Lich for Hire

William Harvey's life could be summed up in a single word: misery.

Harvey had been abandoned the moment he was born. Though someone had picked him up and raised him, it wasn't out of kindness—he was treated like livestock. More than a dozen abandoned children had grown up alongside him, but in the end, only Harvey survived.

And he hadn't survived by rising up and killing his tormentor. The old brute simply drank himself to death.

Harvey had been locked inside a cage. He stripped off all his clothes and twisted them into a rope, then used it to hook the key from the old man's corpse. Unfortunately, he had been too slow. By the time he pulled off his escape, none of the other children were alive.

But the misery had only just begun. His survival was, more often than not, out of sheer luck rather than smarts.

After escaping the trafficker's cage came years of wandering.

Harvey himself didn't know how he managed to stay alive. Begging, stealing—he did whatever it took. At the age of twelve, he secretly hid in a monastery and pretended he wished to devote himself to the gods.

Harvey thought he had finally met a good person. The head priest treated him well. He fed him, clothed him, and even taught him how to read.

Harvey loved learning. He studied every character with painstaking care—until the nightmares began. Night after night, he dreamed of a demon with two baboon heads.