52 pages • 1 hour read
Mark LawrencePrince of Thorns
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2011A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 14-16Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 14 Summary
Contrary to Jorg’s instincts, Jorg and the brothers continue onwards to Tall Castle. They are intercepted by a garrison and told that the King hires mercenaries elsewhere. Jorg calls Gomst forward, and the priest identifies him as Prince Jorg.
The guard captain, Coddin, leads the brothers to the Tall Castle. News of Jorg’s return runs ahead of them so that Jorg is mobbed by progressively larger groups of townsfolk. Lord Nossar comes out to see Jorg and tries to get the Prince to stay with him for the night. Jorg is tempted but will not be turned from his course.
At the city gate, a guard captain informs Jorg that the brothers must stay in the Low City; only Jorg, Gomst, and Bortha are summoned to the court.
Chapter 15 Summary
Four years earlier, Jorg is leaving the city with the brothers. Rike and his brother, Price, suggest that the brothers get away from the Keep as quickly as possible. Jorg, however, suggests that they all sneak into a tavern, mix in with the crowd, and wait for the patrols to die down. Jorg and the Nuban, who are the only two likely to be identified, set out into the fields.
Jorg asks the Nuban how he was captured. The Nuban says a “dream-witch” bewitched them in their dreams so that they remained asleep while the King’s men captured them. When the Nuban asks Jorg why he left a life of comfort, Jorg responds that there’s someone he needs to kill.
Eventually, the two begin to look for a dry place to get warm and force their way into an old barn. Jorg asks if the Nuban is worried the dream-witch will come for him again, and the Nuban replies that the witch is more likely to send his hunter after them instead.
Chapter 16 Summary
Jorg is caught in a nightmare, reliving the moments before Renar’s assassins took their stagecoach. In the dream, his mother repeatedly commands him to sleep until he realizes that it is not his mother. Jorg leaps away to escape the witch his mother has turned into and wakes with a jolt.
Jorg can see a solitary figure with a lantern standing in the barn door. The man begins to aim an enormous crossbow toward the Nuban. Jorg reaches for his knife but finds a baling hook instead. Sneaking around behind his target, Jorg hooks the man in his crotch, and his screams awaken the Nuban, who promptly kills the man. The Nuban says that he now owes Jorg two lives, and Jorg says the he only wants to kill one person: Count Renar.
Chapters 14-16 Analysis
As Jorg’s path begins to diverge from a life of rootless banditry, the reader is drawn back to his earliest days outside of the Tall Castle. Because they cannot blend in with the others, the Nuban and Jorg bond while traveling together. The Nuban’s story about a dream-witch has important implications for the true nature of “the game,” which Jorg will eventually uncover.
The attack by the dream-witch’s hunter solidifies the bond between Jorg and the Nuban as well as furnishing the Nuban with his signature, enchanted crossbow. The Nuban’s statement that he owes Jorg two lives may foreshadow the reality that Jorg’s real enemies are the two sorcerers trying to manipulate him.
