Chapter XIX
The Marches of the Westerlands
The ruins of Wendish Town were full of stench and death when Gendry and the others emerged blinking into the morning sunlight from the cellars of the still-standing sept.
Carrion-fowl swarmed over the wreck of the battle, the butcher-beaks of crows and rooks and ravens picking at faces, eyes, and open wounds. They filled the town with a hungry cacophony. In the distance, there was the sound of two wolves snarling and squabbling over a carcass.
Everywhere there were dead men. They were scattered here and there, some slumped against walls, others face down on the streets. Some stared up at Gendry with features pale and unseeing eyes still open wide, bloodless lips slightly apart. Others were so hewn and bloody they were not recognizable as men, limbs lost in the fury of battle and faces turned to bloody pulp, horrors of gore and bone. Everywhere Gendry looked there was death, and the smell of it was enough to shake his knees.
He felt bile burn his throat. His stomach revolted. Gendry doubled over, clinging to the wall of the sept for support, emptying his insides all over the step.
"There, there lad, it's alright. You made it through," said a strong but shaken voice, feeling a hand upon his shoulder. Gendry wiped away the vomit with his sleeve. He looked up and saw Lord Dondarrion standing there. The Lightning Lord looked out over the scenes of slaughter with face ashen and grey.
"Lord of Light preserve us," said Thoros of Myr in a solemn whisper, coming to stand next to Dondarrion.
It had been Thoros and Dondarrion who had led the charge into the sept during the battle. Gendry didn't remember much, just a swirling nightmare of steel that seemed to last an eternity. He remembered Thoros pulling him from the fight, screaming they needed men to take the sept. They had burst in the doors, and there had been a band of Clegane's men, and there had been a fight.
I killed two men yesterday Gendry thought in a daze. It seemed unreal, like a dream or a nightmare. No, they had been real, living, breathing men with hot blood rushing in their veins. One had sought to dispatch Lord Isildur when he had fallen from his horse, and Gendry shoved his short sword through the man's back. The other was in the sept, he had rushed Gendry with a mace and received a desperate stab in the throat. That man had gurgled horribly as he fell.
Why did I kill them? Who were they? Why did they wish to kill me? He wondered. Gendry's hands were shaking, a cold feeling had crept from his scalp down his back. He felt like he could not breathe. He felt like he was not in his own body. Gendry put his hand on the hilt of his short sword, gripping the leather handle tightly, and the shaking stopped for a moment.
The others had killed the crossbowmen in the sept's bell tower, but the fight outside went ill. Lord Dondarrion had wished to charge back out, but Thoros had seen that the fight was lost and so convinced him to take shelter in the cellars. Long hours had they waited in the dark, amongst musty tomes and scrolls, unknowing and uncertain of what was going on above.
Gendry looked back at the cellar door and saw the other survivors stepping up the ladder. The young bowman Anguy's face was pale despite its freckles. His longbow was grasped tightly in hand and his quiver had scant few arrows left. There was a distant, unseeing stare in his face.
Behind him came two men-at-arms in the Dondarrion livery, bearing streaks of lightning on their breasts. Though their surcoats were hacked and cut in many places, their mail and harness beneath was still sound. One was named Alain FitzUrse, a pale Stormlander with a powerful chest and broad shoulders, long arms like a bear's paws, and his face ruddy in complexion with bright blue eyes. His companion was Hugh Ballieul, a short man with a thickset neck and heavily muscled limbs. Both were girt with swords at their sides, but Alain leaned upon a pole-ax as tall as he was, and Hugh carried a war hammer. In the Stormland fashion, their hair was cropped short, with the back of the head shaved to the scalp and the rest only little longer.
They had ridden out of King's Landing with their Lord Dondarrion, and Lord Isildur, and a hundred and fifty other men. Now six remained. Gendry felt his stomach churning as if he was about to be sick again. He forced the feeling down.
Gods, they don't look bothered by this at all, he thought in shame as he looked at Dondarrion and his men-at-arms. They and Thoros had a grim look about them, but did not seem like they were about to be sick, not like Gendry and Anguy.
"What are we to do?" Thoros asked Dondarrion.
"We must see if any of the others survived," replied the Lightning Lord in a leader's voice. His eyes had the same distant stare that Anguy had but somehow he seemed assured of himself despite this.
The cellar had two doors. One was the trapdoor on the floor of the sept, from which they had entered to take refuge. The other was the exterior door, which led up to the surface from a short wooden staircase. It was this exterior door they now exited by, clambering up into a grassy yard that lay behind the sept. There was a garden there, where green and growing things had been befouled by blood and the fragrant smell of flowers was overpowered by the smell of death that lay like a heavy cloak upon Wendish Town.
Anguy nocked an arrow to his longbow and crept up to the corner of the sept. A carven statue of the Maiden looked down from a niche above his head. The young man peered around the corner, and then indicated for the others to follow with a jerk of his head.
Gendry kept his hand tight on his short sword and followed silently behind Thoros. The Lord of Blackhaven and the red priest both had hands upon their blades' hilts, against any Clegane men that may have been left behind to garrison the town. Alain and Hugh brought up the rear.
The rear and side streets to the sept had been bad, but the town square on the other side was worst of all. Here the fighting had been longest and fiercest, and here was where Isildur's company and the marauders of Gregor Clegane lay entwined together.
Gendry remembered the first man he had ever seen killed. It had been years ago, when he was a much younger apprentice, perhaps Little Arryk's age or younger. There had been some young man, a rich merchant's heir by the look of it, all fine clothes and gold rings, who had strutted up and down the Street of Steel like a peacock in plumage. His sword and buckler had swashed and rattled together with his every step, loudly announcing his presence to all about them. That young man had run into another young man, with whom he had some quarrel. Sharp words were spoken. Sharp steel was drawn. Sword and buckler rang and clashed in the streets. Tobho Mott had sent his apprentices inside, so they might not see, but Gendry had peered out of a window anyways, unable to tear his eyes away. It had been over almost as quickly as it started. One of the fighters was laying in the street clutching at his innards. The other had fallen with head and face hacked apart.
The image of that poor man grabbing at his stomach, bloody fingers futilely trying to hold his insides from spilling out, had been burned into Gendry's nightmares for months.
This was worse. The sun was shining above and the skies were clear, but Gendry felt he had wandered into a waking nightmare.
The bodies lay over each other so thick one could not step without trodding upon a fallen friend or foe. Amongst them there were pools of blood, severed limbs, coils of entrails, and horrid, staring, cold dead faces. A smell of corruption and bloated bodies hung in the air overwhelmingly. From sept's step to the doors of the houses that lined the common, the corpses covered every inch. The square had been turned into a fen of death.
In the very centre of it all, apart from the others, there lay tall men in raiment of black and silver, and coats of black mail. Winged helms had fallen from proud heads. In their hands were broken swords and shivered spears and cloven shields. Dead hands still clutched at the flagstaff that bore their banner: A black field with a white tree, and seven silver stars set about a crescent moon. There lay the Dunedain of Gondor, proud men of the Sea who fought to the last. There lay Cirion the Captain and his kinsmen all about him. Around the Dunedain, the slain wearing Clegane livery were heaped in mounds.
Yet there was a lone figure there amongst the wreckage and the death, a solitary man sitting upon his knees. Gendry recognized the black surcoat and black mail of a housecarl of Lord Isildur. His helm was cast aside and his coif pushed back, leaving his head bare. He was no corpse nor ghostly wraith but a living man. He was bent over, and his shoulders were shaking.
"Hail friend!" said Lord Dondarrion loudly, picking his way amongst the dead and the rest following behind him. The Dunadan was turned away from them.
Gendry tried not to look at the faces of the battle-slain. They were cold and awful to look upon, and he forced his gaze to focus on their fellow survivor who still had not turned to acknowledge them.
"My heart is gladdened to see another of our company alive beyond hope. We had not thought that any others made it through the battle," Dondarrion went on.
Drawing closer, they heard the man chanting in a soft voice. His song was simple, yet in it Gendry could hear a deep sorrow beyond words. The Dunadan raised his voice and none who heard it could not feel its melancholy.
"The halls decay,
their lords lie
deprived of joy,
the whole band has fallen,
the proud ones, by the wall
War took off some
carried them on their way,
one, the bird took off
across the deep sea,
one, the gray wolf
shared a meal with death,"
As the last word faded away, the man's shoulders ceased to shake and he raised himself up to his feet. The Dunadan turned around to face them. His face was fair, but graven with sadness and spattered with mud and blood. His eyes, a greenish-grey, were full of mourning.
"Lord Dondarrion," the Dunadan said in a hoarse voice. "You live?"
"Aye, thanks to a priest who had not my pride, I still live," Dondarrion replied. "You are one of Isildur's men, by your livery? What is your name, friend?"
"Beregond," said the Dunadan, he looked down and then around him as if he were a man lost. "I am called Beregond,"
A crow was cawing hungrily somewhere in the distance.
"What happened here, Beregond?" asked Alain FitzUrse, fingering his pole-ax and looking at the fallen around them. The cold faces of the Dunedain were strangely fair even in death.
"There were few of us, and many foes," said Beregond quietly. "Our Captain fell. My brothers were slain, and… and my Lord was taken," There were quiet tears on his cheeks. He brushed them away with a mailed sleeve.
"Taken?" asked Thoros.
"Yes, not killed but taken. A prisoner. I was felled and stunned in the fight by an ax-handle, I saw them drag my Lord away when I awoke. I had to lay still, to let them think I was dead," replied Beregond. In his voice there was a tone of shame.
"Lord Isildur lives…" Lord Dondarrion said, looking to the west where the outlines of the mountains stood in the distance and foothills marched beneath their towering heads.
"Yet a captive of Gregor Clegane? It might have been better if he had died in battle," Thoros said sadly.
"Nay, they will not lay a hand on him. He is too valuable to their designs, I would guess," said Dondarrion.
"The eldest son and heir of Elendil Kingmaker, he would be a great prize for old Tywin Lannister," added Hugh Ballieul.
Alain said: "Lord Isildur would bring a kingly ransom,"
Beregond looked back and forth amongst all of them, grimacing as if in disgust.
"Ransom? You think it is for ransom that the son of Elendil was taken captive?" he shook his head. "No, he will be a hostage, a guarantor of Gondor's good will, surety that Gondor will let the Lannisters do as they please in their quarrels with the House of Tully,"
Suddenly, Gendry felt very small and very alone, surrounded in this village by highborn fighting men. He was an armourer's apprentice, the narrow streets of King's Landing was all he had ever known, and now he stood amongst the slain of battle and listened to men speak of things larger and greater than armourer's apprentices were meant to stray into. What did he know of hostages and ransoms and the quarrels of the mighty? He felt like a city dog that had somehow wandered unnoticed into a pack of wolves.
Questions filled his head. What was the argument between the Tullys and the Lannisters? What was Gondor's stake? Why did Lord Lannister wish to capture Lord Isildur? Why had Ser Gregor been burning the Riverlands? Why had Ser Gregor's men attacked them on sight? He wished to ask so many things, yet he could not will his mouth to open whilst Lord Dondarrion and Beregond spoke.
He was used to standing silently and awaiting orders, such had been the way of things at the smithy. Yet never had he in his life felt so aware of the lowness of his birth or the roughness of his speech. He flexed his hands, and rocked onto the balls of his feet, wishing he had some task to throw himself into. He glanced down all the side streets of the village, feeling exposed.
"How can you know that Beregond?" asked Thoros.
"I have fought enough wars in these southlands to know its ways," replied the housecarl. "And I overheard them as they dragged my lord off. The Troll ordered a messenger to ride to Lord Lannister and tell him of my lord's captivity,"
Beregond's shoulders were slumped and he hung his head, the look of a shamed and dishonoured man.
"Sixty years I have served in my lord's household. A lifetime as your folk reckon it. I swore to serve until death take me or my lord release me or the world end. I live, my oaths still hold, the world still turns, I am free, yet my lord is in chains," Beregond spoke softly, voice cracking with the weight of emotion.
"We have failed then, and Clegane goes unpunished once more" said Thoros wearily, sadly. "May the Lord damn him,"
Dondarrion said nothing, staring with hard eyes at the mountains in the western distance. The carrion-birds cawed loudly all around them.
Beregond spoke at last, looking up with hard-edged despair upon his face: "…No. I shall not give Lord Isildur up as lost. Whilst arms are still left to me, and life and strength to wield them, I will not abandon him,"
"You mean to go after Clegane?" asked Hugh Ballieul, in a shocked voice.
"I am a housecarl," said Beregond.
"I'll go with you," a voice said, and Gendry was surprised to find it was his own.
Confused eyes turned to him. The Lord Dondarrion and his men-at-arms, the red priest Thoros, Anguy the Bowman and Beregond the Numenorean, all gazes fixated upon Gendry. He felt suddenly awkward and alone. By instinct, he lowered his eyes.
"What is your name, my friend?" asked Beregond, voice not unkind.
"Gendry, milord," Gendry said. His accent sounded coarse and unrefined in this company.
"You wear the badge of the King's Host," Beregond noted, glancing at Gendry's faded red gambeson and the crowned stag in black thread upon his chest.
"Aye, and I'm no highborn to know anything about all this business of lords and armies," Gendry replied, finding his words as he spoke. "But Lord Isildur, he was a good man, and having come all this way for him, well, I won't just up and leave him, if you follow me,"
Beregond nodded gravely. "Plain speech, but fairer to my ears for its virtue,"
The housecarl turned towards Thoros and Dondarrion and said: "Here is high worth, found unlooked for,"
Lord Dondarrion smiled, teeth standing out brightly against the blood and stains of battle still upon his face.
"The boy put into simple words what hung upon my mind already," he said. Now Thoros laughed.
"Mad, mad, mad, all of you. So mad I would be mad not to follow," the red priest grinned. "Vengeance may be the Lord's alone, but He never said we can't help it along,"
Anguy leaned upon his longbow, casting sharp eyes all around the battlefield around them. He grimaced.
"A lot of good lads died in this fight. Good friends. I reckon I still have an argument to settle with Gregor Clegane and his boys," the archer said, spitting onto the ground.
Alain and Hugh glanced at one another. They said nothing, for no more words needed to be said.
Beregond looked around, peering at each man's face in turn. He was silent for a long moment, and then said in a soft voice: "High worth, found unlooked for,"
The housecarl looked down again at one of the slain that laid at his feet. So many Numenoreans lay dead, the white tree on their surcoats stained with grime and blood. He grimaced.
"Before we depart," Beregond said. "…Will you help me bury my kin? I would not leave them here to be defiled by the birds and the dogs,"
Lord Dondarrion nodded solemnly.
Outside of Wendish Town, they found a clear meadow beneath the eaves of the nearby woods, where they could hear the burbling waters of the Red Fork in the distance. A breeze rustled the leaves, and the stench of the dead which filled the town was less overpowering outside of it. It was a peaceful spot, and there Beregond chose to build his brothers' cairn.
They laboured at first with knife blades and boots and hands, but after a time Anguy broke a few pickets off the fence of a nearby abandoned house, which made for easier digging. They laboured on beneath the baking sun, and perspiration ran down Gendry's face and neck, and for a time he lost himself in toil and the sting of sweat in his eyes, and thought not of armies and war. Work had always brought peace to his mind. He missed his smithy. He missed his family.
"My lord!" cried Alain all of a sudden. He seized his pole-ax from the tree he had set it against. The men sprung up from their work, jolted into nervous energy from the hot lull of the afternoon. Some had stripped to the waist, having set aside mail and gambesons to dig, yet each man still had a weapon in hand. Gendry's hand closed around the grip of his short sword, the weight and feeling of it already familiar to him.
One by one, or in twos and threes, people were drifting out of the trees, walking as if lost in dreams, returning to the smoke and desolation of Wendish Town. Their faces were death-pale, and for a moment Gendry thought these were restless ghosts of the murdered. Yet here were no wraiths but living men, women and children.
"The villagers," Anguy whispered. "Gods," he swore.
Many were walking out of the forests, yet few, far too few, to fill all the empty houses and buildings of the burnt town. Gendry tried not to think of what had befallen the others. Those who still lived said nothing to Lord Dondarrion or the others as they passed them by. They just glanced up briefly, eyes barely acknowledging them. They could have been wights shambling out of graves.
Without word or command, without a leader or a headman, the villagers started dragging dead men out of their streets and homes.
Suddenly a man was walking towards them, stalking with a dark look about him. Gendry froze, unsure of the man's intent, tightening the grip on his blade. There was a wooden shovel in the man's hand, heavy enough to smash a skull open. He was tall for a peasant, and his lined face was darkened and smeared with dirt and grime. His eyes had a stare in them, distant and yet piercing. The peasant stopped before Gendry and fixed him with that awful look. No one spoke.
Then he shoved his shovel into Gendry's chest and walked away wordlessly.
After a while, they had dug a long, shallow pit in the ground, broad enough for five men to lay in shoulder by shoulder, and long enough for many rows.
Carrying them by arms and legs, they bore the Numenoreans to the pit. There was no white linen to clad them in, nor water to wash them, and so they went to their grave armed and bloody from battle. Silent and somber, Beregond lay each of his brothers into the pit himself. He looked into each face, fair and cold, as he laid them down into the ground. Upon their chests he set their swords. They lined the edges of the burial pit with scarred shields and broken spears. When at last the task was done, the Numenorean housecarls lay in their burial pit, each with a brother and a kinsman to either side. There was peace on their faces, despite their wounds.
At the corner of a tilled field, the village farmer had piled up the stones they had removed from it. From there they took rocks and piled them up over the pit, and the Dunedain disappeared beneath them.
The sunlight was beginning to wane and there was a familiar ache in Gendry's shoulders and back when he stepped back from setting the last stone upon the cairn of the housecarls. The rocks were piled high, tightly against one another, so that no creeping thing or carrion-bird would defile those who lay within.
Beregond the Numenorean stood before the grave of his brethren, and though his face showed nothing Gendry could see in his eyes a sorrow beyond speech.
How long can Numenoreans live? He wondered. How many years had Beregond been a housecarl? How many lifetimes had he been a companion and kinsman to those they had buried?
Beregond silently raised a closed fist to his forehead, and then brought it to his lips.
"You have my thanks," the Numenorean said. The men looked to one another, unsure whom the housecarl was addressing.
"Your brothers would have done the same for us," said Lord Dondarrion.
"Mi-milords?" stammered the voice of an old man. Turning, the company saw a white-haired, stout old villager standing with his hat in his hands. Behind him stood a crowd of others, men and women and young children, all with the same dreadful unfixed look in their eyes as the man before. Something about that look made the hairs on the back of Gendry's neck stand on end.
"We, uh, did some talking, milords, me and the others like. Talked it over. All… All of this," the old man said, sweeping his arm back towards Wendish Town.
"Talked what over?" asked Thoros of Myr.
"We decided, milords, on account of all these dreadful happenings, the least we could do is, uh, bury yer lads," the old man finished.
"Yer fallen can rest beside ours. We'll lay 'em down," said a younger man from within the crowd.
"And I did some asking around too. The ones what did this to us and to you, they went north, if ye still mean to fight with 'em" said the old villager, pointing off towards a distant marching line of foothills.
"I do. My quarrel with Clegane stands unsettled," replied. Beregond.
"Good people, we have nothing with which we can repay such magnificent kindness as this," Lord Dondarrion said.
"Kill them, milords. Kill them all," came a small voice within the crowd.
Their need for haste was great, and so Beregond, Lord Dondarrion, Thoros, and the Dondarrion men-at-arms, set aside their armour. Mail and harness both they gave into the keeping of a village elder, who swore he would return it to them if they ever came back this way.
"Clegane's men may be orcs, yet I saw them carry off some of their wounded, so if we are fortunate their haste may not be over-great," said Beregond, and he strapped his sword belt around the waist of his gambeson as he did.
"Even if we are to catch them, what good are seven against hundreds?" asked Anguy, who leaned upon his bow-stave and watched the men-at-arms strip off their armour. "I wouldn't wager on padded jacks against crossbows and lances,"
Gendry looked down at his own gambeson, the heavy coat of faded red with the black stag over the breast. Here and there it bore small cuts and scratches, glancing blows taken in battle. He wouldn't like his chances against a long sword or a pike wearing such protection, but it was better than nothing.
"Mail shan't save you from twenty men either, but a moonless night may," replied Beregond.
The horses had fled, or had been killed in battle, and the villagers had no replacements to offer. Yet in the saddle bags and other baggage which remained amongst the wreck of battle, they found skins for water, and some food untainted by blood. From the villagers they acquired a few small sacks, and they loaded these down with as much as they could carry lightly of food, water and blankets. What they couldn't carry they gave to the people of Wendish Town, for they would need it more.
"Oi, what's your name friend?" asked Hugh Ballieul, approaching Gendry as he tied off the end of his pack, having filled it with hardtack and water skins. The man-at-arms' war hammer was passed through his belt opposite his sword, and in either hand he carried a crossbow.
"Gendry, milord," said Gendry, straightening up and lowering his eyes.
"Knock off that 'milord' shite, I'm just a fightin' man. Lord Dondarrion's the lord. You know how to handle one of these Gendry?" Hugh gestured with one of the crossbows.
"Aye, I'd wager I can," the armourer's apprentice replied. Hugh Ballieul held it out and Gendry took the weapon in his hands. It was much like the crossbows that he had seen in the King's Host. A heavy wooden stock, set with short wooden prongs at one end, and a stirrup to hold with your foot when you spanned the string back. He remembered Hengist breathing down his neck when he had last handled one of them, a kick in his shoulders like a mule and then the arrow buried to the feathers in a wooden post fifty paces away.
"Good. Useful and deadly, these. Alain's too stubborn and proud to carry one, my head ain't quite so far up my arse. Find some bolts for yourself too, friend, and keep the string dry," said Hugh. He tossed the heavy bowstring to Gendry and then strode off to find arrows of his own.
Gendry turned the crossbow over in his hands. Master Mott's smithy seemed a lifetime ago.
Gods, what would Master Mott think of me now? Or old Holman? Gendry thought, Holman's words coming to his mind: "Concern yourself not with the affairs of high lords my lad, for they are proud and quick to anger"
Yet here he was, picking away across a bloody battlefield to collect bolts for his belt, up to his neck in the feuds of princes. He wondered idly whether he had gone mad. How Lann or Tomas would laugh at him if they saw this.
Gendry knelt and with a grimace drew an arrow from a corpse's shoulder. The head was broken off. He tossed it away, feeling a creeping guilt for disturbing the dead.
"Sorry," he mumbled.
"What do you owe an old bastard like Isildur?" he could nearly hear his friends saying to him. "High lord like that ain't never done anything for the likes of you,"
They had not seen what Gendry had seen though. He'd seen murder by one lord and kindness by another. They had not seen faces of people fleeing burnt homes and villages. They had not seen Isildur, the Hand of the King, giving gold and silver to a lowborn family with his own hand to ease their troubles. They had not seen the compassion in Isildur's eyes, nor heard the regret in his voice when he made amends for his wrongs that night amongst the trees. They had not seen the righteous intensity of Isildur's purpose, when he spoke of saving the Realm from war. They had not seen Isildur charging into battle like a storm, to save a handful of men others would have left for dead. Gendry had, and having seen it he couldn't imagine ever feeling like a decent man again if he left Lord Isildur to captivity in the hands of the Lannisters.
The trail of Clegane's warband was easy to find, for it began at the edge of Wendish Town, and it was broad and obvious with the marks of many hoof prints and footfalls. When Gendry had filled a quiver with bolts, it was there that he met the others, all with packs shouldered and weapons in hand.
"Now," said Beregond, setting his hands upon his belt. "Who amongst us is the wise to the ways of wood and field, and can read the language of trails?"
The Westerosi looked amongst themselves and then back to the Numenorean.
"Aren't you Gondorians supposed to know such things?" asked Thoros of Myr.
"Many of my brothers are canny in the field indeed, but I was never a ranger as they were, and I have not their skill," replied Beregond. Anguy sighed.
"Well I've done some tracking, deer and boar and the like for lords' hunting parties. I reckon I can follow this," said the archer.
"You stay with me at the front then, good bowman, and the rest shall follow," said Beregond with a grim smile. Then, without warning, he took off at a run and sprang away, light footed over the trampled grass as the stag running in the forest.
It took the others a moment to realize the pursuit had begun, and then like a pack of hounds upon the call of the hunting-horn they burst into the chase.
Wendish Town soon disappeared behind as they left its fields and plunged in the surrounding forest, where tree limbs whipped at them and the brush grasped at their clothes. Still they ran, with untiring Beregond ever in the lead and the lean Anguy loping at his side, and Gendry behind them, and Dondarrion and his men all together in the middle, with Thoros of Myr panting in the rear.
The trail narrowed through the woods, for here Ser Gregor's men could only go in narrow column, and they followed it west and then turning north. They ran, as the sun faded behind western mountains, as Gendry's lungs burnt and his legs protested, as sweat burnt in their eyes, as the light failed them and Beregond became only a flitting grey form on the edge of sight, as the stars began to shine, as all noise seemed to fade but the puffing and heavy breathing of seven men, they ran on and on. The moon rose, casting pale light through the trees. Insects hummed and buzzed.
As exhausted mariners from a shipwreck fetch up upon an island shore and cling to it in relief, so the company came to a hill and heaved themselves up its steep flanks, thighs aching with every step. The night was clear and cold, and in the light of moon and stars Gendry could see the country north of them opening up into meadows dotted with clumps of trees, where hills rolled amidst the valleys of small streams tumbling down from the mountains to their west.
Gendry's heart beat as if a drum was pounding within his chest. He set his crossbow down and leaned against his knees, gulping air like a drowning man. He had never run so far or so hard in his life. Every muscle screamed agony at him. He cursed the heavy gambeson he wore, and the short sword banging at his side, and the straps of his pack digging into his shoulders. It was dark, but from the ragged breathing of the others they were doing no better. Even Beregond the Numenorean stood, hands upon his head, breathing deep.
"Rest here a little while," the housecarl said. "We will have many more leagues to go to catch our foe,"
"What hope is there of that? He on horse and we on foot? May as well try to outrun a hawk upon the wing!" said Alain FitzUrse, leaning on his pole-ax heavily.
"Gregor's lads will stop for the night, and drink themselves stupid into the wee hours, mark my words," said Thoros.
Beregond replied: "Aye, and if we keep this pace we may yet close with them,"
Alain shook his head. "We keep this pace up and we may kill ourselves before we reach them,"
"Alain," said Lord Dondarrion sternly. "Best get some rest while you can then,"
They ate a few bites of what food they had. The quadruple baked biscuits was more of a chewing exercise than a meal, and they washed the dry stuff down with eager sips from their water skins. Gendry longed for a good hot bowl of stew, and a mug of beer to wash it down, and then a cold dip in a river. As it was, all they could do was find a place to spread their bedrolls.
Beneath the crest of the hill was a sheltered hollow, with the roots of an old birch encircling it on either side. It was wide enough for all of them to fit in, out of the night winds. With a thick bed of moss in the bottom of the hollow, it was not uncomfortable. Beregond bent over a small pile of sticks and leaves with flint and steel and soon had a tiny blaze going.
"Do not build the fire too large, we should leave here at dawn," the housecarl said. He had a long-stemmed wooden pipe in his hand, and was stuffing it with dried leaves taken from a leather wallet he carried beneath his gambeson on a string around his neck. He took a burning twig and lit the pipe. The Numenorean's head was soon wreathed in pipe smoke, and he sat back against the tree and blew rings of it from his mouth. His eyes gleamed in the firelight.
Gendry hauled off his stinking gambeson and bunched it up next to his pack and weapons to pillow his head. Alain was to his left, and to his right Anguy was already snoring. The young archer had somehow already found sleep, though Gendry could not guess how. The armourer's apprentice pulled the thin blanket of itchy wool up to his chin. Somewhere an insect was chirping and an owl hooted in the distance. The fire crackled and then there was the soft sound of Beregond's voice singing in the tongue of Gondor. It sounded sad to Gendry's ears as he drifted between wakefulness and sleep, yet beautiful, somehow suited to the night and the moon and the stars.
He awoke to every joint in his body feeling tied up in aching knots. The sky above was a dark blue, lightening in the east as the stars went out before the coming sun. The others were snoring on either side of him, still lost to sleep. Anguy's mouth was a gaping hole. Gendry rubbed his eyes, his mouth feeling dry as old leather. He slowly sat up.
Beregond was awake, standing and looking off to the north. He was already dressed and armed, with his hand on his sword pommel and grey cloak over his shoulders.
"You awake," Beregond said in a soft voice, glancing over his shoulder at Gendry.
"Yea… Did you sleep at all?" Gendry asked. The housecarl did not look as if he had even taken his gambeson off.
"What I needed, yes. We have many miles to go today," Beregond replied.
"Gods," Gendry's legs protested as he forced himself to his feet and stretched, joints cracking with the movement. Every movement ached.
Beregond said "You are weary?"
Gendry smiled a little "We ain't all Gondorish, some of us get tired,"
From his pack, Beregond produced a small flask, only a little larger than a man's hand. He uncorked it and handed it to Gendry.
"Take a sip, a very small one," said the Numenorean.
Gendry wafted the bottle under his nose and smelled it. A strange, spiced aroma drifted up. He put it to his lips and took a tiny sip. The liquid within was warm, tasting nothing like he had ever drank before, and burning a little as it went down. He felt a warmth spread from his throat down to his stomach, and from there to every limb. Suddenly there was a change in him. The knots untied themselves in Gendry's muscles, the weight was gone from his limbs. He felt fresh and restored as if he had just sprang from a deeply restful sleep.
"I feel-Wow, I feel…" Gendry stammered, unsure of what had just happened. "Was that Magic?"
Beregond laughed, as if at a child asking if clouds were made of honey and air, then he took the vial back. "Magic? Nay, there is no more sorcery in it than mead! Nor any special power save the virtues of its ingredients and the skill of the maker. We take restoring draughts such as this on all such long journeys in my homeland,"
"I feel as if I could run for days, for leagues," Gendry said, flexing his hands and stretching out his shoulders.
"So you shall today, our quarry is far off yet" replied Beregond, glancing at the long miles left to the north. There was no sign of Gregor Clegane or his men.
The others arose one by one, on aching knees and stiff backs, each man moaning his complaints. One by one, Beregond gave everyone a tiny sip from his flash of Numenorean draught. Just as with Gendry, each of them felt immediately refreshed. Anguy bounced on the balls of his feet, and Alain and Hugh cracked their necks, all looking like runners about to take their marks.
"That's some drink you got there Beregond," said Thoros, lowering it from his lips and returning it to the Numenorean. He too looked completely renewed, as limber and ready as a racehorse.
"We shall have to ration it, but I think it can yet serve us for a few more days," said Beregond, tucking it away into the leather wallet around his neck, which he then shoved underneath his gambeson.
The air of morning was cool and crisp, and a golden dawn in the east spread its rays through the green of the trees. Each leaf and blade of grass was silvered with dew. Perhaps there was some special power in Beregond's drink, for Gendry felt surprisingly light of heart as he rolled up his blankets, slung his pack on this shoulders and picked up his crossbow. He felt fit to burst out into a song, though he could think of nothing suitable to sing for such a morning.
They passed now into the hilly flanks of the Westerlands, through a land of foothills and wooded valleys, where brooks babbled on stony beds down towards the Riverlands. Stands of oak and birch and rowan crowned most of the hills, and in the valleys were the deep shades of beech trees. The birds were singing, reckoning not on the matters of men and lords, but singing their simple joys.
The company ran from dawn till dusk, ever following the broad trampled trail of Clegane's warband. Even when the sun sank behind the mountains, they ran on late into the night, long after the effects of the Numenorean drink had passed away and their every limb felt as lead once more. Another restless night passed, and an early morning where they were restored by another small sip of the draught. Restored enough for another day's running at least.
A heavy air seemed to lay over the marches between the lands of the Lannisters and the Tullys. Few things stirred but the tentative singing of the birds and the rustling of the wind amongst the leaves. Before them, the grey, dim slopes of the mountains slowly grew larger and closer. There was a hot stillness in the air, as if a sudden summer storm was about to break in fury upon all the lands to north and south and east and west.
Gendry's whole world became the trail ahead of him and behind, and all he knew was the pounding in his chest, the sweat crawling down his neck and burning in his eyes, the straps digging into his shoulders and the wooden weight of the crossbow in his hands. For all the long running hours of the days there were few words spoken amongst them, only heaving breaths and grunts of pain and weariness. They went on in single file as hunting dogs do, some pressing ahead in the pack and others falling behind, but Beregond was always in the lead and Anguy with him tracking their prey.
The trail of Clegane was plain, for his company trampled down a wide swath of undergrowth with its passing. There were other signs too. Here and there they saw farmsteads and tiny hamlets, some were smoking and charred as Wendish Town, yet others stood standing and pristine. They saw no people however, never any people. On the grassy sides of hills, sheep wandered without the shepherd. They passed by barns where cattle lowed for an absent milkmaid. Gendry was glad they did not linger in the villages that had known Clegane.
On the fifth day since their chase began, they came upon a campsite in the early hours of the afternoon. They had found many such places before, where their quarry had stopped for a night to drink and revel, leaving a pasture or a meadow littered with burnt-out fires, crusts of hard-bread picked at by crows, broken shoes, discarded clothes, and other such detritus. Yet this one was different, for one of the fire pits was still faintly smoking as they approached it.
"Still warm," Anguy murmured, squatting down and placing a hand upon the rocks which lined the hearth while the others watched.
"By the Gods, are we gaining on them?" Alain panted, leaning down against his knees and wiping sweat from his brow.
"They were here last night, I would guess," Anguy said, standing up and leaning on his bow-stave.
Beregond nodded "A day ahead of us then,"
"They're riding slower than I would have guessed," said Thoros.
"Clegane isn't driving the pace. They're taking their time, enjoying a summer's ride with their prize in tow," replied Beric Dondarrion.
The Numenorean smiled grimly. "As the lion goes slowly to its stricken prey, vaunting over it, thinking itself immortal,"
"But what do we do when we catch the lion?" asked Gendry. The others looked amongst themselves and grimaced. The fewness of their numbers was all too obvious to all. Beregond looked at Gendry, and as the armourer's apprentice met his gaze he saw an eager light in the eyes of the housecarl.
"Press on," he said, and sprang away once more, nimble as a fish leaping from water. Once more, like hounds upon the horn, the rest of the hunters followed.