The Ornithian Occupation of Kellumlund
The Conflict
Prelude
The King of Kells, Brenden the Quick was celebrating the victory of an extended skirmish along one of the Kellium borders within the Castle of Flowers and drinking and feasting with several of his chieftains. That night there was an historic gale that shook the very stone of the castle and many considered it acknowledgement of their victory from the spirits. Brenden declared toward the end of the feast that he was to excuse himself to return to his wife that night at the Castle of Kells. Many of his bannermen attempted to sway him against this action, noting the tempest and leagues of land and water from Flowers the Kells as the crow flies. Before Brenden left the feast on horseback, Chiefs Duncan Mac Gille and Erskine Pherson beseeched their king again to stay. He finally replied, "If you think the gale too mighty or the distance too great for one man alone, why would you not then join me on my journey? Are you afraid to die for your King?" The chiefs retorted to the contrary and left the castle with him. The three men rode through sheets of rain and managed their way to a ferryman at the dock to a briny lake. The king asked for passage across the narrow water to which the ferryman said he would acquiesce only at the insistence of the king himself, though he strongly cautioned against it. Shortly after making the perilous crossing of the lake, Duncan and Erskine lost sight of their king. Through the rest of the night at risk of their own life they searched for him in vain. The next morning Brenden was found dead by a brook, his neck broken where his horse had turned an ankle and thrown her rider. Immediately Padraig , Brenden's younger brother, his wife, and their four children were summoned from their island to assume the throne since Brenden passed without an heir. Another great tragedy struck Kellumlund when Padraig's ship never arrived, and the family was assumed lost at sea. Three rival clans almost immediately declared a legitimate claim to be king. Several high Kellium priests conferred among themselves and suggested an objective, third party arbiter to assess the legality of the three claims. After some deliberation, it was decided that the Vanar be nomindated as the negotiator between the tribes, so long as members of the Gremeliam and Artwinian empires and an orange robed Wizard oversaw the processions. No Kellium desired another sovereign to nominate a new King of Kells. And although the current Vanar was zealous in action and fervent in his, duties the church itself was highly regarded in many of the surrounding kingdoms; and his judgement would be seen as legitimate. The desputing tribal leaders agreed.
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