In the King's Name

Heavy footsteps pounded along the frozen road while the inhabitants of the inn slept; a mailed fist slammed on the front door. The innkeeper jolted awake and began groggily making his way through the kitchen. The innkeeper spit curses as he knocked over a stack of dirt pans and a cast-iron griddle landed on his foot. Finally reaching the front door, he hollered through it.
"What daft fool is making such a ruckus at this time of night?!"
"Open this door in the King's Name!"
The response was proud, almost haughty, the voice cultured and crisp; it was a noble's voice. The innkeeper began to sweat. Nobles pounding on ones door in the middle of the night never boded well. Numbly, he drew the bolts and pushed the door open. Eight heavily armed guards with torches stood outside in formation, and at their center was clearly the man who had spoken. A head taller than the guards with him, his hair gleamed in the torchlight like liquid fire flowing over his shoulders.
"What... is your wish m'lord?" The innkeeper managed to stutter out.

The noble ignored him, and simply gestured forward. The soldiers immediately shoved past him into the main room of the inn. The innkeeper just stood there dumbly as four men charged up the stair and two dashed into the kitchen. The remaining two stood in the common room and watched him. With measured step, the noble entered the room. His eye took in and dismissed the entire place as beneath him in a moment, and he turned to face the innkeeper. "I am Lord Avi, and I have come tracking a creature that would love nothing more than to slaughter your entire miserable town. It has almost certainly taken refuge in this inn, and if you do not wish to be killed along with it, I suggest you cooperate with me."
"C...certainly lord!" The innkeeper managed to blubber out.
Avi's smile at the man was not comforting. "Good..."
A few moments later, the few travelers that had been staying in the inn were dragged roughly downstairs by the soldiers. Avi looked them over carefully, his face hard and eyes glinting with malice in the torchlight.
"Is this all of them?"
"Yes sir."
The travelers were mostly groggy, and vacillating between angry and terrified of the disturbing man before them. Avi slowly walked down the line of people, holding their eyes for as long as they dared look back.
"It seems to think there is refuge in hiding among the lambs, too bad for it, I know how to reveal its wolf-hide."
The soldiers that had run into the kitchen earlier returned to the common room, one of them carrying a few articles of silverware. "Nothing but pewter."
"That explains why it chose this place then."
"...Actually... it's because you took most of my purse the last time I saw you."
The voice emerged from the shadows in the far corner of the common room, where the light from the torches did not quite reach. The soldiers immediately took up guarding positions around the room, Avi took a few steps forward and lifted a torch. The light showed a figure curled into a ball in the corner, wrapped in a ragged cloak.
"When will you give up this pathetic vendetta, Avi... how much gold will you waste that you could feed your people with, how many soldiers will you send to their deaths before it is enough for you?"
The voice was unthreatening, it sounded tired, weary, the voice of a man who has experienced too much and cannot yet stop.
The noble's face twisted into a rictus of hatred, "it will be enough when your head graces a spike on my castle and your body burns to ash! Kill it!"
Finally, the figure moved, its head coming up from between its knees. Its eyes--two orbs of piercing blue--locked onto Avi's, and for a moment, no one in the room moved.
"And I have told you before... many times... why I cannot let you kill me, not yet."