Franz Lohner's Chronicle - A-Reaving We Will Go

An absent-minded man of mysteries, Franz Lohner relies on his bulging journal to keep track of occurrences, intrigues and arguments around Taal's Horn Keep. Sometimes his notes are even useful, believe it or not. The Franz Lohner Chronicles are extracts from that journal.

So, Kruber was asking about Mannax Grimblood – you know, the fellow whom Grimblood’s Stronghold is named for? – and I’ll be honest, there’s not much to tell.

By that, I don’t mean to say that Grimblood’s not an accomplished chap, far from it. He’s earned a bleak reputation all along the northern coast. Places big or small, they all know him. Or at least, they know of his ships, and his flag of writhing tentacles on a black field. Made a real mess of Erengrad a few years back, and the number of fisher villages Grimblood’s wiped off the face of the map truly beggars belief.

Thing is – and I mean this with all the deference due to our northlander cousins, which isn’t a very great deal, if I’m honest – so what? Raiding chieftains are ten a pfennig on the Sea of Claws. Worse than that, they tend to show up as a job lot. No sooner has one raid ended than another begins. Murder, pillage, the slaughter of the defenceless … doesn’t exactly help you stand out from the next man, not when the next man’s just burned the same village you’re eying up for tomorrow’s raid.

I think that’s what really gets me about northlanders, if I’m honest. No imagination. No effort to build something that’ll last. It’s just “might makes right” and “victor takes all” to that lot. Sure, it takes guts to charge a shield wall, but it takes a damn sight more to hold the line against a frothing maniac, knowing that even if you survive the day, there’ll be another just like him come hoving into view before the week’s out. Especially when he’s bigger than you, and likely better armed. Because that’s the other thing about northlanders: they’re bullies, through and through.

So yes, Mannax Grimblood? An unremarkable bully. If he’s not dead, he soon will be, and another ruffian like him will take his place. Northlanders might think that’s worthy of song, but that just goes to show what questionable judgement they have. The stronghold, on the other hand … ?

You see, that particular patch of ice has a much longer history than the stockade raised above it. They do say that there was a battle there, some centuries back. Classic last stand stuff. An Ulthuani expedition got itself a bit lost – as folk so often do up there – and made matters worse by somehow drawing the attention of every northlander tribe for miles around. 

Ten days the elves held out, despite being outnumbered and undersupplied. But Ulthuani are like that. They’re proud, shading hard into stubborn, and don’t like to admit when they’ve made a dog’s breakfast of the whole thing. Then, just as it looked like they were about to be overwhelmed, the weather changed. The ice, which had been hard as rock to that very moment, shattered, and the grim seas claimed every one of those battling souls, northlander or elf.

They’re still there, trapped beneath the surface – frozen, but kept cruelly alive in all the years since. Like I’ve said before, time flows funny up in the wastes, so maybe to them its still the moment after their heads went under the waves for the last time. Then again, could be they’ve been like that for centuries, trapped, frozen solid and steadily going mad. Or maybe there’s nothing truly alive down there any longer, just undead spirits sealed in the ice. It’s enough to make anyone shiver.

Olesya reckons that’s why Grimblood made the place his lair. Having tortured souls close by lends a certain … puissance … to prophecy, and northlanders like their portents as much as anyone. 

All told, I think it’s better that the Five don’t go swimming in those waters any time soon.