How the Three Death's War got it's Name.

Written in response to: Start your story with an unexpected betrayal.... view prompt

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Adventure Fantasy Fiction

It was the start of what many call the Three Deaths War. Kamo has brought its allies to fight the Necromancer of the White Valleys. The Green Swamps had sent some of their best men to fight side by side with Kamo's soldiers. That is until the death of King Shreo. Some say it was an assassin, others think it was his wife herself. When King Shreo's wife was crowned queen the first thing she did was pull out of the alliance with Kamo and make her half-orcs army point their swords toward Kamo.

It was a dark day for Kamo. Even worse for the half-orcs in Kamo, but none took it worse than Kamos Longsword. The husband of Princess Zera. When news reached Kamo that the queen was going to backstab Kamo, it was Kamos who was the most visually distraught. Several servants, advisors, and guards began to suspect that Kamos was a spy. This fear of betrayal led them to use him as a scapegoat and throw him in Kamo's dungeon. He was then rescued by his best friend Shanduelin Blood (a half-orc blood elemental sorcerer). This act only enraged Kamo's elite and their king declared him their enemy. Kamos fled to his home country of the Green Swamps. All the while Princess Zera did nothing but fall deeper into her madness.

Laraganus was another who suffered from betrayals. She was leading an army to Kamo when she received orders to come back and help advise a new military campaign. When she got there and was told the campaign was against Kamo she was shocked. She had fought side by side with Kamo's forces for only a few weeks but had come to respect their power and discipline. She begrudgingly obeyed them until the death and destruction she caused were too great for her to bear. Her army was in a makeshift trench system and about to come back when her army was ambushed by several adventuring parties. She won and captured a couple and interrogated them. She found out they were sent by the queen of the Green Swamps because she thought Laraganus was a traitor. This angered Laraganus so much that she marched her army back to the Green Swamps only to find out that the adventures lied about who sent them. Which infuriated her so much that she led her army toward some of the border towns and burned them to ash.

The night before Laraganus left she had come back from her multi-month campaign. There was a feast celebrating her string of victories across the trade routes and border towns that surrounded and fed into Kamo City. However, she was not celebrating. It was said that she sang as she walked to her room gathered some essentials and rode off into the night. For days the queen sent adventures and mercenaries to try and find Laraganus but she evaded each and every one of them. Even going as far as to kill some of them as a warning not to continue pursuing her. This enraged the queen so she sent out some of the best assassins in the continent at the time. They either failed or chose not to go after Laraganus.

Meanwhile, the half-orcs throughout Kamo were treated harshly out of fear that they were spies. Many were executed, others imprisoned, and some were kicked out entirely. The violence gave the queen a chance to condemn and prove to the rest of the continent that Kamo was not to be trusted. This motivated her people to kill all the humans in the Green Swamps. Kamos and Shanduelin tried their best to stop the queen but their pleas fell on deaf ears. Not a single member of the queen's court listened to them either.

After months of neighbors killing neighbors and the burning of businesses and homes. Kamo's King sent out a decree that stated that any further violence against the half-orcs would result in imprisonment and possibly execution. It failed for there were too few guards and all the best men were being sent out to fight the necromancers. The half-orc queen, on the other hand, encouraged further violence against the humans and severely punished anyone who did not attack their human neighbors.

The great massacres that took place on both sides made the Elemental Sorcerers of the Silver Mountains leave the alliance with Kamo and proceed to attack both sides as well as fight the necromancers. Many people began to call this conflict the Three Deaths War since now there were three horrific fates for everyone: die from a necromancer and become undead, dismembered by half-orcs, or be crushed, burned, drowned, or have all the air sucked out of you by the Elemental Sorcerers. The darkest day in Kamo's history was when all three of these powers began their own sieges on the Kamo City and for 2 years they fought outside the walls while at the same time trying to break down Kamo's walls.

Then there was light. Kamos and Shanduelin helped overthrow the half-orc queen and establish a new king. His name was Shane of the House of Knives and he forced his men to stop going for the walls and pushed back the necromancers to the White Valleys and then proceeded to lead an invasion force through the country destroying anything that was made by the necromancers. King Riter's pyramid was spared for King Shane's forces were strong enough to take it over. After knocking out the necromancers and making peace with Kamo, King Shane set his sights on the Elemental Sorcerers. They quickly retreated back to their mountains and stayed there in isolation for many years. Peace had come but at a steep cost and the scares from the war still lay at the walls of Kamo, in the farmlands of the Green Swamps, at the riverbeds in front of the Silver Mountains, and even in the caves in the White Valleys. No war has ever brought so much sadness and so much pain. That is until about 300 years later with the rise of Noone.

March 13, 2024 13:10

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