Copied in the ash years by Brother Halwen, from older war-rolls, hall songs, and the testimony of dying men. Let it be known that these knights were not saints. They were blades, and blades are remembered for what they cut.
When King Haakon Blackcrest faced the Vega invasion, Sir Thorgrim swore to die defending the mountain passes. Instead, he surrendered and joined the enemy, revealing Regin's secret defenses. As imperial forces approached the capital, Thorgrim murdered Emperor Marius in his sleep and returned to Regin bearing the imperial head—revealing his "betrayal" as the most intricate feint in military history.
Thorgrim served three more Blackcrest kings before vanishing during a blizzard. His blackened shield hangs in Regin's throne room, reminding nobles that true loyalty sometimes wears treachery's face.
Though elven-kind rarely adopt human knighthood traditions, Lady Shalindra stood seven centuries as King Setruth's champion. During the Blood Harvest, when Blackwound entities breached Eldoria's borders, she rode alone into the corruption while carrying the realm's most powerful relic.
Three days later, the Blackwound receded—but Shalindra returned changed, her armor fused with flesh, her sword burning with impossible flame. She served silently for another century before King Setruth himself ordered her sealed alive in a crystal tomb beneath the castle, where legends claim she neither lives nor dies but watches still.
Imperial records deliberately omit this knight's name and face. Clad in crimson armor never removed in public, the Red Knight served four generations of Vega emperors as executioner, champion, and occasional assassin. Records confirm eighteen impossible victories, including slaying the Dragon of Ashenhollow alone.
The Knight disappeared after Emperor Vega I's suspicious death, though subsequent reported sightings span decades. Some claim the Red Knight is not one person but a position, each successor killing their predecessor to maintain the legend. Others whisper the original knight achieved immortality through forbidden rituals and now serves hidden masters beyond the throne.
Sir Othmar was born the third son of a narrow mountain house and was not expected to inherit anything but scars. As a boy he served in Blackcrest Citadel, where he learned silence before speech and obedience before mercy. He first came to fame at the Ladder Gate, when raiders from the frost passes came with hooked axes and burning oil. The gate chains were cut, the defenders scattered, and Othmar, still only a sworn knight of two winters, held the breach with a split shield and a butcher’s cleaver after his sword snapped. By dawn the dead were piled so high before him that the gate could not open.
His second great deed was done not in battle, but in judgment. Lord Ermen, to whom he had sworn his oath, sold grain stores meant for winter defense and blamed the starving on peasant theft. Othmar rode through three villages of dead children, returned to his lord’s hall, and hanged Ermen from his own banner-pole before the assembled household. For this he should have died. Instead the king pardoned him, because dead peasants cannot guard mountain roads.
His last and greatest deed was at Ash Pass. Goblin warbands and mercenary pikes descended together, while an early avalanche sealed retreat behind the Regin line. Othmar ordered the last powder kegs dragged beneath the overhang and remained with twelve wounded men while the rest escaped downslope. The blast buried the pass, the invaders, and Othmar alike. In Regin they still say the mountains stand where they do because Sir Othmar taught them stubbornness.
His shield, cracked through the center, hangs in a black chapel above the pass. No one has yet managed to remove it.
Sir Iason was not born noble. He came from the river wards of Vega, where boys learned to swim before they learned prayers and where hunger made soldiers of many. He rose first in the pit-fields, then in border service, and was knighted after carrying his commander’s severed standard arm and all back across a burning ford. Emperor Vega himself named him Red Lance, for he struck fast and seldom missed twice.
His first famous deed was the taking of Seven-Gate Maros. Three generals had failed to break the city. Iason did not batter the walls. He marched prisoners and camp followers openly before the western gate in chains, made the defenders watch for three days, then offered freedom to the first hundred captives willing to die with knives in their hands. The gates opened by treachery before dawn. The city fell by breakfast. The emperor praised the victory. The priests never blessed the ground again.
His second deed made him feared even among allies. At Red Ford, with the imperial host near encircled, Iason ordered the dam above the valley cut while both armies were still engaged below. The flood drowned thousands, Vega and foe alike, but broke the coalition against the empire for a generation. Men cursed him and promoted him in the same breath.
His last recorded deed was the strangest. During the Black Banner Campaign, scouts reported the Unseen Legion moving through a dead valley ahead of the imperial line. Iason rode forward alone, bearing no pennon, and was seen dismounting before the mist. The Legion parted for him. Whether he spoke, prayed, or bargained, no one knew. He returned at dusk white-haired and wordless, ordered the campaign abandoned, and resigned his command the next morning. He vanished within the month. Some say he drowned himself in the same ford he once flooded. Some say the Legion simply came to collect.
In Vega, mothers still threaten cruel sons with his name.
Dame Aelwen was born under the bough-canopies of Eldoria to a house older than some kingdoms. She was fostered first among rangers, then among court wardens, and took the thorn-oath before the Emerald Lake at an age when humans are scarcely trusted with horses. She wore silvered mail beneath green cloaks and rode without trumpet or parade. Where human knights sought banners, Aelwen sought silence.
Her first great deed was during the Mountain Plague, when Regin’s low forts sickened and their roads filled with the dying. Eldoria had no treaty requiring aid. Many at court argued to let the stone-men rot. Aelwen rode anyway with herbalists, water-mages, and six wagons of bitterroot. She crossed into foreign land beneath drawn bows, treated soldiers and peasants alike, and hanged two Regin captains who tried to seize the medicine for noble households alone. Regin remembers the cure. Eldoria remembers the insult. Both remember her name.
Her second deed was the slaying of the Glass Serpent of Mirrorglen, a beast older than the present crown of Eldoria. The serpent could not be tracked by scent and could not be faced by men who feared themselves, for its scales showed each hunter the worst shape of his own soul. Aelwen went alone, blindfolded herself at the creature’s pool, and killed it by sound, driving a thorn-spear through the roof of its mouth. From one rib was made the pale lance called Winter Mercy.
Her last and saddest deed ended a civil feud before it became war. Her own brother Cael sought to open Eldoria’s borders to Vega gold and iron, while other houses demanded his death. Aelwen asked for single judgment by blade. They fought in rain beneath the lake cliffs. She killed him cleanly through the heart and carried his body back without witnesses. She spoke no defense afterward and accepted exile from court for seven years.
When she returned, older and near voiceless, she refused rank, titles, and marriage. She left Winter Mercy at the roots of the throne tree and walked into the forest during first thaw. Rangers say a white hart follows them now on dangerous roads and never leaves tracks on the return journey.
So ends this little book of deeds. Remember them rightly: not as perfect souls, but as those rare few whose choices were heavy enough to bend the age around them.