Jeroth fled Numeria and the foul pall that hangs over life in the Black Sovereign’s realm. No, “fled” is the wrong word. He merely drifted away. He drifted like a bear which, having stood for days over the corpse of its mate, finally allows hunger to pull it along, to pull it back into the sparse routine of life.
Drifting eastward, he crossed the border into Brevoy. A few odd jobs, a few successful hunts, a few bad brawls followed. His strength, quickness and knowledge of the wild kept keep him in work, or alive, or both.
His ferocity too was an asset. It’s handy, those times when the strength surges through him and he fights against death. Not with anger, but with a supernatural determination that he, unlike all his family, won’t be put in the ground.
In fact, he rarely gets angry. The least kind of his recent “companions” would try to find some way to bait him, to taunt, to make him lose his temper and show that strength and toughness again. But it never worked. They’d just wake to find him gone, his belongs with him.
Moving from place to place along the southern border of Brevoy, he found himself in Rostland, mucking out stalls and sties on a small farm. The steady work and kind owner was good for Jeroth. Each morning he rose and looked east into the rising sun, feeling its warmth on his skin. The light falling on his closed eyes filled his mind with a soothing, enveloping red.
There was much to like in that land; if not the spoiled, rich nobles, then certainly the helpful common people and their sense of community. Jeroth recovered somewhat in Rostland, on that farm.
But one morning, he turned his eyes from the rising sun, opened them, and looked south.
The Stolen Lands beckoned to him. He had heard of those who would go and live in those lands, indeed have been hired to do so. Perhaps there a man might find a place to start over. There a man might make his own way, free from overlords, and on lands not stained with innocent blood. Perhaps there a man might build something of his own, something that could last.
Jeroth isn’t drifting any more. He’s walking due south, to a small trading post on the Rostland border. Someone there will need a strong arm. He increases the pace of his long, purposeful strides.
