Rise of the North (asoiaf)

A few years before Aegon's Conquest of Westeros, in the city of Braavos there was a sarnori man by the name of Alexi, smart and cunning, who was born a slave to captured sarnori in the Khalasar of Khal Ramos. After his parents died of overwork, when he at a young age, he used his agility, nimble hands and wits to escape from the dothraki. Before escaping however, he was able to steal a sack full of jewels, recently gifted to the Khalasar, and with his prize hid in a crevice behind a large thorny bush for two days and a night to prevent capture.

Once the khalasar moved on, Alexi desiring to live free, made his way to Braavos where no slavery existed. Using the money earned from selling some of the jewels as well as his own intelligence Alexi soon became a rich merchant in Braavos, living a comfortable and peaceful life. However, he never forgot his origins, his parents and the experience he had as a slave watching many of the Sarnori cities in ruin, its once proud people enslaved by primitive tribes more horse than man.

In 8 AC after Alexi had spent many comfortable and peaceful years in Braavos, he received word from refugees from the city of Saath that the last Sarnori city was facing many problems. It had little food or wealth, and its leaders the exiled nobility of Sarnor fought pointlessly making the situation worse.

It was then that Alexi decided that he would not stand by while his people suffered any longer and so he uses his fortune to hire the Company of Blue Rose, a new sellsword company of about 5000 mixed army, made up of exiles from North, Weateros, and sailed for the city for Saath, seizing control of the city and putting every single noble leader and their key servants to the blade. Knowing however that he would need the support of his people, Alexi also bought large amounts of food with him, distributing it to the hungry citizens and abolishing slavery which not as large as other cities still have a 1 to 1 ration, to gain their love and support. And so, in 9 AC after he had stamped out the opposition, Alexi of Saath, as he came to be known, became the One and only King of the Sarnori people.

Impressed by the order and coordination present in the Company of the Rose, Alexi would hire the company as temporary guards of the city and would ask them to help in training a proper militia for the Sarnori. Relation between the Company and the Kingdom of Sarnor will always remain strong.

After three years when he was sure his grip on power was secure and when his wife had given birth to a son, Alexi, he used the last of his fortune to pay for a large caravan filled with goods to trade and tribute for the dothraki they encountered. Then with about 50 men he set out into the dothraki sea and went to trade in the marketplace of Vaes Dothrak.

The time of his journey is known as the year of the 600 rebellions, an exaggeration to be sure but not by much for every Sarnori believed that to go into the dothraki sea was to beg for either death or slavery. And as such when Alexi returned with all his men intact and his caravans filled with exotic goods and spices from the east, well for the Sarnori it was nothing short of a miracle. Alexi sold the goods through his contacts in braavos receiving a fair price which helped to not just fill the coffers of saath but to make them overflow. From that day on the Sarnori of Saath would use Saath as the end port of a lucrative trade route through the dothraki sea allowing the city of Braavos and from there Westeros to obtain the exotic riches of the east.

While all of this was a very lucrative for the Sarnori in terms of wealth, however it had a much greater effect in their minds. For now, the Sarnori had hope, hope that they would not just survive as they had been doing but rather live, live and thrive, live and restore themselves to the great power they were before. To this effect Alexi then used his newfound wealth to buy and produce tree saplings, lots of them. He then began to have these saplings planted on the shallow parts of the outermost rivers of the Sarne delta, preventing horses from crossing the river.

This in time created what would become the forest wall, a wall of long and very thick row of trees which would keep protect the Sarne delta from future dothraki attacks, for the dothraki do not use boats, neither do they cut trees by the banks of the rivers believing it to bring bad fortune. Or more like not having proper equipments for to cut trees or knowledge of how to make use of wood.

All this helped Alexi in convincing the Sarnori to leave the walls of Saath and start resettling the Sarnori delta. The years of recovery, as they would be remembered as, saw an explosion of activity as the Sarnori, freed from their jail and fear began taking back their lands and pride. Moreover, the Sarnori who had fled years earlier also retuned, lured by the calls of home. Large families became the norm, as fertile land was plentiful and soon lively villages and towns were popping up like mushrooms after a nice rain.

Over the decades the Sarnori resettled the entire delta, rebuilding the cities and reviving the faith and culture of the Tall Men. Alexi also conquered the Lorathi colony of Morosh on the north most point of the delta. Though given the fact that by that time the colony had more Sarnori than Lorathi citizens it was not a difficult task. In the end Alexi of Saath ruled for 60 years and gave his crown to his grandson upon his death.

Mikhail of Saath, Alexi's grandson continued his grandfather's peace. Under his 30 years of rule the Sarnori continued to gain strength. His reign also saw the establishment of the Sarnori navy, both in the shivering sea, and a riverine one.

Mikhail also continued to trade with the dothraki or atleast at Vaes Dothrak and when the khals became suspicious of the growing Sarnori kingdom he gave them many gifts including Lysene bed slaves. While it helped protect the Sarnori villages on the outer banks from dothraki arrows and ensured the security of both the trade links and the traders themselves, it sparked an internal crisis. This was as the Sarnori hated slavery now, due to the fact that so many of their people were enslaved by the dothraki. Therefore, Mikhail's gifting of slave upset a great deal of Sarnori people. Eventually the outrage grew large enough, and the Braavosi pressure grew strong enough that Mikhail outlawed the gifting of slaves to the dothraki and adopted Braavosi laws in regard to slavery.

Mikhail's death led to his eldest son Vasily becoming king of the Sarnori. Vasily ruled wisely for 25 years before dying in 123 AC. He was succeeded by his own eldest son who became Alexi II.

Alexi II's reign was a time of great change, in 124 after just a year on the throne he had to deal with the emergence of the Rhoynar who after the Burning of the Sorrows had returned to reclaim their homelands. Alexi II immediately sent a delegation to the Rhoynar when he heard of their emergence. While he like the rest of Essos was shocked to realize that they had been living behind the sorrows for all this time he would not let that allow this opportunity to go by. Alexi II hoped that an alliance between the Sarnori and the Rhoynar could only benefit both as the two were close enough to allow for aid yet neither held any interest in the other lands.

Alexi also believed that in time the Rhoynar would grow to become one of the main Powers of Essos, for they like the Sarnori were not bound to a single city and its walls. And finally, most of the Sarnori saw great similarities between themselves and the Rhoynar and were able to identify with them.

And so it was that his offer of alliance was accepted and soon a strong trade relationship between the two began. As the Rhoynar began settling the middle and upper river valleys a familiar threat emerged. The dothraki had decided to sack the Rhoynar, however the Rhoynar did not surrender, rather they fought. They used their boats to evacuate the people and to bring in food and soldiers. They used burning pitch, and arrows to thin dothraki ranks from afar and used large iron sheets to protect themselves from the arrows which were as numerous as water drops in a heavy rain. And they used their water magic to drown the dothraki when they went towards rivers to water their horses.

The Dothraki-Rhoynar wars as they came to be known continued like this for about 2 years until the dothraki, bored of waiting outside walls and wary of the rapid and deep waters of the Rhoyne which could drown horses abandoned their campaign. For by now the khals now growing soft, preferring tributes to sackings after being seduced by the goods of the horseless tribes. Alexi who saw had kept a close watch on the Dothraki-Rhoynar wars began to draw inspiration for plans from the behaviour of the khals and the story of the Rhoynar. However, he did not have much time to muse as the Rhoynar invoked their alliance in the War for the Rhoyne.

Till this day in Essos the irony of the war for the Rhoyne still tickles the people whenever it is mentioned. For Volantis, which was supposed to be the most war like and most Valyrian city, under its elephant triarchs had signed a peace treaty with the Rhoynar, with whom the Valyrian's they had fought with so many years ago. While Norvos and Qohor who should have welcomed the Rhoynar as a buffer between them and the Volantis went to war instead.

The War for the Rhoyne was short, lasting under one year and resulted in an impressive victory for the Joint Sarnori-Rhoynar alliance. This was due to luck more than anything else. Firstly, Qohor did not expect any true aid from the Sarnori to come, especially as the relations between the two kingdoms were so new. Therefore when 20,000 Sarnori arrived at their gates and set up siege engines within less than a week the City of Qohor surrendered and withdrew from the war without fighting. Satisfied that he had upheld his end of their alliance Alexi II returned home.

The Norvoshi were harder to defeat, however and soon war broke out on or next to the waters of the Rhoyne and Noyne. However they had made a mistake which King Garin III, King of the Rhoynar exploited. The Norvoshi believing the Rhoynar to be attached to the boats, fortified the parts of their city facing the river, but forgot about the main power of Rhoynar, that is their water magic. As such King Garin III used his water wizards to call upon a huge wave akin to a tsunami which destroyed the wall and all the defences of Norvos, breaching the city. When he did so many of the sellsword companies which composed the bulk of the Norvoshi army fled. Causing Norvos to surrender.

As a result of the war, both Norvos and Qohor had to give large tracts of land, including most of the upper river valleys to the Rhoynar, as well as large tribute of gold and jewels to the Sarnori.