00:09The boy is sleeping now.
00:15Sometimes I wonder if the boy would ever wake again.
00:19In the beginning it had been hard.
00:22The boy had fought fiercely.
00:27As all living things do.
00:30Weak he might have been.
00:32But never willing.
00:35Each passing year the sleep grew deeper.
00:38Heavier.
00:39Like snow piling on a grave.
00:44Before the battle.
00:46He was just a boy.
00:49No one worth remembering.
00:52He was the son.
00:54Of a farmer.
00:56He rose before the sun.
00:58Carried water from the well.
01:01Fed the chickens.
01:04Take care of the sheep.
01:06He had never held a sword.
01:10He had never killed a man.
01:13The only blood he had spilled was that of the chickens he butchered for supper.
01:18And even then he would whisper a little prayer afterward.
01:23As his mother had taught him.
01:25Parity is a boy.
01:27He was a good boy.
01:30Innocent.
01:32Perhaps that was the reason I could get in.
01:36There was no wall around his mind.
01:39No suspicion behind his eyes.
01:42His heart had never learned to fear what it could not see.
01:48He had spent his life believing that the world was what it appeared to be.
01:55And so, when I came, he did not know how to keep me out.
02:33He was a good boy.
02:38Oh, my God.
03:09Oh, my God.
03:52The blow to my head still throbs, even now, 15 years later.
03:58But the boy sleeps now, and I hunt.
04:01That is what we share, the boy and I.
04:05Hunting.
04:09Not the same prey.
04:11Not the same reasons.
04:13But the same thrill.
04:16The slow stalk.
04:18The held breath.
04:24The perfect moment when Predator becomes Executioner, and afterwards, the prize.
04:35The first time I hunted for the king's justice, I was still young.
04:41One and ten.
04:44The king's man was a noble.
04:47Drunk.
04:49Bloated with wine and whore after a night in a brothel at Maidenpool.
04:54He never screamed.
04:56I never learned his name.
04:58Only his sigil.
05:00A silver salmon on a red field.
05:02It did not matter.
05:04A king's man was an enemy.
05:07That was enough.
05:09Even though the boy was small and young, the boy has worked the fields.
05:14The boy had carried grain.
05:18The boy had walked behind plows beneath the sun.
05:22He had the strength of the small folk.
05:25And now, the knowledge of the prince.
05:29Two lives inhabiting one body.
05:33Two ghosts sharing one skin.
05:39The people in Maidenpool called him Rice.
05:42Little Rice.
05:46His family had lived beside the river.
05:48Planting grain, oats, wheat, and rice.
05:52Each day, after the work was done,
05:57rice carried their harvest to Maidenpool to trade.
06:02The port brought sailors.
06:05Sailors brought coin.
06:08And coin brought enemies.
06:21There had been so many over the years that a legend had grown around the killings.
06:27The Maidenpool dragon.
06:31Men found burned.
06:34Ashes left where bodies had been.
06:36No one knew why.
06:39No one knew who.
06:48After Rice's mother died of fever and his dad on the king's road.
06:54There had only be the prince.
06:57The prince stopped working the fields.
07:01No reason to keep living two lives.
07:05The boy could sleep.
07:08The prince could hunt.
07:12He lived instead from what his victims had carried.
07:17Taking only enough to survive.
07:36Still, he went to Maidenpool each day.
07:43He worked the docks.
07:47Loaded ships.
07:51Unloaded cargo.
07:59Spoke to sailors.
08:02Listened.
08:03Just passing through.
08:04Watched.
08:06That was how he marked his prey.
08:11Fifteen years later.
08:13The boy's body had become something different.
08:17The muscles had returned.
08:20So had the speed.
08:23The old agility.
08:27Somehow.
08:29He was stronger than he had ever been.
08:37Nearly sixty years old.
08:40Yet wearing the body of a man half his age.
08:50This time there were three.
08:53Hedge knights.
08:55The three knights had come from Riverrun.
08:59Lions.
09:01That was enough.
09:04Every bed in Maidenpool was taken that night.
09:07The knights had no choice but to camp beyond the city walls.
09:12Beneath the trees.
09:14Rice knew those woods better than any man alive.
09:19Five trees beyond the red rock.
09:23Inside lay the one thing he had come for.
09:27Dragonclaw.
09:28The blade had belonged to his house long before Rice had been born.
09:33An ancestral sword.
09:44Most men believed it had been lost upon the Red River.
09:47When the usurper slew the prince.
09:54Most men were wrong.
10:01The moon was full that night.
10:04Too bright for hunting.
10:05But opportunities were not things Rice allowed himself to waste.
10:11Three men.
10:13One against three.
10:15Simple enough.
10:16He would take the first before the others understood what was happening.
10:20Then two.
10:22He could kill two.
10:24He had killed more.
10:27The camp was close.
10:29Two knights slept beside the fire.
10:31The third kept watch.
10:41God damn it.
10:47A dragonfly.
10:50For a heartbeat, Rice remembered another dragonfly.
10:56Another life.
10:57He had been in the royal gardens.
11:00A boy then.
11:02Training.
11:03Learning.
11:12The world had changed.
11:14The world had changed.
11:15The smells.
11:16The fear.
11:18The master had warned him afterward.
11:20Some creatures fought harder than others.
11:23Some welcomed the bond.
11:25But with training, any skin could be worn.
11:28Even a man's.
11:34Tonight was special.
11:37Among the knights who rode beneath the lions' banners was Sir Tristan.
11:43They called him the Untamed Lion.
11:47Most believed the usurper had killed the prince years ago on the banks of the Red River.
11:55They were wrong.
11:56They were wrong.
11:57Who was there saw that was Sir Tristan who had killed him.
12:01The knight had always been a formidable man.
12:04The champion of a dozen tourneys.
12:08Victor in battles too numerous to count.
12:11Men said he had never been unpaused.
12:15Never been beaten in single combat.
12:19Unbeatable.
12:20Unbeatable.
12:21Some called him.
12:27They were probably right.
12:30Even with years of training, I might never be able to defeat him in single combat.
12:36Not with the clash of swords nor in the meeting of the joust.
12:40But strength is not only found in muscle and bone.
12:44But strength is not only found in muscle and bone.
13:21Fetchies but not only found in muscle and bone.
13:21What is it?
13:21It was a reloadingBRAMLANE caught young into kapiton by general.
13:24What is it?
13:29Honestly, not ask.
13:30No!
13:30I've addressed thisgan state.
13:36I've got Tock pan for weeks on how it was.
13:37Let's go.
14:08Let's go.
14:37With enough training, a man can learn to wear another man's skin.
14:45And believe me, I have been training long enough.
15:08With enough training, a man can learn to wear another man's skin.
15:13With enough training, a man can learn to wear another man's skin.
15:13With enough training, a man can learn to wear another man's skin.
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