Yep...he's gone!

Not dead.....just....gone

He said when he makes enough he might try his fortunes in Hammerfell. I guess that's where he went then.

I dismissed him at Outside Lakeview months ago and watched the lad slowly walk off into the sunset.
I've been back to Rorikstead several times since......no Erik!

He had a good armour and weapon that I gifted him for his service, so he couldn't have been killed enroute could he? It's a mystery. Anyone else had a disappearing Erik?

Not exactly disapearing, but not where I expected him to be either. He was dismissed At Fort Dawnguard, cause Serana ( 360) and my character left...did the things with Serana then dismissed her, went to look for Erik in Rorikstead ...he wasn't their. Went to go back to Fort Dawnguard, he was at the exit to the valley, couldn't get out without my character I guess.

I’ve had that happen, Rick. One of my characters dismissed Erik in 2012 and hasn’t seen him since. (On the PlayStation.)

Ooooh, sorry, but 'wherefore art thou?' doesn't actually mean 'where are you?' - it's Juliet asking why she must be in love with a Montague, the sworn enemy of her family. It's similar to 'whence from'/'from whence', in which 'from' is a redundant word - 'whence' means 'from where'.

You've heard of Grammar Nazis - we need the Grammar Thalmor! Or maybe the Grammar Daedra! Perhaps also a new realm of Oblivion, in which the victims of this new Daedric lord suffer from being corrected incessantly!

Maybe it's more like "To pee or not to pee", and that's where Erik went, which is where he went...

If the curiosity is too much for you and you don't mind using console commands, you could always "coc" to his ID and see if that works. Then if he has died somewhere, at least you'd know...

I don't play "DiD" in name/competition anyway, so I don't know the rules for the competition, but seems like checking to see if the game is working correctly wouldn't disqualify you as long as you don't use the console in your regular game.

Of course, after satisfying your curiousity, you could exit and load up your save again sans console commands, and back to your regularly scheduled "DiD" immersion.

Yeah, Rick's on X Box, so console commands aren't going to be much use.

Oops. Well, in that case, best of luck finding your friend, Rick! Do you ever fast travel? Maybe you could fast travel back to the place you hired him. I never fast travel in my game if I can avoid it, but sometimes that can cause problems since the game uses that time to teleport NPCs to wherever they are supposed to go. Sometimes it can help fix lost NPCs, even fast travelling to the town you are already near.