The Winds Of Winter Part 3

"My face is yours. Do what you will."

"What I will you will not, it seems. So be it. Talk with me instead. Could this truly be Prince Aegon?"

"Gregor Clegane ripped Aegon out of Elia's arms and smashed his head against a wall," Ser Daemon said. "If Lord Connington's prince has a crushed skull, I will believe that Aegon Targaryen has returned from the grave. Elsewise, no. This is some feigned boy, no more. A sellsword's ploy to win support."

My father fears the same. "If not, though... if this truly is Jon Connington, if the boy is Rhaegar's son... "

"Are you hoping that he is, or that he's not?"

"I... it would give great joy to my father if Elia's son were still alive. He loved his sister well."

"It was you I asked about, not your father."

So it was. "I was seven when Elia died. They say I held her daughter Rhaenys once, when I was too young to remember. Aegon will be a stranger to me, whether true or false." The princess paused. "We looked for Rhaegar's sister, not his son." Her father had confided in Ser Daemon when he chose him as his daughter's shield; with him at least she could speak freely. "I would sooner it were Quentyn who'd returned."

"Or so you say," said Daemon Sand. "Good night, princess." He bowed to her, and left her standing there.

What did he mean by that? Arianne watched him walk away. What sort of sister would I be, if I did not want my brother back? It was true, she had resented Quentyn for all those years that she had thought their father meant to name him as his heir in place of her, but that had turned out to be just a misunderstanding. She was the heir to Dorne, she had her father's word on that. Quentyn would have his dragon queen, Daenerys.

In Sunspear hung a portrait of the Princess Daenerys who had come to Dorne to marry one of Arianne's forebears. In her younger days Arianne had spent hours gazing at it, back when she was just a pudgy flat-chested girl on the cusp of maidenhood who prayed every night for the G.o.ds to make her pretty. A hundred years ago, Daenerys Targaryen came to Dorne to make a peace. Now another comes to make a war, and my brother will be her king and consort. King Quentyn. Why did that sound so silly?

Almost as silly as Quentyn riding on a dragon. Her brother was an earnest boy, well-behaved and dutiful, but dull. And plain, so plain. The G.o.ds had given Arianne the beauty she had prayed for, but Quentyn must have prayed for something else. His head was overlarge and sort of square, his hair the color of dried mud. His shoulders slumped as well, and he was too thick about the middle. He looks too much like Father.

"I love my brother," said Arianne, though only the moon could hear her. Though if truth be told, she scarcely knew him. Quentyn had been fostered by Lord Anders of House Yronwood, the Bloodroyal, the son of Lord Ormond Yronwood and grandson of Lord Edgar. In his youth her uncle Oberyn had fought a duel with Edgar, had given him a wound that mortified and killed him. Afterward men called him 'the Red Viper,' and spoke of poison on his blade. The Yronwoods were an ancient house, proud and powerful. Before the coming of the Rhoynar they had been kings over half of Dorne, with domains that dwarfed those of House Martell. Blood feud and rebellion would surely have followed Lord Edgar's death, had not her father acted at once. The Red Viper went to Oldtown, thence across to the narrow sea to Lys, though none dared call it exile. And in due time, Quentyn was given to Lord Anders to foster as a sign of trust. That helped to heal the breach between Sunspear and the Yronwoods, but it had opened new ones between Quentyn and the Sand Snakes... and Arianne had always been closer to her cousins than to her distant brother.

"We are still the same blood, though," she whispered. "Of course I want my brother home. I do." The wind off the sea was raising goosep.r.i.c.kles all up and down her arms. Arianne pulled her cloak about herself, and went off to seek her bed.

Their ship was called the Peregrine. They sailed upon the morning tide. The G.o.ds were good to them, the sea calm. Even with good winds, the crossing took a day and a night. Jayne Ladybright grew greensick and spent most of the voyage spewing, which Elia Sand seemed to find hilarious. "Someone needs to spank that child," Joss Hood was heard to say... but Elia was amongst those who heard him say it.

"We are on a ship, and without horses," Joss replied.

"And ladies do not joust," insisted Ser Garibald Sh.e.l.ls, a far more serious and proper young man than his companion.

"I do. I'm Lady Lance."

Arianne had heard enough. "You may be a lance, but you are no lady. Go below and stay there till we reach land."

Elsewise the crossing was uneventful. At dusk they spied a galley in the distance, her oars rising and falling against the evening stars, but she was moving away from them, and soon dwindled and was gone. Arianne played a game of cyva.s.se with Ser Daemon, and another one with Garibald Sh.e.l.ls, and somehow managed to lose both. Ser Garibald was kind enough to say that she played a gallant game, but Daemon mocked her. "You have other pieces beside the dragon, princess. Try moving them sometime."

"I like the dragon." She wanted to slap the smile off his face. Or kiss it off, perhaps. The man was as smug as he was comely. Of all the knights in Dorne, why did my father chose this one to be my shield? He knows our history. "It is just a game. Tell me of Prince Viserys."

"The Beggar King?" Ser Daemon seemed surprised.

"Everyone says that Prince Rhaegar was beautiful. Was Viserys beautiful as well?"

"I suppose. He was Targaryen. I never saw the man."

The secret pact that Prince Doran had made all those years called for Arianne to be wed to Prince Viserys, not Quentyn to Daenerys. It had all come undone on the Dothraki sea, when he was murdered. Crowned with a pot of molten gold. "He was killed by a Dothraki khal," said Arianne. "The dragon queen's own husband."

"So I've heard. What of it?"

"Just... why did Daenerys let it happen? Viserys was her brother. All that remained of her own blood."

"The Dothraki are a savage folk. Who can know why they kill? Perhaps Viserys wiped his a.r.s.e with the wrong hand."

Perhaps, thought Arianne, or perhaps Daenerys realized that once her brother was crowned and wed to me, she would be doomed to spend the rest of her life sleeping in a tent and smelling like a horse. "She is the Mad King's daughter," the princess said. "How do we do know -- "

"We cannot know," Ser Daemon said. "We can only hope."

BARRISTAN.

Through the gloom of night the dead men flew, raining down upon the city streets. The riper corpses would fall to pieces in the air, and burst when they came smashing down onto the bricks, scattering worms and maggots and worse things. Others would bounce against the sides of pyramids and towers, leaving smears of blood and gore to mark the places where theyad struck.

Huge as they were, the Yunkish trebuchets did not have the range to throw their grisly burdens deep into the city. Most of the dead were landing just inside the walls, or slamming off barbicans, parapets, and defensive towers. With the six sisters arrayed in a rough crescent around Meereen, every part of the city was being struck, save only the river districts to the north. No trebuchet could throw across the width of the Skahazadhan. A small mercy, that, thought Barristan Selmy, as he rode into the market square inside Meereenas great western gate.

When Daenerys had taken the city, they had broken through that same gate with the huge battering ram called Josoas c.o.c.k, made from the mast of a ship. The Great Masters and their slave soldiers had met the attackers here, and the fighting had raged through the surrounding streets for hours. By the time the city finally fell, hundreds of dead and dying had littered the square. Now once again the market was a scene of carnage, though these dead came riding the pale mare.

By day Meereenas brick streets showed half a hundred hues, but night turned them into patchworks of black and white and grey. Torchlight shimmered in the puddles left by the recent rains, and painted lines of fire on the helms and greaves and breastplates of the men. Ser Barristan Selmy rode past them slowly. The old knight wore the armor his queen had given hima"a suit of white enameled steel, inlaid and chased with gold. The cloak that that streamed from his shoulders was as white as winter snow, as was the shield slung from his saddle.

Beneath him was the queenas own mount, the silver mare Khal Drogo had given her upon their wedding day. That was presumptous, he knew, but if Daenerys herself could not be with them in their hour of peril, Ser Barristan hoped the sight of her silver in the fray might give heart to her warriors, reminding them of who and what they fought for. Besides, the silver had been years in the company of the queenas dragons, and had grown accustomed to the sight and scent of them. That was not something that could be said for the horses of their foes.

With him rode three of his lads. Tumco Lho carried the three-headed dragon banner of House Targaryen, red on black. Larraq the Lash bore the white forked standard of the Kingsguard: seven silver swords encircling a golden crown. To the Red Lamb Selmy had given a great silver-banded warhorn, to sound commands across the battlefield. His other boys remained at the Great Pyramid. They would fight another day, or not at all. Not every squire was meant to be a knight.

It was the hour of the wolf. The longest, darkest hour of the night. For many of the men who had a.s.sembled in the market square, it would be the last night of their lives.

Beneath the towering brick facade of Meereenas ancient Slave Exchange, five thousand Unsullied were drawn up in ten long lines. They stood as still as if they had been carved of stone, each with his three spears, short sword, and shield. Torchlight winked off the spikes of their bronze helmets, and bathed the smooth-cheeked faces beneath. When a body came spinning down amongst them, the eunuchs simply stepped aside, taking just as many steps as were required, then closing ranks again. They were all afoot, even their officers: Grey Worm first and foremost, marked by the three spikes on his helm.

The Stormcrows had a.s.sembled beneath the merchantas arcade fronting on the southern side of the square, where the arches gave them some protection from the dead men. Jokinas archers were fitting strings to their bows as Ser Barristan rode by. The Widower sat grim-faced astride a gaunt grey horse, with his shield upon his arm and his spiked battle-axe in hand. A fan of black feathers sprouted from one temple of his iron halfhelm. The boy beside him was clutching the companyas banner: a dozen ragged black streamers on a tall staff, topped by a carved wooden crow.

The horselords had come as well. Aggo and Rakharo had taken most of the queenas small khalasar across the Skahazadhan, but the old half-crippled jaqqa rhan Rommo had sc.r.a.ped together twenty riders from those left behind. Some were as old as he was, many marked by some old wound or deformity. The rest were beardless boys, striplings seeking their first bell and the right to braid their hair. They milled about near the weathered bronze statue of the Chainmaker, anxious to be off, dancing their horses aside whenever a corpse came spinning down from above.

Not far from them, about the ghastly monument the Great Masters called the Spire of Skulls, several hundred pit fighters had gathered. Selmy saw the Spotted Cat amongst them. Beside him stood Fearless Ithoke, and elsewhere Senerra She-Snake, Camarron of the Count, the Brindled Butcher, Togosh, Marrigo, Orlos the Catamite. Even Goghor the Giant was there, towering above the others like a man amongst boys. Freedom means something to them after all, it would seem. The pit fighters had more love for Hizdahr than they had ever shown Daenerys, but Selmy was glad to have them all the same. Some are even wearing armor, he observed. Perhaps his defeat of Khrazz had taught them something.

Above, the gatehouse battlements were crowded with men in patchwork cloaks and brazen masks: the Shavepate had sent his Brazen Beasts onto the city walls, to free up the Unsullied to take the field. Should the battle be lost, it would be up to Skahaz and his men to hold Meereen against the Yunkaiai a until such time as Queen Daenerys could return. If indeed she ever does.

Across the city at other gates others forces had a.s.sembled. Tal Toraq and his Stalwart Shields had gathered by the eastern gate, sometimes called the hill gate or the Khyzai gate, since travelers bound for Lhazar via the Khyzai Pa.s.s always left that way. Ma.r.s.elen and the Motheras Men had ma.s.sed beside the south gate, the Yellow Gate. The Free Brothers and Symon Stripeback had drawn the north gate, fronting on the river. They would have the easiest egress, with no foe before them but a few ships.

The Yunkishmen had placed two Ghiscari legions to the north, but they were camped across the Skahazadhan, with the whole width of the river between them and the walls of Meereen. The main Yunkish camp lay to the west, between the walls of Meereen and the warm green waters of Slaveras Bay. Two of the trebuchets had risen there, one beside the river, the second opposite Meereenas main gates, defended by two dozen of Yunkaias Wise Masters, each with his own slave soldiers. Between the great siege engines were the fortified encampments of two Ghiscari legions. The Company of the Cat had its camp between the city and the sea. The foe had Tolosi slingers too, and somewhere out in the night were three hundred Elyrian crossbowmen.

Too many foes, Ser Barristan brooded. Their numbers must surely tell against us. This attack went against all of the old knightas instincts. Meereenas walls were thick and strong. Inside those walls, the defenders enjoyed every advantage. Yet he had no choice but to lead his men into the teeth of the Yunkish siege lines, against foes of vastly greater strength. The White Bull would have called it folly.

He would have warned Barristan against trusting sellswords too. This is what it has come to, my queen, Ser Barristan thought. Our fates hinge upon a sellswordas greed. Your city, your people, our lives a the Tattered Prince holds us all in his bloodstained hands. Even if their best hope proved to be forlorn hope, Selmy knew that he had no other choice. He might have held Meereen for years against the Yunkaiai, but he could not hold it for even a moonas turn with the pale mare galloping through its streets.

A hush fell across the market square as the old knight and his banner bearers rode toward the gatehouse. Selmy could hear the murmur of countless voices, the sound of horses blowing, whickering, and sc.r.a.ping iron-shod hooves over crumbling brick, the faint clatter of sword and shield. All of it seemed m.u.f.fled and far away. It was not a silence, just a quiet, the indrawn breath that comes before the shout. Torches smoked and crackled, filling the darkness with shifting orange light. Thousands turned as one to watch as the old knight wheeled his horse around in the shadow of the great iron-banded gates. Barristan Selmy could feel their eyes upon him. The captains and commanders advanced to meet him. Jokin and the Widower for the Stormcrows, ringmail clinking under faded cloaks; Grey Worm, Sure Spear, and Dogkiller for the Unsullied, in spiked bronze caps and quilted armor; Rommo for the Dothraki; Camarron, Goghor, and the Spotted Cat for the pit fighters.

aYou know our plan of attack,a the white knight said, when the captains were gathered around him. aWe will hit them first with our horse, as soon as the gate is opened. Ride hard and fast, straight at the slave soldiers. When the legions form up, sweep around them. Take them from behind or from the flank, but do not try their spears. Remember your objectives.a aThe trebuchet,a said the Widower. aThe one the Yunkaiai call Harridan. Take it, topple it, or burn it.a Jokin nodded. aFeather as many of their n.o.bles as we can. And burn their tents, the big ones, the pavilions.a aKill many man,a said Rommo. aTake no slaves.a Ser Barristan turned in the saddle. aCat, Goghor, Camarron, your men will follow afoot. You are known as fearsome fighters. Frighten them. Scream and shout. By the time you reach the Yunkish lines, our hors.e.m.e.n should have broken through. Follow them into the breach, and do as much slaughter as you can. Where you can, spare the slaves and cut down their masters, the n.o.blemen and officers. Fall back before you are surrounded.a Goghor smashed a fist against his chest. aGoghor not fall back. Never.a Then Goghor die, the old knight thought, soon. But this was not the time nor place for that argument. He let it pa.s.s, and said, aThese attacks should distract the Yunkaiai long enough for Grey Worm to march the Unsullied out the gate and form up.a That was where his plan would rise or fall, he knew. If the Yunkish commanders had any sense, they would send their horse thundering down on the eunuchs before they could form ranks, when they were most vulnerable. His own cavalry would have to prevent that long enough for the Unsullied to lock shields and raise their wall of spears.

aAt the sound of my horn, Grey Worm will advance in line and roll up the slavers and their soldiers. It may be that one or more Ghiscari legions will march out to meet them, shield to shield and spear to spear."

The Widoweras horse sidled to his left. aAnd if your horn falls silent, ser knight? If you and these green boys of yours are cut down?a It was a fair question. Ser Barristan meant to be the first through the Yunkish lines. He might well be the first to die. It often worked that way. aIf I fall, command is yours. After you, Jokin. Then Grey Worm.a Should all of us be killed, the day is lost, he might have added, but they all knew that, surely, and none of them would want to hear it said aloud. Never speak of defeat before a battle, Lord Commander Hightower had told him once, when the world was young, for the G.o.ds may be listening.

aAnd if we come upon the captain?a asked the Widower. Daario Naharis. aGive him a sword and follow him.a Though Barristan Selmy had little love and less trust for the queenas paramour, he did not doubt his courage, nor his skill at arms. And if he should die heroically in battle, so much the better. aIf there are no further questions, go back to your men and say a prayer to whatever G.o.d you believe in. Dawn will be on us soon.a aA red dawn,a said Jokin of the Stormcrows. A dragon dawn, thought Ser Barristan.

He had done his own praying earlier, as his squires helped him don his armor. His G.o.ds were far away across the sea in Westeros, but if the septons told it true, the Seven watched over their children wherever they might wander. Ser Barristan had said a prayer to the Crone, beseeching her to grant him a little of her wisdom, so that he might lead his men to victory. To his old friend the Warrior he prayed for strength. He asked the Mother for her mercy, should he fall. The Father he entreated to watch over his lads, these half-trained squires who were the closest things to sons that he would ever know. Finally he had bowed his head to the Stranger. aYou come for all men in the end,a he had prayed, abut if it please you, spare me and mine today, and gather up the spirits of our foes instead.

Out beyond the city walls, the distant thump of a trebuchet releasing could be heard. Dead men and body parts came spinning down out of the night. One crashed amongst the pit fighters, showering them with bits of bone and brain and flesh. Another bounced off the Chainmakeras weathered bronze head and tumbled down his arm to land with a wet splat at his feet. A swollen leg splashed in a puddle not three yards from where Selmy sat waiting on his queenas horse.

aThe pale mare,a murmured Tumco Lho. His voice was thick, his dark eyes shiny in his black face. Then he said something in the tongue of the Basilisk Isles that might have been a prayer. He fears the pale mare more than he fears our foes, Ser Barristan realized. His other lads were frightened too. Brave as they might be, not one was blooded yet.

He wheeled his silver mare about. aGather round me, men.a When they edged their horses closer, he said, aI know what you are feeling. I have felt the same myself, a hundred times. Your breath is coming faster than it should. In your belly a knot of fear coils like a cold black worm. You feel as though you need to empty your bladder, maybe move your bowels. Your mouth is dry as the sands of Dorne. What if you shame yourself out there, you wonder? What if you forget all your training? You yearn to be a hero, but deep down inside you fear you might be craven. Every boy feels the same way on the eve of battle. Aye, and grown men as well. Those Stormcrows over there are feeling the same thing. So are the Dothraki. There is no shame in fear, unless you let it master you. We all taste terror in our time.a aI am not afraid.a The Red Lambas voice was loud, almost to the point of shouting. aShould I die, I will go before the Great Shepherd of Lhazar, break his crook across my knee, and say to him, aWhy did you make your people , when the world is full of wolves?a Then I will spit into his eye.a Ser Barristan smiled. aWell said a but take care that you do not seek death out there, or you will surely find it. The Stranger comes for all of us, but we need not rush into his arms. Whatever might befall us on the battlefield, remember, it has happened before, and to better men than you. I am an old man, an old knight, and I have seen more battles than most of you have years. Nothing is more terrible upon this earth, nothing more glorious, nothing more absurd. You may retch. You will not be the first. You may drop your sword, your shield, your lance. Others have done the same. Pick it up and go on fighting. You may foul your breeches. I did, in my first battle. No one will care. All battlefields smell of s.h.i.t. You may cry out for your mother, pray to G.o.ds you thought you had forgotten, howl obscenities that you never dreamed could pa.s.s your lips. All this has happened too. Some men die in every battle. More survive. East or west, in every inn and wine sink, you will find greybeards endlessly refighting the wars of their youth. They survived their battles. So may you. This you can be certain of: the foe you see before you is just another man, and like as not he is as frightened as you. Hate him if you must, love him if you can, but lift your sword and bring it down, then ride on. Above all else, keep moving. We are too few to win the battle. We ride to make chaos, to buy the Unsullied time enough to make their spear wall, wea"a aSer?a Larraq pointed with the Kingsguard banner, even as a wordless murmur went up from a thousand pairs of lips. Far across the city, where the shadowed steps of Meereenas Great Pyramid shouldered eight hundred feet into a starless sky, a fire had awoken where once the harpy stood. A yellow spark at the apex of the pyramid, it glimmered and was gone again, and for half a heartbeat Ser Barristan was afraid the wind had blown it out. Then it returned, brighter, fiercer, the flames swirling, now yellow, now red, now orange, reaching up, clawing at the dark. Away to the east, dawn was breaking behind the hills. Another thousand voices were exclaiming now. Another thousand men were looking, pointing, donning their helms, reaching for their swords and axes. Ser Barristan heard the rattle of chains. That was the portcullis coming up. Next would come the groan of the gateas huge iron hinges. It was time.

The Red Lamb handed him his winged helm. Barristan Selmy slipped it down over his head, fastened it to his gorget, pulled up his shield, slipped his arm inside the straps. The air tasted strangely sweet. There was nothing like the prospect of death to make a man feel alive.

aMay the Warrior protect us all,a he told his lads. aSound the attack.a TYRION.

Somewhere off in the far distance, a dying man was screaming for his mother. "To horse!' a man was yelling in Ghiscari, in the next camp to the north of the Second Sons. "To horse! To horse!" High and shrill, his voice carried a long way in the morning air, far beyond his own encampment. Tyrion knew just enough Ghiscari to understand the words, but the fear in his voice would have been plain in any tongue. I know how he feels.

It was time to find his own horse, he knew. Time to don some dead boyas armor, buckle on a sword and dagger, slip his dinted greathelm down over his head. Dawn had broken, and a sliver of the rising sun was visible behind the city's walls and towers, blindingly bright. To the west the stars were fading, one by one. Trumpets were blowing along the Skahazadhan, warhorns answering from the walls of Meereen. A ship was sinking in the river mouth, afire. Dead men and dragons were moving through the sky, whilst warships crashed and clashed on Slaver's Bay. Tyrion could not see them from here, but he could hear the sounds: the crash of hull against hull as ships slammed together, the deep-throated warhorns of the ironborn and queer high whistles of Garth, the splintering of oars, the shouts and battle cries, the crash of axe on armor, sword on shield, all mingled with the shrieks of wounded men. Many of the ships were still far out in the bay, so the sounds they made seemed faint and far away, but he knew them all the same. The music of slaughter.

Three hundred yards from where he stood rose the Wicked ' Sister, her long arm swinging up with a clutch of corpses a"chunk - THUMPa" and there they flew, naked and swollen, pale dead birds tumbling boneless through the air. The siege camps shimmered in a gaudy haze of rose and gold, but the famous stepped pyramids of Meereen hulked black against the glare. Something was moving atop one of therm he saw. A dragon, but which one? At this distance, it could as easily have been an eagle. A very big eagle.

After days spent hidden inside musty tents of the Second Sons, the outside air smelled fresh and clear. Though he could not see the bay from where he stood, the tang of salt told him it was near Tyrion filled his lungs with it. A fine day for a battle. From the east the sound of drumming rolled across the parched plain. A column of mounted men flashed Mt the Harridan. flvino the blue banners of the Windblown.

A younger man might have found it all exhilarating. A stupider man might have thought it grand and glorious, right up to the moment when some a.r.s.e-ugly Yunkish slave soldier with rings in his nipples planted an axe between his eyes. Trion Lannister knew better. The G.o.ds did not fashion me to wield a sword, he thought, so why do they keep putting me in the midst of battles?

No one heard. No one answered. No one cared.

Tyrion found himself thinking back on his first battle. Shae had been the first to stir. woken by his father's trumpets. The sweet strumpet who'd pleasured him for half the night had trembled naked in his arms, a frightened child. Or was all that a lie as well, a ploy she used to make me feel brave and brilliant? What a mummer she might have been. When Tyrion had shouted out for Podrick Payne to help him with his armor, he'd found the boy asleep and snoring. Not the quickest lad I've ever known, but a decent squire in the end. I hope he found a better man to serve.

It was queer, but Tyrion remembered the Green Fork much better than the Blackwater. It was my first. You never forget your first He remembered the fog drifting off the river, wending through the reeds like pale white fingers. And the beauty of that sunrise, he remembered that as well: stars strewn across a purple sky, the gra.s.s glittering like gla.s.s with the morning dew. red splendor in the east. He remembered the touch of Shae's lingers as she helped Pod with Tyrion's mismatched armor. That b.l.o.o.d.y helm. Like a bucket with a spike. That spike had saved him, though, had won him his first victory, but Groat and Penny had never looked half as silly as he must have looked a that day. Shae had called him 'fearsome" when she saw him in his steel, mind you. How could I have been so blind, so deaf, so stupid? I should have known better than to do my thinking with my c.o.c.k.

The Second Sons were saddling their horses. They went about it calmly, unhurriedly, efficiently: it was nothing they had not done a hundred times before. A few of them were pa.s.sing a skin from hand to hand though whether it was wine or water he could not say. Bokkoko was kissing his lover shamelessly, kneading the boy's b.u.t.tocks with one huge hand, the other tangled in his hair. Behind them, Ser Garibald was brushing out the mane of his big gelding. Kem sat on a rock, gazing at the ground... remembering his dead brother, perhaps. or dreaming of that friend back in King's Landing. Hammer and Nail moved from man to man, checking spears and swords, adjusting armor, putting an edge on any blade that needed it. s.n.a.t.c.h chewed his sourleaf, making j.a.pes and scratching at his b.a.l.l.s with his hook hand. Something about his manner reminded Tyrion of Bronn. Ser Bronn of the Blackwater now, unless my sister's killed him. That might not be quite so simple as she thinks. He wondered how many battles these Second Sons had fought. How many skirmishes, how many raids? How many cities have they stormed, how many brothers have they buried or left behind to rot? Compared to them, Tyrion was a green boy, still untested, though he had counted more years than half the company.

This would be his third battle. Seasoned and blooded, stamped and sealed, a proven warrior, that's me. I've killed some men and wounded others, taken wounds myself and lived to tell of them. I've led charges, heard men scream my name, cut down bigger men and better, even had a few small tastes of glory... and wasn't that a fine rich wine for heroes, and wouldn't I like another taste? Yet with all he'd done and all he'd seen, the prospect of another battle made his blood run cold. He had traveled across half the world by way of palanquin, poleboaL and pig, sailed in slave ships and trading galleys, mounted wh.o.r.es and horses, all the time telling himself that he did not care whether he lived or died... only to find that he cared quite a lot after all.

The Stranger had mounted his pale mare and was riding toward them with his sword in hand, but Tyrion Lannister did not care to meet with him again. Not now. Not yet. Not this day. What a fraud you are, Imp. You let a hundred guardsmen rape your wife, shot your father through the belly with a quarrel, twisted a golden chain around your lover's throat until her face turned black yet somehow you still think that you deserve to live.

Penny was already in her armor when Tyrion slipped back inside the tent they shared. She had been strapping herself into wooden plate for years in service to her mummery; real plate and mail were not so different once you mastered all the clasps and buckles. And if the company steel was dinted here and rusted there, scratched and stained and discolored, no matter. It should still be good enough to stop a sword.

The only piece she had not donned was her helm. When he entered, she looked up. "You're not armored. What's happening?"

"The usual things. Mud and blood and heroism, killing and dying. There's one battle being fought out on the bay, another one beneath the city walls. Whichever way the Yunkish turn. they have a foe behind them. The closest fighting's a good league off still, but we'll be in it soon." On one side or the other. The Second Sons were ripe for another change of masters, Tyrion was almost certain of that... though there was a great abyss between "certain" and "almost certain.' If I have misjudged my man, all of us are lost. 'Put on your helm and make sure the clasps are closed. I took mine off once to keep from drowning, and it cost me a nose." Tyrion picked at his scar.

"We need to get you into your armor first."

"If you wish. The jerkin first. The boiled leather, with the iron studs. Ringmail over that, then the gorget." He glanced about the tent. "Is there wine?"

"No."

"We had half a flagon left from supper."

"A quarter of a flagon, and you drank it."

He sighed. "I would sell my sister for a cup of wine."

"You would sell your sister for a cup of horse p.i.s.s." That was so unexpected that it made him laugh aloud. "Is my taste for horse p.i.s.s so well-known or have you met my sister?"

"I only saw her that one time, when we jousted for the boy king. Groat thought she was beautiful."

Groat was a stunted little lickspittle with a stupid name. "Only a fool rides into battle sober. Plumm will have some wine. What if he dies in the battle? It would be a crime to waste it."

"Hold your tongue. I need to lace this jerkin up."

Tyrion did try, but it seemed to him that the sounds of slaughter were growing louder, and his tongue would not be held. "Pudding Face wants to use the company to throw the ironmen back into the sea." he heard himself telling Penny. as she dressed him. "What he should have done was send all his horse at the eunuchs, full charge, before they got ten feet from their gates. Send the Cats at them from the left, us and the Windblown from the right, rip apart their flanks from both ends. Man to man, the Unsullied are no better or worse than any other spearmen. It's their discipline that makes them dangerous, but if they cannot form up into a spear wall..."

"Lift your arms." said Penny. 'There, that's better. Maybe you should command the Yunkishmen. "

"They use slave soldiers, why not slave commanders? That would ruin the contest, though. This is just a cyva.s.se game to tho Wise Masters. We're the pieces." Tyrion canted his head to ' "One side, considering. 'They have that in common with my lord father. these slavers." "Your father? What do you mean?"

"I was just recalling my first battle. The Green Fork. We fought between a river and a road. When I saw my father's host deploy, .I remember thinking how beautiful it was. Like a flower opening its petals to the sun. A crimson rose with iron thorns. And my father, ah, he had never looked so resplendent. He wore crimson armor, with this huge greatcloak made of cloth-of-gold. A pair of golden lions on his shoulders, another on his helm. His stallion was magnificent. His lordship watched the whole battle from atop that horse and never got within a hundred yards of any foe. He never moved, never smiled, never broke a sweat, whilst thousands died below him. Picture me perched on a camp stool, gazing down upon a cyva.s.se board. We could almost be twinsa If I had a horse, some crimson armor, and a greatcloak sewn from cloth-of-gold. He was taller too. I have more hair."

Penny kissed him.

She moved so fast that he had no time to think. She darted in, quick as a bird, and pressed her lips to his. Just as quickly it was over. What was that for? he almost said, but he knew what it was for. Thank you, he might have said, but she might take that as leave to do it again. Child, I have no wish to hurt you, he could have tried, but Penny was no child, and his wishes would not blunt the cut. For the first time for longer than he cared to think. Tyrion Lannister was at a loss for words.

She looks so young, he thought. A girl, that's all she is. A girl, and almost pretty if you can forget that she's a dwarf. Her hair was a warm brown, thick and curly, and her eyes were large and trusting. Too trusting.

"Do you hear that sound? " said Tyrion.

She listened. "What is it?" she said as she was strapping a pair of mismatched greaves onto his stunted legs.

"War. On either side of us and not a league away. That's slaughter, Penny. That's men stumbling through the mud with their entrails hanging out. That's severed limbs and broken bones and pools of blood. You know how the worms come out after a hard rain? I hear they do the same after a big battle if enough blood soaks into the ground. That's the Stranger coming. Penny. The Black Goat. the Pale Child, Him of Many Faces, call him what you will. That's death."

"You're scaring me. "

"Am I? Good. You should be scared. We have ironborn swarming ash.o.r.e and Ser Barristan and his Unsullied pouring out the city gates, with us between them, fighting on the wrong b.l.o.o.d.y side. I am terrified myself."

'''You say that, but you still make j.a.pes. "

"j.a.pes are one way to keep the fear away. Wine's another."

"You're brave. Little people can be brave."

My giant of Lannister, he heard. She is mocking me. He almost . slapped her again. His head was pounding.

"I never meant to make you angry; Penny said 'Forgive me. I'm frightened, is all." She touched his hand.

Tyrion wrenched away from her. "Iam frightened." Those were the same words Shae had used. Her eyes were big as eggs, and I swallowed every bit of it. I knew what she was. I told Bronn to find a woman for me and he brought me Shae. His hands curled into fists, and Shae's face swam before him, grinning. Then the chain was tightening about her throat, the golden hands digging I deep into her flesh as her own hands fluttered against his face with all the force of b.u.t.terflies. If he'd had a chain to hand... if he'd had a crossbow, a dagger, anything, he would have.., he might have... he...