Long ago, before the Shattering and before the Dragons came from the West, this place went by the name of the Hard Mountains, for from Drakan's Shoulder to the Gates of the East Wind, there was nothing but mountains, hard tipped, brave faced, dotting this land of ours.

 

Then one day, there was a great sound from the South. The earth shook beneath our feet, shook the mountain tips, and then behold! A gap appeared in the Wall. The up to then unblemished and noble Kaer had been split opened just as a poor shield splitting before a tempered spear. None knew then the cause of this. None know now either.

 

But all agreed that this event forewarned the coming of the Shaking Kings.

 

Some claimed the gap let them through. Others said that the gap had no part and they simply had come down from the Kaer; that they had always lived in the high, inaccessible peaks of the Wall.

 

Whichever this was, it was clear that once they came, there could be no stopping them. Three full-grown men would not reach any one of them and they marched forward with unperturbed stride as identical warriors armoured and covered of hard steel plate. But all their armour, all that they were, was stone. Cold and grey, hard and dark. Like statues, living, moving, fighting and, most of all, shaking as the Shaking Kings shook down the foundation of everything that stood in their path.

 

This is how they would shake. First, they stopped, paused in their stride. Then they would hum or mutter strange words or some say sing in a manner only they could; one that prickled and rose the hair on the back of a warrior's neck. And then finally, they would stamp their feet, in unison, ten times.

 

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Tremo Tremis

Corporis omnis tremimur

Regibus venisti

Tremitum venisti

Regibus trementibus venies tremere

 

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Anything that had stood before them then would shake, crumble and fall.

 

And as they were as hard as stone, no arrow could pierce them. No sword or blade could stop them. Even when the Four Tribes put aside their differences to band together and fight against them, they had stood no better chance. Like the mountains that first trembled, then shook and finally crumbled down... the tribes trembled and dispersed before the earth-shaking feet of the Shaking Kings army.

 

They fled and were pushed back, more and more until the last remnants of their united forces stood together in a last stand at the Gates of the East Wind. But it was for no avail. The Shaking Kings came. The Shaking Kings paused. The Shakings Kings sung. The Shaking Kings stamped...

 

 

~~~~~~

 

Tremo Tremis

Corporis omnis tremimur

Regibus venisti

Tremitum venisti

Regibus trementibus venies tremere

 

~~~~~~

 

 

The Shaking Kings shook and crumbled down the mountain, crumbled down the Gates of the East Wind...

 

But as it fell, there was a sudden rush. A rush of Wind, a great gust of Wind, that blew from the East behind where the Gates had stood... And the Wind blew fiercely over the Shaking Kings, and strange dusty crusts, just as metal rusts, suddenly patched and covered the Shaking Kings' stone armour.

 

And the Kings fled in pandemonium. Where sharp axe or keep arrow could not even stir them, the howling wind of the East had sent them into an unbridled panic. They no longer stood, so stern, so calm, so unopposable, but instead in the most chaotic of fashions possible they ran all ways, forgetting their warriors' pride, forgetting their battles and simply sought by all means to escape the East Wind.

 

But as the Gates stood no more-and the mountains also-the wind had free reign to follow the Kings to every corner of the land that had been known as the Hard Mountains.

 

Try as they might, the wind caught up to every single one of them, rusting their stone armour and petrifying them in place...

 

This is how the wind overcame the Shaking Kings.

 

This was long ago. Now the wind blows and whispers everywhere in the Steppes. The Shaking Kings? The wind of the Steppes defaced them long ago... What remains of them are large, stalwart stones that stand on the forlorn plains and hills. The ones that have forgotten only call them the stones of the Steppes. The Stones of the Whispering Steppes.

 

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But listen carefully on the wind and you might just hear it whispering the strange thrum of the Shaking Kings also.

 

~~~~~~

 

Tremo Tremis

Corporis omnis tremimur

Regibus venisti

Tremitum venisti

Regibus trementibus venies tremere