CHAPTER II
Of Grey Rats and Bruised Ribs
Thoren Celtigar slapped the boy across the back of the head, just hard enough to rattle his teeth. "You want to get your throat slit in your sleep, or are you just stupid?"
The lad jolted awake, nearly pitching off the narrow catwalk between the stakes. He mumbled an apology, still blinking, but Thoren was already moving on, the boards creaking under his boots as he continued his circuit.
Mist curled in from the bog, silvered under the moonlight, and the palisade loomed like a dying man's ribs above the muck. The walls were crude...logs lashed with rope and braced with half-rotten beams...but they stood. And more than that, they had held.
Crackclaw Point. He spat over the side.
What a shit heap.
Always had been. Always would be. Full of snakes and savages and mud that sucked the boots off your feet. He wouldn't be surprised if lizard-lions crawled up from the waters like in the Neck. The bastards here were half-feral, living in hovels, fighting like wild dogs with bronze and bone and rusted iron. But they were Celtigar men now, for better or worse.
The boy had done it. Gods help him.
Every Celtigar lord before Caspian had wanted to bring the bogs to heel. And every one of them had tried for a season, cursed the leeches and the damp, and left it be. But not Caspian.
Too much fire in that boy. Too much interest in the damned swamps. He dreamed of watchtowers and roads and settlements, of lording over these wet, bleeding woods like Aegon reborn. And damned if he wasn't making it happen.
Thoren rubbed the back of his neck and squashed a mosquito. "Piss off."
If not for Caspian's so-called "medicine," they'd all be dead a dozen times over. Half the garrison had come down with swamp-fever, and the other half with fevers that had no name. The maester had nearly shit himself the first time he saw it work...a red liquid from a leather flask, and the shaking stopped, the blood cleared. A bloody miracle.
And the maester had been jealous. Oh, yes. That greasy grey rat with his little chain and his long nose, sniveling about formulas and ethics. He'd asked Caspian how he made it. Caspian had smirked, that infuriating little grin he'd had since he was five, and said: "Trade secret."
The two didn't get along. Never had. Maester Harwyn had expected to mold the boy, and instead found himself outpaced by a lordling who read Valyrian by candlelight before his voice had dropped. Thoren chuckled at the memory.
It didn't matter. Caspian was the lord now, and the maester would serve...or get the boot. Thoren had long suspected the old bastard answered to Oldtown more than Claw Isle. And if there was a spy in their midst, it wouldn't surprise him in the least. Hightower rats, crawling up from the Citadel.
He paused at the corner tower and leaned against the frame, watching torchlight flicker across the muddy path below.
Wherever his brother was now..dead, lost at sea, or holed up in some Free City brothel...Thoren knew he'd be proud. He'd be critical, aye, especially about the boy's mother, that overbearing widow. But proud.
Lady Celtigar had loved her son fiercely. Too fiercely. It was natural. A young widow, alone on an isle of men, clung to what was hers. But what once made her proud now frightened her. She saw too much of her dead husband in the boy…the sharpness, the will, the blind spots.
Caspian had grown up too fast. Too sharp for his age. Learned to read before most boys learned to swing a stick. And all this talk of sorcery?
Thoren shook his head. No. Don't even let it in your skull. No sorcery here. The boy was clever, that was all. Clever and full of grit. But naive.
And Thoren wouldn't let that cleverness twist into arrogance. Pride was a double-edged sword, a boon and a curse both. He'd seen great men fall because they thought they were bigger than the gods.
He caught movement out of the corner of his eye.
There...slipping past the edge of the palisade, cloak drawn close, hood up. Caspian.
Sneaking off again.
Thoren didn't shout. He didn't stop him. Just watched as the boy disappeared into the bogs like some ghost. Always slipping away at night, into the woods, into the mist.
Should he send a guard? No. He thought about it for half a heartbeat, then let it pass.
Caspian was better alone. Always had been.
Thoren sighed, scratched his stubble, and yawned. "Gods help me," he muttered, "we'll either be kings of the Point or drowned in it."
Another mosquito landed on his throat.
He slapped it dead and kept walking.
Thoren chuckled as he spotted the bags under his nephew's eyes. Thick, purple rings of exhaustion that no amount of damp cloth or noble pride could hide.
Oh, it was fun. Very fun.
He wouldn't deny it: part of this was payback. A reality check for the boy who built forts like fairy castles and thought the bogs would bow just because he commanded them to. Caspian Celtigar might've had the blood of Valyria and the brains of a maester, but Thoren made damn sure he remembered he had bones and bruises like any man.
"Uncle, do we have to?" came the predictable whine.
Thoren raised a brow.
Caspian raised both of his.
Thoren raised his higher.
"…Fffine," the boy grumbled, already regretting his life choices.
Clad in the crimson and white of House Celtigar, the young lord descended into the yard like a man walking to his own execution. His boots dragged. His shoulders slumped. But he went straight for the weapon rack all the same.
His hand landed on a sword.
Thoren grunted like he'd swallowed a lemon. "Axes."
Caspian blinked. "What?"
"We're Celtigars, boy. We wield axes. Or do you plan to hand the Red Claw to some hedge knight one day?" His voice turned sly. "Or maybe the bog-lass? That daughter of Lord Bogg you were so thoroughly inspecting the other day-"
"Uncle!"
"Axe, my lord," Thoren pressed, grinning like a dog with a bone.
"Fine," Caspian muttered, again. He set the sword aside and grabbed the axe.
"I already wield them well," he added under his breath.
And he did. Thoren would give him that. For a boy of seventeen, Caspian had a grip like iron and footwork that wasn't half-bad. His shoulders weren't broad yet, but they'd fill out with time. The strength was there. The speed too. But there was always room to improve.
"Like my da used to say," Thoren muttered to himself, "there's always a higher mountain."
Bartimos Celtigar. The grandfather Caspian never met. Named after the same Bartimos who once served as Master of Coin for House Targaryen, back when Celtigars mattered. Back when Lord Crispian sat the council after the Conquest. When even Maegor the Cruel married one of their own.
But now?
Now the Targaryens barely remembered their names, and the Lannisters ran the coin chest like it was their family vault.
"Again," Thoren barked.
Caspian had tripped on his last rotation, fallen hard into the dirt. Thoren hadn't even realized it at first, too wrapped in memory. But he stepped back now, arms crossed, and waited.
Caspian stood, wiping blood from a split lip.
"As my uncle commands," he said, voice wry.
Thoren smirked. "Smartass."
The boy smirked back.
They circled again.
The wine was cheap, the room humid, and the apprentice named Matt was droning on again.
"…and the timber quotas from the southern plots are short by half a cord, my lord, but the oxen were delayed due to last week's rains, and the third wagon axle cracked, but we've re-fitted...well, half-fitted-uh, that is.."
Caspian winced as he nursed his bruised side, slouched in the rickety chair as if it had wronged him. His hair was still damp from training, his tunic sticking to his back. Thoren didn't miss the faint purple swelling under his nephew's jaw. A fine welt, that one. Worth every ache in his own ribs.
Across from him, Ser Jaremy had one boot propped on a crate and an ale cup to his lips. He winced with every sip, though whether from the taste or the bruise Caspian left on his thigh, Thoren couldn't say.
"..and the men from Rainwood are due by week's end, though Ser Rycherd said the Crownlanders were dragging their heels about the levy writs. The riverlanders, though, um, they sent double their promised numbers…"
"Oh, the Forresters," Thoren muttered, finally catching on.
Stormlanders, Riverlanders, men from Duskendale and Hayford and even the Blackwater Rush... Caspian had drawn them in like gulls to a corpse. Promised gold and land, and damned if they hadn't come for it. Thoren half-expected to see Reachmen next.
Good steel, most of them. Not loyal, not yet..but paid well, and paid on time.
The boy always had coin. Too much coin.
Thoren glanced at him again...his young lord, hunched over scribbled reports, lips drawn in a thin line, eyes too tired for his years. And still, the gold never ran dry. Was it loans? A backer in Essos? Or had the boy tripped over a bloody dragon's hoard in the caves?
Thoren knew better than to ask.
"Trade secret," Caspian would say with that shit-eating smirk, same as always.
He chuckled to himself and took a swig.
His mind wandered back to the row.
A year past, maybe more, when Caspian was still three-and-ten and technically under Lady Valaena's regency. The day she'd stormed into the council chamber, sleeves rolled and voice shrill, railing about the reckless spending. You'll beggar us!, she'd snapped. Gods, she was fire when angry.
And Caspian? Gods help him, he hadn't flinched.
He'd stood there...half a boy, half a lord...and looked her dead in the eyes. Said nothing for a long beat. Just stared. Softly. No anger. No defiance. Just... quiet conviction and a healthy dose of his puppy eyes colored blue.
And Lady Valaena Celtigar, proudest woman Thoren had ever known, had melted.
Agreed to everything. Every contract, every coin shipment, every crazy plan. Thoren had laughed, of course. But even as he'd laughed, he'd cast a glance at Maester Harwyn...the grey rat shrinking into his robes, beady eyes full of malice.
Thoren had given him a look that promised pain.
Harwyn looked away.
"…and the last of the logs from the western quadrant should be sent off to Claw Keep by week's end," Matt was finishing, wiping sweat from his brow. "We've… uh, made arrangements with the ferrymen. At least… we will-"
Caspian didn't even look up.
"The work here is done then?" he said, voice flat.
Matt blinked. "Uh…yes, my lord. Mostly-"
"The supply lines are set. The guards and the forresters are here. Good. Stay vigilant. Keep them close. I fear the savages will try something again before the men dig in."
"Yes, my lord..."
"But after that," Caspian went on, "they'll vanish back into their caves. Cowards." He tapped a finger against the ledger. "Make sure the trees are cleared and the shipments reach Claw Keep on the agreed timetable."
His eyes flicked up, glinting with something sharp.
"You don't want to know what happens otherwise."
Matt paled. "N-No, my lord."
"My uncle will make sure, won't he?"
Thoren showed his teeth. "Aye, my lord nephew," he growled with mock cheer, grinning as the apprentice shrank behind his scrolls.
Caspian clapped the ledger closed.
"So that's it. We break camp at first light."
That got Jaremy's attention. He stopped mid-chug.
"Home?" he asked, lowering the cup. "What about the towers? The watchstones?"
"They'll hold without me."
Thoren's brows pulled together. "What's the rush?"
"The Braavosi delegation is due at Claw Keep within the week."
Thoren blinked. Even Jaremy looked baffled.
"…And you don't want your mother or the maester to receive them." the knight said slowly.
Caspian didn't answer immediately. Just leaned back, a faint bruise peeking under his collar, and smiled.
A smile that promised trouble.
Thoren narrowed his eyes. That was a schemer's grin.
Debt, maybe? Negotiations? Gods knew what those long-faced, flowery Braavosi bastards wanted from a half-built swamp port and a Valyrian-blooded upstart.
But whatever it was, Caspian had plans.
And then, with that same mischief curving his lips, the boy said…
"Tell me again, Uncle… how much do you hate Myr?"