Introduction

Slip through time, 800 years before the coming of the Jungle Deep, to the far off continent of Euwera. A vast island astride a zone of moderate temperature, it had, over millenia, become the home to numerous Elain kingdoms and republics. living, on the whole, in harmony.

None know from whence came the Aegyptus, nor why, only that they landed on the eastern shore in their strange long-prowed war vessels, and then spread, a plague of death and destruction. Their armies, both highly organised and rigidly segregated, marched in battalions of Falcon archers, Goat mace-wielders, Ibis spearmen and Jackal and Cat runners. Although they were relatively few in numbers – perhaps thirty thousand at most – they were united as their victims were not, and they swept everything before them. The decisive land and naval battle of Xis’ Strand was the death knell of Euwera.

Whether the people had or not a say in the institutions that so far had ruled them, they were unanimously better than what followed. The Aegyptus were purely a warrior class, and to sustain themselves they needed slaves, by the tens of thousands. Those who did not submit and accept the way of life of their new masters were forced to serve them, shackled if needs be.

So few had the means to flee, and only a handful an idea of where to go. Thus it was that on the 21st day of summer, in what would now be called the year -792 BJD, Prince Erenthal headed down to the harbour, with his wife, their two sons, a handful of companions, and the Queen’s blessing. Their destination was a small island fortress belonging to the dynasty, a hundred leagues off the west coast of their dying kingdom.

They were never to reach it. They were, however, set to change the history of the world.