Force of Nature

Prologue

Our land has no name. It did once.

We had an identity. Then.

There was a border. Once. Now even that has gone. The divisive line between us and them blown away as if it had been a light, unsubstantial, meaningless line drawn in the sand. How could one line mean so much? A line. Not even one visible to the eye, but one which was seemingly ever-present, unchanging... permanent.

It had let both lands prosper.

Our land lay towards the North. It was an odd-shaped nation; one large land mass and numerous surrounding islands. It was a harsh land, but I have never seen a more beautiful place. Filled with heathered moors, crystal rivers and forested glens, it was a land that would not look out of place in a fairy tale. Magical and timeless, it was richly steeped in tradition, myth and culture. Truly, it was a wonder to behold.

Yet, like all good fairy tales, there was evil.

The South. They were our downfall. Far superior in number, mass and appetite, they began to greedily eye up our land. And what could we do? What forces we could muster, simply became lambs for slaughter. Fodder, for the Southerners seemingly endless bloody hunger.

And then we fell. Crumbled.

The South gained and we lost. Everything. There were rebellions, but these were promptly quelled. Our land was lost. We were lost. Some Northerners jumped ship and joined them. Other great families were eradicated. We turned on ourselves, fighting for scraps off the high table, where once we had sat as equals. A once proud, strong, and resilient nation demeaned to second-class citizens, only good for the military or labour, from agricultural to factorial.

They ruined our lands. Great, old mystical forests were pulled down to fuel 'progress'. Our rivers became polluted and soiled from every type of waste.

The glens? We kept the glens. They became beacons of hope in an ever-worsening world of despair and anguish. Our Chieftains- the surviving heads of the great families- retreated with our people to these hubs. The support for these Chieftains was so great, that whole settlements packed up and followed them, leaving ghosts towns and villages in their wake. 'The Exodus', or so it was called, of social centres spoke loudly to the South. They called us 'Barbarians', the term coined following our rejection of their authority and notions of progress.

Our land was divided into zones, like the numbers on a clock. Each zone trained and armed themselves. The forested glens were quickly fortified. At first, each camp within a zone was only protected by a few men, armed with basic weaponry. Soon, these numbers grew and were accompanied by outposts, fences, and duties. The glens were predominately non-deciduous. Evergreens. To house the mass of people exiting the villages, whole settlements were constructed in the tree tops, the evergreen leaves concealing us throughout the year.

Yet, the South did nothing. To them, we were woodlouse racing to sanctuary after they had overturned our log. Scuttling back to our dark and primitive space. In the early days, they were right. Time. We used it freely. To lick our wounds, to reorganize... to train.

But then it started.

In the beginning, there was nothing more than a few zonal raids on southern establishments. Small, but efficient, parties of men, who had trained with the South's military, ambushed well-known munition and other convoy routes. Their success was ample. Ammunition, weapons, resources were claimed. Yet, the South did nothing. So, the raids grew. From the ten men sent at first, there were now over fifty going weekly. Initially, the South decried the raids as the actions of 'strays', but they could not keep this perception for long.

The South mobilised.

Again, our world is at war.

This time, victory would be ours.