Whitehair.

And something more.

            His severe attire looked frightening against the court’s finery, the blood- stained vest drawing uneasy stares. Clearly, he was a warrior, but his manner carried an authority beyond rank. He stood motionless, surveying the assembly with the intensity of a predator. He focused on Milo, and the little Nawab backed from the throne and melted into the crowd. He surveyed the Warrior King, hardly more than a skeleton awash in a sea of robes. He took in the elderly councilor as well and under his scrutiny, Fulcruchen appeared to relax, as though the Whitehair had been hoped for.

            Only Elymas rebelled.  The Earth Skyll glared down from his stool like a fishwife. His robe, today a merlot color, shifted like fluid about him and the surface of the gold medallion he wore about his neck winked with light from the scones. 

            The two men locked stares; finally, the inner guard remembered his duty.

            “Your Majesty, I announce Oren Hunter.” The voice was uncharacteristically loud. “He claims to bear a message from the Gibbor, Sikestran of the Eld Forest and Seer of the Blue Stones.”

            The arrival of any Pentacas would have caused a disturbance, but the announcement of this particular Whitehair filled the room with equal parts fear and awe. This was the man who’d risen during the Blood Wars and outmaneuvered Casoria’s finest with a handful of howling, half-clothed men. This was the man whose strategies had danced elusively through their war room. This was the man whose shadow had lain across their flight from Ron Jonna, allowing them no quarter to bury their dead.

            Oren Hunter.

            Mothers used his name to frighten wayward children. 

            Yet, for all his exploits, he’d never been seen until now. All who’d faced him were dead.