AN :
Next goal for another extra chapter is 350 power stones.
In the Game of Stones, you either win or you wait. The more Power Stones you offer, the faster the chapters come.
...
( Lyman POV )
The night was dark and hot. No moonlight broke through the cloud cover, smothering the world like a thick wool blanket. The water from the recent rainstorm boiled into the air from the summer heat and made every piece of cloth on Lyman's body sticky and unpleasant. He cursed the heat as it stopped him from resting. Tossing and turning on his bed, he got not a lick of sleep.
In the end, that was what saved his life. Staring at the ceiling, he had seen the glimmer of firelight and smelled the smoke.
By the time he was out the door, his parent's house was already ablaze a number of men with torches stood about it, carrying off their possessions, their chainmail glimmering in the firelight.
His blood had run cold at the sight of it, and he knew at once that his parents were already dead, or worse, captured. He saw men turning his way from the raider band, and he knew that he had to run, had to escape. It was his only chance. Lyman had grabbed their only horse, Bron, and rode him harder than he'd ever ridden him before plow or sickle. Bron must have felt his fear too, because they rode like demons for more than an hour, until the farm and their old life were long behind them, burned to ashes with the only home Lyman had ever known.
He dragged himself into Yarrowston in the morning and warned the villagers there. They had thanked him and told him they were heading south with their herds and valuables, going far from the river into the uplands to wait out the raid. Lyman didn't want to go with them though. Lyman was a young man, and when the ashes of his home had cooled, they still burned hot in his heart.
He wanted revenge, he wanted the blood of Ironmen. Men said that Lord Lannister was on the Greywater, gathering men to rid the lands of the Ironborn, so West he had ridden, from town to town, over foothills and across the blackwater river through a shivering rain that cut cold and sharp to the core of his body. He rode further west still until he reached the castle at Eagle's Nest, and pled his case to Lord Lannister.
Lord Lannister was an imposing man, tall and thin, but thick with muscle that was clear even beneath his leather jerkin, he had long gold hair that fell past his shoulders and a well-kept goatee. A scar down the right side of his face gave him a fearsome appearance, and he towered over Lyman with a fearsome gaze as Lyman was pleased to be admitted to his ranks.
In truth, Lyman had never seen a lord before that day. Only the occasional Baillif coming through to collect Lord Lannister's taxes over the past two years. His father had cursed and hollered, but paid in the end, because the Baillifs always brought with them sheep and cattle of good stock from further inland, and sold them at good prices when they came to collect their taxes.
He imagined it was a good thing that they did because otherwise they would have been run out with pitchforks and torches trying to collect taxes for a lord three hundred miles away across the mountains. That was different now, Lord Lannister was here, and he looked like just the sort of man who would water the fields of the Gold Gap in Ironborn blood.
In the end, he had accepted Lyman, and Lyman had reported to Ser Klimmeth. A proper knight, not just a horseman, Ser Klimmeth oversaw the training of the men to fight. For three hours a day Lyman practiced in the yard, then for another six he worked with the rest of the men to restore the castle while the knights and Lord Lannister used the yard. The horsemen practiced with spears, and swords, and with the crossbows Lord Lannister ordered up from Lannisport.
Lyman wasn't very good with the sword, to be true, but he held his own well enough with a spear grasped in both hands, and he thought crossbows were easy, just point it at the target and shoot. He couldn't imagine anything more simple. Ser Klimmeth said they wouldn't learn to fight on horseback until they had learned properly to fight on their feet, so fighting on his feet was all Lyman did for that first week at Eagle's Nest. It was a school of hard knocks.
The older horsemen, the ones who had been with Lord Lannister for a year at least, were brutal to fight. They mocked him when he went down, but he saw they mocked all the 'new blood' so he didn't feel as bad. He'd be there soon enough himself, once he got a bit older and fought for Lord Lannister a while longer.
On the second day there, an Old Septa in the Castle asked him if he was the only one of his household left. He had told her truthfully that he did not know if his parents were living or dead, that they might have been killed or taken by the Ironborn.
She had looked at him sadly and pushed a copy of the Seven-Pointed Star into his hands. Then she placed her hand on his forehead and gave him a blessing. "May you walk in the light of the Seven-Pointed Star, child. May the Warrior strengthen your arm, the Father give you judgment, and the Mother place a balm on your weary heart."
He liked the blessing, but he couldn't read the book. Still, he thought that keeping it on him might make the Gods favor him just a little more, so he was thankful for it.
A week later he found himself sitting around at dinner with a bowl of stew on his knee and the Seven-Pointed Star in his other hand, trying to puzzle out the words on the first page. There were a few words at the top, then some more, then a star with seven points, which he thought was fairly obvious, and a couple of pictures on it. A stern-looking man that looked a bit like Lord Lannister, and a pretty young girl. They had more words under them that he thought were probably their names, and lions drawn beside them. He tried to figure out what those letters meant as he supped a spoonful of stew.
"L… that's an L I think, and an A, so it's Elayy" he worked at the first two letters in the stern man's name.
"Tryin ta learn your letters, Lyman?"
Lyman glanced up to see one of the more senior horsemen, Philup, a broad-headed man who was mostly bald despite being no more than thirty he grinned toothily down as Lyman frowned up at him. "Yes. I don't suppose you have anything better to do than bother me though."
"Hah, too right!" Philup laughed. "Thought I'd come over and have my dinner by your fire today, you don't mind do you, Lyman?"
"I doubt you'll go away even if I do."
"Too right again!" Philup laughed heartily as he set himself down on the log next to Lyman, pouring the stew into his broad mouth like it was wine. Lyman grimaced as bits of beef and carrot spilled down the older man's cheeks, but he didn't seem to care at all, belching as he finished his food. "What do you need ta read four anyway? You're bound ta be a man at arms now boy."
"I dunno I'm just… bored I guess," Lyman grumbled, turning back to the book.
"Well then you ought to ride up the river to Melton, the whores there are pretty enough," Philup said eagerly. "They love us horsemen well too, 'cause none of them want to be taken as salt wives. We're regular heroes, heh."
Lyman felt a blush form on his cheeks as he tried to figure out the letters again. 'Elayyenai' he sounded in his mouth, no, what kind of word sounded like that? He must be doing something wrong.
He barely noticed Philup scoot up beside him and look over his shoulder. "Hmm, you just looking at the pictures? That's not reading you know."
"No!" Lyman snapped. "I'm trying to read the names under them."
"Hmm? Oh well, that's easy." Philup reached around with a big thick hand. "That's the old Lord Lannister, and that's… I dunno, his daughter maybe." Philup scratched his chin.
"It doesn't quite look like Lord Lannister," Lyman commented… was that the word? Lannister? How did those letters make that sound?
"Oh, no not our Lord Lannister, his older brother! Lord Rains of Castamere himself." Philup chuckled. "You're probably too young to remember that war, but My pa went and fought in it. In the army of Lord Tywin, he sacked Tarbeck Hall and helped him drown the Reynes in Castamere. That's Lord Tywin right there, no doubt." Philup pointed again at the stern man.
"Our Lord Tygget here is his… third brother? Fourth? I can't remember. Lord Tywin rules the whole Westerlands, and he's the hand of the King Too, the greatest Lord of the Seven Kingdoms they say."
Lyman grumbled. "Then why isn't he out here fighting the Ironborn?" He glared down at the picture of the stern man.
"He sent his brother, didn't he? A great lord probably has a lot of work to do." Philup said. "They say he's giving every man in the Westerlands a copy of the Seven-Pointed Star. The Septons gave me one too before they left." Philup said. "Doubt I'll ever read it, but you won't see me turn down a gift, specially one worth as much as a book, I might be able to sell it and buy another horse."
Lyman sighed, he couldn't really wrap his head around all the levels of knights and Lords and such, though he liked his Lord Lannister in this castle well enough. He would walk the camp and speak to his knights, and sometimes once the day's work was done but before the summer sunset, Lord Lannister would spar with Ser Klimmeth or one of the other knights in the yard. Not once had Lyman seen him lose. It was frightening how fast the scarred Lord was.
Turning his gaze back to his book, Lyman frowned. "It makes sense Lord uh, Tywin's face is on the book if he's the one giving it out, but what about the girl?" Lyman asked Philup. "How come he put his daughter on it?"
"No clue, I don't know how a Lord thinks." Philup shrugged. "She might just be his favorite child. I couldn't tell you."
"You're useless then- I just need to figure out how to read this and then it'll be obvious," Lyman grumbled, rolling his eyes. He stopped to take another bite of soup as he glanced over at the yard, looking over the tops of the tents where the horsemen were sleeping for now. He could see Lord Lannister out there, sparring with a young boy, probably a squire, in a red gambeson. As he watched, the slender boy went in to attack with a sword but got casually kicked to the ground by Lord Lannister.
As the squire stood up, Lyman got a pretty good look at his face, and he felt himself blink, once, twice, three times, before he glanced down at the open book next to him.
Then back up at the squire, who was talking to Lord Lannister again, before raising his sword once more.
Lyman looked back to the book again.
"Something on your mind Lyman? Beyond your letters I mean?"
"No just… something odd." Lyman frowned. He looked down at the picture on the page in front of him, then back up at the squire, who was doing only marginally better than the attempt before as Lord Lannister toyed with him.
"Really odd."
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