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

Thirtieth Day of the Fourth Month 294 AC

A cold wind blew over the valley of the Mander such as that verdant realm had not seen in an age, and through the thorns of Highgarden it whistled heavy with the breath of rage and broken promises. Once, long ago, beyond the memory of men, the fey of the Winter Court had given themselves to the Dark and the Dark had given itself to them. So had been born those whom the First Men had not even dared to name. A lesser rage begat a lesser breaking, but for the Power in the North which was now stirring, any blow in dying summer's heart was better than none. From ancient tombs and thrice-defiled cairns, there rose words in tongues of old as strange to the folk of the Reach as that of the oncoming legionnaires.

"They dead ride pale steeds," annoucned one legionnaire mage of the Fifth, Volantis born and shivering in his silk robes for it. He sent an unaccustomed prayer to the Red God, master and god of slaves He may well have been, but no one who had watched the Fall of Ymeri, reflected in silver and magic, could deny his power.

"They will not long outlast the dawn," a voice at once too beautiful and too hard to be human cut through the air like a blade of Imperial Steel, one of the Sisters of Battle, and a reminder if any was needed, that there were powers closer to hand to aid in banishing the dark.

It did not take the engineers long to find the places where the great walls of Highgarden had been cleaved by ice as glaciers cleaved upon the face of the land, and no one dismissed the tales of ghosts and apparitions that some of the staff, and even a handful who showed bruises around their throats and wrists, but it was in the keep's sept, raised by the philosopher kings centuries ago, that they found the most damning mark that something had gone awry.

Olenna Tyrell, still dressed in the forest green dress she had put on before dinner, dead and frozen as though she had been left outside in the wilderness without a fire, her lips turned blue and still clenched tight.

The Lord Justice knelt down a moment, and by his magic ignited the spark of memory into dead flesh. "What did you see?"

"The Fey came, the ones the gods' fire did not burn, the ones the pale roots did not devour... They were few, they were desperate, they were hungry... They wanted me to let the winter in... an ambush... I Would Not."

The last words were spoken so forcefully that even the mages and officers some thirty feet away could hear them, though the surprise was quickly swallowed by the sound of the saturnine and ever poised Lord Justice letting a curse pass his clenched teeth. He swept up to his full height with speed that reminded any foolish enough to have forgotten that the silver-haired man was a Companion and the veteran of battles beyond most men's imagination.

The Fifth had marched into the gate at Highgarden expecting to perhaps face the hit and run tactics of stubborn fey. They had not expected to face the kiss of the cold wind and the wails of dead things on that wind. The Legion sent columns down to the city beyond the outer walls at once, and at first it seemed that the sheer speed of the lancer-tipped advance had taken the enemy by surprise. Mayhap their inability to set up an attack in the keep itself had kept the enemy from doing more than sowing fear.

Then the shadows started killing in earnest, the executioners of the Court of Stars turned agents of ruin. Though they reaped in minutes more of a toll upon the soldiers of the Legion than most mortal hosts could have hoped to do in hours, the eyes of the Erinyes would not be deceived. Arrows tipped in Imperial Steel and banefire reaped the true spirits. Alas, that was but a beginning...

Skeletal riders atop dead elk crowned in withered bone, gathered in a mockery of chivalry to challenge the lancers. From the clouds rose fell shards of ice sharper than steel and heavier than lead. The men and women of the Fifth died, but they did not die alone. Alchemical flame lit the night, kindling even in ethereal forms. When the wights came, tattered and mismatched, drawn from dozens of cursed mounds and almost as many ages, yet all filled with the wiry strength of the grave and endless hate in their ice-blue eyes, the legionnaires held their ground. From the thin blade of the common soldier to the heavy Imperial Steel blades of the Praetorians, all reaped a dreadful toll.


After the first clash, the Fifth started to filter through the farms and villages of the rich Mander Valley, dealing with cursed fey and the dead in equal measure as they met them, though much to their surprise they did not do so alone. What some of the scouts had taken for more ghost lights and signs of the enemy were discovered to be fey of the Azure Court who had sensed the work of their old foe and the vengeance of their once kin, and by pacts as old as the the mountains they had chosen to act.

Yet even under the wards of the Azure Court the dead would not lightly fall it. It was clear for all who had eyes to see that they did not seek victory here, but instead they sought destruction, to drown the victory of their enemy in blood and despair. They would not have their way. The three-eyed ravens were swift, and swifter still the passage of the Companions who pinned down distant barrows while the Legion marched on the closer ones.

Many would be the tales of that night, of a young girl summoning forth a host of beasts and spirits against the dead, of chains of light and flashes of golden healing fire that slew the dead and raised the living almost from the brink of death, of shadows coming alive not to kill but to ward and protect. However, for most of the folk of the Mander Vale, it would be the simple helping hand and soothing voice of a man or woman who might not share their tongue or their creed, but was clearly on the side of life not death.


OOC: Phew that was a lot of rolling. You guys can vote on Teana's level up if you want.