A new chapter is up.
Come in, get comfortable, and let’s see what kind of trouble waits this time ❤️
✦
“What are you going to do next?”
Once the tavern thinned out and he finally had a moment to rest, Old Baine came over and sat across from Alden, concern plain in his voice.
Alden thought for a moment.
“Old Baine, do you still have friends among the guards at Red Lake?”
“You want to join the Red Lake guard?” The old man frowned.
He glanced down at his maimed hand and crippled leg, then said in a low voice, “Guard duty is no easy life.”
Old Baine had once served in the Red Lake guard himself.
He had even captained it.
In those days, he had followed the head of House Crane to Highgarden and seen most of the noble houses of the Reach.
For a village tavern keeper, he had truly seen the world.
His luck had failed him during a Crane-led sweep against the outlaws in Red Lake Forest.
The company had ridden into an ambush, and Baine had been badly wounded.
If Alden’s father had not found him by chance, he might have died in the outlaws’ hands.
That debt was why the old man treated Alden as he did.
Though Baine had left the guard long ago, he still had a few ties in Red Lake.
Recommending one young man for a place among the guards would not be especially difficult.
For a brief moment, memory pulled the old man inward.
Then he looked back at Alden.
“Why the guard?
I thought you wanted to become a hunter as good as your father.”
“I want to see what lies beyond this village,” Alden said, choosing the excuse he had prepared.
“I do not want to die knowing only White Village and Red Lake Forest.
I want to see Highgarden.
I want to see King’s Landing.
I want to stand before the Wall in the far North.
If I stay here, the Stranger will come for me before I ever see any of it.”
Old Baine studied him.
“That wound changed you more than I thought.
You are not the same boy you were.”
Alden’s heart tightened, but his face gave nothing away.
“Death can change a man completely,” Baine said with a sigh, finding his own explanation before Alden needed to offer one.
“It did the same to me once.” His expression hardened.
“But do you truly think wearing a guard’s cloak at Red Lake will take you to those places?”
“It gives me a better chance than I have now.”
Alden could leave White Village on his own and go anywhere in Westeros, but the moment he did, he would lose even the thin protection of being a settled smallfolk hunter.
He would become a wanderer.
For a man without a name, a lord, a trade, or a patron, climbing upward became many times harder.
Most such men rotted in city alleys, turned outlaw, or were seized by some lordling and sent to the mines.
The unlucky ones might even be sold quietly across the Narrow Sea.
Rising as a commoner was already hard enough.
Doing it as a rootless vagrant would be worse, even with his gift and his talent.
Alden had no absolute confidence that he could win the power and position he wanted from that starting point.
Serving at Red Lake would at least put him close to the nobles of this world.
From there, he could look for an opening.
For now, it was the best path he could see.
Baine watched him for a long while before speaking again.
“The current captain of the Red Lake guard is Smiling Will.
He served under me once, and we are on decent terms.
If I recommend you, he should at least give you a chance.”
Joy rose in Alden, but he kept it from his face.
That restraint pleased Old Baine.
In the past, Alden had often worn a cold face, but he had never been good at hiding what he felt.
Anyone could read his mood if they watched him closely.
Now he seemed like a different person, every emotion tucked away where no one could reach it.
Once again, Baine could only marvel at what a near-death wound had done to the boy.
“I can recommend you,” the old man continued, “and Will may test you for my sake.
Whether you become a guard, though, depends on your own ability.”
“What ability do you mean?”
“Come with me.”
Baine stood, motioned for Alden to follow, gave an order to one of the tavern hands, and headed for the yard behind the building.
Alden rose with his crutch and followed.
In the back yard, Baine told him to wait, then went into his room.
Alden heard him searching beneath the bed.
A moment later, the old man returned carrying a broadsword and a round shield reinforced with iron.
“Take them.
Try.”
He handed both over.
Alden set his crutch aside, accepted the sword and shield, and swung the blade a few times.
The moment he tried to use the broadsword according to the swordsmanship in his memory, a harsh wrongness ran through him.
What should have been a simple motion turned clumsy and rough.
Old Baine was not surprised.
To his eyes, this was exactly how a boy with no training in longsword or broadsword should look.
Alden, however, was plainly dissatisfied.
After two test swings, he stopped and turned back to the old man.
“Can you give me another sword?”
Baine paused.
He thought Alden believed the weapon was a poor fit and wanted to try a different blade, so he did not argue.
He went back inside and returned with a knightly sword.
Like the broadsword, the weapon had been well kept.
No rust marked the steel.
The badge on the pommel had been ground away, which suggested it was a spoil Baine had taken years ago.
Judging by its workmanship, the former owner had most likely been no famous knight, only a squire or perhaps a hedge knight.
Alden did not put down the broadsword.
Instead, he set aside the shield, took the second blade, and stood with a sword in each hand.
Old Baine stared.
There had been knights in Westeros who fought with two weapons, but every one of them had been the sort of name singers kept alive.
They were men who could face ten ordinary warriors and still come away standing.
In their hands, two blades doubled a man’s danger.
In ordinary hands, they were a quick road to death.
Baine was about to correct Alden and tell him that more steel did not mean a better fighter when the boy lowered his body slightly.
The injured youth who had needed a crutch only moments ago moved.
His feet carried him across the yard in quick, shifting steps.
As he moved, the mismatched blades in his hands cut, thrust, and turned with a flawless rhythm.
Old Baine had earned the post of captain at Red Lake because his own sword-and-shield work was more than respectable.
He had also seen knightly duels and tourneys enough to know real skill when it appeared before him.
What Alden displayed now felt like watching one of those famed knights at arms.
Without exaggeration, Baine believed that even if he stood before the boy fully armed and armored, he would struggle to hold off those twin blades.
Every thrust Alden made sought the weak points in a suit of armor, and not the obvious ones.
The angles were vicious, precise, and difficult to defend.
‘Was this swordplay made to kill knights?’
The thought came to Baine almost at once.
Alden finally stopped.
He had not run through everything he knew.
His body had simply reached its limit.
If he continued, the old wounds would open again.
“Old Baine…” Alden braced both swords against the ground, holding up his aching, exhausted body as he gasped for air.
“Do you think…
I qualify…
for the guard now?”
“You qualify.”
Baine steadied the turmoil in his chest and gave the answer.
Then curiosity overcame him.
“When did you learn swordplay like that?
I have never seen you use it before.”
Alden had already considered that question before showing the twin blades.
Now that it came, he gave the answer he had prepared.
He made the sign of prayer over his chest and looked at Baine with solemn devotion.
“When I was wounded and unconscious, I saw the Warrior.
My courage in avenging my father by hunting the mountain bear moved Him.
He blessed me and placed many warriors’ skills inside my mind, letting me wield them as if I had trained all my life.” He let regret touch his expression.
“But my body is still too weak.
For now, I can only truly use this twin-blade style.
The rest of the skills remain sealed away in my head.
I will not be able to draw on them until my body heals and grows strong enough.”
Old Baine was struck speechless.
Of all the answers he might have guessed, this was nowhere near any of them.
The Faith of the Seven was the official faith of the Seven Kingdoms, and the Reach followed it more than most, but Baine had never been a devout man.
He had seen corrupt septons use the gods’ names to dress up their vices.
He had seen nobles scheme for the Faith’s support by manufacturing so-called miracles of the Seven.
He had watched merchants wrap worthless trinkets in holy stories and sell them as relics, taking the last copper pennies from people already poor enough.
He did not truly believe.
He only wore the appearance of belief because that was what the world expected.
Yet now a boy he knew well was telling him that the Warrior Himself had granted a blessing.
The claim felt absurd.
His first instinct was to call it a lie.
Then he looked at Alden, panting and pale in the yard, and doubt entered him.
Baine had watched the boy grow up.
In fifteen years, Alden had never shown even the smallest gift for swordplay.
He had been a hunter’s son, nothing more.
What he had displayed just now was not something a fifteen-year-old village boy could simply possess.
Many grown knights never reached that level.
It required years of uninterrupted training, and Alden had never had the time, the teacher, or the means.
Once Baine ruled out any ordinary path to such a refined and deadly style, only Alden’s explanation remained.
A blessing from the Warrior might indeed turn someone ignorant of the sword into a fighter of terrifying skill.
And the reason for such a blessing made sense.
In all the tales Baine knew, no fifteen-year-old boy had ever gone alone to hunt a bear the size of a hill.
A son avenging his father that way was exactly the sort of thing singers turned into verse.
In fact, a traveling singer who had passed through White Village had already recorded Alden’s tale, intending to shape it into a song.
“Is what you said true?” Baine asked, his voice grave.
“I can swear by the Seven that every word is true.” Alden placed a hand against his chest, imitating a faithful man’s oath.
In Alden’s view, the oath held.
Whether the Seven existed or not, his gift was, in a certain sense, very much a blessing of the Warrior.
“Have you told anyone else?”
“No one but you.” Alden met his eyes with open sincerity.
“I know how impossible it sounds.
I was afraid speaking of it would bring trouble, so I never meant to tell anyone.
But you are different.
You are the person I trust most in this world.
I can tell you.”
A smile appeared beneath Baine’s thick beard.
Then he asked, “Is that why you want to go out and see the world?”
“Partly.”
“I understand.” Baine nodded.
“Once your wounds are healed, I will go to Red Lake and recommend you.
Before that, though, you need proper weapons made.”
Alden looked at the knightly sword and broadsword in his hands.
“These two will not do?”
“The knightly sword must stay here.
Carrying it will bring trouble down on you.” Baine shook his head.
“As for the broadsword, it is enough if all you want is a common guard’s life.
If you want something better, you need weapons made for you, suited to your hands.
Proper gear keeps a man alive on the battlefield, and staying alive is how he earns glory.”
Alden nodded.
That made sense.
He had wielded both swords almost perfectly through the twin-blade skill already fused into his body, but he could still feel the mismatch.
If he could have a pair of longswords made for him, his strength in battle would rise again.
“Can the village smith make them?”
“He can make sickles and horseshoes.” Baine snorted in contempt.
Then he waved off Alden’s concern.
“Leave this to me.
Your five gold dragons are still in my keeping.
They should be enough for two passable swords.”
I hope this chapter pulled you a little deeper into the story.
Stay close, because things are only getting more interesting.