Age of the Thief-Queens, Part 4 - The 2nd Formian Invasion & Rise of Qabarat & Valmaeana

Although the Yaro Valley festered under the Thief-Queens, the rest of the world had not sat sill. While Qabarat’s intermingled Lashunta and Elves fought to maintain independence and vied with Reiefya for the Northern Shattersea’s trade, Southwestern Asana had struggled to come to terms with the mass of refugees on its shores. These Lashunta from Lost Valmaea and a score of other colonies mingled and clashed with the native populations, and in some cases even displaced them, perhaps no better illustrated than with the foundation of Qoaronaea, the city of the triple war-goddesses who figure so prominently in the epic Lament for Lost Valmaea. This new city was founded in 12,189 ZS as a fortress and watchtower overlooking the great Formian Hive exterminated in the First Invasion. Homeless Valmaea and other Marasta refugees flocked, swearing to ensure the Formians would never return, and calling this land Valmaeana - New Valmaea.   Other southwestern cities dealt with the refugees in varying ways. Where Nivaea turned them away, Alendrastya and Timiyurael tried to turn them to productive use, creating a new class indentured serfs and new resentments simmering, much like the rebellions in the Yaro against the Thief-Queens. Ofu-Vou, a bare fortress on a rocky island sitting within the Bulwarks, and whose queens held a history of piracy, turned them into a navy, which they used to build a maritime empire. The pirate-queens of Ofu-Vou raided from the Bulwarks in the south northward along the Shattersea Shore. Their garnished tribute became a formalized system of extortion over coastal cities and settlements, and even clashed with the Thief-Queens terrorizing the Northern Shattersea, while Nivaea too happily played them off against each other.   Thus for almost three thousand years, the Lashunta had no word of the Formians occupying the colonies, other than the odd shell-hulk seen in what was yet to be named the Straits of Glory. Later intelligence has since gleaned the Formians were dealing with their own internal conflicts, where each hive, believing themselves mandated to conquer the world, tried to overcome or destroy the others. That mystery ending in 15,525 ZS, when Voa scout ships reported a fleet of shell-hulks massing off the Colonies’ eastern coast. Ofu-Vou raised the alarm and recalled its own pirate fleets to the defense. The Voa Queens survived the initial war, their capitol fortress proving too tough a nut to crack, though at cost of most of their fleet and loss of the strait’s western islands, the eastern members of which would henceforth be known as the Bulwarks, the Asana continent’s first line of defence against the Formian threat.   The Formian attack on Ofu-Vou, however, proved merely a prelude and deception, when in 15,527 reports appeared of a new hive discovered on the Asana mainland, south of Qoaronaea. The descendents of Valmaea readied for war as their nightmare came true.   Unlike the First Formian Invasion, which was quelled in 250 years after a titanic, unified effort by nearly all Asana, extermination of the Second Hive took significantly longer, over twelve centuries. The Lashunta’s initially reacted hotly and expended great energy to contain the Hive’s spread. Nivaea, Alendrastya, Tiniyurael, and Qoaronaea raised armies and had their call answered by Qabarat, both of whose growing Lashunta population and older, more established Elven community still harkened to roots and losses in Valmaea and the old western colonies, and also by Reiefya, who, though it was ruled by the Thief-Queens, had developed strong trade ties with the Shattersea. After the initial containment, however, the alliance turned brittle as the war’s ongoing drain highlighted conflicts within the many, varied societies.   As early as 15,596 ZS, the first popular revolt struck Alendrastya as the Valmaea-descended underclass rebelled against the queen and nobles, agitating for greater, more equal rights and resources. A similar revolt struck Tiniyuraeal just eight years later. Both cities would spend the next four centuries distracted by these internal conflicts, alternating military strength between putting down rebellion and attacking the Formian beachhead, which slowed rolling back the conquest and allowed the Hive to retrench and build. Nivaea and Qoaronaea were thus left to lead the war in the south.   In the north, Qabarat became the focus of the Elven-Lashunta alliance, leveraging the elfgates to bring allies of both species from Candares, Jabask, Ofu-Laubu, and Sovyrian. This development fueled the growth of Qabarat’s matron-republican vision of its leadership for Asana at large, a popular message based both on individual self-determination and duty. Meanwhile, Reiefya recruited for aid among its sister Thief-Queen cities - Hanazhyana, Mahyat, Son, and Lea - further northward. Their response, however, proved more sporadic, since these cities still competed among each other for control of the Yaro Valley and Retaea savannah-moorlands. Long term, Qabarat’s and Reiefya’s differences in contributions did not go lost, both among their respective allies, nor among themselves, as Reiefya realized its only way to achieve supremacy over its nieghbor was to undercut Qabarat. Reiefya began to foster a low-level marsh war within the Yaro’s delta, and found it easier to induce its northern allies to seek Qabarat’s nearer spoils. With these distractions from the alliance, not only did the Second Hive sustain itself, but also received reinforcement from the Colonies, threatening to expand its territory on Asana.   After 15,971 ZS, however, class relations in both Alendrastya and Timiyurael had reached more equitable accords that allowed both cities to contribute more fully to the war effort. This also led them to closer ties with both Qoaronaea and Ofu-Vou (and more distantly with Qabarat), who likewise had strong Valmaea legacies, and establishment of the ~Zaioma Haua~ - the High Staff/Command - to coordinate the military alliance. Finally in 16,297 ZS, the four cities of Alendrastya, Timiyurael, Ofu-Vou, and Qoaronaea formally ratified the ~Kolanzaiama Valmaeana~ - the Confederation of New Valmaea - as a national, multi-city government, with a stated consitutional aim of defending all Lashunta, and furthermore exterminating the Formians and reconquering the Colonies. Although Nivaea, Qabarat, and Reiefya did not join the confederation, all three reaffirmed their partnership in the alliance, after which the war effort redoubled to dislodge the Formians from Asana.   Thereafter, the new Valmaeana nation-state and its allies made considerable inroads in containing and reducing the Formian presence on Asana. This included a new weapon, a combination heavy cavalry and officers’ corps Qabarat initiated in 16,304 ZS, when Lady Issendil Minassion (an elven house-elder) recruited and funded the first ~Zheieve~ - Outriders, which is recorded as a footnote in the Shining Western Jewel Chronicle some years later, which states:

“Fifteen years ago, Lady Issendil formed a company of thirty Lashunta maidens all sworn to bear no babes, and all able Shotalashu-riders and mind-strong, and took them southward to defend our shores. Their survivors have today returned, all promoted to captains in their own right and bearing a roll of victories that already have songs being sung. The City’s Lashunta Matrons have promised to raise ten more such maiden-companies, both to continue the war effort and to bolster the defenses against the Northern Heathens.”

…Although these Lashunta Outriders were organized on Elven principles and armaments, their use of psychically bonded Shotalashu steeds most closely followed the Retaea ~Jeieveth~ - the Queens’ Riders, as they were colloquially called among the Yaro’s demotics, although strongly tempered by the legacy of the Warrior-Princesses of Hala venerating the Sage-Queens’ virtues.   Progress kept apace until 16,675 ZS, when Reiefya fell to rebellion. Its populace, sweltering under almost four millennia of the Thief-Queens’ ethnic despotism, and unable to ignore the growing wealth and prestige of their republican neighbors in Qabarat, had finally had enough. Unfortunately, this provoked a new round of wars in the Yaro Valley as the northern Thief-Queens, already suppressing their own populations’ discontent, realized the growing republican fervor in their backyard, and also accusations among the alliance (not wholly unfounded) that Qabarat had suborned Reiefya’s rebellion for its own selfish interest. Finally Qabarat and Reiefya (now under the matrons’ rule) returned to the alliance in 16,747 ZS, having beaten the Thief-Queens back into the north, and pursued the war in earnest.   The destruction of the Formians’ Second Hive and their last remnants occurred in 16,799 ZS, 1,272 years after the Hive was first discovered, in what is possibly the greatest threat to Lashunta existence since the Moqeva ruled Asana. It left the continent indelibly changed. Where before despotic queens had ruled ethnically marginalized populations, a nation-state, a first for the city-oriented Lashunta, had subordinated the old queendoms to its constitution and dominated the Southern Shattersea and Bulwarks, while in the north a new republican model had established a bold footprint, and even contained the Thief-Queens who gave this historical age its name to a social backwater. A new world order, which did not yet even know itself, was starting to emerge.