The crimson sun was almost drowning on the horizon, and their horses were starting to slow down after the long trek, with each of their step accompanied by a huff and a puff. Coincidentally, at that exact moment, the party came across a perfect clearing by the side of the Kingsroad, as if the Crone herself was guiding the party towards it.
"S-Shall we make a camp here, Ser Gregor?" Polliver, the young squire, asked timidly as he raised his head almost ninety degrees to look at his Master while everyone else in the party held their breath in apprehension.
The knight and squire looked quite comical riding next to each other, with the Mountain being as massive as he was, and the squire being short and as thin as a leaf.
Normally, as the loyal cronies of the Mountain, who had followed him for years on all of his deplorable raids and other inhuman activities, they should not have been so afraid of him.
But the Mountain was still showing signs of suffering from the previous night's headaches, and everyone there knew better than to test their master's patience when he was being moody, no matter how long they had known him for.
In fact, one of them, a distant relative of Amory Lorch who had only joined them a year ago, was already sporting three fewer teeth just because he had laughed a bit too loudly at his cousin's crude joke.
So all of them were on tenterhooks at the moment, as none of them wanted to be the next outlet of the Mountain.
Gregor looked around for a few moments with his eyes hidden underneath his helmet, before he finally grunted in affirmation and silently began to lead his horse down the road.
Almost immediately, the men behind sagged in relief as if they had been pardoned from the death penalty and smiled at each other before they began to climb down from their horses and followed the Mountain into the clearing.
"What the fuck are you dallying around for?" Amory sneered as he slapped one of the old men who was slowly climbing down the cart, "Hurry up and go prepare dinner! Don't keep Ser Gregor hungry."
"Y-Yes, m'lord," The old man, after being slapped by a man half his age, didn't even dare to look up and immediately went to the back of the cart and began taking out pots, pans, and other ingredients to preapre dinner for the fifteen men in the party, while his companion went to tie the horses and then starting working on the fire.
While the two old men were hard at work, the young men of the party found places on the ground to rest before they slowly began taking off their armour and their weapons, all except for one person, who was well known for his habit of only taking off his armour when he was about to sleep.
"How much longer will it take, damn it? I am getting hungry here." Ser Rafford asked with an impatient expression, no more than ten minutes later.
"J-Just a few more minutes, m'lord," The cook replied as he forced his old joints to work harder and faster.
"Hurry up then," Rafford said harshly as he suppressed his urge to beat the shit out of the old man because that would only delay the dinner, "Damn lazy insects, always trying to skip work,"
"That's just how these lowlives are, they never want to do honest work to earn a living," Tickler spat with a disgusted expression on his face.
"You're right about that," Amory Lorch joined with a snort.
"In fact, I think these two always go out of their way to give us the most unappetising food that they can make," Tickler continued with a sneer that made the two old men shiver, "But I just can't prove it."
The only ingredients the servants had available to them were water, a few stale vegetables they had taken with them from the keep, dried jerky, and some coarse salt. And this wasn't unique, as, except for these spoiled men, everyone knows that these are the staple pieces of food you carry with you when you are on the road.
And while food made from these items fills you up very nicely, it is almost impossible for anyone to make it taste good with just these, no matter how good a cook you are.
So, no, while these old servants were not very fond of their master, they definitely were not daring enough to make their food intentionally taste bad, but they knew better than to argue back, so they silently endured the unfair accusation.
"Then perhaps we ought to 'retire' these useless cockroaches and bring in some new cooks," Amory Lorch said with a nasty smile on his face, very much enjoying making the two old men squirm.
"Perfect idea, Ser Lorch," Chiswyck said with a strange smile on his face, "In fact, I know the perfect place to recruit. There is an inn about halfway through our journey run by a couple and his daughter, and the food they cook is definitely better than the swill these two cook."
"Really? And how does this wife look? Is she pretty?" Amory Lorch asked eagerly as several of the nearby men looked up with vulgar expressions on their faces.
"Ah, not really... but she is not ugly either," Chiswyck replied with a frown on his face as if trying to recall something, "but I can definitely guarantee that she has the body of a cow underneath her clothes, hehe,"
"Haha, then that will be a good place to entertain ourselves," Lorch immediately replied with an anticipatory look on his face, "You always know how to pick good targets, Chiswyck."
"Of course, Ser Lorch, after all, I—"
"And the daughter?" A low growl interrupted the ecstatic deviant, and the man slowly turned around only to find the Mountain sitting on a large rock a few feet away, still in his full armour, looking at him with a predatory gleam in his eyes.
"Uh, I remember she was about eight or nine years old when I last passed by the area, so..." The man replied a bit nervously, and then, seeing the displeased expression on the Mountain's face, he hastened to continue, "But that was years ago, so I am sure she is a woman by now,"
"Even if she isn't, she will become one, after Ser Gregor is done with her. Haha," Lorch jested as all the men let out perverted laughs and even the Mountain let loose a few rumbling chuckles after a few seconds.
The two old men trembled in disgust, horror, and humiliation at listening to the atrocities these men were planning so casually, as if they were discussing going to market to buy vegetables.
But these servants knew that their anger was useless, as they were as weak and helpless as children before these men. After all, they had not been able to do anything when they had suffered the same fate of being torn from their families to work for the Mountain.
People like them are never given any choice; they are just ordered to serve, and if they silently obey, they live; otherwise, they become manure on some farmer's field.
That is the fate of a peasant in this world: to be used and then thrown by their masters when they become old, with no respite or justice for them to be found anywhere.
But while they could not fight back, they could at least stop listening, so the two men shakily stood up and went towards the horses to feed them and to have an excuse to spend some time away from the monsters.
What these men did not know was that their leaving the open pot on fire unattended was exactly the opening someone was waiting for.
A bird smaller than a fist, more colourful than a rainbow and capable of moving so fast that she literally disappears from the human eye, suddenly flashed above the boiling soup, poured the required liquid from a small vial in her claws and then zoomed away, all in under two seconds so that the men surrounding the fire didn't even get a chance to notice anything.
About ten minutes later, the old servants came back and, after seeing that the soup was cooked well enough, they immediately began serving the men in the party as fast as they could, not wanting to give them another reason to beat them up.
Of course, they themselves did not dare to take any, as eating before their masters were finished was a sure-fire way to commit suicide.
"Ugh! I hate eating this kind of bread," one of the men complained as his teeth hurt from biting into the rock-hard bread, especially because he was currently feeling the three missing teeth in his mouth.
"Stop whining, you brat," Amory Lorch snapped at his cousin, who was as useless as they come, "Just dip it into your soup and eat it like everyone else."
"That's right," Chiswyck said with a snort, "Where the hell do you want us to find warm bread in the middle of nowhere?"
"Um, I don't care what anyone says, but I like the food today," Polliver, the young squire said, as he dipped his bread into the soup and tore into it with relish, "Especially the soup, I don't know what it is but it tastes really good today. Did you add something new?" he asked as he looked at the servants curiously.
"N-Nothing new, M'lord," One of the servants replied nervously, not caring that the one in front of him was a squire and not a so-called Lord, "Just vegetables and salt."
"Well, whatever it is, it is good," Polliver replied with a pleased expression as he licked off his fingers, "You know, it has that zing to it that makes my tongue tingle."
"I—" The servants exchanged helpless glances with each other as they really hadn't added anything new.
"More!" A grunt broke their concentration, and the two turned to see Mountain holding out his empty bowl.
"Y-Yes, of course, M'lord," One of the servants hurried to obey and filled the bowl with the soup, all while wondering if it tasted better today because he added less water and cooked it for longer, 'Has he become a better cook?'
"Oi! What are you doing?" Tickler suddenly asked with a frown as he saw the squire suddenly go still beside him with his hand holding the bowl tilted, spilling soup all around him, "I asked you a question—" the rest of his words got stuck in the man's throat as he finally caught sight of Polliver's face and realised something was wrong.
The thin squire's face looked very strange at the moment; his eyes were continually moving up and down, and his mouth looked frozen in time, with his jaw halfway open and trembling continuously as if he was having a seizure.
"Are you alright, Poll—" Chiswyck, the one who was sitting on the squire's other side, asked while shaking his shoulder, but in the very next moment, everyone was stunned to see the squire dropping to the ground from that simple push as if he were a puppet whose strings had been cut.
"What's wrong with you?!" The men around the fire were startled and quickly gathered around the fallen squire as Lorch hurriedly kneeled beside his cousin and slapped his face with a confused expression, trying to wake him up from whatever hallucination he was having.
But the fallen squire was barely able to hear anything at that moment; his eyes were constantly revolving in their sockets, he was seeing two of every face crowding around him, and his thoughts were slowing down to a crawl as if they were moving through water.
"What—" The squire started to speak, but his tongue felt strangely heavy, and at that exact moment all his symptoms flashed through his foggy mind, and Polliver finally realised what had happened, "P-Poidon!"
"W-What did you say? Poison?!" The men exclaimed as suddenly all the hair on their arms stood up simultaneously, due to the unprecedented amount of terror and danger they felt, and in the very next moment, two arrows zipped out of the bushes a few meters behind them, punching through the eyes of two of their best fighters, Ser Rafford and Ser Gillian, and instantly taking their lives.
"Damn it!! An Ambush!!" Someone screamed as everyone ignored the two dying men and dived or ducked while scrambling towards their weapons, hoping against hope that the next arrow wouldn't target them.
"Poison?" The mountain growled as he irritatedly threw away the bowl in his hand, picked up his sword and then stood up with the agility of a tiger, and, ignoring the arrows flying at his men, he lunged straight for his servants with fury in his eyes, "You vermin dared to poison me?!"
"N-No, M'lord, I-I didn't! I—" But the Mountain was not in the mood to hear the servant's squealing explanations, and with a single flash of his great sword, the cook's head was sent flying.
But before the Mountain could kill the other servant, an arrow came from behind him and hit the armour on his right hand with the precision of an eagle, deviating his swing by a large margin.
The mountain grunted as he turned around, but instead of finding the annoying archer he was angry at, the man came face to face with someone else, someone whose very presence here in Westerlands made his eyes widen in shock and alarm.
"You are mine," Oberyn said in a deadly calm voice, his spear as still as a rock even though it was pointed at his most hated enemy.
...