About Damen MedvyedDamen Medvyed
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Damen is tall and lean, wiry rather than slender. His skin is rough, heavily sun-burnt and covered in small scratches and scars. Thick callouses cover his hands. His brown hair grows wild and is crudely cut, and he sports a rough beard. Alert brown eyes jump quickly from place to place, and lines around his mouth attest to much time spent laughing and smiling. -------------
Things happen in order. It isn't always the order people expect or the order they want, just the order they get. Younger sons are born after older sons, and youngest sons of youngest sons are born after all the best lands are handed out. Damen was a middle son, but the child and grandchild of youngest sons, an embarrassing branch of house Medvyed. It had produced free spirits, bards, wastrels, and bandits, not uncommonly all in the same person. The more reputable Medvyed had little use for the scoundrels, and what should have been a great asset proved to close and lock many doors. There are times when a locked door is a blessing, as when a troll is on the other side. Or when it forces someone around the long way, to the rewards and trials that brings. So Damen's greatest wealth was, in its way, his name. It drove him away from cities, away from ambitions of court or politics and into the forests, lakes, and mountains of far eastern Brevoy where he was raised. It was there he found his greatest joy. Damen's love of the trackless wilds did not prevent him receiving an education of sorts: his family may not have carried the wealth or respect of their more esteemed cousins, but they were still Medvyeds. His mind was sharp, and he most readily absorbed knowledge about all things natural. Hunting, geology, herb lore, and working with animals were all an easy extension of his skills. For years, his life would be schooling in a variety of topics, followed by hours spent in happy, random wandering that might not see him return home until the following morning. Sometimes, things happen in disorder. Bandit tribes form, plunder, thumb their collective nose at the law, and thrive for it. The fringes, the places that are neither all one thing nor all the other, are most known for this. So Damen's education came to an end when he joined an expedition to track down a particularly brazen group of bandits led by a chieftain named Gorz. Rumor among the greener bandit-hunters held that Gorz was nine feet tall, could cut a man in half with a blunt sword, cast powerful magic and summon demons, and was the son of an orc and a different, even bigger, orc. For weeks, Damen's party chased the bandits, who apparently grew wise to the chase and set a number of ambushes. Sevran, a skilled warrior and ex-soldier who led the party, kept them all safe; to Damen's pride, he was instrumental in sniffing out one of the ambushes. Sevran's luck was not so great with his own ambushes. Each time, Gorz and his bandits would slip the noose, and the hunt went on. Every night watch was tense, and every shadow was Gorz's infinite army of bandits ready to descend on the camp. Yet each night passed uneventfully except once, when a stag, inexplicably driven mad, crashed in among the camp. It was swiftly dispatched, but looking at the froth its muzzle dripped no one risked butchering the animal, and it remained where it lay when the camp was struck the following morning. After months of hunting, the bandits were trapped in a dead-end ravine in the foothills of the Icerimes. Cornered, Gorz led them to the attack, and Damen learned the value of rumor. The bandit chief was large, but human, and sickly, and clearly aging. After the chaos of the battle, when Damen drew praise for keeping his head in more ways than one, he sought out Gorz's body. The chief lived, weakly, and Damen set to tending his wounds alongside the other bandits and the injured bandit-hunters. As he worked, Gorz regained consciousness and his great fist clutched Damen's tunic. "Boy," he croaked. "You don't waste your time on your enemy." Damen shook his head, oddly finding Gorz more pitiable than frightening now. "I spend my time on a sick old man," he answered, and smiled. Perhaps there was a touch of malice there. Things happen. And then they happen again. Eventually, they grow wearisome. So it was for Damen. He spent several years after the hunt living his old life, wandering his forest, his lakes, his foothills. From time to time he'd have the opportunity to hunt bandits again, always alone. He enjoyed the chance to do good, but it was a lonely life. The camaraderie of hunting Gorz, of telling tales around the fire, of not knowing what was coming next: these were all missing. But word of his role with the hunting party had reached the ears of the Swordlords, and it happened that they had need of a scout to support the garrison at Fort Serenko. Damen dutifully accepted the assignment from Jamandi Aldori, hoping that the change of scenery would be to his benefit. Six months later the garrison of the fort was recalled, but Damen was one of three people retained to see to its upkeep. He spent a winter of spectacular boredom and quietly growing distaste with his fellow caretakers before the snows began to melt and a messenger arrived bearing mail for Restov. Instead of pay and the letter of discharge he'd been hoping for, there was something perhaps more precious: a charter, bearing his name, and a letter instructing Damen to accompany a chartered group that would soon arrive at the fort. The past few weeks have passed incredibly slowly, but each day has been filled with anticipation. A chance to leave! A chance to live! |
