The Shield Bearer

Chapter 8

The fortress city of Karos was the northern most civilized city of the known world. It had originally been built by King Karos, the Fifth, over three hundred years ago. At that time, war was raging between the northern barbarians and the Kingdom of Karos.

The barbarians did not like the city dwellers, so close to their homeland. Originally, Karos started out as an outpost, a line to hold against the barbarians. In time, it was built up, into a fully defensible fort, that played a large role in holding off the barbarian hordes.

About one hundred years, after it's original founding, King Karos' son, Sturm Karos, made peace with the barbarians. Trade and commerce, with the barbarians, quickly became the focus of the fort and it grew into a full city, within another century. Some barbarians took to city life and settled in the city. Their warrior natures turned to empowering the city's militia and then the kingdom's armies. The kingdom grew large and complacent.

All of the known world was under the protection of the Karos family. The barbarians were no longer a threat to security. The people turned to mastering trade and the arts and there was peace. The next century was a time of enlightenment and growth. People had begun to forget about wars, believing that such times were behind them.

But peace rarely lasts. It wasn't the barbarians that threatened the kingdom this time. No, so many had settled in the cities, that the tribes had become intertwined with the kingdom. This threat did appear from the northlands though. A new horde appeared, decimating what was left of the barbarian holdings. These were a terrifying new kind of barbarians, orcs.

Orcs weren't a new race to the kingdom. But the orcs that the realm knew, were gray skinned and relatively peaceful. They did not trouble the kingdom as long as the kingdom did not trouble them.

The horde that threatened everything, was made up of a different type of orc. They were nearly double the size of the gray orcs and had distinctively green skin. And their numbers were unimaginable.

When this new threat appeared, the Karos family vanished. There are many theories about this, but no definitive proof of any. Some believed that Sturm Karos had made a demonic pact, to gain peace with the barbarians, a century before. The orcish hordes were the punishment of the gods for this act. The more likely scenario is that the entire family was assassinated to weaken the kingdom in it's greatest time of need. Luckily, there was an old hero, who took up the mantle of leadership, King Leon, of the barbarian Tyrus clan.

King Leon was a beloved hero, whose name was known across the lands. The people called upon him, to save them. And he answered. His military genius turned the tide of the horde back. While the horde could not be wiped out. King Leon created smaller, permanent forts to hold the horde to the northlands, where they retreated to.

He made Karos, the military capital of the kingdom, expanding the city greatly and surrounding all of it in great walls. Karos became the place where all military units of the kingdom received their training, for free, so that they could take that training back out into the kingdom, to prevent another disaster, like the orcish horde nearly was. But the price for this, was that each soldier trained in Karos, had to serve a minimum of double the years they spent in training, in those border forts, holding off the orcish horde.

This service accomplished several things at once, for the kingdom. Each community would send it's volunteers to Karos for the best training in the realm. Those graduates would serve, protecting the borders of the kingdom. And when their service was done, the graduates would go home, battle tested and ready to protect their hometowns.

This has been the standard practice for the past century. It has served the kingdom well, by keeping the orcish hordes at bay and providing better security even far from the northern borders.