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

Third Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC

As far back as he could remember, Wren had never known who his father had been, and he had only a vague idea who his mother was—a pillow slave, supposedly a beautiful one that the Master had wanted to breed for profit, but instead of the hoped for beauty all that had come out of it had been a boy with muddy green eyes and plain brown hair. His face glimpsed in polished metal or still water was thin and pale, nothing much to look at. Yet the Master had been kind, he had kept him rather than selling him as a baby to who knows what fate, shining shoes, sweeping hearths, and doing a thousand jobs for which small hands could serve just as well as large ones was easy work. He just wished Old Jenys wouldn't set him to sweeping the chimney so often. It was dark and cramped, and it got worse by the year. Still, he knew better than to argue, so when the housekeeper said to go down the chimney he went.

The sound of heavily shod feet filtered out from below, then voices raised in anger. The boy gulped in the dark but tried to listen in as best he could. Secrets could be worth something if you knew how to dole them out. Maybe the cook would be more generous with the stew ladle even.

"The law is that all slaves are to be freed and paid a wage if they wish to stay on, no exceptions!" the foreign sounding voice called out.

"Come now, captain, you are a man of sense. A Myrman just as I am, not some dragon's bootlicker. What does one boy matter? What would he even do if I let him free? Starve, pick pockets, perhaps even slit the throats of honest men?" That was the Master's voice, but he sounded scared, like Wren had never heard him.

"Entertaining as it may be to stand here and speculate with you about what the boy would be doing, I'm not going to risk a noose over your hand-wringing. You should be thanking me for marking it down as him not realizing that he was supposed to be freed and not you 'forgetting' to tell him. Otherwise you would be dancing at the end of a rope." The strange voice spoke again and though all the words were clear to Wren they just didn't make sense together.

"You wouldn't dare!" the Master shouted. "I'll have you know my brother is the adjunct of public works..."

"And I'm here under the direct authority of the council and the bloody Dragon," the other man interrupted coldly. "Call him over now!"

Wren was practically frozen in shock when Raenys called him down, when he realized they had been talking about him. He was free, it just didn't seem real. What would he even do now?


Thirteenth Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC

Life at Redwood House could not be more different from what Wren had known in his short life. He was able to sleep in until a whole two hours past dawn, then he would dress in the uniform that fit him better than any clothes he had ever had, and eat breakfast with the other orphans. Not just oatmeal, they always had something in it, whether it was a few nuts, dried fruit, or a bit of honey. Then he would be off to his lessons reading and figuring, and though that was his least favorite part of the day he still liked that no one hit him when he got things wrong. They hardly even seemed to yell. Then again he was just slow, not rowdy like some of the other boys were.

After lunch, where he had eventually figured out no one minded if he took a second helping, he would go off to the sensible lessons, the ones that would actually do him some good once he was six-and-ten and out on his own. Rather than shining shoes he was now learning to make them from an old lame cobbler with a funny accent. Supposedly Torgal came from across the water, from the same land as the dragon, but Wren didn't believe it. No one as normal looking as Torgal could have come from the same land that had birthed a dragon, or maybe a god's chosen if Rhae was right and the Red God had sent him down to free all the slaves, not that Wren cared much either way. He was going to sleep dry, warm, with a full belly, and he had an apprenticeship to look forward to. It was more than he'd ever hoped to get.

Twentieth Day of the Eighth Month 293 AC

Jorg hadn't meant to burn the tannery down, just a bit of smoke, a bit of flame to convince the stubborn old coot to cough up the protection money, but he hadn't known the kind of shit that was inside. The place had damn near gone up in smoke by the time he was three streets away. The watch in their fancy grey cloaks had shaken down the Weasel, broke up the whole gang, and sent them off in in chains. "So that's how it is, eh? All the bloody slaves are free except the ones you grab?" he had spat at the guard's feet as he was sent off to the chain gang.

Only it hadn't been the bloody chain gang at all. Jorg thought he would be breaking rocks to make the dragon's roads, instead he seemed to be having a mighty large lack of copper counters if he was trying to teach the likes of him reading and writing, not to mention they had been taking them all out to do work for the local craftsmen, not sweeping the floor or taking out the pisspot. They were doing apprentice work, supposedly they were even getting paid for it, though Jorg wasn't holding his breath for that. What the fuck was their angle?

Jorg only realized he'd said the last outloud when a soft bluish light spilled over onto the page he had been scribbling on and a soft voice called out: "The simplest angle one could draw here is that the new King in these lands wants subjects that can do useful work to enrich both themselves and the royal coffers. "

The man turned around to curse whatever fool had said that only to come face to not-face with a strange glowing thing made of bronze and light.


"What the fuck are you?" he asked when he'd gathered his wits again.

"One who would help you, though I sense you need less help than many here," the voice spoke in his head. It was telling him a secret, it didn't want the others to know that they were the real problem. That was when Jorg realized this was just one big score. If he played his cards right he could walk out of here with a journeyman's skills to his name. There was no sense asking where the score came from, you just grabbed it hand ran with it.

OOC: Just because Archons have to tell the truth does not mean they can't manipulate people, for their own good of course. Jorg here was indeed one of the simpler cases, he just needed a nudge to stop looking under every rock for the catch in his good fortune.