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Harry Potter and all of its characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
ASOIAF and all of its characters belong to GRRM
I own nothing but the original characters I make.
"Dialogue"
'Thoughts'
-Author notes-
Chapter 20: The Flaming Opponent
The brown cloak was coarse and smelled of smoke, but it served its purpose. Joffrey slipped through the edges of the tournament grounds like a shadow, unnoticed by the crowds still buzzing over the Mountain's humiliation. The horn calls for the melee had already sounded twice by the time he reached his tent.
Ser Ilyn Payne stood at the entrance, his hollow eyes fixing on the prince with an expression that needed no words. Displeasure. Deep and thorough.
"I know." Joffrey held up his hands as he approached. "I know I'm late. You don't need to say anything."
Ser Ilyn's soundless growl was answer enough.
"Come on. Help me with the armor."
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Ten minutes later, Joffrey understood why knights complained so much about their gear. The suit had been meant for someone else...a taller man, with broader shoulders and longer limbs. Tobho Mott had done what he could to adjust it in the short time available, but "adjusted" was not "custom-made." The plates pinched at his joints, the weight sat wrong on his hips, and every step produced a symphony of creaks and clanks that made him feel like a walking kitchen.
This is so uncomfortable, he thought, taking another awkward step. I should have asked for boiled leather.
A page spotted him approaching the melee entrance and hurried over, scroll in hand. "Sir! You're very late!"
"Better late than never," Joffrey responded as he adjusted his helmet.
The boy squinted at him, then down at his scroll, then back at the sigil crudely painted on Joffrey's breastplate...a yellow lightning bolt on a black field. "Mmm... who are you, exactly?"
The sigil had been an improvisation. The lightning bolt had been his symbol in another life, on another world. It felt right to claim it again.
"I am the Mystery Knight," Joffrey said.
"You didn't put an alias on the list." The page scratched his head with the end of his quill. "I'll just write you as the Knight of the Lightning. Based on the sigil. That's all right?"
"Fine. Do I just go in?"
"Hurry. They're about to give the signal."
Joffrey clanked forward, sword in hand, feeling every eye in the vicinity turn toward him. Perhaps it was his timing—the last man to enter, moments before the horn. Perhaps it was the way he walked, stiff and uncertain in the ill-fitting armor. Either way, he was a spectacle.
Inside the circular arena, nearly a hundred men milled about in clusters, eyeing each other with the hungry anticipation of wolves. They all noticed him. Some pointed. Others laughed.
"What's wrong with that one?" a burly knight in chainmail called out. "Is he drunk already?"
"You okay, lad?." A tall man holding a large sword over his shoulder approached with confidence. "Looks like you are having trouble walking."
"It's a bit difficult with all this metal." Joffrey's honesty seemed to surprise the man.
"You really are a young lad… aren't you?." The man said. "These people will kill for much less coin than what they promised to the winner. If you are not ready, it would be better if you leave before it's too late."
"What's your name, sir?"
"I'm not much of a Sir. Thoros of Myr, late of the city's same name, currently a drunk priest with a taste for adventure." His eyes crinkled. "And you...what are you doing?"
Joffrey answered by driving his sword into the earth and pulling off his gauntlets. Then his breastplate, letting it fall with a clang. Then the shoulder guards, the leg pieces, the vambraces—each piece hitting the ground in a growing pile of discarded steel.
"Hey!" The page's voice carried from the entrance. "You can't take your armor off!"
"Is it against the rules?" Joffrey glanced back at the young man and asked.
"Well, no, but—"
"Then it's fine." Joffrey stripped down to the thin leather padding beneath, meant only to protect skin from metal. It offered no protection at all. He was essentially naked, save for the helmet still covering his face.
The page's voice rose to a squeak. "That's not how it works! You're going to die!"
Thoros stared at him, equal parts baffled and amused. "You're either drunker than me, or the stupidest lad I've ever met."
The horn sounded—three long, urgent blasts. It was time to start.
"Too late now," the priest added, shaking his head as he walked away.
The melee began.
The rules were simple enough: a hundred men enter, one man leaves. Surrender was allowed, accepted with a tap of sword on shield. But deaths happened. Everyone knew it.
Not two seconds after the horn, two men charged Joffrey. Easy prey, they thought. The fool without armor.
The first came with a wild overhead swing. Joffrey stepped aside, let the blade whistle past, and brought his pommel down on the back of the man's helmet. He dropped like a stone.
The second carried a greatsword, twice the size of Joffrey's blade. Familiar territory for someone who had sparred against the Hound hundreds of times. Joffrey closed the distance before the man could swing, making the massive weapon useless. Another pommel strike. This one was harder and driven with intent. The steel of the helmet dented inward. The man fell with a heavy thud and did not move again.
Joffrey scanned the chaos. Men fought in clumps across the arena, dozens of individual battles within the greater war. Thoros of Myr had set his sword ablaze. Joffrey felt no magic on it. This was some trick with a fire accelerant, or perhaps a chemical compound. In any case, the drunk priest was cutting a path through the opposition, his blade leaving trails of smoke in the air.
"Agh!" Another knight charged, shield up, sword ready.
Joffrey looked at his own weapon. The practice blade he'd trained with for months was never meant for real combat. It had been dull to begin with, and now it was chipped, bent, a sorry excuse for a sword. More a metal club than a blade. Had he arrived a bit earlier, perhaps he could have grabed one of the tourney sword avaiable for participants.
It won't cut that shield, he thought. Not without the use of magic.
But magic would be cheating. This was meant to be a test for him. A test of his body, his skills, his limits, without any extra aid. He had sworn to push himself without shortcuts.
The knight's sword came singing through the air. Joffrey blocked, felt the jarring impact up his arm. The shield followed, bashing his shoulder.
He knew this tactic. He'd seen it a hundred times in the training yard. Instead of resisting, he let the momentum spin him, coming around behind the knight. His blunt sword crashed against the back of the man's helmet with a sound like a bell.
BONG.
The knight pitched forward and lay still.
Joffrey turned, surveying the field. The hundred were reduced to a handful. Thoros still fought, his flaming sword a beacon of destruction. Others circled each other warily, waiting for openings.
Joffrey moved to the offensive and charged a man engaged with someone else. No rules against it. His sword crashed against a helmet, and another fighter went down. His strikes were precise and carried a lot of power behind them. Any clean hit on the helmet would be more than enough to knock a man down.
"You're still here?!" The voice came from a knight in elaborate armor, a tower sigil on his shield. A Frey—impossible to know which one, with that family's endless brood. "I'm going to teach you some manners, cocky boy!"
He swung. Joffrey leaped back, the blade missing by inches. The advantage of no armor: he could move like a dancer.
He lunged. The Frey's shield caught the blow.
They circled, trading strikes. The Frey Knight was skilled, his defense impeccable. But Joffrey was much faster, his footwork clean. There was a standoff until a flaming sword flew through the air and struck the Frey in the back of the neck.
The knight fell face-first into the mud and did not rise.
Thoros of Myr retrieved his blade, its flames still dancing. "Well, well. I wouldn't have believed you'd still be standing even if I'd seen it in the flames."
"Lucky, I suppose." Joffrey shrugged.
"No one's this lucky without skill to back it." Thoros raised his sword. "I underestimated you. But it ends now."
He moved faster than his armor should allow—not quick steps, but efficient weight shifts that made his attacks seem to flow. Joffrey felt the heat of the blade as he blocked, the full weight of the strike nearly driving him to his knees. Strength. Tremendous strength, packed into that lean frame.
Joffrey twisted, letting the fiery blade fall past him, and struck a horizontal blow aimed at Thoros's head.
The priest caught it on his gauntlet with a grunt of pain.
The flaming sword came again. Joffrey ducked, felt the heat graze his helmet, and rose with an upward swing that caught Thoros under the chin. Not full force but enough to stagger, to daze him for a short instant. That was all he needed.
He lunged, putting all his weight behind the blow, the tip of his ruined sword driving into the center of Thoros's breastplate. The metal buckled under the power of his strike.
Unfortunately, Joffrey's sword, abused beyond its limits, was bent at a ninety-degree angle.
"What the fuck?!" He stumbled, rolling away to avoid falling on his face.
Thoros straightened, touching the dent in his armor. "Looks like the Lord of Light is smiling on me today." He advanced, his flaming sword raised. "You've lost your weapon, lad. Yield."
Joffrey looked at the bent metal in his hand. Useless.
He sighed. This was as far as he could go for now. "I yield."
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