A bloodied stake is fastened with snow before the entrance of Khaz'azwyr. Atop the wicked pole, the head of a dwarf is impaled, beardless, maneless. The dwarf's eyes have been clawed out, his mouth frozen open with terror. Upon his forehead, three identical runes are carved in a triangular arrangement, their wicked, curved figures betraying their nature as flesh runes. The poor man's tongue is missing, a large, yellow maggot instead squirming in its place, its face embedded into the dwarf's cheek, sucking off the flesh.
Under the stake, a note, penned in black ink, the color thick upon the page as frozen by the harsh frost. It reads, in sick, curved letters, their flawlessly penned edges like gutting-cuts upon a slain deer.
"To Rhewen, bastard of bastards, son of the ***** of whores, ignorant, stubborn, powerless, and pathetic. A maggot upon the world. Plougher of bears, consumer and regurgitator of lies, maggot-mouthed wretch of low birth. May your ale turn to antimony in your mouth. May your food crystalize into coals in your belly, so that they rip apart your bowels. May your children be as barren as your domains, and may you sire only monsters. May your laughter bring you pain, and your pain be felt by your children. May your halls collapse and kill your babes and may your bloodline die by our blade. May you be made to consume your own children before we execute you as we executed your forefather Barradin."
"How dare you, most faceless of the faceless, most soggy cheeked of the soggy cheeked, most vile of the wretched, threaten our kind with your inflated rhetoric? How dare you, worthless maggot, worshiper of the false gods, licker of the Irongut's boot, pederast of pederasts, open your dirty maggot-mouth to fling insults at our kin? How dare YOU, child-fondler, sheep-lover, bear-fellater, most insolent of the insolent, challenge us to duel on "your" ice?"
"Behold your kin's fate. Search not for the rest of his body, for we fed it to our dogs, so that he may never feel the comforts of the after-death. Behold how the maggot squirms in his mouth. Behold how we shall do this until none of your kind is left to speak any more words on this earth. Behold the terror we will rend onto you."
"You dare challenge us? So be it. We are challenged, and by the black beard of Khorvad and the Horned God shall you experience the consequence of this challenge. I will make your kin cry for mercy and then offer some, only to give none. I will personally come to your halls and carve out your manhood and feed it to the goats. I shall enchant you thrice over so that the only action you are capable of doing is crying for your Gods, who in their absolute falseness, shall never reply. I will make you feel the black embrace of his Great Scourge. I will end your line, as your ilk have tried to end mine so many times."
"Remember Barradin. Remember that whoreson of the whoresons. It was we who captured him in battle and severed his throat so that he could not scream as we stripped his flesh from his body and fed it to the chickens. It was we who drove your kind into the mountains, along with the Irehearts, Grandaxes, Ironguts, and all the other filth-lines. It was we who seduced your men to our cause and proved their fickleness to your crown, only to execute them painfully. Hear the wind moan, and you shall hear the cries of your ancestors against our blades. Hear the caves creak, and you shall hear the laughter of my forefathers as they perpetually rend pain onto your fathers in the Black Afterlife. Hear nature, and hear us."
"I accept your challenge. Attempt pathetically to brace yourself under my assault"
"With greatest contempt and illest curse, Ismirr Ironborn."
At the end of a letter, a bumpy, hair-covered piece of skin is nailed onto the parchment, blood crusting around its edges.
