The lingering resonance of the drawn sword still bounced off the marble pillars.
Tyrion Lannister raised an eyebrow, staring at the young man in battered leather armor before him.
He opened his mouth as if searching his memory, then shook his head.
He truly had no recollection of this sellsword’s name.
“I refuse!” Lysa shouted, spittle spraying as her face twisted in wild fury.
“I won’t allow it!
Ser Vardis, kill this arrogant sellsword this instant, and then throw the dwarf out the Moon Door!” Standing on the other side of the hall, Lady Catelyn Stark’s brow furrowed deeper.
“Lysa, trial by combat is an ancient law recognized across the Seven Kingdoms…” “Before the gods, the law protects every Westerosi,” Tyrion interjected smoothly.
Lysa glared venomously at her sister, her chest heaving violently, before finally gritting her teeth and relenting: “Fine!
Ser Vardis, before the gods then—slay this lowly sellsword for me!” The former Captain of the Eyrie Guard, clad in silver and blue plate armor, stepped forward.
Hand resting on his sword hilt, he appraised Soren as if inspecting a piece of rusted iron.
“As you command, my lady.” Beside them, the shaggy-haired sellsword Bronn cleared his throat, arms crossed with a smirk.
“You could barely stay upright on a horse, kid, but look at you standing tall now.” Soren paid him no mind.
Tyrion waddled over on his short legs, looking up.
Stripped of his cynical facade, a rare, deep gratitude surged in the dwarf’s eyes.
When the whole world wanted him dead, a madman had actually stepped up to take up a sword for him.
“Friend,” Tyrion lowered his voice, his tone unprecedentedly sincere.
“I don’t even know your name.” “Soren.
Soren of the Trident, hedge knight.” With his words, the system seamlessly adjusted the original host’s background, life, and memories to fit the identity.
“Soren of the Trident,” Tyrion repeated, clicking his tongue against his teeth before quickly slipping back into his familiar Lannister cadence to hide his emotion.
“Very well, Ser Soren.
If you die, I shall make sure every brothel in the realm sings of your bravery, and your debts are forgiven in the next life.” He stepped back a few paces, resting his back against a cold stone pillar, though his eyes burned like fire.
“If you live,” his voice dropped low, sharp as a blade on a whetstone, “a Lannister always pays his debts.” *** Howling winds surged through the Moon Door, whipping the blue, white, and silver banners under the vaulted ceiling into a frenzied rustle.
A few Vale squires were busily clearing the floor, pushing several long tables back against the walls.
Ser Vardis Egen’s squire stepped forward.
The knight lowered his arms, allowing his squire to fasten the leather straps of his pauldrons.
He pulled down his visor, revealing only a pair of slate-gray eyes.
“Are you the sellsword who helped escort the Imp up the mountain?” Vardis’s voice came muffled from behind the helmet, yet every word rang clear.
“Having come all this way with Lady Catelyn, you should have walked away with honor and silver in hand.
Now you throw your life away for a Lannister dwarf.” He took his shield.
“Tell me, boy: did Lannister gold addle your brain into thinking you could trick your way through the judgment of The Seven?” Soren tightened his grip on the hilt.
The rust on his longsword’s blade had only just vanished.
Muscle memory forged from years of surviving amidst piles of corpses was awakening within him.
Lysa Arryn drummed her fingers impatiently on the throne armrest.
“Enough, Ser Vardis!
Stop wasting time!” Robert Arryn pulled his thumb from his mouth and squealed, “Make him fly!
Make him fly!” Ser Vardis Egen raised his sword, pointing the tip directly at Soren.
“By The Seven,” his voice echoed off the marble pillars, “may justice prevail.” He took his first step.
Every step in his heavy plate armor sounded like a mallet striking earth.
Soren’s breath hitched for a beat.
He had no shield—only a sword and a pair of feet clad in boiled-leather boots.
Fifteen paces behind him was the threshold of the open Moon Door, where a six-hundred-foot abyss lay waiting.
Vardis was far faster than he looked.
On his second step, his heavy sword cleaved downward with the full crushing power of his plate armor!
Soren ducked sideways in a messy dodge, the blade whistling past, barely missing his leather pauldron.
Before he could regain his footing, a horizontal slash and a diagonal cut followed in rapid succession.
Vardis pressed forward like a cold, unfeeling juggernaut of steel, driving Soren back step by step.
After five exchanges, Soren’s hands were numb from the shock, and his left arm had taken a blow from the shield, leaving it nearly deadened.
On the seventh strike, his back foot touched the edge of the Moon Door threshold.
Gale-force winds roared from behind, flattening his trousers against his shins.
Tyrion’s fingers tapping against the stone pillar abruptly froze.
Vardis slammed his shield toward Soren’s chest.
Soren threw himself into a roll to the right, his knee slamming violently against the stone floor, sending a jolt of bone-rattling pain up his leg.
The rim of the shield scraped his left arm, striking hard enough to numb the limb completely for a second.
He rolled to the flank of the hall, his back crashing into a marble column, knocking the air right out of his lungs.
Vardis turned.
The weight of his plate armor made his turn half a breath slower, but his sword was raised once more.
“You move well,” the old knight said.
“But there is no way out.” Soren pushed himself up against the column.
Sensation was returning to his left arm, though it remained numb.
He locked his eyes onto every gap in Vardis’s heavy plate.
The armpits.
The back of the knees.
The slit of the visor.
Tyrion’s promise echoed through his mind.
Vardis surged forward again, his eighth thrust aiming straight for Soren’s chest.
Soren didn’t dodge.
He took a step forward into the blow, sweeping his blade upward from below.
This was the wandering swordplay refined by the system—an instinct carved from countless life-or-death brawls among heaps of corpses.
The tip of his sword struck the base of Vardis’s blade, leveraging the momentum to force the thrust three inches off course.
The steel blade grazed Soren’s side, piercing the skirt of his leather armor without sinking into flesh.
Using the recoil from the parry, Soren dropped his center of gravity low.
Slipping past Vardis’s guard almost flush against the floor, his sword reversed course— aiming straight for the gap behind the old knight’s knee, covered only by mail.
Thrust.
The tip bit through the metal rings of the mail and drove deep into the tendon behind the knee joint.
Vardis groaned through gritted teeth.
A low, rusty grunt tore from between his teeth.
His left leg buckled.
The heavy crash of plate armor striking the marble floor rang out deeper and louder than any scream.
Lysa Arryn bolted up from her throne, and Robert Arryn froze, his thumb sliding out of his mouth.