Alistar

Alistar is an officer in the service of Jasper, the master of the small town of Osterhn, in the Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles") campaign. A man with one wounded eye, he met the newcomers in front of the castle, told them that anyone who worked for Jasper's men and took their pay was expected to behave like a soldier, and said that he looked after Jasper's dogs.¹²³

The innkeeper Exalon described him as a veteran of the drow wars and warned Ephorus that Alistar and drink together could be dangerous for a drow.⁴

Keeper of the hounds

Dozens of war hounds guard the road to Osterhn's castle. They growl at strangers but calm down when a member of the squad walks with them, because they are trained to the scent of the squad's red sashes; one of Jasper's men called this training Alistar's craft.⁵

When Ephorus, Kemp Corvus and Sarah Lia Galanodel rode out of town, Alistar offered them a hound instead of an escort. He explained that the dogs know the red sash, chase strangers and goblins, retrieve game and guard horses, and that after the losses at the start he had only ten or twelve left. With a whistle and a gesture he lent them a hunting hound he called Kara and asked for it back.⁶⁷⁸

Kara kept pace with the horses on the road to Diştepe. Ephorus thought its obedience so far from its master remarkable that he wondered whether it was enchanted, and Kemp said his own family kept similar hunting dogs. The hound waited tied up with the horses while the others scouted, and later growled at a captured goblin but did not attack once it saw the group treat the prisoner as theirs. When Alistar asked after the dog, Sarah told him it was at the camp.^9101112

Duties in Osterhn

At night Alistar led the five guards of the town square. Ephorus, listening in, heard that Jasper had plans for the newly arrived nobleman and the woman with him, and had told Alistar and Kerbor to overlook their small troubles for now. Jasper later said he had sent Alistar to talk with a caravan leader about hiring men.¹³¹⁴¹⁵

After the fighting against the goblin outposts, Alistar agreed with Ephorus to scout towards the goblins by night, the two of them with a few hounds. They set out with a larger party, then went ahead alone with one hound; Alistar rested while Ephorus kept watch, and they returned by the next noon without meeting anything of note.¹⁶¹⁷¹⁸

When Kerbor was taken, Jasper said he had persuaded Alistar not to lead the rescue himself, since sending either of them would play into the enemy's hands. Kerbor later told the rescuers that the cave where he had been held had once belonged to bandits, until Alistar and a team cleared it out.¹⁹²⁰

The defence of Osterhn

Before the goblin assault, Alistar pulled in the outer lookouts and watched only places that could be held, such as the bridge and the edge of the fields that could be lit. At the war council he took the bridge line with some of the witch hunter Gordon's supporters. When a beacon was lit on the far watchtower after the goblin leader fell, a cheer answered it from the tall building by the kennels.²¹²²²³

Alistar came out of the battle badly wounded. Varis said a big, hairy enemy with a long weapon had struck him from behind, and that although the priests had saved him he would need time to recover. He was carried from the temple to rest, and Jasper said they could not search the countryside properly until Alistar was on his feet again.²⁴²⁵²⁶

Spoiler: What followedRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #15; Sürgün Günlükleri #16; Sürgün Günlükleri #26 · Say what you have read

During Exalon's rising against Jasper, Ephorus found Alistar in a sickbed with two hounds beside him. Kemp refused to kill a wounded man in bed, but Ephorus waited until Alistar came out through the door with his dogs and killed him with an arrow from hiding. The hounds went after Ephorus; the caravan leader Lars killed one and a crossbowman the other.²⁷²⁸

The mage Cassius Varum then revealed that he and Alistar had been lovers, and asked for his body before it could be burned so that he could bury it in holy ground. The temple's priestess handed it over. Cassius believed Alistar had been killed in his bed. He planned to bury him in the blessed graveyard of Yeşiltepe, a village of ten to fifteen houses to the north, left at a fork in the road, which has no church of its own.²⁹³⁰³¹

Yeşiltepe grew up around an old water mill, now with fewer than twenty houses; the clear stream from the hill no longer has the force to turn the wheel, sunflowers are grown for fodder, and a small open-air alehouse has a handful of tables and no rooms. There Cassius said he had buried Alistar.³²³³

Much later, in a haunted village, Ephorus saw the ghost of a man he had once killed, accompanied by his dogs, who seemed still but not unhappy.³⁴