You won't have to wear this uniform for long, boys,
Only it will always be there, until the grey hairs appear on your temples,
The training you received in the paratroopers,
The training you received in the paratroopers,
In troops buffeted by all the winds.
(from the film "In the Zone of Special Attention")
Toros organised some good fun, with horse racing, unexpected turns on the command of the person who was chosen to shout, and shooting at tree trunks. Lionel noticed that Arya was not trying to outdo everyone in shooting, not even him, although the loser of each round had to run and pick up and pull out the arrows, and Sansa saw how Leo was constantly shuddering in the saddle, as if his muscles were cramping. When Toros called off the game, Lionel caught little Arya jumping out of the saddle, which was too high for her. She let him do it, then didn't, but this time he got away with it, even though Sansa was nearby.
"Does it hurt?" Sansa asked, seemingly oblivious to her surroundings, focused only on him, and she already knew that Leo's lower back hurt, starting from his lower ribs.
"Hell knows, there aren't even any bruises," Leo replied honestly. "I bruised my muscles, fell once really hard, a couple of times not so bad," and Leo felt Sansa squeeze his hand. He had "fallen well" when he risked his life, cleverly tricking the Mountain into opening a gap under his helmet.
"Toros!" Sansa called out decisively.
"I am a priest, my lady, not a healer," Toros replied after listening to Sansa, and Lionel thought for the first and far from the last time what strong commanders grew up in Winterfell. Nothing seemed to foreshadow it, and the girls were not trained in any way, and yet. He caught Sansa's glance, though, and she seemed to ask him with her eyes, "Can I?" Lionel silently agreed with a smile, "All right, today you can. I can even tie my scarf around my neck and put on a warm helmet liner.""Okay, I'll look for some ointment," agreed Toros, but he didn't get far because Arya also found him something to do.
"Toros, look, there's another boy under the tree," Arya pointed out to Toros. "He's wounded in the leg, we'll have to carry him, or the wound will fester."
"All right," Toros waved him off, "he's not a lord's son, just cauterise it and stitch it up.
Meanwhile, the boy Arya had pointed out to Toros couldn't shake his habit of gossiping and was once again picking the king's bones with his fat friend, who had miraculously escaped unscathed in the battle, even though it would have been difficult to miss him.
"Hey, Pirozhok," said Lomm, whose tongue could not be silenced by the advice of his wise elders, nor by the fact that he had mistaken Arya for a boy and was teased about it for a long time, especially when he limped off to relieve himself. "Listen, what do you think the king will marry? I'll tell you, he'll marry both of them.
"Shut up, you fool," advised Lorm, the poacher. "It's not pocket change they're stealing, you know. Have you seen how they interrogate people?"
And as if to prove Kurz's words, Toros appeared next to Lommie with a needle, waxed thread and a torch.
"Here," said the caring Toros, handing Lommie a polished piece of wood. "Shut your mouth. And don't cry here, don't disturb the young ladies."
The noble Lord Beric felt a twinge of pain in his chest every morning, as if his fatal wound, which had healed as if by magic, had never completely closed, and so he once again left the group, after making sure they were safe, and went into the forest, returning only when Toros, having healed Lomm and instilled a healthy fear of him in the commoners with his healing methods, turned his attention to the king. Toros of the World followed the free customs of his homeland, considered the Westerosi to be hypocrites and prudes, and, as a doctor, rightfully stripped the injured Lionel first of his leather jacket and then of his shirt. "You have to show the bride the goods," thought Toros. "Why buy a pig in a poke, or a knight in armour? Taking a knight out of his armour is like pouring water on a cat. Two years ago, I was wandering around the North and beat up the Bolton bastard and all his gang on the road. He looked so important in his leather, healthy and fat, but when I brought him to his senses and shook him out of his leather armour into a pond, he was as thin as a chicken. Even a strong girl could kill him with a sword, and a good fighter could beat him to a pulp with a single shield... And look at our girls — they're brave and cheeky, and not just in battle! They don't blush, they don't hide their eyes, they look with interest, both of them."
Toros hid his semi-indecent thoughts and memories from his monarch and his companions with stories about Lord Berik, his new nickname, the Dead Lord, and his post-traumatic stress disorder, which Toros found quite astonishing: a man had died, and he was upset for so long. Therefore, by the time Berik returned from his sad wanderings in the forest, everyone was already prepared for his arrival.
"An old man comes out of the forest, and lo and behold, he's not an old man at all," Thoros commented on his friend's gloomy gait.
"On the contrary, he's a young and handsome Don Darrio," Sansa continued with the recommended therapeutic phrase, and all four of them laughed heartily at Berik.
"Beric, you ulcerous dragon, why are you wandering around the forest?" asked Thoros, concerned about his friend's health. "Are you smoking pine cones? That's why you look so gloomy."
"Our war is ending, my friend," replied Lord Beric, his sadness now light. "I've been interrogating the prisoners since morning, and they say they're the last of three groups."
"Tell me more!" exclaimed the red priest, who had already become excited and enjoyed following Lannister's men and slaughtering their patrols in the name of R'hllor. Beric told how he had interrogated the prisoners that morning and learned that Vargo Hoat's detachment had been routed by large and well-organised cavalry units, while Clegane's detachment had been almost completely destroyed and merged with Lorch's, the weakest of the three.
"Eh!" said the warlike Thoros with annoyance. "We started so well, spending two evenings coming up with a name for our company. What did we decide on, something like the Brotherhood Without Banners?
"Dondarrions Without Borders," disagreed Beric, his thoughts already back in his peaceful life, where he had a good fiancée, where he was young and rich, and where the mortal wound in his chest would ache less and less, maybe only once a year.
"Comrades Without a Tower," Toros suggested another option, and Arya laughed: she might have stayed in a group like that if it weren't for her trip to Jon and, of course, if it weren't for Leo.
"Thank you very much for the she-wolves, my lady," Beric bowed to Sansa and Arya. "And also for their ferocity and appetite." My prisoners told me everything, they're all shaking from the memories of how the other squads tore huge man-eating wolves to pieces at night.
"Now tell me more!" Arya demanded, and Beric willingly recounted in detail the prisoners' stories of how a ferocious enemy had descended on the other troops in the middle of the night, setting fire to the camp from four sides, and how huge wolves had followed the attackers' horses. The wolves supposedly fought on equal terms with the attackers, whose horses were not afraid of them at all, tearing their enemies to pieces and even eating some of them alive.
"Fear has big eyes, my lady," Beric summed up. "It's all well and good to recount this at the table, but in reality there may have been two or three wolves, or even just one, and the rest may have been on the coats of arms and banners of those who laid our scoundrels to rest.
"We're going to Greywater," Sansa said, unable to hide her excitement, and Arya nodded grimly. "It was Robb who came to the rescue of our grandfather and our uncle, and his direwolf fought alongside him."
"The road to Greywater Whains is bad," Thoros warned. "Worse than the one we dragged you along to the capital, and which you," Thoros glanced at Sansa, "were so unhappy about then.
"It doesn't matter now," Sansa dismissed. "The Reddings are the closest northern house to us."
"We'll find out everything in Harrenhall," Beric promised, slapping his forehead and remembering the Stark sigil. "Or at the Crossroads."
"I've become quite bad since I died," Beric said to himself with a good-natured laugh. "Sometimes I even forget who knighted me and what my favourite dish is — how embarrassing. And I forgot the Stark sigil, like a fool of a heavenly father."
Lord Beric was going home to get married, the soldiers were returning to their lords, and Thoros of the Other, the lone red priest, was looking for friends. His first stop was Joren, whom he approached with tempting offers.
"You said that the Night's Watch fights for no one and interferes in no battles," Toros reasoned, swaying in the saddle next to Joren. "Now look at yourself: you've been in action once, and you have twenty-two trained soldiers in your ranks, and armor and swords galore.
"They attacked us first," Yoren replied, until Thoros reminded him of his violation of the code.
"There, you're starting to get the hang of it," the red priest approved. "The main thing is to shout loudly, 'They attacked us first!'" And off they went. Listen, I'm not suggesting you kidnap people and sell them into slavery. In any forest, you can find a band of scoundrels. They steal, they steal a lot! Let's do this: take a dozen of your best recruiters with you, and I'll put together a team here, and we'll meet at the Old Stones. I promise you, the reward will be so great that you'll forget everything else in the world.
"What the hell do I need your reward for?" replied Yorren phlegmatically, who still preferred to recruit volunteers for the Night's Watch, although lately he had been taking more and more men who were ready to die. "The guards have no homes, no families, nowhere to put your reward.
"Are you sick for the cause or not?" Toros exclaimed indignantly. "The Night's Watch needs every man and every sword, you said so yourself at the first halt!
Obeying Rglor's wish to be rid of him, Toros diligently taught the girls bad things morning and evening: Arya and Sansa shot from horseback and on foot until they could split an arrow with another arrow from twenty paces.
"That's standing, it doesn't count," said Thoros, who was in a frenzy and seemed unimpressed even by how the sisters shot in pairs: the crossbow bolts always landed slightly above the arrows shot from the bow so as not to interfere with each other. "Wait, I'll run to Harrenhall, bring more arrows and tell you the news.
"No need," Arya replied sternly. "Holen Reed will tell us the truth, and we don't need gossip."
Toros lingered in Harrenhall, perhaps finding suitable accomplices to dispense justice and do good, while Sansa and Arya unexpectedly decided to part ways with the group continuing along the Kingsroad. Lyonel himself did not particularly want to pass by Darry Castle and Ruby Ford again, but it was safer to travel with a large group, and Sansa and Arya's safety was more important to him. They, too, cared for him, but in their own way.
"There's nowhere to cross after Ruby Ford," Sansa said confidently.
"At the Twins," Lionel remembered without even looking at a map.
"But there's nothing for you to do there!" Arya said decisively, and Sansa agreed with her completely.
"What's so special about the Twins?" Lionel didn't understand. All he knew about the Freys was that they were surprisingly numerous, and he had heard more about Walder Frey, who was constantly preoccupied with devious matrimonial schemes, from the men among Frey's immediate neighbours, Some of them would come to stay the night, get drunk with the hosts, find a young girl in their bed, and then either become related to Walder or get into a long and ugly feud with him, enduring calls for the heavenly punishment, promises of blood vengeance, and foul language.
"Nothing much," Sansa replied to Lionel. "And you don't need to find out for yourself."
***
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