"Smart sellsword—mind your skin. I'd hate to be looking at your corpse when it comes time to heap gold dragons on you." Through the slit of his antlered greathelm, Kal cast a teasing look at Bronn, who had hurried up to show off.
Just then, Jon Snow and Hall, who had broken through the front and slipped in at the breach, caught up to him.
With them came Timett and Chella.
"Boss!"
"My lord!"
"King!"
He heard every kind of address. At the word "King," Kal's gaze lingered a heartbeat on Chella. He offered no correction. Instead, he watched the passage choke with more and more of their own, swarming past him in a rush to chase down and butcher the Lannister soldiers posted to hold the gate.
"I need you to take command of the fighting—lock down our victory step by step. Don't let our dead die for nothing."
"Once your footing's firm, wheel the whole line toward that red castle. I'll be waiting for you at the Red Keep."
He rattled off the orders without laying out anything more elaborate. First, these wildlings were never going to manage it without hard drilling; second, they didn't need to.
He only needed them to kill, and to sow confusion—
—to cut down every Westerman they saw in red and gold,
—to throw King's Landing, now held by Lannister troops, into chaos.
Having set Chella and Timett to it—and not seeing Shagga anywhere—Kal let it be.
Then he looked to Jon and Hall. "As for you two—come with me."
With those brief orders given, Kal spoke no more. He stepped through the blood and meat underfoot in long strides toward the gilded longsword he had hurled a moment ago—after carving a swathe through men, it had finally pinned itself into a stone of the gateway wall.
"My lord, may I have the honor of following at your side?"
Just as he pulled his gilded longsword—its enchantments leaving it unscathed—from the wall, Kal Stone seemed not to spare him a glance; Bronn, ignoring the chance to keep killing for credit, hurried forward, dropped to one knee, and looked up at him.
"You would swear to me?"
Kal gave the longsword a testing sweep, let the warhammer fall, shifted the gilded blade into his right hand, and asked as he looked at Bronn.
After breaking the gate, the hammer had little use left—though it was still good for smashing men. But for the street fighting to come, it was far less nimble than the gilded longsword.
So he simply set down the heavy warhammer he had brought out of the game world on purpose, switched the gilded longsword back to his right hand, and prepared to use it.
"If you permit it, my lord, it would be my honor!"
He hadn't expected Kal Stone to ask outright. Bronn's face lit up; he answered without a moment's hesitation.
He was a shrewd man, and he had long since inquired, gathered, and closely analyzed the situation of this bastard who had just become Warden of the East.
It was why he hadn't chosen to enlist under Eddard Stark's call and take his coin. He had stayed by design, and he had waited—specifically—for Kal Stone. He had even talked a band of like-minded sellswords, hungry to profit from war, into doing the same to draw Kal's eye.
"I accept your fealty. What I want after this is to see your loyalty."
The fighting was urgent; the killing din never paused. Seeing that an old fox like Bronn wanted to invest in him, Kal had no reason to refuse. With that brief reply, he turned with his longsword and headed into King's Landing.
Behind him came three—led by Jon Snow, with Hall and Bronn.
But scarcely had he passed the Dragon Gate and looked up at the vast, ruined Dragonpit crowning Rhaenys's Hill than something else caught his eye: a giant of a man, swinging a great two-handed sword, hewing several of their own into pieces as he came on at a slow tread through blood and entrails.
Staring at the burly hulk who turned the corner—a man nearly 2.4 meters tall—Kal, sword in hand and ready to cut his way into the Red Keep for a look, had to stop short.
And the giant before him had not come alone.
Behind the man, a wave of Lannister soldiers poured out, rushing the clan wildlings who had forced the gate and flooded into the city beside Kal.
With two casual cuts, Kal took the heads off a pair of witless Lannister footmen who had come looking for trouble. He noticed these were men dispatched after the breach was discovered—reinforcements sent to plug the gate.
Taking in the chaos anew, Kal glanced at the giant mowing men down ahead, then snapped a kick that sent flying an enemy lunging for Jon Snow's neck.
He raised a hand toward Jon and the others, pointing to a corner by the inner side of the gate arch.
"Go through here—just clear me a space."
"Leave that one to me."
Kal issued his orders fast and clean.
Those who had been about to set off for the Red Keep saw their path blocked; in front of them, out of nowhere, at least several hundred fully armored footmen had appeared at a glance—and a giant was swinging a two-handed greatsword, hacking wildly in every direction.
They understood at once: if they did not resolve this spot, they would not only be unable to advance a single step, but the hard-won gate would be retaken by the enemy.
Yet too few of their own had pushed into the city, and these Lannister troops—clearly elite at a glance—were not going to be easy to deal with.
At Kal's command, Jon and the others looked left and right, then nodded quickly. Shouting orders as they went, they covered one another, cut down two foes, and fell back toward the corner, yielding a broad stretch of ground before them.
As they shifted, the Lannister soldiers opposite—having lost four or five men to the same fearsome display of force—likewise, with wordless accord, skirted around this patch of certain death.
Only, one highland clansman on Kal's side, who had just helped a companion bring down a Lannister soldier, overran in his bloodlust and dashed past the giant.
Seeing a man deliver himself, the giant gave his tilted greatsword a casual upward flick. The wildling's eyes froze in stunned disbelief as he toppled in two pieces.
The splash of blood cooled the battlefield again, and a strange tableau took shape.
Out of the former chaos, two absolute no-go zones appeared—spaces neither side dared approach.
Men on both sides paired off and fought, but their movements gradually slowed.
Without meaning to, everyone's attention gathered on the centers of those two clearings—on the tall and the short who faced each other there, trading stares. Kal, gaze indifferent, regarded the giant who could wield a two-handed greatsword one-handed with ease—whose raw strength could, with an idle stroke, hew a man clean in two.
Kal's appraising look pierced the narrow slit meant for seeing.
He met the eyes inside the helmet that were looking back.
"The Mountain—Gregor Clegane?!"
Staring at the iron giant, Kal could not think of anyone in the world of Ice and Fire who would be dressed like this—and be this massively built and tall.
Gregor Clegane wore a flat-topped greathelm, its crown adorned with a stone fist pointing at the sky. The helmet was so tightly sealed it left only tiny breathing holes for mouth and nose.
In answer to Kal's question, he flicked the blood from his greatsword with his right hand. The black-iron-rimmed shield of thick oak in his left shifted a fraction, revealing three black hounds on a yellow field.
It was the sigil of House Clegane.
In his hands the shield seemed to serve little practical purpose; as a matched piece of his kit, he used it more as a badge to show who he was.
Hearing his name called, Gregor tilted his head, twisted his neck, and lowered his gaze to look down at the man addressing him.
He took note of the antlered greathelm and the gilded longsword. Coupled with a height that stood head and shoulders above the crowd, the Mountain knew who stood before him.
Heavy breathing rasped within the flat-topped helm.
"Kal Stone? Robert Baratheon's bastard?"
"The sword in your hand isn't yours. But don't worry—because in a moment I'll squeeze your head together with that ridiculous helm on it!"
The Mountain's voice was low and rough, like two stones grinding—harsh, grating, and impossible to ignore.
At the taunt, Kal let his gaze travel over the armor said to be the heaviest and thickest in the Seven Kingdoms, too much for an ordinary man even to lift; beneath it the Mountain wore chain mail and boiled leather.
Armed to the teeth—an undisputed battlefield tank of the age of cold steel.
Kal snorted.
"I think I hear a dog barking, yet all I see is a cowardly rat that needs iron wrapped around it to feel safe."
"Though this rat does look a little fatter than the rest."
Kal was no mute in the face of the Mountain's insults.
The Mountain, hearing that, seemed never to have imagined anyone would compare him to a rat. At Kal's counter, Gregor Clegane actually froze for a heartbeat.
"Rat? Cowardly?" He rolled his neck, as if to confirm the bastard before him was speaking to him.
Around them, the deliberately hushed shouts and killing seemed to answer the question.
Realizing Kal Stone was calling him a timid rat, the Mountain's anger flared.
"No. I'm no rat, and I won't let you die so easily—even if Lord Tywin has put a price of three hundred thousand gold dragons on your head!"
As he spoke, Gregor gave his greatsword a savage sweep; that rough, rock-grinding voice boomed from within the flat helm, making eardrums hum.
And in the instant the words left him, his patience ran out.
He slanted the shield in his left hand, leveled the two-handed greatsword in his right, stamped the ground hard—leaving a shallow depression where his boot fell—and launched like a galloping horse, charging straight for Kal.
As he thundered forward, the crowd scraped past his flanks; most people rose no higher than his elbows or forearms.
It looked as if he were simply striding through a wheat field.
Coupled with the weight of his armor, he was a moving wall of iron bearing straight down on Kal.
The crimson two-handed greatsword gripped in his hands came up when he closed to less than 5 m. He hewed down with the blood-slick blade, tearing the air and bringing a heavy, howling crash straight for Kal's skull.
In this world, no one could withstand his full-force blow.
Even if an elite fighter managed to get a shield—or even a weapon—up to meet the Mountain's strike, the senseless brute power that followed would pulp any fool who dared stand in its path.
As the greatsword fell, Gregor Clegane knew it would hack through every obstruction.
Yet faced with that terrifying stroke, Kal neither flinched nor dodged. He stood there as if stunned—until the instant the greatsword was about to crash onto the antlered helm.
Kal flicked up the gilded longsword in his hand in a quick blur.
Had anyone's eyes been sharp enough to track the motion, they would have seen him pinch the hilt between his fingers, twist, and give the blade a shaking turn—a neat flourish.
In the sun, the gilded steel kindled a barely perceptible gleam, as if the polished blade had caught the sky.
The movement was offhand, yet it slipped in ahead of the falling stroke; amid the dizzying blur, there came a single bright clang of steel on steel—and then onlookers realized Kal Stone had stopped Gregor Clegane's cleaving blow.
Only after taking that strike did Kal Stone, antlered greathelm and all, lift his chin with amused interest to look at the Mountain.
"Is that all?"
There was a faintly curious note in his voice.
Outside the game world's ogres, trolls, and giants, Kal had never, in real life, crossed blades with an armored humanoid taller and stronger than himself.
Gregor Clegane was immensely tall and massively built and he wore the heaviest, thickest armor in the Seven Kingdoms, plate so burdensome an ordinary man could not even lift it.
And yet that furious charge and chop, when it struck Kal's upraised sword, only made the blade quiver—like a grasshopper leaping to another stalk of grass. A breeze off the horizon might have set it swaying more.
Through the slit of his helm, Kal met the startled eyes peering down at him from the other narrow visor, close enough to touch.
The corner of Kal's mouth ticked up; a laugh sounded from within the mask that hid his face. "If that's all, then here's what I can tell you: keep training."
"But I'm afraid you won't get the chance."
"Because, unlike your pity, your head is a fine gift to me."
With the taunt delivered, Kal snorted again. The hand holding his sword gave a slight shake and lift.
Gregor Clegane's greatsword was still pressed to Kal's blade when, before he could even be shocked by what had just happened, a nameless, colossal force surged from the point where their swords met.
That sudden, irresistible power jolted violently along his greatsword.
Completely unprepared, Gregor nearly lost his grip.
The shock hurled him backward; he staggered several steps before he managed to plant his feet and keep from falling.
Once steady, the gaze inside the flat-topped helm changed as he looked at Kal Stone. Taller and far heavier than Kal by a great margin, he now felt like a small child holding a stick found in the fields and woods—brought home to "play" with his knightly father.
Before power on a wholly different level, he was nothing but a rag.
Around them, soldiers on both sides—who had been fighting absent-mindedly while watching the duel—stopped what they were doing in unison.
They heard the thudding footfalls, and they saw with their own eyes the Mountain, who had charged and struck, rebound off a smaller man.
Lannister footmen and the Highland Clan wildlings under Kal alike stared wide-eyed, mouths agape, shock written across their faces.
Such an unbelievable, shattering sight so simply contradicted the worldview they had built over decades.
A miracle had happened before their eyes.
Confronted with a scene beyond understanding, foes who had been fighting to the death reached a momentary truce, all freezing to gape at the two men.
After all, what they had just seen was like a rabbit standing up and casually throwing a lion over its shoulder.
"Sev— Seven above!"
The trembling prayer came from a Lannister soldier whose worldview had collapsed.
The Highland wildlings sworn to Kal had no such trouble—they did not believe in the Seven.
But while the crowd was still reeling from what they had seen, Kal did not relent.
Catching the instant the Mountain had just regained his footing, he swept up the gilded longsword and charged back in.
The gilded blade that had once belonged to the Kingslayer seemed to shine in his hands.
With the slash cutting straight for his chest, Gregor had no time to lift his two-handed greatsword to parry. He could only raise his shield.
[Srrrip!]
A heartbeat later, the tough shield parted like rotten cloth. With a strange, fabric-tearing sound, the gilded blade sheared it clean in two.
The sunlight the shield had blocked followed the flash of steel and fell across the Mountain's face.
Dazzled by the light, the pupils inside the greathelm widened uncontrollably.
But he wasn't looking at the sun overhead.
What he saw was his shield split in his hand—and more than one fragment was falling.
At the same instant, the left arm he had raised suddenly felt light.
That sudden turn made him misjudge his strength and his line. He threw his weight the wrong way; his guard gaped open, and the feet he had only just steadied slipped backward again.
A corpse snagged under his boot.
It was the mangled half-body he had just hacked in two.
The man had been cut at the waist, yet had not died. He seized the Mountain's retreating leg and, with all he had left, wrapped both arms around it.
Gregor Clegane went down.
As he toppled, a keen ring of steel sounded; a breath like wind brushed across his neck.
The Mountain's falling bulk—crushingly heavy—pressed the last breath from the one who had come to claim his life.
But the head inside the flat-topped greathelm rose as if defying gravity.
Kal did not draw back the longsword he had swung.
The Mountain's head tumbled twice in midair and dropped squarely onto the sword's tip.
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