Joel felt his chest tighten and his fists clench behind him, bound and useless by ropes,

as the back of
his neck was roughly grasped and pressed towards the flame. His vision blurred with the heat of the
fire, the valyrian chanting around him mumbled by his own heartbeat drumming in his skull. It took 3
men to finally wrestle him down, kicking against the ground, ready to bite at them if they dared stick
their fingers too close. They were lucky to even catch him, had his tavern drink not been drugged,
he’d have put up more a fight. He was no stranger to cleaving his sword through a man or bashing
their skulls clean open with his shield. But maybe they knew that when they taken the Glover man out
of the tavern, tied him up, and shipped him off to whatever godforsaken neck of the wolfswood he’d
been dragged to.
Now Joel found himself still putting up the best fight he could muster, but the flames grew closer,
licking at his face as he managed to simmer his pain to just a hiss between his teeth. He could feel
the skin peel from the side of his head, like ripe fruit giving away to boiling flesh as the blood ran down
and sizzled in the heat. The pain of it seized his entire consciousness and he struggled to maintain
himself when he heard a crack in the woods. Like thunder a branch splintered from a tree overhead
and came roaring down, crushing a band of valyrian chanters under the weight of the tree’s great arm.
The cult stumbled back away from him, enough so still seething, he could roll away from the fire and
breath more than his own flesh smoldering away from his cheek and chin. Just like that, 5 of they lay
dead and the remaining 3 gave a terrified glance to the woods before sprinting off into the wilderness.
When it was done, Joel was left with the searing pain, his face contorted beyond recognition, and
nothing to comfort him but the winds soothing his burns with the gentle breeze of the crisp Northern
air. It was a day or so later when he was found, mistaken for some gruesome monster, and only then
recognized as a man when he began to yell. He was carried back to Deepwood Motte to have his
wounds tended to, but he would not be denied the rage he’d consumed during the whole ordeal. His
weapons and armor had been robbed, but he was determined to return to the smithy, to hammer out
his own equipment so that he could hunt down the cowards, and finish what the Old Gods did not.
Now the fire of the forges made him flinch ever so slightly, but he bit it down with the bitter taste of
revenge on his tongue. He would see the heretics dead.