Rorek Morn

Rorek Morn is a wandering war priest in the Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles") campaign. Clad in full armour and carrying a war hammer, he had taken refuge in the fortress of Sarpyar, where he healed wounded soldiers with white light, tending them until his strength was spent. Such wandering war priests are rare, and much valued by armies. He said that his god forbade dying without taking vengeance.¹²³

His oath

The priest swore by Alarath, who is held to be the god of war and justice, with the domains of war, justice, order and vengeance. Alarath is not known as a forgiving god, and an oath of allegiance to him carries a heavy responsibility. His teaching puts courage, valour and loyalty to principle above all, asks the virtuous to show their stand without counting the cost, and counts cowardice a great sin; evil, it holds, cannot reign unopposed, and there is honour in a brave defeat.⁴⁵⁶⁷

When the rebel commander Rainer Karga challenged the fortress to single combat, the priest wanted to answer it himself, ready to die a martyr if need be: his oath did not let him leave evil unanswered, and if no one else stood forth, he must. His holy book, he said, counted it a sin to let evil go unanswered. Kemp Corvus's company argued that his healing was worth more to the fortress and that a duel might serve the enemy, and Kemp offered to fight in his stead, though the company also weighed the political risk of losing its commander. He said he would understand decisions taken for political reasons, but walked his own road and could not be held in the fortress by force.⁸⁹¹⁰

The duel

He sat in the war council and agreed to fight with ordinary arms. Among the volunteers he was chosen, the company judging that the priest best suited a mission meant to shed as little blood as possible. A well-dressed young squire attended him. When Ephorus brought him the decision, the priest said he would meet the condition he asked of Rainer and leave aside his own special gear. Talking with the drow, he said that his god counted even one thought to be of dark origin a brother; Ephorus wished that the god's followers made no such distinctions either, and the priest set the flawed man apart from the god.^11121314

He went out in chain mail with his hammer. A flashing, booming blow of the hammer shattered Rainer's borrowed sword, and for about a minute the two fought with weapons, fists, knees and elbows. The priest tired and opened his guard, while Rainer's breath never changed; when the priest broke one of Rainer's teeth, the rebel pressed in, knocked him down again and again and left him senseless, but did not kill him. Legionaries went out to bring him back.^15161718

He lived, burdened with guilt and low in spirit over his defeat, and healed the cut in his leg the next day; the soldiers' morale fell, though most of the townsfolk had not seen the whole fight. When relief cavalry reached Sarpyar, he went at once to tend their wounded. His pride partly restored, though he still sought the fault for the defeat in himself, he joined the force of Colonel Joseph Wilhelm to help its wounded, and parted from the company there.¹⁹²⁰²¹