Skinchanger

Before the blonde could "open her third eye," the torches on either side of the square suddenly flared to life in unison.

The firelight instantly dispelled the darkness, illuminating the pale courtyard before Starpike.

"Shieldbreaker" Urrathon held his stone hammer high, as though roaring in fury, while "Siegebreaker" Blaquay stood leaning on his sword, his stone eyes fixed on the thieves with nowhere left to hide.

A familiar voice reached the ears of "Alicent," "Bull," and the others:

"Why would a refined young lady like yourself become a thief?"

And she was not even stealing hearts, but money that reeked of filthy lucre.

Such a fair lady-why turn to thievery?

Having found something of the feel of a dubbed film, Earl Titus was very pleased with his translation skills.

Dressed in plain clothes as dark as the night, he emerged from the darkness with his hand on his longsword, a large contingent of guards surrounding him front and rear.

Parker, the captain of his guards, stood beside him, holding a torch with his other hand resting on his sword.

Around the square.

A squadron of thirty men under Centurion Gino had encircled Alicent and the four bandits under her command.

The Peake soldiers had swords drawn, bows strung, and spears thrust forward, hemming Alicent and the others in without a gap.

Alicent's expression changed abruptly. She reached behind her as though to draw an arrow, then helplessly lowered her hand. There were too many of them, and no cover nearby.

Her accomplices behind her immediately took defensive stances as well. Aside from Bull, whose expression remained unchanged, the other three men looked wretched, slowly sinking into despair as they watched the guards closing in.

"Posing as a merchant's daughter suggests you have some money, without being as difficult to handle as a knightly family. Play it right, and you could smoothly walk away with both money and a beauty... not a bad idea."

Titus walked slowly forward, his gaze settling on the chest in Alicent's hand, a smile curling his lips.

"Alicent, you committed this crime under that name just for a measly chest of gold dragons?"

Across the encirclement, Titus spread his hands. "To be honest, I'm a little disappointed. I thought you'd have some bigger, fiercer, more evil scheme! For instance, using your charms to seduce the Earl of Starpike through me, then coming back to cry to me and force me to get rid of him..."

Looking at the expressionless beauty beneath the moonlight, Titus wished his audience would be a little more polite and give him at least some reaction.

"Have you never given that approach any serious thought? You could even tempt me with a few terms-'That Titus Peake fellow has neither brothers nor sons. Get rid of him, find any child with the surname Peake, and with your preparations already in place, you could become Starpike's acting castellan!' See, I've even written your lines for you."

With a sigh on his face that said, "I gave you a chance, but you couldn't make anything of it," Titus moved his lips and repurposed yesterday's usurpation scheme from Nightsong for Starpike.

Captain Parker, who had accompanied him on an outing and grown somewhat accustomed to the earl's new style, took it well enough.

Centurion Gino, who remained out of sight beyond the Peake soldiers, nearly lost his composure.

What was this? Killing himself? The Earl of Starpike getting rid of the Earl of Starpike?

This round of mockery packed a punch. Alicent finally reacted, noticing a telling detail in the surrounding soldiers' expressions:

"Yes, I deceived you. My name isn't Alicent at all... but you're hardly any better. Should I call you Don Quixote, or Earl Titus?"

The girl caught on quickly.

Titus snorted but did not deny it. He raised his hand, signaling the guards in front to move closer and tighten the encirclement.

"Look, you know my name, but I still don't know yours. Isn't that a little unfair?"

In fact, Jack and the others had long since returned to report that there were no traces of a fight whatsoever where Bull had been found, or anywhere nearby.

The kidnapped merchant father and all the rest had been their invention.

Backed against the wall and outmatched, the blonde and her companions could only answer, "My name is Wenda. You may not have heard of me..."

Titus interrupted offhandedly:

"No, I have. You sell yourself short. The famous Wenda the White Stag, one of the leaders of the Kingswood Brotherhood. And now, I suppose you're the Brotherhood's remnants?

"Wow, don't tell me you're so ambitious that even after being wiped out by the Kingsguard, you're still hoping to make a comeback? How inspiring.

"And the man beside you must be Oswin Longneck? They say he's remarkably hard to kill, having survived three hangings. I'd rather like to see whether Starpike's nooses work any better."

The woman fell silent for a moment, then apologized calmly:

"I'm very sorry, Earl Titus. Though we did harbor some bad intentions, we were only passing through. Originally, we merely wanted to take some money so we'd have enough travel funds to reach Oldtown."

After some thought, she first set the chest on the ground. Then, under her companions' gazes, she tossed aside her longbow, quiver, and sword in turn, keeping only a concealed short dagger on her person, and offered Titus a French military salute.

"Now that you've caught us, I admit defeat. I won't keep trying to argue my way out of it... but neither side has suffered any losses, after all, and we haven't caused Starpike too much trouble. Could you give us a chance to serve you as atonement?"

You won't even say you had no choice before and want to be a good person now... how am I supposed to give you a chance?

Still, this woman really did react quickly, and she had a streak of resilience that refused to admit defeat.

Titus rubbed his chin, his gaze sweeping back and forth over the walls surrounding the courtyard and the sky high above.

His eyesight was good, and he could see clearly even at night, yet he still found nothing. He could not spot the highly suspicious white hawk that had appeared before him three times.

Clearly, though she seemed to have surrendered, she still had something up her sleeve.

Yes, Titus had suspected that among their number was one of those unusual people known as skinchangers.

They were individuals with mystical powers who could enter an animal's consciousness and control its actions. The animal they entered could be a wolf, a dog, a cat, a deer, a boar, or, of course, a bird.

The reason he had wasted so much breath instead of arresting them on the spot was precisely that such talent was hard to come by...

War was coming soon, and the battles would all be major ones.

Titus had to prepare early. Otherwise, how could he claim a share of the spoils in the coming war?

He was an ambitious man and a dutiful lord.

To him, a skinchanger was a rare treasure.

He waited no longer and spoke one final time to confirm it. "Which of you is the skinchanger?"

As his words fell, Oswin and the others all turned their eyes toward Wenda.

Titus immediately grew excited. He had guessed correctly.

Here was a genuine supernatural being right before his eyes, something rarely seen in the south of the continent.

Even if the level of her supernatural abilities would barely register in other worlds, only just qualifying as "low-sequence."

In the low-magic environment of present-day Westeros, however, she was an elite "magic" unit who could provide tremendous assistance in warfare and the wider situation.

Titus proudly believed that, of everyone present, not one understood a skinchanger's capabilities better than he did-not even the White Stag, who was a skinchanger herself.

She could be a white stag or a white falcon, and naturally she could also be a white fox or a white horse.

In theory, she could possess a thousand faces and a thousand eyes!

Consider it carefully.

On this continent, where warfare relied entirely on blind guesses and there was no strategy to speak of, his side would be the first to possess a means of "satellite observation"...

Wouldn't that be "Jiang Boyue furiously slaying Cai Xukun"-

A veritable "dimensional strike" (Jiang Wei attacking a chicken)?

White stag, white falcon, white fox, white horse: