On their arrival to Neverwinter, Catherine does her best to complete her formal duties to him. They share the final vigil in the Hall of Justice and in the morning Judge Olaf releases their bond and anoints the young man as a mentor in his own right should he wish to take a novice under his wing. Casavir listens to the monotonous enumeration of his duties seriously and wonders if he would ever dare to take on that much responsibility. As a ceremonial gift, Catherine slips a thin signet ring on his thumb. It is pleasantly cooling and gleams coldly even in the warm sunlight. She explains that its enchanted silver will give him some protection against foul intrusions into his mind. The signet is a crescent that can be a moon, or a letter – "C" for "Casavir", or "C" for "Catherine" just as well. It can be considered a ceremonial gift, but Casavir feels it is also a parting souvenir and an apology as well. He does not know how he can explain to her that he bears no regrets about her half-hearted mentorship.
Not a month passes before Catherine Harkenhart volunteers for a missionary expedition to Dambrath, a place so far in the south that it could as well be a legend. There is a loaded silence hanging between them when he sees her off to the docks, and neither of them knows how to handle it, so they exchange blessings and part their ways forever as if they would be meeting soon.
Casavir is relieved to learn that there are no students of an appropriate age who wish to choose the path of a holy warrior, and nobody expects him to pick up her teaching duties. He does not have the knowledge it takes to be a compass for a young soul. Swordfight is what he is good at, therefore he invests all the money he has saved up during his temple quest into a better set of armour. Master Crasnor takes his measurements and Casavir is surprised to learn how tall and broad he has grown over the years. Most of the generic plate armour pieces at the smithy are too tight on him, but then a lot of Tyr's servants are elves, so it is no wonder.
He spends several weeks assisting Master Crasnor at the anvil and reading into designs and qualities of various items. He calculates the balance between speed and strength, walks through his familiar stances and blows and identifies his own weaknesses. He asks the templars to spar with him with training swords painted red and assesses the map of his vulnerable points.
Finley, one of the few novices of his generation that survived the plague, is now the library keeper. Far too many brothers and sisters passed away in the plague, and youth has taken places left empty by experience. The young monk seems enchanted by Casavir's approach and brings him parchments with drawings of famous armour suits from history. Most of them are outdated and too heavy – Casavir needs to be faster, to step lighter, to have the freedom of movement, but he appreciates the little mercy of sincere friendship in his lonely life.
He sucks on this new idea like a wounded man sucks on a leather strap when his wound is cleaned from splinters. He is lonely and has always been lonely. Most of his thoughts rise and die in the quiet of his mind, and he cannot say a single person knows him. Casavir catalogues the small signs of this loneliness as he throws coal into the hungry belly of the furnace: he never belongs in a company; he does not share stories at a tavern for all the stories he witnessed are awful and he has no talent for turning them inside out and leaving a pleasant empty shell to be served at dinner; he has no one to tell his dreams to. He lets himself wallow in self-pity as he hammers large bars of metal into thinner plates – a task impossible to ruin even if he is an incompetent ogre of a blacksmith as Master Crasnor puts it. Strips of noble metals hiss in cold water, Casavir wipes sweat rolling down his neck and comes to the conclusion that he is better off this way. Every time he had a touch of personal affection towards a person, that person died or left or disappeared.
Perhaps he brings bad luck, or the gods expect his unprejudiced loyalty to extend to the humankind in general, without choosing favourites or binding his hands with settled feelings. Is it what you want of me, Casavir inquires them silently, is affection a crime against justice as well? He sends this thought into the logical grinder of counterarguments and can find no fault with it. He thinks that a beautiful lady deserves protection from evil hands no more than an ugly crone, that an obnoxious merchant's life is worth just as much as a life of a selfless saint when both are attacked by bandits on the road, that no race or nation or gender or biography diminishes a person's right to compassion, fair treatment, kindness, healing or protection by law. His mind wanders into the pet waters of his nightmares: killing orcs might be just as bad as killing people if it is not for the sake of defense, not in a combat, not reluctant. Any creature with a ghost of awareness deserves a life, a life without cruelty and torture. His heart grows large and warm with this discovery. He carries heavy ingots of noble metals from the stack in the back of the smithy and does not even feel their weight.
When his armor is finally ready, the proud Master Crasnor shines as bright as a bar of gold himself. Casavir raises his arms, bends his limbs, leans forward and is happy to see he can move easily enough. The suit has leather parts as a basis, and metal parts over vital organs, and mail parts at the vulnerable joints. It is lighter than it looks. No sigil decorates the suit except Tyr's holy symbol amalgamated in silver in the middle of the breastplate. Casavir straightens his back involuntarily when he catches a glimpse of himself in the old mirror on the back wall. In the mirror, there is that person who every young novice ever aspired to be. That kind of person who has no doubts and misgivings, but walks through his life in steady, measured, confident steps. That kind of person who carries an aura of safety and reliability into every perilous place he enters.
Soon, the temple receives a request from the Graycloaks to assist a fort at the northeastern border in yet another confrontation with walking corpses, and Casavir volunteers to travel to the Crags with a small group of the city guards.
They trot along frozen winter roads and take a long detour around the Neverwinter wood, for neither Casavir nor his companions have fond memories of the place. They have not been ascribed any formal hierarchy, so they are supposed to be equals, and yet his obvious paladinhood separates him from the others more effectively than any banner or rank or post could. There is an unspoken agreement hanging in the air that makes innkeepers look at him for their final decision.
They move north; Casavir wraps his cloak tighter around his shoulders and lets his memory wander. He honestly misses the days when his correct vowels and polite manners were a reason for a fight, not subjugation. Nevertheless, if this is the role the gods want him to fill, he will fill it. He suggests the schedule of watches and voices everybody's wish to halt for the night, he asks for volunteers to perform camp duties and gives small daily advice unobtrusively. By the time they arrive at the fort, Casavir has forged the respect he needs to rely on these soldiers.
He did not expect that the commander of the fort would be General Callum himself, and the noble dwarf has obviously weathered a lot since they last met. The fort in the frozen mountainous region is doing rather badly; its attackers – orcs, trolls, bandits and what not – are plentiful while its supplies are scarce. Two dozen villages are scattered in the valleys, and they are easy prey to those who conquer rather than plough. Nobody wants to serve that far from the capital. The mountain range is locked between enemies. Disregarding Luskan, it is the only trade route to Mirabar, a city of deep mountain dwarves who supply marble and stone. Callum intends to protect the route and enforce peace in this harsh land, and Casavir needs one look to realize the general has inadequate means for such an ambitious task.
There is a more burning problem though. People disappear from the villages, and the farmers whisper of the dead coming back to visit. There is nothing an army can do, but a priest would be handy, and Callum does not conceal his disappointment at the lack of such in their small team. He seems to be glad to see Casavir though.
"I think I saw your name on the death lists," the dwarf muses aloud. It is strange you are alive, Casavir hears. "That vanguard perished like butter under a hot knife."
The words make his throat clench, so he says nothing. Callum shakes off his reverie and offers to tell him about the missing people at dinner. He recounts the tales and lets Casavir copy a network of mountain trails as he points out the villages on the faded map, the tiny specks of life in the middle of nowhere. From time to time, Casavir intercepts a strange look he cannot quite place. The general finishes his account and regards the parchment that grew crowded with Casavir's hasty marks.
"This is… surprisingly accurate. I can't recall any mention that you were also skilled in map-making."
"I learnt after the war," Casavir rolls his shoulder tiredly and packs the quill. "At the chapterhouse."
Callum gives him a disapproving look that Casavir fails to accept as just.
"So you abandoned the army." His voice grows flat as he continues. "We were in a bad need of officers and you did not stay."
"I did not know I had a choice." Casavir replies calmly, and Callum's anger evaporates. "I woke up in the temple hospital ward, reported to the office at Castle Never as soon as I could walk, and was dismissed."
The lines in Callum's face tighten and he rubs the bridge of his nose exhaustedly.
"It looks like I am a worse general than I had thought, lieutenant."
Winter is a harsh time to explore sparse settlements in the middle of nowhere. Casavir hikes up and down snowbound mountain trails and reads the footprints like a story.
In the villages, there is always a house where people gather to drink cold winter days away, and now they have all the reason to huddle together at night, too: in every village, there is a person or two missing. A child who stayed up late; a lad who went out in the dead of the night to check on the newborn lambs; an elderly wife who was to return from her sister's place at the other end of the village.
Casavir talks to everyone who wants to talk to him. He seems to be the only entertainment these people are going to have for months. Women send him longing looks that he chooses to ignore, men measure him up, children run after him when he arrives and leaves. He takes a seat at the common hall, and half the village shows up within an hour to take a look. While many villagers contribute valuable pieces to his investigation, others recount all the gossip since the Netherese empire, complain of their neighbours' vile deeds which importance faded a decade ago, suggest he buys their honey and rope and goat cheese, start philosophical disputes and what not. A jolly red-bearded farmer advertises his daughter's hand in marriage and keeps to this topic firmly even after Casavir's tenth attempt to redirect the conversation.
Back at the fort, he makes a list of disappearances, and then turns it into a map. He can see now that whatever killed or kidnapped these people travelled around the area, and there is a pattern. A careful predator hunts like this – prey from all the territory, so that the flock does not diminish. This wood is equally far from most of the villages, and it must be the lair. Casavir reports the possibility to Callum; five small teams set off to search through the wooded patch.
They do find the lair, the two vampires that settled in the mountains, and the remains of their victims. Some of them rose because a foul death like this, without a proper burial, prayers and mourners, will keep the deceased on the brink of this world. Casavir cleaves through the half-decayed flesh and suspects that the only advantage that sets holy warriors apart from common soldiers is that he has been taught to expect all sorts of foul liquids splash all over him in such fights. And perhaps their historic creed about dignified silence in combat actually takes its root from more primitive considerations, he muses while a young ranger in his team vomits behind his back. Shards of bone showered on them and the witty man got a taste of putrid marrow.
Later that day, Casavir sips at the lukewarm soup at the fort's canteen and thinks about the two vampires, a man and a woman, obviously a couple. He wonders if the undead are capable of love or it was a companionship of habit rather than an emotional need. He also thinks about that farmer's daughter and what future is in store for her. He contemplates the idea of love and cannot understand if he himself is capable of love.
He longs for some relationship, that he can be sure of. Yet every time a living breathing woman expresses her interest in him, Casavir finds that he is holding back. He wants to keep from giving anyone a false hope, a meatless bone of his affection. He knows he has some passion to hide and a general tenderness that makes children and animals cling to him. He does notice women. He does have reactions and reflexes and that ugly hunger that sometimes raises its head when his eyes linger on a pretty face for too long.
What he lacks is the easy nonchalance with which other people treat the matter: as if it is another basic need and two can have a meal and thank each other in the morning. Casavir is not attracted by those glorious women who shrug and kiss a person out of curiosity. He is attracted by women like himself: the shy, the quiet, the contemplative, the modest. To them, matters of flesh are intertwined with matters of soul, and any warmth is charged with emotion. He knows that other men consider these deep feelings unmanly and treat women like food or drink. To Casavir, a person is a person, and the women he likes deserve better than his passing affection. They deserve loyalty and love and a future. He is not a master of his own future to promise it to someone else, so he resolves – again, and with a little more bitterness than usual – that there are aspects of humanity that he is simply not destined to discover.
His task is completed, and he is to depart in two weeks, when the worst of the winter storms rage away. During these two weeks the fort is attacked by orc raiders. One of their scouts reports a larger group descending into the valley in the direction of one of the nameless villages, and Casavir gives a small nod at Callum's expectant look. Of course, he will not stay behind. In these moments he feels a string of destiny pull him forward, and he has learnt to follow it without reservation. His sword will keep a weaker person from the frontline, and the less people are in the frontline, the better.
They travel fast, arrive in time, stand in the way of the hostile tribe, engage in the fight, fend off an attack, pursue the enemies, push them back and seal the fate of the orc raid by crushing the orc warriors and letting the wounded retreat back home. The winds in the high valley howl with fury when Casavir lays his healing hands on one of the wounded, a weathered ranger who is bleeding faster than his belly is growing whole. The man weeps and gasps while Casavir whispers his prayer and repeats 'you will live, you will live' over and over again until the man trusts him. It is exhausting to be summoning divine magic after a battle, and Casavir shakes with fatigue and bitter cold himself.
Another man bleeds to death a few feet away, and Casavir bites his chapped lip grimly, so that the crust breaks and the metallic taste keeps him focused. He should have chosen the clerical path to be graced with more powers. He has no way to know if his sword saves more people than his non-existent priesthood could.
They return to the fort in the dead of the night, but nobody wanted to set camp when four more hours of walking with torches could earn them warm beds. In the courtyard, Callum is waiting. Casavir looks around for the officer who is to report to the commander and remembers that the man is dead. He can feel a decision grow in his mind like an underwater bubble that is about to rise to the surface, so he pauses, lets his gaze search the commander's eyes and takes the first step forward before he knows it. Callum strokes his beard tiredly and gestures him into the headquarters. After a short report, the dwarf inclines his head in thought.
"You see we do not have enough men to keep the place safe. The orcs will return, and the orcs are not the worst thing that happens here. We are twelve people down and no reinforcement will be sent before summer. Perhaps of all who need your help, our need is the greatest."
Honestly, Casavir has thought about it, too. Neverwinter feels so far away that it is almost a ghost. Its importance faded with the distance. The fort needs to send patrols, the villages need regular visits, the roads are not safe. The farmers are a brave folk to settle here, but they cannot fend off all those interested in their crops. The people who need his help have faces now, after he has talked to so many of them during his investigation. How can he leave and abandon them to their fate? The string of destiny is dormant, for he is too tired to heed such delicate signs, but Casavir knows he makes a correct choice when he agrees to stay as a soldier or a sergeant.
Callum smirks, and Casavir has a fleeting impression that the commander has planned it much more carefully than he shows. His younger self would be annoyed; his current self merely registers it as a fact. Callum continues:
"I appreciate your modesty, but we both know you were born to lead. I have a better idea in mind. This appointment to the world's dullest place cost me a squire. He chose to stay in the capital, and I do not blame him, these mountains... I am planning to take you as my squire." Something must be changing in Casavir's face to reflect the slimy cold that creeps down his gut, because the commander adds hastily, misinterpreting as usual. "This is not just saddling my horse and cleaning my armour. It is an opportunity to learn, and I assure you, no military academy teaches you to build fortifications, manage local conflicts and hold your ground with a hundred men in the area that could easily need a thousand."
Casavir is simply too tired to disagree.
He stays until the spring, and then for a year, and another year after that.
He learns to stay back and shout commands and establish a system of signals that works when the fray is too large for his voice to carry to the frontline. He learns to plan and win, to plan and lose, to plan and sacrifice, to make compromises and insist on his vision, to calculate supplies and secure their delivery, to enforce his discipline and his authority, to distribute punishment and rewards, to keep an eye on the troublemakers and to draw groups that put up well. He learns that a kind word may become a catalyst for a big trouble and that mercy may turn into a knife in your back. He learns that jokes may be backhanded threats and gambling is actually the safest way to keep a hundred people occupied with as little harm as possible.
He also learns that people have assigned values. A good archer costs more than a good warrior, but a good ranger surpasses them both, and a good camp cook can save more lives than all the three combined.
He learns that fleas and lice are not seen by many as a reason to stay clean, and that it is not obvious to most people that one should never drink water before it was boiled. He learns that there is nothing obvious at all: if there was the smallest fault in your instruction, it will be misinterpreted along this very tiny crack in logic.
He rides out and fights for so many times he loses count. He discovers that the hardest duty for him is to delegate: to place a small measurable piece of responsibility on someone's shoulders and trust them to cope without his own help when all the parties know that his interference would be a sure sign of success. He leads as many raids as Callum lets him, for there are no healers in this forgotten land, and his one chance at divine magic a day is all they have. He buries the dead too many times to his liking.
They also hunt bandits and destroy their camps and escort merchants' caravans. Once he is captured and tortured and rescued before it is too late and there is any lasting damage. In the camp medic's opinion, he is back on his feet too soon, but idleness has always eaten him raw more effectively than pain. He files away the lesson that fire and metal can make a man part at the seams and become a helpless animal in agony. He did not deserve it, but maybe he needed this lesson to know that no soldier under his command will ever resort to torture, no matter what the gain.
These years of service are what he will later regard as his happiest years. While he lived them, he had no idea he was happy. It was tough and rough, worries and problems and wild guesses, and more work than hands to do it. When he looks back, he will see a spell of consistent good luck when his gut decisions were miraculously right and his daily objectives aligned with monthly and yearly goals well. This simplicity of a well-performed duty, this daily focus on the well-chosen route, this consistent clarity of the right and wrong – all these feelings will become a reference point when he grows conflicted and miserable later.
He forges some friendships, too – the men he respects, like Black Ballard and Joe the Catstep. They are easy to have a pint with, especially because paladins need a barrel to lose their sobriety, and nice to play a card game with on a long winter evening, especially because Casavir is not afraid to lose and that makes competition friendly. Ballard is called 'Black' for a reason: his expectations of the future are always grave and pessimistic. Casavir admits it is nice when he himself is not the grimmest person at the table. Joe the Catstep is a sunshine soul, a gifted archer and a sweet tooth. He stores his kind laughter shallow in his throat, always ready to set it free. He is a joker, but he only makes fun of himself, and Casavir likes his non-threatening company. With these two, he always knows where they stand.
It is never the same with Callum. Lord Callum has moments of arrogance and moments of almost fatherly affection; when busy, he barks at soldiers and Casavir can feel his own spine go rigid when he swallows his disapproval. Lord Callum has temper, Lord Callum was born into privilege and often forgets that the folk around him have no knowledge of many words longer than four syllables. Lord Callum can be a very unpleasant man when he is tired. On the other hand, there is simply Callum, without noble titles, that emerges on the battlefield or when the night is tough. This Callum is a rocklike structure – a brave, loyal, talented commander who weighs his words carefully and makes them count. They are not friends, but there is respect between them, and Casavir cherishes it.
He turns twenty-four and then twenty-five; the years were so filled with possible tasks and clear responsibilities that he only has the time to be mildly surprised how fast months blink by. Lord Callum likes to joke that Casavir is a statue – large, heavy, cold, and beardless. Casavir cracks his mouth in a resemblance of a smile and cringes inwardly. He has not felt young in a decade. He always shaves his face clean, on a march, in a siege, before an attack, after an attack, at a forest camp or in a tavern, in summer heat or in bitter winter. If he does not, he sees his father in the mirror, and he wants to be nothing like him. This is one of the things Callum does not need to know. Casavir honestly believes that this is one of those things nobody will ever need or want to know. A warrior does not show his heart until an axe reveals it.
Another thing that nobody needs to know is that a flash of panic lightens in his eyes and is quickly concealed when a rider arrives at the fort one rainy autumn afternoon. The messenger announces that Lord Callum is summoned to Neverwinter as soon as possible, for Sir Arland of the Neverwinter Nine has fallen in battle and the guardians of the Crown have chosen the noble dwarf to occupy this honored duty. Casavir watches Callum accept the honor with the proper ceremony and a lead ball presses down on his gut. They had talked before that should Callum die, Casavir will pick up his post, with all the diplomacy it takes. Casavir knows that a commander of a fort will answer requests and follow orders and try to squeeze honor and duty into the mix. He has come to dread the compromises it costs to fly that high.
The years of unconflicted service are over the very next morning – with a simple phrase so many men would long to hear:
"Arise, Sir Casavir of Tyr."
