Steck Marynd was a hunter, warrior, and woodsman among the Nehemothanai who pursued the necromancers Bauchelain and Korbal Broach for years after an undisclosed incident in their pasts.[1][2] He later admitted to having been hired to eliminate the pair.[3]
Steck was dark-faced, had shallow eyes and thin lips, had a sparse beard, and his ears could flick independently of each other like a mule. He wore armor under a fine cloak, and carried a small arsenal, including an exotic single-edged scimitar and a crossbow.[4][5] He spoke Theftian with a harsh accent.[6]
Poet Avas Didion Flicker described him as "a strange and silent man who walked like a hunter in forestlands, yet in his face could be seen the ragged scrawl of a soldier's cruel life, a past of friends dying in his arms, of the guilt of surviving, of teeth bared to fickle chance and a world stripped of all meaning." He said the gods were "nothing to such a soldier", who begged only for "life and righteous purpose."[7]
In Blood Follows[]
In pursuit of Bauchelain and Broach, Steck visited the sites of a series of gruesome murders plaguing Lamentable Moll. This attracted the attention of Watch sergeant Guld who tasked a guardsman to follow Steck through the city. Guld interrogated Steck as a possible suspect in Quint's Bar.[8]
Steck later intervened when Guld seemed about to unmask Korbal Broach as the murderer at Fishmonger's Round. He incapacitated Guld, and then apologized saying he needed Broach to summon Bauchelain so that his long hunt could end. Steck waited for Bauchelain's arrival with a heavy iron crossbow equipped with rune covered quarrels. Before Steck could act, Bauchelain summoned a demon to paralyze him. Chiding Steck for being a minor irritant, Bauchelain regretted that he foresaw many more years in the warrior's life.[9]
In Crack'd Pot Trail[]
Steck and the other Nehemothanai joined a caravan following in the footsteps of Bauchelain and Korbal Broach on the Cracked Pot Trail across the Great Dry. Halfway across the desolate plateau the group ran out of food. The armed contingent of the caravan, which included Steck, decided that the group's "useless" artists would better serve as meals for the rest. Steck kept his crossbow readied to resolve any disagreements with the arrangement, once even accidentally firing it into his own foot.[10] When famed poet Nifty Gum and his two followers Oggle Gush and Pampera tried to break from the group, Steck tracked them down. Discovering the two women dead, he dragged Nifty back to the caravan.[11]
As the caravan came to the end of the Great Dry, the poet Avas Didion Flicker told a story to the already agitated group of Nehemothanai and Chanters that hinted that their quarry, the necromancers, were the true passengers in the reclusive Dantoc Calmpositis' carriage. Violence ensued and the carriage collided with the Steck's horse causing his crossbow to misfire into Tulgord Vise's mount. The horse threw off the Mortal Sword directly into the path of the mule drawn carriage before colliding with Steck's mount. Steck's horse fell and rolled over him, breaking the hunter's leg.[12]
In The Fiends of Nightmaria[]
Steck Marynd ultimately survived the dire events of the Cracked Pot Trail and his leg had largely healed by the time he arrived safely at the city of Farrog. Sometime near the conclusion of the 'Festival of Flowers and Sunny Days', the hunter was arrested on the orders of the new King of Farrog, the usurper, regicide, and necromancer, Bauchelain the First. Steck (together with six other Cracked Pot Trail survivors - i.e., Apto Canavalian, Brash Phluster, Tiny Chanter, Flea Chanter, Midge Chanter, and Tulgord Vise) was taken to a torture chamber in the crypts of the Royal Palace of Farrog. There, the seven survivors were tortured in rotation on the rack by the Royal Torturer, Binfun, in preparation for their execution.[13] Ultimately, the prisoners were able to escape with the aid of Seneschal Shartorial Infelance, who had become smitten by Steck Marynd's innate nobility.[14][15] She returned their weapons and they were soon wandering the dungeon tunnels.[16]
At one point, Steck and the others had a mayhem-filled encounter with a group of thieves--the 'Party of Five'--who were searching the tunnels for their imprisoned Guild Mistress, Dam Loudly Heer.[17] The Tulgord Vise's legs were both broken in the brawl and Steck Marynd volunteered to carry him until the Seneschal brought them to the Royal Apothecary for some badly-needed healing. But they were ambushed there by thirty-two of Bauchelain's demons.[18] Apto fled and did not return.[19] After surviving the melee, healing vials returned Tulgord to his feet and Steck opined on his past desires to be an epic poet--something he thought could not be that hard. But "the necessities of living, socializing, daydreaming and wishful thinking" had stolen away the time required. The group moved on to confront Bauchelain and Korbal Broach in their throne room while Brash Phluster lingered behind to leave the palace on his own.[20]
Bursting into the throne room, they found only Demon Prince Flail Their Limbs. He informed the Nehemothanai that they were too late--Bauchelain and Korbal Broach had already fled before the oncoming Nightmarian army, which planned to sack the city. Before leaving the room, the prince warned the group that Bauchelain had left behind a dangerous demonic mouse on the throne as his heir. Determined to destroy any minion of the necromancer, the skeptical Nehemothanai ignored the advice and prepared to rush the mouse. When the doors to the throne room slammed all around them, a startled Steck accidentally loosed his quarrel at the mouse and unleashed mayhem.[21] From the street outside, Brash saw the Royal Palace collapse.[22] The ultimate fate of Steck and the others was not given.
Quotes[]
- "Stalwart and firm, is Steck Marynd. Slayer of demons, hunter of necromancers...I am the cutter excising the cancer of evil, the surgeon setting the blade to the tumour of cold malice. Such is the course of my life. I have chosen it and do not begrudge this nest of scars."
- ―Steck Marynd
- "Y'see, I get hired to kill necromancers--it's the only reason I'm still hunting the Nehemoth, because I guarantee satisfaction, and in my business without my word meaning something I'm nothing."
- ―Steck Marynd
- "One day I shall stand before the Nehemoth, before Bauchelain and Korbal Broach. I shall look upon true evil. And they will see in my eyes all the evil that I have done, and they will smile and call me friend. Companion. Cohort in the League of Veniality. Could I deny them?"
- ―Steck Marynd
Notes and references[]
- ↑ Blood Follows, Section 19
- ↑ Crack'd Pot Trail, Chapter 2
- ↑ Crack'd Pot Trail, Chapter 4
- ↑ Blood Follows, Section 3
- ↑ Crack'd Pot Trail, Chapter 2
- ↑ Blood Follows, Section 14
- ↑ Crack'd Pot Trail, Chapter 4
- ↑ Blood Follows, Section 14
- ↑ Blood Follows, Section 19
- ↑ Crack'd Pot Trail, Chapter 3
- ↑ Crack'd Pot Trail, Chapter 6
- ↑ Crack'd Pot Trail, Chapter 6
- ↑ The Fiends of Nightmaria, Section 4
- ↑ The Fiends of Nightmaria, Section 10
- ↑ The Fiends of Nightmaria, Section 11
- ↑ The Fiends of Nightmaria, Section 14
- ↑ The Fiends of Nightmaria, Section 17
- ↑ The Fiends of Nightmaria, Section 20
- ↑ The Fiends of Nightmaria, Section 23
- ↑ The Fiends of Nightmaria, Section 24
- ↑ The Fiends of Nightmaria, Section 27
- ↑ The Fiends of Nightmaria, Section 28