LITMIR.BIZ

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her from? I’d rather not have him beside me in the battle.”

      Bronn rose, cat-quick and cat-graceful, turning his sword in his hand. “You’ll have me beside you in the battle, dwarf.”

      Tyrion nodded. The night air was warm on his bare skin. “See that I survive this battle, and you can name your reward.”

      Bronn tossed the longsword from his right hand to his left, and tried a cut. “Who’d want to kill the likes of you?”

      “My lord father, for one. He’s put me in the van.”

      “I’d do the same. A small man with a big shield. You’ll give the archers fits.”

      “I find you oddly cheering,” Tyrion said. “I must be mad.”

      Bronn sheathed his sword. “Beyond a doubt.”

      When Tyrion returned to his tent, Shae rolled onto her elbow and murmured sleepily, “I woke and m’lord was gone.”

      “M’lord is back now.” He slid in beside her.

      Her hand went between his stunted legs, and found him hard. “Yes he is,” she whispered, stroking him.

      He asked her about the man Bronn had taken her from, and she named the minor retainer of an insignificant lordling. “You need not fear his like, m’lord,” the girl said, her fingers busy at his cock. “He is a small man.”

      “And what am I, pray?” Tyrion asked her. “A giant?”

      “Oh, yes,” she purred, “my giant of Lannister.” She mounted him then, and for a time, she almost made him believe it. Tyrion went to sleep smiling …

      … and woke in darkness to the blare of trumpets. Shae was shaking him by the shoulder. “M’lord,” she whispered. “Wake up, m’lord. I’m frightened.”

      Groggy, he sat up and threw back the blanket. The horns called through the night, wild and urgent, a cry that said hurry hurry hurry. He heard shouts, the clatter of spears, the whicker of horses, though nothing yet that spoke to him of fighting. “My lord father’s trumpets,” he said. “Battle assembly. I thought Stark was yet a day’s march away.”

      She shook her head, lost. Her eyes were wide and white.

      Groaning, Tyrion lurched to his feet and pushed his way outside, shouting for his squire. Wisps of pale fog drifted through the night, long white fingers off the river. Men and horses blundered through the predawn chill, saddles were being cinched, wagons loaded, fires extinguished. The trumpets blew again: hurry hurry hurry. Knights vaulted onto snorting coursers while men-at-arms buckled their sword belts as they ran. When he found Pod, the boy was snoring softly. Tyrion gave him a sharp poke in the ribs with his toe. “My armor,” he said, “and be quick about it.” Bronn came trotting out of the mists, already armored and ahorse, wearing his battered halfhelm. “Do you know what’s happened?” Tyrion asked him.

      “The Stark boy stole a march on us,” Bronn said. “He crept down the kingsroad in the night, and now his host is less than a mile north of here, forming up in battle array.”

      Hurry, the trumpets called, hurry hurry hurry.

      “See that the clansmen are ready to ride.” Tyrion ducked back inside his tent. “Where are my clothes?” he barked at Shae. “There. No, the leather, damn it. Yes. Bring me my boots.”

      By the time he was dressed, his squire had laid out his armor, such that it was. Tyrion owned a fine suit of heavy plate, expertly crafted to fit his misshapen body. Alas, it was safe at Casterly Rock, and he was not. He had to make do with oddments assembled from Lord Lefford’s wagons: mail hauberk and coif, a dead knight’s gorget, lobstered greaves and gauntlets and pointed steel boots. Some of it was ornate, some plain; not a bit of it matched, or fit as it should. His breastplate was meant for a bigger man; for his oversize head, they found a huge bucket-shaped greathelm topped with a foot-long triangular spike.

      Shae helped Pod with the buckles and clasps. “If I die, weep for me,” Tyrion told the whore.

      “How will you know? You’ll be dead.”

      “I’ll know.”

      “I believe you would.” Shae lowered the greathelm down over his head, and Pod fastened it to his gorget. Tyrion buckled on his belt, heavy with the weight of shortsword and dirk. By then his groom had brought up his mount, a formidable brown courser armored as heavily as he was. He needed help to mount; he felt as though he weighed a thousand stone. Pod handed him up his shield, a massive slab of heavy ironwood banded with steel. Lastly, they gave him his battle-axe. Shae stepped back and looked him over. “M’lord looks fearsome.”

      “M’lord looks a dwarf in mismatched armor,” Tyrion answered sourly, “but I thank you for the kindness. Podrick, should the battle go against us, see the lady safely home.” He saluted her with his axe, wheeled his horse about, and trotted off. His stomach was a hard knot, so tight it pained him. Behind, his servants hurriedly began to strike his tent. Pale crimson fingers fanned out to the east as the first rays of the sun broke over the horizon. The western sky was a deep purple, speckled with stars. Tyrion wondered whether this was the last sunrise he would ever see … and whether wondering was a mark of cowardice. Did his brother Jaime ever contemplate death before a battle?

      A warhorn sounded in the far distance, a deep mournful note that chilled the soul. The clansmen climbed onto their scrawny mountain horses, shouting curses and rude jokes. Several appeared to be drunk. The rising sun was burning off the drifting tendrils of fog as Tyrion led them off. What grass the horses had left was heavy with dew, as if some passing god had scattered a bag of diamonds over the earth. The mountain men fell in behind him, each clan arrayed behind its own leaders.

      In the dawn light, the army of Lord Tywin Lannister unfolded like an iron rose, thorns gleaming.

      His uncle would lead the center. Ser Kevan had raised his standards above the kingsroad. Quivers hanging from their belts, the foot archers arrayed themselves into three long lines, to east and west of the road, and stood calmly stringing their bows. Between them, pikemen formed squares; behind were rank on rank of men-at-arms with spear and sword and axe. Three hundred heavy horse surrounded Ser Kevan and the lords bannermen Lefford, Lydden, and Serrett with all their sworn retainers.

      The right wing was all cavalry, some four thousand men, heavy with the weight of their armor. More than three quarters of the knights were there, massed together like a great steel fist. Ser Addam Marbrand had the command. Tyrion saw his banner unfurl as his standard-bearer shook it out; a burning tree, orange and smoke. Behind him flew Ser Flement’s purple unicorn, the brindled boar of Crakehall, the bantam rooster of Swyft, and more.

      His lord father took his place on the hill where he had slept. Around him, the reserve assembled; a huge force, half mounted and half foot, five thousand strong. Lord Tywin almost always chose to command the reserve; he would take the high ground and watch the battle unfold below him, committing his forces when and where they were needed most.

      Even from afar, his lord father was resplendent. Tywin Lannister’s battle armor put his son Jaime’s gilded suit to shame. His greatcloak was sewn from countless layers of cloth-of-gold, so heavy that it barely stirred even when he charged, so large that its drape covered most of his stallion’s hindquarters when he took the saddle. No ordinary clasp would suffice for such a weight, so the greatcloak was held in place by a matched pair of miniature lionesses crouching on his shoulders, as if poised to spring. Their mate, a male with a magnificent mane, reclined atop Lord Tywin’s greathelm, one paw raking the air as he roared. All three lions were wrought in gold, with ruby eyes. His armor was heavy steel plate, enameled in a dark crimson, greaves and gauntlets inlaid with ornate gold scrollwork. His rondels were golden sunbursts, all his fastenings were gilded, and the red steel was burnished to such a high sheen that it shone like fire in the light of the rising sun.

      Tyrion could hear the rumble of the foemen’s drums now. He remembered Robb Stark as he had last seen him, in his father’s high seat in the Great Hall of Winterfell,

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