Ithákharóth, City of the Flame

As the threat of their awakening fallen kindred waxed fuller, many of the smaller Lánaraï settlements were abandoned as the citizenry sought protection, gathering behind the high walls of the greater cities. These cities were turned to bastions of safety, with defensive works being raised around the clock to ensure the guardianship of the now greater populace.

However the traditionally fiery citizens of Ithákharóth were not content to hide behind city walls and chose a more aggressive path in handling the rising danger. Ithákharine armies stormed forth from the city, often accompanied by troops of civilians who being scions of the mighty Aëdr were potent warriors in their own right. Gathering warbands of Kheïtanni were swiftly ambushed from the skies, trampled under the ferocious charges of Rhexarh Firelancers, and the remnants put to the sword by angry citizen-soldiers.

As Ithákharoth became a symbol of hope for the embattled Lánaraï, so too did it become a symbol of hate for the rising Kheïtanni who sought vengeance for the betrayal of the Násr Council and the terrible war that ended in their fall. Rapidly it had turned into a flashpoint for the growing conflict and the scattered skirmishes and ambushes across its dominions coalesced into all-out war.

The other Lánaraï cities were too engrossed in the tasks of managing their population boom and seeing off their own minor incursions to notice when the shape of the war changed.

Aëron, son of the legendary Aëdr general Vaëron-Sar had risen from the depths into which he had fallen and had assumed the leadership of the gathering Kheïtanni forces. Possessing a martial prowess far beyond any other upon Vónekh VII, Aëron forged the scattered splinters of malice into a single, black spear of focused hate. This spear he drove deep into the heart of Ithákharoth and shattered the spine of its fiery warrior people. The city fell within a week and as flames rise above its walls it burned its last.

The razing of Ithákharoth was the first victory in the war waged by the Kheïtanni against their hated kin. So great a portent of the fight to come it was that Aëron would later name his son in triumph over the broken city. Ithákhaëron.