Eric Sigurdsson

The tales of the "Wyrmkallar" are belived to have surfaced in the coastal city of Melvaunt, late in the Year of the Bright Blade (1347 DR), where he became linked with a series of brutal murders linked with the Nanther family's rise to prominence within the Council of Lords. The killer, who attacked the Bruil family heir apparent and a squad of hired toughs was described by one onlooker thusly:

''"The man was fair large, and broad of arm. His hair he did wear long, and dark as dragon shadow. Like a Lord did he carry hisself, and verily did his eyes change before our watching, from blue like the Moonsea to pits black as the heart of the Lady Night. With arms outstreched, he froze poor Lord Foril solid under a clear blue sky, and afore us all. He said not a word. When his Lordship's bodyguards attacked after a breath or two, a sword the size of an executioner's axe appeared in the stranger's hands, sent by Ol' Lord Bones hisself, and off went their heads, fast as you please."''

No mention in any of the witness accounts was made of the Wyrmkallar's distinctive black armor, so the veracity of this story is sometimes doubted by scholars of such things. The armor does surface definititively less than one year later, in the spring of the Year of the Spur (1348 DR).

This is the year when most bards agree the career of Eirik "Wyrmkallar", sometimes called the Frostborn, truly began, as it was in this year that the Black Network sent out an open call for bounty hunters and assassins to rally at Zhentil Keep, there to begin a hunt for a once-loyal renegade wizard slaver known as Halfdir the Sevenspells. For the princely reward of the wizard's own weight in gold, and the favor of the Brotherhood, even tavernkeeps took up their father's swords in pursuit of the dangerous mage. That summer was a bloody one for many independent mages in and around the Central Heartlands, as both masters and apprentices were attacked by gold-crazed adventurers seeking Halfdir. Where the true Halfdir the Sevenspells fled in the Year of Spur is now known only to few, but what is known by many is that the mage was returned to Zhentil Keep in the early winter of that year in the back of an open wagon, handless, tongueless, and blinded, drawn by a mule and escorted by a man described thusly, by Simeon the Seared, a minor Zhentarim mageling:

''"A brute of a man, clad all in black iron plate that reeked of old magic. Like a vision of the half-men, half-giants of the past, he rode upon a black horse large enough to pull the ships to sea. The deep snows upon Fleet Street seemed no impediment to him at all as he dragged that poor wretch Halfdir to the Brotherhood's justice. As I watched him ride toward the palace of the Castellan, I soon felt as if he was watching me, of all people, from behind that black helm. I shut the shutters, anon."''

The identity of the bounty hunter that had finally run Halfdir to ground soon spread around the city, from the gabled towers of the trade princes to the cliffside rowhouses by the Tesh. He was called Eirik Sigurdsson, in the peculiar naming conventions of the barbarains of the Ride, but soon became known as the Magehound. In a public ceremony some days later, he was embraced and gifted with a signet of favor by the hand of Manshoon himself, as Lord Chess and the greater Lords looked on. The fate of Halfdir upon his return to the Brotherhood can only be speculated upon, and that only by the brave.

After the capture of Halfdir the Sevenspells and his very public show of gratitude by Manshoon, Eirik became a quite visible symbol of the power and reach of the Zhentarim, never quite joining the Brotherhood, but always available to take the coin and prestige associating with them provided. He remained what he always was, a mercenary working for the highest bidder, but in the Moonsea, noone can bid higher than the Black Network.