Thank you all for your amazing comments and Power Stones!
❤️
Although we didn’t reach our goal of breaking into the PS rankings, we made it all the way to #11 in the Collection Rankings, which is still amazing.
So, as a reward, you’ll be getting an extra chapter later.
🔥
I also want you to know that I’m always open to your suggestions about the story, and I’ll take every one of them seriously.
And a special thanks to thel amazing support!
❤️
Ramon
Marcus Edvardsson
Joikanger
One Winged Angel
Varkath
…
“Griff!
What in seven hells do you think you’re doing?”
Willem’s shout tore through the dark, jolting the rest of the men awake to a scene already soaked in blood.
More than one sellsword lay with his throat opened in his sleep.
Erwin’s face had gone hard, eyes fixed on Griff.
“Griff.
Do you understand what you’re doing right now?”
Griff only sneered.
“Isn’t it plain enough?
Killing the both of you.”
“Have you lost your mind?” Willem snarled, fury barely held in check, and his eyes cut toward the others standing with Griff.
Aside from Griff’s own two men, the rest standing there were sellswords Willem himself had recruited.
He’d never once suspected they’d turn alongside Griff.
“Griff’s gone mad, and the rest of you have gone mad right along with him?
You understand what happens to a man who lays hands on a lord?
Every house in these lands would have your names on a warrant.”
The men exchanged uneasy looks, then turned back to Griff.
Griff only sneered harder.
“What lord?
He’s some foreign nobody, not a lord of the Seven Kingdoms, not by half.
What’s the crime in killing a man like that?”
“As for you, Willem, and your three there, better you join us.
Kill this foreign liar, split what he’s got along with the bandits’ hoard, and live rich the rest of your days.”
“We’re the ones who took that gang down.
By rights, their gold belongs to us.
And what does he do?
Hides behind being our employer and tries to keep every coin of it for himself, won’t even let us set eyes on it.
Call that fair, any of you?”
The others took up the chorus at that.
“Not fair!
We took the bandits down, that gold’s ours by right!”
“And he’s no real lord anyway, just a fraud.
Say the bandits killed him, and we fought them off and won his body back after.
No one could ever pin it on us.”
“Look at that armor he’s wearing, plain as day he’s playing at Lannister.
Carry it west after, might earn us a fine reward on top of everything else.”
Even the three sellswords standing beside Willem in their mail started trading uncertain looks now.
Willem raised his sword between Erwin and the rest of them, voice shaking with rage.
“You gutter dogs.
Have you no shame left in you at all?
No honor?”
“Shame?
Honor?” Griff rolled his eyes.
“Can a man eat either one?
Drink it down?
Does it shine half as bright as gold dragons and silver stags?”
“Tell me, brothers, why do any of us swing a sword for coin in the first place?
Isn’t it for gold that shines, silver enough to spend, meat we’ll never run short of, wine that never runs dry, and women who never tire of us?”
“You want to keep bowing and scraping for some noble’s brat the rest of your lives, playing the loyal hound?
Or would you rather walk the Street of Silk with your pockets full and live like men for once?
Or go back to drinking that copper-a-cup swill down in Flea Bottom, choking down brown with no one quite sure what’s floating in it?”
Truth was, Griff had held a grudge against Erwin for a while now, and finding that hoard of silver in the bandits’ den had turned that grudge into something sharper.
While the rest ate earlier, he and his men had already worked the others over quietly, talked them into killing their employer and splitting everything between them, his gold and the bandits’ both.
Shame and honor never entered into it.
What was either one worth, weighed against a full purse?
“With me, brothers!
Kill them both, split the gold, and go live like men should!”
The sellswords raised their weapons and shouted the words back at him, together.
“Kill them!
Live like men!
Kill them!
Live like men!”
Griff looked over their response with real satisfaction, then turned a sneer on the three still hesitating in their mail, and shot Willem a mocking look besides, before raising a hand for quiet.
“You three.
Make your choice.
Going to die for a foreigner who isn’t even worth the ground he’s standing on?”
He still wanted those three won over.
Men in full mail, fighting to the death to protect Erwin, would be trouble he’d rather avoid.
“Hahahahaha!”
Before any of the three could answer, Erwin’s laughter cut through everything.
The sound alone was enough to pull every eye in the cave toward him.
Once he’d let the laugh run its course, Erwin pushed past Willem, who’d been standing between him and the rest, and pointed straight at Griff.
“You’re a fool, Griff.
A genuine, complete fool.”
“That’s right.
I’m a foreigner.
And what of it?”
Erwin’s hand moved, and gold coins appeared from nowhere, scattering across the ground.
Every eye in the cave went wide at the sight of them, gleaming there in the low light.
“Do you know who my father is?
A Great Lord of the Holy Empire, far to the east, of House Augustus itself, blood that’s worn a crown over half the known world back where I come from.
His lands stretch wider than any Great Lord’s holdings in all Seven Kingdoms put together.
Hundreds of thousands of men in his service, horses beyond counting, and a fleet that commands every sea for a thousand leagues in every direction.”
“I’m only his second son, with no claim on his title or his lands.
So he gave me a few thousand of his own men and wealth beyond counting, and sent me out to see the world as I pleased.”
“Right now, I’m simply separated from my own men after a storm caught us at sea.
They’re out there searching for me this very moment, and do you truly believe it won’t occur to them to ask after me at that riverside inn?”
That gave every man in the cave pause.
“Yes, you could kill me here tonight.
But can you hide the fact that I hired every one of you at that inn, in front of half the common room?
And what happens when the lot of you turn up suddenly richer than sellswords have any business being?
What do you suppose becomes of you once my men come looking?”
At that, the sellswords Griff had turned started to waver visibly.
Erwin pressed on, gesturing at the coins scattered in the dirt.
“Coin, I have plenty of.
Think back on what I’ve already paid you, more generous than any employer you’ve ever worked for, wasn’t I?
Want the Street of Silk and everything that comes with it?
Stay with me, and tell me honestly what you think you’d be lacking.”
“Or would you rather gamble your necks on a few words out of Griff’s mouth, become wanted men hunted the length and breadth of this land?
Is that truly worth it to you?”
“One good meal tonight, or a full belly every night from here on.
Is that really such a hard choice to make?”
Something shifted across their faces at that.
He was right, and they all knew it.
On one side sat a generous employer, and following him meant good living for as long as they served him.
On the other sat the killing of a lord, foreign or not, still a lord by any measure, and if his men ever did trace it back to that inn, whatever life came after would be short and ugly.
Seeing them waver, Griff’s face went red with fury.
“Don’t listen to him!
The man’s a liar!
Great Lord’s second son, my arse, I could claim the same and it’d be just as true!
You’ll believe anything spoken with enough confidence behind it?”
“Some army that doesn’t exist isn’t half as real as that gold sitting right there in front of you.
And even if every word of it’s true, we kill him, take it all, and cross the narrow sea to the Free Cities.
The world’s wide enough out there.
We’ll live just as well with an ocean between us and any trouble that follows.”
The sellswords looked between Griff and Erwin, torn, unable to settle on either side of it.
Erwin’s voice stayed level.
“Whoever kills Griff right now keeps every coin on this ground for himself.”
The whole group froze, eyes dropping to the gold scattered in the dirt.
A good ten coins at least, more than any of them would see in a year otherwise.
A heartbeat later, a longsword drove clean into Griff’s back from behind.
…..
Full refund, no questions asked.