The Battle of Grayfield
This excerpt is part of the overall Kingdom of Aldoria page.
The Battle of Grayfield
About a century before the Undead Plague, tension existed between the Syndar and Human nations. Border skirmishes and disagreements popped up throughout the continent of Faedrun and at any moment a full scale war could erupt between the two races. Although the Kingdom of Vandregon had the largest standing army at the time, the King of Vandregon pushed for reason and peace. The King of Aldoria, seeing an opportunity to seize more land and strike first, made a bold move and marched an army into the lands of the Syndar. As the soldiers fought, killed or displaced the smaller Syndar settlements, the King of Vandregon dispatched an army to follow the Aldorians. What the Aldorian generals thought were reinforcements were actually other humans sent to stop the Aldorian advance. The King of Vandregon was willing to gamble and confront their neighboring kingdom in an attempt to solve the situation quickly before all out war broke out with the Syndar.
The Aldorians refused to retreat. They lobbied that to do so would show the Syndar that the human nations were unorganized and fractured. As the Aldorians stalled, the Syndar army gathered and began to move to resist the humans. Political council rooms exploded in heated comments and oaths of revenge if either side came to blows. The human nations bickered, torn between uniting for Man or in giving in to the Syndar. The tension continued to grow as neither kingdom backed down.
To this day, nobody knows for sure what finally sparked what was to be known as the Battle of Grayfield. Generals from both sides were in a heated discussion, waiting for word sent to reach the political councils of each nation and then the replies back to the army. As tension mounted, fighting broke out, centered around the general’s tent. The armies clashed, desperately trying to gain ground to see their leaders to safety. Soldiers fought violently, each side convinced that the other side had sprung a sneak attack on their respective generals. After a short but incredibly bloody battle, most of the leadership of each side and over half of both armies’ soldiers were dead. The incident was named the Battle of Grayfield to represent the deaths of humans that died over a misunderstanding, of the lack of unified colors of their respective nations.
As the Syndar army marched forth onto the encampment, they were stalled by the destruction the humans had unleashed on each other. The Syndar, now having the upper hand, could have easily advanced through the ruined camp and destroyed the remaining survivors of each army and continue their march into the human kingdoms. The Syndar General instead stopped his army, showing respect to the remaining Vandregonian soldiers, and healed the wounded of both sides. There could not have existed any proof more profound than the soldiers of Vandregon willing to battle their neighbors in order to stop them from attacking the Syndar. The Syndar halted their forces, agreed to terms with Vandregon, and ended hostilities with the humans. This single battle would usher in the golden age of peace between the humans and the Syndar.
However, the Battle of Grayfield did end the relations between Vandregon and Aldoria for years to come. The Aldorians felt betrayed and abandoned by their fellow humans. The armies were rebuilt and stationed at the borders of each kingdom, staring each other down in a waiting game to see if further conflict would erupt. Aldoria, far smaller than the kingdom of Vandregon, began to increase its political and religious influences with the nobles and houses of all the human kingdoms, to rally their favor if ever the nations again came to blows. Both nations settled in for a long and tense cold war.
Many years and countless political debates later, the Kingdoms of Vandregon and Aldoria have eased back into an apprehensive nature. No further battles erupted and no other armies were rallied between the two kingdoms. As the survivors of those times had children and those children had their own children, the bitterness between the nations cooled. However, to this day it is a common start to a large tavern brawl if someone claims that “the other side started it at Grayfield”.