He stared at her pretty face. She had a wandering eye when she got tired but with her eyes closed he couldn’t see it. Even when he did, he thought it was cute, and this made her even prettier. The trouble now was thinking of what to do next. The people in the village would see the smoke and know that the keep was burning down. But they wouldn’t do anything about it. There wasn’t enough of them. The only people that might care was his ma, and Jinia’s lame uncle.

So, he would wait for them.

And when he got better he would make a spear, the way Orfantal showed him from what he’d learned from somewhere. Finding a shaft of stout wood, heating and trueing it and heating it some more to harden the wood, especially at the point. Once he had his spear, he would go out and hunt down the sergeant who had stabbed him, and then the three who had hurt Jinia, and then the ones in the house who had killed Lady Nerys. He would find them because he had three names. Telra, Farab and Pryll.

He stared down at his scraped knees; and the welts of red from the burns and all the body hair that was now white and fell to dust when he brushed his skin, and all the splashed blood where flies now danced. He could see his pain, inside his head, and it was all red, but he decided to stay away from it.

She called me a Denier, but I never denied nothing. I was never even asked anything, so I couldn’t deny anything, could I? I seen that monastery once, the one on the other side of the river, and it looked like a fortress, or a place where they send criminals. It scared me.

He’d wanted to be a hero. Saving everyone. Saving Lady Nerys just like Orfantal would have done. Nothing ever went right in his life.

She should never have stabbed me. That hurt worse than any caning.

One day I’ll stab her and see how she likes it.

When he heard his ma’s thin voice wafting up, calling his name in helpless anguish, Wreneck shouted wordlessly to bring her to him, and when at last he saw her and she saw him and hurried towards him, he began bawling and could not stop.

* * *

Tutor Sagander leaned hard on the crutch. The padding did nothing to ease the ache in his shoulder, but his one remaining leg hurt even more. He had no idea there could be so much pain in one poor body, and every twinge and spasm rode bitter waves. He imagined everything inside, beneath his skin, to be black as pitch, fouled by the pain and the hatred that seemed locked in a savage embrace, like lovers wanting to devour each other. But this was not torment enough. He could still feel the leg that was no longer there, could feel its outrage, its incessant demands. It haunted him, rushing through sensations of brutal cold and searing heat, maddening itch and deep ache.