Prince of Thorns

Makin and Jorg drink ale in a tavern, laying out their plan. Makin has seen the Castle Red and thinks that to attack it would be suicide. A tavern prostitute named Sally tries to proposition them, but they keep talking. Makin says they would need a massive army and to lay siege for a year to have a chance. Jorg has the idea to sneak in and open a way in, and he asks Makin if that might work. Makin says the garrison is 900 seasoned veterans. Jorg grabs Sally by the throat and tells her that he will call her Katherine.

Jorg is reading an ancient book, stolen from his father’s library, that propped between Sally’s thighs. He makes note of a passage saying that there’s a valley in the badlands below the Castle Red called the Gorge of Leucrota. From his childhood study of the classics, Jorg knows that in Ancient Greek a leucrota is a monster that speaks with a human voice to lure its prey and that was once human.

Opening another ancient book, Jorg can make little sense of it, since it is full of unfamiliar words like “neurotoxicology,” “carcinogen,” and “mutogen.