"Only two?" Tristan asked, glancing across the room at the last two surviving occupiers of Raventree Hall, who knelt, bound, gagged and guarded.
Daryn nodded, cleaning the blood from his blade. "Aye. They didn't fight well, but the rest of them fought to the end."
It had been an agonisingly slow process. Waiting on the walls as the occupiers took shots at them from the keep. Tristan had to send several sorties against the keep to ensure that they kept the attention of the garrison on them and not looking for Daryn. It had felt like hours before Daryn's men had cast open the door to the keep and allowed them to charge in. in truth, it was all done by noon. And without losses as well. One of his men had taken an arrow in the arm, but the castle maester was seeing to it, and he would make a full recovery. That was good, he needed his men with him if he was going to quell the Riverlands.
"Do we know what they were doing here?"
Cley shook his head. "I went and checked the dungeons as you asked. All of King Robb's prisoners were still there. Hungry and confused, for sure, but all are accounted for. It doesn't look like the occupiers even went down there."
"The treasury is still there too," Dom added. "Although that might just be that they didn't have time to take anything. I couldn't get much of a look before Lady Blackwood's men asked me to leave."
"Understandable," Tristan said. But irritating. He wouldn't be able to do much in the Riverlands if the locals weren't going to help. He'd expected reticence from the smallfolk, but the nobles as well? Well, he had to do what he could with what he had. And what he had were two prisoners.
Tristan dragged the chair slowly across the stone tiles of the cell, making a deliberate grating sound, before setting it in front of the two prisoners. Daryn, Dom and Cley stood behind the chair as he sat down, resting his elbows on his thighs and lacing his fingers. "What was your purpose here?" He demanded.
The taller of the two prisoners spat. Tristan nodded. The guard behind the tall one wound back his fist and drove it into his head.
"What was your purpose here?" Tristan asked the shorter one. He spat. The guard behind him punched him.
"There were bundles of thatch inside the main hall. What was the purpose of them?"
Silence.
Resilient. So be it, time to unnerve them. "Are you Luthor?"
They looked at each other, surprised. "How-"
"I ask the questions, you answer. If you aren't Luthor, then he must be dead."
"He is," said the tall one.
"Pity. Perhaps he would have known something."
"He would have said nothing."
"I would have broken him, just as I will break you, in time."
"We'll never speak to you, heathen!"
"You are the cause of all of this!"
He made a mental note of that. "Why are you here? What did a ragged band of broken soldiers hope to achieve here?"
They said nothing.
"What was the bound thatch for?" Domeric asked.
"What are your names?" Daryn demanded. Keeping up a relentless barrage of questions to try and provoke an answer.
"Who are you?"
"Who sent you?"
"What do you want?"
"We were to burn the tree." The smaller one said.
They all looked at him. "Shut up!" Said the bigger one.
"What tree?" Daryn asked.
"He means the Heart Tree," Tristan said. It was the only tree that mattered. "Why do you seek to burn the heart tree?"
"It is false!" Spat the shorter one.
"So you seek to strike a blow against the old gods?" Domeric asked. "Greater men than you have tried and failed."
"We were living in peace until your king came marching down on us."
"The Lannisters invaded long before King Robb came to the aid of Lord Tully." Tristan reminded them.
"And my home knew nothing of war until the Lannisters rode in to punish the lands of the traitor Robb Stark."
"Did the Lannisters send you?"
He spat.
Tristan was about to get the guard behind him to hit him again, but then the tall one spoke. "Fuck the Lannisters, and fuck you! You high and mighty who tread all over us. No more."
"Who is 'us'?" Tristan asked.
"We are the snakes in the grass." Said tall one.
"The servants of the gods." Added short one.
"Where did you come from?" Tristan asked the short one, changing tack. Lord Blackwood's lands had been hit before Robb and his army came down from the Twins. If this man's lands had only been burned after Robb had been crowned, then he couldn't be a local.
He wasn't. He'd come from just north of the Trident, beyond the Ruby Ford. The other man refused to say.
"There was enough silver in the stores to rebuild your village from the ground up. Yet you didn't touch it. Why?"
"We do not seek silver or gold."
"Then what do you seek?"
"To put the world right!" Said the taller man.
"By burning a tree?"
"By burning your tree."
"The old gods and the new have lived side by side in peace for hundreds of years." Domeric pointed out.
"Hundreds of years where the world has been wrong."
"How has it been wrong?"
They both looked at the ground.
"You are dead men, understand that." Tristan said. "But my friend here is from House Bolton. He can make your end last weeks if he must. Answer our questions, and I will see your end be quick."
The tall one raised his head. He smiled. "And there is the truth of it."
He cocked his head to one side. "What truth?"
"You claim you rule by right of blood and the will of the gods. But the truth is you kill those who object, hoping that will be enough. No longer."
The short one continued. "Now we know. Your blades gave you power. Ours will take it away."
They spoke together. "The Handless has shown the way."
"What is the handless?" Tristan demanded. But the two of them said no more.
They couldn't get anything more out of them, despite hours of questionings and beatings. The closest they got was when Daryn threatened to cut off their hands and they brought up the handless again. So they left for the day. Out in the corridors, as the rest headed up, Dom seized him and pushed him against the wall. "What the fuck was that in there?" He demanded.
"What?" Tristan asked, alarmed at Domeric cursing.
"You heard me!"
"What was what?"
"I know you were taught not to make threats you weren't prepared to carry out."
"I was, by your father."
"So why the fuck did you imply I would flay them?" Dom's face was so close to his own that even though he was only hissing, Tristan still felt spittle landing on his chin.
"I was just playing off your banners," Tristan said.
"I have never flayed anyone. Nor do I intend to start now. I thought you knew that." He shoved Tristan back against the wall. "Never do that again. You can do the next interrogation without me."
Without waiting for Tristan's reply, Dom turned and walked away.
Tristan waited for a while, regretting his quick words. He would give Dom enough time to put some distance between them before following the others.
He found the rest of them in the great hall. "Where's Dom?" Daryn asked.
"Getting some air, I think," Tristan replied. "What did you make of what happened down there?"
"They're more stubborn than I thought," Daryn rested his feet on the table in front of him. "And that talk about 'handless' who do you think that is?"
"You think it's a who?" Cley asked. "I thought it was what they were calling themselves."
"As a group?"
"That's what I got."
"But why call themselves the Handless? It's not exactly a name to inspire… well anything really. Besides. They both had their hands. In fact none of them were missing hands that I recall."
"It's unlikely to be a person, Daryn," Tristan said. "I mean, someone with no hands is hardly going to inspire loyalty."
"You can do a lot, and you're half-handless." Daryn said. Tristan curled his claw against his midriff.
"Daryn," Cley chided him carefully. Then he grinned. "Quarter handless, at best."
"Fuck you both," Tristan replied calmly.
"Once you lot have finished jesting in my hall…" They turned to see Lady Blackwood marching towards them, a stern yet relieved expression on her face. "Perhaps you could tell me when you will demand answers from House Bracken over this."
"You still think-" Cley began but Daryn grabbed his arm to cut him off.
Instead, Tristan answered. "Stone Hedge is my next destination, my lady," he assured her. It was always his intention to go there next, but he didn't mention that. "But I am not so sure that these men were sent by the Brackens."
She bristled at that. "Why not?"
"I have interrogated them, their hatred for the nobility, all of us, seems profound. And their plan to burn the godswood would imply a religious bent."
"Something easily exploited by the Brackens," she pointed out, not unfairly.
"Regarldess," Daryn added. "House Bracken's lands neighbour your own, so they may know more."
"And we will ask them when we arrive," Tristan promised. "And we take your concerns seriously. They will be investigated." He added.
"I'm glad to hear that you'll do that at least."
"I can also provide you some soldiers to support your garrison so that nothing like this happens again."
A flash of relief in her eyes showed him that she had desperately wanted that, but had been either too proud or too afraid to ask.
"And the prisoners?"
"I'd like to try a little more to get information out of them. But if they have nothing more for me, then I will l-" he caught himself. He was about to say he would leave them to her, after all this was her castle. But that wasn't why he was here. He was here to enforce the authority of the king, not to earn the personal favour of Lady Blackwood by letting her have free reign with the prisoners. "I will execute them myself."
The army spent the night in the castle, away from the rain and cold. Lady Blackwood had offered him her rooms, but he had declined and slept with his men in the great hall. It was uncomfortable, but dry and warm, so he slept very well until he was shaken awake by one of his soldiers.
"What is it?" He asked, sitting up, twisting his neck to work out the kinks in it.
"We found something."
He pulled on his cloak and followed the guards out of the castle, careful not to disturb the other soldiers still sleeping on the floor.
They led him outside. The rains had stopped but the sky was still grey. The ground was soft and his heavy boots sank into them as he crossed the courtyard. The wind was cold, the air was cold, everything was cold. A group of soldiers were gathered around the main gate, which hung slightly open. When he got to the door, he saw why. A nail had been hammered into the door. From the nail hung a rope, from the rope hung a severed head; nailed to the forehead was a note. It was a fresh kill, the skin not yet beginning to decay. "This wasn't here yesterday," he commented.
"It was left in the night, my lord."
"And no one heard it being hammered in?" There was no reply. He reached out and tugged the note from the nail embedded in the forehead. It was some mercy that it must have been done after the man died. There was no welling of blood around the nail, so the blood must have all seeped out of the severed neck before that. "Do we know who this is?" He asked.
"Ser Rollos, a knight of Raventree Hall."
"I don't remember him from the attack?"
"Lady Blackwood sent him to get help from nearby holdfasts."
"I see," he said. "Take that down, and inform Lady Blackwood."
"Yes my prince."
Tristan turned his attention to the note. The handwriting was poor, crude, the vellum rough, some fur from the animal it had been taken from still on the other side to the writing. It hadn't been written with a quill either, the letters were too thick, and the ink… well it was doubtful that whoever had this poor quality vellum and no quill would have had access to red ink.
You have not won
The Brotherhood of the Sevens' Sword will not stop
The Handless will be your end
