"Please . . ." stuttered a man, or perhaps the right word is boy. The room was cold, what with it being in the cellar. And the North. He was not clothed, and couldn't draw some heat from huddling, for his arms were sloppily nailed to a wooden "X".

"Please what now?" asked another man, also not far from boyhood himself. He sat in an old chair, made by obviously incompetent hands, cleaning a mallet.

"Rimm . . ." whispered the first boy. His skin was beginning to peel from the cold winds. Thus taking away part of the fun.

"Yes, I'm Rimm. However, a lowlife like you would do well for themselves to address me as Lord Bolton of the Dreadfort," said Rimm, with false enthusiasm. "However, you have just earned yourself the privilege to call me whatever you wish. By my decree, that's the right of people nailed to that cross. Don't you feel lucky? It's a great honor, just ask the men before you."

"Water . . ." the man croaked.

"What about water?"

"Drink . . ."

"Yes, people drink water. Congratulations! And they told me bandits don't learn anything. Now, I do have to meet with my maester in the evening. Something about my mental state. Well, you know who your successor is now. So, can you please get to the point. Water, drink, what?" The other man slumped on the cross. He would get nowhere with this madman.

"Kill . . . me . . ." he rasped, for the last time.

"Oh, no no no," Rimm responded, jovially. "We haven't had enough time to get to know each other!" During this, he had picked up a blunt, rusty knife and began inspecting it. "I want to hear about everything in your life. Your heinous acts, your vile misdeeds, did you really kill an old man for the loose pennies in his pocket?" He then jammed the blade into the hanging man's lower abdomen. "See? Look at all the fun we're having. How is your heart? Let's find out!" He then began slowly cutting upwards, peeling into his skin, neatly removing it from his flesh and bone. The screams could be heard all throughout the Dreadfort, and perhaps in the lands beyond.

Soon, the grisly deed was done. The hanging man, thoroughly flayed, was limp on the cross. his organs spilled out of the crevasse in his chest and onto the floor in front of him.

"Udrick! Send in the next one!" Rimm shouted.