The fog had come in overnight. It sat low over the Ashford Meadow when Ser Duncan the Tall walked to the tourney grounds in the early morning, thick enough to swallow the distant treeline and blur the tents into grey shapes. His armour was already on. His shield was strapped to his back.
So far, he had only two men. Himself, and Raymund's cousin Ser Steffon Fossoway, who promised that he will not die on his watch.
The grounds were not empty at this hour, which surprised him. People were already there, standing along the edges in the grey morning light. They turned when they saw him coming.
Someone then stepped forward and murmured something in the name of the Seven. A young woman kissed him on the cheek. An old man with white in his beard took his hand and shook it slowly, with both of his hands.
Duncan stopped at the gestures, freezing.
"I turned up to this tourney grounds to die," he said. "Why are you doing this to me?"
Steely Pate, who was following him, as he was the one that made his armour, stepped forward, arms crossed. "Because you're a knight that remembered his vows, Ser Duncan."
Duncan gulped at the answer, nodded once, and reluctantly walked on.
—
When he arrived at the grounds, two knights were already waiting for him.
Ser Lyonel Baratheon was broad and full of energy, even standing still. He had the stag's horn on his helmet, and the look of a man enjoying himself. Ser Robyn Rhysling stood beside him, older, quiet, with his hands loose at his sides, and one eye that seemed to stare at everything, ever watching.
Duncan went to Lyonel first.
"Ser Lyonel. I'm grateful. When Ser Steffon asked you to—"
"Who in the seven hells is Ser Steffon?"
Duncan stopped talking, confused.
"Your boy-squire was the one that dragged me here," Lyonel said. "Poured a full cup of wine on my head just to get my attention. Wine in my ear and everything."
"I… apologize for that, ser."
"Don't." He waved it off. "Can't even be angry with him. He's a bloody prince." He clapped Duncan on the shoulder. "And what better chance to dirty those pretty white cloaks of the kingsguard, eh?"
Duncan managed a short laugh and turned to Ser Robyn.
"Ser Robyn. Thank you."
"Ser Robyn would die as the king's faithful servant," he said. "But when the crown goes against the gods, Ser Robyn goes against the crown."
Duncan nodded once. It seemed like the appropriate response.
The horn flared.
The two knights filed toward the field as they heard it. Horses were brought up. Duncan put his foot in the stirrup of his own.
Then he heard footsteps behind him.
Two knights were approaching from the edge of the grounds. One he recognised, the plain ill-fitted armour, the shield with the white swallow, the grey rounsey. The Knight of the Swallow. The other wore finer plates, though his shield was as plain as The Swallow, marked with a simple foreign device of eight directions in white. Both carried longswords on their backs. The Swallow's had a unique shape to the hilt.
They stopped in front of him.
"Are we too late to join, ser?" said the one with the finer armour.
"Not at all," Duncan said. "Will you fight for me, ser?"
"Your cause is just," said the Knight of the Swallow. "We will fight for you. If you do not mind the secrecy, of course."
Duncan let out a slow breath. "Thank you. Truly, sers."
—
Finn settled into his saddle, trying to be as comfortable as possible. The horse was calm. He was not. He had ridden it twice since buying it, once around the empty meadow and once around the tent in the dark.
Beside him, Ciri sat on her rounsey with ease, watching the opposing side.
"Did the gods send you, ser?"
Finn turned. Ser Robyn had moved his horse alongside and was looking at him with his one eye sharply.
"Sadly no," Finn said. "I would know if they had."
"Then perhaps you are here to fix a mistake. To veer fate back toward its intended course."
Finn's mouth dried at that statement. He isn't a mad knight for nothing. "Something like that, ser."
"Then what shall I call you?"
"I am just a wanderer, ser," Finn said. "Nothing more, nothing less."
"The Wandering Knight." Robyn nodded slowly. "An honour to fight alongside you, ser."
"Likewise."
He turned back to the field before Robyn could ask anything else.
Lyonel had dismounted and was performing a quick, apparently enthusiastic knighting of the apple-armoured young man, who looked fearless and enraged in equal measure. Duncan had ridden forward to parley with Lord Ashford and Aerion, a formal exchange before the trial.
Finn looked at the opposing seven. Armoured in either black or white, the Targaryen dragon on more than one shield. Trained men, all of them. Especially the kingsguard. He gripped his reins and did not think about what Hardyng and Beesbury's fate had been supposed to be.
"You okay?" Ciri said quietly.
"Not really," Finn said. "But what's done is done. Let's just try to get out of this alive."
She said nothing after that. She turned back to the field.
Duncan came back from the parley and faced the crowd, pleading to it, as he was missing one person. He went to Lord Leo Tyrell first. A polite refusal. Then Lord Tully. The same. Then he rode toward the Brute of Bracken, and whatever passed between them was enough to break something within Duncan.
When Duncan turned away from Bracken and faced the crowd, his voice carried across the whole grounds.
"Has courage deserted the noble houses of Westeros?!" The deference of his voice was gone. "I will not believe it is so! Are there no true knights among you?!"
People looked at their boots. At their sides. Anywhere else. Duncan's call gets ignored.
But then, there was movement at the far end of the field.
A knight rode in, all in black, the three-headed dragon on his shield. Someone in the crowd said Valarr's name, guessing. Then everyone went quiet when the knight showed his face.
It was Baelor himself. Prince Baelor Breakspear rode to the centre of the grounds and announced he would take Ser Duncan's side.
The crowd broke into loud noise, already forgetting that they were the honourless one just seconds before.
Finn exhaled.
And so it begins…
—
The knights of Duncan's side gathered around Baelor, who wasted no time in forming a strategy.
His servants moved through the group handing out tourney lances, that is longer than war lances, so the extra reach made the difference in the first tilt. Baelor spoke while they worked.
"The goal is to unhorse them and bring the fight to the ground," he said. "Stay in formation on the charge. Set your lance as long as you can manage. They will not be gentle about this."
"And the kingsguard, your grace?" Finn said.
Baelor looked at him. "I will handle the kingsguard. They are sworn to me. They cannot raise arms against me."
"Is that honorable, my prince?" said Ser Robyn.
"Let the gods decide that, ser."
Finn looked at the three white cloaks across the field. "There are three of them and one of you."
"Then try to survive," Baelor said simply. "Be vigilant. Stay together. And don't die."
That was the end of the strategy. As simply as that.
—
They lined up at their end of the field. Seven on each side, the fog still hanging low over the field. Finn looked across at the opposing line. Black and white armour. The dragon on half their shields. Three white cloaks among them.
He gripped his lance and fixed his eyes on the kingsguard directly opposite him.
Beside him, Ciri was still. The grey rounsey didn't move.
The horn flared.
Finn kicked his horse forward.
The field came at him fast. Behind him, he was dimly aware that Duncan had not moved. Frozen in the saddle. He didn't look back. He kept his eyes on the kingsguard opposite and let whatever was happening behind him happen.
He waited. Let the kingsguard commit.
Then, at the last moment, he dropped his lance low. The tip caught the front legs of the kingsguard's horse and the animal went down hard, sending its rider pitching forward into the dirt in a crash. Finn's lance splintered in his grip. He threw the shaft aside and veered off, wheeling back to face the kingsguard.
Around him the first charge had already broken into separate fights. Ciri had taken her kingsguard's lance clean on the shield and was wheeling for a second pass. Lyonel had gone straight away from his opponent and was charging towards Makear. Ser Robyn fought two men at once with the unhurried patience of a mad man, though one of them fell off and stayed there, Daeron. Baelor fought Maekar fiercely, with the both of them still on their horses. Duncan had finally moved, late off the line, but was in it now on foot, taking hits and giving them back to Aerion with the stubbornness of an ox.
Finn thought about staying mounted. The height. The momentum. It'll give him an edge. But the horse was a night's old to him and he didn't trust his own skill or horseback. Whatever advantage it might give could just as easily turn on him. He dismounted as he closed in on the fallen kingsguard, who was already on his feet, sword out, looking at his dying horse.
"What manner of honourless act was that, ser?" His voice was tight with anger.
"Forgive me," Finn said. "But this is a matter of war. And all is fair in love and war, ser. Besides, I do remember your prince tried something similar yesterday, during a rather more harmless joust."
The kingsguard came at him without further conversation.
He was better than Finn. Significantly better. Finn was no veteran, and definitely no kingsguard. Though, he had fought plenty of people during his travels, he had picked up what he could from experienced fighters in different worlds, but that was a different thing from what was in front of him now.
Finn gave ground. He had decided in the first three exchanges that winning this fight outright was not something he was able to do, so he stopped trying and started managing it instead. He deflected what he could, turned the blade rather than stopping it, used his reach when he had it and retreated when he didn't. The kingsguard gave pressure steadily across the field, probing, looking for the gap that Finn was working very hard not to give him.
A heavy overhead swing came. Finn caught it on the flat and let it ride off to the side rather than taking the full weight of it. His arms rang with the impact anyway. He stepped back, reset, came forward with a thrust that the kingsguard turned aside almost lazily.
There comes another exchange. Finn's blade skidded off a pauldron and the kingsguard's answer caught him across the vambrace hard enough to make his fingers go briefly numb. He switched grip, worked the sword back, and put distance between them.
He was bleeding somewhere inside the gauntlet. But he didn't look.
Between bouts he watched the field. Ciri had been unhorsed by her kingsguard opponent on the second pass and was now on foot, moving fast, her sword working at angles the man clearly hadn't expected. She was driving him back toward the fence, pressing the advantage, when a second kingsguard opponent came at her from the side, as he left his own opponent quite abruptly, Ser Robyn.
She caught the blow on her pauldron and it knocked her sideways, hard, her knee hitting the ground. She got up fast but not before the second man's sword caught her across the ribs, the blade skipping off the breastplate but the impact solid enough that she grabbed her side and staggered a step. She reset her footing, and faced both of them.
Two on one. She gave ground and kept her sword moving and somehow kept both of them busy, but she was breathing harder now and her left arm wasn't moving quite the way it had been before the hit to the pauldron.
Finn filed it away and couldn't do anything about it.
The kingsguard in front of him meanwhile feinted low and went wide and the blade caught him between the plates, not deep but solid enough that his breath left him all at once and he went down on one knee. The kingsguard stepped back and waited.
He got up.
The kingsguard came again. Finn was slower now and they both knew it. He stopped trying to match the man blow for blow and started doing the only thing left to him, which was making himself as awkward and inconvenient as possible. He clinched when he could. He changed direction unpredictably. He threw his shield at the man's feet at one point, which accomplished nothing tactically but bought him two seconds and a look of genuine surprise.
Then the kingsguard got through properly.
The blade found the gap at Finn's side where the plate met the mail, and it went in. Again, not deep, he was already twisting away when it landed, but deep enough. He felt the burn of it immediately, and his whole left side seized up around it. He stumbled back, got his sword up, kept his feet.
The kingsguard pressed the advantage. Finn blocked the next two blows on instinct alone, arms working without his full involvement, the pain narrowing his world down to the next few seconds.
He checked on Ciri between breaths even still. She was still standing. One of her opponents was down. The other had her backed against the fence and she was using the post to stop him getting behind her, her left arm hanging lower than it should have been, fighting one-handed and making it work through sheer stubbornness.
Then he saw Maekar.
Prince Maekar had put Lyonel down and was moving toward Duncan, mace in hand, as he was pummeling on Aerion. Baelor cut across to slow him, buying a handful of seconds.
Finn shoved his kingsguard back with both hands and turned and ran. His side screamed at him. He kept running anyway.
Lyonel was already getting up when Finn reached him, spitting blood, rolling his shoulder.
They put themselves between Maekar and Duncan's fight against Aerion. Baelor had trudded off, dealing with the kingsguard, or at least making them unable to near Maekar.
Maekar stopped. He looked at them, then past them.
"Move aside," he said.
"With respect, your grace," Finn said, still catching his breath, one hand pressed against his side. "No."
Lyonel didn't say anything. He just stood there.
Maekar attacked.
He was stronger than Finn and the mace made every hit make Finn regret every single second of joining in this trial. Finn went purely defensive, keeping himself moving, staying out of the path of anything that would end things immediately. Lyonel took the heavier work, absorbing blows that would have folded Finn in half.
Maekar hit Finn across the helm and the world went white and tilted. He stumbled sideways, his injured side folding under the shift in weight, and went down on one knee. He got up. Slower than before. The wound in his side was bleeding properly now, he could feel it soaking into the padding beneath the plate, warm and persistent.
Maekar grabbed him by the gorget and threw him. Finn hit the ground and the impact drove the air out of him and sent white sparks across his vision. He lay there for one second, then two, then rolled over and got his arms under him.
He got up.
"My boy!" He heard Maekar's voice cracked. "Aerion!"
Finn got his sword up and kept his feet and didn't look away.
—
Aerion's voice, high and ragged, came as Duncan dragged him across the field and made him face Lord Ashford. He told him to yield. Then again. Then a third time with the desperation of a man who had stopped caring about anything except making it stop.
Maekar stopped mid-swing as he tried to push Lyonel and Finn away.
Finn turned.
Duncan was on his feet, barely. His helm was off. Aerion was on the ground with one arm raised, the fight completely gone out of him. Mud all over. Duncan grabbed him and show the prince's face to Lord Ashford.
Then the field went quiet.
"I withdraw my accusation."
The crowd's noise broke open. After the silence the noise was enormous, a single roar that Finn felt through his boots.
He lowered his sword. His left side was wet inside the plate. His legs were shaking slightly.
Lyonel let out a long breath and spat blood onto the grass. "Good fight," he said, to no one in particular.
Maekar pushed past them and walked toward his son. Finn let him go.
He looked for Ciri.
She was on the far side of the field, visor up. She had her left arm pressed against her side, fingers splayed over the dented breastplate where the kingsguard had hit her. She was upright. She caught his eye.
He walked toward her.
"You're hurt," she said, when he reached her.
"So are you," he said.
She looked down at her arm, then back at him. "Mine's probably not serious."
"Mine's probably not either," Finn said.
He wasn't sure if that was true. He didn't say so.