**The Riverlands, Westeros – 299 AC**
**The Eve of the Red Wedding**
**(I: THE MAP OF BLOOD)**
Rain lashed the cave entrance like a vengeful spirit, drumming a grim rhythm on the wet stone. Inside, the air hung thick with woodsmoke, damp wool, and a tension sharper than Valyrian steel. Water dripped from cracks in the ceiling, adding a steady counterpoint to the storm's fury. Tony Stark knelt by the sputtering fire, the repaired gauntlet on his right hand projecting a flickering, unstable holographic map onto the damp cave wall. Crimson dots clustered like angry fire ants around the icon representing the Twins. `> FREY/LANNISTER FORCES EST: 3,800+`. A smaller cluster of green dots pulsed near the castle gatehouse: `> ROBB STARK'S PARTY: 52 CONFIRMED`.
**"Fifty-two,"** Beric Dondarrion rasped, his voice like gravel dragged over stone. The flames of his ever-present sword cast shifting, monstrous shadows on his hollowed, death-marked face, deepening the lines etched by hardship and resurrection. His single seeing eye, pale and intense, fixed on the overwhelming red mass. **"Against near four thousand, dug in behind stone walls and murderous intent. Even with your... *thunder-fist*, Stark."** He spat the last word, not with disdain, but with the bitter taste of impossible odds. **"It's a slaughterhouse Walder Frey's already paid for."**
**"We don't fight the whole castle,"** Tony argued, his voice tight with focused energy. He zoomed the map jerkily, the holographic image stuttering as the damaged nanites struggled with complex rendering. `> HOLOGRAPHIC RENDER STABILITY: 62%.` He tapped a point near the water gate on the western bank. **"Surgical strike. Robb, his mother, his wife – they'll be in the Great Hall. Isolate it. My suit breaches the wall here,"** he emphasized the location, **"fast and loud. Your men hit the guards controlling the nearest exits. We create a corridor of chaos, pull them out through the river exit. Fast. Hard. Gone before Walder Frey finishes his first godsforsaken toast."**
Thoros of Myr swirled sour wine in his skin, his usually jovial face uncharacteristically grim. **"And the others? The Greatjon? Dacey Mormont? The Smalljon? Good men and women who bled for the Young Wolf. Dacey fought like a demoness at the Stone Mill. Saved my drunken arse more than once."** He took a long pull from the skin, the wine failing to wash away the bleakness. **"You'd leave her and forty-nine more to die screaming while the Freys laugh?"**
**"We save who we *can*!"** Tony snapped, frustration boiling over, sharpened by the gnawing awareness of his own crippled capabilities. He retracted the gauntlet with a sharp gesture, the map dissolving into a shower of blue static. **"This isn't a goddamn simulation! I can't teleport! I can't be everywhere at once! This suit,"** he gestured sharply at his patched armor, the visible seams from Gendry's hammered copper gleaming dully in the firelight, **"is running on duct tape, spit, and desperate prayers right now. Flight? Offline. Full weapon systems? Glitchy as hell. My AI? Comatose. We have to be smart. Ruthless. Prioritize."**
Gendry, leaning on his heavy smith's hammer near the anvil they'd dragged inside, spoke up, his voice tight with a mixture of hope and dread. **"Could you... make more? Arm us? Give us thunder-fists like yours?"**
Tony laughed, a harsh, brittle sound utterly devoid of humor, echoing strangely in the confined space. **"With *what*, kid? Good intentions and wishful thinking? The core tech needs materials that don't *exist* here. Micro-circuitry thinner than a hair. Synthetic polymers you can't brew in a cauldron. A sterile clean room!"** He held up his bulky, repaired gauntlet, the tool of his limited power. **"This,"** he emphasized, **"took a day and a master smith just to get it working at half-strength. We don't *have* days. We have hours. Maybe."**
Silence descended, thick and suffocating, heavy with the weight of impossible choices and the relentless drumming of the rain. The reality was a cold fist closing around Tony's arc reactor. He had the power of a contained star in his chest, but the means to wield it, to channel it effectively across a battlefield, were fractured and primitive. He felt like a god chained by stone-age tools.
Beric extinguished his flaming sword with a thought, plunging the cave into near-darkness save for the dying embers of the fire and the faint, unwavering blue glow from Tony's chest. The sudden gloom felt like a shroud. **"Hope is a flame, Stark,"** Beric's voice was low, resonant in the darkness, carrying the weight of his many deaths. **"A necessary spark in the deepest night. But a flame that demands we abandon our brothers and sisters to the knife, that asks us to choose which souls deserve salvation and which deserve the butcher's block… that is a false light. It leads only to ash, and the emptiness that follows."**
Tony stared into the fading embers, the heat a faint echo against the chill seeping into his bones. *Ruthless.* Beric was right. He'd spent years trying to outrun the shadow of the Merchant of Death, trying to build something better. But Westeros wasn't New York. Here, compromise wasn't negotiated over boardroom tables; it was forged in blood-soaked mud. The high ground was a luxury they couldn't afford. **"Alright,"** he conceded, the word tasting like cold iron on his tongue. **"Chaos. Maximum disruption. Extraction where possible. Minimum exposure. Save who we *can* reach in the madness."** He met Beric's gaze in the gloom, seeing the grim acceptance there. **"Gendry!"**
The young smith jumped, startled from his thoughts. **"Aye?"**
**"Forget thin copper sheets. I need thick rods. About this long,"** Tony held his hands a foot apart. **"And hollow logs. Dry as bone. Thoros!"**
The red priest perked up. **"Aye, Metal Man?"**
**"Saltpeter. The piss-sand. You know where to find decent deposits near here?"**
Thoros blinked, then grinned, a flash of his old self returning. **"The white crust near latrine pits? Aye, makes a fine flash in the fire when you toss it in. Good for startling drunkards."**
**"We're making more than a flash,"** Tony said, a grim, determined plan solidifying in his mind. He sketched a quick design in the mud with a charred stick: a thick log, hollowed, packed tight, capped, with wires protruding. **"We're making thunder."**
**(II: FORGE OF THE DAMNED)**
The next twenty-four hours were a blur of frantic, rain-slicked activity that blurred the lines between day and night. The Brotherhood camp, usually a place of wary rest and scavenged meals, transformed into a chaotic, makeshift workshop under Tony's relentless direction. Desperation was the fuel, the dwindling hope beating against the coming storm the only light.
Tony worked shoulder-to-shoulder with Gendry at the heavy anvil they'd positioned just inside the cave mouth, sheltered somewhat from the downpour. The rhythmic, deafening *CLANG* of hammer on metal became the heartbeat of their effort, counterpointed by the Trident's constant roar. Tony's nanites flowed, not to form weapons, but as precision tools – shimmering welding torches that hissed and spat blue-white light, micro-drills that whined as they bored into scavenged metal, delicate circuit scribers etching pathways only he could see. He guided Gendry's powerful blows, the young smith's muscles straining as he shaped thick copper rods into spiraling coils under Tony's watchful eye and barked instructions.
**"Tighter, kid! Tighter!"** Tony yelled over the cacophony, rain plastering his hair to his forehead. Sweat mixed freely with the downpour on his skin. **"Think compression spring! The energy needs to spin, build pressure before release! Like winding a crossbow, but with lightning!"**
Gendry grunted, adjusting his grip, his face a mask of concentration illuminated by the sporadic flashes of nanite-tools. **"Metal fights back, Metal Man!"**
Nearby, under Thoros's surprisingly adept supervision (his hands steady despite the wine), Lem Lemoncloak and Jack-Be-Lucky wrestled with stout logs scavenged from the flooded woods. Using axes and chisels, they painstakingly hollowed them out, creating crude but sturdy tubes. Anguy, the archer, his usual good humor replaced by intense focus, meticulously mixed powdered charcoal, pungent yellow sulfur, and the foul-smelling, crystalline saltpeter Thoros had procured from reeking trenches near abandoned camps. He followed Tony's precise, shouted ratios, creating a volatile black powder that smelled like rotten eggs and burnt promise.
**"Thunder-sticks!"** Thoros proclaimed later, holding up a finished prototype with a flourish that belied the grim purpose. It was a hollow log packed tight with the black powder, sealed at both ends with thick mud and pebbles, embedded with one of Gendry's crude copper coils connected to a short length of scavenged wire. **"Will they roar like your fist, Metal Man? Or just fart and sputter?"**
**"Louder,"** Tony promised, examining the primitive device. It was hideously basic, a pipe bomb triggered by repulsor-tech principles. `> ESTIMATED YIELD: LOW. CONCUSSIVE FORCE & SONIC DISRUPTION PRIMARY.` **"They won't kill many packed in plate, but they'll scare the hell out of horses and rattle the teeth out of men crammed in a stone hall. Make one hell of a distraction. Buy us seconds."** Seconds were currency in the hell they were walking into.
He turned his attention to Gendry's other project. The young smith had forged a dozen large, crude mesh nets from scavenged chain links and thick iron wire. Tony carefully attached compact capacitor units, cannibalized from his suit's non-essential secondary systems, to each net's edge. These were linked by thick, insulated cables to a heavy, backpack-sized battery unit. A heavy lever switch protruded from the pack. `> POWER DIVERSION: 8%. SUIT SYSTEMS IMPACT: MINOR.` **"Conductive nets,"** he explained to Beric, who watched with his unnerving, half-blind gaze. **"Throw it over a group. They touch the metal links, you hit the switch,"** he pointed to the lever, **"and they get a jolt that'll drop a horse. Non-lethal. Mostly. Should fry their nerves long enough for us to move."**
Beric hefted one of the heavy backpacks, testing its weight. His expression was unreadable, but the set of his jaw spoke of a man assessing a strange, new tool of war. **"You arm us with noise and fishing nets."**
**"I arm you with *confusion* and *delay*,"** Tony corrected sharply, retracting his nanite tools with a thought, feeling the low thrum of diverted power through the reactor's connection. **"Confusion is our friend in that meat grinder. Delay is the breath we need to pull people out before the jaws snap shut."**
As dusk bled into a starless, rain-choked night, the Brotherhood gathered for the final push. They looked less like an army and more like desperate miners or siege engineers armed with strange tools: men clutching thunder-sticks like awkward clubs, others shouldering the heavy taser-net packs. Tony surveyed them, his HUD flickering as it tagged their crude weapons and the newly forged devices. `> MISSION PARAMETERS SET: DISRUPTION/EXTRACTION. PRIMARY TARGETS: ROBB STARK, CATELYN STARK, JEYNE WESTERLING. SECONDARY: ANY STARK LOYALIST REACHABLE.` The list felt pitifully small against the sea of red on his mental map of the Twins.
**"Remember,"** Beric's voice cut through the nervous silence, his blind eye seeming to scan each face, seeing deeper than the sighted one. **"We are not heroes storming a castle tonight. We are shadows cutting throats in the dark. We are the scream that breaks the feast. We are the thunder that steals their breath."** He paused, the weight of command settling on his scarred shoulders. **"We get in. We sow the Metal Man's thunder. We grab who we can. We get out. For the smallfolk the Wolves *did* protect. For the ones the Lions will butcher next if we falter."**
Tony activated his suit fully, the nanites flowing with smoother purpose than before, though still forming bulkier plates around the repaired conduits. The reactor's blue glow intensified, casting stark, dramatic shadows on the grim, determined faces around him, turning the cave into a chapel of desperate resolve. **"Suit up, kids,"** Tony said, his voice tight with adrenaline and the weight of what came next. **"Party time at the Twins. Try not to trip over the welcome mat."**
**(III: A NIGHT OF BROKEN PROMISES)**
The Twins loomed against the stormy sky like rotten teeth, two hulking, ugly castles joined by a massive stone bridge spanning the churning Green Fork. Torches flickered along the battlements, their feeble light swallowed by the downpour and the oppressive darkness. Inside, muffled by thick walls and distance, came the discordant thrum of music, forced laughter, and the clatter of plates – the grotesque soundtrack of a wedding feast turned wake before the bodies hit the floor.
Tony crouched with Beric, Thoros, and Gendry in the reeds near the water gate on the western bank, the cold river water soaking through his suit's seals. The rest of the Brotherhood was split – some downstream creating noisy diversions near the main bridge, others infiltrating the castle grounds disguised as drunken guests or weary servants, their thunder-sticks hidden in wine casks or bundles of firewood. Rain sheeted down, plastering hair to faces and making the stones slick.
**"Sensors show heavy guard concentration at the main hall entrances and the bridge approaches,"** Tony whispered, his voice amplified slightly within his helmet, his HUD overlay painting ghostly thermal signatures on his vision. `> THERMAL IMAGING STABILITY: 75%. IDENTIFICATION ACCURACY: LOW.` **"Water gate's lighter. Only two guards. Complacent."**
**"Complacency kills,"** Beric murmured, drawing a dagger blackened with mud. **"Thoros, the gate. Quietly."**
The red priest, surprisingly silent despite his bulk, moved like a shadow through the reeds. A moment later, two soft *thuds*, barely audible over the rain and river, echoed from the gatehouse tunnel. Thoros reappeared, wiping his blade clean on the reeds. **"The guards have found deeper waters. Gate's ours."**
Gendry, muscles straining, forced the old, water-swollen gate open with a groan that Tony prayed was lost in the storm's din. They slipped inside, into the damp, reeking darkness of the water gate tunnel. The sounds of the feast were suddenly louder, closer – raucous singing, clattering plates, a sudden roar of laughter that sounded harsh and utterly false. The air smelled of wet stone, mold, and spilled ale.
Navigating the labyrinthine servants' passages was a nightmare. Tony's map data was fragmentary, pieced together from drunken boasts overheard by Brotherhood spies. His sensors struggled against the thick stone walls, giving ghostly readings, frustrating blind spots, and false positives. Twice they almost stumbled into patrolling men-at-arms rounding corners, saved only by Thoros's uncanny sense of hearing and Beric's silent, lethal efficiency in the shadows. Each near miss tightened the coil of tension in Tony's gut. `> POWER: 97%`. The suit's strain was mental now, wrestling the glitchy systems.
Finally, they reached a heavy oak door. Muffled music, the clatter of feasting, and the roar of the feast poured from the other side. The Great Hall. Tony's thermal scan showed a dense, seething mass of heat signatures packed inside. `> ESTIMATED OCCUPANTS: 300+`.
**"Ready the thunder,"** Beric breathed, his voice barely a whisper. His hand rested on the hilt of his unlit sword, the other gripping a thunder-stick.
Tony nodded to Gendry, who shifted the heavy taser-net backpack into position. Thoros pulled two thunder-sticks from under his sodden robe, gripping the protruding wires like lifelines.
Tony took a deep breath, the recycled air of his helmet tasting metallic. *Surgical strike. In and out.* He focused, pouring his will into the nanite swarm. *Form Repulsor Gauntlet. Right hand.* The particles flowed better this time, the copper-augmented pathways responding faster, forming the bulky, functional weapon. `> REPULSOR OUTPUT: 52%.` He aimed at the heavy iron bolt securing the door.
*PHOOM!*
The blast was contained, focused. A low thrum, a flash of blue-white light, and the bolt and its housing shattered inward with a shriek of tearing metal. Before the echoes died in the stone corridor, Thoros lunged, shoving the two thunder-sticks through the gap and touching the exposed wires together.
**"DOWN!"** Tony yelled, throwing himself flat against the wall.
*KA-THOOOOOM! KA-THOOOOOM!*
The double explosion wasn't fire; it was pure, concussive force and ear-splitting sound, amplified by the cavernous stone hall. The heavy door blew inward off its hinges, splintering into deadly shrapnel. A visible wave of pressure and a shriek like a dying giant slammed into them even from the corridor, rattling teeth and bones. Inside, the music died instantly, replaced by a cacophony of screams, shattering glass, terrified whinnies from horses brought inside for some foolish display, and the panicked bellowing of men.
**"GO! GO! GO!"** Beric roared, leading the charge through the smoke and swirling dust.
Chaos. Utter, beautiful, horrifying chaos. Tables were overturned, sending food, wine, and bodies sprawling. Men stumbled, blinded by dust, deafened by the blast, clutching their ears. Horses reared in terror, eyes rolling white, trampling anyone unfortunate enough to be near. Through the haze and his flickering thermal imaging, Tony saw the high table. Robb Stark, young and fierce, the crown of the North askew on his auburn hair, was trying to rise, shoving his mother, Catelyn, behind him. His pregnant wife, Jeyne, cowered beside him, her face white with terror. Men in Frey colors, swords already drawn, faces masks of murderous intent, were already moving towards them through the panicked throng.
**"Beric! The Starks! High table!"** Tony yelled, surging forward. He fired a repulsor blast at a Frey man closing on Robb. *PHOOM!* The man flew backwards as if kicked by a giant, crashing into a group of others. `> POWER: 50%`.
**"Gendry! NOW!"** Tony bellowed over the din.
The young smith, face pale but jaw set with grim determination, lunged forward, heaving the heavy conductive net towards the cluster of Freys pushing towards the high table. It unfolded clumsily but effectively, landing over three men. Gendry slammed the switch on the backpack.
*ZZZZZZZAP-CRACKLE!*
Blue-white electricity arced viciously across the wet stone floor and through the net, visible in the dust-filled air. The trapped Freys screamed, convulsed violently as if their bones were rattling, and dropped like sacks of grain, limbs jerking, smoke rising from their armor. Robb seized the momentary lapse, grabbing Jeyne and pulling Catelyn bodily towards the side door Beric and Thoros were fighting towards, cutting down confused Freys with swift, desperate strokes of his sword.
*It's working!* Tony thought, a surge of fierce hope cutting through the adrenaline. He fired another precise repulsor blast, clearing a pikeman blocking their path. `> POWER: 48%`. He saw Beric reach the heavy side door, heave it open against the press of bodies. Freedom was twenty feet away. Sunlight and rain beckoned.
Then the music started again. Not joyful. Slow. Menacing. Deeply familiar. *The Rains of Castamere.*
From hidden doorways disguised as tapestries, from alcoves high in the walls, crossbowmen stepped out. Dozens of them. Calm. Methodical. They leveled their weapons not at the fleeing Starks or the Brotherhood, but at the mass of Stark bannermen still trapped in the center of the hall, disoriented and weaponless amidst the overturned tables.
**"ROBB!"** Catelyn Stark's scream cut through the din like a knife, pure maternal terror. She saw the trap too late.
**"Mother, NO!"** Robb roared, turning back, instinctively reaching for her.
**"STARK! MOVE!"** Tony yelled, firing wildly at the crossbowmen. `> POWER: 45%`. One boltman fell screaming, but others took his place, their movements chillingly efficient. It was a massacre. Bolts *thudded* into bodies with sickening wet impacts. The Greatjon bellowed, pulling bolts from his massive chest like thorns before collapsing like a felled oak. Dacey Mormont, fierce to the last, fell with three bolts in her back.
Robb took a step towards his dying men, towards his mother who was running *towards* Walder Frey, her hands outstretched in a futile, desperate plea for mercy, her eyes wide with a madness born of grief.
*THUNK.*
A crossbow bolt sprouted from Robb's chest, just below the shoulder. He staggered, the crown tumbling from his head. Another bolt struck his thigh. He fell to one knee, his sword clattering from his grasp.
**"ROBB!"** Jeyne screamed, trying to pull back towards him.
**"GET HER OUT!"** Beric roared at Thoros, shoving Jeyne bodily towards the red priest. He turned, his flaming sword igniting with a *whoosh* of fury, and charged back towards the fallen king.
It was too late. A Frey swordsman, face twisted in cruel triumph, stepped up behind the kneeling King in the North. Tony saw the glint of steel raised high. He raised his gauntlet, lining up the shot, but a panicked horse, eyes rolling in terror, slammed into him from the side, throwing him off balance against a stone pillar. `> STABILITY COMPROMISED. TARGETING OFFLINE.`
The sword came down in a vicious, butchering arc. Tony didn't see the blow land. He saw Catelyn Stark's face. A mask of utter, soul-rending despair, a silent scream etched forever in that instant. He saw her lunge, not with a weapon, but with her bare hands, fingers hooked like claws, towards Walder Frey's wrinkled throat. He saw the flash of a knife at her own throat, held by one of Frey's rat-faced sons.
Beric reached Robb's body, hauling the limp form up over his shoulder with surprising strength. Blood soaked the Lightning Lord's yellow tunic – not his own. **"THOROS! STARK! FALL BACK! NOW!"**
Tony shook off the daze, the image of Catelyn's despair burning in his mind. He fired a wide-arc, low-powered repulsor blast into the mass of advancing Freys, knocking them back like skittles, clearing a momentary path through the smoke and carnage. `> POWER: 40%`. He grabbed Gendry, who was staring in frozen horror at the slaughter, the taser-net pack forgotten. **"MOVE! NOW!"**
They fought their way back towards the shattered main door, Beric staggering under Robb's weight, Thoros half-carrying, half-dragging a sobbing, near-catatonic Jeyne. Tony covered their desperate retreat, blasting any Frey who got too close, the repulsor whining with strain. `> POWER: 35%`. The thunder-sticks had stopped any organized pursuit, but the chaos was a living thing, threatening to swallow them whole. They stumbled through the wreckage of the door, into the driving rain and the churning water of the river moat. The waiting, horrified faces of the Brotherhood members who'd created the downstream diversion splashed towards them, pulling them from the water.
**"The Blackfish?"** Beric gasped, lowering Robb's body onto the muddy bank. Blood, dark and shocking against the pale mud, pooled around the shrouded form. Rain washed it away in thin, pink rivulets.
**"Got Lord Edmure!"** Jack-Be-Lucky panted, dragging a dazed, bound Edmure Tully through the shallows. The Tully heir looked like a man sleepwalking through a nightmare. **"Pulled him from the bloody bedding chase! Ramsay's boys were hounding him like a stag. Others… others are gone, Beric. Cut down in the yards."**
Tony leaned heavily against the cold, rain-slicked stone of the bridge support, chest heaving inside the suit. His gauntlet retracted with a weary sigh of nanites, the particles flowing back sluggishly. `> REPULSOR SYSTEMS STRAINED. COOLING REQUIRED. EXCESS THERMAL BUILDUP.` The sounds of screams, clashing steel, and the haunting strains of *The Rains of Castamere* still echoed faintly from the castle, mingling horribly with the roar of the river and Jeyne Westerling's broken, keening sobs. They'd saved Edmure Tully. They'd saved Jeyne. They'd pulled Robb Stark's body from the slaughter.
But Robb Stark was dead. Catelyn Stark was dead. The King in the North and his mother, butchered at a feast. The Stark cause, shattered like the door of the Great Hall. The Northern army, leaderless and scattered.
Tony Stark, genius, billionaire, superhero, Avenger, had changed nothing of consequence. He'd saved pawns while the king fell. The bitter, metallic taste of failure, sharper and more acrid than any Lannister vintage, filled his mouth, choking him. The weight of the suit, the reactor's hum, felt suddenly like the weight of the entire, broken world.
**(IV: THE COST OF THUNDER)**
They didn't stop moving until dawn stained the eastern sky a bruised purple, the relentless rain finally easing to a cold, miserable drizzle. They were miles from the Twins, deep within a thicket of blackened, skeletal trees near the Kingsroad. The mood was beyond grim; it was funereal, a suffocating blanket of grief and exhaustion. Beric Dondarrion knelt beside the wrapped body of Robb Stark, laid carefully on a bed of cloaks. He adjusted the folds of linen with a solemn reverence that bordered on tenderness, the tattered remnants of the direwolf banner covering the king's face. Thoros murmured low, rhythmic prayers over Jeyne, who sat huddled against a tree, knees drawn to her chest, her eyes vacant pools staring at nothing. Her sobs had subsided into silent, shuddering tremors. Edmure Tully sat nearby, still bound, staring blankly at his muddy hands as if they belonged to someone else. Gendry cleaned his hammer with grim, mechanical determination, the rhythmic scrape of stone on metal the only sound besides the drip of water, avoiding everyone's eyes, his face pale beneath the grime.
Tony leaned against a moss-covered boulder, the coolness seeping through his suit. He ran a silent diagnostic. `> POWER: 100% (REACTOR STABLE). NANITE CONTROL EFFICIENCY: 40%. SENSOR ACCURACY: 70% (ENVIRONMENTAL INTERFERENCE).` The numbers were meaningless green lights on a dashboard. He'd had the power. He'd had the will. He'd lacked the reach, the speed, the sheer fucking *army* needed to turn the tide. Westeros demanded more than one man in a can.
Suddenly, his HUD pinged, a sharp proximity alert cutting through the heavy gloom and his darker thoughts. `> MULTIPLE CONTACTS APPROACHING. 500 YARDS. THERMAL SIGNATURES: HUMAN (x8). HORSES (x8). VECTOR: KINGSROAD SOUTH-NORTH.` He snapped his head up, the gauntlet forming instantly over his right hand with a low hum. **"Company. Eight riders. Lannister colors. Coming up the road."**
The Brotherhood snapped from their stupor with the ingrained reflexes of survivors. Weapons were drawn in a rasp of steel. Beric swiftly kicked dirt over the faint embers of their small, risky fire. Without a word, they melted into the deeper shadows of the trees and thick undergrowth, becoming near-invisible wraiths in the grey dawn light.
The rhythmic drumming of hoofbeats grew louder on the muddy Kingsroad. A column of riders emerged, trotting at a weary patrol pace. They wore crimson cloaks over mail shirts, the golden lion on black clearly visible on their shields and breastplates despite the grime. A bored-looking knight in slightly better armor led them, scanning the tree line with weary disinterest. They were scouts, likely sent from the Twins or a nearby garrison to sweep the roads after the night's chaos, looking for stragglers or signs of rebellion.
**"Hold here,"** Beric whispered from the shadows beside Tony, his voice barely audible. **"Let them pass. We cannot afford a fight we don't need. Not now."**
Tony nodded, watching the thermal signatures advance steadily on his HUD. `> RANGE: 200 YARDS.` They were close enough now to hear the jingle of harnesses, the wet snort of a horse, the muttered complaints of tired men. He willed them onward, past their hiding spot.
Then, disaster struck. Edmure Tully, lost in his daze, shifted his weight. His bound foot caught on a rotten, rain-slicked log hidden under leaves. He stumbled sideways with a grunt, crashing heavily into a thicket of thorny brambles. The rotten log cracked under his weight with a sound like a breaking bone, echoing shockingly loud in the damp, silent woods.
The Lannister knight's head snapped up instantly. His weariness vanished, replaced by sharp alertness. His hand went to his sword hilt. **"Who's there?"** his voice rang out, sharp and commanding. **"Show yourselves! In the name of the King!"** His men reacted swiftly, drawing swords and forming a wary line facing the thicket, their boredom replaced by nervous tension.
**"Damn it to all seven hells,"** Beric hissed, frustration warring with resignation. **"Stark, can you scare them off? Make them think it's just outlaws, not *us*?"**
Tony didn't hesitate. He stepped forward from the tree line, just enough to be clearly visible on the muddy track. Mud splattered his damaged armor plates. The arc reactor pulsed a steady, defiant blue in the gloomy dawn light, instantly drawing every eye. He raised his right arm deliberately, the bulky, copper-seamed gauntlet humming ominously as it powered up. Blue-white energy gathered and swirled in the palm, casting an eerie glow on the wet ground. `> REPULSOR CHARGE: 45%.`
**"Morning, boys,"** Tony called, his voice amplified slightly by the suit's external speakers, cutting through the dripping silence. **"Terrible day for a patrol. Why don't you turn those horses around and pretend you didn't hear a thing? Save everyone a lot of hassle."**
The effect was immediate and electric. The bored knight's eyes bulged almost comically. His horse shied violently, nearly unseating him. **"Seven Hells!"** one soldier gasped, recoiling. **"It's true! The metal demon!"**
**"Witchcraft!"** another yelled, crossing himself frantically, his face pale with superstitious terror. **"Like the Freys said! Glowing heart! Thunder hand!"**
Panic rippled through the patrol like wildfire. Horses reared, whinnying in fear. Men cursed, struggling to control their mounts. The knight, his face pale but jaw set with stubborn discipline, tried to rally them, his voice cracking slightly. **"Hold ranks! Hold, damn you! It's just some Essosi trickery! Illusions! Pike formation! Bring it down!"** He pointed his sword at Tony.
Three men dismounted, their hands trembling visibly as they fumbled to level long pikes tipped with cruel iron points. They advanced cautiously, step by hesitant step, their eyes wide with terror fixed on the glowing figure.
**"Trickery, huh?"** Tony muttered under his breath. *Time for a hands-on demo.* He aimed carefully, not at the men, but at a large, moss-covered boulder about ten feet to the left of the advancing pikemen. *PHOOM!*
The repulsor blast struck true. The boulder didn't just crack; it *exploded* in a shower of fist-sized rock fragments, pulverized stone dust, and a deafening *CRACK-THOOM!* The concussion wave hit like a physical blow, knocking the three pikemen clean off their feet onto their backs in the mud. Horses screamed in abject terror, bolting down the road or crashing blindly into the trees. The knight was nearly thrown from his saddle, wrestling frantically with his panicked destrier.
**"DEMON!"** shrieked a soldier, scrambling backwards on hands and knees, eyes wide with primal fear. **"IT THROWS LIGHTNING! RUN!"**
**"Fall back! Fall back to the Twins!"** the knight bellowed, his voice high-pitched with panic, finally losing the battle for control. He spurred his horse savagely after his fleeing men, not looking back. Within moments, the patrol was gone, leaving only churned mud, a few dropped spears, the lingering smell of ozone and terror, and the shattered remains of the boulder.
Silence returned to the thicket, deeper and more profound than before. The Brotherhood emerged slowly from the shadows, their faces etched with a mixture of awe and deepening dread. They stared at the shattered boulder, then at Tony, then at the empty road where the Lannister patrol had vanished.
Gendry let out a shaky breath he seemed to have been holding forever. **"They… they ran."** His voice was hushed.
**"Aye,"** Beric said, his voice tight, devoid of triumph. He looked at the destruction – the pulverized stone, the scarred earth – then at Tony. There was no victory in his eyes, only grim understanding and the cold weight of consequence. **"They ran *today*. But they saw you. They saw what you can do. They'll report it. To Ser Gregor. To Lord Tywin."**
Thoros nodded, his usual levity extinguished, replaced by sober certainty. He took a long pull from his wineskin, not for pleasure, but for fortitude. **"The tale will grow, Metal Man. 'Metal demon fell from the sky. Heart of blue fire. Throws lightning that shatters stone.' Tywin Lannister…"** Thoros met Tony's gaze squarely. **"Tywin Lannister doesn't fear demons. He destroys them. Or he finds a way to own them."**
Tony retracted the gauntlet, the hum fading into the dripping quiet. `> POWER: 40%.` He looked at the remnants of the boulder, then down the empty, muddy road where the Lannister patrol had fled in terror. He hadn't even hit them. Just a rock. A demonstration. And now his greatest advantage – surprise, anonymity – was gone. Blown away like the stone dust. His presence, his power, was now known to the most dangerous, ruthless man in Westeros. He had traded momentary safety for a future painted with a massive target.
The victory felt hollow, bitter. He'd scattered a patrol, but he'd also painted a target on himself, on the Brotherhood, on everyone huddled in this miserable thicket. The cost of using his power, of showing his hand, was exposure. The climb to power, already steep, had just become a sheer cliff face. The shadows they desperately needed to hide in were shrinking fast under the Lion's searching gaze.
He looked at the wrapped body of Robb Stark, a king cut down by treachery. He looked at Jeyne Westerling, lost in grief, her future shattered. He looked at Edmure Tully, a prisoner of his own despair. He looked at the exhausted, wary faces of the Brotherhood – survivors, not soldiers. Saving pawns had consequences. Heavy ones. And winter wasn't just coming; it was bringing the full, crushing attention of the Golden Lion with it.
**"Then we move,"** Tony said, his voice flat, hard, cutting through the heavy silence. **"Fast. And we find somewhere a lot harder to reach. Somewhere with stone walls thicker than rumors."** Harrenhal's monstrous shadow loomed large in his mind. A cursed ruin. A death trap. And suddenly, their only possible refuge.