Jarek Voss
The captain who wanted his people home
Jarek Voss commanded the Bronze Mantle Company, the mercenaries the Gilded Coven hired when the Sylvan Sanctuary began breaking its machines. He answered to no guild, which is the only reason he survived the expansion with his reputation intact and his conscience mostly so.
Human, broad-shouldered, grey starting at the edges of the beard, in plain armour scarred by old repairs. His company was mixed — dwarven riflemen, a minotaur shieldbearer, two goblin crossbowmen, a lizardfolk tracker missing a finger — and looked considerably less impressive than the machines it was paid to protect.
He asked one question on arrival, and it was the right one. What am I supposed to shoot?
He refused to accept the phrase whatever force is necessary, and made Marcellin Auric state the rules of engagement properly in front of witnesses, because he did not intend to have three clerks decide afterwards that he had misunderstood. At Oruun Hollow he drew his sword and pointed it at his own employer’s control platform, and told the Gilded officer to shut the machines down or he would cut the fuel line himself.
After seven of his people drowned when a bridge went down beneath an armed convoy, a lieutenant asked whether they would retaliate against the western camp. Jarek asked whether the western camp had attacked them. Told no, he said no, and when it was pointed out that seven of theirs were dead, he answered that they had been crossing into somebody else’s country, and that he was tired of pretending he did not know where he was.
Thirty-one of his company died in the Sanctuary. He kept their names in a small leather book.
He was accused by Marcellin of becoming sympathetic to the Sylvan, and denied it. His sympathy, he said, was for getting his people home. Told he was very well paid, he observed that dead men do not spend much.
Riding out at the end, he met Vaelor Thane beside the abandoned road. He said he had lost thirty-one. Vaelor said the Sanctuary had lost more. Neither tried to compare numbers after that, and Jarek discovered on the ride east that he did not hate the man at all.