The ring of drawn steel still hung between the marble columns.
Tyrion Lannister raised one brow and studied the young man in battered leather.
He opened his mouth, as if searching for a name, then gave a small shake of his head.
He truly did not remember this particular sellsword.
“I refuse!” Lysa’s voice cracked.
Spittle flew.
“I do not accept this!
Ser Vardis, kill this insolent dog at once and throw the dwarf through the Moon Door!” Across the hall Catelyn Stark’s frown deepened.
“Lysa, trial by combat is ancient law.
The Seven Kingdoms recognize it.” “Before the gods,” Tyrion cut in at once, “the law protects every soul in Westeros.” Lysa glared at her sister, chest heaving, until at last she ground her teeth and spat the words.
“Fine.
Ser Vardis—before the gods, butcher this base sellsword for me.” The former captain of the Eyrie’s guard stepped forward in silver-and-blue plate.
One hand rested on the hilt of his sword.
His eyes traveled over Nero the way a man might inspect a piece of rusted scrap.
“As you command, my lady.” Bronn, still leaning against a pillar, gave a short cough and folded his arms.
A half-smile tugged at his mouth.
“You can barely sit a horse, kid.
Yet here you are, standing like you’ve got a spine of steel.” Nero ignored him.
Tyrion crossed the floor on short legs and looked up.
For a moment the familiar cynicism fell away.
Something rarer showed in the mismatched eyes—gratitude, raw and almost uncomfortable.
When the entire hall wanted him dead, one madman had stepped into the path of a blade.
“Friend,” Tyrion said, voice low and strangely sincere, “I still don’t know your name.” “Nero.
Nero of the Trident.
A hedge knight.” As the words left his mouth the system moved silently, rewriting the original body’s history and memories around the new name until they fit without seam.
“Nero of the Trident.” Tyrion rolled the name across his tongue, then quickly buried the emotion under the old Lannister drawl.
“Very well, Ser Nero.
If you die, I’ll see that every brothel from here to Oldtown sings of your heroism.
And any debts you leave behind will not follow you into the next life.” He stepped back until his shoulders touched cold stone.
The fire in his eyes remained.
“If you live,” he said, voice dropping to the rasp of a blade across a whetstone, “a Lannister always pays his debts.” — Wind roared through the open Moon Door.
Blue-and-silver banners snapped hard beneath the dome.
Vale squires dragged the long tables against the walls and cleared the floor.
Ser Vardis’s own squire came forward.
The knight lowered his arms and let the boy tighten the straps of his pauldrons.
The visor dropped.
Only a pair of grey-blue eyes remained visible.
“So you’re the sellsword who escorted the Imp up the mountain.” Vardis’s voice came muffled from inside the helm, yet every word carried cleanly.
“You traveled all that way with Lady Catelyn.
You should have taken your pay and left with honor.
Instead you throw your life away for a Lannister dwarf.” He lifted his shield.
“Boy.
Tell me—has Lannister gold addled your brain so thoroughly that you believe you can cheat a trial before the Seven?” Nero’s fingers closed around the hilt.
The longsword’s edge was clean now, free of rust.
Somewhere deeper, the original host’s muscle memory—years spent crawling through piles of corpses—began to wake.
Lysa drummed her fingers on the arm of the throne.
“Ser Vardis, enough talk.
Finish it!” Robert Arryn yanked his thumb from his mouth and shrieked, “Make him fly!
Make him fly!” Vardis raised his longsword and leveled the point at Nero’s chest.
“Before the Seven,” he said, voice rolling between the columns, “may justice prevail.” He took the first step.
Heavy plate crashed against marble.
Nero’s breath shortened by half a beat.
He had no shield—only a sword and boots of hard leather.
Fifteen paces behind him the threshold of the Moon Door stood open.
Six hundred feet of empty air waited beyond it.
Vardis was faster than he looked.
On the second step the heavy blade came down with the full weight of plate behind it.
Nero scrambled sideways.
The edge scored leather at his shoulder.
Before he could set his feet a horizontal cut and a rising slash followed in the same breath.
The old knight moved like an iron chariot, driving him back one hard step at a time.
After five exchanges the web of Nero’s sword hand was numb.
His left arm, clipped by the rim of the shield, had gone half-dead.
On the seventh blow his rear boot found the very edge of the Moon Door’s threshold.
Wind howled up from the abyss and slapped his trousers against his calves.
Tyrion’s fingers, which had been tapping the pillar, went still.
The shield slammed toward Nero’s chest.
He threw himself into a roll to the right.
Knees cracked against stone; white pain shot up both legs.
The shield’s rim scraped his left arm hard enough to kill all feeling.
He came up against a marble column hard enough to drive the air from his lungs.
Vardis turned.
The weight of full plate slowed the pivot by half a heartbeat, but the sword was already rising again.
“You run well,” the old knight said.
“There is nowhere left to run.” Nero pushed off the pillar and stood.
Sensation returned to the left arm in pins and needles.
His eyes fixed on the seams of the plate—armpit, back of the knee, the narrow gap of the visor.
Tyrion’s promise echoed once more in his skull.
Vardis came again.
The eighth stroke drove straight for the heart.
Nero did not retreat.
He stepped into the attack and swept his blade upward in the same motion.
The system-forged Wandering Swordsmanship answered without thought—pure instinct distilled from a hundred filthy, close-quarters fights among the dead.
The tip of his sword struck the base of Vardis’s blade and leveraged the thrust three inches offline.
Steel scraped leather along Nero’s ribs but did not bite flesh.
Using the rebound, he dropped low, almost to the floor, and slid inside the knight’s guard.
The longsword changed direction in a single smooth cut.
He aimed for the only soft point left—the chainmail behind the knee.
The point punched through the links and found the tendon.
Vardis made a sound that was not quite a scream—a low, rusted grunt forced through clenched teeth.
His left leg folded.
Plate armor struck marble with a heavy, final crash that drowned every other noise in the hall.
Lysa Arryn rose from the throne.
Little Robert’s sucking stopped mid-breath.