The mysterious disappearance of Sir Lodin

Below is the first in a series of reports to Emperor Vesper Zuilkaarme on strange happenings throughout Lucardia around the time of the disappearance of his son, Prince Koen the Gray. You can read more about that disappearance here. I hope you enjoy them!

To His Most Illustrious Emperor,

I place before you an accounting of the disappearance of Sir Lodin of Grassglen and the party he raised at your vassal’s call for border pacification and levy compliance. I set down what is known, what can be reasonably inferred, and what—though unproven—bears the weight of consequence should it be ignored.

Sir Lodin departed Grassglen on the third morning before the season’s first snow, taking with him seventeen men of mixed quality: two sworn armsmen from his hall, six city watchmen spared by the burgomaster, and the balance drawn from timber crews, hunters, and two debtors indentured to Lodin’s household. They rode under the pretext of “retrieving the crown’s due,” which in the parlance of the northern marches has come to mean the seizure of Northling children to serve as seregates—replacements—against Grassglen’s tithe to Norn. As valid as His Imperial Majesty’s call to arms is, you need no reminder of the strain this year’s muster places upon lesser halls, nor of the muttering that has grown in the shadow of such seizures. Sir Lodin, ambitious beyond the talent of his birth, stated openly that he would bring back twice the needed number “to quiet the ledger for seasons to come,” much to the applause of his people.

His column kept to the forest line to avoid striking a silhouette against the freshly fallen snow. Tracks observed three days later by a patrol out of Coldmere corroborate a disciplined march at first: single file under the trees, horses kept at a light pace, and no wagons. Some freshly cut timbers and their shavings show two sleds were fashioned on the second day—likely for supplies and, by grim habit, for captives. The trail holds steady until a campfire is set and a smaller party, perhaps three or four, diverges from the main group and ventures toward the Great Step, where the the wind comes out of the dead lands with a knife’s edge. There, the prints are eroded by the wind and snow and there path unknown.

The main group’s tracks head north for a time, and then, they, too, angle toward the Step’s lowest saddle, a crossing the border guides call the Sheep’s Gate. It is not the route to any Northling village; it is a way into the Wastelands.

What impelled Sir Lodin beyond the Step is unknown. No order under your seal directed him there; no bounty was proclaimed for quarry upon that side. All in Glassglen know well not to venture beyond the protection of the Great Step. It is possible he believed the Northlings had spirited their children over the ridge—many do when they see riders approaching from the south—and that he meant to strike from behind. It is equally possible he was lured.

Four days later, a man crawled out of the white waste onto the south face, miles south of the Sheep’s Gate, and died under the eaves of the wolfswood with his face toward home. He wore the colors of Grassglen’s hall, though ragged and stiff. Both his hands were gone, cut, not torn. He had bound his wrists himself, left stump clenched between the teeth to tie the right. His ears showed frost-bloom, and his feet were black. He carried no steel, no token, no letter. The same patrol that found him followed his trail back until the wind erased it, but they certainly came the way of the Wastelands. For a time, the prints are those of a man driven to finish his last task—staggering, falling, rising, leaving blood at each knee. Then the wind takes the trail to oblivion. His suffering was great, and his grit to struggle through the cold and snow under such circumstances should be commended. We have freed his family from the tithe for their loss and provided them with a small monetary token for his sacrifice in your name.

I am aware that border stories multiply like hares and that the Wastelands swell every tale to fill the space the listener will allow. I exclude the worst of these rumors and superstitions, and present to Your Imperial Majesty what remains. Hunters say the night the first soft snow fell, screams were heard coming from the Step at dusk. Days later, two riders in black were seen upon the Wastelands plane, heading south. The same hunters swear they also saw small figures in a file pass along the Step who did not sink an inch into the crust. Our patrol found no such apparitions, and I instructed my men to trust their eyes before their fears.

It is the emptiness that declares Sir Lodin’s fate. Those who cross the Step and do not return are not always dead, but they are always lost. Men disappear for reasons that belong only to the land. Yet I cannot release the idea that something more deliberate acted here. The spirits of children are more like the conscience of men who sell orphan children to protect their own, but the two riders in black heading south piqued my interest.

Your Imperial Majesty will already have judged, and rightly, that the disappearance of a vassal under arms while executing levy business touches not merely the pride of Grassglen but the dignity of the Throne. That Sir Lodin was a backward man from a backward city does not soften the blow. The raid was undertaken in Your Imperial Majesty’s shadow, whether or not under express writ, and its frustration will be read by friends and malcontents alike as a strike at the arm that reaches north. The Northlings will take heart; your own barons will mutter that the cost of the tithe grows heavier, and some will whisper that the north answers us now with its own summons.

Therefore, I offer recommendations within the bounds of prudence and the limit of what men may do where maps thin. First, make public the simplest truth: Sir Lodin and his men were lost in a storm beyond the Great Step while prosecuting illegal seizures. The word “storm” serves us; it is both fact enough to satisfy the reasonable and a balm to keep zeal from boiling. Do not lend the Wastelands the dignity of an enemy by naming them as such. Second, quietly forbid further raids north without express writ under your seal and the escort of the March. If boys are to be counted for Norn, let it be done with the law present and the law seen. Third, send a lean, disciplined force under a captain who knows the ridge to search the Sheep’s Gate after the snow crust sets firm. Their purpose is not retrieval; it is a message. They must be seen by the Northling watchfires and by your own villages. Let them leave a cairn at the saddle—stone on stone, simple and honest—with Sir Lodin’s name and crest upon it. The living read such piles as warnings; the dead read them as doors.

As for Grassglen, it will want a show. Deny it one. Remove the burgomaster’s levy exemptions for one season to pay the cost of the search, and appoint a steward to Sir Lodin’s hall until an heir is confirmed who can keep his men on the right side of the Step. Send grain northward, not as a concession but as winter prudence, marked with your crest so no one can mistake the hand that steadies the bowl. Full bellies in the north think less about revenge.

You will note I do not recommend pursuit beyond the saddle. Your Imperial Majesty’s army may cross any line in Lucardia with your decree, but the Great Step is not one of them. To send small forces after ghosts is to feed the white fields with names we will have to pray over later. Better that we hold our side clean, our ledgers clear, and our summonses lawful. The Wastelands take whom they will; we need not help them eat.

I close with the hard residue of what the snow would not tell. Sir Lodin crossed into a country that does not keep time the way we do. He vanished there, as men have vanished since before the first watchfire. The one who came back without hands did not live long enough to give us more than the manner of his end, and even that he could only carry, not speak. What remains for us is to hold the border as a border and not as a door, to keep our levies within the law, and to let the unlawful see that when the Throne is touched, it neither thrashes nor trembles—it measures, and it answers in its own time.

Your loyal servant,

Grand Marshal Astros

For those who have read Koen: Quills from the Raven’s Nest, the mystery behind this report is known. I hope you enjoyed the different lens. For those who haven’t yet delved into the pages of my newest novel, here is a crumb.

Cheers!