House Norton

Once impoverished and harassed by the Kemmes occupation. Under Lorist they become the dominant military and industrial power of the Northern Lands — steel armour, crossbows, snow salt, and a near-monopoly on the eastern trade routes.

A hereditary military house whose founder received the northernmost wastes from the founder of the Crissen Empire more than two hundred and forty years ago and built the family castle there. From the first baron and his sons onward, the family fought the mountain barbarians who came down from the hills to raid. The house furnished troops on the empire's demand and paid a tithe, yet took almost nothing from its own subjects, living instead on its own strength: hunting magical beasts for hides and running trade caravans to Morant.

In the decade before the story a chain of disasters struck. First a bandit ambush wiped out the trading caravan led by Lorist's third uncle, gutting the family's main income. Then the eldest son led the iron cavalry off to the Second Prince's war and fell to a poisoned arrow in the back; only a handful of riders survived, and the compensation payments swallowed half the family's savings. The head of the house, Lorist's Gold-rank father, died fighting mountain barbarians when the garrison refused to march to his aid, and the third son was killed falling from a spooked horse.

By the time Lorist arrived the house rested on a single Silver-rank woman, Andrea Baisha, and a few Iron-rank elders. Its chronic ills were the winter beast tide, the barbarian raids, the entrenched hereditary garrison of Beye town, the dispute with Viscount Kemmes over the copper vein in the Mantou Hills, and a financial crisis as Duke Lukins squeezed levies such as an 'empire-restoration tax' out of the impoverished family.

The house head is Lorist Norton, reborn in the body of Little Locke. The estate is run by old steward Krace and three stewards, and after the return from the south by a wide circle of Dawn Academy comrades: the logistician Fatty Shi, the Gold-rank knight Bodfinger, the archer Jossk, Sedekamp with the convoy, Patt, Redi, El, Yuri and Terman.

Of the old household, Andrea Baisha remains — a Silver-rank knightess once betrothed to the fallen eldest son. Later the Nortons absorb former bandits such as Ovigis and Yost, as well as wandering knights recruited at tournaments.

The ancestral territory covers a third of the Northern Lands — vast, almost undeveloped wilderness in the far northern corner of the wastes. The heart of the domain is Rockcastle; the only town is Beye. To the west lie the Blade Range and the sea beyond; to the north the Black Marshes; to the east the Magic Dragon Mountains with their barbarians. The chief source of income was the copper vein in the Mantou Hills.

Under Lorist the family becomes the military-industrial power of the Northern Lands: steel armour and crossbows, snow salt, thousands of steel wheeled crossbows and ballistae, a new port on the upper Mitoburo, and later a fleet and a near-monopoly on the eastern trade routes. Its military strength grows from a handful of Iron-rank men to tens of thousands of trained soldiers and its own Flying Tiger forces.

The house's revival is the spine of the whole story. Lorist takes the Kemmes double wall, claims his inheritance, and sets about curing the family's chronic ills: resettling surplus people onto castle construction, reforming the army, and building up manufacturing and trade. The house weathers Duke Lukins's first punitive campaign (the rout of Knights Chevany and Henned), then crushes the coalition at Rockcastle and at Tverdynya.

In the Second Prince crisis the family repels the invasion in the 'Roaring Bear Massacre' before Rockcastle, where volleys from thousands of war crossbows shatter the Iblia Kingdom's First Legion. The Nortons then forge the four-family alliance (with the Kemmes, the Flying Horse Filims, and Baron Shahin-Henned) and entrench themselves as masters of the Northern Lands, later stepping onto the continental stage against the Trade Union.