~ 💎 WEEKLY POWER GOALS 💎🔥 60→1ch | 100→2ch | 200→5ch ⏰ Resets Monday!
Thanks!
Colin looked exactly like a maiden nursing a grievance from some meddling busybody.
The Rangers behind him exchanged glances, every face wearing the same uncomfortable expression.
Alliser Thorne hadn’t bothered to consider how to answer the question.
He stood with his arms folded, face cold and unreadable, watching from a distance.
Seeing the master-at-arms stay silent, Colin grew frantic.
“Alliser, you’d better never leave Castle Black alone after this — unless you want a cold shot in the back!”
At the critical moment, it was Leon, the very ‘enemy,’ who stepped in and smoothed things over for the master-at-arms.
“Lord Colin, if you’re that pressed for time, why not all come at once?
I’ll take on every last one of you myself.”
As he said it, Leon rolled his neck and loosened his limbs, then began stripping off his armor piece by piece.
The defense it offered was reassuring enough, but the weight killed his agility.
In a brawl, that thin margin of protection was worth a great deal less to Leon than being able to move freely.
“You little shit — you serious right now?”
Colin stared at Leon the way you stare at someone who’s lost their mind entirely.
The Rangers behind him wore the same look.
Hard to say whether Leon was wildly arrogant or wildly overconfident.
Either way, that absolute give-no-damn energy of his drew the collective fury of the crowd.
The Rangers closed in and surrounded him.
“Fine.
Here’s how it goes, we won’t bully you.
No weapons.
Bare fists.
We finish this fast and we all go home.”
Colin raised his arm, ready to give the order.
Jon lunged from behind Leon and grabbed Colin’s arm with both hands.
“Lord Colin, Leon’s completely lost his head.”
Leon spun around, instantly furious.
“None of your business!
Get on with it!”
His voice cut through the yard like a battle horn.
The Rangers, already itching for it, surged forward all at once.
Jon could only watch helplessly as Leon was swallowed by the crowd, bodies piling on bodies, a human dogpile, frantic with worry and utterly powerless to do anything.
Even his shouting was drowned out by the war cries of the Night’s Watch Rangers.
The brawl exploded into chaos.
Leon took, DUANG~ DUANG~ DUANG~, god knows how many punches and kicks in the opening seconds.
It didn’t matter.
Fists and boots were a light drizzle compared to yesterday’s steel-to-flesh beatdown.
Barely worth acknowledging.
But taking hits without swinging back wasn’t in Leon’s nature.
And then some low-down Ranger started aiming every strike at Little Leon, which crossed a line entirely.
Leon’s fury detonated.
He seized that Ranger by the collar, caved his face in with one savage punch, then swung the limp body like a tattered rag doll in a wide sweeping arc.
One move.
Over a dozen Rangers went down in a heap.
The weight on his body lifted in an instant.
The accumulated injuries that had been stacking up recovered by more than half.
If he could take this punishment and keep dishing it out, Leon was done holding anything back.
He roared, hurled the unconscious Ranger aside, and charged into the crowd.
A few Night’s Watch Recruits who’d been watching from the edge couldn’t scramble clear in time.
They caught several of Leon’s heavy blows in the most profoundly undeserved fashion imaginable.
The rest of the Recruits fled the brawl screaming, leaving only the enraged Rangers locked in a bloody, bull-and-bull slugfest with Leon.
10 minutes.
20 minutes.
Leon fought with no regard for his own injuries, trading blow for blow, wound for wound.
Fists.
Elbows.
Teeth.
Little Leon nearly got drafted into service.
His eyes gradually blurred with blood and filth until his mind narrowed down to a single point: drop everyone still standing.
30 minutes later, Colin had taken several brutal hits.
He dug up the last shred of strength left in his body and drove a full-force kick straight into Leon’s chest.
It finally toppled the human-shaped beast.
Can’t keep training today.
The injuries will get worse.
That was the last thought Leon managed before he went out clean and cold.
Leon’s final few Ranger opponents had been something else entirely, each one no weaker than Matthew had been at the start.
His stamina ran dry, and Colin seized the moment to land the finishing blow.
That ended Leon’s training for the day.
“Hah…
hah…”
Colin braced his palms on his knees, too spent to stand up straight.
Steam rose off his sweat-soaked head in visible waves.
Eventually he gave up, dropped onto his backside, and sat in the dirt gulping for air.
Maester Aemon was helped into the training yard by two apprentices.
He swept the vast yard with his clouded eyes, it was littered with the ‘corpses’ of crows, and after careful inspection concluded that the Rangers were, in fact, taking a midday nap.
He listened as the still-shaken Recruits stammered through a disjointed account of events, then ordered his two apprentices to step forward and drag Leon out from the middle of the pile, where he lay sprawled across several Rangers with his arms and legs thrown wide.
Maester Aemon peered at the figure through his aged eyes.
The creature before him looked less like a person and more like someone had used him as a paint palette.
He wasn’t entirely certain this was Leon.
Fortunately, the apprentice beside him could still barely tell.
Maester Aemon bent down and gently pried open Leon’s eyelids.
He spoke quietly, almost to himself.
“Leon.
You seem to be rather severely injured this time.”
He said it as though to himself because he did not believe Leon could hear him.
Leon heard every word.
He even answered, with perfect composure:
“It’s nothing.
Just a flesh wound — merely fatal, is all.”
➤ Next: The Terrifying White Walker Invades Dreams, Leon Backhands It into a Head Ful…