Chapter 93 90

The Vale. 298 AC.

A wide, flat expanse enclosed on all sides by gentle slopes of rock. In shape it resembled a copse of trees. And within it, a battle was being fought to the death. Three hundred horsemen clashing against a thousand men. The commanders of two armies had met in single combat, but one side had refused an honest fight and, with outside aid, managed to wound its enemy grievously. Lord Axel Arryn, the commander who inspired his men to deeds of valor, the moral heart of his army, was falling from his horse. And with him, his soldiers were beginning to lose their will to fight.

...

Lord Axel Arryn.

At the last moment I steadied myself and kept from tumbling out of the saddle. The wound was, to put it mildly, unpleasant. A Valyrian sword cuts cleanly. Corbray is not considered a skilled swordsman without reason. Very few men can last more than five exchanges against me at all. One might say he acted dishonorably by using his men as tools, but I do not see it that way. This is war. Only the result matters, and Corbray had achieved his.

For another man, a wound like this would have been fatal. But my body is far superior to most. Since childhood I had been saturating it with energy drawn from the wraith world, not only increasing my conductivity to magic and my natural resistance to it, but expanding my body's very potential. Accounting for the vast theoretical knowledge from my past life and the abundant practical experience of this one, the sum of it is this: I am physically stronger than Robert, only Oberyn can match me for speed, and as for martial craft there is nothing more to say. Turning, I saw an unpleasant sight. My companions were seasoned men who knew full well what a blow like that does to a person. And they had nearly given up, already counting me among the dead. I had to lift their spirits, or things would go badly.

Corbray, for his part, was not idle. He moved to finish me with a downward strike, but did not succeed. I parried. Some other fellow lunged at me and lost his right arm for the trouble.

Without question, I am standing at the edge of life and death right now, I thought, and I was certain there was a wide smile on my face.

At some point I broke away from Corbray, which gave me a moment to breathe.

"MY LORD!!!" The hope flooding back into my warriors' eyes was plain to see.

"AH-HA-HA!!!" I could not help but laugh, drawing bewildered looks from all around. "In a battle between tacticians, I have turned over every possible option, but, as I feared, I cannot devise a plan for this situation." The truth of it seemed to shock everyone present.

"He's surrendered. The Falcon's Eye... he's surrendered?!" The enemy horsemen misread my words entirely.

"THEN WE'LL TAKE YOUR HEAD!" Someone, emboldened by the moment, chose to charge me on that wave of bravado. He quickly lost his own head instead.

"ha-ha! No one said anything about losing. If no plan can be devised, then we will simply use brute force." If Brynden believed he could beat me with a mob of peasants, he was gravely mistaken. "ALL SOLDIERS OF MINE! I HAVE AN ORDER FOR YOU! IF THE ENEMY OUTNUMBERS US TEN TO ONE, THEN EACH OF YOU MUST KILL TEN REBELS! YOU ARE FORBIDDEN FROM DYING BEFORE YOU HAVE DONE SO! FIGHT LIKE BEASTS! THE TIME HAS COME TO PROVE THAT WE ARE UNDEFEATABLE!"

"OOOOH!!!" They fell upon the enemy with renewed fury at once.

"FORWARD!!!" Even without a command they restored the perimeter, cutting me and the approaching Corbray off from the rest of the melee.

"You can barely stay in the saddle, you stubborn bastard! Your death is already decided!"

"Not today." The old Braavosi saying came to mind. "And my first order of business is killing you."

...

Ser Lyn Corbray.

Arryn's black stallion, as though it had understood its master's words, wheeled to face me squarely. A downward strike followed, delivered by a man who should have been a corpse. He took it on a hard block. Gone was the sensation of all-consuming force, of blinding speed. As he absorbed the blow, his sword did not shift by so much as an inch. The smile that so infuriated people played on my lips. I could admit to myself that I was savoring the helplessness of the monster.

But a moment later, the exuberant smile faded.

I could not believe that a man carrying wounds this severe could overpower me. Golden Wing, the Valyrian sword of Axel Arryn, descended slowly toward my neck, dismissing my resistance as though it were nothing. I was frozen, capable only of pushing back directly. Strength against strength, will against will, and in that contest Arryn was winning. The blade came to rest against my neck first, and a moment later it began to cut. The pressure he applied tilted my body. I tried to pull away from the sword, but at a certain point there was nowhere left to go, and at the end, with a sickening sound, my head was parted from my body.

Impossible, was the last thought of Ser Lyn Corbray.

…

Lord Axel Arryn.

When the corpse of one of the rebellion's pillars toppled from his horse, most of Corbray's men lost their will to fight. There were those, however, who were seized by fury and came charging at me heedless of everything. These were cut down quickly, held away from me before they could close the distance. Even so, one managed to slip through. A young man bearing the unmistakable features of the main line of House Corbray killed two riders and came screaming toward me.

I had nothing left to defend myself with. The grinding battle and my many wounds had spent me, and killing Lyn had drawn on the last of my strength. My mind was drifting, my head spinning, my body wretchedly weak. I saw the sword sweeping toward my head, but at the last moment Morgan intercepted the blow and put himself between me and the danger. My would-be killer was run through with spears by men of the second detachment who arrived just in time.

"Morgan, sound the retreat." Without a word he put the horn to his lips. "RIDE LEFT!!! KHM!" Blood came from my mouth. I should not have shouted like that.

"Are you certain?"

"I cannot say for sure, but there should be an opening."

My words were confirmed an instant later when fighting erupted on the left flank. The remnants of Jasper Redfort's company came crashing into the enemy line and were carving their way through toward us. The days I had spent gathering information on the Redfort heir had not been wasted. Knowing his character, it was not difficult to understand that in the event of a retreat, Jasper would attack directly, trying to draw the enemy's strength away.

My mind began to clear, and the weakness drew back. Knowing that without a strong central attacker our group would bog down in the infantry, I had to push forward myself. It did not last long. Redfort's company, emptying its last reserves, opened a path for us. It was desperately narrow, but we could get through.

At last I saw Jasper Redfort's true strength on full display. The two-meter Redfort was wielding a two-handed sword in one hand as though it were an ordinary stick. Where I used skill and power together to kill my enemies, Redfort simply crushed everything in his path with sheer, mindless force. There was no dodging his blows, no blocking them. Severed limbs flew in every direction. And at last, the moment everyone had been waiting for arrived.

"WE BROKE THROUGH!"

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