The Rise of Azkoval
Copyright© 2018 by Jay Cantrell
Prologue: The Fall
For almost 30 years, the hereditary kingdom of Azkoval lived in harmony. An agrarian society, the kingdom was ruled by Welton the Wise. Azkoval was not a utopia. Lives were difficult; life spans short. Men, women and children worked sunrise to sunset to bring in the crops, tend to the animals and maintain their homes.
People knew what to expect from life, though. What they had was theirs and they lived for their family and their kingdom.
Then life changed abruptly.
A cabal of greedy merchants, power-hungry aristocrats and religious zealots convinced Welton’s arrogant half-brother Wilhelm that he would make a better king. From this group of small-minded people, a plot was hatched.
At the time of The Fall, as it would come to be known in later years, there was a purge. Welton and his wife, Melina, were killed; the family of any landed gentry loyal to Welton was exiled or slain; and hundreds of citizens who had the temerity to express displeasure with the new regime were imprisoned or put to death.