Redemption of the Dragon

Act 1 – Survival · Chapter 11: Easy Prey

The first men Tom caught were boiling turnips in a stolen pot.

They had chosen a hollow below three leaning ash trees, where old rain had cut a gully through the bank and brambles hid the smoke until a man was nearly on top of it. A good place for frightened men. A poor place for men who thought no one could find them.

Garrel found them.

He came back with mud on his belly and a grin sharp enough to cut leather.

"Twenty," he whispered. "Mayhaps one less if the fat one keeps eating like that. Two bows. Spears, axes, three swords worth wanting. No sentries worth the name."

Tom crouched beside him under the wet hedge.

The hollow lay below. Smoke curled pale through the branches. Men sat around three small fires with their cloaks pulled close and their weapons near but not near enough. One man wore a woman's red shawl over his shoulders. Another had boots too fine for him and too small besides. A third stirred the pot as if turnips had wronged him.

Not starving villagers.

Not desperate boys with sharpened sticks.

Men.

Armed men with stolen things.

Tom looked back at his own force.

Twenty-six men, counting himself. Not eighty. Not a lumbering column heard two fields away. A hard little knot of northmen and Blackwood archers, damp, hungry, quiet. Jory sat his horse farther back with Willam and the spare mounts, one arm still held close beneath his cloak. Tor crouched near the front, axe across his knees and an eager shine in his eyes. Pate had a spear. Donnel had a maul. Osric and three Blackwood bowmen waited with arrows nocked.

Too few to feel like an army.

Enough to be useful.

"We take them alive if they yield," Tom said.

Tor's mouth bent. "And if they do not?"

"Then they do not."

Pate nodded toward the hollow. "They'll run uphill if pressed."

"So we press them downhill."

Tom drew lines in the mud with a twig. Not many. He had learned not to make plans a man needed a maester to remember.

Garrel and two scouts would circle left through the brambles and cut off the stream bed. Osric's archers would hold the high bank. Tor and Donnel would come hard from the right with six spears, loud enough to pull eyes and feet that way. Tom would take the center down the old cart track once the first arrows flew.

"No chasing alone," Tom said. "No killing men with hands up. No shouting until Tor starts."

"Why do I start?" Tor asked.

"Because you will anyway."

That earned a few thin smiles.

Tom waited until Garrel vanished.

Waiting had become easier than it once was. Not pleasant. Never that. But easier. There had been a time he would have wanted the rush, the end of thought, the simple answer of steel in hand. Now he watched the hollow and counted breaths. He saw the man in the shawl reach for his cup. Saw the bowman nearest the ash tree scratch under his sleeve. Saw the pot steam thicker when the wind dropped.

He raised two fingers.

Osric loosed.

The first arrow took the bowman in the shoulder and spun him into the ash tree. The second struck the ground between a man's boots. The third hissed past an ear and buried itself in the pot with a wet thunk.

Then Tor roared.

It was not a word. It was mostly joy and bad manners.

Men leapt up. One tripped over the pot. One grabbed a spear and turned the wrong way. The man in the shawl ran straight toward the stream bed and found Garrel rising from the brambles like a knife given legs.

Tom went down the cart track.

His shield took a wild spear thrust. He shoved it aside and struck the haft with his sword, hard enough to jar the man's hands open. Willam would have called it luck once. Ser Halmon would have called it barely adequate. Tom put his boot behind the man's knee and sent him into the mud.

"Down," Tom said.

The man stayed down.

Good.

The hollow became noise and short work.

Tor split a shield and headbutted the man behind it. Pate caught a sword hand on his spear haft and Donnel finished the argument with the butt of his maul. A Blackwood archer shot a fleeing man through the calf. Two threw down their weapons after seeing that. One tried to climb the bank beneath Osric and slid back with three arrowheads pointed at his face.

It was over before Tom's breath warmed inside his helm.

Seven dead.

Nine wounded or yielded.

Four had run far enough to think themselves gone, only to be herded back by Garrel and the scouts with bramble scratches on their faces and fear in their eyes.

None of Tom's men had died.

That felt wrong.

Tom stood in the hollow afterward, mud to his ankles, sword wet but not dripping much. Around him men bound wrists, kicked weapons aside, checked the fallen, cursed at shallow cuts. One Blackwood man had taken a knife across the forearm. Pate had a bruised cheek. Tor had blood in his beard and claimed none of it was his with the offended dignity of a man accused of stealing rain.

"Easy prey," Donnel said.

Tom looked at the dead.

"Aye," he said.

He did not like how the words tasted.

They searched the camp.

Bread. Turnips. Smoked ham wrapped in a child's cloak. Two silver spoons. A septon's crystal pendant. Four purses, mostly copper. A little carved horse with one leg broken. Three arrows with Blackwood fletching. A torn strip of yellow cloth hidden beneath a bedroll, marked with a blue pile.

Rafe would have known it at once.

Tom knew enough.

"Lefford," Jory said from above.

Tom looked up.

Jory had ridden close once the fighting ended. His face was pale from the effort, but his eyes were clear. He nodded toward the cloth.

"Golden Tooth," he said. "House Lefford."

The prisoners heard him.

Most looked away.

One did not.

He was older than the others, with a narrow beard gone grey at the chin and a cut across his scalp that bled into one eye. He sat with his hands tied before him and his back against a root. He looked more angry than afraid, which made Tom trust him less.

"Name," Tom said.

The man spat red into the leaves.

Tor stepped forward.

Tom lifted one hand.

Tor stopped, though unhappily.

"Name," Tom said again.

"Denys," the man said.

"Denys what?"

"Denys."

"Lefford man?"

Denys looked at the yellow cloth and then at Tom's sword. "No, ser."

Tom crouched before him.

"You have their cloth."

"Found it."

"You have good boots that do not fit you. Found those too?"

The man's jaw clenched.

"You have stolen food, stolen silver, stolen arrows, and a dead septon's pendant in your fire pit," Tom said. "I am not asking if you are guilty. I am asking whose man you were before you became clever."

Denys said nothing.

Tom waited.

The hollow quieted around them. Men liked watching a beating. They liked watching mercy too, though most would not admit it. What they did not like was waiting. Waiting made them think.

Tom let them.

At last Denys looked away first.

"Lefford," he said.

Tor made a pleased sound.

"Who ordered you?" Tom asked.

"No one."

Tom stood.

"Hang him."

Denys's head snapped up. "Wait."

Tom looked at Pate. "Find a branch."

"Wait."

Pate did not move. He watched Tom instead.

"Who ordered you?" Tom asked.

Denys swallowed. "Ser Martyn Vikary."

Not a name Tom knew.

Jory's horse shifted above them. "Landed knight sworn to Lefford, mayhaps. Vikary lands sit near the Golden Tooth."

Denys gave him a sour look.

"What were your orders?" Tom asked.

"Live."

"Try again."

"Live," Denys said, louder. "Hide our colors. Break what we could. Burn food. Cut harness. Take wheels. Spoil wells if we had time. Kill ravens. Make folk curse lions, wolves, trout, ravens, whoever came after. Keep roads empty. Keep men afraid."

The hollow seemed colder after he said it.

Tom thought of the girl under the sept floor. The dead mule in the hamlet yard. The man tied under the wagon axle while rain filled his coat.

"Bandits," Donnel said softly.

Denys laughed. "That is what you call men who lose. Win and they call you foragers. Wear colors and they call you soldiers."

Tor took one step.

Tom did not stop him this time with a hand.

He stopped him with a look.

Tor breathed hard through his nose and stayed where he was.

"How many groups?" Tom asked.

Denys shrugged.

Tom turned to Pate. "Branch."

"Four," Denys said. "Four I know. Lefford, if truth buys me breath. Jast. Drox. Some men from lesser lords who had more sons than land. Maybe more. We were told to scatter after Raventree. No banners. No songs. No prisoners unless useful. Make the Riverlands cost more than they are worth while Lord Tywin looks elsewhere."

"Where?"

"West," Denys said. "South. I don't know. Men like me are told where to burn, not why."

Tom believed that.

It did not make him less dangerous.

"Any larger force near?" Jory asked.

Denys hesitated.

Tom saw it.

So did Tor.

"Branch," Tom said.

"I heard talk," Denys said quickly. "Only talk. A camp north of the old quarry. Men gathering. Not bandits. Soldiers. Maybe two hundred. Maybe less."

Tom looked at Jory.

Jory's face gave nothing away.

"Who commands them?"

"I don't know."

"House?"

"Not Lefford, if truth buys me breath." Denys glanced toward the yellow cloth again. "Mayhaps Jast. Mayhaps men from three houses. I do not know."

Tom stood in the mud and listened to the hollow breathe.

Twenty men had been easy.

Two hundred was not.

"Bind the prisoners tighter," he said. "Separate Denys from the rest. Search again for letters, seals, anything with a name."

"And after?" Donnel asked.

Tom looked at Denys.

"After, we decide who hangs."

They found no letters.

Men given work like that did not carry letters. They carried fire, knives, and orders beaten into memory by men far enough away to keep their gloves clean.

Tom hanged three before noon.

Denys was not one of them. Not yet.

The three had been named by villagers pulled from nearby woods after Garrel found their hiding place. A boy with a split lip had pointed at one and said, "He killed my father." An old woman had spat on another and called him by the name of a burned cottage. The third had laughed when Donnel asked about the septon's pendant.

Tom had them hanged from the ash trees above the hollow.

He made the rest watch.

He made his own men watch too.

Not because he enjoyed it. Because clean killing in a fight was one thing, rope after questions another. If men were going to serve justice, they needed to know its weight. If they only wanted blood, Tom wanted to see that too.

Denys watched with his mouth shut.

When it was done, Tom left two wounded prisoners with food, bound hands, and a warning to crawl toward the hamlet if they wanted mercy from people they had harmed. The others he sent under guard back toward Raventree with a written mark from Jory and a Blackwood man who could explain more neatly than Tom.

"You are letting some live," Tor said when the prisoner guard left.

"Aye."

"Why?"

"Because dead men carry no fear back to other cowards."

Tor looked at him for a moment.

Then he smiled.

"That is a cold thing."

Tom wiped mud from his sword.

"Aye."

They caught the second group two days later.

Only nine men that time.

They were trying to drive six stolen sheep through a flooded lane with more curses than sense. One had tied a blue ribbon around his spear, mayhaps as a joke, mayhaps because men who hid colors still wanted to belong to something. Osric shot the spear from his hand before he knew he was hunted.

The fight lasted less than the shouting before it.

Two died.

Three yielded.

Four ran straight into Tor and came back with less pride.

They were not Lefford men. One claimed to have served a hedge knight whose name changed twice in the telling. Another had a Jast coin sewn into his boot. The third said nothing until Donnel found a little purse of children's teeth under his tunic.

Tom hanged him from a willow.

He did not ask the others to watch that one.

They watched anyway.

The sheep were returned to a farm with one wall standing and smoke in the rafters. The farmer's wife cried when she saw them. Her husband did not. He shook Tom's hand with fingers like roots and said, "Milord," because he had no other word for armed men who gave things back.

Tom almost corrected him.

He did not.

Words mattered less than sheep.

The third group nearly caught them first.

It was Garrel who saved them, coming back at a dead run through waist-high grass with an arrow in his cloak and laughter in his mouth.

"Found them," he gasped.

"How many?" Tom asked.

"Fourteen. Meaner than the last. Smarter too."

Arrows came hissing through the grass behind him.

Tom dropped low. "Shields."

Men moved.

Not perfectly.

Better.

Pate and Donnel brought shields up around Garrel as he rolled behind a fallen log. Osric's archers spread without needing to be told. Tor cursed happily. Jory reined his horse back with Willam, then pointed with his good hand toward a little rise on the left.

"There," he called. "They'll try for height."

Tom saw it.

"Osric, left rise. Pate with him. Tor, hold center. Donnel, with me."

This group did not boil turnips in hollows or chase sheep in lanes. They had a proper ambush set on the edge of an abandoned orchard, with archers behind fallen stone and spearmen waiting in the grass. They might have killed three or four men if Garrel had been slower or less lucky.

Instead, Tom's smaller force bent around them.

Osric took the rise before they could. Blackwood arrows drove their bowmen down. Tor made the center loud and ugly, which suited him. Tom brought Donnel and six spears through the orchard, where dead apples rotted underfoot and branches clawed at helms.

For one breath, Tom saw one of the enemy through the trees.

Young. Red hair. Freckles under mud. Fear on his face.

Then the man lifted a crossbow.

Tom threw himself sideways. The bolt cut the air where his throat had been and struck bark. Donnel's maul hit the young man in the chest before he could span the bow again.

Not a boy, Tom told himself.

A man with a crossbow.

Still, he remembered the freckles.

When it ended, eleven lay dead and three knelt with hands tied.

Tom had two wounded.

Garrel's shoulder had been opened by an arrowhead that failed to bite deep. A Blackwood spearman named Lew took a spear through the thigh and cursed Rafe Miller for not being there to admire it. No one died.

No one of Tom's.

Again, easy prey.

Too easy.

That night, they camped in the abandoned orchard.

No fires.

Tom sat with his back against a twisted apple tree and listened to prisoners breathe under guard. The trees creaked overhead. Old fruit stank sweetly in the dark. Somewhere nearby, Tor snored. Jory's horse shifted and blew softly through its nose.

Tom should have felt pleased.

Three bands broken. Stolen food returned where it could be. Villagers less afraid than before, or at least afraid in a different direction. His men walked with sharper eyes and steadier shoulders. They had split the arrows and found targets.

Still, Tom could not stop thinking of Denys.

Men gathering.

Not bandits.

Soldiers.

Easy prey could make a hunter careless.

He was still awake when Garrel touched his boot.

Tom opened his eyes.

Garrel crouched beside him, face pale in moonlight.

Osric stood behind him with two Blackwood scouts. None of them looked pleased.

"Speak," Tom said.

"Large camp," Garrel whispered. "Not stolen, exactlyrth and west. Past the old quarry, like the Lefford man said."

Tom sat up.

Jory stirred nearby, awake at once.

"How large?" Tom asked.

Osric answered. "More than ours."

"Count."

"Hard in the dark," Garrel said. "Fires spread under trees. Pickets out. Horses. Wagons. I saw shields stacked near a ditch."

"Banners?"

"Hidden," Osric said. "Or none raised."

"How many?"

Garrel looked toward the dark between trees. "Two hundred, mayhaps. Mayhaps more."

The orchard seemed to hold its breath.

Tom stood.

All the little victories of the last days changed shape in his mind. Not wrong. Not wasted. But smaller. The bands had not been the sickness. They had been fingers. Claws. Scraps cut loose from something with a body.

"Wake Jory," Tom said.

"Awake," Jory said from the dark.

Of course he was.

"Tor?"

"If he is not awake, hit him."

"I heard that," Tor said somewhere beneath a blanket.

Tom looked at Garrel. "Can you find Harl's trail?"

"Aye."

"Rafe's?"

"Mayhaps."

Osric said, "I know where Rafe meant to cross the stream by the broken mill. I can find him."

Tom nodded. "Two riders to Harl. Two to Rafe. Quiet as you can until clear, then hard. Tell them to gather and come to the old quarry by the south approach. No fires. No horns. If they meet each other first, they join and keep coming."

"And us?" Tor asked.

Tom looked north through the sleeping orchard.

There were no fires visible from where he stood. Only trees, dark and crooked, with dead apples under them and men breathing in the grass.

"We watch," Tom said. "We count. We do not bite until our teeth are back together."

Tor grunted. Not happy. Not arguing.

Good enough.

Willam brought Tom's sword and shield without being asked.

Tom took them.

The victories of the week settled on him then, along with the weight behind them. Three small bands beaten. No dead of his own. Men beginning to trust the shape of his orders. A larger enemy close enough to smell if the wind turned.

Easy prey was done.

Now came the thing that hunted back.

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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.