The first time I died, it was because I’d leapt between Jurthek the Mighty and the spear a crazed berzerker had flung at him. Jurthek swore vengeance as the breath left my body, and he slew all who opposed him.

The second time, I was standing next to Jurthek, and the Wielder of the Dark Fire had bad aim. I went up like a torch.

The third time was just an arrow in my leg, so it wouldn’t have been a problem if Jurthek hadn’t burned the drawbridge, meaning we had to swim the moat on the way out. Two weeks later I was glad to die.

After the fourth time (vipers planted in the inn’s bathtub; last time I’ll trust a busty kitchen wench), I started to plan.

This was more difficult than it sounds. For one thing, dying so often plays hell with my schedule. For another, Jurthek is not fated to die yet. In fact, he will not die “until the red-haired child now in its mother’s womb goes a-walking and falls into a pit, and of that pit shall be made the mines of bright steel, and of that steel shall be made the sword that kills Jurthek.” I got some mining and smithing estimates, and it came out to about ten to fifteen years. Fifteen more years of this.

And prophecies like this are tough to get around, at least where Jurthek is concerned. I’ve watched enough plots to kill him come to naught (occasionally getting me instead: deaths number six, nine, and fourteen) to recognize that it’s not just chance. No matter how dastardly the poison or keen the blade, it will always end up in the wrong cup or blunt itself before wounding him. So killing him myself wasn’t an option, satisfying as it was to contemplate. His fate kept him alive.