Lars

Lars is the head of a caravan company in the town of Osterhn in the Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles") campaign, a northern-looking man who fights in mail with shield and spear. He owes the innkeeper Exalon a debt: Exalon, by his account, helped him escape the traces of his past, settle in Osterhn and meet his wife, and in return Lars promised to help him whatever came.^{1 2}

The rising against Jasper

When Exalon sent word that the time had come to repay the debt, Ephorus carried the message to the caravan shed. Lars took up his mail, shield and spear and came to Exalon, saying he would keep with honour the promise he had made for his brother's sake. He undertook to gather ten or twelve of his men within two days; with the woodcutters and Exalon's other debtors, Exalon reckoned, more than twenty fighters could be raised against Jasper.^{3 1 4}

That evening he met Kemp and Sarah at the inn. There were fourteen of them counting himself, he said, all caravan guards, and two of them came from the north. Exalon set the rebels at about twenty against a garrison of some thirty-five. Lars remembered Galmar as a good fighter and a werewolf.^{5 2 6}

Waiting in the cellar, he compared the values of the north with the religion and government of the south, which he could not get used to, and criticised the weakness of its leaders; Ephorus, born in White City, objected to judging all southern leaders alike. Lars offered to lend weapons and armour, and brought out of a wrapped bundle three costly greater healing potions, giving one to each of the three companions. They drank from them after the fight at the old well, and Kemp drank the last in the castle corridors.^{7 8 9 10}

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

In the fight for the castle, when the hounds of the houndmaster Alistar chased Ephorus, Lars and his men killed the hounds. Afterwards he ordered that any unusual spoils be shown to the company. In the days that followed he left a purse with their share and a note granting them free passage on the rafts and river transports under his control, and his men persuaded the mage Cassius to come and speak with them.^{11 12 13 14}

At Jasper's trial before the town's leading people, Lars sat among them, and his men kept order against unrest. Whoever governed the town, the rafts and caravans on the river remained his property and under his control, and he offered the company free passage by raft to their next stop once they were ready.^{15 16 17}

When the company finally left, two weeks late because the boats were busy carrying medicine and supplies, Lars was spoken of more as a harbour master than a caravan master, and he was thinking of founding a family in the town.^{18 19}

The soul trap

Lars was among the allies who came through a purple portal to help free the souls trapped in an abandoned stone town, moved by the protection he had once received. With Exalon he kept watch on the lake shore over two souls that mattered: Sarah's and that of Exalon's late wife. The helpers came back wounded but alive, and returned home through a magic door Exalon opened.^{20 21 22 23 24}