Every day for a month now, a man had sat outside Ravn’s cell to guard him, Ravn assumed the man to be a drunk, because every day he walked in with a bottle full of beer, and every night when he left the bottle was empty. Sometimes the man would drift off into a stupor, once or twice he even walked in with a young girl, maybe thirteen or so, and rut her on the straw floor, taunting Ravn as he did so. Every second he was there Ravn kept a keen eye on him too, waiting for one small second in which to snatch the key that hung by a rope around the guard’s neck; but that chance did not come, and so Ravn there sat, with his dark eyes glaring as if to pierce the guard’s very soul.

 One day however, the fool did get close enough. He had come in late, and he was dragging a young girl in, he had always come with a different girl, and Ravn suspected that in addition to being a drunk this man was a whore-monger put to guarding a prisoner because the town’s lord could find no other good use for him. This time however, the girl was unwilling, she came in with him ready to scream, but her face was bloodied up good, so he must have beaten her into silence. The man smacked her hard, and shy cried out in pain as he tore off her robes and threw her to the ground, as he made to go down on her however, she shot a kick straight into his groin and got up and ran quick away, the man toppled over in pain.

 Ravn, who had gone to the back of his cell lest he be taunted to his face again, sprang forth like a snake and threw out his arm to seize the rope around the guard’s neck, he grabbed the key and pulled with all his might and the man’s head jerked back and the rope choked him, but refused to snap, the man tried to break free, but Ravn had taken his free arm and locked it tight around his neck, hoping to break it if nothing else. Finally, the rope did snap, and Ravn snatched back the key, stood up, and reached his arm through the bars again, locating to keyhole and unlocking the door, which he swung open a moment later.

 Outside he could here screaming, shouting, people running about every which way, and he smelt black smoke in the air, he laughed before pressing his foot down on the guard’s neck until he no longer moved.

 It was late in the day, and as he walked up the stairs of the lower floor he took a few seconds to adjust to his surroundings, it took him at least ten minutes to find his way out onto the main floor, as he had been unconscious when he was taken down into the dungeons. As he ascended the stairs he could hear the sounds of screams growing steadily louder, Finally, he found himself walking out of the stairway into the main floor of the small monastery, which was empty save for an elderly monk and a man who looked shaken within an inch of his life, they were praying relentlessly at the altar. As Ravn approached them, knife drawn, the old monk never saw him before his throat was cut and he died while kneeling before a God that must not have heard him.

 Callen looked up from the altar just in time to see the priest, who had heard his confession, die there at the altar, his reaction was instant, jumping back and springing to his feet, shooting his hand into his tunic and drawing out his knife quicker than a man running to a brothel, in less than a second the two men were slashing furiously, each trying to land a single cut that would give them the advantage, each of them a hair’s breadth away from Death.