Jul 5, 2019
The bounty was plastered from the boulevards of Malle’s Fist to the canals of Kanton, on the broken archways of the old imperial road and the mural boards of the old eastern sea wall:
TO WHOMEVER SLAYS THE BEAST, SO CALLED THE ADVOCATE, IN LOYALTY TO
ORDENNA AND ALL MANKIND, A REWARD DUE, EARNED, AND PAID BY THE
HONORABLE IMPETOR OF ALL HIERON, FELA MALLE: 100,000 IN COIN OR THE
ARMORY AND ESTATE OF A BLOODED PEER.
And so, floating down the Archivist’s River towards the smogging
skies of Malle’s Fist, a group of heroes intends to collect.
This week on Spring in Hieron: Unfinished Work
If only I had been more attentive during my arrival to the city
all those years ago. Or if father would push past his obstinance
and help me find it. Or if it had been delivered by fate into
Hadrian’s hands instead of Eprhim’s. Perhaps a less ambitious
violence would have brought a Spring more-
No. It cannot be known.
All that can be said with confidence is that of all my
contingencies, the killing of my son, turned mocking mimicry of
Him, by my erstwhile disciple is the one I least preferred. And in
that way, perhaps this tragic unfolding of events has been most
kind.
-An excerpt from the journals of Samot, Lord Unbroken, in Exile
and Repose