The Mountain and the Pirate (GoT/TPB)

[Owen]

This seemed to get a good reception in it's original thread, so I thought I'd pop it over here on the off chance people might enjoy it.

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The sun shone on the dueling grounds as the Man in Black surveyed the crowd.

"Well, they certainly seem keen." he remarked to the half-man beside him. "Popular fellow is he, this 'Mountain'?"

"I don't think 'popular' is quite the right phrase." replied Tyrion. "Though few people would say a bad word about him. Not if they're in the same country, anyway."

"Ah. A rather violent type then?"

"I hear he put in a few hours yesterday helping execute prisoners to keep in practice."

"Delightful. Well, I'm sure he won't be quite so impressive when facing an armed man."

"The prisoners were armed. Apparently he insisted on it. Something about it not being fun otherwise."

"Ah." said the Man in Black. He smiled cheerfully and waved at the crowd before bending down to talk quietly to the dwarf. "Look, Tyrion, while I do feel for you in this situation, really I do, in retrospect I'm beginning to wonder if the price we agreed was quite sufficient. Perhaps we should..." he broke off as Gregor Clegane strode into the arena. Roberts straightened and looked up at the Mountain... and up... and up.....

"My, he is rather large, isn't he?" said the Man in Black finally, eyes wide in surprise.

"I would have thought his nickname would have tipped you off." replied Tyrion acidicly.

"Well, yes. A name like 'Mountain' does give one certain preconceptions. You assume a big man, of course. I just wasn't expecting to be quite so literal. I mean, he's big enough generate his own micro climate."

"I'll pay double."

"Come now. You're getting value for money here. He easily the size of six of me."

"Four times then." said Tyrion, an edge of desperation in his voice.

"Done." agreed the Man in Black. "Now I believe combatants are allowed free choice of weapons?"

"The Gods allow champions to choose what weapon best suits them, yes. I tried to talk Ser Clegane in to a game of chess, but apparently there wasn't a sufficient quantity of blood and entrails involved for him."

"Do you know anywhere in this city I might procure a trebuchet on short notice?"

"I thought about that myself, but I suspected he'd just beat me to death with it before I could aim it."

"Right. Then I'd best use the valyrian steel blade of House Roberts."

Tyrion looked up at the man in black in surprise "You have a valyrian steel blade?"

"Well, yes. Though it is lost somewhere in Essos. I assure you I'll be right back once I've located it."

"Fine with me, if I can accompany you."

"Somehow I don't think your father would allow that. Oh well, I'll just make do with what I have. I'm sure something will occur to me."

With that, the man in black strode confidently out in front of the roaring crowd, waving and smiling. Halting several paces from the Mountain, Roberts folded his arms, looked up at the armoured man and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. The two made an odd pairing. It was clear they both had the same taste in colour co-ordination, but other than that, the slight masked man in his loose cotton shirt and trousers couldn't have been any more of a contrast to the hulking knight in his heavy armour. They regarded each other silently for a few moment until Roberts, with one last look up and down his opponent, broke the silence.

"Ser Mountain, I don't mean to be presumptuous here but.... would you mind if we switched sides?"

"....what?" grunted the Mountain in surprise.

"Well, it's just it's a very sunny day and I have a rather pale complexion. It occurs to me that if I was on that side, with the sun at your back I could fight in the shade. You do cast quite a bit of it you know."

The Mountain spat on the ground in response. "You won't fight anywhere. You'll die where I say."

The Man in Black gave a look of disappointment. "Well if you feel that way, I suppose we'd best get down to it." With that, he drew his sword, glittering in the sun. "Whenever you're ready."

With a roar, the Mountain charged, his huge sword scything through the air. But in a flash the Man in Black was off to one side, leaning away from the blade as it went past. The Mountain quickly shifted direction, his blade slamming down at the unarmoured man's shoulder, but with another twist of his body and a brief sound of metal on metal the blade missed again. The Mountain grunted and spun his blade, switching his hand position to surprise his opponent with an attack from another line, but almost invisibly fast the masked man's blade flickered through the air, and with dancing steps of his feet, he was safely away from the attack again.

A murmur went through the crowd. Blow after blow rained down from the Mountain and hit nothing but air. More surprisingly to the crowd, as he sidestepped death every second, the Man in Black was smiling... and talking.

"You're faster than you look, I'll give you that." allowed the grinning man as he ducked under a beheading stroke and casually sped it on its way with a tap of his blade. "You know what you're doing in combat too, it seems." The Mountain controlled the over swing, and brought the blade around and down at the man's shoulder, but at the last second, Clegane twisted his hips and wrist and sent the massive blade cutting up towards the flank instead... but the Man in Black wasn't fooled, dropping his sword point low and pivoting on his feet, robbing the blow of energy as he deflected it and spun past. "I mean, there's not many men your size who would bother learning a decent compound attack like that. What's the point when you can just plough through an opponents defence with strength?"

The Mountain bellowed again, spinning to face the man in black. He paused briefly, his sword out of line, and the Man in Black sprung forward at the opening.

Gregor grinned as the pirate fell for his trap. Like all the foolish Bravosi, he was thinking about the sword, not the man, and Gregor's huge, armoured fist swung in from his blind side to crush the annoyance.

But the Man in Black didn't even look around, just casually ducked his head and moved closer to allow the blow to pass over him, then delivered a fast sequence of cuts to Gregor's thigh, flank, armpit and wrist in the time it took for the huge arm to sail past. The first two merely scored armour, but the last two hit the underlayer of leather in the weak spots and while failing to penetrate, the speed of the strikes left wounds on the flesh beneath.

"Good use of the off-hand, too. Most people neglect that with a two-handed weapon." remarked Roberts as he danced back out of the giants reach before he could recover his balance.

The Mountain didn't make any noise this time. The man had hurt him. Not badly. Little more than stings. But Gregor wasn't used to being hurt. He wasn't used to being fought, in fact. Most people ran when they saw him coming. He certainly wasn't used to being lectured by people who should be screaming for mercy and dying. This had gone on long enough. Fighting to keep his temper, he moved methodically towards the masked man. Measured blow after blow came in at at the Dread Pirate Roberts, driving him back across the arena.

Roberts smiled like a pleased teacher, though there was something of a satisfied cat in the grin. "Ah, smart thinking!" he said, with admiration in his voice, twisting away from a cut that could have bisected a man. "Keeping your attacks short, force me to respond to them, and drive me back. Decent strategy for a fight like this." another blow slipped past his shoulder with a quick tap of his blade, and a quick riposte scored blood from a briefly visible gap between the Mountain's gauntlet and arm piece.

More blows rained in, and while they didn't have the brutal power of Gregor's earlier assaults, any one of them could still maim or kill, and there were more of them, pinning the pirate in place. Unable to completely outmanoeuvre his opponent, the Man in Black instead resorted to flurries of counter-attacks. None came to much, Gregor was too heavily armoured for anything but a full body blow from a weapon as light as a rapier to penetrate deeply, even in the weak areas of the armour, and the Mountain was too good to leave that kind of obvious opening. But lightning fast strikes scored armour joints and even the gaps between plated sections. None left more than a scratch or bruise but all served to irritate the giant. But Gregor kept his temper in check and slowly advanced.

"Well it's pretty much done at this point isn't it?" admitted the Man in Black. "I can't really hurt you through that armour, and once you've got me pinned up against that wall, I'm dead."

"No." rumbled the Mountain "I'll cripple you first. I want to take some time over you."

"Like you did with Elia?" asked the man innocently.

"No, much longer," said the Mountain in a nasty tone. "Barely had any time with her before Lord Tywin told me the king was comi..." for a second the Mountain's blows stopped. The crowd went silent and looked as one at Lord Tywin's face in the judges stand, which seemed to abruptly drain of blood.

The Man in Black grinned widely beneath his mask and turned to give the watching Prince of Dorne a casual wave and a significant look "That's six hundred dragons and a ship you owe me, Oberyn" he informed the astonished Viper.

The tension was broken by a roar from the Mountain as he swung another short blow at the pirates front leg that hit nothing, but drove him back a couple of feet. Greg was furious at being manipulated, but still held his composure. The man's cunning would mean little in a moment.

The Man in Black smartly dodged two more quick follow-up blows before resuming his conversation. "Anyway, as I was saying, big fellow like you, fights well, heavy armour. I admit this would be quite a pickle if it weren't for a couple of things."

The Mountain grunted as another blow was turned aside. "What do you think can possible save you now?"

"First, you've been kind enough to let me fight in the shade."

Gregor paused for a second. It's true, the fight had changed direction so that the sun was at his back. But that was an advantage to him, not his opponent.

"...and second, I'm not left handed."

With that, Roberts tossed his sword from one hand to the other, executed a swirling flourish, and raised the shining blade in a high guard above his head...

...where the sunlight reflected directly into the Mountains eyes.

The Mountain recoiled at the blazing light and in that second the Man in bBack struck. His feet carried him into range in an instant and his sword swiftly followed the light, darting with unerring accuracy into first one and then the other eye slit on the visor, both strikes so fast that the crowd would never be able to agree on which eye was struck first.

Gregor's grunt of surprise became a basso roar of pain as the rapier struck his eyes, and his own blade came slashing down in strength borne of rage and pain, but the pirate wasn't there. Darting past the blinded giant, four solid hits from the rapiers tip went home through the weak parts of the armour, piercing the flesh behind deeply. Spinning neatly on his feet, two more cuts went in behind the knee joints before the Mountain even realised he was there. Badly lamed now, but far from incapacitated, the huge knight turned to the direction of the attack, raising his blade.... and Roberts waited for him.

"I do apologise. Eye gouging is rather unsporting, but I don't really like to lose and Tyrion iscounting on me. I tell you what, to make it fair, why don't you follow the sound of my voice to know where to aim?"

The blade slammed down, shattering stone as the man in black stepped neatly aside.

"Little to the left."

SLAM

"No, no. Too short. Come on, use your full reach."

SLAM

"Almost, just correct to the right a bit."

SLAM

"Oh well, nearly. Anyway, I think that's enough of being sporting."

The Mountain bellowed again, raised his sword high above his head, lost in a rage and thinking only of crushing the infuriating man...

..and the Man in Black lunged forward, his slim weapon slipping into the tiny gap left between the Mountain's helm and gorget as he tilted his head back just a little too far. The blade sliced deep under the jaw, cutting the Mountain's throat... and the bellow abruptly became a bubbling gasp as the Dread Pirate Roberts withdrew his sword, covered in blood.

The great sword dropped down one last time, missing Roberts as blood poured from beneath the Mountain's helm. For a few seconds the Mountain stood there, immobile as his namesake, then as his opponent casually stepped aside, the Mountain fell with an enormous crash where Roberts had been standing a moment before. As the noise of his fall echoed around the arena, his helm tumbled from his shoulders to expose the ruin of his face.

The Man in Black stood, sword ready, as the Mountain lay on the ground struggling to breathe. When it became clear he wasn't going to rise again he started to put his weapon away, then seemingly thinking better of it, he took a cautious step over to Gregor's prone form and viciously rammed the blade into the Mountain's ear before retrieving it, wiping it on the body and replacing it in it's scabbard.

The crowd exploded as he returned to a beaming Tyrion "An amazing show... though if I may make a request, next time you're fighting for my life, a bit less drama please?"

"Now where would be the fun in that?"

"I don't know how anyone can regard these things as fun. Though was it really necessary to skewer Gregor's brain like that?"

"A good friend once taught me revenge can be quite a powerful motivator in a fight. I find it's best not to take any chances."