The Founding of the Stonewake Compact

Overview

The deep holds of the Stonewake Deeps swear themselves into the Stonewake Compact.

It follows The Dwarven Deep Holds and the hardening told in The Deepening of Stonewake, and comes before the wars over The Rootstone Heartwell. In this span the holds that keep the deep routes, reservoirs, and archives bind themselves into one realm.

From Many Holds to One Oath

The Compact is no break with the wider Ironspine Holds. It begins when one knot of deep holds in the Ironspine grows too important to stand alone. Their routes cross, their reservoirs feed one another, their archives hold one another's memory, and when one is attacked or flooded the others drown with it.

So they swear together. The holds that keep the most give orders to the rest, and the rest obey because the alternative is thirst, bad air, and a closed door. The oath is sworn over a reservoir with axes laid on the stone, and the Compact's first war-bands are raised to hunt the raiders, beasts, and rival crews that had been picking off the weakest holds one gallery at a time.

Seal and Reckoning

The Compact hardens the old sealing custom. A great closure now needs the word of several hold-keepers and a mark in the archive tallies, and is reckoned afterwards, rather than being one hold's act of force. A keeper may still seal first in a crisis, but must answer for it later before the gathered keepers of the Compact, where the strongest holds speak loudest.

The Stonewake Answer

The Stonewake Compact is the old Dwarven keeping made into a realm.

The Ironspine Holds endure by breadth. The Gloamroot Covenant is forged later by flood and abandonment, as told in The Founding of the Gloamroot Covenant. The Serathic League grows, ages later, from a crowded river, as told in The Founding of the Serathic League. Stonewake rules by holding the deep routes, reservoirs, and archives that everyone below needs.

Historical Significance

By the time of the Heartwell Struggles, Stonewake already knows what it claims to protect and why, and it does not bend. That is why the deep wars are so hard: neither side is making up its claim in the heat of the fight. Stonewake's war-bands of those wars go down armed into ways they have kept for ages, and they know every bad-air pocket, every false prop, and every sealed door a raider might be hiding behind. The first contest over who should hold the Heartwell is told in The Heartwell Stakings.