Chapter 22 – Headless Ned
"Bronn," Podrick said quietly, his eyes still fixed on the battlefield,
"don't you think this war feels… strange?"
He finally turned his head toward the sellsword beside him.
Bronn was sitting cross-legged on the bloodstained bank of the Green Fork,
a dented half-helm in his hand.
He'd scooped up river water with it and was now carefully rinsing the gore from his sword's edge.
He hadn't joined the clansmen in scavenging corpses for loot—
he'd fought beside them, but he wasn't fool enough to mingle with them afterward.
Hearing Podrick's question, Bronn didn't look up.
"Strange?" he asked,
his voice lazy.
"You mean the part where you're still alive?
Or the bit where you captured a knight,
saved that dwarf of ours twice,
and somehow didn't get your head split open?
That sort of strange?"
He gave a low chuckle.
"Seven hells, boy—you talk like a maester.
What's next? You planning to be a general?"
Bronn saw nothing "strange" about the battle—only that he'd lived through it.
That was enough.
And unlike most men, he didn't envy Podrick for the prize he'd won.
He only cared that he'd survived,
that his blade was clean,
and that his purse would soon be heavier.
With an indifferent shrug, he wiped the last of the blood from his sword,
then casually kicked over the half-helm.
The red water inside spilled over the wounded, trussed-up knight lying nearby.
The man groaned as the cold water hit him,
his right hand bent at an unnatural angle,
his ankle swollen and purple.
He'd never ride again.
"No," Podrick said quietly.
"That's not what I meant."
He frowned.
"Didn't you notice?
Most of our enemies were foot soldiers. Hardly any cavalry."
Bronn's expression didn't change.
Pod pressed on.
"Ser Gregor's charge broke their line in one go.
After that, Lord Tywin's reinforcements—mostly horse again—finished the rest.
They scattered almost immediately."
He paused, eyes narrowing.
"So where were the northern cavalry, Bronn?
Robb Stark's horsemen?"
The sellsword's hand froze for just a heartbeat.
Then he snorted, sliding his sword back into its scabbard.
"All I know," he said, "is that we won.
The Northerners ran.
That's good enough for me."
He gave a careless grin.
"Keep your riddles for the smallfolk, boy.
I don't get paid to think."
Podrick sighed softly and turned his gaze toward the rear of the camp,
where new tents were being raised amid the smoke and ruin.
"Then sleep well tonight," he said.
"If I'm right, it'll be the last good night's rest we get for a while."
"Because soon," he added, eyes darkening,
"we'll have work to do."
Bronn gave him a puzzled look,
half amused, half wary.
He couldn't decide whether the boy was sharp or simply mad.
But as it turned out, the boy was right.
By the time the sun had risen high the next day,
Tyrion Lannister had returned—
and with him came news grim enough to drain the color from even Tywin's men.
Before dawn, Lord Tywin Lannister had given the order: march.
Hard and fast.
South.
No victory songs were sung.
The army that had triumphed at the Green Fork now moved as if it had been beaten.
There were no cheers, no laughter,
only the steady, brutal rhythm of boots and hooves.
Lord Tywin demanded speed—
at any cost.
And the cost was steep.
Those too wounded to keep pace were left behind.
Those who faltered from exhaustion were left as well.
Each morning, when they set out again,
the roadside was lined with corpses—
men who had simply lain down in the night and never woken again.
By afternoon, another handful of men collapsed along the road—
too exhausted to march another step.
By nightfall, a few simply vanished into the darkness,
slipping away like ghosts to become deserters.
It was a cruel rhythm: the march was swift, the result disastrous.
In just five days, the army that had bled for victory at the Green Fork
returned to the Crossroads Inn—
the same inn where Tyrion Lannister had once been taken prisoner.
But it was here, too, that they finally received word
from the Riverlands.
---
"So," Lord Tywin's voice was low, measured,
"you're telling me that my son is in their hands?"
"Yes, my lord."
The rider swayed on his feet as he spoke.
He had come hard and fast,
his once-white surcoat torn and crusted with blood,
the black-and-pink sigil of House Crakehall barely visible beneath the grime.
At his words, silence fell over the gathered lords—
the bannermen of the Rock,
the knights and captains summoned by Lord Tywin Lannister himself.
Only the fire in the hearth dared to speak,
its crackling filling the long hall of the inn.
---
Tyrion sat among them,
still weary from the forced march,
his arm throbbing,
his thoughts dulled by pain and wine.
He'd been roused from a warm bed upstairs—
from the soft embrace of Shae—
and now sat beneath his father's cold stare,
a goblet of wine trembling in his hand.
He lifted it to his lips,
but the motion sent pain lancing through his elbow,
sharp enough to make his vision blur.
The taste of the battlefield lingered even now—
iron, blood, and ashes.
All that endless riding,
all those corpses left by the roadside,
and for what?
A hollow victory—emptied in an instant by a single rider's message.
---
Outside the Inn
When the summons came for Tyrion to attend his father's war council,
Podrick Payne had quietly slipped away.
He walked to the rear courtyard,
to the place where the noose still hung.
The gallows remained as he remembered it—
weathered beams,
a single corpse swaying gently in the night wind.
The innkeep's wife still dangled there,
her body twisting with each whisper of the breeze.
Pod climbed up onto the low stone wall beside it,
his gaze fixed on the lifeless figure,
her shadow swaying across the lamplight that spilled from the inn's windows.
"What are you doing here?"
The voice came from behind him.
Bronn stepped out of the shadows,
his tone caught somewhere between curiosity and unease.
He followed Pod's gaze to the corpse.
"Seven hells," he muttered. "That's not much to look at."
Pod's voice was calm.
"Maybe not.
But two weeks ago, I almost ended up hanging right beside her."
"What?" Bronn blinked, thrown off.
"You?"
Pod smiled faintly, not bothering to explain further.
Instead, he changed the subject.
"Did you see that rider? The one who just arrived?"
Bronn's brow furrowed, and he turned toward the inn.
The faint glow of torchlight flickered through the windows.
"You think I came out here for the night air?" he said dryly.
"We win a battle at the Green Fork,
then march south like whipped dogs,
leaving more corpses on the road
than we made in the fight itself.
Now there's a blood-soaked courier,
and Tywin Lannister calls a meeting before sunset.
You tell me that's not trouble."
He spat into the mud.
Bronn was no lord,
but he knew when gold was about to lose its shine.
"We fight for coin, boy," he said flatly.
"And I like to know what kind of coin I'm fighting for."
Pod gave a small shrug.
"Then you already know the answer."
He looked back toward the inn.
"The rider was half-dead,
his surcoat soaked in blood,
too broken to even dismount properly.
That doesn't happen when a siege goes well.
Whatever's happening at Riverrun—it isn't victory."
Bronn's expression hardened, though he said nothing.
"If I'm not mistaken," Pod went on,
"this march south will end the same way it began—
with bad news."
"You sound awfully sure of yourself," Bronn said,
though even he couldn't muster much conviction.
Pod dropped lightly down from the wall,
brushing dust from his hands.
His voice was low, but steady.
"Does it matter whether I'm sure?"
He turned, eyes shadowed in the torchlight.
"Our new king," he said, almost softly,
"cut off the head of his father's best friend,
Lord Eddard Stark,
and stuck it on a spike for the crows."
A gust of wind stirred the noose above them.
The dead woman swayed again,
her silhouette twisting against the firelit wall.
Bronn said nothing.
For once, even he had no joke to make.
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