Caemb Star System

Caemb Star System

History

On the Deeds and Calamities of Caemb

 

By the Hand of Witch Lord Bertwin Gisking Bearspear,

Adviser of the Bear Clan, Keeper of Seventy-Three Winters’ Worth of Histories

 

In the year 25,389 AA, the Caemb Star System was drawn into the dark tide of rebellion raised by Arth Saeth Wraithblade, known to history, and to my own recollection, as the Father of Vengeance.

 

Of all the uprisings that marred the long dominion of the Feyan Star Dominion or the the Drala starcluster, his was among the most savage.

 

The seed of it was sown when his wife, sovereign of Iken, perished. Her will, a lawful command, sealed and witnessed, was spurned. Arth was scourged like a thrall, his daughters violated before his eyes, and whispers, whispers I believe to be truth, speak of cruelties so vile he was compelled to take part himself. In such torment, vengeance becomes a man’s only sustenance.

 

The Galans of the cluster rallied to his banners, driven by dreams of reclaiming hearth and home from the Feyan yoke. His host swelled until it numbered one hundred and eighty thousand star-bands. The sack of Lohna was his blackest hour, every soul who failed to flee into the wilds or the old underhalls was hunted, tortured, and slain. Six billion, five hundred seventy-nine million lives were cast into dust between Lohna and Caemb, for Arth sought no ransom and took no thralls. His justice, if it can be so called, was by gibbet, by fire, and by the cross.

 

I have heard from lips now centuries cold that in the sacred groves of Brea Saeth Wraithblade, the Unconquerable, noble women were impaled upon stakes, their breasts severed and sewn to their mouths, as obscene feasts and sacrifices befouled those hallowed precincts.

 

The rebellion, like all such fires without discipline, consumed itself. Some say Arth fell in battle. Others that he drank poison. A few claim he took his own life, lest the Dominion take him alive. I was not present when he met his end, but I have known men who were.

 

In the year 27,342 AA, Freya the Wergh-Slayer, sister to King Guthred the Conqueror of Gewiss, struck her campaign against Caemb. At the Battle of Caemb, she shattered a coalition of Feyan-Galan and Dralan-Furse warriors under the King of Caemb. It was but one victory among many in that season of blood. She went on to take Elge, Senotum, Cyninges, Hywych, and other systems in swift succession.

 

In 27,452 AA, Crown Prince Gunnfrith the Warrior was raised to Under-King beneath her mother, King Gunnhild the Grey Wyvern of Gewiss. Together they summoned a fleet greater than Catuvella could muster. The Kings Ethelburg the Reckless, Ordgar the Doomed, and Athelflaed the Forgotten met them in the Caemb system, at Verulam, that barren minor world so often drenched in foreign blood.

 

They were crushed. All three kings perished, the Reckless, the Doomed, the Forgotten, all three of the Umbra Frostborn kings. Cuthberht the Little, son of King Ethelburg the Reckless, took the Catuvella throne, but Gewiss pressed on, striking at the starhold of Bregunt in the Lohna star system before withdrawing to secure that system entire.

 

In 27,612 AA, King Beorn the Pious of Catuvella granted charters for the raising of the Great Feyan Temple of the Iron Harvest on Heruta in Caemb,  a monument as much to politics as to piety.

 

In 30,157 AA, the Peace of Osgar & Oughtred was sealed. Gewiss yielded all Dralan worlds on the other side of the Feyan star-gate Network running from Lohna to Wreoca, a path known as Wat’s Run, which cruelly split the Star Kingdom of Angul in twain. The systems along Wat’s Way, Lohna, Camul, Caemb, Bregas, Pecsa, Maeres, Stayn, and Wreoca, were declared neutral, though many already lay in Skane hands, won during the Great Savage Crusade. Thus was the Skanelaw formed, Vota, Brigh, Coritan, Iken, parts of Brigh again, and fragments of Setan.

 

In 30,228 AA, the Skane warlord of Caemb bent the knee to High King Wulfrun the Elder of the Dralan Star Kingdoms. She raised the Starhold of Buccahold, and two years later, Wulfrun founded Aemethyll, a second starhold in Caemb and in 30,232 she greatly fortified the world of Caemb.

 

In 30,269 AA, High King Yun the Middle Aged of the United Worlds of Caldon bore witness as King Osmund the Glorious of Drala signed charters on Buccahold while he held court as the most powerful king of the entire Drucos nebula. Many saw Yun, as well as the Combrogi kings, as banner-lords of King Osmund, though nothing formal ever survived past Osmund the Glorious.

 

In 30,350 AA, Temple Pontiff Hrothwynn Rethe Grimborn of the Sun’s Truth in the Stanscur asteroid field of the Bearroc star system ascended to rule the Feyan Temple of the Red Shield on Verulam in Caemb. In 30,382 AA, she rose again to Pontiff of Biss in Scir, and her sister Valderadis took her place at Verulam’s Red Shield.

 

Caemb is the location of the Barrow of Uhtred the Great, one of the greatest House Umbra Strongborn kings of the Star Kingdom of Angul. It’s location on the world brings many pilgrims seeking to offer prays and gain blessing from the once mighty king, who many others see as cursed, for the slaughter he brought down upon his own kin.

 

Verulam has a mighty Feyan World Shield, though that did not help the world from becoming a barren waste.

 

Thus is the tale of Caemb, in brief, though there is no brief way to tell of a place where the soil has been salted with so many centuries of blood. I have walked its starholds, read its charters, and spoken to those who bore witness to its horrors. If the stars themselves remember, it is because those like Arth and Freya carved their names deep into the firmament with fire and steel.

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