Chapter 44: Tourney at Harrenhal Part 6
Mid 281 False Spring
I don't endorse sporting events so poorly regulated that fatalities are an expected outcome, but as my pole hammer took a Valeman clean off his horse and he landed on his back either unable or unwilling to get back up, I felt a thrill that allowed me to at least empathize with the psychopaths that set this event up.
A melee in the ancient style is a multi-team deathmatch with all participants aligning with their region of birth for a throwdown brawl only a bee's dick of distance from the full lethality of pitched battle. The teams are by no means balanced by the organizers, its first come first served until the event reaches some kind of capacity, in this case being how many bodies can we fit onto the event field and still give the teams the chance to get up to a run for the clash.
Normally a melee in the ancient style sees the North out early if we are even present at all. At the Tourney at Harrenhal, we are as present as everyone else, though by and large more shabby than our southern competition. A scene from Catelyn Stark's PoV revealed that when her son, Rob, the kid who would be King in the North, donned his helmet and mounted his horse, he looked no different from the southern knights she'd grown up with.
I find that depressing, that the man of highest status in the host is dripped out like normal knight. During my tenure as a tourney champion, I've launched a war on the idea that a Northman is incapable of being fabulous, fantastic, and fresh. If you aren't armored in a work of art, then why even show up? My current set is a brilliant emerald broadcast with gold accents such as the three headed bear ornament on my helmet. It's subdued compared to most of my arsenal, more in line with what is considered tasteful in Westeros, and certainly something closer to what I campaign in.
I needed to give my foes as little handicap as possible as hundreds of full plate armored men collided in the most disorganized battle I have ever taken part of. The teams populated the field in a mirror of the kingdoms, placing us against the Vale and the Riverlands in the violent press of bodies. My hammer took a man, whose surcoat bore the red sun rising from a green sea, out action and likely out of his mortal coil, but his friends paid it little mind swinging swords, maces, and axes with reckless abandon.
The North showed up for this event, and the older Stark brothers pressed forward along with my sons, Ulfric, Galmar, and Kodlak. Great Jon Umber stood atop his horse and swan dived onto a pair of unfortunate knights. Utter madness, but this event was utter madness to begin with, so the man was just feeling the moment.
Though I don't cleave to their theology nor philosophy, the Vale Knights were a solid force that would have held well against any kingdom but the North. We are simply in a heroic renaissance glut with great men, many forged in the hard campaigns against the Wildlings, many others motivated to reach higher by the legends of those forged men. If not for an impromptu alliance with the Riverlanders, the Vale Knights would have been thrown to the ground by our fierce assault. Even still the pair barely managed to keep us contained until a Westerland assault tore down the Riverlands fighters.
The Westerlands plowing through the Riverlands? Who could have seen that coming?
The Northmen lost cohesion fighting on three fronts and the battle shifted into true anarchy. I found it freeing compared to the rigid discipline I maintain in actual warfare. I often lashed out with my fists, or bashed men with my shoulders and head. My hammer flitted about on intercept courses with incoming attacks, my strength and reach smashing through my opponents offenses and delivering the final word on the matter time and again as my killer paint job collected small nicks and dings.
I followed the flow of fights till my hammer met the shaft of another. I'd always assumed that this moment would be something more than it is, possessing of a greater metaphysical weight than the countless collisions before and after. That my shaft would cross with his and woosh our lives as eternal rivals begins, born again in the power of shonen. His shonen specifically.
On the other end of this meeting of the mallets is the Game of Thrones OG shonen protagonist, Robert Baratheon, the plucky orphan who can hit things particularly hard. He loves the girl who can't stand him and can talk his enemies into dying for him. Bobby B got that Naruto in him.
Then we have me, the guy with all the talent and edgy emo powers who solves complex problems by setting variables to zero, permanently. Something that is a big no no in shonen. Just the kind of hero who stepped down the dark path in need of a session of talk-no-jutsu that people can't get enough of.
By the laws of narrative, we should be something.
But I don't feel anything on the other end of this clash more than a particularly strong man. Not strong enough as I pushed the smaller man back like a big kid bully and popped him in the helmet with a quick push attack. As Robert's head bounced back from its sudden meeting with my shaft, I whipped my hammer around and golf swung the man out of the saddle, and moved on to fresh battle elsewhere.
A horn rang when one of the teams reached victory over the others, signaling a victory of the hard North over all the soft southerners. For this second phase, all the remaining members of the team dismounted and where to engage each other in honorable duels, but I quickly found myself back stepping as a wall of screaming Northmen charged me.
It was a gank!
I could feel my precious money slipping away as a dozen weary but enthusiastic fighters came at me with everything they had left in the tank.
Where is your honor, Ned Stark?
Am I not your teacher, Brandon?
The cycle of sons slaying their fathers continues with you, Ulfric and Galmar.
At least their father's dream of big piles of money.
Finally, my 'best friend' Great Jon pounced on me as I swung my hammer at an over eager Brandon, pulling me to the ground.
"You fool!" I shouted as my sons tapped their weapons to our chests to signify our defeat, "Now we both lose!"
Great Jon laughed as only a man with lots of chest can, loud and bellowing and damn annoying.
"I finally won the wrassle, ya greasy bastard!" he cheered.
"This doesn't count." I denied his victory as Great Jon popped up to his feet and raised his arms as he cheered like he won the whole melee.
"It counts. I win. I'm the better wrestler." Great Jon declared.
"You are objectively not. I've won far more matches than you have." I refuted his claim as my sons squared off against the Stark brothers.
"I've won the most recent match, so I'm the winner." the petulant giant argued.
"A match where you had over ten men fighting me so you could find an opening." I countered this most hated foe.
"What was that Mormont?" Jon mocked as he raised his gauntlet over his armored ear, "I couldn't hear you over all this winning I do."
Did it matter to me that my sons beat up the Stark brothers? No. Did it matter to me that Ulfric outwitted his dimwitted brother to win a big pile of money? Yes it did, but today I learned that there is something that matters more to me than money. Winning, and making sure that Great Jon Umber never wins another damn thing in his whole life.
They say that we learn who we really are when we lose. Fuck those people, they are probably losers.
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I have read many a fic that does Bobby B wrong. You can't read his feats in the source material and not think that this guy is an aged shonen protagonist. He beat three armies in one day and convinced two of the Lords leading those armies to die for his cause over barrels of mead and a couple afternoons tossing axes. The man was legit Naruto. Too bad his Sasuke sounds a lot like RHAEGAR!
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