Hit hardest and hit first.
Don't let anyone in, it gets you killed.
Don't look back, it gets you killed.
Rules to survive by, but not rules live by.
Ony Zimyatov is not a nice person. Ony Zimyatov is very good a hurting things. Ony Zimyatov has precisely nothing better to do than chase down the people who killed his one chance at something approaching a decent life.
Known less than affectionately by those wise enough to be concerned by his presence as Ony the Dog, he has taken great pains to wash away whatever hellhole he came from. The only remaining visages are his remarkable propensity for sudden violence and lack of concern for the moral ramifications thereof.
In steps the Professor, he could be called a good man but many people are 'good' compared to Ony. Ony saved the old man in Magnimar, not because of some kind of moral obligation but because he had a bone to pick with the thugs that had been hired to put the hurt on the Professor. Lorrimor decided he saw something in Ony that Ony did not himself or anyone else for that matter. Despite Ony's disinterest in the old man and the fact that he was picking shards of teeth from his knuckles, Lorrimor wrote Ony something of a blank check in return for the timely rescue.
Ony did not think anything of it for a time. He was content in Magnimar, life was never dull and a fellow like him could always find work. Of course, the thing about cities like Magnimar and fellows like him is that one often ends up eating the other alive. Things got messy in Magnimar, do not bother asking, he will never tell just how but he was left hurting in ways in never thought he could. Friendless, he remembered the funny old man he had saved and decided it was time to call in that particular favor.
To his surprise and immediate suspicion, he was welcomed with open arms by the old man. Lorrimor, in return for Ony saving him, decided to save Ony. The Professor was certainly smarter than Ony and manipulated him in more ways than one. There was more than once when Ony was ready to pack up and leave but events always seemed to conspire to bring him back. In the end, the old man must have gotten through to Ony somehow, he started learning a trade, spent time in the Professor's library, even began making nice with the townsfolk. Soon enough, he found more respite in working wood than he did in the bloody brawls of his past.
It was when he was spending some time in Korvosa, wrapping up the last few loose ends in his past life and picking up some supplies from a holy man of Lorrimor's acquaintance that the letter found him. It turns out it does not take much to set a man back down a path of violence.
