"A wise practice." Margaery turned fully toward him now, her green silks brushing against his leather armor. "Tell me, Alaric—do you find our Southern knights as impressive as the stories say? Or are they just boys in shiny tin?"
"Shiny tin can still kill a man if the spear is sharp," Alaric replied, his eyes never leaving the lists. "But a man who spends more time polishing his plate than training in the mud is usually the first to fall when the horse trips."
Margaery's eyebrows arched. "Pragmatic. My brother Loras would likely disagree—he spends hours on his appearance—but he is skilled. Perhaps you'll see him today."
"I look forward to it," Alaric said.
The small talk ended at once. A trumpet sounded.
Ser Gregor Clegane rode into the lists. The Mountain that Rides sat atop a warhorse that looked more beast than animal. His armor was so thick it seemed it should crush the man inside it.
Across the field waited Ser Hugh of the Vale. His armor shone bright and new, fresh from the day he earned his knighthood.
As the horses thundered toward one another, Alaric's enhanced senses picked up the anomaly. The Mountain didn't aim for the shield. He aimed high.
With a sickening, splintering crash, the Mountain's lance didn't shatter against armor. It drove straight into the boy's throat. A jagged shard of heavy wood pierced the gorget, bursting through the other side in a spray of bright, arterial crimson.
The silence that followed was....
Ser Hugh's body lay twisted in the dirt, his blue surcoat darkening rapidly as his lifeblood soaked into the earth.
Beside him, Margaery Tyrell was chillingly different while sansa just closed her eyes. She didn't look away.
The Mountain trotted his monstrous stallion back toward the pavilions, passing directly beneath the Royal Box. Queen Cersei, draped in emerald silk, didn't recoil in disgust like the other ladies; instead, she leaned forward, her eyes locked onto Gregor Clegane's visor. A faint, icy ghost of a smile touched her lips.
Gregor didn't stop at his pavilion. He wheeled the beast around, hooves churning the bloody mud, and came to a halt directly in front of the section where Alaric sat between the Stark and Tyrell.
The scale of the man was suffocating; up close, he reeked of sour sweat, rusted iron, and old blood. Gregor looked up, his voice muffled by his helm but booming like a drum made of bone.
"I heard the Ned brought a 'ward' from the frozen wastes," Gregor spat, his gaze raking over Alaric's leather gear with open disdain. "A Northman who hides behind girls while real knights spill blood."
He let out a harsh, rasping laugh, gesturing with a gore-stained gauntlet toward the dead boy being hauled from the dirt. "You Northmen talk of winter and honor, yet you sit there like gelded hounds. If there's a man left in that shivering lot, let him come down here and find out what a real blade feels like." He leaned in closer, his stallion snorting foam onto the railing near Sansa's dress. "Or maybe you're all just like the Little lady here—pretty to look at, but soft enough to break with one hand."
The air around Alaric began to ripple. The shadow at his feet, where Nyx lay dormant, grew unnaturally dark, stretching toward the Mountain's horse. Alaric didn't move a muscle or reach for a weapon. He simply looked down at Gregor Clegane with the calm, heavy intent of a butcher eyeing a rabid dog.
"The North doesn't waste its men on dogs barking for scraps," Alaric's voice dropped into a rasp that carried clearly over the stunned crowd. "But if you're so eager to find a man, Gregor... be careful. You might find one who doesn't stop at your throat."
The Mountain's hand tightened on the reins, his horse skittering back as it sensed a predator larger than itself. Margaery Tyrell leaned in, her jasmine scent a sharp contrast to the Mountain's filth, her lips nearly brushing Alaric's ear.
"Don't let him draw you into the mud," she whispered urgently. "He's trying to provoke you."
Alaric ignored her. His focus shifted past the giant to the Royal Pavilion, where Cersei watched with a mocking, triumphant glint. Alaric met her gaze with an expression so cold it seemed to sap the warmth from the sun, then looked back at Gregor.
"You want to see if the North has men? I am the ward of a Great House, Clegane. I don't soil my boots for every stray that growls in the street. But if you're desperate for a lesson..."
Alaric raised two fingers. From the edge of the lists, a figure moved—.
His Blood Scout, clad in dark, supple leathers with a cowl masking all but a pair of eyes like an hunter, vaulted the barricade. He walked silently beside Alaric.
"This is my Friend," Alaric said, his voice ringing with absolute confidence. "If you can even lay a finger on him, I'll step into the dirt and let you take a swing at me. But if you can't hit him, perhaps you should go back to bullying squires."
Alaric leaned back, a dark smirk tugging at his lips as he ran the internal calculations. Gregor was a fortress—high strength and endurance—but his agility was abysmal. A fortress couldn't catch the wind.
Gregor's face turned a purplish-black behind his visor. The insult was total; to be told he wasn't worthy of the master, only the servant, was a slap to his pride. "I'll butcher your pet!" Gregor roared, unsheathing his six-foot greatsword with a scream of tortured metal. "And then I'll use his skin to wrap the girl!"
The arena was cleared as the King, sensing a spectacle, leaned forward with a boisterous grin. Gregor roared and swung a massive horizontal arc.
The blade cut the air hard enough to take a horse's head, but it found nothing. The Blood Scout did not dodge so much as vanish.
As the steel swept past, he appeared behind Gregor and rapped the back of the Mountain's helm with the flat of his black-glass dagger. A quiet insult.
Gregor answered with blind rage. He hacked again and again. Great downward blows smashed the fencing apart, wood bursting into splinters, but the Scout slipped through it all, untouched.