Redemption of the Dragon

Act 1 – Survival · Chapter 14: Avoiding the Knife

The sun came out on the second day south.

For a while, no one trusted it.

Men looked up from beneath brows and helm rims as if the sky were trying some new deception. Clouds still hung in the east, low and grey over the Riverlands, but above the road there was blue enough to make men blink. Pale light spread over wet fields. Ditches steamed. Mud began to skin over instead of swallowing every boot to the ankle.

Tor stopped in the road and lifted both hands.

"What is that?" he called.

"Sky," Pate said.

"Looks suspicious."

"Everything looks suspicious to you."

"Aye. Keeps me alive."

Someone laughed.

Not loudly. Not long. But it was laughter all the same, and it moved down the line easier than orders did.

Tom let it.

They were fewer now.

That showed most when the road widened. Once, eighty men had made too much sound and too much shape, a thing every looter in the Riverlands could hear coming. Now the northern column looked thin when stretched between hedges. Harl's men. Tom's old ones. A few who had no better place to stand. No Blackwood archers save those too stubborn or too northern by temper to go back with Rafe, and even those were gone now in Tom's mind because Rafe had taken the river with him.

Near thirty men, mayhaps a little more depending on how generously a man counted the walking wounded.

Tom had stopped counting generously.

Harl walked with one arm bound tight under his cloak. He would not ride. He said riding made his shoulder throb worse, which was a lie shaped like pride. Jory rode because walking would break him open again, and because Tor had threatened to tie him to the saddle if he argued. Willam carried the grey banner. It snapped dry for the first time since Greatjon had given it to them.

Dry cloth sounded different.

So did men.

Boots slapped less. Armor creaked instead of squelched. Men cursed the sun for getting in their eyes and the road for hardening under their feet. They complained about dust before there was dust enough to see. A man who complained about dust had room in him for something other than misery.

Tom counted that as healing.

They passed two hamlets that had not burned.

That, too, felt like a trick.

At the first, an old woman watched them from behind a fence and did not run. At the second, three boys followed the column from a distance with sticks over their shoulders, marching until their mother came out and boxed the nearest ear. Tom left two strips of smoked meat at the well and kept moving before gratitude could make the moment awkward.

The road south bent through fields left half-plowed and orchards still holding little green fruit. The farther they went, the more men spoke of Harrenhal.

No one spoke of it happily.

Even those who had never seen it knew the shape of the name. Harrenhal. Black towers. Burned stone. Kings and ghosts and curses enough to fill every crack. Men said dragons had melted it. Men said walls wept in rain. Men said no lord held it long without losing something he had not meant to wager.

"You believe that?" Willam asked near midday, when the road ran beside a low field bright with standing water.

"Believe what?" Tom asked.

"Curses."

Tom looked at Jory.

Jory looked back from his saddle. "Do not ask him. He will make it practical."

"Curses are practical," Harl said from behind them. "If men think a place is cursed, they grow stupid before reaching it. That kills more than ghosts."

Tor grinned. "See? Practical."

Willam seemed unsure whether that helped.

"I believe men do bad work in dark places," Tom said.

Harl grunted. "That was almost a lord's answer."

"Too short," Jory said.

Tom walked on.

By afternoon, the road had dried enough that Garrel came back with dust on one knee and news.

"Bolton men ahead," he said.

The line slowed.

Tom felt it before he ordered it. The name moved through men without needing to be spoken twice.

"How many?" he asked.

"Six riders. Maybe scouts. Maybe outriders. They saw me because I let them."

"Kind of you," Tor said.

"I am a generous man."

"What did they say?" Tom asked.

"Lord Bolton's host is near Harrenhal. They say he means to set siege soon. They told us to keep to the road and not be mistaken for lion men."

Harl's mouth twisted. "Friendly."

"Very."

"Did they ask who commanded?" Jory asked.

"Aye. I told them Tom."

Tor laughed. "That must have terrified them."

"I used your name too. Then they looked terrified."

Tom looked south.

If Roose Bolton's army was near enough to send riders, they were close. Close enough that Tom's small force might be folded into a real host before night. Close enough that the men would sleep behind northern lines instead of under hedges.

That should have eased him.

It did not.

"Keep scouts out," he said. "No one strays. No one jokes with Bolton men unless they laugh first."

"Do Bolton men laugh?" Pate asked.

"We may learn."

"Gods save us from knowledge."

They marched on.

Harrenhal appeared before evening.

It rose out of the land like something too large for the world that had grown around it. The towers were not towers the way other castles had towers. They were black cliffs, melted and twisted, their tops broken against the clearing sky. Walls ran broad and high, scarred by fire older than any living man. The road bent toward a gate that looked large enough for giants and dark enough to swallow horses.

For a moment, even Tor had no joke.

Men stopped walking well.

They kept moving, but their feet lost rhythm. Eyes went up. Mouths closed. The dry road, the better light, the almost easy talk of the morning all fell behind them as if the castle cast shade farther than walls should.

"That is not a keep," Willam said.

No one corrected him.

The first wrong thing was the silence.

Not true silence. A taken castle had sounds. Men shouting. Carts rolling. Horses protesting. Axes biting wood. Orders passing from mouth to mouth. Harrenhal had all of those, but they seemed swallowed as soon as made. The size of the place ate sound. Or the men did.

The second wrong thing was the gate.

It was open.

Not broken. Not battered. Open.

Bolton men stood there in pale cloaks and dark mail, spears held upright, faces still as carved wood. No blood streaked the stones. No arrows stuck in the gate. No smoke rose from fresh fighting. No dead lay waiting for burial.

Tom slowed.

Harl came up beside him.

"Siege was quick," Harl said.

"Aye."

"Too quick."

"Aye."

A Bolton man stepped forward. He had a narrow face, pale eyes, and a helm tucked under one arm.

"Name and business."

Tom stopped before him. "Tom, captain under Lord Stark's command. Men from Raventree and the roads north. We were told Lord Bolton's host would soon siege Harrenhal."

"Lord Bolton holds Harrenhal."

"So I see."

The man did not smile.

"You will enter. Weapons kept. No trouble made."

Tor shifted.

Tom did not look at him. "We make no trouble for northmen."

"Good."

The Bolton man turned as if that were all.

No explanation.

No boasting.

No report of battle won, gate opened, lions routed, brave men dead. Nothing.

Tom led his men inside.

Harrenhal was worse within.

The yard seemed built for armies larger than kingdoms. Everything stood too far apart. Stables big enough for village halls. Steps wide enough for wagons. Doors tall enough to make men feel small before they crossed them. The stones were black, but not all the same black. Some were old soot. Some damp. Some glassy where dragonfire had once made stone remember it was only stone.

Bolton men moved through it like men already used to being watched.

That was the third wrong thing.

They did not stare at Tom's men as strangers usually did. They did not call questions or ask about roads or battles or Raventree. They looked, measured, and looked away. Their silence was not shy. It was held.

Tom's men felt it.

He saw hands settle near hilts. Saw shoulders tighten. Saw Willam tuck the grey banner closer as if it were warmth. Saw Donnel look at every doorway and not like any of them.

"Work parties," a Bolton serjeant said, appearing from beside a cart as if he had stepped out of the wall. "You. You. You. Supplies to the east storehouse. You with the shoulder, not you. You bleed on sacks."

Harl looked down at his bound arm, then at the man.

"I have bled on better."

The Bolton serjeant blinked once.

Tom stepped in before Harl decided the day needed a body. "We can help move supplies."

"Good."

So they worked.

That was easier than standing in the yard with Harrenhal above them and Bolton eyes around them. Men moved sacks of grain, barrels of salt fish, bundles of arrows, spare shields, coils of rope. They helped shore a sagging gatehouse brace, though no one would say what had made it sag. Mikken inspected a cracked beam under a covered walk and muttered that it had been cut wrong, not broken. Pate carried water to horses. Tor moved two barrels at once because a Bolton man watched and Tor had never met a witness he did not resent.

No one told them how the castle had fallen.

Tom asked twice.

The first man said, "Lord Bolton holds it."

The second said, "Ask your captain."

"I am my captain," Tom said.

The man looked at him for a heartbeat too long. "Then ask Lord Bolton."

Near dusk, the summons came.

Lord Bolton would see him.

Tom washed his hands because there was blood under the nails again, old or new he could not tell. He left his shield with Pate, kept his sword because no one told him not to, and took Jory because Jory would notice what Tom missed. Tor tried to follow.

"No," Tom said.

Tor looked offended. "I am charming."

"No."

"I am quiet."

Jory snorted.

"No," Tom said again.

Tor leaned closer. "If he tries anything?"

"Then Jory throws a horse at him."

"Good plan."

Jory looked down from the saddle. "I dislike both of you."

Tom went in.

The hall they crossed was too large for the men inside it. A fire burned in a hearth big enough to roast an aurochs, but the warmth went upward and vanished among black rafters. Bolton guards stood along the walls with eyes forward. A flayed man banner hung near the dais, pale and red against dark stone. It did not stir. Nothing stirred.

Roose Bolton sat at a table below the high seat, not on it.

That felt deliberate.

He wore pale wool and mail fine enough to whisper when he moved. His hair hung straight to his shoulders. His eyes were as Tom remembered them from Robb Stark's tent: pale, cold, attentive without seeming awake in the usual way.

Tom bowed.

"Milord."

"Tom," Roose Bolton said.

Not a question.

Tom kept his face still.

"You remember me, milord?"

"From the king's council tent. You claimed Forrester lands, survived the Green Fork, and brought unpleasant news wrapped in useful detail."

Jory's horse shifted behind Tom. The sound was wrong in the hall.

"Aye, milord."

Roose looked at Jory. "You have acquired a mounted shadow."

"Jory, milord. Bear Island man."

"Injured."

"Healing."

"Most men are, until they are not."

Tom did not answer because he could not tell if one was wanted.

Bolton's eyes returned to him. "Your path since Lord Stark's tent."

Tom gave it quickly.

Not every grief. Not every name. Roads west under Greatjon Umber. Raventree relieved. Gate taken. Harwyn Tallhart dead. Jory wounded. Greatjon west, Tom left to clear the roads. Bands found. Lefford men hiding colors. Swift's quarry camp broken before dawn. Rafe Miller sent back to Raventree with wounded, prisoners, and word for Lord Tytos. The column under Ser Addam Lychester heading toward Harrenhal.

Roose listened without interruption.

That was its own pressure.

When Tom finished, the lord touched one finger to the table.

"Ser Addam arrived before you."

Tom's stomach tightened.

"Did he, milord?"

"Briefly."

The word sat between them.

Briefly.

Tom did not ask.

Roose seemed to approve of that, or perhaps he approved of nothing and Tom was only seeing shapes in snow.

"Your work north of here was useful," Bolton said. "The roads behind us must remain open."

"Yes, milord."

"My men can secure this portion of the Riverlands now."

Tom heard the shape of dismissal before the words came.

"You should take your men west and rejoin the king."

Robb, Tom thought.

He did not correct a lord for naming another lord.

"Milord, there are still smaller bands behind us."

"There are always smaller bands. Men are untidy when larger powers move. I have men suited to tidying."

Tom thought of the gate open without blood. The silence. Ser Addam arriving briefly.

"Aye, milord."

"You have lost men."

"Aye."

"Then do not waste the ones left by chasing scraps better left to others."

It sounded like good counsel.

It felt like a hand between his shoulder blades.

Tom bowed again. "We will go west."

"At first light?"

The question was soft.

Too soft.

Tom felt Jory go still behind him.

"Sooner if the men are ready, milord. They have slept wet often enough. A dry road is not something to waste."

Roose Bolton looked at him for a long moment.

Then he nodded once.

"Practical."

"I try, milord."

"Do so westward."

Tom bowed and left.

He did not breathe easily until the hall doors closed behind him. Even then, the air in the yard tasted of Harrenhal stone and Bolton quiet.

Tor was waiting where Tom had left him, which meant he had paced a rut into the yard and frightened two stable boys by existing near them.

"Well?" Tor asked.

"We go west."

"Good."

Tom looked at him.

Tor shrugged. "I do not like this place."

"You do not like many places."

"This one worked for it."

They gathered the men near the wagons, under a wall too high for comfort. Harl came with his shoulder freshly wrapped by someone who had not asked whether he wanted help. Pate had a list of supplies they had been given or had quietly reclaimed from their own stores. Donnel carried a bundle of arrows. Garrel appeared from nowhere and looked pleased with how much that annoyed the nearest Bolton guard.

Tom told them what Roose had said.

West.

Back toward Robb.

Leave the tidying to Bolton men.

No one cheered.

No one complained.

That said more.

Harl spat into the dust. "At dawn?"

Tom looked around the yard.

Bolton men moved supplies without looking at them. A cart rolled toward the gate with a load covered in canvas. Something beneath it shifted, or mayhaps the wheel hit a stone. A man on the wall watched Tom's group too closely and then looked away when Garrel looked back. No songs came from the barracks. No dice. No laughter. Harrenhal held too much room and too few explanations.

"Now," Tom said.

Willam blinked. "Now?"

"We can make two miles before full dark. Three if the road stays dry."

"Men are tired," Jory said.

Tom looked at him.

Jory's face gave away little. His eyes gave away enough.

"Aye," Tom said. "Can they march?"

"Aye."

"Then we march."

Tor's grin was small and without humor. "I have never loved a plan more."

Pate looked at the high black towers. "Feels rude. Leaving after they offered dry stone."

"Did they offer?" Donnel asked.

No one answered.

Harl tightened the strap across his chest with his good hand. "Dry stone has kept worse things than rain off men."

"That supposed to comfort us?" Willam asked.

"No."

"Good."

They moved quietly.

That was not hard. Harrenhal taught quiet to anyone inside its walls. Men gathered bedrolls, tightened packs, checked straps and weapons. The grey banner was furled. No one wanted it snapping in the yard. Tom thanked the Bolton serjeant for the work and the use of the well. The man accepted both as if Tom had handed him a cold stone.

At the gate, Tom looked back once.

Roose Bolton was not there.

Of course he was not.

But a pale man on the wall watched them leave, and Tom could not tell one pale Bolton face from another at that distance.

The road west lay dry under fading light.

Dry enough for dust now.

They walked until Harrenhal's towers sank behind the trees and the air felt like air again. Only then did men begin to speak.

Not much.

Enough.

Tor breathed out loudly. "I would rather sleep in a ditch."

"You have," Pate said.

"Aye. Better company."

Willam looked back once and then faced forward quickly. "How did they take it?"

No one answered.

That was the thing beneath all of it.

No broken gate. No bodies. No story. Ser Addam had arrived briefly. Lord Bolton held Harrenhal. Smaller bands would be tidied.

Tom put one foot in front of the other.

The dry road made a soft sound under his boots.

Jory rode beside him in the falling dark.

"You think we ran?" Jory asked.

Tom looked west.

"No."

"What then?"

Tom thought of knives. Of seeing one on a table before the hand reached for it. Of not needing to know whose blood was meant for the edge before stepping back.

"We kept moving," he said.

Jory was quiet for a while.

"Practical," he said.

Tom almost smiled.

Behind them, Harrenhal disappeared into night.

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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.