Shanun, the Lesser Queen, and Nariko, his latest and most youthful wife. Such was her hatred for Bothan that she apparently gave little thought to the fact that Ayden had slaughtered her people and enslaved a great many more. She lived our days in the harem, subject to her master's desires. Here also were four of Ayden's sons by Chani; Jucha (age 8), Orhan (age 6), Janhir (age 4), and Tulan (age 2). They were joined by several of Ayden's bound concubines and assorted ancillaries as well as a delegation of senior officials from Mournhold. All hurried to greet and congratulate the Khan on his most recent triumph. The royal party pressed on towards Mournhold in high spirits. As they neared his beloved capital, thoughts turned to the triumphal entry that lay only hours away. It would be the most spectacular yet.

AYDEN VAI'S ADVANCE
Mournhold roared its welcome to its Khan and gasped as captured elephants, decked out in brilliant colors, strode through the streets of the Queen of Cities. Few, if any citizens had ever set eyes on such gargantuan creatures. Fabulous stories about these great beasts told how they were invulnerable to swords and arrows, could uproot trees by running past them and toss man and mount to their destruction with their swinging trunks. As Ayden rode past, slaves scattered gold dust and pearl seed into the air to honor him. Men and women cheered and clapped and shouted until they were hoarse. Fathers and mothers offered their young daughters to the Heavenly Khan as brides and concubines, their young sons to be raised as warriors and soldiers. Spring sunlight glinted on the ivory clay of the churches, merchant buildings, and palaces that rose throughout the city and on the many minarets tiled in azure majolica. The Khan's triumphal appeared quite exotic and magnificent. Once again, he reappeared victorious, a foregone conclusion of his invincibility. Now Tang-mo had bared its coffers to him and Morrowind ruled Central Akavir-having destroyed the less important Tang cities and redirecting the Jade Road through Ferganji linking them directly to his own lands, made him incredibly rich. His Khanate was now a military and economic powerhouse equal to if not surpassing the Septim Empire. The Empire was tottering on the brink of rebellion, but he was in no rush. He would bide his time and wait. There was still the Nords to consider...