Talid Farrowheart is a man on the run for the most heinous of crimes. Wanted for the rape of the King’s daughter and the murder of his family, he curses his existence and the bargain he made with the Burnt God. Now he spends his time running from the Justices tracking him or trying to dull his mind and forget the actions he took. When they do catch up with him, he manages to escape through the use of the mark placed upon his arm by the Burnt God, but they are soon back on his trail and catch up with him in a rundown farmstead.

This book is grim and short. The characters in it are not pleasant and there is little to no background about any of them in this short story. The main protagonist has no reason as to why he would make such a choice and we hear little about his family. The Justices, those out to find him, don’t live up to their supposed ideals and happily beat down and torture the protagonist once they catch up with him. We also never find out how he received the cursed arm or how he even managed to get close to the princess in the first place. Such details to flesh out the story could have helped because we are left with a self-pitying fool with no reason to care for him.

The plot is uncomplicated, but still seems to drag in places where something more interesting could have been added instead. However, the passages are descriptive and give an excellent sense of the world around, as the scenes move on. You do get a feel for the characters and their thoughts at the time, it’s just a shame that the reasoning behind it is absent.

For a dark gritty short story, it still leaves this reader uninterested in the fate of the people as there is little to pull you in.