The Patrimony Read Online Free PDF Page A

plagued the duchy of hard winters seemed to come down through his desmesne.
    Even farther west, the tracks became narrow, winding amongst weathered rock and trees clinging precariously to the steeps which were the eastern wall of the Marches, the
ahrkeethoheekatohn
of the Ahrmenee
Stahn
, staunch allies of the Confederation. Once the fiercest enemies of the Kindred and Ehleenee, these hawk-nosed, dark-visaged men had become in the generation since the first
ahrkeethoheeks
, Kohk Taishyuhn, had perceived the folly of continuing hostilities, the veritable cream of the Confederation Army, whilst producing within their own
stahn
works of artistry in metals eagerly sought throughout the Confederation and well beyond.
    The
Stahn
buffered the middlewestern
thoheekatohnee
from inroads of the savage tribes of mountain barbarians, few of whom dared incur the wrath of the well-armed, determined, head-collecting Ahrmehnee. Nor were warfare and metal-working the only accomplishments of these people or their only value to the Confederation. Straddling shaggy mountain ponies from near-infancy and hunting cunning mountain beasts from pre-puberty, Ahrmehnee boys and men made excellent hunters and the increasing number of them gifted with mindspeak ability were the best and most highly paid of horsehandlers, farriers and equine leeches.
    In the twelve generations since first their Undying God had led the Horseclans Kindred across the violent, blood-soaked two thousand miles from their former home on the limitless plains of the interior to the decadent coastal principality of Kehnooryos Ehlahs, the vital, virile Kindred had brought all the Ehleenee south of the Middle Kingdoms into their Confederation—sometimes by conquest, sometimes by alliance— as well as the Ahrmehnee
Stahn
and several non-Ehleen northern states.
    From the northernmost point—Nohtohpolisburk in the Principate of Kuhmbuhluhn—twenty days of hard riding would lead to the southern border, unmarked amidst the treacherous salt fens beyond which lay the legendary evil Witch Kingdom and, even with the matchless roads built and maintained by the army, the remainder of a full month needs must be ridden out before the southwesternmost principate, on the eastern and northern shores of the brackish River-Sea, was reached.
    From their capital of Kehnoorvos Atheenahs, the four Undying ruled over six principates, over a hundred
ahrkeethoheekatohnee
and nearly six hundred
thoheekatohee
Five major races—Kindred, Ehleen, Middle Kingdoms Mehruhkuhn, Mountain Mehruhkuhn and Ahrmehnee—and numerous smaller ones made up the heterogeneous population. Three principal languages—the various dialects of Mehrikan, Ehleeneekos and Ahrmehnee—were spoken and written, though it was traditional for official records to be kept in Ehleeneekos.
    The population was larger than ever it had been under the old Ehleen sway and, moreover, was growing larger with each passing year. Cities were replacing towns, becoming larger and more congested, and even the land was becoming crowded. The oceans encroached farther upon the verdant coastal croplands with each succeeding year and Middle Kingdoms states were no whit less populous, so the only viable direction for expansion lay to the west.
    Compared to the east—from which their ancestors had been driven by the Ehleenee nearly a thousand years before—the peaks and glens, plateaus and vales, were thinly settled, but every tribe or clan or family group felt a fierce pride of ownership in its stony acreage and expressed that pride in bitter, unremitting warfare against the lowland invaders.
    And so the huge Army of the Confederation had been engaged in almost constant warfare for over a century, fighting scores of battles and skirmishes for each mile of near-wilderness brought under Confederation control, every inch of arable land bought with the lifeblood of Confederation regulars and Middle Kingdoms Freefighters. Precious few liked the enduring situation