Adapted from Robert Jordan, The Eye of the World
"For nearly two centuries wars had ravaged the length and the breadth of the world, and wherever battles
raged, the Red Eagle of Manetheren was in the forefront. The men of Manetheren were a thorn
to the foot of the unjust and a bramble in the hand of the unrighteous. Sing of Manetheren, that
would never bend knee to evil. Sing of Manetheren, the sword that could never be
broken.
"They were far away, the men of Manetheren, on the Field of Bekkar, called the Field of Blood, when the
news came that a dark army was moving against their home. Too far to do else but wait to hear
of their land's death, for the forces of evil meant to make an end of them. Kill the mighty oak
by hacking away its roots. Too far to do else but mourn. But they were the men of
the Mountain Home.
"Without hesitation, without thought of the distance they must travel, they marched from the very field of
victory, still covered in dust and sweat and blood. Day and night they marched, for they had
seen the horror the dark armies left behind them, and no man of them could sleep while such a danger
threatened Manetheren. They moved as if their feet hhad wings, marching further and faster
than friends hoped or enemies feared they could. At any other day that march alone would
have inspired songs. When the dark armies swooped down on the lands of Manetheren, the
men of the Mountain Home stood before it, with their back to the Tarendrelle.
"The host that faced the men of Manetheren was enough to daunt the bravest heart. Ravens
blackened the sky, infantry blackened the earth. Evil men from every nation
gathered. Men in tens of thousands, with black robed generals to command, and powerful
sorcerers to aid them. At night their campfires outnumbered the stars, and dawn revealed the
banner of the Dark One at their head. Ba'al, Heart of the Dark. All names for the
Father of Lies. There was power there, and the dread of it shook the men of Manetheren, and
sent a chill into their very souls.
"Yet they knew what they must do. Their homeland lay just across the river. They
must keep that host, and the power with it, from the Mountain Home. Aemon had sent out
messangers. Aid was promised if they could hold for but three days at the
Tarendrelle. Hold for three days against odds that should overwhelm them in the first
hour. Yet somehow, through bloody assault and desperate defense, they held through and hour,
and the second hour, and the third. For three days they fought, and though the land became a
butcher's yard, no crossing of the Tarendrelle would they yield. By the third night no help had
come, and no messangers, and they fought on alone. For six days, For nine. And
on the tenth day Aemon knew the taste of betrayal. No help was coming, and they could hold
the river crossings no more.
"Aemon crossed the Tarendrelle, burning the bridges behind him. And he sent word
throughout the land for the people to flee, for he knew the powers with the dark army would find a way to
bring it across the river. Even as the word went out, the crossing began, and the soldiers of
Manetheren took up the fight again, to buy with their lives what hours they could for the people to
escape. From the city of Manetheren, Eldrene organized the flight of her people into the
deepest forests and the fastness of the mountains.
"But some did not flee. First in a trickle, then a river, thena flood, men went, not to safety, but
to join the army fighting for their land. Shepherds with bows, and farmers with pitchforks, and
woodsmen with axes. Women went too, shouldering what weapons they could find and
marching side by side with their men. No one made the journey who did not know they would
never return. But it was their land. It had been their fathers', and it would be their
childrens', and the went to pay the price of it. Not a step of ground was given up until it was
soaked in blood, but at the last the army of Manetheren was driven back, back to the place now known as
Emond's Field. And here the hordes of darkness surrounded them.
"The dead of the enemy piled up in mounds, but always more scrambled over those charnel heaps in waves
of death that had no end. There could be but one finish. No man or woman who
had stood beneath the banner of the Red Eagle at that day's dawning still lived when night
fell. The sword that could not be broken was shattered.
"In the Mountains of the Mist, alone in the emptied city of Manetheren, Eldrene heard Aemon die among a
thousand foes, and her heart died with him. And where her heart had been was left only a thirst
for vengeance, vengeance for her love, vengeance for her people and her land. She set out in
the city, and began to set her traps. Then she lured the sorcerers and generals of the Dark One's
army into the city of Manetheren, and taunted them from within the palace. They came, with
hundreds of their troops to find and have their way with the Queen. She waited until they were
almost atop her, and then, crying Aemon's name, set off the traps she had set. Fires raced
through the streets and buildings of Manetheren, some say made hotter and more powerful by the Queen's
thirst for vengeance, other say enhanced by the Creator in just retribution for evil
done. However it was done, the fires consumed every man in the city.
"The army that stood victorious now ran like beasts befor a wildfire in the forest, with no thought for
anything but escape. North and south they fleds. Thousands drowned attempting
to cross the Tarendrelle without the direction of their generals, and at the Manatherendrelle they tore down
the bridges in their fight at what might be following them. Where they found people, they slew
and burned, bu the need to flee was the need that gripped them. Until, at last, no one of them
remained in the lands of Manetheren. They were dispersed like dust before a
whirlwind. The final vengeance came more slowly, but it came, when they were hunted down
by other peoples, by other armies in other lands. None was left alive of those who did murder
at Aemon's Field.
"But the price was high for Manetheren. Eldrene had sacrificed herself on a pyre of
vengeance. As the enemy generals died, so did she die, and the fired that consumed her
consumed the city of Manetheren, even the stones of it, down to the living rock of the
mountains. Yet the people had been saved.
"Nothing was left of their farms, their villages, or their great city. Some would say there was
nothing left for them, nothing but flee to other lands, where they could begin anew. They did
not say so. They had paid such a price in blood and hope for their land as had never been paid
before, and now they were bound to that soil by ties stronger than steel. Other wars would
wrack them in years to come, until at last their corner of the world was forgotten and at last they had
forgotten war and the ways of war. Never again did Manetheren rise. Its soaring
spires and splashing fountains became as a dream that slowly faded from the minds of its
people. But they, and their children, and their children's children, held the land that was
theirs. They held it when long centuries had washed the why of it from their
memories. They held it until, today, there is nothing remembered. Weep for
Manetheren. Weep for what is lost forever."
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