Characters of the Sundering Basin

Raef Sorensson

Called the Last Eldr. Age 36.

Ten years ago, Clan Eldr fell in a war with Clan Vargir, and Eldrhold burned. Raef was on the line when it fell and got back hours too late. The hall was still burning when he rode down, and his father, his wife, and his four-year-old daughter were gone. He buried his family himself and walked away. For three years he gave no name at all. He still rarely does. When he has to, he gives his father's name and lets people work out the rest.

Jarl Rurik of Blackford hunted him for a time as the last fighting man of Eldr, then gave it up. Some in the North believe the last Eldr died years ago. Others say he still wanders the roads as a contract fighter, and they're right. He works contracts now with Torin at his side. When he hears that the heir of Clan Haldren and the boy's mother are running from the man who killed the boy's father, he sets out to find them first.

He's six foot two and heavy through the chest and shoulders, with a shaved head, a full dark beard worn in a single braid, and hazel eyes. Scars cross his torso, back and forearms. The Eldr knotwork and rising flame is marked on his right arm, and a simple cross on the left side of his chest. He carries his father's sword across his back and touches the cross on its pommel before every fight. He rides a true-black northern destrier that accepts him and nobody else. His faith is Auren, held privately and never announced. He reads every room for threats the moment he enters it, and when something feels wrong, he goes completely still.

Brynhild Runasdottir

Widow of Ulric, mother of the Haldren heir. Age 25.

Born to Clan Skeld, the daughter of Hersir Torvald of Skeldvik and Runa, who died years before the story begins. She married Ulric Staviksson, heir of Clan Haldren, in 730 AF, and gave him a son. She was raised to run a great household, not to fight. Then Varic came to a feast at Haldrenhold with twenty armed men, and her husband and the Jarl died in the hall. She got out with her son, the clothes she wore, a kitchen knife, and a pair of gold earrings, and she ran north.

She stands five foot two, lean and strong through the shoulders and hips, with fair, lightly freckled skin, near-white blonde hair she keeps braided, and hazel-green eyes. On the road she wears a dark green riding cloak and learns the axe and the round shield. She rides a steady roan mare.

Her parents kept the Northern gods. Brynhild chose Auren herself, as a girl, after a priest came through Skeldvik and what he said made better sense than what she'd been handed. She straightens Lucan's clothes without thinking about it, touches her braid when she's anxious, and keeps her voice light when things are bad so the people around her stay calm.

Lucan Ulricsson

Heir of Clan Haldren. Age 6.

The son of Brynhild and Ulric, and the rightful heir of Clan Haldren now that his father and grandfather are dead. He still remembers his father. Varic needs him found, and his name and description are nailed up in market towns across the North.

He has dirty-blond hair cut roughly at the neck and blue eyes, and he's bundled into a brown wool cloak too big for him, a thick white scarf, and mittens on a string. Around his neck, against his skin, he wears a carved wooden token on a braided cord. Halivar put it there the night they escaped.

He asks why about everything, tests what he's told with small experiments of his own, and shares whatever he has without being asked. He copies the people he trusts, and before long that means Raef.

Eryndhael

Called Eryn. A young dragon.

Forty feet from nose to tail, with a wingspan near fifty, and still growing. Her scales are charcoal with a deep cobalt blue beneath them that shows in the light, and her eyes are molten gold. Her horns sweep back from her skull, and her long, whip-like tail serves for balance and for striking. She comes from the icy mountains of the far north.

She watches before she acts. Her tail tells you her mood: dead still before she strikes, sharp and restless when she's irritated. When her temper rises there's a low rumble you feel more than hear. She has no use for human gods. Eryndhael is her true name. Eryn is the human approximation, and she tolerates it.

Torin Dravensson

Raef's battle-brother. Age 32.

Torin found Raef in the years of grief after Eldrhold, and they've been on the road together seven years. He wasn't at Eldrhold when it fell. He's the son of Draven, a working man. He's the one who carries the jokes, and the one who tells Raef when he's wrong.

He's about six feet, solidly built without being heavy, with dark hair worn to medium length, a light beard, and a small scar on his face. He fights with a short spear and a round shield and rides a quick, responsive dark bay gelding. His Instinct Path tells him where a blow is coming from before it arrives, and he uses it to hold ground.

He follows the Northern gods and swears by them in the shortest form going: "Blood and iron." He reads the room and the situation the moment he walks in, he always knows how Raef is doing, and he can let the air out of a tense moment with one well-placed line.

Halivar Maelorsson

Head Mage of Clan Haldren. Age 62.

Born into a line of Haldrenhold mages and trained by the Head Mage before him, Halivar never studied at the southern academies. He served Jarl Stavik as Head Mage and chief adviser for twenty years. He was there when Varic first came to Haldrenhold at seventeen, and he saw something wrong in the young man long before he had proof. On the night of the coup he read the danger early and still couldn't stop the killing. What he could do was get Brynhild and Lucan out through the service passage, and he did.

He's an older northern man in dark layered robes and a heavy black fur-lined cloak trimmed in faded Haldren green, his deep hood often shading his face. His long grey beard is threaded with beads. He carries a carved wooden staff cut with knotwork and runes, and he rides an iron-grey horse with a dark mane. He has mastered Elementalism and is skilled in Mindcraft and Binding.

His faith is the Northern gods, and he uses the full, formal invocations: "Korvyr watch the field." He pauses before he speaks, keeps a hand on his staff when he's weighing a situation, and quietly takes himself elsewhere when a moment between other people is none of his business.

Kael Eiriksson

Ranger and beastmaster. Called the Ridge Hawk. Age 19.

Kael was born in the old Eldr lands and was nine when Eldrhold fell and his family fled. They settled in Vaelorvik, where his father, Eirik, fishes Lake Vaelor and his mother, Mara, mends nets and trades. He has a brother, Tor, and two sisters, Sigrid and Asta. He learned to range and hunt in the cliffs and forests around the lake, and four or five years ago he bonded with Rook, a ridge hawk.

He's five foot nine, lean and rangy, with weathered, light olive skin and cheeks often red from the cold. His dark blond hair is shaved at the sides and back, with a long braided top. His eyes are grey-blue, and a small Valknut is tattooed above his left ear, the mark of his ridge-clan's faith in the old northern gods. He wears a falconer's glove and carries a hunting bow, a short hand axe, and a nine-inch knife strapped to his chest. He'd rather fight at range, and he's very good at it. He rides a plain brown border gelding with a perch lashed to the saddle for Rook.

His eyes drift up to the sky even in the middle of a conversation, and he runs his thumb along an arrow's fletching when he's thinking.

Lysandra

Former agent of the Veil. Age 21.

Raised under a Steel House in the Vale and trained by the Veil, the Dominion's covert arm, in stealth, infiltration and killing. When she was given her first assassination, she worked out what it would lead to and refused. She fled before judgment, and the Veil has marked her for death.

She's about five foot four, lean, her strength in her legs, hips and core. Her skin is light with warm undertones, her eyes deep brown with a hint of violet, and her obsidian-black hair is tied high in a long tail. A burn scar on the inside of her wrist is a mark of her training. She carries twin daggers, six hidden throwing knives, and a short sword, and she rides a quick piebald mare. She fights with Flow and Instinct together, to intercept and kill.

She follows Veil Spiritualism. In any room, she sits where she can see everyone, and when she's uneasy, she checks her hidden blades.

Seraphine Veyra

Master Lifeweaver. Age 47.

She looks twenty-five. The White Spire, the south's great school of healing, tested her at ten, and the examiner's face changed when he saw what she could do. At sixteen she was expelled after a sabotaged ritual killed another initiate. She took the blame and left. Her family received her as a failure, so she went north, where the Spire's shadow doesn't reach. For thirty years she has moved on every seven or eight years, before anyone notices she doesn't age. Before the story begins she had spent three years in Skeldvik.

She's five foot seven and slender, with warm golden skin, thick deep-brunette curls kept bound, and amber eyes flecked with copper that glow faintly when she works. She dresses in southern layers, a blue-grey linen dress under a cream drape, with a leather belt of pouches and leather bracers. On the road she adds a heavy white wolf-pelt cloak, her one concession to the northern cold. She needs no staff. Her hands are her instrument, and her healing shows as a steady, low gold light. She rides a grey southern mare.

She follows Lysera, the Imperial goddess of wisdom. She brings her hands together for a moment before every healing, and she watches people with a stillness that feels like being diagnosed.

Daichi

Called Dai. Quartermaster. Age 23.

Dai was born in the Vale and came north as a small child, and everything about him reads northern except his black hair and slightly darker skin. He rode with a mercenary company doing escort work and left when its discipline turned to greed and infighting. In Skeldvik, Seraphine hired him as her bodyguard, and they left the town together.

He's five foot seven, lean and wiry, with warm tan skin, messy black hair near his shoulders, dark brown eyes, and patchy facial hair. He wears leather armor over mail and carries a spear, a round shield, and a tool kit for every repair the group will need. He rides a sturdy dun northern steppe gelding.

His faith is half Veil and half Northern gods, both genuine, and he swears by whichever fits the moment. He gives things away without keeping score, food and carvings and time. He notices what people need before they say it, and he says the right thing at the right moment, never by accident.

Varic

Warchief of Haldrenhold. Age 33.

Varic came to Haldrenhold at seventeen, and Jarl Stavik took him in as an adopted son and kept him at Ulric's side. He rose to Warchief and led the hold's warriors. Then he came to a feast with twenty armed men and killed the Jarl at his own table, while his second, Dravan, killed Ulric.

He tells the North that bandits did it, and that he holds the high seat only until the boy is safely returned. His riders search the roads with a small iron Haldren badge at the cloak clasp, asking travelers about a woman and a child taken by bandits.

He's an exceptionally large man, massively built, with long black hair, a thick, close dark beard, and cold, pale grey eyes. He wears heavy northern lamellar and plate and fights with a huge two-handed axe. His banner is an axe on a red field. Before he acts, he lets silence and stillness do the frightening.

Dravan

Varic's second. Around 28.

A northerner with no clan name and no patronymic, which marks him in the North as either a bastard or a man who cut himself off from his family. He rode in Varic's warband for eleven years before the coup, and at the feast it was Dravan who came off the wall behind Ulric and killed him.

He's a rare fighter, one who works magic and the blade at the same time. His opponents feel a push of force half a beat before each strike lands, staggering their guard. He carries a rune-cut tile at his belt. Varic sends him after Brynhild and the boy.