THE EISENWÄLDERS

Eisenwäld stands upon the eastern frontier of Herculanum, a land of granite mountains, cold rivers, iron-rich valleys, and forests older than reliable memory. Its roads are difficult, its winters severe, and its people entirely unimpressed by complaints concerning either.

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The oldest forests are said to remember the first dawn of the world. There, pines rise like mountains and the distance between the mortal world and stranger places becomes dangerously thin. Spirits, fay creatures, old powers, and things without convenient names inhabit those woods. Every village knows a stream one must not cross after dusk and a tree beneath which no sensible person sleeps.

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The Eisenwälders treat such warnings as practical information rather than superstition. They nail iron above doors, honor ancient bargains, avoid whistling in certain valleys, and continue with their work. When I asked a forester whether she believed a particular grove was haunted, she replied that belief was unnecessary because the grove behaved the same regardless.

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Eisenwäld is poor in luxuries and extraordinarily rich in useful stone, timber, coal, and metal. Its smiths, armorers, founders, engineers, and sword makers produce the finest arms and armor in Herculanum. Their work is sought by every court that publicly dismisses them as provincial. Eisenwälders find this contradiction amusing, though not sufficiently amusing to offer a discount.

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Even the nobility favors endurance over display. Ancient families may possess little beyond a weathered fortress, an inherited title, and the duty to hold a mountain pass. Their halls are cold, their coats old, and their steel excellent. Elsewhere, a castle demonstrates wealth. In Eisenwäld, it demonstrates that something terrible has repeatedly attempted to come through the valley.

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That possibility is never entirely theoretical. Koschei the Deathless, the yellow king, is believed to dwell somewhere within or beneath the eastern mountains. Giants, giantkin, trolls, and other brutal descendants of his influence are more common here than anywhere else in Herculanum. Most Eisenwälders will never see one. All are raised knowing what to do if one arrives.

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This expectation has shaped the people. They are disciplined, stubborn, economical with words, and suspicious of anything built only to impress. Settlements exist because ore must be mined, timber cut, rivers crossed, or borders defended. Beauty is welcomed, but usefulness earns respect. The finest compliment an Eisenwälder can offer an object—or perhaps a person—is that it will last.

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There are gentler things within the country: hunting fires beneath snow-heavy branches, carved wooden halls, family stories, mountain songs, and the orange light of a forge against a winter evening. Yet even these comforts carry the knowledge that the forest is listening. Eisenwäld endures because its people do not imagine the darkness can be defeated forever. They simply build strong doors and remain ready to repair them.

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—Lantern of the Thirteenth Word