despondent and ragged band of refugees had escaped from Moorlund into the land of Ishtuh. They had travelled twenty-one days on foot from their ancestral home. Through rough and unfamiliar terrain, into the haunted forest of Mobique where the wails of the dead set every heart to tremble, and finally into the blue sands of Ishtuh. One among them was an aged record keeper of one-hundred and twenty years who vaguely recalled pathways from their ancestral home. The refugees followed fearing a fate worse than death.
The Moor people had once been a proud people who lived in craggy rocks and caves, a long intricate system of homes that ran deep into the mountains of Moorlund. Their thinkers and creators for generations had crafted open carry ways flowing with spring water for worship and cleansing, that led into rock hubs that used air and water to grow the freshest Mubanh (fruit) and Binah (vegetables). Every Mubanh and Binah were harvested when the twin moon appeared and were shared amongst the people.
The Moors were spiritual, intelligent, creative and were unified except in one thing. Deep within the mountains, below the Shanduh level, was a delicate and intricate growth of Edelie, a wild Binah that when processed was the most valuable and highly sought after resource in the land. Edelie was used to forge weapons, a fuel source, and could be made into a powerful drug that could control the mind. It was so dangerous that elders of the Moorlund had banned its use, for many generations that eventually its existence had been forgotten, but for historical records that were kept by record keepers and key elders.
In the past year, conflicts had begun amongst the record keepers and elders, as some wanted to harvest Edelie, and trade with other more prosperous lands to increase the wealth of the Moorlund. Opposers felt it was a dangerous precedent to set and would expose the very secretive and peaceful Moors to more advanced warmongering tribes. The infighting and disagreements between the elders and record keepers, eventually led to a betrayal that resulted in slaughter and the enslavement of the Moorlund to the Gordoni tribe.
Some had narrowly escaped, a total of seventy-four people who had never lived outside the safety of the mountains. The escapees traveled in soft shoes that were perfect for the smooth walkways of hewn rock, and light airy coverings that were ideal for the cool air of Moorlund. The seventy-four were horribly unprepared for the change in climate and suffered those twenty-one days of travel, leading to seventeen deaths, before reaching to Ishtuh.
Of the remaining fifty-seven people were seventeen children. The blue deserts of Ishtuh were treacherous, and with a lack of provisions or means to survive the forty adults sold the seventeen children into slavery in the harsh markets of Ishtuh. The stink of death, decay, and despair ran deep in Ishtuh and stained the sands to deep indigo. Ishtuh was a trade way for goods and people only, and the opposite of the pious and peaceful way of life practiced by the Moorlund.
Ten of the Moor children succumbed to illness and died in the slave pens prior to market day. The remaining seven were sold to one buyer and taken off world to a place that was truly wicked where only the strong could survive.
The story of the Moorlund Seven, and of what remained of their people, did not end in victory or defeat. It passed into suppression, exile, and silence, until almost no proof remained that the proud mountain kingdom had ever existed beneath the stone.