Redemption of the Dragon

Act 1 – Survival · Chapter 8: The Lone Wolf Dies

The sword hung above him.

Tom saw it and did not move.

The big Lannister stood ten paces away, mayhaps less, but distance had become a useless thing. The yard had stretched and folded around him. Smoke moved like rain. Men shouted like they were underwater. The red lion on the man's breastplate became yellow cloak, then blood, then nothing Tom's mind could hold.

The Green Fork was under his boots.

Mud sucked at him.

His ribs were broken.

His shoulder burned.

A tree waited behind him.

No.

Stone waited behind him.

No.

He was in Raventree Hall.

No.

He was dead in the mud, and had only dreamed the road west, the widow's hovel, Jory and Tor, Ron's laugh, Cley's complaints, Robb Stark's tent, the ram, the gate, all of it. A dead man's dream before the Stranger noticed his mistake.

"Tom!"

The voice came from far away.

Harwyn Tallhart stepped between him and the armored man.

That should have meant something. It did mean something. Some part of Tom knew it. The Tallhart captain's sword rose. His shield came up. He set his feet with the same hard economy he brought to every other task, as if even death ought to be handled without waste.

"Move!" Harwyn shouted.

Tom did not.

The Lannister came on.

Harwyn met him with a cut to the inside of the arm. A good cut. Quick. Meant for the gap where plate met mail. The big man turned enough that the blade scraped harmlessly across steel. His answer was not quick.

It did not need to be.

His sword came down like a gate falling.

Harwyn caught it on his shield.

The shield split.

Wood cracked from rim to boss. Harwyn staggered under the blow, one knee bending. He thrust upward with his broken shield still on his arm and stabbed for the visor. The point glanced from the helm and rang like a bell.

Tom heard that.

Bell.

Steel.

Mountain.

The Lannister drove his mailed shoulder into Harwyn and smashed him backward. Harwyn hit the churned mud hard, rolled once, and tried to rise. The big man kicked him in the side. Not a killing stroke. Worse, somehow. A thing done because the man had time.

Harwyn folded around the blow.

His sword fell from his hand.

Tom watched it land.

It struck point first in the mud, quivered once, and tipped over.

The world went farther away.

He had failed to move.

That thought came without shame. Shame belonged to living men. Fear belonged to living men. Tom had neither now. He had only the sight of Harwyn trying to pull breath into a body that had forgotten the trick.

The Lannister turned back toward Tom.

Someone else moved.

Jory.

He came from Tom's left, axe in both hands, quiet even in a yard full of screaming. There was no roar from him. No curse. No speech for old gods or dead brothers. He simply stepped into the space between Tom and the armored man as if that space had always been his to hold.

Tor shouted something.

Tom could not understand it.

Jory struck first.

His axe found the big man's left knee, not the plate itself but the joint above it. The Lannister grunted and shifted. Jory was already moving, axe haft high, body low. A second blow struck the wrist. A third hammered the shoulder. Good blows. Soldier's blows. The kind that had made men give Jory room since the road west.

The big man gave him no room.

He backhanded Jory with the pommel.

Jory's head snapped to the side.

He stayed on his feet.

Of course he did.

Tom wanted to say his name.

His mouth did not know how.

Jory came in again. The axe bit under the edge of the breastplate and tore a strip of leather free. The Lannister caught the haft with one gauntleted hand. Jory tried to wrench it back. The big man pulled instead.

Jory went with it because he had to.

The armored knee drove into his belly.

Air left him in a hard sound. The Lannister slammed an elbow into the side of his helm. Then the sword pommel. Then the gauntlet. Blow after blow, heavy and ugly, not the clean work of battle but the breaking of a thing held still.

Jory dropped the axe.

He reached for his knife.

The Lannister hit him again.

This time Jory fell to one knee.

Tor was coming.

Tom saw him through smoke and bodies, hacking his way toward them, face twisted into something older than rage. Donnel was there too. Mikken. Willam. Men on both sides turned as if the yard itself had paused to watch this one place where a man too large was beating a man too stubborn to fall.

Jory looked back.

Not at Tor.

At Tom.

His face was blood beneath the helm. One eye already swelling shut. There was no accusation in the other. No fear either. Only the same quiet look he had given Tom on the road, at the wagon, in the meadow, beside graves.

Move, it said.

Then the Lannister's sword struck.

Jory's body folded sideways.

Not like a man choosing rest.

Like a rope cut.

He hit the mud near Tom's feet and lay still.

Something inside Tom snapped.

It was not a breaking sound.

It was quieter than that.

Like a door closing.

Fear went first.

Then anger.

Then grief.

Tor's scream faded. The battle faded. The smoke, the blood, the ravens crying above the walls, the stink of burning straw, Harwyn gasping somewhere behind a broken shield, all of it moved away from Tom until only the necessary things remained.

Distance.

Weight.

Reach.

Angle.

The big man's sword was long.

His right knee favored the outside now where Jory had struck. His left pauldron sat slightly high from the torn leather. His breathing was loud inside the helm. He was strong. Strong men trusted strength longer than they should.

Tom lifted his axe.

His hand was steady.

The Lannister came at him.

Tom stepped left.

Not away. Left.

The sword cut through the space where his shoulder had been. Tom let it pass and struck the man's elbow with the axe head. Plate took most of it. The joint took enough. The Lannister turned, bringing the sword back across in a hard sweep meant to cut Tom open from hip to ribs.

Tom dropped under it.

His ribs protested.

That did not matter.

He drove the axe haft into the man's damaged knee. The big man staggered half a step. Tom rose inside his reach and hammered the axe head into the visor. Once. Twice. The helm rang. The man snarled and shoved him away with one armored forearm.

Tom went with the shove.

Space.

Reach.

Breath.

The yard had gone quiet.

Not silent. Men still fought at the edges. Steel still struck. Someone still screamed near the stables. But around Tom and the Lannister, a circle had opened. Northmen stared. Lannisters stared. Even those who held weapons seemed unsure whether to use them, as if both sides had stumbled into some old law no one remembered speaking.

Tor stood at the edge of that circle with blood on his face and Jory's name caught behind his teeth.

Tom did not look at him.

Looking would bring things back.

Things were not useful.

The Lannister attacked again.

He was faster than his size promised.

Tom caught the first blow on the axe haft. The wood cracked. The second blow split it.

The axe head flew away.

The broken haft remained in Tom's hands, suddenly light, suddenly nothing.

The Lannister stopped.

He could have pressed.

He did not.

He stepped back one pace and lowered his sword a little. Behind the visor, his breath rasped. He nodded toward the mud between them, where a fallen man's sword lay half under a shield.

Not mercy.

Pride.

Mayhaps amusement.

Mayhaps he wanted all the watching men to know he had killed Tom fairly.

Tom dropped the broken haft.

He picked up the sword.

It was not his.

Too light near the tip. Grip too narrow. The edge nicked, the guard bent, the leather slick with someone else's blood. It would do.

The Lannister raised his blade again.

Tom raised his.

They met in the middle of the circle.

Sword was not axe. It asked different questions. Tom answered badly at first. The first exchange nearly cost him a hand. The second drove him back two steps. The third slid along his borrowed blade and struck sparks from his helm. He learned because learning was the only living thing left in him.

The big man cut high.

Tom did not block.

He stepped inside and let the blade scrape across his shoulder plate. Pain flared. Not useful. He set it aside. His sword point tested under the breastplate. No. Too strong. He retreated before the gauntlet could catch him.

The Lannister turned.

Slower now.

Right knee weak.

Left shoulder high.

Breath loud.

Again.

The big man thrust.

Tom beat the point aside and cut at the wrist. Mail. No opening. He pivoted away from the return blow and felt wind from the sword against his cheek. He stepped on Jory's dropped axe haft and nearly slipped.

Jory.

No.

Not now.

Empty.

He moved again.

The Lannister pressed harder. Three blows. Four. Each one enough to break bone if taken badly. Tom gave ground until his heel struck a fallen shield. He could not give more. The big man saw it and swung for the killing blow.

Tom went forward.

The sword passed over his back.

He drove his borrowed blade up beneath the raised pauldron, into the dark gap Jory had opened when he tore the leather free.

The point went in.

Not far.

Far enough.

The Lannister made a sound like a man surprised by betrayal. His sword dropped from killing height. Tom shoved harder, both hands on the hilt, feeling mail resist, flesh yield, bone or plate stop him. Blood ran black over his knuckles.

For one heartbeat, the big man was his.

Then the gauntlet hit Tom's face.

There was no warning.

Only iron.

The blow smashed across his mouth and cheek. His helm twisted. Teeth cut his lip. The world broke into white pieces. Tom lost the sword, lost his feet, lost the empty place inside him.

He hit the ground on his side.

Breath left him.

Sound returned all at once.

Tor screaming.

Men shouting.

Ravens.

The Lannister above him.

Tom tried to move.

Nothing answered.

Blood filled his mouth. One eye would not open. Through the other he saw the big man standing over him, one hand pressed to the wound under his shoulder, sword lifted in the other.

The red lion on his breastplate swam in and out of focus.

Not Gregor Clegane.

Not the Mountain.

Only a man.

That should have mattered.

The sword rose higher.

Tom watched it turn point-down.

Then the world went dark.

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Disclaimer: Frostfyre is a non-commercial fan fiction project inspired by a Realm of Thrones campaign for Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord and set in the world of A Song of Ice and Fire. All rights to those original settings and characters remain with their respective owners.