> Nor am I sure that the Ten Thousand passed Erigia in their
> trip. Anybody know for certain?
'fraid not. Their mundane march (i.e. I'm not talking about the Eastfaring Get-Out-Of-Hell HeroQuest which may have been going on) essentially followed the line of the beautiful blue Janube with occasional tactical hikes up out of the valley, until they reached the Sweet Sea.
I know they had a lot of trouble from Wolf People (generally this appears to be rulers claiming descent from wolves, or bandits known as wolves, rather than werewolf Telmori per se), who were one of the main reasons the Ten Thousand didn't settle a few days' or weeks' march from Loskalm: whenever they tried to throw their lot in with a local backwoods leader, the Wolves would make trouble and they'd have to leave. Syanor used to be "North Telmoria," the homeland of the Wolf People on this side of what's now the called High Llama Pass but used to be the Wolves' High Pass and one of the centres of Telmori power. The enmity between these 'Telmori' peoples and the 'Basmoli' -- later the Bashkars, the Lion Guard of the Golden Shahs -- of Syranthir/ Surandar/ Sironder's army is another manifestation of Gloranthan cat'n'dog rivalry (cf. Peter Michaels' last post for more of this!)
The poem of the Anabasis makes a great deal of one particular Sending by the Sorcerers of the West against Syranthir: his traitorous wife and brother sent the spirits of his murdered children to follow and destroy him. Only by cutting himself off from his past life with an iron blade was Syranthir able to turn their attack, but this left him rootless, with nothing to return to. (This may be similar to the Humakti 'divorces' known among some barbarian peoples).
I know there was a Battle on the Ice one winter, where the Ten Thousand narrowly escaped being drowned. I've heard about the Singing Serpents in the marshes of Porlos, who would have lured them all to their deaths but for heroic efforts by Syranthir's scouts. The most famous attack by the Telmori was when the Wolf Prince ambushed the army in the high forest of Sladvan, and only one man in three of the rearguard survived his onslaught.
After all this journeying, they arrived at a port called Beda, on the west shore of the Sweet Sea. Here they sorted out a little local bother with raiding Bearwalkers by a brave journey into their forest to steal the Bear King's cubs, then took ship across the Sweet Sea to the eastern land of Peloria in the east.
Historians think the Ten Thousand were recruited in Beda to fight for the last free Pelandan cities against the Spolite Oppression. But historians will believe anything. A folk tale says the army just happened upon the siege of the last free city of Pelanda. Syranthir called the Hundred Captains together to ask whether they should intervene on the side of the beseiged or the beseigers. His own sentiment was that, if they did nothing, the beseigers would win: they would therefore owe nothing if the Ten Thousand joined in on their side. But their intervention could turn the course of the siege in the defenders' favour, after which they would be in the debt of the Ten Thousand, and would give them everything they wanted. This inspired leadership is the stuff history ought to be made of!
The story of Syranthir's battles against the Spolite "Empire of Gloom" can be read on at least two levels: as straight military history, and as a mythical HeroQuest wherein a liberated city becomes a magic castle, and the welcome offered by the Pelandan people is made concrete in the form of the mysterious goddess Charmain, lady of Castle Blue. All the old tales agree that Syranthir disappears mysteriously, though whether he was secretly murdered by Pelandan foes, apotheosized as a saint or god, or returned to Castle Blue in search of his beloved, no two versions agree.
Most of these details come from a fragmentary tenth-century Carmanian poem, written by a Pelandan poet, called the "Anabasis". It's one of our most coherent sources for the March of the Ten Thousand, though scholarly opinion is divided as to whether or not it preceded Shah Nadar the Avenger's famous march on Eastpoint. The Fronelan local details could have been recorded by those accompanying the expedition, or they could have been researched before it left so as to increase its chances of success. Certainly, the Shah in this instance notably whacked certain cities and peoples along his line of march, and this *may* have been to avenge the tribulations of his ancestor, or this may have been the later 'cover story' -- "Sorry, guys, but it was mythically necessary for us to smash your city to pieces and sow its fields with salt!"
The story of how Nadar's march came about is interesting, too, and I'll send it in 1996. Happy New Year, everyone!
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