"We gather here today to settle the matter of the murders of Lancel Lannister, Tyrek Lannister and the honorable guardsmen, Monte, Harys and Raynard." The High Septon said, though he had to greatly raise his voice to be heard over the sound of the rain that fell.
The man was fat, fatter than even King Robert, so swollen he rivaled only Lord Manderly in girth, but his voice at least proved up to the task, and it carried loudly to Jon ears. The High Septon stood in the middle of the great stone circle where the trial would be taking place, to his right and left were two other septons, and they carried a great drape to protect him from the rain, even when it came at the cost of getting themselves soaked.
The man continued prattling about this and that and the third, of the Seven-Pointed Star and the Seven, of Ser Duncan the Tall and the Dragonknight and the Trials by Combat they fought. In the best of times Jon would have paid little mind to his words, but as he stood now, adorned in the black plate he bought from the Tourney at the Gates an age ago, he could only stare past the Septon to where the Mountain stood.
He was even larger in person, if such a thing were possible, Gregor Clegane stood heads above Jon who already stood a head above most people, his arms were so thick and muscled he could likely tear a grown man apart with his bare hands, his shoulders so broad that Jon doubted even a charging stallion could knock him off his feet, and his thighs so large they looked more like pillars than legs. It was like Garlan has said, one could be convinced that the Lord Lannister had stuffed a bear in a suit of armor and sent him out to fight, but no, it was this size that the Mountain was known for, that and the depths of his depravity.
The former should have drowned Jon in fear, but there was only room for rage in his heart, only place for fire in his veins. Never before had he ever looked upon a man with such unadulterated hate, not the wildlings, not the Chieftain, not even Lyonel Corbray. The man commanded of Jon an anger he did not know himself capable of, and every time it seemed to wane, he would imagine his brother's skull in those paws being squeezed, his brains reduced to paste before he'd ever take his first step and his anger would burn anew, more raw and painful every time.
"Ser Jon, Ser Jon!" He heard to his right, and forced himself out of his stupor, the steward was there. "It is not too late to yield, Lord Arryn might still—"
"No." Jon said, and the steward shuddered at his tone.
"Very well, ser." The steward said, he sighed and deposited a bag on the table, then withdrew a familiar, long sheathed blade from a bag. "Your sword, Lord Arryn wanted to wish you luck, and… I do as well."
With that, the man stalked away, moving out from Jon's tent towards the noble's stands. Jon turned back to the Mountain, closed his eyes and took a deep breath, before opening them once more.
To his left was a wide view of the heavens and the hundreds of rolling thunder clouds in the distance, as well as a steep drop to the ocean, thousands of feet below. To his right stood the nobles' stands and the great wooden draping that protected them from the pouring rain. The King was there, siting in the center of the highest level, and for only the second time since Jon had met him, Robert Baratheon did not wear a smile on face nor a laugh on his lips. He looked rather severe, and an echo of the Demon who'd slain his father shined through the fat and the age, he looked displeased by the whole occurrence, but even a king was powerless to stop this, not without a dire cost he was unwilling to pay.
He would be ecstatic if he knew truth…
The queen sat to his right and her lord father to the right of her, while her brother stood behind her and her eldest son sat in front of her. Cersei Lannister was as beautiful as the men said, Tywin Lannister as fearsome as his reputation demanded and Jaime Lannister hid a quiet strength beneath his careless demeanor, and yet, what shined through the most was their arrogance, their unshakable confidence in their own superiority.
Those three seemed to know how to temper it with a sense of refinement, but the Crown Prince in front grinned manically, as though his name day had come early, taking after his mother's side in pride as well as looks.
Beric Dondarrion was there as well, his young squire sitting beside him. Jon Arryn sat near them, looking as unamused as the king, as were Stannis and Renly Baratheon both, and Ser Barristan Selmy behind them. Garlan was there, along with every man he'd come to know over the course of the hunt for the Devil, Parman and Rowan, Osgrey and Fossoway. Besides them were a hundred different nobles, even the bald man and Littlefinger and more he still could not recognize even after a month in the capital. It seemed there was not a noble in the crownlands who did not make the trip to watch the duel.
All believe this to be a forgone conclusion, a slaughter waiting to unfold…
"The matter is now in the hands of the Seven! May the Father see to it that justice is met, may the Warrior lend his strength to the man whose cause is true, may the Mother have mercy on wrongdoer, may the Maiden protect the sister who shall be without a brother, may the Smith bless the steel of the just and the Crone lend them the wit to prevail, and above all, may the Stranger deliver swift death to the wrongdoer!"
The High Septon and the two soaked Septons holding the drape above him moved to bless both fighters with the seven oils of the Seven. But when they moved towards the Mountain, he only growled in their direction and they cowered away, turning towards Jon, who also waved them to leave him.
"Uhm. Very well!" the High Septon said. Jon picked up the greatsword that the steward had left, astounded by how light it felt in his hands. He had been too distracted by his hatred to pay mind to the reason he was on trial to begin with, the thing he'd come to this accursed city for. And unlike the few times he'd held Ice, this blade was his and his alone. "You may begin at the sound of the horn."
With that the trio scurried away, and both giant and bastard stepped onto the field at last, rain pattering against their armor as they began to circle one another.
A great horn then blew, drowning out the sound of distant thunder. In that breath everything else in Jon's vision and hearing faded away into nothing, the beating of his heart began to quicken as he felt a familiar mania taking ahold of him, there was then a sound like charging cavalry and the ground shaking under his boots as the Mountain ran towards him with one resounding stride after another.
In his left hand he carried a great oak shield rimmed with streel that bore the sigil of three hounds, and in his right, a two-handed sword he effortlessly carried in one hand. His roar drowned out Jon's thoughts and he raised the great blade with ease one would expect of his size, then brought it down to slice him in half.
But Jon's limbs acted before he could command them. He pulled the great Valyrian Steel blade from its sheath to meet the giant's blade, resulting in a clang of steel louder still than the horn or the footsteps which echoed moments before. The strength behind the Mountain's blow was staggering, it could obliterate most men's guards and butcher them all in the same strike, but with both his arms and the nigh mystical shifting weight of the black steel he wielded, Jon had stopped him in tracks, much to the astoundment of all but himself and to the rumbling of distant thunder.
I am not my infant brother. Jon thought, the boiling in his blood reaching a precipice where it began to command his limbs. This son of Rhaegar will be the death of you, Clegane.
He dashed away from the shield bash the Mountain tried to ring his head with, every fiber of his being floating as lightly as the weightless sword he carried. He moved to slash the giant on the arm and Clegane raised his sword in time to block it, but even still, the Valyrian Steel left a second chip on his sword.
Jon pulled his blade back quicker than a hare and then crouched his knees and lunged forward with the speed and force of a batter ram, intent on plunging the tip into Gregor Clegane's black heart.
But the Mountain managed to move his shield in time, his grip on the broad did not falter at with the force of Jon's strike, the blade had barely left a dent in the thick oak.
Gregor Clegane then roared and began to wildly slash his sword about like a raging bull. Jon's blade met his on the first strike and perfectly parried it, then again on the second, then once more on the third and fourth and fifth and the sixth.
So overwhelming was the Mountain's strength that Jon still felt the pain of each blow travel up his arms even as he perfectly parried every strike, but he could not care, not with his rage fueling him as it did, not when every nerve in his body demanded slaughter.
And so, he stayed close to the Mountain, and when the monster finally lowered his blade to catch his breath, Jon retaliated with a mad flurry of his own. The first strike left the shield rumbling, the second forced the Mountain to brace but the third had no impact, and for the fourth Jon struggled to lift his sword at all.
He dashed backwards before Clegane could capitalize and shook his head straight. Now is not the time for exhaustion.
The giant closed the distance with one step, and threw another overhead blow, Jon parried it perfectly once more and his arms screamed at him again. With the blow deflected, he could now unleash his own strikes. Strikes, which were knocked away by the giant with ease, and Jon heard the guttural laughter coming from his ugly helmet, before the giant reared his foot back to kick him in the chest.
He managed to avoid the kick, had he not, it would have broken his ribs where they stood. Clegane's foot crashed into the ground where he was standing like a meteor, and then he moved to slash at Jon once more.
Jon parried the first and then moved to parry the second, already imagining how he would strike back. His form was perfect, his technique impeccable, but when steel met steel, Jon's arms failed him, and the Mountain's sword crashed into his skull as the clouds above rumbled violently.
His helmet stopped his head from being carved in half, but still the blow rang his ears like no other before it and he felt himself fall back onto his knee.
I cannot match his strength. The thought apparated in his mind unbidden, and for the first time in the fight he felt his blinding rage be replaced by absolute clarity. No man in the realm can.
He looked up in time to see a second blow falling upon him, this one aimed directly at his neck. But with footwork drilled to excellence he moved from its path in an impossible dash.
Jon had not fought an opponent whose strength so greatly exceeded his own in a decade, not since he was still a young boy training with grown men. Over the years, there were men who were larger than him, men who were physically stronger than him, but never to such a degree that even perfectly parrying their blows left his limbs too exhausted to retaliate.
The anger was still there, the image of an infant's skull splattered across the floor, but now it simmered rather than boiled, it's painful edge no longer flaying at his nerves, whittled away by the ringing in his ears.
And so, when the Mountain charged him once more, Jon danced away from his blows rather than stubbornly meeting them. It allowed him far fewer windows of attack, but now he felt the strength returning to his arms once more.
He ducked under a blow, then casually side stepped another, before taking a step forward and aiming the tip of his sword at the Mountain's neck above him. Clegane raised his shield in time to catch it, and while Jon felt he could smoothly transition into a second lunge, he chose not to, preferring instead to dance out of the way of the blows that followed.
The battle fury in his heart had dulled the pain of the blow he took to the head, but now he felt the blood pooling in his helmet, threatening to cloud his eye slits. And so, when the Gregor charged him once more, he dashed away from his wild strikes, then struggled with the strap of his dented helm before tearing it off.
It felt like stepping into a different world, like he had pulled his head up from underwater. The stands and the clouds all sank back into view, he heard the sounds of rain and distant thunder again, and felt the rain drops and wind crash his skin once more.
With a gauntleted hand, he whipped the blood his face, then quickly exhaled to empty his nose, two disgusting red blobs flew from his nostrils and splattered into the ground. If he took another blow to the head, it would be his brains crashing against the stone.
But the Mountain roared again, and Jon's eyes narrowed on the monster once more, he moved from the way of two other blows. Then once he was to the Mountain's right, away from his great shield, Jon lowered his sword and then slashed it upwards with every ounce of his strength. Clegane managed to block it with his blade in time, every part of Jon was pushing him to keep up the attack, to slash at his arms and throat, but the ice set in his veins once more, and he managed to back away instead.
A moment later, Clegane looked down at his sword, then wrung in his grasp. It then snapped in two, it's upper half clattering into the stone, and Jon could not believe the opportunity he missed.
He moved to punish him, but the Mountain raised his shield and pushed him away, and a second later, some squire came out of view and handed him a fresh blade, just as large and fearsome as the last. The Mountain roared, then began to slash wildly once more.
I can break his sword again. Jon told himself, trying to push away the frustration he felt. Men might die, steel may shatter, but the edge of Valyrian Steel is eternal.
But Jon was not used to the avoidant, slow fighting style he had now adopted, and he was entirely unsure how to press his advantage, unsure of how to even recognize if had had an advantage. He was too used overwhelming his opponent with relentless strikes, something which could not work with the difference in their size and strength.
And so, no matter how many blows he dodged, no matter how many shieldbashes he danced away from, no matter how many times he went for singular overwhelming strikes, he could not translate it into any kind of gain at all, until the inevitable happened, and he made a mistake.
He would dash away from one horizontal strike, but he would not move far enough away, and the tip of Clegane's sword would still catch his arm and bite into his flesh.
It was only his plate armor that allowed him to survive, only the weightlessness of his sword and the depth of his experience that allowed Jon to raise his blade in time before he became known as Ser Jon the One-armed. He pushed the giant's blade away, then grasped in pain and brought a hand to where the wound in his arm poured blood like a fountain.
Lighting fell and struck the ocean behind them, and the resounding thunder shook their bones and armor in place. The Mountain stopped and winced at the sound but then shook his head and charged him with the same earth-shaking stride more, Jon felt the ground rumble beneath him, and in that moment time stood frozen.
I am giving him too respect. He realized, now recognizing the terror and fear that had gripped his heart for what it was, having thought it merely clarity drowning out his rage. The giant's strength needed to be avoided, but this was entirely too much if he ever wished to fell him. He may look like a monster, he may fight like a monster, but he is still a man.
And so, he may have danced away from the Mountain's initial strikes, but when the last one came, he dashed into its path rather than away from it. And with a strength borne from a lifetime of practice and battle, he raised the ethereal steel in his hand and stopped the Mountain's blow in place. A soft, savage smile cross his lips before he moved to retaliate with a trio of unstoppable strikes of his own.
The first met only wood, the second only steel, both did nothing to the man, but the third managed to shake Clegane's grip on his shield, and for the first time since the battle commenced, Jon felt on equal ground with the Mountain.
He deflected the slash Clegane responded with, then flowed away from the second and third, but then met the fourth with a mad grin, no longer enraged, no longer terrified, but now both in equal measure and feeling more alive than ever before in all his years. He moved to the right in a feint, the Mountain took the bait and threw a shieldbash to where he thought Jon would move, but it would meet only air, and the bastard would appear to the man's left with two brutal slashes that would catch the giant's arm instead.
The Mountain too wore plate armor, heavy plate armor, heavier still than the armor Jon wore, so heavy that he wondered how Clegane could move at all. But Jon had Valyrian Steel in his hand, and its edge sheared through the steel plate, then cut apart the chainmail and boiled leather beneath until it found the soft flesh they hid.
At that, the Mountain roared in pain and began to move towards him in an unrelenting march, slashing his blade all the while. But Jon would not move an inch, he lowered his sword before raising it in a brilliant arc to meet Clegane's rampaging steel and stopping the giant dead in his tracks.
It may take a thousand times the effort, but you bleed and grow exhausted as the rest of us do. Jon thought, the confidence growing in his chest as the Mountain was the one forced to take a step back for the first time since the horn was blown. Now die.
The scene that followed was nothing short of extraordinary. All had expected a slaughter, had then been surprised with a close bout that still raced towards the same inevitable conclusion, but it had now evolved into a fight with an entirely uncertain victor. The two fighters would shift around each other before occasionally crashing like the thunder which still spilled in the distant clouds, they would trade blows and blood as they sought to kill one another, but for the first time that fight, both men seemed to possess a lethal edge.
Even the most inexperienced fighters in the stands could feel the momentum of the fight change, growing slow and calculated. The more experienced among them, veterans, lords and knights alike could see how the Mountain could no longer afford his relentless pace, how the bastard knight of the Vale could flow around his blows when he wished and match his strength when he needed to.
But it was only the most brilliant swordsmen among them, Ser Jaime Lannister and Ser Barristan Selmy, King Robert Baratheon and Sandor Clegane, Loras and Garlan Tyrell, who appreciate the perfect footwork, peerless technical proficiency and boundless strength that were needed to meet the Mountain's measure.
All the flurries and parries were astounding in their own right, but it was the small things, the slight steps Jon took in his dodges, the timings he took to explode forwards, the speed and strength he could pour into every blow, those were the things they noted and respected, regardless of how they felt about him. There was not an ounce of movement wasted and nor a grasp of air allowed, it was a lethal pace, one that needed to be sharpened and adjusted since the beginning of the fight for an opponent like the Mountain but now even he, the most terrifying man in all the realm, was slowly being crushed by it.
But none of them, from the entirely incompetent Joffrey Baratheon to the Demon of the Trident himself were in Jon's attention, he saw only the foul wretch who butchered his brother, only the monster parading in human flesh who'd reaped terror on the realm for decades. He stepped away from a great horizontal slash, then reared sword back and launched the Valyrian Steel with imperceptible speed towards the great oak shield which the giant still held.
Clegane roared out once more, then charged forwards with his shield in front of him. Jon could not move out of the way in time and got caught by the rampage and now had not the footing to dance away from the lunge which flew towards his stomach.
And so instead, he recalled the strange, mad shirtless clansmen he fought in the quarries of Willowbrook, and then the Chieftain he fought shortly after. And when the tip of Gregor's blade got close to his navel, he did not dance out of its way nor block it, but he raised his foot and brought it down on the sword, deflecting entirely.
It pulled the Mountain forward, and as lightning poured from the heavens once more, and it illuminated his tall helm and dark eyes, Jon felt his own hatred and distain for the man bloomed anew.
Jon raised his sword and brought it down on his shoulder, but his thick pauldron stood strong against the even the Valyrian Steel edge, and the Mountain raised his shield to block the other two blows which followed.
But it would be the last thing the shield blocked, the first strike bite into the steel rim of the shield and sheared away much of the oak beneath, while the second reduced the whole thing to splinters.
The Mountain looked dumbfoundedly to what remained attached to his arm, Jon saw a squire in his tent scurrying around looking for a replacement, but Clegane only roared and tossed the half shield aside, then gripped his sword with both his hands and began slashing out wildly.
There was nothing more dangerous than a desperate man, and when the man was as fearsome as Gregor Clegane, it made for a horrifying sight. The man, near eight feet in height, slashed his blade around with both hands in mad, uncontrollable arcs of such overwhelming strength that they could have carved an armored man apart without ever stopping, their reach so long they could cut a man standing fifteen feet away.
Even with both hands Jon had found them impossible to stop, their momentum entirely too devastating, their speed entirely too impressive. At best, he could avoid or deflect them, flowing around them like the shifting sand, but even that was too dangerous a game to play for long. He knew he did not have to play it for much longer.
The Mountain's endurance was a marvel to witness, and he continued his rampage for far longer than Jon thought possible. But the northerner kept reminding himself that the armored monster was human, that he had bled him, that he looked into the soulless pits of his eyes. And when a swing of his blade seemed a tad wearier than those before it, Jon bounded forward and moved to parry the strike.
Even with the Mountain's exhausted arms, it pushed Jon a few inches to the right, and yet, he has still stopped Clegane in his tracks, and a mad grin crossed Jon's lips.
He pushed the giant's blade aside, and with Clegane's guard now finally broken and his shield finally shattered, Jon crouched his knees and lunged his blade forward like a knight's lance.
Valyrian Steel would meet steel plate, and it's eversharp edge would rend it apart then carve through the flesh beneath it like a fire through dry grass, slicing through blood and intestines until it found the steel which covered his back, and with the strength of Jon's blow, it would pierce this steel as well, until it emerged on the other side of the Mountain now stained with his blood.
Jon pulled his sword back then backed away from the two desperate strikes that followed. The Mountain was a man as mortal as any other, now trying to ward the Stranger away, a fight fought countless times since the dawn of time and lost every time since.
He darted back and prepared his final assault, but just then Jon noticed something odd, a strange shadow at his feet as though a bright, near blinding yellow light shone down directly on him.
The image of the man who was struck by lightning midair on the Gunthor Royce immediately manifested in his mind. In that breath, Jon leapt up near five feet in the air and raised his sword above him.
Lightning then struck him, as though the gods themselves wished to directly intervene in the trial and smite him where he stood. But his sword had somehow caught it, as though the Valyrian Steel he carried drank the lightning, the ripples upon the blade's surface flowing and dancing with the coursing light it held at its edge, and now Jon held a piece of the heavens in his grasp.
In that breath, he looked like a stormlord of old, even as Durran Godsgrief in the ruins upon which Storm's End would be built when the world was still young. The sword in his hand grew so long it pierced even the heavens themselves; it's black color now a blinding white that hurt the eyes of all who looked upon it.
And all looked upon it, it was a sight that would be burned into the eyes of every soul who sat in the stands, painful to gaze upon, but impossible to turn away from, the sight of the bastard commanding the storms, with hundreds of dark clouds and the ocean behind him, and the injured giant now at his mercy.
Just as ground began to pull him down once more, just as the lightning began to escape his blade and course down his arm and reave his nerves, he swung his blade downwards, and the lightning it held at its edge somehow followed in an ear shattering crackle of thunder. The blinding light would fly down towards the Mountain in a dazzling explosion of color, crashing into him then traveling to reach the ground behind him and set fire to the lower stands, before sizzling away into nothing.
Jon landed on his knees and howled out in pain, his sword, its shape still immutable but the ripples upon it forever changed now clattering against the ground near him as he tore the gauntlet from his hand. The tips of his fingers were now blackened and burnt, and he had black lines all over his arm from where the lightning had fried the blood in his veins and charred every nerve it touched.
And yet, when he snapped his head towards the Mountain, the man was in a far, far worse state. He too had fallen up his knees, only, the right side of his armor looked soft and melted. The man was trying to tear the helmet from his head, and when he finally succeeded, half of it remained stuck to his face and Jon could not tell where melted steel ended and flesh began.
But he did not dwell on it for long, and Jon was back on his feet in an instant, running towards the Mountain in a mad charge, his palm crashed into Clegane's nose when he reached him and forced the man onto his back. The force of it was so great that it broke his nose the instant his head hit the stone, but then it did not stop until his palm met stone and the Mountain's brains and skull colored half of the stone arena.
Rest in peace, brother mine.
Jon laid on his knees for a time gathering a breath and silently groaning at his injuries as the mania of battle left him. There was only the steady sound of rain that fell around him and pattered into the water where the Mountain's brains and eyes swam. No man, woman or child dared speak, none of the lords or knights could find any words, the High Septon looked on in pure, silent disbelief, even the King himself, the most powerful man in the Realm could sit in amazement and bated breath. The Queen and Crown Prince looked frightened, the Lord Lannister himself however, looked down towards the bastard with hatred and rage, a bastard who was all too happy to meet his eyes with a glare of his own.
The Mountain now laid at his feet, he was the one who butchered his brother, but it was not of his own volition, not at his own designs. He knew who the true architect behind the slaughter his siblings was, everyone knew who presented the bodies of the prince and princess wrapped in Lannister red.
Give me an excuse, Old Lion. Jon thought, as the look the two of them shared turned lethal, there were few in attendance who did not note it. Give me an excuse, and I will pay you back for your savagery a thousand-fold.
Jon eventually climbed to his feet, and sheathed his sword once more, he walked off the arena and none stopped him, he doubted any would, even if they had been ordered to. He found the bronze gates of the Red Keep, then began the climb down Aegon's hill.
From the castle behind him however, tales would be spread across the realm and be repeated for centuries evermore,
Telling of when the Stormscourge conquered the heavens above,
And shattered the Mountain below.