If Buckkeep ever fell to the Raiders, these broad rivers would become high roads for their shallow-draft vessels. They would plunge like a dagger into this soft underbelly of the Six Duchies. These indolent nobles and cocky farm lads would waken to screams and smoke in the night, with no castle to run to, no guards to stand and fight for them. Before they died, they might come to know what others had endured to keep them safe. Before they died, they might rail against a king who had fled those ramparts to come inland and hide himself in pleasures. But I intended that king would die first.
