A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

Twentieth Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC

Bronn had never been god-hunting before. He'd never had any particular yearning for any such thing either, for like most sellswords who saw out their first year in the business he did not like fighting but getting paid. A cold wind whistled over the dry grass like a rattle of bones as the four mismatched companions raced onward: a sellsword, a bull-man, a witch, and a woman born full grown from the head of yet another sorceress.

"Are you sure this thing is even real and not just something Lirn made up to send us chasing our own shadow, instead of just hanging the bastard?" he asked the Dornishwoman again.

It wasn't that he had anything in particular against brigands and soldiers of fortune. That would have been his fate if not for his skill and luck in finding patrons, but that didn't mean he trusted them. He especially didn't trust them enough to fly two score leagues out of their way on the say so of the same raider chief who had given his pledge to her scarce a week past.

"I looked inside his head and saw it talk to him," Tyene said. "Poor Leila got a more direct proof..."

"How do you mean?" the sellsword asked. He had not had much to do with the lass after the first few days since she and that talking dog of hers were a lot better at wrangling the local grumpkins while Bronn was a lot better at ambushing and gutting things whether they were just men or other things.

"Lirn's daughter just got cut to pieces right in front of her, like there was some sort of invisible knife going through her. Leila tried to help, but her magic wasn't strong enough... got covered in blood head to toe. There wasn't anything, I checked, and it wasn't a wizard's curse either, so it had to have been the Bleeding Wind... unless you want to argue that there was some other malevolent influence that kills like that." She sounded exasperated, but this was all new to him.

"Why didn't I hear about this until now?" Bronn asked. "That sort of thing would be all around the camps..."

"Scaring the shit out of the settlers, which is why I made sure it didn't spread," Tyene finished. "Do you ever read those reports I send over by raven or were you just expecting to get your news out of the soldiers you are drinking with and the whores you are bedding?"

The sellsword was silent a long moment, his quick tongue failing him.

"You can read, can't you?" she asked over the whistling of the wind spell.

"Well enough to get by." Even as the words came out of his mouth Bronn knew they were about as believable as a dog claiming it could walk on two legs.

Rather than scoffing she just said: "If you had told me I would have just had the ravens speak the messages."

"Look there!" Kira interrupted, pointing ahead over the river to what Bronn could just make out to be a strange cloud, not of mist as often formed on the waters of the Rhoyne in the mornings and evenings, but swirling dust. Never had he been more glad to face a murderous monster.

There was a shadow in the cloud, a blackness whose edges seemed to cut the eye, its body long and sinuous like a weasel, its limbs curved like sickles. It wasn't trying to hide. That was never a good sign. Still, he had not gotten blasted out of the sky by lightning, so he figured Tyene had been right when she had explained this 'god' was really just a big mean grumpkin people bribed to stay off their lands.


The thing started to jabber something at the Dornishwoman in Rhoynar, probably threats or some offer so damn stupid the village idiot wouldn't take it if he was drunk on Arbor Red. Bronn had found that a lot of the things that fancied themselves smarter than humans were dumber than rocks in every way that mattered.

"Good news," the golden-haired witch said with vicious cheer. "This thing just admitted to killing hundreds of people, that means we can skip judging and get right to sentencing in the name of the King's Justice."

"Don't suppose it'll be accommodating enough to fight us all on the ground, would it?" Bronn asked. He was decent enough swinging his sword through the air, but Argo was about as graceful in the sky as one would expect he'd be by looking at him.

There was no need for the Dornishwoman to answer, the thing came flying at them as a leaping darkness before the face of the sun, racing right for Tyene. That was the other side of being part of an ancient line going back who knows how many years, Bronn had found. Things always wanted to carve out their pound of flesh for something this ancestor or that had done. They never paid much attention to the sellsword thirsting to make his own line any day now.

Tyene spoke a word, a curse that rippled in the air and the waters below, one Bronn recognized though he was no sorcerer. The thing didn't die, but it flinched in its furious attack, its sickle claws sparking on silver armor yet finding no purchase in flesh. With a roar Argo charged, his axe carving great chunks of the shadowy flesh.

Not to be outdone, Bronn flew in a wide arc around the beast, but it seemed to grow craftier when bloodied, swirling aside from all but one of his blows. Good thing I work for a wizard, the sellsword thought, calling on the full power bound in his silvered bracers. The world seemed to slow around him and the enemy too—once, twice he cut the twisting body until it was parted in twain, the pieces tumbling down into the waters... or at least so they would have if Kira whose gaze had been on the beast ready to strike had not dived after them.

"I'm sure the King will want these for something," she said with a smile.

Golden Fields Action Complete


OOC: The 'Grumpkin' was a Shadow-Traced Kamaitachi. I was honestly expecting to to be harder to hit attacking a non-buffed party, but it had horrible attack rolls and then Bronn nuked it down with his Belt of Battle using a luck re-roll to confirm a crit that pushed it over the edge.