munebox | The Valonqar

The two sellswords quickly showed their skill in a display of steel and blood. The leader of the company was cut through only moments after Buffy had knocked him down. The others in the group would soon join the fray, whilst the innkeeper and his wife ducked to safety. The fat baker boy immediately yielded and found somewhere to hide.

Tyrion, knowing better than to try to fight, evaded the battle and tried to stay out of the way of his hired help. Podrick was handling himself remarkably well, though not nearly as well as his three protectors. But bless the boy for trying. Tyrion only wished he had a sword of some kind. Even as he was reaching for his knife, he looked up and saw a fist.

By the time the battle was over, the others had fled. Three corpses littered the ground, but the others were injured parties. Greech was looting the dead ones and seemed keen to continue with the dead ones. Rock, however, was availing himself of his remaining brew.

Podrick, however, was catching his breath. I should have done some sort of trick. If I had, Lord Tyrion wouldn't have turned around and been spotted...

Then he realized that his lord was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly concerned more about the Lannister's life than his own small cuts, he began to look around the tavern. "Lord Tyrion?"

Her skin itched. Buffy tried to tell herself that it wasn't her fault -- that she didn't kill anyone -- but there were bodies at her feet and at least one of them had been skewered straight through while he'd been reeling from the Slayer's punch. So, of course her skin itched. Of course her tongue felt a little thick. She was biting down on an avalanche of emotion. This isn't what you're supposed to be.

The bloodbath left such a look on her face that not even Rock protested when she stole a flagon from his elbow and gulped down a foul-tasting spirit. She didn't care; she just wanted something else to supplant this feeling. She was still busy chugging when she heard Podrick's voice.

She turned her head and dragged the back of her hand across her mouth. Someone had hit her quite fiercely, and her jaw still felt like it was jangling. "Good; you're alive. Where is he?"

Buffy vaulted her way over a cracked bench and started searching at thigh-height for Tyrion.

The more Podrick searched, the more desperate he became.

I've done it again. I've lost another lord.

He question the innkeeper and his wife. When he found the still-yielding baker boy, he learned the truth. A truth he now had to relay to his lady.. brother... person.

"My lad-- Buf-- Ned, ser. They took him. They took Lord Tyrion."

"Bloody hell," Greech muttered. "The imp is as good as dead. These weren't no outlaws. They're the godsdamned Brotherhood."

She held up a hand: a blood-smudged empty palm, pushed forward towards Podrick almost as if to touch him on the chest but ultimately only to try and quiet his rambling report. This hand stayed in place, even as she watched Greech instead.

"There's a Brotherhood? How come no one told me there was a Brotherhood?

A Brotherhood of what?"

"Brotherhood without Banners," Rock answered. "A lot of farmers and sheepherders turned knights. The bastards claim to be trying to save the countryside from the warring lords, but they're little better than outlaws."

"They hate Lannisters," Podrick said pleadingly. "We have to go after him.'

Greech stood up and scowled. "Who's we, boy? If the Brotherhood has your master, he's good and bloody dead by now. There's no coin to be had plunging in after this lot."

"So blow," she told Greech. "Get the hell outta here. If you don't wanna be part of our we, then we don't want you either. It's mutual un-want."

Podrick was panicking. She supposed he needed some sense of solidarity, and so she tossed a careful arm around his shoulder. "Just point us in their direction."

This last statement was opened up to more than just the sellswords. After all, the inn's staff were untouched. Clearly, these outlaws-gone-vigilantes had a prior arrangement. Their compliance upon the Brotherhood's entrance had been downright eerie.

The innkeeper was quiet and seemed uninterested in providing anymore.

"Those fuckin' asses are like ghosts. You won't find 'em with a bit of directions. An' if yer fool enough to take any, it'll be for a trap," Rock said. He then kicked the body of one of the injured men. "But I'll see to it we find out." He then knelt down to the man and cradled the knife in his hand. "You boys won't want to see this."

Podrick felt a small amount of panic to realize what was about to happen. He's going to torture him. Make him scream out what he knows. Urgently he tugged on Buffy's arm. Warrior or not, this was no sight for a proper lady. Already Podrick had an incredible fascination with the floor. "We should go my--- Ned. If Ser Rock says not to watch..."

"Ser Rock should know better than to think he gets to make the calls." Buffy spoke low, only for Podrick's ears. "And I don't like the smell of what he's cooking."

It was a vain sort of joke. Hardly a joke at all, when the circumstances were considered. Kind of a cruel jape used to cope with the impending horror of the moment. Torture. Even if the men on the floor had moved to attack first, she wouldn't see them hurt for this. Like this. Retaliation was one thing; sadism was another.

She didn't turn away. She didn't leave. But she didn't spring into action -- she would give Rock a full ten seconds to get a blurted confession on just the pain of a threat. She would intercede only when blood was certain to pour. After all, she could be -- at times -- just a little bit pragmatic.

Podrick wasn't sure what Rock was cooking, save a vile plot. But one that would save his lord. Greech had plundered the bodies and made his exit already. But if Buffy was to watch this, he would force himself to do the same. He folded his hands together and did not look away.

The sellsword leaned forward and whispered a few threats. Then his knife twisted by the man's fingers. He muttered a promise anyone could hear.

"First I'll take your ten fingers. And then I'll finish with the one you keep between yer legs. Then once I've cooked it in a stew, you can taste it for yourself."

The man held out until Rock placed the knife on a thumb, ready to press it through. Then he blurted everything he knew and promised to guide them through. The sellsword had a nasty little grin as he stood back up and looked at the two 'boys'.

"Come along you two. There's a lordling in need of saving."

That was the moment Podrick realized that without Tyrion around, the sellsword would quickly begin to take charge of this little company. Woman or boy, he wasn't sure if Buffy could wrest it back away.

Buffy released a breath she hadn't been aware she'd been holding -- tense and tight and ready to spring upon the sellsword should the threats turn into anything more. The poor guy on the floor probably wet his pants with all the fear that had been clinging to the walls of the room. It wasn't a proud moment for anyone, she supposed, but for Ser Rock. So Ser Rock had to be knocked down a peg or two.

She waited until they were outside of the blood-soaked inn before pulling him aside. Except pulling him aside still happened in full view of Podrick. "Look, mister. You know who I am. You know a girl sashayed into that room and out came me. You think my Lord Husband is the only one who can control the Lannister gravy train?" Brows were up. Her falsely lowered voice now returned to its usual pitch. "You don't run this show; I do."

Ser Rock fixed her with an arrogant little smirk. Unlike Greech or the others from the tavern, it was clear he didn't fear her. "Your pardon, m'lady. If you'd like to do the leading from here out, by all means. Men take orders from little boys all the time."

Don't drive him away, Lady Buffy. We need him. Podrick dared not voice his thoughts, though. But he knew his lady was unwilling to kill. He'd observed that as much as Tyrion had. If that was the case, they needed Ser Rock to do the things she wouldn't do. Podrick could scarcely imagine how she would have threatened that man if she wasn't willing to loosen some blood to do it.

But he did voice one thing more important. "They loosed our horses."

The horses had been tied down. But they hadn't been stolen. The reins were cut clean through and left hanging. The horses, by now, were scattered to the wind.

Rock was a luddite. An asshole. A teutonic jerk. Such insults rotated 'round in her mind. She missed the days when her enemies quickly realized her worth -- her status -- and would fling insults only in a way that suggested they knew how truly formidable a Slayer could be.

"All the horses?" She asked with annoyance sourced more in the power-struggle than in the loss of a few beasts.

"Not the little lord's," Rock noted as he spotted Tyrion's familiar horse trotting not far away from the river. The other horses were obedient, but his horse had been trained with far more care than the others. So when it was sent running, it didn't go far.

"We can't all ride one horse," Podrick said. Already he was on the way to fetch it, approaching the beast carefully. Tyrion's horse knew Podrick well. He often slept beside the beast and though he never rode it, they had an understanding with one another. Once he had the horse's trust, he turned back to the others. "What do we do now?"

"The way I see it? We have two options."

Buffy reached out and touched the horse's neck. An idle piece of affection -- she was so adrift in a world where she owed it to no one, she found herself with an excess of the stuff. "One of us takes the horse and races ahead, frees Tyrion, and we meet back together somewhere that isn't exactly here but close to it.

Or we all go. Slowly. Most of us on foot."

There was something to be said for her dedication to her husband. She truly did not want to abandon him to his fate. "I'm leaning a little more towards the first."

Rock will volunteer first. For more glory and gold. But he might take the horse and we'll never see him again. If she goes...

"I'll do it," Podrick announced to his own surprise. "He's-- I'm his squire. I should be the one that does it. Please."

"...Podrick. You don't have to go. I can go. I'm okay with going. In fact, me going was kinda the point of the whole--"

She interrupted herself so she could squint at the boy. He really was rather brave, wasn't he?

"But you're his lady. I can't go back with both of you gone. I can't."

I've lost three Lords. I won't lose my Lady, too. You can't make me do that. He knew this might be the death of him. He didn't want to die. But even he, just a boy, had some ounce of honor to consider. And a squire who outlives three of his lords without being old enough to be a knight was little more than a craven.

"And I literally can't go home if anything happens to him," she confessed -- quietly, for Podrick's ears alone. The catch to her pretty little magical locket -- it had conditions.

He shuffled his feet and stared at the ground. "You'll come back, won't you?"

A part of him feared she wouldn't care for his loyalty to Tyrion. She'd rescue him, then take him to the Wall all on her own. Without Podrick or Ser Rock, she'd be able to do whatever she liked. Especially when they were in the North and there were no Lannister friends to be found.

Podrick lacked confidence -- in her, she supposed. And in himself. He needed something to hold onto. Some certainty. She could see that much. She was intuitive enough to note it. So -- trying not to look exasperated with the conclusion -- she dragged the locket off her neck and pressed it urgently into his palm.

He was there for the conversation; he understood what it meant to her.

"There. Now I have to come back."

Rock snorted and rolled his eyes. He did not care to wait, so he turned to go back into the inn and do so over a drink. Podrick, however, nodded solemnly. He wasn't sure he believed all this about her being from another world, or the bits about prophecies and destinies. But the locket, he knew, was valuable to her. That was enough.

"I'll keep it safe, my lady."

With Podrick put to ease, Buffy had to make one last decision with her brain before she let loose her instincts. Should she take the man with her -- the one who had promised to be a guide? She could share Tyrion's horse with him, however inconvenient that may be. The alternative was to leave him behind and hope his instructions were honest. But by now, the Slayer knew not to trust strangers in this strange land.

So he tied the would-be guide's hands together and, in turn, she fastened the rope to the reins. And she made the man -- blessedly slight as he seemed to be a scout of some sort instead of a warrior -- sit in front of her. It was only a matter of hours before he realized the young lad seated behind him in fact had a very modest bustline that had otherwise been hidden by a loose tunic. "Brave lass," he cackled. "Stupid, too. Risking your honour for the imp. Hope he pays more for your courage than he must have for your honour."

And Buffy, more than a little sick of being compared to prostitutes, tore the man's own sleeve to make a gag. "Can't have you yelling out and warning your brothers, right...?" She told him even as she somehow convinced the horse to slow down and take a roughly cut path through the woods.

For hours, Tyrion had been blindfolded. He'd bee harassed, scolded, taunted, and poked at with far more malice than he cared for. When his glib tongue would speak against them, fists from nowhere would humble him, until he learned it was better to not talk at all. It went on like this for some time, even as he listened in on the conversations.

But one voice stood out in particular. It did not become obvious who it was until Tyrion's blindfold was removed and he found himself looking eye to eye with Thoros of Myr, looking down sympathetically at Tyrion.

"It's been ages," he said. "That's a nasty scar you've got."

"It seems I shall have more to go with them," Tyrion said bitterly. "Am I to be taken to your Beric Dondarrion now? I do hope you can find a noose long enough to reach my neck."

"You won't hang," Thoros said. "The lady hangs nobles. But for you, you'll get the same treatment her lord husband did."

"The lady?"

Thoros said no more. He nodded to the men at either side of Tyrion and off they went, further through the forest, to a small clearing where a hooded woman waited to pass sentence on him. Tyrion thought it suddenly that much colder now.

...The brigand had fallen asleep. Unabashedly, he'd conked his head back against Buffy's shoulder and had started snoring. Unfortunately, neither tightening nor loosening the gag seemed to help in that regard. And by sundown, she too wanted to drift off into a nap. The narrow forest path brought only tree after tree; occasionally a squirrel jetted past. At least her side was as good as mended -- she could feel the stiff stretch of new skin. It was slightly dry and irritated, but it didn't hurt like it had before.

Tyrion's horse was urged to plod on until torchlight winked into existence along their flanks. "Someone's out there," she announced to the rustling branches. "It's cool. I get it. CCTV cameras are everywhere." She pulled on the reins and brought the plodding to a stop.

And then the Slayer did a stupid thing. But at least this time, the stupidity was purposeful. She hauled her hostage off the horse and released him to his compatriots -- she had no love for the prospect of holding him ransom for someone else. Likely, in a world like this, the Brotherhood wouldn't even care about this guy. Rather than try anything fancy or even attempt to negotiate, she allowed herself to be taken.

She allowed herself to be marched -- at arrow point -- into a quiet little camp. Tyrion was nowhere to be seen, but neither was there an identifiable leader. There was a man who called himself Lem, and Buffy was brought before him. Because -- according to the man himself -- our Mother Merciless is otherwise indisposed at this time.

The Valonqar

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