Tamriel Data:The Grand Alliance III

Book Information The Grand Alliance III
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The Grand Alliance III

by Andreil of Falkreath

An account of an alliance between Skyrim's western kings

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There are several theories for why the tide of the War of the Bend'r-Makh began to turn in 3E 398. Some historians point to the second uprising in Dragonstar – and its interruption of Crown supply lines – as the pivotal moment. Others point to the Battle of the Three Widows, in which a Haafingar marine force repulsed the siege by sea of Hraggstad, supported by defecting Nord troops from the Legion stationed idly at Fort Northwatch. Or perhaps it was the Massacre at Mount Casnar, where a Redguard strike force bound for Hal Norvold was utterly destroyed after accidentally wandering into the territory of a pair of local giants. At any rate, the tide of the war turned decisively in the Nords' favor by Mid Year of 398.

King Eyrfin, King Vorngyd, and King Bjeld agreed that Bretons and Redguards needed to be crushed decisively, lest peace give way to another war. But while Eyrfin and Bjeld were content to prosecute the war with the forces of the Grand Alliance alone (defectors from the Legions notwithstanding), King Vorngyd controversially made the decision to augment his warbands with volunteer forces from around Skyrim, outside the three kingdoms of the alliance. While the bulk of these troops served as individuals, several full clans from the east sought the glory and plunder of war in the west. Most notable of these clans, of course, was Clan Fire-Hand of Eastmarch, led by the bloodthirsty Jarl Jona "the Ansei-Ender". While the foreign forces were brutally effective on the battlefield, as demonstrated amply during the Second Battle of Dragonstar, they soon became known for their utter disregard for civilian lives and property. Indeed, some estimate that as many as two of every three villages in the eastern Reach were burned to the ground during the latter years of the War of the Bend'r Mahk, most of them sacked by these marauding foreign warbands.

King Eyrfin and King Bjeld objected strongly to the presence of these eastern troops, though for different reasons. Eyrfin, galvanized by his military successes in the north, was beginning to recognize the real possibility of a concentrated push into Jehanna proper, and feared that the presence of eastern warbands would dilute the hard-fought glory earned by Haafingar alone. Bjeld, meanwhile, rightly feared the damage these warbands were doing to the reputation of the allied kings, demands for titles and spoils the war-chieftains might make in the aftermath of the conflict, and the long-term economic damage to Skyrim's most productive lands by the foreign troops' ravages. But both kings were overruled by Vorngyd, who continued to field eastern troops through the end of the war.

To coordinate strategy between these eastern volunteers, Vorngyd hired mercenary generals from around the Empire. The most famous (and loathed, among Bretons and Redguards) of these was General Anton Duvais, a weathered Glenpoint man-at-arms who felt no qualms about accepting a hefty sum of Reach gold in exchange for leading a war against his countrymen.

The choice to allow eastern volunteer warbands access to the front lines would come to haunt Vorngyd and his heirs. The Fire-Hands, the most prominent eastern volunteer clan fighting in the Reach, proved decisive in the Second Battle of Dragonstar, taking possession of the eastern half of that city unilaterally following the abrupt restoration of order by the Legions in 3E 399. Having been granted lordship over Karthwasten once it was occupied in late 398, the Fire-Hand clan became in an instant the most powerful vassal clan in all of Skyrim. But Jona's brutal rule over the majority-Redguard city prompted a desperate Crown counterattack in the war's final days. In the Battle of Vorngyd's Stand, the young king fought a desperate battle in the pass south of Karthwasten. Though the Nords won the battle, Vorngyd died of an arrow wound to the heart, leaving the crown of Markarth to his fifteen-year-old son, Barda.

Perhaps concerned by the ambitions of this new force in the region, or perhaps seeking a share of glory for Falkreath not tainted by the timely intervention of giants, King Bjeld took the war in the south further than either Vorngyd or Eyrfin had expected of the older man, pushing Crown forces past the provincial border and occupying the holy city of Elinhir. The vicious struggle for Elinhir culminated only days before the final end of hostilities with the pillaging of the city's greatest temple by Nord forces, an act which to this day stands as one of the war's most infuriating legacies to the defeated Crowns.