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

Wendwater Vale, Painted Mountains

Twenty Third Day of the Eleventh Month 293 AC

Thank all the gods, Old, New and every one in between for the Legion, Jon Redfort, Count of the Painted Mountains and Keeper of the Eastern Approaches, thought not for the first time as he wiped the sweat from his brow. At least it was mostly sweat, as the hand came away crimson with blood that had just been starting to dry and flake. The last clansman had been damn near to taking off his head on the charge... of course that may have been because it was a clanswoman. It was one thing to see women fight skillfully in the Dragon King's Circle of Battle or shoot arrows like a goddess of the hunt, he had discovered, but another entirely to raise your sword against a woman to cut her down. He had done it in time, however, and with that last charge, that last battle, the tribes arrayed against him and his allies were broken.

"So then, Iron Man, how do you find our hills?" Achaeus the Lame, First Spear of the Red Horns Clan asked, slapping Jon's armored back until it rang. That had been cause for confusion and mockery when the knight had first come before the tribe offering trade and alliance, but had since become a jest between them. Although that did not mean there was not still plenty that they did not agree on. "Their camp is as unguarded as a whore's..."

Like say that, the knight thought grimly. The king's advice on being magnanimous to the locals aside, Jon also had no intention of being party to the kind of rapine, murder, and occasional enslavement of defeated peoples that the mountain men inflicted upon their foes. "What did I tell you when we first met friend? Real wealth, real strength, comes from tilling the land in peace and guarding the roads the merchants walk, to have food to raise many strong sons and daughters so your brood can spread through the hills and vales. What worth petty quarrels, like magpies picking over shiny rocks?"

"Ah, but the Slash Lizards, the Thunder Sons, the Death Thorns, and all the rest, they have quarrels with you," the clansman replied.

"And with what would they make that quarrel known?" The knight motioned to the field of battle, the field of slaughter more like. The heavy slashing swords and broad hunting spears of the mountain men made a poor match against plate armor out of Everfire Dale, still less the counter charge of heavy horse in the vale. If it had not been for the messengers giving timely warning...

Establish Messenger Service in Painted Mountains Complete 7/5

Jon fought back a shudder. He was honest enough with himself to know that he would be feeling a hell of a lot less magnanimous if things had not come together just right to smash the enemy so thoroughly, but as his father often said, you live in the world beneath your feet not the one behind your eyelids. It was a pretty good world today, even with all the death he'd had to deal, because some of the tribes munderstood the open hand of friendship to not be a sign of weakness.

The small army of the Count of the Painted Mountains rode through the hills to speak again to the heads of the tribes who had wronged him. He would be asking for hostages this time, but no more than that. What wealth the mountain folk had managed to eke out of these unforgiving hills was not worth filling your saddlebag with.

At least that had been his resolution when setting out, and the first three tribes he visited did nothing to change it. The first shot arrows over the crude walls of their fortress, so Jon let them rot, the second tried to buy him off with slaves, leaving him to explain that he would not make use of such by the dictates of conscience, king, and gods, and the third included half the people in it deciding to throw their lot in with him rather then risk raids from their neighbors, so weakened as they now were.

The fourth tribe he visited wanted to give him a 'war horse'. Now Jon already had a perfectly fine horse under him, and three more back home in the stables, but he was curious just what sort of horse could eke its days on these slopes that the locals thought fit for war.

"Well ain't that something..." Jon said in Common out of sheer surprise when the beast was lead out to him. The thing was definitely some sort of horse, the lines of the body were familiar, the walk fair and proud, but that was about all that was familiar. The creature's hide was covered in black scales with a row of sharp spines going along its back, the eyes were stippled like a cat's, and its head was crowned in heavy black horns. Steam wafted gently from its nostrils into the cool air.


Most of the things that wandered in from the wastes were monsters, mad with pain and rage or possessed of ghosts and demons, but this creature had a bearing as noble as any steed Jon had seen. "Is this the only one you have?" he asked. The idea struck him as painfully tragic if it were so. Such a beast did not deserve to die alone, the last of its kind.

"No, we have three and twenty, great lord," the woman who had been chosen as an envoy of the tribe replied smiling. "You like?"

"I buy," Jon said at once. "All of them." It would be unwise to take tribute from one tribe and not the others, but he had enough coin for this, and owning a herd of dragon horses who nonetheless stayed sensibly on the ground seemed like a fine notion indeed.

OOC: As I was writing this I realized that I got Balon Swann mixed up with Jon Redford since I wanted the action to take place in the painted mountains. Also I don't think I ever did a interlude of poor Jon so it seemd fitting to have the luck of double crit head his way. Not yet edited.