STRAACHAN

The pace was grueling, but like as not only for his wounds. The master had plastered over much and more, as he had put it, but to move about was to sorely worsen them. He had traveled far in the days that had passed, but the God's eye was not within a man's sight. Torchlight could be seen in the distance on the plane. Perhaps the gods have smiled upon me.

Not far from where he walked, there was a smoldering wheelhouse in the snow. Whoever had assailed it had done so quickly and left no trace. He thought about what he had seen, crouching and peering through what remained of the glass. It occurred to him there were no bodies in the wreckage unless a man numbered among them the driver, whose corpse he had seen not far away, two arrows in his back. Much and more would remain undetermined. Paper inside would never have survived, and reading was not a skill of his.

One matter about the carriage or wheelhouse or whatever manner of ashen heap it was irked him, even as he walked away from it. He knew not the words with which the lettered men described it, but the ravens and the tree they surrounded- I have seen them before.

In his days on the continent, there was little and less he thought he knew as each passed. The dragonkings were a mystery to him, different men told different tales and yet so many were the same. Maegor the Cruel was murdered in his own throne, that much men seemed to know, yet the life before was muddled and varied. There were those who told of greatness, those who told of madness, but such was ever the way of his line, at least as Straachan understood it. When he took the throne, the king would be great or mad, no mealy-mouthed or mild man would ever sit the seat of still-sharp swords. In his own mind, the one complete clarity of their power was its source, and its vacancy left no doubts to theirs.

He saw a company of men taking the Kingsroad not long before passing Sow's Horn. They wore armor like a parade of fools in motley, a little chain here and there, and boiled leather on the backs of others. Camp followers were plentiful, like as not bought by Darklyn in advance. For all the hedge knights and brigands and hunters among them, the wounded man sighed. Am I for true any better?

The armored man had tried to protect those around him and raised his sword for no other reason, but any man with no home or family would have taken his quest. Looking over the faces of the men as he neared them, he saw some were unblemished, some pockmarked and notched, others covered in blemishes and boils, a few hidden like his. It was these eyes, simple black holes in a fullhelm that revealed the least of a man, but the faces betrayed little more in truth.

Into the last of them he walked, keeping pace and doing his best not to reveal his injuries. As the sun set in the distance, he knew at least they would not be walking much farther. The Kingsroad, like any other way, grew more dangerous at night, even in large groups. Straachan had little doubt that more than a few of the men would be gone in the morning, along with no small amount of gold. Few saw his entrance and none noted it, save an archer outriding.

In the crowd of men he found one advanced in age, his eyes deep set and dark, face unmoving. He carried no sword or swordbelt, but a dagger or a broken one sharpened anew hung from a loop at his waist beside a knife. The shield upon his back was a simple hardwood, notched from countless years of war, from the days and nights of fighting off brigands. The man was a hedge knight; that much he knew.

The wounded man told him a believable story about being out of work and trying to find something for which it was worth fighting. The older man wordlessly nodded.

"I once was a knight for some lesser lord, in name alone and no man would call me Ser. I tried to be a good man, but knew little and less of what that was until I grew old enough to tell the young. Some called me to protect those about me and in my failure I was fool enough to think myself less of a man. The path was rough and uneven, and I was fool enough to assume myself unfit to take it." Not knowing what to make of his words, Straachan could see only the ground ahead as they walked. It was a smooth road, two hundred years old, as men told it. I wonder where he thinks he's going now.

It saddened the wounded man that he received wisdom the old man believed too late to use in his own life. Perhaps he simply went to his death, hoping that a much younger man would make a truer choice, and live out the rest of his years with good deeds yet to be done and wrongs yet to right. But for all the knight's true and wise words, his heart was heavy in his chest and not for guilt alone. Already the death within began to take his strength, as though chains bound his beating heart, strangling the life from it.

The party established an encampment not far beyond Sow's Horn. It was a slow pace, one no dignified company would take, but necessary to account for the myriad not ahorse. Aside from the older men, he counted a fair few green boys at which he took no joy. Boys had less strength than they believed and no courage more than a youthful lack of fear.

Having naught else to do, he found a group of men starting a fire. Straachan could tell they were of a like sort to he, not a man of them spoke. They warmed themselves in the solitude of their own minds and the company of the cold and distant. A motley of younger men, sharpening swords and axes, and damned if he didn't see a war-scythe, rang out over their sonorous occupation to talk of meaningless things.

"I heard it was Marel Iren. The captain of the company himself told me that, he did." The wounded man watched in disbelief as he held the blade to the grindstone with his bare hand.

"Marel Iren? All the way from The Bay of Ice? The very same?"

"None other. Don't suppose he's come to shape us up like those wildlings-"

"The wildlings and their crab gods never stood a chance." I could say the same of you.

He had never heard of Iren, and cared little for what he did in the land or sea beyond the North. If he had truly come to assist Darklyn though, he needed not to wonder what manner of man he was.

Concerning himself with the survival of the green was a task impossible, and one that would keep him for all their lives. It was time he work on that which he set out to accomplish.

Finding a knight on a black stallion, he asked if he knew Denys Darklyn.

"Can't say so, my good man. For true, be not a man to worry yourself."

"I merely wish to know what sort of man he is." His habits, his trusted friends, his vices and weaknesses.

"Noreton Early is the man to know. He and his woman are Darklyn's replacements." Straachan knew not what he meant by the statement, but set off on the direction he was told. Working out the hows and whys can wait until after I die.

The man in silk or some material he recognized not spoke with an easy tone.

"For what purpose comes a knight to my side?"

"What know you of Denys Darklyn, lord? It is my wish to under him serve." His wife smirked at either his attempt at diction or his curious request as she walked into the lavish tent. He raised a hand to her and answered, voice suddenly changing.

"Did you know that not three moon's turns past I was a grunting boar like you?" I wager you don't know I have every intent to kill you the moment after I do the same to your master.

"No." Whether aught of the wounded man's rage showed up on his face, he knew not and was not concerned at all. Wearing a steel helmet was not without reward.

"My friend was like as not the same, perhaps though he could read." The armored man nodded. "He learned to play the game, the one where the crowns sacrifice men's lives and liberty for their own amusement. There are other reasons, of that I am sure, but those will be the only reasons once the realm is born again from chaos."

"And now you go to feasts and balls in his stead." Noreton's bitterness disappeared in a slight twinge of his lip. He gave his wife leave.

"Denys has not taken leave of his senses for having learned to play the game, darling knight." She began. "Men desire titles, and he gives them out, but oh, he makes them work for it, even the smallest honor. Even if he likes you, it really means naught to him. He confided by raven that he rather liked Catelyn Blackwood, but would scarce deign to investigate her death."

"I suppose hypocrisy is an effective policy." They know me not for a fool.

"For true, he sacrifices an honest fool every moon's turn, but it is this very foolery upon which the crowns have relied to keep men believing in their animals and finery. I do not remember dragons, and those who do never saw them."

Pieces of a plan were beginning to fit together in Straachan's mind. It was a simple one, and he knew not that he would live to see it through, muttering a silent prayer.

"I have seen many such men. Tell me, does our leader intend to name one of them with some fool's honors?" Gods, help me, the sword is all I know.

"Truly, you seem to know more than you do." Early responded, smiling with somewhat irked amusement. "There will be a melee in the shade of Harrenhal. The winner will receive the ineffably brilliant privilege of standing near him." The wounded man tried to chuckle convincingly.

At what felt like long last, he emerged, not knowing whether to practice or save his strength. He doubted many men had seen battle, but those would not be the ones he would face. Some were like as not sell-swords, by the mercy of the gods not well-paid sell-swords, but the blade was their trade and they fought well, as he knew from experience. Some were hired as assassins, others personal guards or mercenaries. Should he see any Essosi, he would not be surprised to meet the steel of a pitfighter.

Hired blades and brigands were skilled enough, but an arena fighter in his own home was a walking death born into the realm. Straachan had never been to the eastern continent, and he had no desire to do so. Astaron had studied all manners of books on the east, and from what he tell it was a sickening place. He carried no illusions about the Seven Kingdoms, but the sights and sounds and tastes could not mask the scent of slaves and disease and overfed men and broken women and blood, blood flowing from the great rivers and the cities and the ground itself.

The wounded man held his sword out in front of him, testing its weight as he thrust if forward, forcing his own heart to beat.

I shall swing until I die.