Berlien Hildar Civil War: V R Books - Australasian Dreaming

By Roy Spurns

Following on from the Invasion the book Hildar Civil War takes you to the plans of a King to unite his kingdom. He plans to unite independent hills tribes under his reign. Like all plans of kings somebody else is to blame when it descends into civil war and mayhem.
Unknown to the warring sides of Hildar a Yowie Moggio is coming to deal with a far bigger problem they are totally ignorant of, or are until a dragon breathes fire at them. Dragons tend to get your attention especially those created by bunyips.
Also coming is a gunya army from Braille to attack an army the Hildar dont know exists. All of this a struggle where the main game is far more sinister, if anyone can work out that it is.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Oct 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514441435

Roy Spurns

Roy Spurns resides in a small country town of NSW Australia; close to the Great Dividing Range of Australia From here he can weave the magic of stories and tales of strange happenings in a world that never was but maybe should have been. Roy has read Australian history and legend and while this series of Australasian Dreaming is not directly related to any of them it owes its beginnings to all of them. The author does not aim to produce great literature; instead he aims to amuse, to entertain and to take the imagination on a journey different to any journey you have taken before but also perhaps with a ring of strong familiarity. Some families do have them might be the theme of this tale.

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Copyright © 2015 by Roy Spurns.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5144-4144-2

               eBook           978-1-5144-4143-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 10/23/2015

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CONTENTS

The Iseldan Crisis

Moggio in Hildar

The Great Council in Aden

The End of a King’s dream

The Battle of Flauren Island

The Battle of the Causeway

Ildran’s Troops Return to Flauren

Saras Has Visions But Makes No Decisions

Flauren Island has Strange Visitors

Snog Leads the Gunyas After Blaen

The Sarion Get Singed

The Final Battle of the Plains

Death Comes for Blaen

Hermian Starts A New Mission

Hermian’s Journey Continues

Hermian Meets Blaen

Epilogue

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The Iseldan Crisis

Islan plain is the westernmost point of the Iseldan Empire. It borders on the Berlien Sea. On its coast stands Ros lighthouse, long the refuge of the dark wizard Blaen. Not that Iseldans know Blaen exists or care. The dark wizard didn’t prevent the Emperor gorging or partying from dawn to dusk on a daily basis.

The Iseldan Empire was centuries old. No one could recall when it was first formed or indeed who formed it. No one bothered about such a thing as scholarly learning or science or education. It didn’t have a military academy or training school for its soldiers who were really a form of police to keep the peace throughout the Empire. Most swords were rusty and mainly ceremonial.

The army mostly used a stout club they called a nulla, some say because once you were hit with it you were nullified, down and out but really it was an old aboriginal word meaning lump on head. Nullas were made from the hardest timber found in the Berlien Sea. A rich dark timber they called jarrah some say because when you were hit with it you jarred your teeth. Others said it jarred the teeth of the user more than the intended victim.

The Emperor’s palace was in Granella, on the Silver River, which was a muddy torrent in flood times and a shallow trickle in drought times. South and west of there the land stretched to the Berlien Sea. The river flats were the wealthiest and most productive parts of the Empire and the most beautiful to those who don’t like deserts or flat plains or mountains. Not that the Emperor or his Court cared much about those parts of the Empire most of whose occupants never saw the emperor and had never seen a noble, not even those who nominally held title to the land they farmed.

That is to say, the Emperor’s Court didn’t care until the coast became unwilling host to a large number of ships. Even then they cared not so much about the gunyas as the loss of revenues from their wealthiest lands. That hurt and having less extravagant lifestyles was hardly the done thing in noble society. The peasants toiled and the nobles led lives of extravagance and leisure, after a fashion.

The gunyas sailed from Braille not to invade the Iseldan Empire but to attack the dark wizard Blaen in his lighthouse retreat but not in a direct route which would have made them intersect with Blaen’s fleet, which ironically sailed not long after they left their homeland. That story is told elsewhere but they missed bumping into the largest fleet ever assembled, not a bad feat really, but one that did not prevent them wasting their time in Iselda.

If they had sailed straight to Ros Lighthouse they would have arrived before Blaen left his haven. Instead the gunyas sailed due south to the coast off of Kormin where the Arl lighthouse was. It was their unfamiliarity with the sea that caused them to think this was Ros lighthouse. They saw it blaring at night and not being sea navigators sailed through the most dangerous reefs in the Berlien Sea without losing a single ship.

Ignorance kept them safe plus a large dose of going where nobody else dared to go. Their ships suddenly appeared in front of the Arl Lighthouse where the lighthouse keeper, not so much to run the lighthouse as like for all of the lighthouses, magic of the wizards did that, but to keep the place clean. Besides he didn’t need the aggravation his fifth wife had caused him so he volunteered to be a hermit for a while and then found that at his age he quite liked it. The lighthouse gave him the domestic bliss of solitude, until the gunyas appeared.

By the time the frightened lighthouse keeper convinced the gunyas of the correct course, some time was lost. The gunyas sailed east, this time for the correct lighthouse on the Iseldan coast. Again they passed through dangerous reefs without a ship lost as the lighthouse keeper watched the calm sea in wonderment and watched the rocks and whitecaps they ignorantly sailed past, through and around. Many a ship he knew lay there but the gunyas didn’t snag on any of the wrecks lying like submarine traps in the water.

They arrived safely after Blaen was long gone where they found an empty lighthouse running by means of the magical wards wizards set for navigation and other purposes gunyas were also totally ignorant of. What they were aware of was that the black wizard was gone and the place was empty.

Not knowing where the black wizard could be they and their army travelled inland to find out where he was and kill the dark wizard who they assumed was escaping their vengeance, with the help of some malevolent earth spirits. Their search was thorough but failed to discover the whereabouts of Blaen.

What they found instead was a corrupt, crumbling empire existing in a vacuum, without anyone seeming to make decisions or be in charge of anything or know who was or who was supposed to be. What they also found were a lot of people who welcomed them as overlords. Overlords who didn’t want half their produce, paid for what they did want, a novel experience for most of the local farmers and merchants and basically left them to go about their business undisturbed while at the same time kicking the local guard in the backside before they ran away never to be seen again. Such common sense had not been seen by the peasants in their life time or that or their grandparents. It didn’t take long for them to decide they liked the new order.

Oswere; Emperor of the Plains; Master of the Roll; Keeper of the Sweetmeats; Benefactor of the Yowies (unknown to any of them); King of the Dorringin (they were unaware of that); Admiral of the Berlien Sea (even though Iselda never had a fleet); Knight of the Holy Seers (which meant he appointed Priests of the Sun and deflowered Virgins of the Moon though many young priests still claim he got confused about that, much to their cost); was very surprised to discover an invading army in his realm.

The news came to his August Majesty during a feast and orgy. Since every waking hour was spent in feasting and orgies it could hardly come at any other time. The Emperor was as thin as a rake handle and a rake in reality (in the sense that he possessed a large sex drive to match his large penis).

He also possessed a large appetite which never caused him to put on weight and he never suffered hangovers, indigestion or any malady from his excesses. These qualities were so highly prized by the Emperor that the Lords and Ladies of his Court were in constant strain to keep up with him. He never slowed or stopped and insisted on good company, good food and good sex at every waking hour. He never got bored with this and many state decisions, if any were made, were done while he was with some Countess or Lord’s wife, or chambermaid or other with food alongside that he ate as he continued and that was his quiet time.

The Emperor never failed to be aroused at the slightest provocation. His Court however, was either vomiting into elaborately decorated gold buckets, (of course these were called receptacles but they were buckets) or they were seedy from hangovers or unable to stand or were undressing for the Emperor’s next bout. One Countess, once regarded as the Empire’s most beautiful woman was now so obese she could hardly stand. The Emperor never noticed these changes and in fact seemed to enjoy the variety as he termed it. Nor did he slow down to give them a rest. As a result most were extremely obese, suffered from flatulence and indigestion and were either groaning or asleep. A few were thin being the emperor’s relations but not even they could keep up with his frantic pace.

Once in the Emperor’s presence no one was excused out of it. Their main aim was to wait until he fell asleep in the middle of his orgy of the time and try to get out. It was their vain hope that the Emperor would not miss them but sooner or later he called for an anecdote or for them to perform some noted party trick or some such. Every Lord or Lady therefore, never dared be absent for long.

The Emperor stopped in mid bite when news of the gunyas was brought to him, which is better than being mid something else because then he wouldn’t have stopped for quite a while. He chewed slowly and ordered the army to war and promptly forgot about gunyas entirely.

The army, if one can call it that, marched out to battle, was soundly defeated, ran away to their homes, wives and mothers and were never heard from again. The Emperor was vexed at the loss of his army. He ordered the people to burn villages and crops and farms to leave the enemy nothing. The people did no such thing. Burn good crops, burn houses their grandfathers built? It was too ridiculous for words.

The gunyas marched through the land unopposed. They didn’t sack, rape pillage or burn or do any of the things a conquering army is supposed to do. The villages were paid for provisions, which was a novelty because the Emperor simply took what he wanted. The gunyas travelled all the way to Granella leaving peaceful villagers behind them. The only question they asked the people they met was ‘Where is Blaen?’ ‘Who?’ was the inevitable response they received.

The gunyas surrounded Granella but the Emperor ignored them. He continued his normal routine. After two weeks he ran out of sweetmeats and wine and even Courtiers, most of who crept out of the city one by one. He was forced to send out a Herald to surrender and with a request for some good provisions and a dozen good looking gunya women he had seen from his palace windows, a bit small he said but delectable just the same. He was disappointed in the response, which is to say he got no response at all.

Once the gunyas were satisfied he knew nothing about Blaen or where he might be, they returned to the coast and shoreline delivering nothing except his life to the emperor. The Elders decided to wait for Blaen’s return. They were convinced he would have to return there some day. The area of the coast occupied by them quickly became known as Free Iselda. Local Iseldans lived alongside gunyas. Gunyas even learnt the benefit of using a nulla. Soon every Braille gunya carried one of these strapped across their back beside their scimitar, not to hit local Iseldans but as a useful weapon in war.

In the countryside, news spread of the decadence of the Emperor and his Court. Envoys of the Emperor were refused the usual tribute of food and luxuries. There was no army or police force left to compel them to comply and gunyas paid for their goods which meant the peasants allowed none for the Emperor to take without payment.

Courtiers, who when it was safe, returned to the Capital now left it again only to be reviled and shunned by villagers. Even the serfs on their nominal estates shunned them and expelled them as nuisances. Most never even heard of Lord Prickly Sod or Lady Nose in the Air until they waddled in the local village to claim ownership. The ownership claims were soon quickly disposed, often along with the claimants. Anarchy ruled except in Free Iselda.

The Emperor became ill. He was always hungry and more besides until eventually he died, unlamented by his subjects. Some of the ex Courtiers, by now a much thinner version of what they once were with long flaps of skin where they lost so much fat, asked the gunyas to support their claims to ownership, especially of lands within Free Iselda.

Such claimants often approached one of the gunya Elders. He or she looked the claimant up and down, sympathised with their plight, heard of all of their sufferings and clucked as they were told of ungrateful villagers driving them out.

Eventually the Elder advised the claimant they had a solution to the problem.

‘You have?’

‘Certainly!’ the Elder invariably assured them.

‘What is it?’

‘Work!’ The Elder and the rest of the gunyas howled with laughter. The humiliated claimant left with a permanent resentment against the Elder and the gunyas. This eventually was their undoing, that of the gunyas that is, not the nobles because, though we might like to think they deserve little, unfortunately they are a persistent lot.

Some people have a need for authority that gunyas settle with a clout behind the ears from an Elder. The outside Iseldans for all their initial rejection of the nobility soon began to obey them as they were looking for some for of normality in their lives. Warlords grew stronger in the countryside beyond Free Iselda, leaders who hated their humiliation at the hands of the gunyas and plotted revenge.

New armies grew with weapons copied from the gunyas, short bows, scimitars and nullas. Warlords defeated other warlords until one was strongest and the rest obeyed him and called him Emperor. He prepared and trained an army to attack the gunyas that sat and watched and waited for Blaen.

It was a large force that prepared to do battle for the Warlord who outnumbered the gunyas and their Iseldan allies. People of the Free Iselda by no means hated the gunyas that basically left them alone.

The day arrived for the great battle but the Braille gunyas never came. The gunya allies surrendered to the Warlord without a fight. A search of Free Iselda found no gunya anywhere. Their ships were anchored deserted off the coast. The gunyas vanished. Where and why, ah, now that’s another tale, in another book but maybe you have read it?

Moggio in Hildar

The sun was setting after a hot day with easterly winds blowing from the mountains but not cool winds. These were hot, dry and relentless all day. A travelling party of Burrun and Gunyas went about preparing for what they knew would be a cold night. These were Arrien, the two races that had been driven out of Hildar more than two hundred years before. They landed on the coast, defeated two wizards, one of whom they killed while the other slept from a similar bite and their leader was a Yowie. This tale has been told elsewhere and we leave you to pursue that at your leisure.

Watching eyes saw their landing from the mouth of a whale chasing the two black robed wizards. One of whom they knew to be Blaen, a dark and brooding presence the watcher and his kind endured in their mountains for more than two hundred years. This wizard was killed as he slept from a Memnion bite.

Even more unusual was the appearance and disappearance of that Memnion, to those of his party at least. The lizard race still held on in their lands far to the west, across the Sarion River, but to see one here was perplexing to those watching. The watching eyes gathered to learn more but they were careful and fearful, especially of Yowies.

Two Gunyas dressed in grey mottled cloaks armed themselves with bows and cantered off in an easterly direction. Other watchers stayed with them as they moved through the gum trees and the dry bushland. A Burrun, one they heard called Captain, ordered the others to collect firewood. One, a female gunya, that they heard called Fairgo, grumbled at taking orders but began to collect wood none the less.

The group walked inland to get away from the sight of the dead black wizard’s robes. They carried the second unconscious wizard also in a black robe. The Yowie asked the Memnion who reappeared as mysteriously as he disappeared; at least he disappeared to his own friends but not to the watchers upon whom the magic did not work. They saw him always.

‘How long will he out of it?’

‘I bit him extremely hard. He’ll be asleep for a week or more. I hope he never wakes up.’

There was a rustle in the trees that neither paid attention to and a dark patch of mistletoe seemed to droop lower in the tree above them.

It wasn’t long before a fire burnt hotly under the shade of the paper bark tree. The Yowie looked at the tree as they waited for the hunters to return. Something didn’t look right about it.

The Yowie was older than many but not so old he would join the spirit world any time soon. The watchers cloaked themselves more carefully, there were only two Yowies left in the world and this was the younger of the two. Yowies had many tricks and they recognised this one. He was Moggio and they knew him well but they had not seen him for many years. They were not keen to see him now. Moggio, the Yowie, shook his head.

‘I’ve been away for far too long.’

Moggio looked up at the tree from the large branches to the mistletoe growing on the trunk. There was another thing he knew he should have realised. Mistletoe should be in the fork of a paper bark tree where the seeds couldn’t be shed by the bark falling off to keep the parasite off of the tree. Mistletoe shouldn’t grow out of the middle of the trunk of a paper bark. Therefore this was not mistletoe. He knew what it really was.

He took a burning brand from the fire and waved it under the mistletoe. He kept applying heat for some time until he thought he must be wrong but the mistletoe suddenly yelled. ‘Ow. Quit it. What yer doin’ that for?’

‘Come on down. I want to talk to you.’ Moggio heated the mistletoe again.

‘Does I get a choice?’

‘No!’

A creature appeared climbing down from the tree. It was much like a stick figure covered in thin branches and leaves. It had a long nose with a twig growing out of it and its eyes were large round grey orbs in a wood bark face.

It got down but kept away from the fire. Gunyas and burrun stared at it. None of them, including the Memnion had ever seen or even knew of such a creature.

‘Satisfied? I can go ‘way now?’ It glared at Moggio.

‘No!’

The creature groaned, stamping its feet, looking at the ground but occasionally sneaking looks at Moggio. Moggio looked northwards silently for quite a while. Then he looked at the creature making it look away quickly. Moggio kept looking at the Eldrien Mountains way off on the horizon. Then he snapped his head back to the creature.

‘I want to know why a Mynah is so far south and out of the mountains.’

The creature stared back at the paper bark tree as if to climb back up but then looked at the ground. ‘None of yer bizniss.’

‘I’m making it my business.’

The Mynah stamped its foot rustling its leaves before its thin raspy voice spoke again. ‘None of yer bizniss I told yer.’

‘And I told you I’m making it my business.’

The Mynah harrumphed as it stamped its foot again but wouldn’t look at Moggio directly. Every so often it seemed as if it would climb back up the tree but each time it looked quickly at the fire and stayed where it was.

‘Orright, I’m here ’cause it’s getting too hot in the mountains. Only fing is I didn’t know it was gonna get hotter down ’ere orright? Can I get back in me tree now?’

‘No. You mean dangerous? Why is it too dangerous up in the mountains?’ Moggio kept a solid stare on the Mynah who kept avoiding his eyes. For what seemed a long time it refused to answer but quick glances at the Yowie finally convinced the creature there was no choice. It shook its limbs angrily. Leaves shook all over its body.

‘Wizards up there make it too hot to stay there. You lot all gone but fer two of yer an’ of those two gonna be one soon enuff. Besides there’s another of them two like you fought orright? Only you knackered one o’ ’em and you better knacker the other cos ’e’ll be a stinker if ya don’t.

They got humans with firesticks and dragons and other nasties in large numbers up there. There’s a whole bunch of people I ain’t seen before, like rocks walking they are and mean, real mean. Black fellas too they change to them clawin’ mean mongrels what don’t like us. Lots of other nasties they brew up there an’ no yowies to stop ’em an’ plenty bunyips causin’ mischief. Too hot to stay so I got as far as I could orright? I can go back up me tree now?’ It still avoided Moggio’s eyes.

‘No.’ The Mynah harrumphed again and twitched its branches in annoyance. ‘I’d ask you to talk slowly, you say too much at once as usual but you creatures never learn. Tell me more.’

‘What’s to tell? You got mud in yer ears? I told ya.’

Moggio kept a hard stare on the creature. It fretted under his constant gaze. ‘What you said didn’t make sense.’

‘What’s ter say? Firesticks, they point them and it goes boom, flame comes out and smoke and