Antylika

Antylika, from Proto-Zyla ẹtël-irị-taka, meaning sea-border-land, and known to the Ahakattasa as Amtalakha, was a region to the north of Hieret, inhabited by people since prehistoric times, with sophisticated and permanent agriculture arising in the region in around 6000 ED, somewhat later than in Hieret.

Prehistoric Inhabitancy
Antylika had been inhabited for almost as long as its neighbouring Hieret had been, and the two regions shared extensive linguistic, ethnic and cultural similarities. For this reason, the two regions were practically indistinguishable, having such closely-related people and being geographically continuous, save for the Ibnesh Mountains. Much like Hieret, its first inhabitants were hunter-gatherer and foraging nomads. Following the domestication of the horse, these nomads took on a more pastoral lifestyle, developing an intricate and extensive economy based around animal husbandry and horse breeding, trading with the fishermen on the coast and with the foragers and hunters in Hieret. It was through this pastoral trade that horses and domesticated goats were first introduced to Hieret.

In around 9000 ED, a large population of foreign speakers arrived in Hieret, sometimes peacefully, and sometimes as warbands, bringing with them their language, culture and religion. This period of contact, lasting some five hundred years, led to many of the Hiereti influences seen in Proto-Zyla, which was spoken in southern Antylika and northern and eastern Hieret at this time. These migrations forced the native people of Hieret northward, into Antylika. Such a large influx of people, with their own large herds of animals, greatly increased the population density above sustainable levels and depleted the amount of available grazing lands. This lead to a violent collapse of the pastoral economy, which was firmly completed by 7000 ED, resulting in a depopulation of Antylika and the dispersal of its people north and eastward.

Early History
By 6000 ED, writing and sophisticated agriculture had been introduced to Antylika from the south, leading to the formation of the first permanent villages and towns. The largest of these towns barely reached one thousand people, considerably smaller than their southern counterparts. The lack of large population pressures meant that collective action was never required on the same scale as it was in Hieret, and the tribal democracies persisted for longer. For comparison, in 5000 ED, the population of Hieret was around six hundred and fifty thousand, roughly a twelfth of the world population, while the population of Antylika had barely reached two hundred thousand, despite Antylika being roughly similar in area to Hieret.

Nevertheless, by 4000 ED, during the waning years of the Two Empires period in Hieret, the region had stabilised enough that the first large population centres had risen in Antylika, each with around six thousand people living in them, based around temples and shrines and headed by high priests. While pastoralism had long been forsaken by the people of Antylika, the horse continued to play a large role, both as a beast of burden, for chariots and in religious imagery. For example, the head of the Antylika religion was Dažatağ (a name meaning horse-man), and horses were still considered a sign of wealth. As with in Hieret, the role of the high priest gradually became hereditary and transitioned into a monarchy.

Luwayte Kingdoms (4200 - 3000 ED)
The largest city in Antylika was Luwaypir, which had about seven thousand people living in it by the start of the Luwayte Kingdoms period, a number which would triple before the end of the millennium. Luwaypir, meaning river-border-village, was so-named because it occupied the shoreline of the Lura River, near where it flowed from the sea, and grew in importance due to its easy access to the sea and the abundance of fish in the Lura River. Both of these allowed the city to continue to exist even in times of climatic depression and when farming became insufficient to support the city's population. The city became the base of a kingdom of the same name, which, at its height, extended south into Hieret and had a population of around eighty thousand. Of similar size to Luwaypir were the cities of Nitybi, a maritime state located to the north of Luwaypir, and Kabir, which was found in the mountainous south-eastern Antylika, and gained much power through building alliances with the city-states and kingdoms in Hieret.

Together, these cities, their kingdoms and other smaller, less powerful city-states were known as the Luwayte Kingdoms, and their wars and alliances dominated much of Antylika's history for over a thousand years. Each state struggled for dominance, though none were powerful enough in their own right to conquer all of their neighbours, and were forced to make dangerous and ultimately one-sided alliances with foreign powers. The warfare reached its height during the First Interregnum in Hieret, in which Hieret's many factions were not powerful enough to enter into any military alliances and the Luwayte Kingdoms were left to fight each other in often brutal conflicts. The casualties of these wars were immense, comparable to civil wars, and the population of Antylika grew by barely a third between 4000 and 3000 ED, while the population of Hieret almost doubled during the same period.

By 3600 ED, with the rise of the Ateter Kingdom to dominance in Hieret, the level of warfare in Antylika fell dramatically, as Gizenatter reduced the kingdoms to little more than client states, extracting regular tribute from them. Some conflict persisted, but such wars were brief, consisting of a few skirmishes that would take place before the envoys from Gizenatter could arrive to mediate any disputes. It was thus in the latter half of this millenium that the population of Antylika grew at a relatively normal rate, increasing from 320 K in 3600 ED to 400 K by 3200 ED.

In around 3200 ED, Antylika became swamped by people fleeing from barbarism in Hieret, caused by the fall of the Ateter Kingdom. As with in Hieret and Antylika earlier in its history, the economy and geography of Antylika could not support such a large immigration of people. The Luwayte Kingdoms struggled to deal with this problem, with the king of Kabir, Aparaban VII, calling for his soldiers to kill the invaders, leading to the overthrow of his kingdom and the destruction of Kabir. The failure of harvests across Antylika pushed its people to desperation. At the coasts, the people, previously peaceful fishermen, turned to piracy to survive, raiding trade ships from Nitybi and Luwaypir. In the interior, many returned to the ancient ways of nomadism and pastoralism, making up what they could not produce by carrying out frequent raids on those who still clung to sedentary and agricultural living.

Dominance of the Ahakattasa (3000 - 2300 ED)
Beginning in 3200 ED and lasting for a few centuries, water levels across the world rose considerably, as the polar ice caps melted. The effects were less felt in Antylika and Hieret, but elsewhere, flooding put great strain on human populations, forcing many to migrate. One of the largest single migrations was of the Ahakattasa, speakers of Old Palabarayka and people with an equestrian tradition similar to that of the nomads of Antylika. The Ahakattasa originally inhabited an area several hundred miles north of Antylika, but intense flooding from the lakes in the region forced them southwards, into Antylika, which was still suffering from the effects of the collapse of the Ateter Kingdom.

The first large migration began around 3000 ED, though several smaller migrations had come in the previous two centuries. The Ahakattasa, trained from a young age in mounted combat, swept into Antylika, overpowering Nitybi and forcing its king into exile in Luwaypir. As more and more of their brethren joined them from the north, the Ahakattasa pushed even further south, marching on Luwaypir. King Akyrik III (a name meaning of flesh), the ruler of Luwaypir, attempted to fight these invaders, but was outnumbered and outmanoeuvered at every turn and eventually slain. Within fifty years, the Ahakattasa had successfully established themselves in Antylika, settling in the cities of their former enemies and abandoning their nomadic ways, driving many of the native people south into Hieret, which had barely begun to recover from its own ecological catastrophe.

Using the infrastructure of the previous civilisations, the Ahakattasa set up their own kingdoms, with those based around Luwaypir and Nitybi naturally asserting themselves as the most powerful. Under the command of powerful warlords, these kingdoms waged war against each other over fertile lands and horse herds, with marriage and trade being used to soldify alliances and form power blocs between different cities. A few native kingdoms had survived the arrival of the Ahakattasa, mostly in the mountainous south, where the Ahakattasa's advantages were cancelled out by the rough terrain and where there was little room for their large herds to graze, and they conducted long campaigns against the Ahakattasa. The natives were aided in their struggle by their relatives that had now settled in northern Hieret, and the Ibnesh Mountains became the base for many assaults against the Ahakattasa.

By 2600 ED, Antylika was split between five main kingdoms, of which four were ruled by Ahakattasa kings and of which three were mainly composed of Ahakattasa. The largest was the Lusuppur Kingdom, which, under the Kuumukunuku dynasty, had expanded to rule over Nitybi and dominated the north and west of Antylika. At that time, the kingdom had a population of around a quarter of a million, over a third of the entire popualtion of Antylika, making it the largest state in the world. Against the Lusuppur Kingdom was the Asapadava Kingdom, which was under the rule of the Kuumusukkunuku dynasty, who were related to the Kuumukunukus of Lusuppur. This kingdom was barely half the size of the Lusuppur Kingdom, perhaps with one hundred and sixty thousand people at the most, based in the city of Asapadava, which was connected to the sea by Sibri River and had about twenty thousand inhabitants. The Asapadava Kingdom was allied for much of the 2600s and 2500s ED with the Padazabana Kingdom and the Kalanabamma Kingdom, which had a collective population equal to that of the Asapadava Kingdom. Lastly, the smallest kingdom was the Berka Kingdom, named after the mountain town of Berka, situated about twenty miles from the ruins of Kabir. The Berka Kingdom straddled south Antylika and north Hieret, with an overall population of about fifty thousand, of which a fifth was found in Berka. Although the smallest of the kingdoms, the Berka Kingdom could muster a defensive force with as many as ten thousand men, with two or three thousand more extracted from its client cities at the foot of the Ibnesh Mountains.

Although the Lusuppur Kingdom had a great advantage in manpower and had near-undisputed control of the Antylikan coast, the kingdom was not invincible and was whittled down in successive conflicts against the Asapadava-Padazabana-Kalanabamma alliance. Its large armies were overcome in by smaller forces and, in 2554 ED, with a rebellion in the city of Nitybi, encouraged by Kuumusukkunuku agents, the kingdom's control of the coast was compromised. By the end of the 2500s ED, the balance of power in Antylika had shifted decisively in favour of the kings of Asapadava, who surrounded the Lusuppur Kingdom and trapped it on the coast.

The Lusuppur Kingdom worked to break up the alliance which had humbled it, and sent agents to Padazabana and Kalanabamma, promising lands and spoils in return for aid against Asapadava. The Berka Kingdom was also approached and, though negotiations were successful, the Berka Kingdom sent no more than one thousand men to help in the war against Asapadava, but received a much-desired link to the Antylikan coast for its help. At the conclusion of the war, the Asapadava Kingdom was halved to one hundred and forty thousand, less than its population in 2600 ED, while the four other kingdoms achieved considerable gains.

For the next two centuries, the politics of Antylika was dominated by the shifting alliances of these five kingdoms, with a new bloc being formed after almost every war, reflecting the change in the balance of power. The only constant between 2500 and 2300 ED was the steady growth of the Berka Kingdom, culminating with its successful conquest of the Kalanabamma Kingdom in the closing years of the 24th century ED. The fall of Kalanabamma to the Berka King Emlikipa II (meaning chief of knowledge) marked the shift of power decisively from the Ahakattasa to the Zyla-speaking natives, reversing the severe demographic and political shift that had begun almost one thousand years before. While the Ahakattasa still possessed a strong grip on most of Antylika, including the more densely-populated north and west, after a gruelling campaign, the Berka Kingdom had finally pushed out of the Ibnesh Mountains.

Conquest and Union of Antylika (2300 - 2073 ED)
King Emlikipa II, though much aged, set out the basis for his kingdom's conquest and union of Antylika by allying with the growing power of Yejuzmol, located near the Ibnesh Mountain's most eastern spread. He married his son to the daughter of the Yejuzmol king and his daughter to the Yejuzmol heir, ensuring that the blood of both dynasties would be firmly linked. He also integrated the Berka client cities into the kingdom proper and ordered rough roads to be cut into the ground to connect these cities to the capital, and the capital to Kalanabamma. At regular intervals on these roads, he set up rudimentary message posts, guarded by permanent garrisons and each with at least five riders to quickly communicate orders and news between cities and any armies that may be in the field. Edybekar, the kingdom's main coastal city, was expanded during his reign, with strong walls being constructed to protect it and a new harbour being built to house a fleet. Though Emlikipa died in 2289 ED, before the new walls and roads were built and could be put to use, his actions allowed for his kingdom's later successes against their northern enemies.

Under the rule of Emlikipa II's two sons, King Kologo I (2289 - 2277 ED) and King Emlikipa III (2277 - 2243 ED), the Berka Kingdom grew rapidly, swallowing most of the Padazabana Kingdom, leaving its capital surrounded, and seizing the root of the Sibri River, effectively cutting off Asapadava's connection to the sea. Emlikipa's grandson, King Šuugo I, then inherited the kingdom at the age of fourteen and managed to take Padazabana in 2239 ED, though it later rebelled. Šuugo was murdered by his sole surviving uncle and cousins in 2234 ED, when preparing an army to retake Padazabana, with his eldest cousin becoming King Kologo II. Šuugo's only child, an infant daughter, who smuggled into Hieret and married to the Yejuzmol king's second son. After a disastrous war against the Padazabana rebels, in which Asapadava came to that city's aid, also retaking control of the mouth of the Sibri River, the Berka Kingdom was almost pushed back to the level is was at the death of King Emlikipa II. Only the alliance with Yejuzmol saved Kalanabamma from falling into the hands of King Asayavasa VI of Asapadava, though the walls of the city were breached and the surrounding farmland burned. Kologo II died in disgrace in 2217 ED, with his nephew succeeding him.

Between the reigns of Emlikipa II and Kologo II, war was not limited to the Berka Kingdom, and the kingdoms of the Ahakattasa fought amongst each other almost constantly throughout this period. The Lusuppur Kingdom warred with the Kingdom of Nitibi, which was now little more than a client state of Asapadava, aiming to recover the lands in to the north of the kingdom that had broken away in earlier centuries. The Asapadava Kingdom was sworn to defend their allies in Nitibi, as their continued existence kept Lusuppur surrounded on all sides by enemy forces. The two kingdoms also warred over control of the fertile river valleys and for command of the Antylikan coast. In 2232 ED, Lusuppur's chance to break out from its confinement came, with Asapadava being tied down by a war with the Berka Kingdom and Yejuzmol and Nitibi suffering from flood-induced famine. The king of Lusuppur, King Elemeke III, raised a large army and a considerable fleet, laying siege to Nitibi by land and launching raids of its harbour and coastal farms from the sea. After a brief siege, the city fell and its lands were reincorporated into the Lusuppur Kingdom, dismantling the Asapadava policy of keeping Lusuppur surrounded and forcing the king of Asapadava to break his siege of Kalanabamma.

By the turn of the century, the Berka Kingdom, almost on the edge of collapse, facing rebellion in Kalanabamma and in Edybekar and undeclared war against the Asapadava Kingdom, witnessed a second reversal in fortunes. The reversal from near-collapse to prosperity was dictated almost entirely by rise of Yejuzmol as the foremost power in Hieret and by the personal skills of King Šakga I, nephew of Yēgayz-ol-Yēgikazil I of Yejuzmol. Šakga, though still a boy when placed on the throne at Yēgayz-ol-Yēgikazil's behest, replaced his distant cousin King Emlikipa IV, who was placated by a governorship of one of Yejuzmol's client states. Šakga immediately set out on his plan to restore order to his kingdom, retake and hold Padazabana and ultimately conquer all of Antylika. Within five years, rebellion in the Berka Kingdom was almost completely extinguished and Padazabana fell to Šakga after only a year of warfare in 2199 ED and without any trouble from Asapadava, which was once again at war with Lusuppur. In 2193 ED, with assistance from Yejuzmol, Šakga launched an attack on Asapadava, seizing the mouth of the Sibri River and restoring his kingdom to the levels it was in the reign of Šuugo I. Šakga failed to take the city of Asapadava, though he received assistance from Yejuzmol and even Lusuppur, and was forced to stop any plans for complete conquest of Asapadava with the death of his uncle in 2189 ED.

Asapadava recovered under the reign of Asayavasa VIII and, though he was unable to recapture the Sibri River, helped to free Nitybi from Lusuppur's grip. The period between 2187 and 2153 ED was one of great growth for Antylika. For many of those years, Yejuzmol was experiencing great civil unrest, and the Berka Kingdom benefited from increased independence from their ally, even taking command of Yejuzmol's most northern towns. Edybekar's harbour was expanded once more, with its trade reaching as far as Rum and E'Wayyli, and the city of Seberka was built to defend the Berka Kingdom's position on the Sibri River. Asapadava and Lusuppur made peace, declaring that Nitybi would remain independence from both of them and would not be allowed to enter into an alliance with either party, and also agreed to address grievances, with many towns being exchanged to recreate past borders. Asapadavan merchants were also given access to Lusuppur's port, to accommodate the loss of the Sibri River, and both kingdoms made a pact against the Berka Kingdom.

In 2153 ED, Asayavasa and Šakga died, each being succeeded by King Imliki II and King Šuugo II respectively. By this time, order had been restored to Yejuzmol, and Pukizol-Yegizol II set out to restore his northern border, demanding the towns and villages seized by Šakga. Šuugo resisted these demands successfully, with his army winning against forces from Yejuzmol in a number of border skirmishes, but the alliance between Yejuzmol and the Berka Kingdom, which had stood for around one hundred and fifty years, was now over. In fact, by 2140 ED, a Yejuzmol force was being prepared to march against the Berka Kingdom, though these plans were halted by civil war. In Asapadava, under Imliki, the decades of failure were replaced by a period of expansion, with Asapadava breaking into western Antylika, which had largely remained independent from the struggles of the Ahakattasan kingdoms. Starting in 2149 ED, he took the cities of Padalamaf (from Old Palabarayka pad-elem-ava, meaning war city) and Halanayafikan (from Old Palabarayka kalanayavakan, meaning land of the king), and several more in later conquests. By the end of the decade, his kingdom had almost doubled in size and population, rivalling the Berka Kingdom in terms of manpower.

The break-up of the Yejuzmol-Berka alliance proved costly for both parties. For one, it exposed a great weakness of the Berka Kingdom to Lusuppur and Asapadava. Soldiers from Yejuzmol had been vital in making Asapadava abandon its siege of Kalanabamma during the reign of Kologo II and had helped in the conquest of Padazabana. It also meant that for Yejuzmol there would be no assistance in the rebellions that would plague it for the next eight years. In 2135 ED, Lusuppur and Asapadava honoured their pact against the Berka Kingdom and launched a sweeping attack on Seberka. They succeeded in cutting the city off from its land connection to Berka, hoping to starve it into submission, but it was supplied by regular shipments of food from Edybekar. In the same year, Padazabana fell to an attack and a Lusuppur and Asapadava army were spotted on the outskirts of Kalanabamma. Edybekar was raided multiple times in 2134 ED, in an ultimately failed attempt to upset the transport of relief to Seberka. Kalanabamma fell in 2132 ED, in the same month as the fall of Yejuzmol to King Weygelzu I of Gizenatter. Šuugo was now in a dire position, with his enemies preparing to march on Edybekar, which was now only connected to the capital by a series of mountain trails in the Ibnesh Mountains. For Lusuppur and Asapadava, total victory was in sight, and plans had already been made between their kings for a partition of the Berka Kingdom between them, with Seberka and Padazabana to go to Asapadava and Berka, Edybekar and Kalanabamma to go to Lusuppur. Šuugo, in a masterstroke of diplomacy, offered to relinquish control of all his lands south of the Ibnesh Mountains (including the very lands he had fought against Pukizol-Yegizol II over) to King Weygelzu in return for aid against his enemies and a lasting alliance.

With aid from the Ateter Empire, the Berka Kingdom won an outstanding victory at the Battle of Edybekar, where the Lusuppur and Asapadava chariots were proven near-useless in the rocky terrain. The Asapadava king, Imliki II was captured in the battle, paraded in Berka and forced to sign a humiliating peace, giving up all of the territory that he had captured in the war, as well as the cities of Padalamaf and Halanayafikan. The Lusuppur king managed to escape the battle unharmed, and attempted to prolong the war for several years, but was finally forced to surrender in 2127 ED, bringing eight years of warfare to an end. The end result of the war was a dramatic shift of power to the Berka Kingdom, which now had a population of half a million, over half of Antylika's total population, and a disposal of the kings of Lusuppur and Asapadava. The latter led to decades long strife in both kingdoms, allowing the Berka Kingdom to soldify its position further still, taking Nitybi in 2099 ED and advancing up the Sibri River.

In 2097 ED, Šuugo died, at almost eighty years of age, becoming one of the longest lived monarchs of all time, and was succeeded by his grandson, King Kologo III. Kologo shared much of his grandfather's warlike spirit, and had been raised with stories of times before the coming of the Ahakattasa, when his people ruled over all of Antylika. He was sworn to the conquest of all of Antylika, and much of his early reign was focused on building up his strength for the conquest of Lusuppur and Asapadava. Lusuppur and Asapadava were still experiencing constant rebellion, with government shifting from king to king, each one less legitimate than the last. At times, a fledging democracy would be planted in either city, but would quickly be demolished by the arrival of a warlord or general, who would seize power for himself and his friends. In Lusuppur, generals rallied behind the great-grandson of the third cousin of King Emeleke IV (2207 - 2199 ED), who was seen as a more rightful king than his contender, the nephew of King Emeleke IV's cupbearer. During these times, Lusuppur and Asapadava stagnated and even declined, with whole areas of farmlands becoming deserted and choked with dust and entire towns and villages fleeing south towards the Berka Kingdom or north to join the tribes that had yet resisted conquest from Lusuppur or Nitybi.

For the people of Asapadava, by 2093 ED, the situation became so dire that an assembly, somewhat similar to those of the Yilireti Republic, sent envoys to Kologo III, following threats from a rural warlord. In return for promises of protections of their liberties, the people of Asapadava agreed to submit to the Berka Kingdom. Kologo agreed to the negotiations, crushed the warlord and entered Asapadava as a hero. He later rescinded his side of the agreement, and placed his uncle as governor of Asapadava, an event that would have great consequences for the future of his kingdom.

Lusuppur recovered in 2089 ED with the rise of King Kattayavakana III and found itself surrounded by the Berka Kingdom on all sides. During the period of rebellion, the Lusuppur fleet had been neglected, and many of its ships lay rotting in the harbour or had been stolen by pirates or fishermen. Ships from the Berka Kingdom patrolled the seas around Antylika, raiding Lusuppur trade ships destined for Hieret with impunity and attacking coastal villages. Kattayavakana III ordered the construction of a great fleet, mobilising the rural population of his kingdom for the task, leading to a period of famine and stripping the Lusuppur countryside of trees. By the end of the decade, Lusuppur had over one hundred ships, the largest of which could carry up to one hundred people, rivalling the Berka Kingdom's ships. Alarmed by this build-up of forces, Kologo demanded that Kattayavakana stop building more ships and that he burn half of his fleet, or else he would face war. In 2076 ED, Kattayavanakana had shown no sign of stopping his ship production and war began between the Berka Kingdom and Lusuppur.

Kattayavanakana had spent many years building up a host of agents in the cities of the Berka Kingdom, including Nitybi, Asapadava and even Edybekar, which was governed by Kologo's brother. At the start of the conflict, these agents raised a rebellion in Nitybi and Asapadava, and almost persuaded Edybekar into revolt. Lusuppur ships blockaded Seberka, landing a thousand troops to besiege the city and half this number to raid the surrounding countryside and Berka ships leaving or entering Edybekar were attacked. The war attracted the attention of the Ateter emperor, Emperor Weygelzu II, who sent some ships to assist the Berka Kingdom in fighting Lusuppur. At a decisive naval battle off the coast of Edybekar, the Lusuppur fleet was destroyed, breaking the blockade of Edybekar and driving away the ships at Seberka, leaving the Lusuppur soldiers attacking the city stranded. Kologo seized his chance to conquer Lusuppur, putting down the rebellion in Asapadava and Nitybi before laying siege to the city's walls. In 2073 ED, the walls were breached, the city sacked and Kattayavakana III put to the sword. Completing over two hundred years of conquest, King Kologo III had united Antylika in a way never seen before, with only the tribes in the north claiming their independence from Berka rule.