“My lord.” She curtsied slightly.
“I’m Shae.” Tyrion had been mired in the shadows of schemes and war, but those soft, airy words felt like a hand pulling him out of deep water.
“I’m Tyrion Lannister.” He tilted his head.
“Some nasty folk call me the Imp.” “My mother calls me Shae,” she said, blinking.
“Some people call me that too.” Bronn burst out laughing.
Even Soren had to admit the woman knew how to talk.
She wasn’t in a hurry to flatter him, nor was she rushing to strip off her clothes.
She simply stood there, offering Tyrion just the right amount of curiosity—giving him the one thing he lacked most.
The illusion of being treated like a man.
Tyrion was clearly enjoying it.
“Where did Bronn find you?” “From a knight who wasn’t particularly eager to let her go,” Bronn said.
“Your name helped a bit.
Of course, my dagger helped too.” “Splendid.” Tyrion gave a wry laugh.
“I told you to find me a woman, not to make me an enemy.” “The pretty ones were all taken,” Bronn said with a shrug.
“If you want to swap her for a toothless hag, I can go right now.” Shae offered a soft laugh.
“I can speak for myself, my lord.
If you care to listen.” Tyrion looked at her and fell silent for a moment.
“I do.” Soren sat by the brazier, watching the gloom on Tyrion’s face gradually melt away.
He knew what kind of future lay behind that face.
He knew this woman would become Tyrion’s soft spot—perhaps even the reflection on the blade that would cut him.
Yet he didn’t speak up to stop it.
Some interventions could be made.
Some warnings only drove people toward the flames faster.
He merely said softly before standing up to leave: “My lord, the blades on the battlefield are easy to see.
The ones beside your bed might not be.” Tyrion turned to look at him, then let out a lazy smile.
“Soren, you are the biggest buzzkill of a Night’s Watchman I’ve ever met.” “Let me show you out, Commander Soren,” Bronn said, coming over to clap Soren on the shoulder.
“I set aside two decent-looking country girls for you over in the baggage train camp—consider it thanks for keeping me from getting chopped to bits up on the mountains.” He flipped a copper coin in his hand, looking like he had just pulled off a guaranteed profit.
Soren didn’t refuse.
He followed Bronn through the left-flank camp.
Crooked silhouettes danced around the campfires everywhere.
A Stone Crow warrior clung to a half-barrel of sour wine, slumped across a broken cart, hollering mountain songs that no one could understand.
In the distance, soldiers pawed messily at the rough cloth dresses of camp followers, the stale stench of ale mingling with sweat.
Shagga sat by a fire, cradling three battleaxes in his arms as if they were three newborn babies he had just stolen.
Timett, on the other hand, was terrifyingly quiet.
He squatted near the flames, using a rough rag to slowly polish an axe blade.
The firelight reflected in his single eye; he didn’t look like he was waiting for a war, but rather for a wedding.
It was the eve of a great battle.
The entire camp was desperately trying to prove it was still alive.
Bronn passed Soren a wineskin.
The wine tasted sour as spoiled mare’s milk, burning its way down his throat and into his stomach.
Soren took a sip and frowned.
“This stuff could poison a shadowcat.” “Then you’d better drink up,” Bronn said.
“Tonight, a shadowcat’s life might not be half as tough as yours.” They sat by the fire for a while.
Bronn shared a few battlefield tales he’d picked up as a mercenary.
Some were true, others blatant nonsense.
He told of a knight who wrote his last will three times before riding into battle, only to survive the next day, return to camp, and find his squire had already sold his boots.
Then he spoke of an archer who swore to The Seven before going into battle that he’d never gamble again, only to win the fight and immediately use the enemies’ teeth to place his next bet.
Soren listened, chuckling occasionally.
People came and went around the bonfire.
A Lannister soldier strolled over with a jug to toast him, saying he’d seen Soren keep those hill tribesmen in line during the day and thought he was “scarier than a provost.” A few camp followers joined them by the fire, wrapped in old cloaks, laughing as they asked for a drink.
They didn’t pretend to feel love, nor did they fake coyness.
Like the soldiers, they were simply trying to steal a bit of warmth from this muddy land before tomorrow arrived.
Bronn soon hit it off with one of the women.
Soren leaned against a damp log, listening to the surrounding laughter, curses, songs, and the final clanging of hammers from the forge in the distance.
In this land where no one could ask for justice, everyone had their own way of escaping tomorrow.
Some relied on wine.
Some on laughter.
Some on the rolling bone dice at a gambling table.
And some relied merely on an unextinguished lamp in a tent.
…
The flap of a dilapidated military tent in the baggage train camp was pulled back.
Two young girls huddled in a corner piled with sheepskin felt.
One was darker-skinned with a round face, her lips pressed into a tight line from nervousness.
The other was fairer and slimmer, her hair tied in two loose braids, staring down at the silver stag on the ground with eyes on the verge of tears.
“Both refugee girls from the Riverlands.
The Mountain put their village to the torch,” Bronn said, shoving Soren into the tent.
“This gentleman is Lord Tyrion’s captain of the guard.
Don’t go working him to death.” Leaving those words behind, he walked off, his footsteps swallowed by the commotion outside.
Soren stood in the center of the tent, the low roof brushing against the back of his neck with a faint itch.
The dark-skinned girl moved first.
When she stood up, it was clear she was quite tall, her waist thick but firm and strong, straining the ragged burlap across her chest.
She stepped over and placed her hand directly against Soren’s chest, stroking downward over his ribs through the coarse linen until she stopped at his lower belly.
“Don’t be scared, milord,” she said, looking up with a grin that revealed a chipped canine on the left side.
“When money’s paid and business is done, we ought to make sure you enjoy yourself.” Her palm was warm, her fingertips calloused from farmwork, yet her hand slithered like a snake beneath the hem of his shirt.
Soren’s head buzzed.
He remembered the rules—who to keep at arm’s length, which battles were worth fighting.
But these hands suddenly made him forget everything.
[System Notification: Your behavior violates the Code of Chivalry and will deduct 3 Honor Points.
Please reconsider.] Only deducting 3 points…?
Screw it!
Before transmigrating, Soren had been nothing more than a law-abiding man, but now his thin veneer of civilized restraint was brutally torn to shreds.
…
That night, Soren dreamed he was floating and sinking in a damp marshland.
When he woke, dawn had not yet broken, but his boots—the leather boots that had carried him over the crags of the Mountains of the Moon—were nowhere to be found, no matter how hard he searched through the cluttered mess around the campfire.
“Ooooh—!” A deep, desolate horn blast rang out, long and resonant, as if tearing straight through the Riverlands sky.
Soren tumbled up off the sheepskin felt barefoot.
Bronn was already pulling up his belt beside him, spewing a filthy Riverlands curse.
Outside the tent, the entire camp was waking up.
No.
Not waking up.
It was being dragged out of its sleep by war.
Tyrion had emerged from his tent as well.
His hair was messy and his face pale, while Shae’s panicked voice echoed softly from behind the curtain of his tent.
“My lord, what’s happening?” “My father’s horn,” Tyrion said hoarsely.
“Muster for battle.” Shae’s face drained of color.
Tyrion looked back at her, his expression suddenly softening.
“If I die, remember to shed a tear or two for me.” “How will you know if I cried if you’re dead?” “I’ll just know.” Soren watched from a distance, staying silent.
Tyrion’s squire, Podrick, came stumbling over holding a piecemeal stack of armor, nearly tripping over a tent rope.
Tyrion’s armor was utterly comical.
The mail was ill-fitting, the greaves mismatched, and the breastplate had clearly been stripped off some larger corpse.
His helmet looked like an upside-down iron bucket topped with a ridiculous spike.
Shae helped him buckle the final strap.
She took a step back and looked him over seriously.
“You look very grand, my lord.” “I look like a dwarf wearing a comical iron bucket,” Tyrion said.
“Still, I appreciate the lie.” The horn sounded again in the distance.
Faster.
Faster.
Faster.
Morning mist drifted over from the Green Fork like a pale hand, brushing across every tent in the camp.
The clansmen dragged themselves up drunkenly, cursing, shoving, and hunting for their weapons.
Shagga hung all three axes on his body, resembling a walking iron rack.
Chella was whipping two Black Ears warriors who hadn’t slept off their liquor yet.
Timett tied a jar of wild fire oil to his waist, his single eye devoid of fatigue, gleaming with raw excitement.
Soren finally found his boots beneath a pile of damp wool.
He jammed his feet inside, cold muddy water instantly seeping up through the soles.
He stood up and looked into the distance.
In the morning light, the Lannister army was fanning out.
Twenty thousand golden lions on red fields unfolded like an iron rose slowly coming into bloom.
The pikemen of the center formed a dense forest through the mist.
The armor of the right-flank knights glinted with the first rays of dawn.
Farther away, high on the hill where Tywin Lannister stood, the crimson-and-gold banner hung dead still.
Through the thin mist, the Green Fork looked like a motionless ribbon of blood.
Soren exhaled a long, deep breath.
Last night’s wine, laughter, tenderness, and chaos were all crushed to dust by the horn blast.
The real meat-grinder of a battle had begun.