The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1
The Name of the Wind
by Patrick Rothfuss
Contents
CHAPTER FOUR Halfway to Newarre
Overview
Chronicler, exhausted on the road to Newarre, stumbles upon a hooded man preparing for an attack by spider-like scrael. Despite Chronicler’s skepticism, the creatures strike. The man—revealed as Kote—kills five, tending Chronicler afterward and insisting on burning and burying the bodies with ash and rowan. The scene confirms a real, rising threat and Kote’s lethal competence.
Summary
Chronicler, unable to find a horse and footsore, continues toward Newarre after dark. Spotting a distant blaze, he leaves the road for what he expects is farmstead light and instead finds a bonfire among ruined walls and a hooded, gloved man with an iron cudgel and a foul-smelling pot.
The hooded man warns of “demons” shaped like great black spiders and orders Chronicler behind the fire and against the wall. Though skeptical, Chronicler complies as five scrael rush the firelight. One leaps onto Chronicler, slashing his arms and knocking him backward into stone; he blacks out as more approach and the hooded man braces to fight.
Chronicler wakes to pain, stitched cuts, and the hooded man—cloak in tatters—urging him to help burn and bury the bodies with ash and rowan, citing a children’s rhyme. The man admits he may have broken Chronicler’s ribs while prying off a scrael and explains the scrael never retreat.
When Chronicler collapses again, the hooded man reveals himself as Kote. Bleeding under a scored blacksmith’s apron and gray shirt, Kote checks Chronicler’s pupils, apologizes for dripping blood on him, and begins digging graves to destroy the scrael properly, underscoring both the creatures’ menace and Kote’s practiced, dangerous capability.
Who Appears
- KoteHooded defender who kills five scrael, tends Chronicler’s wounds, and begins burning and burying the bodies despite his own injuries.
- ChroniclerWeary scribe seeking shelter; skeptical of ‘demons,’ attacked by scrael, wounded and concussed, briefly assists before fainting.
- ScraelSpider-like attackers that never retreat; five assault the campsite and are slain, to be burned and buried with ash and rowan.