Tamriel Data:The Grand Alliance II

Book Information The Grand Alliance II
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The Grand Alliance II

by Andreil of Falkreath

An account of an alliance between Skyrim's western kings

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Though many today in High Rock and Hammerfell point to the bloated egos and territorial ambitions of Eyrfin and Vorngyd to explain their first flirtations with what would become the War of the Bend'r-Mahk, there is little evidence to suggest that such self-aggrandizement motivated the initial steps towards war. Indeed, shortly after his crowning, King Vorngyd is known to have hosted a delegation from the Crown rulers of Karthwasten at Markarth Side, where both parties agreed to share information on bandit activity in the eastern Reach and cooperate to prevent a future uprising of the irascible native Reachmen. Of course, this cooperation eventually did break down, and the toasts of 391 gave way to ferocious bloodshed only a few years later.

Some attribute the outbreak of war, instead, to the influence of King Bjeld of Falkreath. Older than Vorngyd and Eyrfin, Bjeld – called "the Watchful" by admiring later Nords – was in his early thirties by the time of the Simulacrum. King Bjeld and his advisors were convinced as early as 394 that war with Hammerfell was inevitable, given the rapidly-deteriorating state of the Imperial Law in Skyrim. Four years before the first blood was shed in the War of the Bend'r-Makh, a company of rogue Crown troops attempted a raid on the Reach fortress-city of Beorinhal, which failed. In response, a party of Bear Clan warriors sworn to Markarth Side staged a counter-raid on Karthwasten, across the Hammerfell border. Though King Vorngyd and the old Prince Kinnal of Karthwasten quickly disavowed the attacks, King Bjeld clearly saw these events as portents of much more violent conflict to come.

Bjeld decided to leverage his strong position astride the Skyrim-Colovia border into a guarantee that when war with Hammerfell did come, the Nords would win. Naturally, he looked to the two young kings to the north to augment this strategy. In a summit held at Markarth Side in 3E 396, the kings of Haafinheim, Falkreath, and the Reach agreed to a pact of mutual defense. The three regents additionally agreed to share intelligence on unrest in Western Skyrim, jointly patrol the Karth River and the Sundered Hills against banditry, and impose no restrictions on trade between their kingdoms - no small guarantee in those turbulent times. Thus was the Grand Alliance born.

War, of course, did come. Though many Redguards claim that the second Nordic attack on Karthwasten took place with the blessing of King Vorngyd – or even King Bjeld – there is little corroborating evidence of this in the historical record. What is known is that a Nordic warband struck ferociously, burning several farms to the ground, prompting an immediate Crown response and another siege of Beorinhal. The war initially looked grim for the Nord kings, especially following the catastrophe at the Battle of Julfnar's Cowardice and the entry of the Breton Kingdom of Jehanna into the war in early 398. By the spring of that year, the front, which had originally been limited to the fertile lands around the Karth River's headwaters, had expanded from the Jerall Mountains to the Falkheim coast. Throughout 397, Nord forces were pushed back almost everywhere.

While King Bjeld preferred to lead from the camps, Vorngyd and Eyrfin became renowned in the early days of the war for their front-line leadership of the troops. After routing the Breton forces outside Falkirstad in 398, Eyrfin was acclaimed with the moniker "the Warlike" from his war-chieftains. One may speculate that this exposure to the heat of combat may have sown the seeds of the first real conflict between the lifelong friends.