Boran on the Moor; the incomparable Juulute Wolfheart was reared in the bar-

barous Wild Reaches. But perhaps the most remarkable mercenary alive is the
immortal Black Knight of the Keep.

The earliest extant biography of the Black Knight was written in the seventh cen-
tury -- The Lord of Khuzdul, by Hanjiwar. Says Hanjiwar: "In the fifth year of the
Lloroi Emperor Nibagisis, a noble lady, Itonje, wife of the guards captain Meljanz
Tankanis, was awakened in her bower by the laughter of an infant. Itonje fol-
lowed the sound to the tangle of the vinery and upon drawing back the foliage
she discovered a naked baby boy in a nest of leaves. Marveling, she took the
infant into her arms and carried him back to the house to show her husband.

"Heretofore childless, Meljanz greeted the tiny stranger delightedly. He named

the boy Surdamur Tankanis and reared him as his own son. Surdamur grew
into a robust and active boy -- in every way superior to his playmates. Friends
of the family flattered Meljanz and Itonje by declaring that Surdamur must be a
child of the gods sent to earth for some great and noble purpose.

The Black Knight An Imperial officer, Meljanz accordingly educated Surdamur in the arts of war
and the manners of a gentleman. The youth proved faithful to his comrades,
respectful of his superiors, and kind to his menials. A distinguished career
The earliest written accounts of mercenary soldiers, as the term is now com- seemed to lay open for the boy, but Fate had dealt him a turbulent hand.
monly used, date from the eighth century after the Cataclysm. In the year 766
A.C., Roton Shojut organized a band of five hundred horsemen to fight Khuzdul Being of a passionate nature, the youth became involved in the factional con-
in the cause of the city of Adeese. These early mercenary bands lived wholly flicts of his city's politics in forum and tavern. Challenged to a duel by a hench-
off the country, stealing and laying waste wherever they marched. Clouds of man of the Imperial governor, Surdamur fought and slew him. Declared an out-
smoke heralded their approach for miles; their cruelty even exceeded that of the law doomed to die on the Torture Wall, Surdamur disguised himself as a knight
wild nomads. When the dreaded word "mercenaries" was shouted, people named Morholt and fled to another province, finding his livelihood thereafter as
invariably grabbed the valuables at hand and raced for the shelter of their lord's a mercenary soldier.
fortress.
Romancers such as Kamakur of Taiho credit the Knight with many damsels res -
Each mercenary band conducted its affairs like a business enterprise. A cap-
tain demanded absolute obedience from his war-
riors during the duration of their contracts. Each
company made its own laws and had numerous
officers. A treasurer distributed loot and man-
aged all of the group's finances; an ambassador
handled the negotiations with employer and foe
alike. Oftentimes, the ambassador was busier
than the fighting men -- it was not unheard of for
a mercenary company to switch sides several
times in the course of the same campaign.

It was the development of a hard-currency econ-

omy in the South Plains which made the merce-
nary trade possible. The merchant oligarchs of
the trade cities were not reared to arms and they
required outsiders to act as soldiers. The system
functioned well when modest numbers of merce-
naries were hired for self-defense purposes, but
when the ambitious cities grew in wealth and
maintained entire hireling armies for months or
years on end, the oligarchs began to lose control.
Mercenary captains realized they could be the
arbiters of power; one of the earliest captains to
seek self-aggrandizement was Esheq the Ginnui,
who led a mercenary army in revolt against
Adeese and established a personal rule. Similar
usurpations plagued the South Plains between
the eleventh century and the thirteenth, up until
the Shucassami conquest swept the last of the
petty tyrants off their thrones.

Today, as the northern kingdoms of Minaria

become stronger economically, large wars may
entangle several states at a time, demanding
more and more mercenary soldiers. It remains to
be seen whether the northern governments are
strong enough to keep their sell-swords in line
and prevent the abuses that occurred earlier on
the South Plains.

Mercenary captains are individualists and vary

considerably in background. Isfanon
Deathdealer was a runaway stableboy from The mercenaries of Minaria

1
cued and monsters slain during this early period. It is more certain, however,
that Morholt wearied of the sell-sword's life after a few years and joined the
Imperial Army.
These were troubled times in the dotage of the thousand-year-old Lloroi Empire.
The governing class had grown greedy and oppressive, creating such malcon-
tentment among the people that a social explosion was bound to happen soon-
er or later. Finally, as if in answer to the prayers of so many would-be rebels, a
leader arose, an evil wonder-worker half-demon who seduced millions into his
following -- the Scarlet Witch King.
Great stretches of territory fell to the Witch King's Scarlet Army before the deca-
dent Empire was ready to resist him effectively. During the long war Morholt
served with dash and distinction, overthrowing many a castle beholding to the
Witch King and routing the enemy wherever he encountered him. His merits
earned him many a well-deserved promotion until he had attained lofty rank.
During the later stages of the war, several desperate battles were fought along
the various approaches to the enemy's stronghold. Morholt had been carefully
monitoring the Scarlet Army's probing advances, and feigned to react to them
as if fearful of the enemy's strength. When the Witch army's confidence turned
to insolence and its troops advanced carelessly through a risky defile, Morholt
led his knights to battle. The enemy's troops broke and fled up against a moun-
tain wall, at which point the battle degenerated into mere butchery.
Morholt's victory opened the way for the Imperial Army to inundate the enemy's
heartland. The Scarlet Army rallied on the Field of Maskiki (ever afterwards
called the Field of the Wasted Dead), but was brought down after six separate
battles. So much magic was employed by both sides across the battlefield that
the bodies only partially decayed, even after the passages of centuries. Ghosts
and demons seem to lurk just behind the veil, and on inauspicious nights they
sometimes emerge to terrify and kill.
Though he had won a great victory where Lloroi-born commanders had only
harvested disaster, when the rolls of honor were proclaimed in the Imperial City
of Niiawee, the name of Morholt was scarcely cited. The triumph was attributed
to a pompous Lloroi Grand Marshal and his inept staff.
Embittered, Morholt resigned his commission, already planning the most fateful
adventure of his life. He dared the punishment of the magical and mechanical
safeguards of the inner Sun Temple at Hyyx to seize "the One Hundred and
Nine Lenses" -- the magical windows into the sublime plains of the spirit world.
If he could not have the Empire's honor as a hero, he had vowed to win its notice
as a rogue.
For three years Morholt was the most hunted man in all the Lloroi Empire. He
avoided capture until surrounded by the flying knights of the Emperor's own
bodyguard, the Order of the Hippogriff. Having great respect for these least-cor-
rupt of all the warriors who served the Empire, Morholt declined to inflict death
upon any of them when escape was obviously impossible.
Ushered in chains before the aged Emperor Nibagisis, the Knight's questioners
demanded to know the whereabouts of the stolen Lenses, the most treasured,
sacred relics the state possessed. The Knight replied that the life of a fugitive
little commends itself to carrying extensive baggage, and so most of the Lenses
had been lost, traded, stolen, or sold during his wanderings. The Sublime
Emperor turned livid in rage and the High Priest of the Sun raised his magic rod
for a vengeful blow -- when Morholt suddenly threw himself on his knees,
inspired by a ruse to save both body and spirit.
His life, he wept, had been a torment of guilt, shame and pursuit by demons
ever since the hour of his sin. Finally -- when the tactical genius perceived no
one was of a mind to do him the slightest kindness -- he begged that they grant
him a death by torture, which he saw as the sole means to assuage his suffer-
ing conscience.
"You shall not escape so easily!" declared the High Priest. "With the Emperor's
consent, I place this geas upon you: You shall be denied the peace of death
until all One Hundred and Nine Lenses are returned to the Temple at Hyyx,
though it may take ten thousand years!"
2
"It is impossible," said the penitent Morholt. "Old age, wounds or disease shall
foil me -- no matter how my burning conscience pushes me ever onward!"
"Neither age nor wound nor disease shall free you from your pursuit!" said the
High Priest, breaking off the crown of his own magic staff. "This talisman is
charged with the power to heal and rejuvenate you, in mind and body. Though
you bury it in stone, burn it in fire or hurl it into the sea, it shall ever return to
remind you of your quest!"
Under the surveillance of the stern priests of the Sun, Morholt retrieved many of
the Lenses, all the time swearing that his curse was too much to bear. The
priests believed his story of woe and were pleased that he suffered so.
The distinctive helmet worn by the Black Knight
Then the Cataclysm struck. The then-Emperor, a depraved reprobate named
Tenguit, along with the city of Niiawee perished beneath the sea. Fire, ice and
stone rained upon the land and when the sky cleared a new map of heaven
blinked down on the earth; also, a new moon had appeared in the heavens, like
a clouded, dead eye studying balefully the end of Lloroi civilization.
Through it all, the knight Morholt lived on. A world died, but a single hero did
not. Stunned survivors followed him desperately and clung to his wise leader-
ship. In time such people came to consider him a god, the Immortal Lord. He
led his following through the catastrophic after shocks of the Cataclysm and
defended them against starving marauders. Finally, Morholt's band discovered
the city of Kuzdol, whose protected location in the midst of an oasis had allowed
its people to endure though the lands all around had turned arid. The Immortal
Lord laid claim to the town, swore himself to its protection, and ruled there for
many generations. Under his stewardship, Kuzdol grew strong and developed
a trade with the nomads -- many of whom were the descendants of imperial sub-
jects -- and later with other rising cities of the South Plains.
But the long years worked a change on the Immortal Lord. The epic poem The
Immortal Lord and Heia by Daimyo expresses in dramatic words the tragedy of
an endless life. No lover, no friend of the Lord, escaped the rotting blight of age
nor the tragedy of what he considered early death. Morose and lonely, the age-
less Lord hardened his heart, lest the bereavement wrought by Time drive him
mad.
During the excitement and challenge of the Years of Chaos he had not searched
for the Lenses. Now the Lord was frequently absent from Kuzdol, again taking
up the quest, unwilling to wait ten thousand years for death. He took each
recovered item to the Temple at Hyyx, called by the Kuzdolites "the Spires to the
Sun," where the descendants of the Order of the Hippogriff still reigned, and
who still regarded the Knight as a barely-penitent criminal. In his travels, he saw
the world slowly righting itself after the devastation of the Cataclysm. He failed
to heed the import of some of the things he saw, however. Men were now con-
fident of survival; they wanted more and were prepared to take it from those who
had it.
The Lord's rule in Kuzdol became more severe and his person ever more
remote from those he governed. He imagined that he would hold the crown for-
ever and scorned it for a meaningless bauble. His manner grew careless and
indifferent; he neglected his growing work load for brooding.
With the rise of trade, wealth, and culture in the South Plains, bold new ideas
made themselves felt. Already Adeese had expelled its nobility and merchants
governed in a grand council. Their example tempted the merchant class of
Kuzdol to seek political rights commensurate with their social prominence. After
all, they knew that the Immortal Lord was no god, but simply a wretch under a
pitiful curse. They no longer thought he even governed well. At last they struck
at him in the darkness, driving a poniard deeply into his heart. Afterwards, the
upstarts hung the hero's lifeless corpse from the battlements. But when the light
of dawn shone down upon the meat hooks which held his body, they dangled
empty.
For a long time the new merchant oligarchy of Kuzdol feared that the missing
Lord would return in vengeance. To defend themselves against that eventuali-
ty, as well as discover the treasured secret of longevity, they carefully studied
A drawing (supposedly rendered by the Black Knight for his own amusement) of how a siege of Stubstaff overwhelmed in a duel with a powerful abomination,
Keep would look
3
the captured Stub Staff. When its secret eluded the wise men of Kuzdol, foreign
sorcerers were employed to experiment upon it, all to no avail. As the genera-
tions who had known the Immortal Lord passed away, their successors began
to doubt that he had ever existed, or that the Stub Staff ever possessed power
of any kind.
The Stub Staff was put away, a curiosity of historical value only, until an ancient
mage appeared at court. He was hideously old and seemed to sob for pain with
every breath. He claimed to have read secrets in the Witchlands of the far south
which had revealed the means to release the beneficent magic pent up in the
famed Stub Staff. No sooner had the oligarchs placed the relic into the ancient
one's knobby hands than the mage escaped the citadel with a vigor and stealth
which belied by his wretched condition.
The oligarchs' swift guardsmen followed the path of the fugitive into the desert
skirting the Dry Mountains. Suddenly they were confronted not by a hoary sor-
cerer, but a towering warrior in ebony armor; now, at last, the pursuers knew the
Immortal Lord still lived. "Defend yourselves!" he shouted as he assailed the
servants of the city which had betrayed him. Only a few surrendered guards -
men survived to tell the tale of the Black Knight's return to Kuzdol.
He who called himself the Black Knight did not attempt to reclaim the throne he
had long enough occupied and learned to despise. He
had been much-changed by the century he had passed
without the magical Stub Staff -- wounded in the heart,
aging, yet unable to die, he had wandered long and far,
at times too demented to recall even his own identity.
Now, at the end of penance, the immortal one had
become an aloof and taciturn entity, seemingly com-
plete in himself and in need of nothing and no one. It
was said that the Knight chose to suffer the company of
no friend for more than a year and the love of no maid-
en for longer than a month. When the time was up, the
beloved one was sent away, albeit with the Knight's gifts
and good wishes. By such self-discipline, the Black
Knight avoided heartbreak that immortality imposes on
a nature that was never made to endure it.
From the eighth through the thirteenth century the
Knight's skillful leadership was sought by many cities.
From this time the hero took to chronicling many of his
adventures. There was the time he went into Girion to
command the armies of the enfeebled Gyhara
Confederacy against the virile power of the Yanna
tribesmen. While he fought the barbarians in the open
country, the government of Gyhara collapsed in a point-
less revolt. The army dissolved around him and the
Yanna swept in to fill the vacuum. But this was not a
total defeat for the Knight. The people of the city of
Dahoon appealed to the hero to deliver them from the
barbarians and he successfully led them north to Jipols,
which became an ethnic Gyharan city that kept its inde-
pendence until the Shucassami conquest -- a people
who were, ironically, close racial cousins of the Yanna.
But in the interim, Jipols grew rich through trading with
their conquered homeland -- now called Yannagyhara,
since a successful merging of the new people with the
old had taken place.
Though some were mere travelogues, some of the
Knight's books became classics of military tactics stud-
ied to this day: The Bisini War, The War of the Three
Tyrants, The Wisnyo War, and many others. During the
invasion of the "abominations of the land and the hor-
rors of the air," the Black Knight hurried north to fight in
defense of Beolon. On Deadrune Hill he was utterly
losing an arm and a leg. It had been long since the
Knight had been so pained and disabled; he savored
the experience for as long as he dared, until the abom-
inations forced the evacuation of Beolon and immortal warrior was well-advised To the man who cannot dies,
to heal himself by means of the Stub Staff and join the flight. The man with tear-burning eyes.

When he was about twelve hundred years old, the Black Knight found a new At times I've been a vagrant,
field for his genius. The port of Parros had grown rich and mighty on its sea Sometimes a baron strong;
trade, but had been eclipsed by the rise of Mivior, Rombune, and states farther I've worn a kingly miter,
south. Worse, pirates were now extorting a high tribute from the Parrosan cap- But at no time could belong.
tains, sometimes within sight of the city's watchtowers. Humiliated, the tyrant of
Parros turned to the Black Knight for deliverance. Although the Knight had pre- Whene'er I settle in a home,
viously known the sea only as a passenger, he accepted the challenge with his It turns to dust, leaving me alone,
accustomed ingenuity and vigor. He met with skilled captains and practiced And so, broken of heart,
command upon the high seas. Finally, the Knight led the fleet of Parros against I sigh and make a new start.
the reavers and swept them from the sea lanes.
I recollect my family
Grateful Parros held a week of celebration in the Knight's honor. Alas, during And what we used to share.
the festivities an adventurer from Rombune drugged the Knight and stole the It's been long since we parted;
Stub Staff from about his neck. Furious, the Black Knight pursued the villain They're but spirits in the air.
down the southern coasts until he learned that his talisman had been sold to
Dorca, queen of Zuhr Rath. The queen, afraid of age and death, had offered an To be a babe among my kin,
award to any who could preserve her life and beauty. However, when the angry Ere callous ways and thoughtless sin --
Knight arrived, Dorca was stricken with admiration for him. She returned his From stars shining above,
property with all courtesy, but near the end of his usual month of grace the Do they smile with love?
Knight prepared to leave. Unless his lady was immortal, he knew, love meant
eventual bereavement, an agony he had often known and could not bear. I'm reminded of my ladies
By the nightbird's cry;
Driven to despair, Dorca threw all caution and subjected herself to a black magic Springtide turns to winter
spell which promised her eternal youth. Betrayed by her magician ally for his In the twinkling of an eye.
own purposes, Dorca was granted in the darkest and most horrifying way. She
was changed into a vampire, albeit one of a strange and superior kind. Even at Nature took back all she gave,
that, Dorca found this variety of immortality to be a foul mockery of the god- Beauty's loss foretells the grave --
desshood she had expected. Afraid to see disgust in the Knight's eyes, the For all, but not for me,
queen concealed the nature of her transformation until after he had gone from Death, finally, must be.
her life. Only after many years had passed did the Knight learn the truth about
the beloved Dorca, to his inconsolable grief and regret. What can be the meaning
Of my eternal life?
Meanwhile, the theft of his Stub Staff had convinced the Black Knight that he Who can put a value
needed a permanent stronghold in which to hide the precious talisman. On all this war and strife?
Accordingly, when the city of Sephir offered him its ducal tiara in gratitude for his
having saved it from a Muetaran invasion, he accepted both the honor and the I've seen nations rise and die,
responsibility. Watched it all and wondered why
They fight, flourish and fall --
The Knight ordered Sephir to construct a fortress, one which he named the To be forgotten by all.
Keep, but which most people since have called "Stubstaff Keep." In its under-
ground labyrinth he installed a cleverly-concealed vault for his talisman. Am I living to no purpose?
Guarded by many traps, both mechanical and magical, the Stub Staff is to this Is everything a waste?
day kept secure from thieves and pillagers. Is there no direction
To the byways that I've traced?
Sephir has prospered under the rule of the Black Knight, despite his intermittent
absences in foreign wars. The city had from the first day given him its whole- That choice I made,
hearted support and maintains for his convenience the loyal Stubstaff Guard of So long ago,
Honor. Was it my wyrd?
I'd like to know --
Life in Stubstaff Keep must agree with the Black Knight, for people say that he This blade, burnished and cruel;
hasn't gone in search of a Lens in the last ninety years. My fate, or only a tool?

The Black Knight has told much of his life story, but is not the sort of man who For those lenses that I scattered,
likes to bare his breast to the world. But it is perhaps not difficult for another to I've sought both high and low;
guess his grief. The poet Omni conjectures that the Knight might feel this way: I've searched from sea to mountain,
From heat to blinding snow.

I fear my quest cannot be won,

The Endless Knight I'll always be the cursèd one --
Until mankind is past,
And I stand here, the last.
I'm facing Forever
As the shadows grow; Sometimes the act of living
How long I have wandered? Seems more than I can bear.
I simply do not know. I've roamed so many places,
Both sorrowful and fair.
From breaking day to setting sun,
The countless years, they all seem one Aft sundry tries at doing right,

4
I hardly know what's black or white.
How does a man grow wise?
Can't life open my eyes?

I lose myself recalling

All those withered years,
All the times of laughter,
The times of bitter tears.

Have I left a legacy?

What will men recall of me?
In time, surely, I'll know;
Alas, where can I go?
It always makes me saddest
When I gaze ahead,
When all I know is perished,
And all I cherish dead.

Away from grief I turn my face,

And dearly yearn to leave this place --
For heaven, or even hell;
Can't sorrow sunder this spell?

But there has to be a finish,

I'm as sure as I can be;
I'm not a godlike being,
Just a man, as you can see.

Is there no means to end my pain?

To find my rest while I'm still sane?
If here, tell me, I'd know;
If there, tell me, I'll go.

Is there no means to end my pain?

To find my rest while I'm still sane?
If here, tell me, I'd know;
If there, tell me, I'll go.