Back | Next
Contents

Preamble


When he was young, the Dervans say, Hanuvar swore an oath before his father and the gods. With one hand on an altar red with blood, he pledged to give no rest to Dervans, and to seek their end so long as he drew breath.

Hanuvar’s enemies spread this fable to explain his matchless drive and, with the hubris of their kind, assumed themselves the center of his universe. Even those who know a greater measure of the truth repeat the lies so Hanuvar emerges as a figure ominous as a thunderhead.

Any who knew him tell a different tale, though few of them are left, and none who knew him half so well as I. While many have praised his guile and his skill, another gift too often goes unsung: He set fires in the hearts of those he met. If you marched with him for even a little while you came to share his dream, and would hazard blood and soul to see it through.

You ask what truly drove him on? The answer is a simple one: Love. He loved his daughter. He loved his people. He loved his city.

The silver towers of sea-girt Volanus perished with its walls, as did the shining winged serpents who had called the city home since its founding. The Dervan legions wrought this end. They threw down the city’s idols and they melted down her altars and they carted off her treasures. They sowed her fields with salt. His daughter and his people, they led away in chains.

The Dervans dared this only after they had seen Hanuvar plummet to the cobalt waves. They jeered the name they once spoke with dread. Some few feared his death was false, that he had worked some strange new scheme; they were mocked. Once, he had brought the Dervan Empire to its knees. Now its legions had struck back and they proudly boasted they had slain him with his city.

You who read this know that they were wrong, but cannot guess the fuller tale, for I have never set it down. Long years have passed, and I pray I’ve time to tell it all and skill at last to render it in a way that might have pleased him.

And so, I sing of a man in the shadow of war. He crawled from the wine-dark sea onto an island at the world’s edge. Only foes stepped forth to greet him. For any other that would have been the end. For Hanuvar, it was only a beginning.

Antires Sosilos, The Hanuvid, Book One


Back | Next
Framed