Gordon Geidorf

Gordon Geidorf is a witch hunter of the Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles") campaign. He arrived in the town of Osterhn with his close friend Varis, saying that his older brother had been killed there after trusting the wrong person. The two had not come on official business, and their order did not know they were there: Gordon served under the order's master for the region, and when his brother failed to return at the appointed time he came to learn from Jasper what had happened, and stayed for a vengeance of his own.^{1 2 3}

His brother had written that he suspected the goblins of the region of trading in bloodstone. Gordon learned from the companions that the brother had been treated by the town's doctor and had sat at the doctor's table with them, and the company came to suspect the doctor of his death.⁴

Arms and rank

Under his cloak Gordon carried an old muzzle-loading flintlock pistol, a longsword, and a bag of glass vessels that clinked as he walked. The pistol marked him as a captain of the witch hunters, for such arms were not given to everyone.⁵

The witch hunter captain is a rare rank, won by merit and perseverance rather than by seniority, and the witch hunters are known for favouring firearms, whose bullets pierce many magical defences.⁶

The goblin war

The witch hunters agreed to help Osterhn bring down the doctor's creatures before hunting the doctor himself. Gordon went with Kemp, Sarah and Ephorus to ambush a goblin delegation at its meeting place in the hills, while Varis joined another of Jasper's raiding parties. In the fight Gordon stepped in front of Sarah and shot a huge guard; unable to reload quickly, he drew his sword, and though an arrow struck him between shoulder and neck he cut the guard down. When one of his companions fell badly wounded he stood over them and made them drink a healing potion. No enemy escaped.^{7 8 9 10}

In a later clash with worg riders he shot the goblin officer Moluk from his white worg at long range, then fought on with the sword. When Sarah was struck down he prayed over her with his holy book while Kemp bound her wound, and afterwards carried her from the field in his arms.^{11 12 13}

The dawn inquiry

On the way back Gordon told the company that an official witch hunter had come to look into the disappearance of himself, Varis and his brother, and that the newcomer suspected people close to them. He assured Sarah that she had nothing to fear while he was there, and at dawn led the three to a meeting in the empty fields outside the town.^{14 15 16}

Spoiler: What happened at the inquiryRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #9; Sürgün Günlükleri #10; Sürgün Günlükleri #11 · Say what you have read

The newcomer wanted Sarah questioned, but Ephorus volunteered. Gordon bared his shoulder badge and laid on him a magic that pressed him to answer truthfully, and the moment Ephorus admitted that he knew people who used forbidden magic, Gordon drew his pistol and shot the other hunter through the head. He said he could not have given Sarah up, and Varis saw to the body.^{17 18}

Gordon apologised to Kemp for bringing them into danger unwarned; he had expected Ephorus to answer no. He feared that the dead man, whose order had turned its eyes on the region because of troubles nearby, would have blamed his own failures on the first witch he could find.^{19 20}

Later, on his return, he rode the dead hunter's black horse.²¹

Gordon told the company that years before, a baron of the region had been found to be a vampire and stopped by witch hunters, and that the order and the temple had since fallen out, the new grand master counting the other side as heretics. He and Varis, he said, were among the brothers who wanted to mend relations with the temple, follow the rule book rather than superstition, and return the order to its first purpose; they were still formally bound to the order and the temple, but did not report to the region's grand master. Killing extremists was not their usual way, and he admitted that his feelings for Sarah might have made him act sooner. This was less a separate organisation than a number of hunters who said they followed the same path, a view some political figures in White City supported.^{22 23 24}

Gordon told Sarah that he was drawn to her; he had been in the order since he was ten and was not used to speaking with women. She answered that she felt the same and kissed his cheek before he left. He set out with Varis to bear witness and show that they had not vanished, meaning to return within four days, or a week if things went badly; before going he asked Ephorus who had used the forbidden magic, and Ephorus named the old woman who had already died.^{25 26 27}

The defence of Osterhn

About three days later Gordon came back with Varis and six other friends, eight in all, having called in the debts of people he had once helped. Not all of them were witch hunters; some had been cast out of the order or held no rank, and besides Gordon and Varis only one bore a hunter's rank. They had come through the enemy camp, Gordon reported: the goblins were beginning to besiege the town, and he and his friends would fight in the battle for Osterhn. None of the eight was lost in it, though Varis and others were wounded.^{21 28 29 30}

Gordon judged Jasper flawed, but for the moment the only force able to defend the town. He had heard that a mine would soon be opened nearby and the road secured by the Empire, and expected Osterhn to draw imperial attention within a few months, a year at most. He asked to join the three in the most dangerous task, and they formed a team of four to strike at the goblin leader Borgar. Before the battle his friends laid down their swords to pray for the defenceless.^{31 32 33 29}

His pistol blew away part of the head of one of the doctor's creatures without stopping it. A goblin captured as the enemy broke was shown a map and threatened with Borgar's name until it pointed to a farmhouse in the northern fields; Gordon then killed it by smashing its head against the table. At the farmhouse the four fought the doctor's creatures and Borgar himself.^{34 35 36 37}

The case against Exalon

When Jasper accused the innkeeper Exalon of forbidden magic, Gordon said he would proceed by investigation, not torture. Jasper laid a dark dagger on the table and submitted to having his own mind questioned. Gordon found that he was not lying, ruled that hiding knowledge of magic was itself a crime, and had him flogged as penance. Because Jasper said he had seen Exalon cloud the soldiers' minds and call weapons out of the shadows, Gordon judged that Exalon answered to some powerful master.^{38 39 40 41}

He admitted Jasper could not be trusted, but needed his squad until the inquiry was over. He took the dagger to be examined by an expert and searched the inn with Ephorus, one of his hunters carrying an hourglass whose sand runs upward near certain magical objects; nothing new was found. He asked about the short sword Ephorus had from Exalon and said a simple magical weapon could stay with him. Then he posted a notice in the square, opening a witch hunt for Exalon in the name of the Inquisition.^{42 43 44 45}

Sleepless, he came to the inn and told the company that the townsfolk spoke well of Exalon, that he had been there since before some of them were born and that no one had seen black magic; learning that he had helped two woodcutters left him confused. When Sarah took his hand he removed his glove and kissed hers. The next day the hunters were seen galloping west, one fewer than before, for the wounded Varis was not among them.^{46 47 48}

Vengeance

Spoiler: Later eventsRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #15; Sürgün Günlükleri #16 · Say what you have read

Gordon came to the inn one morning tired and grieving: he had seen Sarah's body. He gave Kemp the small, modest ring with a stone that he had meant to give her, and asked to join the road of vengeance.⁴⁹

In the square he declared that Jasper had tricked him into leaving the town with the dagger and the denunciation, and counted him condemned to death. On his own authority he gave an order, under a name like decimatus, against everyone who had ever worn the colours of the Osterhn Squad, those who had surrendered included. His hunters pushed past the objections of the priestess into the temple's back garden, where the wounded prisoners lay; after the sound of weapons and screams Varis came out bloodied and ordered that eight bodies be burned, not buried. It was a hardening born of personal loss.^{50 51}

At dawn he came with Varis and a handful of riders: they had found the trail of the doctor, Benedict, and would follow it towards the Endless Forest. If he could not reach Sarah's funeral, he asked that someone speak for him there.⁵²

The soul trap

Later a letter sealed by Gordon Geidorf was left for Kemp and Ephorus with the Corvus house wizard Aethelwulf. It spoke of bad news he did not dare write openly, perhaps concerning Sarah, and asked them to send word to the witch hunter post at Boztepe so that Varis could visit them within days. Varis reported that the two had dealt with the doctor, but that in an abandoned stone town an old elven crystal vessel had become a trap for souls, tormented by a devil and its hounds. Gordon believed he had found a way to open it by exorcism, though the temple would not help, since the order had declared the matter closed.^{53 54 55 56}

Varis warned that Gordon might seem changed, for without a priest he had carried the spiritual burden of the hunt himself with his holy texts. When the company met him near the town he bore new scars, the mark of a broken nose, whitened hair and tired eyes. In his camp stood a closed wagon, which he chained shut with Kemp's help: what was inside was malign, he said, but essential to the solution he had found by studying Benedict, and must not fall to the enemy. He had tested the old, fallen priest who lived among the ghosts and judged him harmless.^{57 58 59 60}

Beneath an inscribed stone that recorded a devilish contract, the way down could not be found. Gordon, stressing that he was no priest, performed a rite with holy book and symbol in the Empire's sacred tongue, declaring the contract void; after a hard struggle he tore the obelisk out and broke it in four, the writing crumbled to dust, and a stair opened.^{61 62}

Kemp carried up from below a goblet filled with black mist, leaving his weapons with Gordon, who kept his pistol ready in case Kemp lost control. Gordon put the last rite off until dawn and asked that Varis finish it from his notes if he fell. When allies came through a purple portal, he made a holy address, telling them they would fight for souls known and unknown without expecting thanks.^{63 64 65}

At dawn the veil tore. Gordon kept to his prayers while the devil's hounds bit him and their hellfire washed over him. When the devil fell he deliberately turned the goblet over and closed it, keeping a large part of the souls inside, and then held Kemp alive by pressing on his wound and binding it with cloth torn from his own sleeve.^{66 67 68 69}

Spoiler: The last riteRevealSpoils: Sürgün Günlükleri #27; Sürgün Günlükleri #28; Sürgün Günlükleri #43 · Say what you have read

Gordon said that his last rite would send each soul in the goblet where it belonged. Then he and Varis opened the wagon: inside was Doctor Benedict, tortured but alive. Gordon said he had planned this from the start. Reading from a black book, he asked Kemp for the blood of kinship; Kemp cut his hand, and Gordon cut the doctor's throat and let the blood run into the goblet. The doctor's body dissolved in blood, and the blood became a new young body: Sarah, breathing. Gordon said he had wanted from the beginning to right that wrong. It was afterwards made clear that the doctor's soul, not the captive souls, had been the sacrifice, and that the goblet had been closed so that Sarah's soul would not slip away.^{70 71 72 73 74}

Gordon's hair turned grey and the life went out of his eyes and body. The holy symbol at his neck began to burn his skin, and he tore it off and threw it away. He said he would slowly lose his mind and his life and become a dead thing, and held it a fair price. He asked that Sarah be told he had died, so that she would not carry the weight of his sacrifice; Varis said he could never return to the order and tell what he knew, and the two kept the secret together. Gordon left some of his belongings, took a magic longsword the companions offered him and the ring of Sarah's that Kemp gave him, asking him to remember that he had done it for good, and disappeared into the dark of the forest. Varis believed that Gordon's will might hold his mind for decades, and promised to find Kemp when the day came so that they could end it together.^{75 76 77 78}

A tale would one day be told of that forest: a mindless dead priest in torn robes who punishes those who come with ill intent, whose coming is heralded by a whistled tune, for Gordon Geidorf never forgot the voice of the girl who sang in the little town.⁷⁹

On Aethelwulf's advice Kemp told Sarah that Gordon had been lost on a hard road while seeking a priest for her. She later carried Gordon's rapier, its skull emblem polished bright and its inscription covered, and Kemp knew it for his. Much later Kemp told her the truth: Gordon had broken his oath before his god to bring her back, and his body, if not necessarily his soul, was cursed; he still walked the path of good in the forest near the place of her return, wearing her ring at his neck. Kemp apologised for the secret, and they spoke of finding Gordon and helping him once their work was done.^{80 81 82 83 84}