“My lord.” She bowed slightly.
“My name is Shae.” Tyrion had still been swirling in the shadows of schemes and war, but those light words pulled him out of the deep water like a hand.
“I am Tyrion Lannister.” He tilted his head.
“Some unkind people call me the Imp.” “My mother called me Shae.” She blinked.
“Some people call me that too.” Bronn laughed out loud.
Even Nero had to admit the woman knew how to talk.
She was in no rush to flatter, nor was she in a hurry to undress.
She simply stood there, using just the right amount of curiosity to give Tyrion a little of what he lacked most—the illusion of being treated like a man.
Tyrion was clearly pleased.
“Where did you find her, Bronn?” “From a knight who wasn’t very willing to let go,” Bronn said.
“Your name helped a bit.
Of course, my dagger helped a bit too.” “Very good.” Tyrion smiled bitterly.
“I asked you to find a woman, not to create an enemy for me.” “The pretty ones were all taken.” Bronn shrugged.
“If you want one without teeth, I can go now.” Shae laughed softly.
“I can speak for myself, my lord.
If you are willing to listen.” Tyrion looked at her and was silent for a moment.
“I am.” Nero sat by the brazier, watching the shadows on Tyrion’s face unravel bit by bit.
He knew what kind of future that face represented.
He knew this woman would become Tyrion’s weakness, perhaps even a reflection on some blade.
But he did not speak to stop it.
Some interventions could be made.
Some warnings only made people walk faster toward the fire.
He only said softly before getting up to leave: “My lord, the blades on the battlefield are visible.
The ones by the bedside may not be.” Tyrion turned to look at him, then showed a lazy smile.
“Nero, you are the most joyless Night’s Watchman I have ever met.” “Let’s go, our Commander Nero.” Bronn walked over and patted Nero’s shoulder.
“I also got you two decent-looking country girls at the supply train.
Consider it thanks for not letting me get hacked to death on the mountain.” He tossed a copper coin in his hand, acting like he had just made a risk-free profit.
Nero did not refuse.
He followed Bronn through the left-flank camp.
Campfires threw twisted shadows everywhere.
A Stone Crow warrior hugged half a bucket of sour wine, collapsed on a broken cart, shouting mountain ballads no one could understand.
In the distance soldiers grabbed at the coarse skirts of camp followers.
The smell of stale ale and sweat mixed together.
Shagga sat by a fire, cradling three axes in his arms as if they were three children he had just snatched.
Timett was frighteningly quiet.
He squatted by the flames, slowly wiping an axe blade with a coarse cloth.
The firelight reflected in his single eye.
He did not look like a man waiting for war.
He looked like a man waiting for a wedding.
This was the eve of the great battle.
The entire camp was desperately trying to prove it was still alive.
Bronn handed Nero a wineskin.
The wine was as sour as spoiled mare’s milk, burning down his throat into his stomach.
Nero took a sip and frowned.
“This stuff could kill a wildcat.” “Then you’d better drink more,” Bronn said.
“Tonight even a wildcat might not have a life as tough as yours.” They sat by the fire for a while.
Bronn told battlefield anecdotes mercenaries collected.
Some were true.
Some were obvious nonsense.
He said a knight wrote his last words three times before a battle, failed to die the next day, and returned to camp only to find his squire had already sold his boots.
Another claimed an archer swore to the Seven never to gamble again, then used the enemy’s teeth as dice the moment the fighting ended.
Nero listened, occasionally laughing.
People came and went by the fire.
A Lannister soldier arrived with a flagon and toasted him, saying he had watched him control the mountain clans during the day and thought him “scarier than a provost marshal.” A few camp followers sat near the flames, wrapped in old cloaks, laughing and asking for wine.
They did not pretend love.
They did not pretend shyness.
Like the soldiers, they simply tried to steal a little warmth from the mud before tomorrow arrived.
Bronn soon hit it off with one of the women.
Nero leaned against a piece of wet timber, listening to the surrounding laughter, cursing, singing, and the final hammering from a distant blacksmith’s forge.
In this land where justice could not be questioned, everyone was avoiding tomorrow in their own way.
Some relied on wine.
Some relied on laughter.
Some relied on the bone dice rattling across a gambling board.
And some relied on an unextinguished lamp inside a tent.
— A worn marching tent in the supply train was lifted open.
Two young girls huddled in a corner piled with wool felt.
One had darker skin, a round face, and lips pressed into a nervous line.
The other was paler and thinner, her hair braided into two loose plaits.
She stared at the silver stag on the ground with eyes that looked ready to cry.
“They’re both refugee girls from the Riverlands.
Their village was torched by the Mountain.” Bronn pushed Nero into the tent.
“This is Lord Tyrion’s captain of the guard.
Don’t kill him.” He dropped those words and left.
His footsteps were swallowed by the noise outside.
Nero stood in the center of the tent.
The low roof brushed the back of his neck.
The darker-skinned girl moved first.
When she stood, it was clear she was not short.
Her waist was thick but firm.
The torn linen across her chest stretched tight.
She walked over and pressed her hand directly to his chest, stroking down over his ribs through the coarse shirt until her fingers stopped at his lower abdomen.
“Don’t be afraid, my lord.” She looked up and smiled, showing a chipped canine on the left.
“Money was paid.
I have to make you comfortable.” Her palms were warm.
The pads of her fingers carried calluses from farm work, yet they slid like a snake under the hem of his shirt.
Nero’s head buzzed.
He remembered the set of rules—who to keep at a distance, which battles were worth fighting.
Those hands made him forget every one of them.
[System Notification: Your actions violate the code of chivalry.
3 Honor points will be deducted.
Please reconsider.] If it was only three points… fuck it.
Before transmigrating, Nero had been an orderly man.
The civilized surface had been stripped away somewhere between the Moon Door and the first mountain kill.
Now the body that remained answered only to heat and the immediate moment.
He caught her wrist, not to stop her, but to pull her closer.
The thinner girl watched from the corner, eyes wide, until the darker one reached back and tugged her forward by the braid.
Nero did not speak.
He simply let the two of them undress him with the practical speed of people who had already decided the silver stag on the floor was enough payment for whatever happened next.
The darker girl pushed him down onto the wool felt.
She straddled his hips, guided him inside her with one practiced hand, and rode him with a steady, grinding rhythm that made the tent poles creak.
Her breasts swayed above his face.
When he gripped her waist she only laughed under her breath and rolled her hips harder.
The thinner girl hesitated longer.
Eventually she knelt beside them, let Nero pull her closer by the thigh, and took him into her mouth when the darker girl lifted herself off.
Her technique was clumsy, almost shy, but the wet heat of it and the soft sounds she made against his skin were enough.
Nero’s hand tangled in her loose plaits while the other girl kissed along his neck and murmured low encouragement in the Riverlands tongue.
They switched places more than once.
At some point the darker girl turned onto her hands and knees and looked back over her shoulder with that chipped-tooth smile.
Nero took her from behind while the thinner one lay beneath them, kissing whatever skin she could reach.
The tent filled with the wet slap of flesh, the creak of old canvas, and the short, broken breaths of three people who all understood that tomorrow might erase every memory of this night.
When Nero finally finished, the darker girl took him in her mouth again and cleaned him with the same practical care she had shown from the start.
The thinner one curled against his side, one arm across his chest, already half-asleep.
No one spoke of love.
No one pretended this was anything but a transaction paid in silver and finished before dawn.
Nero closed his eyes and let the heat drain out of him.
— That night he dreamed he was floating in a damp swamp.
When he woke it was not yet dawn.
His boots—the same leather boots that had carried him over the crags of the Mountains of the Moon—were nowhere to be found among the scattered cups and plates near the fire.
“Woo—!” A bleak, long, low horn blast exploded across the Riverlands like it meant to tear the sky apart.
Nero scrambled up from the wool felt, barefoot.
Bronn was already pulling his belt tight nearby, cursing in a very dirty Riverlands dialect.
Outside the tent the whole camp was waking.
No.
Not waking.
It was being dragged out of its sleep by war.
Tyrion crawled from his own tent.
His hair was a mess, his face pale.
From behind the curtain Shae’s panicked voice could be heard faintly.
“My lord, what happened?” “My father’s horn.” Tyrion’s voice was hoarse.
“Battle assembly.” Shae’s face went white.
Tyrion looked back at her.
His expression softened for a moment.
“If I die, remember to shed two tears for me.” “How would you know if I cried if you were dead?” “I just would.” Nero watched from a distance and said nothing.
Tyrion’s squire Podrick came stumbling over, carrying a pile of mismatched armor and nearly tripping on a tent rope.
Tyrion’s armor was extremely comic.
The chainmail did not fit.
The greaves were not a matching set.
The breastplate had clearly been stripped from a taller dead man.
The helmet looked like an overturned iron bucket with a ridiculous spike stuck on top.
Shae helped him fasten the last strap.
She stepped back and looked him over carefully.
“My lord looks very imposing.” “I look like a dwarf wearing a comical iron bucket.” Tyrion said.
“But I thank you for the lie.” The horn sounded again in the distance.
Faster.
Faster.
Faster.
Morning mist rolled in from the Green Fork like a pale hand, brushing every tent in the camp.
The mountain clansmen climbed to their feet still half-drunk, cursing, shoving, searching for weapons.
Shagga hung all three axes on his body until he looked like a walking iron rack.
Chella whipped two Black Ears who had not yet sobered.
Timett tied an oil pot to his waist.
His single eye held no sleep—only bright, hungry excitement.
Nero finally found his boots under a pile of wet wool.
He shoved his feet in.
Cold muddy water immediately soaked through the soles.
He stood and looked into the distance.
In the morning light the Lannister army was deploying.
Twenty thousand red banners with golden lions opened like a slowly blooming steel rose.
The center’s pike phalanx formed a dense forest in the mist.
The right-wing knights’ armor caught the first faint light of dawn.
Further away, on the high ground where Tywin Lannister stood, the gold-and-crimson banner remained perfectly still.
The Green Fork lay like a still ribbon of blood beneath the thin fog.
Nero drew a deep breath.
Last night’s wine, laughter, tenderness, and chaos had all been crushed into fragments by the horn.
The real meat-grinder was about to begin.