Osterhn

Osterhn is the small town where the Sürgün Günlükleri ("Exile Chronicles") campaign begins. It lies in the south-east, and the Foam River (Köpük Nehir) runs through the middle of it; on paper it belongs to the province of Akşelale. It is a refuge for those who could find no place in the Empire or were running from their lives, though the nearness of a chain fortress kept the worst kind of fugitive away. The first two travellers of the campaign came down the river to it in a small boat.¹²³

The town

The Old Quarter is where most people live. The Market Quarter holds the craftsmen, the wealthier townsfolk and a large market, with a tailor, a smith, a carpenter, merchants and the practice of the town's doctor; its trade is lively for a distant border town. The Harbour Quarter is the centre of trade, and a castle looks down on the town. Behind the castle and north of the town lie fields of wheat and barley, then farmhouses, and further out the woodcutters' huts.⁴⁵⁶⁷⁸

Its landmarks include the temple of Amarath, the Golden Ladle, a tavern where bards sometimes play, the Lazy Wizard, an inn of many rooms run by Exalon, the Torn Sail inn of the Harbour Quarter, and the Merry Buns bakery with its big painted sign. The house of the doctor Benedict Von Barrington and the shop of the gnome tailor stand in the Market Quarter.^91011121314

A drawbridge leads to the Harbour Quarter. Men in red sashes and half-face helmets held it, with two guards on the near side and an archer in a watchtower across the water; it was often raised, and by night the guards asked for money "as a donation" before turning the wheel that lowered it on its chains.^1516171819

Rule

Exalon said that the town had nominally been ruled by a baron who died leaving no one in his place, and that the tax office across from his inn had stood empty for some twenty years. By night the men of Jasper kept the square, three at the well and two walking irregular rounds.²⁰²¹²²

Tension ran between Jasper's men and the townsfolk. During one of Sarah Lia Galanodel's performances a quarrel grew between two woodcutters and one of Jasper's men, and that night the companions found the body of one of his men dragged behind a house.²³²⁴

After the goblin war

When the companions came back after a long absence, the Lazy Wizard was open to everyone and the kobold Pitt went about openly under Exalon's protection. Exalon told them that a hobgoblin force had passed through and damaged buildings while he sheltered the people in the castle, and that the census official sent after the war had been fed, given drink and bribed to go away, so that the town was still beyond the Empire's close watch.²⁵²⁶²⁷

The last stand

Much later the companions returned once more to the town where it had all begun, this time sent by a mage who asked no questions; Ephorus changed his face and walked in unchallenged. They spoke with the town's young head about freedom, taxes and the Empire's authority, and heard the townsfolk's view that they had rebuilt the town themselves, with the heroes' help against the goblins, and owed no one. A friend handed out wooden badges carved with the castle and a burning hearth.^28293031

The companions warned the people of a coming attack, and the townsfolk, who counted them living legends, listened; they asked the priest for help and planned to gather the families and notables by night and send the civilians away in the dark, perhaps by sea. They weighed meeting the enemy in the streets with traps and skirmishes, falling back on the castle, its courtyard, gate and bridge, and keeping a lookout in the tower, with a core of some fifteen defenders.^32333435

To hold the town they meant to call on old friends, the witch hunters and a small force from the families of Sara and Kemp, and they looked for a way to send word quickly enough for everyone to arrive in time; anyone who came, they agreed, would come of their own will, as they themselves had once risked their lives for one another. Because no one knew when, from where or in what shape the enemy would come, they expected no ordinary siege. They argued for naming one commander whose orders all would follow, and for falling back rather than fighting when needed. Placing their strongest allies close at hand, they reasoned, would also raise the danger of those allies' minds being turned against them.³⁶

Their aim was to draw The Puppeteer out in person. They expected him to keep away and set others in front of him, and planned to play on his obsession with respect and humiliation so that anger would bring him into the open; one idea was to pull him into a narrow pocket plane where he could neither move freely nor reach other people, though they weighed the risk of being watched or trapped themselves.³⁷

The friends they had called gathered in the town: people sent by the dwarf king, townsfolk, the witch hunters and mages, among them Catherine, Varis, Fortune, Baltazar, Barut and Karak. Karak offered to wait at the companions' door and stop anyone slipping in behind them, and asked them not to come out whatever sounds or deaths they heard below, so that the enemy would reach them tired and spent; Barut and Fortune were to carry the fallen, and Baltazar to stand ready to heal. At a last gathering the friends spoke of comradeship, agreed that withdrawing when duty called for it was no dishonour, raised their cups to victory or an honourable death and sang two songs. They took positions on the castle's stairs, floors and outer grounds, and near a rainy midnight the animals ran back to warn of a crowd approaching; the defence of the castle began amid whistles, running and explosions.^3839404142

Spoiler: The end of the battleGösterAçık ettiği: Sürgün Günlükleri #50 · Ne okuduğunuzu söyleyin

The battle was won when the Puppeteer fell and the thing in his chest burst apart; none of the main companions died, but several of their friends did, among them Baltazar, nailed to a door, and Exalon, found with an arm torn away and a smile on his face. A few hours later the town was full of people and imperial soldiers. The wish was spoken to make the grave in the town a memorial, to keep its flowers, and to let the castle live on, its scars of war removed, as a hospital, a place to teach children and a library.^43444546