THE STONEWARD SAGA - The World of Stoneward

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The World of Stoneward
places, peoples and words

People kept e-mailing me to ask what things are, so here is a guide. Every name and word here I made up myself. Some of them took a long time. ("Hallaskar" took about two weeks.)

I drew a big map of Stoneward on poster board, with the mountains and the rivers and all the villages, but we don't have a scanner, so I can't put it on here. My dad says maybe we'll get one for Christmas. Until then you'll have to imagine it: mountains on the north and east, a big river coming down out of them and running south, and the three River Kingdoms along the river like beads on a string.

Places

Name	What it is
The Stoneward Mountains	The biggest mountains in the world. Snow on top all year. Home of the Hallaskar. The book is named after them.
The river Ambreth	The great river that comes down out of the mountains. In the old language it means "the long road."
Fallowford	Kestrin's village, on the river right across from the mountains. About forty houses, a mill, an inn, a forge and a ferry.
Kell	The biggest and strongest of the Three River Kingdoms. Ruled by Lord Vexmoor, the Warlord. Their banner is a silver pike fish on gray.
Lowmarch	The middle River Kingdom. Mostly farms and marshes. They don't want the war but they're scared of Kell.
Varrin	The southernmost River Kingdom, where the Ambreth meets the sea. Ships, merchants and spies. (They're going to be important in Book Two.)
Durrowhold	The greatest hall-city of the Hallaskar, carved inside a whole mountain. The Stone Council meets there. Kestrin's father was born there.
The fellmark	The old border stone between the rivers and the mountains, with two faces carved on it. There are supposed to be twelve fellmarks along the border but nobody knows where all of them are.

Peoples and Creatures

River-folk	The people of the Three River Kingdoms. Farmers, millers, boatmen and soldiers. They call the mountain folk "rock-heads."
Hallaskar	The mountain folk. They are NOT dwarves! They're regular people, just tougher, and most of them have gray eyes. They are the best smiths and stone-carvers in the world. They call the river people "river-rats."
The Grey Cloaks	Lord Vexmoor's own riders. Spies, soldiers and hunters. Nobody likes them, not even in Kell.
Thornwolves	Giant wolves with spiky gray fur like thorn bushes. As big as ponies. They hunt in the mountains in winter. They are afraid of fire, and (as of Chapter 3) of the crown.
Brannocks	Big shaggy mountain goats that the Hallaskar ride. They can climb a cliff with a person on their back. They're bad-tempered and they eat everything, including your boots. You'll meet one in Chapter 4.

Words

skarn	A bridge made of packed snow over a crack in the mountain. Can hold you or not. You don't find out until you're on it.
hallow-light	A pale green moss that glows in the dark. It grows in caves. The Hallaskar use it instead of torches.
keld	A spring that never freezes, even in winter. Hallaskar say a keld is lucky.
dunnag	A Hallaskar swear word. It's not a bad one. It sort of means "rocks fall on it!" Pell starts saying it in Chapter 5.
Darkmonth	The river people's name for the coldest month of winter, when the sun only comes up for a few hours.
the Sundering	The day the Crown of Thalorn was broken in two, three hundred years before the story starts, and the one kingdom became two enemies.
emberhand	What the Hallaskar call a master smith. It's a title you have to earn. Kestrin's father earned it before he was twenty.

The Crown of Thalorn

Made by the first smiths of the mountains for High King Thalorn, the only king who ever ruled the mountains and the rivers together. It's made of a metal called aurin that the Hallaskar don't know how to make anymore. It can't stand lies: it gets warm when an honest person holds it, and it burns a liar, and its stones go dark when somebody lies near it. It was broken at the Sundering. The mountain half has peaks on it and three red stones. Nobody knows what the river half looks like, or where it is. (I know. I'm not telling.)