Great to see this still going. I lost the ability to keep up after you spread away from just the Aurarian civilizations. Hopefully this'll keep my eye.
Lands of Red and Gold, Act II
- Thread starter Jared
- Start date
Hnau
Banned
I was glad to see your responses to my comments at the end of the last thread, Jared, thank you. I agree with you in that I'd like for LoRaG to focus on Aururia, but alternate history fans do love to poke into as many areas of world history as possible. I regard as very interesting a later 17th-century French civil war like the Fronde, a Regent on the English throne that refuses to declare war against the Netherlands, more-equal trade markets in India, and slower European colonization of North America. But I understand there are more interesting tales to tell in the Third World. Good luck with Act II!
I wonder what some of the later playwrights might have done. John Fletcher, who was more highly-regarded than Shakespeare for most of the seventeenth century, lived until 1625 and so might have written something. So might Ben Jonson. They're not Shakespeare, of course, but they could still have had an interesting slant on any plays they do write.
Who would believe tales about places where the trees keep their leaves in winter but the bark falls off, and where the ducks have fur and swim in the water rather than on it?
Depends if there's any volunteers to draw one.
In 1643, the Manchus still hold on in Manchuria. They are nominal tributaries of China, but what they mostly send to Beijing is excuses.
Yuan Chonghuan is not yet secure enough on his throne to risk a full-scale effort to subjugate the Manchus in their homeland.
Maurauding nomads in Aururia would probably require more than just horses or camels, and it will take some time for the locals to become fully familiar with them. They need to learn how to make best use of them - particularly in the arid interior, they now need to find enough water for a horse, rather than just people.
And while horses are certainly useful for hunting, Aururia doesn't really have as much in the way of good game animals as, say, the bison of North America. Kangaroos and emus are about it, and neither of those are as big as bison. Kangaroos may also be able to outrun horses, too, which doesn't help. (Emus, not so much). What would really be needed is livestock (cattle or sheep) as well as horses - then nomadism would really take off.
Of course, as was hinted at in the framing device, eventually horses/camels (it wasn't specified which) do become rather important.
They did have dogpower, and some of their cultures had wheeled vehicles, but yes, this will be revolutionary. Logistics in Aururia have just taken a great leap forward.
I certainly don't plan to describe centuries of world history in labourious detail. Even if readers were interested, I'd probably die of old age before gettting much past the seventeenth century, never mind the twentieth or twenty-first.
I figure I have three interrelated ways of covering this:
- write a broad sweep of history/summarise (as you suggested)
- have a series of chronological jumps where a few key events are described and then jump forward to the next
- focus just on one or a few areas of the world in any detail, and give cursory treatment to the rest.
I plan to use a combination of these: essentially, focus mostly on *Australia and *New Zealand, with the rest of the world covered in passing if at all, and even within *Australia and *NZ, focus on the key events and either jump between them or just give brief summaries of history in between.
To put it another way, Act II will certainly be shorter than Act I, and quite possibly Act II and Act III together will be shorter than Act I.
Within Act II, given that it covers what is essentially the depressingly inevitable consequences of European contact (i.e. diseases and their aftermath), I already have less inclination to go into detail. It's no coincidence that the description of the *Australian plagues spreading to the world was essentially covered in a single post.
A good plan, although for the broader world I still need to work out exactly what I expect the end state to be. For Australia/New Zealand, I have a general picture of what I expect them to be like at the point where I've chosen to end Act III. For the broader world, there's so many changes to consider that I still need to work through them all.
Pirates of the Tasman, coming soon to an allohistorical movie theatre near you.
I intend to create "completed timeline" threads for both the prologue and Act I and post them in the relevant forum. And eventually the same thing for Act II and Act III, of course.
What's bugging me about that in the meantime is the formatting - pasting them in means losing all of that, particularly the italics, which is annoying. Does anyone know a convenient way to transfer things from a formatted text document into a forum post without having the formatting disappear?
In the meantime, the "timeline alone" can be downloaded from where it's hosted on the DoD website (here). It's been divided into separate documents for the Prologue, Act I, and the work-in-progress Act II.
Great to see this still going. I lost the ability to keep up after you spread away from just the Aurarian civilizations. Hopefully this'll keep my eye.
I intend to focus mainly on Aururia throughout this timeline. Where I do touch on the rest of the world, I will try to give some sort of brief summary at the start of those posts, so that there's no need to remember everything that's happened before.
If the broader world doesn't interest you or means that there's too much to keep track of, then just skip over those posts, which will be kept pretty self-contained anyway. Reading the posts on Aururia and Aotearoa won't be dependent on having read about events elsewhere in the world.
I expect that those topics will be covered in a 'broad sweep of history' format, if only because several of them will have some secondary consequences for Aururia itself. But don't expect five-post sequences on an *Fronde or on some seven-sided war for control of the North American interior [1].
The one partial exception that I have in mind at the moment is the Nine Years' War, which is this timeline's closest equivalent to the Seven Years' War of OTL - though it's not that close, so don't make assumptions about direct parallels.
That will be the first real global war (I don't consider any equivalents to the Wars of Spanish/Austrial Succession to count) and so some sense of what's happening in the broader world will be helpful to understanding what's happening in Aururia. As the Nine Years' War will also be (very approximately) 150 years after the first European contact with Aururia, it will also be a good point for a broad overview of how the wider world has changed as a result of Aururian contact.
[1] To pick two examples out of the air, not to say that either of those will or won't happen.
katchen
Banned
I can see the Aoteroans definitely creating some headaches on the Chilean and Patagonian Coasts. Pirates and peppers to Chile. Aoteroans settling on the Chonos Archipelago and maybe taking Chiloe Island from the Spanish (not so sure about their welcome in Araucania from the Mapuche. Two months by sea is not a long time and the Aoteroan boats can manage it. And the return trip goes right through Polynesia. After taking Spanish silver ships as prizes to be traded to the Chinese.
That may be something which happens in the longer term, but the Maori would need a couple of things first:
(i) better boats; and
(ii) better weapons.
For boats, while there's been a few developments, the Maori still mostly use the small boats which the Polynesians had. Those would be touch and go to do a round trip of the Pacific - not necessarily impossible, but difficult, and only in small numbers.
The boats will improve as Nangu shipbuilding diffuses across Aotearoa over the next few decades.
For weapons, the Maori would at the very least need ironworking (again, from the Nangu) or preferably firearms as well. The Maori could buy firearms as long as someone is selling - their textiles and peppers are marketable enough - but would need a supplier or two who's willing to give weapons even when those may be used against other Europeans (i.e. the Spanish). Again, certainly possible, but the broader geopolitical climate needs to be considered.
The Maori could also find easier targets closer to home.
On a broader note, I'll be offline for the next two weeks or so for personal commitments. Regular updates will commence when I get back.
Yes, such possibilities might prove fascinating.
Depends if there's any volunteers to draw one.
We really need to rerecruit some of the map makers that had previously worked on the maps for the timeline.
twovultures
Donor
I'd say the OTL parallel would be the Navajo. They had horses, but adapted other livestock like sheep and retreated to remote desert regions from where they launched rustling raids. Not a "Plains Tribe", but still very similar in many ways.
I do have a volunteer for an Aururian map. Although of course any previous mapmakers who want to design new maps would also be welcome.
So much potential for things to turn out like that, though with even more icons that would be added to the mythos, due to a rather larger surviving native presence, and multiple competing European powers.
Quite possibly. If former hunter-gatherer Aururians could endure as well as, say, the Mapuche did historically, they would be doing rather well.
Perhaps the various highland areas of eastern Aururia (tablelands, as they are known in OTL) would perform a similar role as refugia where horse-dwellers could base themselves.
On a broader note, the next update for LoRaG Act II will follow soon.
Lands of Red and Gold #72: The First Thunder
Lands of Red and Gold #72: The First Thunder
“The best servant of the king is the one who whispers unpleasant truths in the master’s ear.”
- Kurnawal saying
* * *
18 October 1645
Fort Munawuka, Cider Isle [Tunbridge, Tasmania]
From the convenient vantage of a low ridge, it was easy to appreciate why Munawuka made such a renowned fort. It commanded the highest hill anywhere in sight, far higher than the small ridge where Narrung watched. Protected by the river from any northern approach, the fort made a formidable bulwark.
The fort provided the essential defence against any enemies pushing south toward Narnac [Woodbury, Tasmania], one of the old great towns of the Kurnawal. Narnac was the bastion that held off the ancient advances of the invading Tjunini; if the town fell, the Kurnawal risked having their lands divided in half. And Fort Munawuka gave the town vital protection.
The only problem was that the accursed Tjunini soldiers were inside the fort, not the Kurnawal who had built it.
The last great war, almost a decade finished now, had ended when plague and defeat meant that the Kurnawal needed to end the fighting. The result had shifted the frontier far too much in the Tjunini’s favour. Now they stood almost at the gates of Narnac; the capture of Fort Munawuka was only the most notorious part of a greater conquest that had taken too much of the sacred Kurnawal soil.
And so Narrung son of Lopidya had been named Storm Leader, and charged with restoring the balance. Which had brought him here to the fort, with all the warriors that could be gathered, and with some aid that had come from across the seas.
Narrung looked out over the rise, and gave an approving shake of his head. All week, his warriors had been making ostentatious preparations for storming the far wall of the fort, on the western side. They had even gone so far as to make a few raids at night as if testing heights of ladders and ropes, or gauging the wariness of the defenders. Those raids were beaten back, fortunately with little loss of life. The Kurnawal had too few warriors to risk losing many, even if his plan succeeded.
From this vantage, the Storm Leader could not see much of what his far soldiers were doing, but he could see some of them in open ground. That was enough, for his purposes.
Narrung climbed down the slope and followed the well-worn trail that came up from the south, from Narnac. As roads went, this was a decent one. Or so he had thought, until he heard the reports from the guides who accompanied their outland allies on their long march up from Dabuni [Hobart]. The guides spoke of the newcomers making nothing but endless complaints about the problems they had endured during the journey.
Ah, well, these Inglidj can complain as much as they like, so long as they fulfill their part of the bargain.
Narrung caught up with the Inglidj and their guides. Spotting the Inglidj leader was easy enough: a muscular, foul-mouthed man who had learned little of the Kurnawal language except obscenities, and whose name was something like Dyabi Dyoodjtun.
As the Storm Leader drew near, the leader raged again, this time in his own Inglidj tongue. From the few words which the Storm Leader had learned of that outland language, what Dyabi spoke in his own language was obscenity, too. Though why excrement and fornication should be considered obscene was a puzzlement that Narrung still could not comprehend. Without fornication there would be no marriage, while without excrement, farming would be much harder.
Dyabi eventually noticed the Storm Leader’s approach. He asked a pungent-sounding question, though Narrung understood only a couple of words.
A guide said, “The Inglidj man asks how in the name of his chief god his horses are meant to pull his wheeled vehicles over such muddy roads.”
“Carefully,” Narrung said. The guide dutifully chuckled before attempting a translation.
Dyabi ranted on and on, and this time the guide gave only a summary of the Inglidj man’s complaints. He was describing the problems of rain and water and flooded roads which lacked stones. The rain meant not only difficulties with transportation, but threatened the usefulness of the special cargo. He had worked wonders to bring them here and in a useful condition.
At length, the Storm Leader said, “Ask him if his thunder will be in place in time.” He cared little for the man’s grumblings. Perhaps some of what he said was true, but it had the air of a man trying to make himself sound important, or even irreplaceable. As if the man feared that Narrung would not honour his pledge to him and his association to keep them secure.
Maybe he has grounds. Other peoples, especially the accursed Tjunini, spoke of Kurnawal as oathbreakers, plotters and devious speakers. And they talked of this as if it were a bad thing! Craftiness was needed to survive in the world. It was all that had allowed the Kurnawal to stop the Tjunini from swallowing them long ago.
For all of that, though, Dyabi had nothing to fear. The Kurnawal would keep their promises to the Inglidj association, because they needed the outlanders. The Tjunini had found backers from the Inglidj’s own rivals. So long as the great enemies, the Tjunini, had friends, the Kurnawal needed friends, too. Better to befriend my enemy’s enemy than fight a war of three directions, as the old saying went.
And however much Dyabi himself understood or not, the Inglidj certainly knew that rule. On the mainland, or so the tales went, war had returned. The weavers of gold, the Yadji, were fighting their own northern rivals, and both sides in that war had the backing of factions of the Raw Men. Some of the Kurnawal thought that war was too far away to matter, but a war that large would have consequences that rippled out here to the Cider Isle. So it always was.
The Inglidj leader argued back and forth with his countrymen. Eventually he spoke in Kurnawal. “Yes. All will be ready.”
“So be it,” the Storm Leader said, and snapped commands to the guides. Two of them ran off to convey his messages.
He let the remaining guides lead the Inglidj and their carts further along the road. They knew where they needed to go, and what was expected of them. Any further commands would be superfluous, and remaining with them to watch would imply mistrust.
Narrung returned to the vantage of the ridge. It suited his purposes well enough, so long as he did not bring any bodyguards with him or do anything else to alert the defenders what was going on. Even if they saw him, one man on a ridge would be considered nothing but a watcher. He did not want anything to suggest to the Tjunini that the Kurnawal were paying too much attention to this side of the fort.
Eventually everything was in place, after the guides had relayed his messages to both sides of the battlefield. The Raw Men brought their carts to the chosen site close to the eastern side of the wall, nearby but out of arrow range. To all visibility, the carts were there alone. They remained in place while on the western side, Kurnawal warriors moved into open ground in preparation for an attack on the walls.
As Narrung had hoped, the defenders dismissed the strange carts as a too-obvious decoy. The Kurnawal reputation for deviousness had its advantages. While some defenders stayed in their positions on the eastern side, he could make out Tjunini soldiers moving to the western walls. There, the attack began in earnest, with warriors running up with ladders and ropes, preparing to assault the wall.
When battle was truly committed on the west, with most of the defenders moved there to hold off the assailants, the Raw Men fulfilled their bargain: the cannon began to fire.
From his distant vantage, the Storm Leader saw their iron balls strike the wall and smoke rising from the carts long before the sound of their thunder carried to him. Even from the ridge, the cannon sounded like a brewing storm. How much louder would they be to the few Tjunini defenders now facing a weapon they had never seen before?
The cannon kept firing, their thunder striking blow after blow at the wall. At a concentrated section of the wall. As promised, the ancient stone could not withstand blows against which it had not been designed to hold. A section of the wall collapsed, bringing several of the defenders down with it.
The ridge was too far away for the Storm Leader to make out what happened next, but his imagination had no problems supplying it. Concealed Kurnawal warriors, dressed in browns and greens, had manoeuvred close to the wall last night, and laid there in hiding throughout the morning. Now they sprang up, running toward the breach in the wall, and climbed over the mounds of rubble into the fort itself.
Soon enough, someone raised a crimson banner above the breach in the wall. That much, even Narrung could see. The Kurnawal warriors held position inside, and now the troops held further back could rush up and take over the entire fort.
“It is done,” he breathed, with a smug smile spreading across his face. “Let this be vengeance for Bountiful [1].”
No doubt the scolds turn this into a bafflingly confusing poem, as they always did. For him, it was enough to know that his stratagem had worked. “The Tjunini will be pushed back.”
* * *
12 November 1645
Dawn Dunes, Cider Isle [Bridport, Tasmania]
“Bravely bold Narawntapu, born in the shadow of Hope Hill [2]
Master of weapons, sword, axe and spear
His courage never questioned, he answered the high king’s call
To Mukanuyina [Devonport] he came, his warband following behind
Fourteen and forty valiants he led,
Bronze swords shining, armour gleaming, eyes never faltering...”
The immortal words of the Song filled the great hall, listing the great captains who came to the gathering of the Tjunini. Sung as always by the bard who had the honour of the closest seat to the fireplace. In truth this evening was warm, as summer drew near, but tradition gave the bard the right, and he had claimed it.
Dharug son of Monindee, king of Dawn Dunes, let the rhythm of the Song wash over him as he thought. Like any proper Tjunini man, he knew the words well enough that he did not need to listen closely; the voice of the bard gave reminder to what he already knew.
Normally, the Song soothed and inspired him. This evening, though, its rhythms did not give their usual anodyne.
For, in truth, the king needed to think. Reports had come from the south of how the honourless Kurnawal had captured Fort Munawuka with the aid of thunder-weapons supplied by one faction of the Raw Men from beyond the seas.
With the defensive bastion fallen, and with their new weapons bolstering the progress, the Kurnawal were rapidly advancing through the valley of the River Yangina [3]. The gains of the last war had been undone; the acquisitions of many decades more were under threat. If something new could not be found to stop them, then how far could they push?
The Song continued in the background of his thoughts. The Song told of what had once been of the great time of valour, and set the code by which men should live. So the king had been taught. So the Tjunini had all been taught. So it had always been, for as long as anyone could remember.
Now, though, Dharug’s thoughts grew ever more troubled. During the last war, he had led the men of Dawn Dunes after the call of the high king, the Nine-Fold King. There had been valour in that war, and a great victory, pushing back the frontier. Or so he had thought at the time. Even if peace had been concluded as much because of the deaths from the plagues of swelling-fever [mumps] and the red breath [tuberculosis] as much as anything else.
Victory had been declared, the Kurnawal had sued for peace, and the Nine-Fold King went home victorious. Only to die a couple of years later, with so many men of the Tjunini, when yet another plague, blister-rash [chickenpox] swept through the lands.
No-one had had the strength to claim the high king’s crown since then. The Tjunini kings would normally have fought amongst themselves for the privilege, in accordance with the old code. With so many deaths, no king had made a serious attempt. Better to wait and regain some strength in peace.
Now that peace was undone, and even the war’s gains lost. For what?
“Bard! I wish for a different song!” Dharug said. “Sing not of the great song, but of something more recent. Something more fitting to these times of plague and sorrow.”
The bard paused mid-verse, and artfully concealed whatever irritation he felt. Clever man. “If it please the king, I will sing of another time. Of a time when the people knew affliction. Of a time centuries passed, but younger than the song. Of the time when the Waiting Death [Marnitja] first came to our lands.”
The king gave a curt shake of his head, and the bard composed himself to begin singing again.
The verses which the bard sang were unfamiliar; Dharug had to listen more closely this time. A measure of a good bard, to have such a song ready. But while Dharug listened and understood, he remained troubled. The song told of when the Waiting Death first appeared on the Cider Isle, brought across from the mainland, and how it brought untold suffering to the Tjunini. It told of how men remained valiant even through the struggle, and thus triumphed.
If valour be the measure of how a man lives, why have these new plagues taken so many of the most valiant? No-one could doubt the last nine-fold king’s valour, but he had fallen to the blister-rash. Many other men of honour had fallen to that, or the red breath.
Perhaps valour is not enough, the king mused. Tjunini soldiers fought with honour and courage now, as they always had. Against the new thunder, against the craftiness of the Kurnawal, against the outlanders who fought with them, these things were no longer sufficient.
King Dharug murmured, “The old ways have failed us. A new road must be found.”
* * *
[1] In the first great war between the Tjunini and Kurnawal, immortalised in the Song of the Princess, the Kurnawal city of Bountiful was captured after the attackers dug beneath part of the wall and made it collapse. To the Storm Leader’s eyes, he is returning the favour.
[2] Hope Hill is the allohistorical name for the Nut, an improbable-looking flat-topped circular headland near historical Stanley, Tasmania. This was the site of the Tjunini’s first landfall on the Cider Isle.
[3] The Yangina is the allohistorical name for Tasmania’s Macquarie River, and the South Esk River which it flows into. This river rises in the north-eastern highlands of Tasmania, and eventually flows into the north coast near Launceston. This river valley is fertile territory, and since it is surrounded by mountains both to east and west, provides the best natural transportation route between the north coast (Tjunini territory) and east coasts (Kurnawal territory). Naturally, this is a major part of what the two peoples have fought over during the centuries.
* * *
Thoughts?
“The best servant of the king is the one who whispers unpleasant truths in the master’s ear.”
- Kurnawal saying
* * *
18 October 1645
Fort Munawuka, Cider Isle [Tunbridge, Tasmania]
From the convenient vantage of a low ridge, it was easy to appreciate why Munawuka made such a renowned fort. It commanded the highest hill anywhere in sight, far higher than the small ridge where Narrung watched. Protected by the river from any northern approach, the fort made a formidable bulwark.
The fort provided the essential defence against any enemies pushing south toward Narnac [Woodbury, Tasmania], one of the old great towns of the Kurnawal. Narnac was the bastion that held off the ancient advances of the invading Tjunini; if the town fell, the Kurnawal risked having their lands divided in half. And Fort Munawuka gave the town vital protection.
The only problem was that the accursed Tjunini soldiers were inside the fort, not the Kurnawal who had built it.
The last great war, almost a decade finished now, had ended when plague and defeat meant that the Kurnawal needed to end the fighting. The result had shifted the frontier far too much in the Tjunini’s favour. Now they stood almost at the gates of Narnac; the capture of Fort Munawuka was only the most notorious part of a greater conquest that had taken too much of the sacred Kurnawal soil.
And so Narrung son of Lopidya had been named Storm Leader, and charged with restoring the balance. Which had brought him here to the fort, with all the warriors that could be gathered, and with some aid that had come from across the seas.
Narrung looked out over the rise, and gave an approving shake of his head. All week, his warriors had been making ostentatious preparations for storming the far wall of the fort, on the western side. They had even gone so far as to make a few raids at night as if testing heights of ladders and ropes, or gauging the wariness of the defenders. Those raids were beaten back, fortunately with little loss of life. The Kurnawal had too few warriors to risk losing many, even if his plan succeeded.
From this vantage, the Storm Leader could not see much of what his far soldiers were doing, but he could see some of them in open ground. That was enough, for his purposes.
Narrung climbed down the slope and followed the well-worn trail that came up from the south, from Narnac. As roads went, this was a decent one. Or so he had thought, until he heard the reports from the guides who accompanied their outland allies on their long march up from Dabuni [Hobart]. The guides spoke of the newcomers making nothing but endless complaints about the problems they had endured during the journey.
Ah, well, these Inglidj can complain as much as they like, so long as they fulfill their part of the bargain.
Narrung caught up with the Inglidj and their guides. Spotting the Inglidj leader was easy enough: a muscular, foul-mouthed man who had learned little of the Kurnawal language except obscenities, and whose name was something like Dyabi Dyoodjtun.
As the Storm Leader drew near, the leader raged again, this time in his own Inglidj tongue. From the few words which the Storm Leader had learned of that outland language, what Dyabi spoke in his own language was obscenity, too. Though why excrement and fornication should be considered obscene was a puzzlement that Narrung still could not comprehend. Without fornication there would be no marriage, while without excrement, farming would be much harder.
Dyabi eventually noticed the Storm Leader’s approach. He asked a pungent-sounding question, though Narrung understood only a couple of words.
A guide said, “The Inglidj man asks how in the name of his chief god his horses are meant to pull his wheeled vehicles over such muddy roads.”
“Carefully,” Narrung said. The guide dutifully chuckled before attempting a translation.
Dyabi ranted on and on, and this time the guide gave only a summary of the Inglidj man’s complaints. He was describing the problems of rain and water and flooded roads which lacked stones. The rain meant not only difficulties with transportation, but threatened the usefulness of the special cargo. He had worked wonders to bring them here and in a useful condition.
At length, the Storm Leader said, “Ask him if his thunder will be in place in time.” He cared little for the man’s grumblings. Perhaps some of what he said was true, but it had the air of a man trying to make himself sound important, or even irreplaceable. As if the man feared that Narrung would not honour his pledge to him and his association to keep them secure.
Maybe he has grounds. Other peoples, especially the accursed Tjunini, spoke of Kurnawal as oathbreakers, plotters and devious speakers. And they talked of this as if it were a bad thing! Craftiness was needed to survive in the world. It was all that had allowed the Kurnawal to stop the Tjunini from swallowing them long ago.
For all of that, though, Dyabi had nothing to fear. The Kurnawal would keep their promises to the Inglidj association, because they needed the outlanders. The Tjunini had found backers from the Inglidj’s own rivals. So long as the great enemies, the Tjunini, had friends, the Kurnawal needed friends, too. Better to befriend my enemy’s enemy than fight a war of three directions, as the old saying went.
And however much Dyabi himself understood or not, the Inglidj certainly knew that rule. On the mainland, or so the tales went, war had returned. The weavers of gold, the Yadji, were fighting their own northern rivals, and both sides in that war had the backing of factions of the Raw Men. Some of the Kurnawal thought that war was too far away to matter, but a war that large would have consequences that rippled out here to the Cider Isle. So it always was.
The Inglidj leader argued back and forth with his countrymen. Eventually he spoke in Kurnawal. “Yes. All will be ready.”
“So be it,” the Storm Leader said, and snapped commands to the guides. Two of them ran off to convey his messages.
He let the remaining guides lead the Inglidj and their carts further along the road. They knew where they needed to go, and what was expected of them. Any further commands would be superfluous, and remaining with them to watch would imply mistrust.
Narrung returned to the vantage of the ridge. It suited his purposes well enough, so long as he did not bring any bodyguards with him or do anything else to alert the defenders what was going on. Even if they saw him, one man on a ridge would be considered nothing but a watcher. He did not want anything to suggest to the Tjunini that the Kurnawal were paying too much attention to this side of the fort.
Eventually everything was in place, after the guides had relayed his messages to both sides of the battlefield. The Raw Men brought their carts to the chosen site close to the eastern side of the wall, nearby but out of arrow range. To all visibility, the carts were there alone. They remained in place while on the western side, Kurnawal warriors moved into open ground in preparation for an attack on the walls.
As Narrung had hoped, the defenders dismissed the strange carts as a too-obvious decoy. The Kurnawal reputation for deviousness had its advantages. While some defenders stayed in their positions on the eastern side, he could make out Tjunini soldiers moving to the western walls. There, the attack began in earnest, with warriors running up with ladders and ropes, preparing to assault the wall.
When battle was truly committed on the west, with most of the defenders moved there to hold off the assailants, the Raw Men fulfilled their bargain: the cannon began to fire.
From his distant vantage, the Storm Leader saw their iron balls strike the wall and smoke rising from the carts long before the sound of their thunder carried to him. Even from the ridge, the cannon sounded like a brewing storm. How much louder would they be to the few Tjunini defenders now facing a weapon they had never seen before?
The cannon kept firing, their thunder striking blow after blow at the wall. At a concentrated section of the wall. As promised, the ancient stone could not withstand blows against which it had not been designed to hold. A section of the wall collapsed, bringing several of the defenders down with it.
The ridge was too far away for the Storm Leader to make out what happened next, but his imagination had no problems supplying it. Concealed Kurnawal warriors, dressed in browns and greens, had manoeuvred close to the wall last night, and laid there in hiding throughout the morning. Now they sprang up, running toward the breach in the wall, and climbed over the mounds of rubble into the fort itself.
Soon enough, someone raised a crimson banner above the breach in the wall. That much, even Narrung could see. The Kurnawal warriors held position inside, and now the troops held further back could rush up and take over the entire fort.
“It is done,” he breathed, with a smug smile spreading across his face. “Let this be vengeance for Bountiful [1].”
No doubt the scolds turn this into a bafflingly confusing poem, as they always did. For him, it was enough to know that his stratagem had worked. “The Tjunini will be pushed back.”
* * *
12 November 1645
Dawn Dunes, Cider Isle [Bridport, Tasmania]
“Bravely bold Narawntapu, born in the shadow of Hope Hill [2]
Master of weapons, sword, axe and spear
His courage never questioned, he answered the high king’s call
To Mukanuyina [Devonport] he came, his warband following behind
Fourteen and forty valiants he led,
Bronze swords shining, armour gleaming, eyes never faltering...”
The immortal words of the Song filled the great hall, listing the great captains who came to the gathering of the Tjunini. Sung as always by the bard who had the honour of the closest seat to the fireplace. In truth this evening was warm, as summer drew near, but tradition gave the bard the right, and he had claimed it.
Dharug son of Monindee, king of Dawn Dunes, let the rhythm of the Song wash over him as he thought. Like any proper Tjunini man, he knew the words well enough that he did not need to listen closely; the voice of the bard gave reminder to what he already knew.
Normally, the Song soothed and inspired him. This evening, though, its rhythms did not give their usual anodyne.
For, in truth, the king needed to think. Reports had come from the south of how the honourless Kurnawal had captured Fort Munawuka with the aid of thunder-weapons supplied by one faction of the Raw Men from beyond the seas.
With the defensive bastion fallen, and with their new weapons bolstering the progress, the Kurnawal were rapidly advancing through the valley of the River Yangina [3]. The gains of the last war had been undone; the acquisitions of many decades more were under threat. If something new could not be found to stop them, then how far could they push?
The Song continued in the background of his thoughts. The Song told of what had once been of the great time of valour, and set the code by which men should live. So the king had been taught. So the Tjunini had all been taught. So it had always been, for as long as anyone could remember.
Now, though, Dharug’s thoughts grew ever more troubled. During the last war, he had led the men of Dawn Dunes after the call of the high king, the Nine-Fold King. There had been valour in that war, and a great victory, pushing back the frontier. Or so he had thought at the time. Even if peace had been concluded as much because of the deaths from the plagues of swelling-fever [mumps] and the red breath [tuberculosis] as much as anything else.
Victory had been declared, the Kurnawal had sued for peace, and the Nine-Fold King went home victorious. Only to die a couple of years later, with so many men of the Tjunini, when yet another plague, blister-rash [chickenpox] swept through the lands.
No-one had had the strength to claim the high king’s crown since then. The Tjunini kings would normally have fought amongst themselves for the privilege, in accordance with the old code. With so many deaths, no king had made a serious attempt. Better to wait and regain some strength in peace.
Now that peace was undone, and even the war’s gains lost. For what?
“Bard! I wish for a different song!” Dharug said. “Sing not of the great song, but of something more recent. Something more fitting to these times of plague and sorrow.”
The bard paused mid-verse, and artfully concealed whatever irritation he felt. Clever man. “If it please the king, I will sing of another time. Of a time when the people knew affliction. Of a time centuries passed, but younger than the song. Of the time when the Waiting Death [Marnitja] first came to our lands.”
The king gave a curt shake of his head, and the bard composed himself to begin singing again.
The verses which the bard sang were unfamiliar; Dharug had to listen more closely this time. A measure of a good bard, to have such a song ready. But while Dharug listened and understood, he remained troubled. The song told of when the Waiting Death first appeared on the Cider Isle, brought across from the mainland, and how it brought untold suffering to the Tjunini. It told of how men remained valiant even through the struggle, and thus triumphed.
If valour be the measure of how a man lives, why have these new plagues taken so many of the most valiant? No-one could doubt the last nine-fold king’s valour, but he had fallen to the blister-rash. Many other men of honour had fallen to that, or the red breath.
Perhaps valour is not enough, the king mused. Tjunini soldiers fought with honour and courage now, as they always had. Against the new thunder, against the craftiness of the Kurnawal, against the outlanders who fought with them, these things were no longer sufficient.
King Dharug murmured, “The old ways have failed us. A new road must be found.”
* * *
[1] In the first great war between the Tjunini and Kurnawal, immortalised in the Song of the Princess, the Kurnawal city of Bountiful was captured after the attackers dug beneath part of the wall and made it collapse. To the Storm Leader’s eyes, he is returning the favour.
[2] Hope Hill is the allohistorical name for the Nut, an improbable-looking flat-topped circular headland near historical Stanley, Tasmania. This was the site of the Tjunini’s first landfall on the Cider Isle.
[3] The Yangina is the allohistorical name for Tasmania’s Macquarie River, and the South Esk River which it flows into. This river rises in the north-eastern highlands of Tasmania, and eventually flows into the north coast near Launceston. This river valley is fertile territory, and since it is surrounded by mountains both to east and west, provides the best natural transportation route between the north coast (Tjunini territory) and east coasts (Kurnawal territory). Naturally, this is a major part of what the two peoples have fought over during the centuries.
* * *
Thoughts?
I suppose Dyabi stands for David. The surname is more difficult, but might be something like Georgeton?
Admiral Matt
Gone Fishin'
For some reason I always liked the Kurnawal more than the Tjunini. Couldn't say why exactly, except maybe to root for the underdogs.
Im still wondering about that first part: "Reader discretion is advised when reading this instalment."
And whether our friendly neighborhood narrative device has had many children over this life of his....
Im still wondering about that first part: "Reader discretion is advised when reading this instalment."
And whether our friendly neighborhood narrative device has had many children over this life of his....
A few points which may help in working out the name:
- When dealing with unfamiliar sounds (as here), it's easy to mishear when one word starts and the next begins. The first name here is indeed David, but the second "d" sound has been added to the surname by a Kurnawal who's rather more familiar with those sounds
- The sounds which Aururians have trouble speaking and hearing are mostly the fricatives: "v", "s", "th", "h", "z" and so on. They tend to interpret such sounds as other sounds, or just drop them entirely.
- They do know how to pronounce the sounds which are usually represented in English as "g" - both the hard and soft sounds. Although they may sometimes modify the following vowel, which in transliteration would usually be represented by a "y" symbol.
Tasmania had been hiding in the background for a while, so it was about time to show some of what's been happening there.
My favourite culture is usually the one I'm writing from the perspective of at any given time. Although I will admit that there are some which I find more entertaining than others.
Mostly a reminder not to assume that every source is a reliable source.
If his real surname is Ramirez or Macleod, probably not many...
Deleted member 70191
Do you happen to have a Conlang behind this, or are you basing this off of actual Aboriginal languages?
Isn't this a little bit low Jared? Why is it better to suffer swelling-fever, red breath, blister-rash or the waiting death than live in a port where the Inglidj land? The whining stops when the patient dies.
yours,
Sam R.