Cloud War

The Cloud War was the conflict between the The Pheagon Empire and the Kingdom of Valméria, ending in a decisive Imperial victory and the annexation of Valméria as a province.

The war takes its name from the aerial battles that defined it. The Valmérian military was built around the Valmérian Dragonriders, an elite order of dragon-mounted warriors that dominated the southeastern reaches of Lilac Bay and made Valméria a formidable regional power. Engaging them meant following them into the clouds.

Belligerents#

Pheagon Empire and allies

• The Pheagon Empire under General Hradek Voss
• Kingdom of Kaernthen (the Griffon Companies, under Daris Sonn)

Kingdom of Valméria under King Aureón Velaren

• Valmérian Dragonriders, commanded by Lord-Captain Renato Caldeira

Background#

Valméria had held dominance over the eastern Lilac Bay coast for generations, largely because no ground army could withstand a coordinated dragon strike. The kingdom had grown wealthy taxing sea trade through the bay and was ruled at the time of the war by King Aureón Velaren, whose family had supplied Dragonriders for three generations. Lord-Captain Renato Caldeira, bonded to the great dragon Solvaer, was widely considered the most accomplished rider alive.

The Pheagon Empire's expansion eastward made conflict inevitable. Several smaller coastal duchies had already fallen or bent the knee. Valméria refused.

Course of the War#

Opening: The Scorching of Caernavon#

The war began with a preemptive Valmérian strike. Caldeira led twelve riders against the Imperial supply city of Caernavon, burning its harbor and destroying the fleet the Empire had assembled for an amphibious assault across Lilac Bay. The strike was devastatingly effective and bought Valméria nearly a year of breathing room.

The Empire regrouped and sought allies. Its messengers reached Kaernthen, whose rulers held a longstanding fear of Valmérian dragons ranging over their mountain passes. Daris Sonn, a griffon-breeder and veteran of border skirmishes with Valmérian riders, pledged his Griffon Companies to the Imperial cause. Griffons lacked a dragon's raw power but were faster, more nimble in low cloud and mountain terrain, and far easier to breed.

The Battles of the Grey Cliffs#

The critical theatre was the Grey Cliffs, a range of sea-cliffs along Kaernthen's southern coast where updrafts made aerial combat treacherous. Sonn's riders and griffons had grown up in those winds and were accustomed to them. The Dragonriders relied on raw power and brute force.

Over three engagements on the Grey Shelf, Caldeira lost four dragons and seven riders. Dragons could not be replaced. Each loss narrowed Valméria's margin further. After the third battle, King Aureón sent his eldest son to Caldeira's compound in San Lavero to plead for a more cautious strategy. Caldeira refused to cede the skies.

The Death of Solvaer#

The turning point came when Imperial ground forces, guided by Sonn's aerial scouts, located Valméria's dragon roosts in the highlands east of San Lavero. A night assault destroyed four dragons on the ground, including the eggs of two others. Caldeira's own dragon Solvaer was wounded in the ambush while defending the roost.

Solvaer died of those wounds weeks later. Caldeira reportedly did not leave his quarters for a month.

With Solvaer gone, morale among the remaining riders collapsed. Several bonded pairs defected, some of the younger, untamed dragons escaped into the wild. One rider killed himself rather than watch his dragon be captured.

The Last Flight#

Caldeira returned to the sky on a younger dragon named Rauveth. With only five dragon-rider pairs remaining, he staged one final assault on the Imperial column marching toward San Lavero, aiming to break their lines and force a negotiated peace.

Sonn anticipated it. The Griffon Companies were waiting in low cloud cover above the valley. What followed was brief and one-sided. Rauveth was brought down by crossbow volleys and the combined weight of four griffons. Caldeira survived the crash but was captured. The remaining four riders retreated and were hunted down over the following weeks.

Aftermath#

With the Dragonriders destroyed, Valméria had no means of resistance. King Aureón signed the Compact of San Lavero, surrendering sovereignty in exchange for the preservation of the city and the noble houses. He died within the year, with many believing the grief of the loss broke him. The Velaren family retained their lands and titles but were stripped of any military authority.

Renato Caldeira was held in Imperial captivity for eleven years before dying of illness. He was never ransomed. The Empire considered him too dangerous to release and too prominent to execute without causing unrest in the newly acquired province.

Daris Sonn expected a grant of lands on Valméria's coast as payment for his service. The Empire offered him a stipend and a lesser title inland. When he refused, he was dismissed from Imperial service without further compensation. He returned to Kaernthen nursing his grievance. Within a decade the Empire marched on Kaernthen, and Sonn died defending a border he had helped the Empire learn to cross. His Griffon Companies survived him and became what is now known as the Flameslayers, who have loathed the Empire ever since.

Legacy#

The Cloud War is remembered differently by those who were involved. To the Empire it is a minor footnote in a long record of expansion and more of a case study about dragons and their nature. To Valméria it is the wound the province has never stopped feeling. Noble families like the Pasamontes keep the memory of the Dragonriders as a point of private pride and, for some, a cause worth returning to. To the people of Kaernthen, the war is simply proof that the Empire's word means nothing.

The phrase "to follow them into the clouds" has passed into the common tongue in parts of Salaraan as an expression for a fight you know you will not survive.