He stood and turned his back on the sea. As always, eight Red Caps waited for him, not a dozen paces removed. Padric snorted. His honor guard. They followed him down from the crags, not gibbering, jesting or whispering to one another. Except for the scraping of their heavy iron boots on the stones, they remained respectfully silent. Clearly, they did not want to disturb the thoughts of their future king.

During the three day journey from the fort to the coast, Torcan had treated Padric with a strange mix of curiosity and contempt, as if he were a leper that also knew the secret to some wondrous treasure. He felt the goblin leader constantly watching him, but he never approached or spoke directly to him. At night, Swinehelm had Slouch Hat or Kederic brought before him under heavy guard and questioned them for long hours. Often the Thegn’s screams would pierce the camp, echoing painfully over the black shrouded fields. During the march, the husk was kept in the front of the column, while Kederic was kept caged in a supply wagon at the rear. Padric was not permitted to speak with either of them and was left to wonder what mysteries of his life they were revealing.

By the time they reached Reaver’s Meadow, Padric’s mind had become entangled with questions. He worried at the knot of his existence, desperately looking for some memory that could answer this sudden, ill-begotten legacy. That he was different had been made callously apparent to him since boyhood. That he was hated and feared by his neighbors and pitied by his family was something he begrudgingly accepted, until he grew old enough to rebel against such perceptions. But his clumsy attempts at denial only manifested as the feeble acts of a troubled young man, further reinforcing the mantle that he was simply no good. Now, it appeared that mantle had a source, flowing into his veins from the unfathomable past, myth made flesh. How that was possible remained as elusive and distant as the individuals who held the answers.

In the end, his mind was crushed to a numb cloud by the sudden weight of those unsought revelations. He walked down into the coastal settlement with the same detached air he had worn as a cloak these past days, in control of little but his own feet and even their steps were limited. Whatever the truth, Torcan had become convinced of his importance and treated Padric as a royal hostage, seeing to his comfort while simultaneously taking his freedom. He had been moments away from death when Slouch Hat spoke up and now he was being hosted by a thriving camp of fanatics that had been responsible for so much recent pain. Padric wondered if death would not have proven more favorable.