Chapter 46: Tourney at Harrenhal Part 8
Mid 281 False Spring
The Tourney at Harrenhal, despite its insanity, made Ulfric 'Stormcloak' Mormont enough money to live a lifestyle his Grandfather would bemoan as lavish for the rest of his life, and he only had to break the legs of three bookies before the rest wised up and paid him his winnings with a pained smile. He'd of course lost a fair bit of coin when Lord Whent cut a deal with his father to get him pushed back in the lists, but why cry for stags when sleeping on a bed of dragons?
Of course, his dealings here at Harrenhal became far more tense after his brother Galmar began bragging about their father taking the Whent girl as a concubine. When the boy told people about their father taking savage wildlings as Salt Wives it had all been happy laughter and hearty back slaps and bawdy jokes. When it's a seven fearing southron lass of fine breeding, those smiling acquaintances transformed into angry strangers ready to form a mob and string their father and his sons up. Talking about giving their sister the same treatment as the Whent girl.
And Jorah Mormont only laughed louder and reveled harder, taking that Whent girl over and over so that her pleasured screams concocted a sexual symphony that reverberated across the vast stonescape of Harrenhal. He poured oil on the pyre and danced atop it as hundreds came bearing their torches.
The only sign that the Lord of Bear Island prepared any kind of defense was the gift of six princely sets of fitted and articulated battlefield plate armor to Greatjon Umber, Robett Glover, Roger Ryswell, Timotty Flint of Flint's Finger, Torghen Flint of the Mountains, and Hugo 'Big Bucket' Wull. While the tensions rose, these men became more and more giddy, practically prancing into the closing feast.
As a champion of one of the big three events, Ulfric sat at the high table along with his father who won both the archery contest and seemingly formed a friendship with the Mad King. Like mind cleaving to like mind some might say, for was a man rumored to burn criminals truly much different than a man who hacked his enemies to pieces to feed the local fish population? His father felt his actions over the years heroic, did King Aerys II feel the same? The Lord of Bear Island used spectacular shows of barbarism to cow others, his rivals and his thralls. King Aerys II likely used public burnings for the same effect.
Ulfric found it all distasteful, but appreciated the fear his father's reputation instilled in others. It was the kind of fear that keeps others honest. The world is cruel to the naïve, and when you're young you don't have much choice in the matter of your own naivety, so it's better to have the phantom of a tyrant father hanging over you than having your ass hurt every time you deal with someone older or more clever.
But Ulfric worried at the open vindictiveness on Lord Walter Whent's face when Aerys publicly asked him what boon the man would like for hosting such a fabulous event.
"Your Grace, all I ask is for the King's Justice to be served." Lord Whent began and glared at Jorah Mormont who's teeth glinted white under his thick and dark beard, "I ask for the King's Justice in the atrocious matter of the rape of my daughter, Liara Whent, by the Lord of Bear Island, Jorah Mormont."
Ulfric couldn't tell if the cries of outrage were real or a part of some plot against his father. Many of the assembled nobility of the seven kingdom's bayed for Jorah Mormont's blood, but the Lord of Bear Island only looked satisfied by this turn of events. As if all was going exactly as he planned.
Eventually, the Kingsguard managed to make enough noise to restore order so the king could address the matter.
"Lord Whent accuses Lord Mormont of the rape of his daughter, Liara Whent." Aerys snarled and turned to face his father at the table, "How do you plead, Lord Mormont."
Jorah Mormont stood, a mountain of a man compared to the others at the table save his own son. His father calmly waited out the jeers of his peers before addressing the accusation.
"I don't plead." Jorah began, "I counter claim against Lord Whent for bearing false testament in an attempt to wiggle out of paying what he owes to me. This man owes me twenty two thousand gold dragons, and gave his daughter to me willingly. There can be no rape between myself and Liara Whent, for she is mine by the will of her father. There shall be one final grand spectacle for this legendary tournament, for this I shall prove by invoking my right to a Trial by the Seven."
King Aerys pounded the table himself to silence the outcry against Jorah's statement. Many cried out against a Northman heathen invoking the Seven for justice.
"Lord Mormont!" King Aerys shouted over the dying roars, so eager to address this turn of events, "Lord Mormont, do you truly wish to invoke the justice of your accuser's gods?"
"Aye, my King." Jorah nodded his huge head, "I am so sure of the justice of my claim, and the perfidiousness of Lord Whent's, that not even the gods he worships will deliver him from me."
"HAHAHAHA!" King Aerys cackled in joy, "Well said, well said! So it shall be. At dawn, seven champions shall represent the accusation of Lord Whent, and seven champions shall represent the counter-accusation of Lord Mormont. If either side fails to raise up the seven champions then they shall be found guilty and subject to judgment of the Crown."
From the cries of the crowd, Lord Whent would have the pick of Westeros for his seven champions, and from the eager smiles on the faces of Jorah's friends, neither would he struggle to make the number.
"The gods shall provide all the proof of my claim, your grace." Lord Whent announced, "But Lord Mormont wields the magical Valyrian Steel; surely, that piece of power from old Valyria grants him an unfair advantage in such a trial."
"You should have thought of that when you levied your accusation, Lord Whent." King Aerys sneered, causing Lord Whent's confidence to falter.
"I can put down my Valyrian Steel so long as all others chosen for the trial do the same, for I am confident in my claim." Jorah declared, "But Lord Whent must agree that the trial will be conducted on foot."
"Agreed." Lord Whent nodded and both lords requested the King's leave to go and gather their champions.
Aerys nodded his assent, and many of the assembled lords of the south booed and jeered the Lord of Bear Island as he made his way from the Hall of a Hundred Hearth's. Ulfric had trouble following in his wake and had to travel around the crowd of angry nobility.
When he finally made it back to their camp, he once again heard the cries of Liara Whent, but this time he ignored those screams of ecstasy and entered his father's dwelling. Ulfric found them atop a conditioned bearskin spread over the ground, but couldn't see Liara save her feet held in the air by his father's massive hands locked around her ankles. The only thing keeping the huge hairy mass of bear man from smothering the girl was the vast tracts of muscle tight and bulging across his back as the man hammered the southern flower with just the might of his hips, ass, and hamstrings in a sexual variant of a familiar exercise Ulfric performed daily for many years, one that built up his incredible speed and leaping ability. The fact that his father could perform the movement for the full length of an audibly satisfying bedding further proved that the man was not formed of the same clay as other men.
"Father." Ulfric addressed the man, yet he did not stop his rutting, he never did in the many years the boy knew him, so Ulfric continued, "Why have you cause such a thing to happen? These southerners outnumber us ten to one and now call for our blood. Even when you win the trial tomorrow, will the roads home be safe? Will our revenues not be harmed by this great ill will generated?"
"I will carve my image into the collective consciousness of Westeros." Jorah answered while he continued performing aggressive freestanding nordic curls atop his concubine, "The Targaryens were considered god-like for their dragons. I shall be god-like through my mighty testicles and iron body."
"Then this calamity is just an exercise of your ego?" Ulfric snarled, feeling the noose of his father's insanity tightening around his neck.
"This world doesn't care for mice, boy. Only men." Ulfric looked away as his father grunted, signaling his release, so that the load would not forever stain his soul, "Live like a mouse, scurry in the shadows, fear everything, and you will die like a mouse whenever a real man chooses to end you. Live like a man, boy. Assert yourself. Keep doing it till it kills you. Then at least when you die, you'll have lived a life worth living. Stop talking like you're going to live forever by being an inoffensive meek little lamb. Everyone dies, boy. Not everyone lives."
His father had repositioned during his monologue and now stood near the family table with a hot towel hanging over his erection. On the floor was the quivering girl currently setting the hearts and minds of the south ablaze. Ulfric ran his hands through his hair trying to relieve some of his frustration and anxiety.
Looking at the moss green eyes of his father didn't help. They faintly glowed in the night like the last remnants of wildfire, and the boy had no idea how much his father truly saw through them. Were they all just marionettes dancing on his strings? Mummers in a play directed by a psychopath?
As his eyes fell upon the cursed felling axe whose runes glowed the same color as his father's eyes, he felt pity for the men to die on the morrow to further feed his father's unending appetite for glory. For fun. Those men would die for his father's fun.
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I've been working on this mother fucking chapter for months interrupted by all sorts of bullshit. It feels great to finally have the uninterrupted time to pound out a version of it that doesn't fucking suck.
In other happier news I've been commissioned to do some work on a beat'em up story called Fists and the Furious, so I finally get to feel like a professional about his business again. Big mood improvement. I'll keep trying to eek out progress on this story while that one keeps chugging along.
After this one, I'd like to do some sequel work on my Cyberpunk story where we go back in time and see Juan's story if the devil hadn't changed his original power, speed reading, to the Fallout System. I am approaching the limit author's have on this site for stories, so I'll post it as a new volume of 'In Cyberpunk with the Fallout System' and change the name of the story to 'In Cyberpunk without the Fallout System'.
So don't freak out when that eventually happens.
I'll probably have to figure out something similar for other stories too.
You can support me and my family at
ko - fi . com / jmanm
Chapter 47: Trial by the Seven
My son thinks me an egomaniacal megalomaniac, but worse, thinks me incompetent - that I've finally leapt too far and overshot greatness to land deeply into madness. He's not wrong, the puppet master and chess player mentality lends itself greatly to arrogance and the many pitfalls of that deadly sin. I've raised the boy well, taught him all he knows, but I haven't taught him all that I know, and I never can.
Apotheosis is achieved in the deluge of sacred blood, and my relationship with my occult felling axe has pushed me farther than any have come in millennia. The Old Gods started the process when they linked me to magic with their curse, laying the seed that I watered with the sanguinary sap of over a hundred face carved weirwood trees, the extinction of the Children of the Forest, and the death of their champion: the rooted Brynden Rivers.
The axe now serves as a focus, allowing me to see deeper into the Greensight than even Brynden's intimate connection through weirwood impalement. So long as it remains at my side, the past, present, and future in Westeros appear as roads to me, with only my own personal strength of will limiting how far and wide I travel.
How can I not appear as a puppet master to the boy, when I freely manipulate destiny to give me the things I want? Case and point, me and my boys are facing down seven of the Riverland's finest on this fine morning for a bit of blood sport and a fat payday. It might seem a bit of a weird flex for a psychic of my caliber, but I have both the meta and local understanding of just how legendary this tourney will be, and a Trial by the Seven for the capstone will elevate it to a position of notoriety that will not be matched in my lifetime. Far more so than had I simply pounded out all my competition, plus I get to keep the war on track.
The four knightly sons of Lord Whent took up their father's cause alongside knights sworn to Darry, Mooton, and Ryger. The man had hoped that the Prince would somehow convince his subverted Kingsguard allies to take the field with his sons, but not only did Rhaegar not want his close connection to the Whent's to come out after his suspicious win in the joust, but the presence of King Aerys II kept them in their place. Instead, Whent chose his champions based on the Riverland houses most vocally outraged by my behavior.
Not that he picked weak but yappy champions, he arrayed a coterie of killers against us, but my champions are men so steeped in blood that they are the focus of nightmares of those still alive in the lands beyond the Wall, and the waking nightmares for many a thrall throughout the North. Big Bucket bedecked in full plate armor is certainly a nightmarish sight. Like my own personal knight of Catarina minus the onion theme.
The foes laughed when I pulled out my felling axe. I kept a tight leash on the mystical elements of the weapon, so it just appeared to be a sap stained double headed lumberjack's tool. Something capable of delivering grievous wounds, but not optimized for the battlefield at all. Despite its appearance, the axe has an edge that will shave a man cleanly and will keep that edge no matter the abuse put to it, and feels both light and agile in the hand. That speedy bit of manipulation is the limit of the magic I can utilize without the runes on the weapon lighting up like wildfire.
I'll be saving those nasty features for the rebellion.
The Whent's personal septon burnt daylight with his sacred dirges and consecration of the event, seemingly overjoyed to have the eyes of the Seven Kingdoms on him as he hammed up his time in the spotlight for all it's worth. Eventually it proved too much for Greatjon, and the man flung some nearby horseshit at the man.
"For fuck's sake! Let's get to killing each other already, before we die of fucking thirst standing out here while the bastard rubs his cock under his robes and thumbs his arse!" the Northman giant screamed in frustration, and I idly wished it could have set off a second trial for us to partake in.
Instead Aerys shouted for us to get on with it already, while he gleefully looked at the septon spitting shit out of his mouth, literally this time.
Like a good servant of the crown, I sprinted to carry out my command, leaving my companions in the dust before starting things off with a flying kick that landed on the heater shield of Walter's eldest, sending the man flying. Heedless of his shocked friends, I hooked the shield of the man and pinned his arm underfoot as I raised up the occult felling axe overhead. I felt a few pings on my armor as I brought the axe down. The oldest Whent boy got his sword braced for the attack, but just because my axe feels light and agile doesn't mean it is, a long handle and two heavy racing geometry heads, the axe was made to be on the bigger end for a man my size and strength. The full weight of my tree felling axe collided with that sword and didn't slow at all as it continued for his helmet where it caved in the steel rather than slide off, biting into the skull and brain meat of the man beneath.
A few blades bounced off my cuirass, rondels, and pauldrons as they tried to angle for my armpits, but I am a canny fighter who limits such openings. They failed to bleed me as I took first blood in this sacred event. I slapped aside the next such attack with the red haft of my axe and swung the back end in a short punch that had the Darry knight scrambling to keep his feet under him as his head tried to fly away. He stumbled but managed to get his shield up to intercept my return stroke. He screamed as the sharp head of the felling axe penetrated the layer of steel and split the wood and leather under before it continued on through his vambrace to taste the meat and bone below.
The desperate Darry knight tried to use this deep bind to yank my weapon out of my hands, but failed to reason that my hands are stronger than his full body movement, and thus all he achieved was pulling my axe free for me and getting it replanted in his chain aventail. He reached up and felt the weapon lodged in his trachea. Then he latched on to it with both hands, trying to keep my axe bound up for his companions to take advantage.
My respect for the man abounded, but I kicked him in the knee anyways, ripping my axe free as he fell over. His sacrifice was in vain, as my companions fought his. Six to five, the Riverland knights fought in tight formation to keep each other from getting flanked or back stabbed. They valiantly traded shots with the Northmen who circled around them happily smashing their weapons on steel plates and shields while controlling the distance of the engagement.
I ruined this circle jerk when I clamped my gauntlet clad hand on the rim of another Whent shield and ripped the thing out of the man's hands, tossing it away and making him battle me mace to axe. Big Bucket also brought a mace to this meeting and thwapped the poor Whent in the head with it. The blow slid off, but the Whent now had to choose to block my axe, or Hugo's next mace strike. He used both hands to push his mace haft into the haft of my axe and though I broke through the block and landed a blow on his shoulder the axe failed to penetrate the pauldron and instead left a nasty dent and likely a broken collar bone. He also took another thwap from Big Bucket that bounced this time, putting more power into the poor head and neck beneath. He still got another block in on me that collapsed completely and finally bit into his armor, but the third mace strike from Big Bucket caused him to collapse to the ground.
"Damn y.." I interrupted the Whent by finally getting in that vitality severing overhead strike that split plate and burst chain.
"That one counts as mine!" Big Bucket raised his mace like a Siegbrew in a Catarina salute, further cementing the image in my mind.
The remaining four saw what we'd done and broke formation, the quartet bursting into action with the goal of claiming my life before they might die, something they needed to achieve quickly after leaving their backs and flanks to bloodthirsty Northmen. Their weapons pinged off me, my armor is the thickest in the Seven Kingdoms and even with all that weight I am still the fastest man on this battlefield. Agility is a function of strength, and I am the strongest.
Not that I simply let them bullrush me. The first comer, the Mooton knight, got his bronze salmon helmet ornament split along with the helmet and skull beneath when he tried to dive for my legs. I engaged the remaining men with my fists, slapping away axes with my gauntlets and delivering a pair of crushing counter punches before my friends brought them to the ground from behind. The six fighters from the North viciously beat the armored men to death with blows from above.
Knowing them to be dead, I stepped away and circled around the violence, looking out at the men and women in the wooden stands witnessing this final, and in my opinion greatest event at the Tourney of Harrenhal. I pointed to my family; Aella, Kodlak, and Skjor clapping while Ulfric looked like a man relieved after a good shit. Galmar - the beefy psycho - had his hands around my concubine's ears as his fingers held her eyes open to the destruction, the front of her yellow dress covered in vomit.
The Royal family watched from a third story balcony with Lord Whent and his wife, and Walter - seeing the maniacal look on the King's face as the man stared at him - climbed up onto the railing and dove off, landing head first on the flagstones below.
That's what you get.
The suicide of Lord Whent got more screams and gasps than the absolute physical destruction of the knights in the arena - though those certainly garnered more than a few womanly shrieks - and I found it to be the perfect little chef's kiss on this glorious encore of brutality. Where once could have been the swan song of an idyllic bygone time, the Tourney of Harrenhal is now firmly an event worthy of Westeros like the Red and Purple Weddings.
In the future when these people feel the great sorrow, despair, and misery this world so readily hands out, when all is regret and pain, when they know it will never change and hate themselves for it, I want them to think back on this tournament, and the Whents, and know deep in their hearts… It can always be worse.
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4REEESEARCH was so impressed by the last chapter he has requested I swap focus away from Fists and the Furious and continue my work here. Thanks for the support, fam.
You too can support me and my family at
ko-fi.com/jmanm
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