Vengeance

Now with your troops you wait at the base of a mountain redoubt, not even properly a castle.

Within the place you know that Orem Scanthips waits, and with him, you imagine, there waits an army, or a wizard of some terrible power. I will tell you who waits inside: A boy with no ears, who can pick a pocket or handle a keener and live; he may bruise a soldier or two before you slay him.

A man of breeding, a courtier, the best of those who waited on Queen Beauty. He will wound five, and deeply, before he dies.

A woman of high station who serves the Little King, because Orem Scanthips taught her to value mercy above justice, virtue above rank.

A young, young man of eighteen years, dark of hair and pale of skin, with the blood of a King in his veins and the weight of the world in his heart. He flees from you only because his friends command it. He cares nothing for you. He grieves only for the ashes that you cast upon the stream.

God is not with him. The Sweet Sisters are not with him. The Hart is not with him. He finished the task they raised him up to do; they have no further need of him.