The Ruins of Gorlan characters

Appears from the start

The self-styled Lord of Rain and Night, once a baron of the kingdom of Araluen. Fifteen years before the story opens he rebelled against King Duncan, was beaten in battle, and withdrew into the bleak Mountains of Rain and Night with the surviving Wargals, brutish beast-soldiers he commands directly with his mind. He has spent the years since brooding on revenge and is patient, calculating, and physically imposing.

Appears from the start

A pair of enormous, near-unkillable creatures Morgarath keeps and sends out as assassins. Shaggy and ape-like, they move faster than their bulk suggests, ordinary arrows barely mark their thick hide, and their red stare freezes a victim in place with terror. They are treated in Araluen as half legend, and almost nobody living has faced one.

Appears from the start

A slight, quick fifteen-year-old orphan raised as a ward of Castle Redmont, one of five parentless children brought up at the Baron's expense. He knows almost nothing about his parents beyond a claim that his father died as a soldier, and he has always assumed that Battleschool and knighthood are the only way to prove himself worthy of that. He is agile, endlessly curious, a practised climber, and quietly resourceful, none of which looks like the makings of a knight.

Appears from the start

The King's Ranger for Redmont Fief: a short, grim, grey-bearded man in a mottled cloak who appears and disappears without anyone noticing. Ordinary people believe Rangers work sorcery and give him a wide berth. He speaks bluntly and rarely, carries a heavy longbow, a saxe knife and a throwing knife, and has the confidence of the Baron and the King.

Appears from the start

Lord of Redmont Fief and the man responsible for the castle's wards. He is fair-minded, shrewd about the people who serve him, and fond of a joke that his staff rarely find as funny as he does. He presides over the Choosing, at which each ward is offered, or refused, a craft apprenticeship.

First appears in chapter 2

A ward of Will's age, big, heavily built, and set on Battleschool from the beginning. He has spent years bullying Will and the smaller wards, and the two of them cordially detest one another as the story opens.

First appears in chapter 2

A ward of Castle Redmont, tall, fair and unusually self-possessed, with hopes of a place in the fief's Diplomatic Service. She is a steady friend to Will and rather better than he is at keeping her nerve.

First appears in chapter 2

A cheerful, round-faced ward with an obvious gift for cooking, who hopes to be taken on by the castle's kitchen master. She is the warmest of the five wards and the least troubled about her future.

First appears in chapter 2

A thin, talkative ward who enjoys an argument for its own sake and is drawn to the scribes and the law. He is the least physical of the five and entirely untroubled by that.

First appears in chapter 4

Redmont's Battlemaster, who runs the fief's Battleschool and decides which boys are taken into it. Large, blond and genial, he judges candidates on build and stamina as much as on willingness, and he is on close terms with the Baron and with Halt.

First appears in chapter 5

The head of Redmont's Diplomatic Service, a tall, elegant woman who trains couriers and negotiators. She is composed to the point of coolness, misses nothing, and has known Halt for a long time.

First appears in chapter 14

The horse assigned to Will: small, barrel-chested and unimpressively shaggy next to a battlehorse, and far faster, tougher and cleverer than he looks. Ranger horses are bred and trained apart from other stock and will only accept a rider who knows the proper greeting.

First appears in chapter 20

Halt's former apprentice, now a Ranger with a fief of his own in the south. He is young, tall and good-humoured where Halt is dour, and unusual among Rangers in that he was also trained to the sword, which he uses better than most knights.