| Sidroc | |
| Fictional Character | |
| Darkness Fantasy< | |
| Appearance(s): | Into the Darkness through Out of the Darkness † |
| Type of Appearance: | Direct (POV from Through the Darkness on) |
| Nationality: | Forthweg |
| Cause of Death: | Shot with a stick |
| Occupation: | Student, Soldier |
| Parents: | Hengist |
| Relatives: | Hestan (uncle) Leofsig, Conberge and Ealstan (cousins) |
| Military Branch: | Plegmund's Brigade |
Sidroc was a Forthwegian who collaborated with the Algarvian occupiers during the Derlavaian War and enlisted in Plegmund's Brigade. He was a cousin of Ealstan.
At the beginning of the war, Sidroc's home was destroyed and his mother killed in an air raid, forcing Sidroc and his father Hengist to live with the family of his cousins Leofsig and Ealstan (who was Sidroc's schoolmate).
Sidroc's bitterness at being in effect dependent on charity - combined with his jealousy at Ealstan's better schoolwork - festered and gradually turned a schoolboys' quarrel into a deadly vendetta. Sidroc developed into an active collaborator with the Algarvians (even though it was an Algarvian egg that had killed his mother) and an anti-Kaunian racist, in direct opposition to his cousins' being Forthwegian patriots and "Kaunian-lovers" (literally in the case of Ealstan, who fell in love with the Kaunian Vanai).
The conflict tearing the family apart led to Ealstan beating Sidroc senseless and running away, and later culminated with Sidroc picking a fight in which he killed Leofsig - a result which he did not intend but did not regret, either.
Sidroc avoided prosecution due to his enlistment in Plegmund's Brigade, a Forthwegian-manned unit of the Algarvian army. After intensive training he took part in fighting guerrillas in eastern Unkerlant and Grelz, briefly facing Garivald in one firefight.
He gained the rank of corporal during brutal fighting in which he took part in such atrocities as raping peasant women and massacring Unkerlanter and later Yaninan villagers. His (relative) virtues were his loyalty to his equally roguish comrades - especially Ceorl, a robber who joined the brigade to avoid the gallows - and his adherence to the bitter end with the doomed Algarvian cause, even though he had originally joined up under the clear impression that Algarve would triumph.
Within the ruins of burning Trapani, it fell to Sidroc to kill King Mezentio at the King's own request, depriving King Swemmel of Unkerlant of the chance to kill Mezentio by slow torture. The shaken Sidroc was consoled in an uncharacteristically warm gesture by the rough Ceorl.
Soon afterwards Sidroc was killed during the Algarvian last stand against the Unkerlanter troops breaking into the royal palace, dying for the lost cause he had chosen.
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