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

Thirteenth Day of the First Month 294 AC

"Fish movement sighted in Westbrook, it's bedeviled I tell you..."

"...haven't seen anything like it. Five hundred people used to live in that area, now the place is a ghost town--"

"--a minor hamlet of little note, nothing more..."

"You haven't seen it yet? Page twelve, right there. That's what we saw down by the old Tarbeck mines. Took a dozen men-at-arms with the the special hooked polearms to bring it down."

"--dragon's good for one thing, I guess. These drawings are accurate?"

"Aye. They're drawn to scale."

"Get that the fuck out of here, before Lord Tywin hears about it!"

The shout interrupted the havoc and bedlam in the temporarily refurbished Halls of Triumph, deep in the bowels of the Rock, taken over by dozens of Golden Shields. There were scribes and servants ferrying parchment and supplies through the area while two dozen knights gathered around a table, one of multiple command centers across the Westerlands. The entire group was silenced, stiffening in surprise and fear as the normally more congenial Gerion Lannister worked himself up into a towering rage.

"We haven't had accurate reports in a fucking fortnight, Lord Gerion." The ever-stoic Melwyn Sarsfield bore the full brunt of the lion's glare without flinching, features carved from stone and brushing an oiled cloth over his arming sword. "If you want this fox den to stop resembling a chicken coop filled with headless cocks, you're going to have to make some compromises."

"Would you like to compromise your neck's own integrity when my brother asks me to separate it from your head?" Gerion smashed a fist on the table, causing everyone, battle-hardened veterans and knights one and all, barring Sarsfield of course, to jump in shock. His fist resounded with each word in hard emphasis: "We. Can. Not. Continue. Fucking. Around." He pointed at a squire, who scooped up the pile of the Imperial Times collected across every region in Westeros, spread out across the long stone table, and dumped them into a sack to be dropped into the forge's crucible during the night... just as he had eight times before. "Melwyn, report."

"It's Ser Anton Swyft." Ser Melwyn almost rolled his eyes when it was clear the confusion in Gerion's eyes meant that he didn't quite recognize the name. "The pissant that Lord Tywin sent to the Night's Watch to act as an informant, so that he wouldn't spike his head instead."

Gerion pondered that only for a moment. "That happens often enough these days, the names are starting to run together. Well, go on. What does Anton fucking Swyft have to say up in the ass end of the world?"

"It's your lady wife's elemental who carried the whisper wind. Read this." Melwyn handed the missive wrought upon a silk scroll over to his commander, every man there watching with bated breath.

Gerion slumped into an empty chair after scanning it not once, not twice, but three times, massaging his temples with both hands. "The fuck am I reading, Ser Melwyn?"

"Viserys Targaryen leading 'an army of giants' across half the Far North and apparently approaching Castle Black. I expect he'll arrive there soon. Hells, maybe now." No one said a word. Melwyn smiled slightly, as if finding the situation humorous somehow. "There's a giant sky ship hovering overhead, and some wildlings trailing in their wake like remoras gliding alongside a shark."

"You confirmed this?" Gerion queried tonelessly.

"Divination didn't say much, but aye, there be giants." Melwyn sheathed his sword, ignoring the panicked rumble of conversation he'd just kicked up with aplomb.

"Quiet," Gerion barked, regaining their attention once more. Then: "Get out."

Gerion waited for several heartbeats, a vein pulsating on his forehead, before he repeated, "Get the fuck out!"

Everyone in the open hall fled with varying degrees of urgency, with the most panicked sprinting headlong toward the nearest gilded stairwell.

Gerion pointed a finger at the Sarsfield knight. "Not you."

Sarsfield scoffed, "Oh, are you Lord Tywin now, come to tan my hide?" Gerion noted the knight had only become so openly insubordinate when the room had finally emptied and the last of the footsteps faded from the cavernous hall.

"Are you trying to get thrown into a gaol, man?" Gerion probably would have sent him back to his lands by now, to keep him from getting himself killed if nothing else, were it not for the fact that he was the only damned adjutant with his head screwed on straight at all times. As, apparently, opposed to most times, when it was dealing with matters the Shields were equipped and experienced in handling, but then a non-conventional thinker would not long survive Tywin's wroth when he was not minded to direct it toward productive ends.

Not unless they showed consistent results, not without Gerion's favor shielding them, and the Lord of Castamere could only be in any one place at a time, only have eyes in so many places as well.

"The fuck do we have to fear in regards to being thrown into a dark pit, or even being pitched into the bay in the dead of night? We've got enough problems without flinching and whinging, whenever the Old Lion gets restless and starts prowling around in lands beyond his ken and business, poking his greying whiskers about." Gerion was frankly baffled by the man's irreverence.

He was quite polite and well-mannered enough when actually in his brother's presence. But six months of directly reporting to him as he acted as Gerion's intermediary had worn down longstanding respect and patience, until nothing but a feral gleam remained in the battle-hardened knight's gaze when his very name came up, falling just shy of outright contempt. "We've got a war to fucking plan, and here we are chasing fucking fairy tales!" Sarsfield knocked a cup off the stone table where it shattered against a push cart. "You going to go sally the troops and meet the Targs in battle, him and his fucking army of giants?"

"No." Gerion's denial was instant, already knowing where the man was going with this.

"Why the fuck not?" Sarsfield said with a corpse grin, making it perfectly clear he knew why, faux-simpering tone aside.

"Because then he'd fucking slaughter us," Gerion replied, irritated but not rising to the man's jabs.

Sarsfield stood and slowly paced around the table, the chair beside Gerion scraping loudly as he plonked himself down into it and poured two cups of wine. Arbor Gold, and if Gerion wasn't mistaken the last of that vintage, on account of the fact that there weren't any damned traders from the Arbor plying their wares in Lannisport these days and he couldn't justify translocating across half of Westeros for good drinks. Not when there were so many other damned problems to be solving and not enough reliable men to solve them with.

"So why fucking worry?" Sarsfield still had the same rictus grin, though it grew subdued at Gerion's warning glance, even as he lifted the cup and took a long drink.

"You're starting to sound just like Jaime," Gerion groused, amused at the thought of his nephew in spite of himself.

"Gods forbid," Melwyn replied in like tone, "Damned fool is more fatalistic than I am, though I suppose he has reason to be, on account of the fact that the entire realm knows him by one name and it isn't 'Young Lion' or 'Shiny Shirt' or 'Golden Cock'."

"You would think if the Dragon cared about the fact that Jaime stabbed his father to death, he would have hired some assassins to kill him, and Robert, and probably half the royal family. He doesn't care, or his heart's made of stone, or Hells, maybe he's grateful to Jaime that he made the matter of succession so much more expedient by not simply rapping the mad bastard on the head, instead of sticking him in the back." Gerion wanted to laugh as much as he wanted to cry, a laugh slipping out of him and leaving him breathless.

Tywin was often in such a mood that no one dared to so much as laugh in Casterly Rock these days, no one dared to but Gerion and Melwyn fucking Sarsfield, who joined him a moment later.

"Gods, what a bunch of fools we make," Gerion said between laughs.

"Aye, a right pair of cock-ups, we are," Melwyn replied, draining another cup. Good things had to end sometime, however. "What do we do now?"

"Delay the next report. We'll try harder to get spies into Sorcerer's Deep and see if there's anything specifically planned for those things--I'd say focus on Everfire Dale the most, it's hard to keep orders of giant-sized armor and weapons hidden. How close are we to getting people back into their damned Keep?"

"Fucking impossible," Melwyn replied, deadly serious now. "Not since the Maesters we knew were poking around that way got real spooked. The place is locked up tighter than my wife's cunny, and it has everything to do with the damned Book and Sword."

"Gods cursed us, what a bunch of humorless cunts," Gerion swore, "How does he find them all?!" Rumor held strongly that there were dragonmen and spies from the Inquisition infiltrated across half of Westeros and most of Essos, an entire interconnected spy network spanning two continents sprung up nearly overnight, in relative terms as far as intrigue went, and while they had more accurate details thanks to magic on some of their activities, they were clever sorts when it came to getting the most mileage out of only a little magic.

Whatever method they used to convey information had yet to be cracked, likely the result of numerous expensive anti-divination wards, or more crude methods such as lead-lined rooms and dead drops.

"Found two more a league past the dividing line of Darry and Harrenhal," Melwyn replied grimly. "He's growing bolder. Spreading his wings."

"Can we cut out the simile?" Gerion got enough of that living life as a Lannister in such gentle company as he was wont to.

"Either way, shit rolls down hill fast and falls on our heads. We need to move, and soon." Gerion took a moment to parse that, trying to connect Sarsfield's last words with the rest of the conversation, with no delay acknowledging that he hadn't meant moving against the Targaryens.

"Just do your duty, Melwyn," Gerion growled, not wanting to have this conversation again. Not here, not now.

"It's now or fucking never, Gerion," Melwyn replied, unperturbed by the murder being glared at him. "Talk with your wife. Hug your children. But the choice is yours."

Gerion stormed off. He didn't want Lonmouth words parroted back at him, not when there was talk of treason against kith and kin hidden within subtext and metaphor.

The bitter irony was otherwise too damned painful to countenance.