Anvil 1 - The Anvil of Ice by Michael Scott Rohan

Author:Michael Scott Rohan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: * Clean Text
Published: 0101-01-01T07:00:00+00:00

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Appendix

Of the land of Brasayhal, its form, nature and climate, and of its peoples and their several histories, such as are set forth in that volume of the Winter Chronicles called the Book of the Sword.

The authors of the Winter Chronicles were writing, as men must, for their own times; they left much unexplained that we no longer know, and less often explained at length matters we would today take for granted. Also, they were quite rightly concerned with setting down living experience, and not merely telling a coherent tale. In reducing the Book of the Sword to the fashion of such a tale, therefore, much detail has had to be added—often by guesswork, however informed—and much omitted. This account cannot replace what is lost, but may at least round out the picture. Only what is most relevant to the immediate tale is included; other matters, such as the nature of the Ekwesh society, must wait until more appropriate points in the narrative.

The Land:

In the years of the Long Winter the extent of the land of Brasayhal was very great, a vast continent that stretched at its widest some thousand leagues from ocean to ocean across the northern world, and from the margins of the Ice to the all but impassable southern deserts some six or seven hundred leagues. Within this expanse were many realms, and those of the men the least. The events of the Book of the Sword here recounted took place wholly along its western seaboard, in the relatively narrow strip of country—some hundred and thirty leagues at its widest— between Meneth Scahas, the Shield-Range, and the sea. This was then the furthest-flung settlement of the peoples of Kerys, and the newest, being little over one thousand years old. A natural division to this western strip was the delta of a once great river, now fenland so flat that the sea's influence was felt many leagues inland; while outflowing streams remained fresh, stagnant or pooled water soon became brackish, turning the area into a vast salt-marsh. To the south of it stretched out country that was for the most part open and low-lying, much of it fertile grassland with only one main hilly region along the coast, and few large areas of woodland save around the foothills of the Shield-Range. Warm and well-watered, it was ideal land for both grain and livestock, and in the drier, hotter country further south grew many kinds of fruit in profusion. The sea was fished little, and served chiefly for travel. With this the first settlers, as described by Kermorvan in Chapter 5, were well content, since it made possible the city-centered culture they had known in the east; the lands north of the marshes seemed too wild to suit them. These were not only colder but higher and more hilly, sloping up more steeply to join the mountains, and broke up with thick woodland disturbingly like Tapiau'la-an-Aithen, the Great Forest of evil memory; save in the valleys, the soil was much poorer than in the Southlands.

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