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Tyrion

The north went on forever

Tyrion Lannister knew the ht on the wild track that passed for the kingsroad up here had brought ho and the land quite another

They had left Winterfell on the sa, a out to the sound of ons and the groaning of the queen’s huge wheelhouse, as a light snow flurried about thesroad was just beyond the sprawl of castle and town There the banners and the wagons and the colu the tumult with them, while Tyrion turned north with Benjen Stark and his nephew

It had grown colder after that, and far rey and rugged, with tall watchtowers on their stony su to a rolling plain that stretched away as far as the eye could see Stone bridges spanned swift, narrow rivers, while ss around holdfasts walled in wood and stone The road ell trafficked, and at night for their comfort there were rude inns to be found

Three days ride froave way to dense wood, and the kingsroad grew lonely The flint hills rose higher and wilder with each passing mile, until by the fifth day they had turned into ed promontories and snow on their shoulders When the wind blew froh peaks like banners

With the mountains a wall to the west, the road veered north by northeast through the wood, a forest of oak and evergreen and black brier that seemed older and darker than any Tyrion had ever seen "The ood," Benjen Stark called it, and indeed their nights came alive with the howls of distant packs, and some not so distant Jon Snow’s albino direwolf pricked up his ears at the nightly howling, but never raised his own voice in reply There was soht

There were eight in the party by then, not counting the wolf Tyrion traveled with two of his own men, as befit a Lannister Benjen Stark had only his bastard nephew and soe of the ood they stayed a night behind the wooden walls of a forest holdfast, and there joined up with another of the black brothers, one Yoren Yoren was stooped and sinister, his features hidden behind a beard as black as his clothing, but he seeh as an old root and as hard as stone With hiers "Rapers," Yoren said with a cold look at his charges Tyrion understood Life on the Wall was said to be hard, but no doubt it was preferable to castration

Five e of ravens given over to Benjen Stark by Maester Luwin No doubt they sroad, or any road

Tyrion noticed Jon Snoatching Yoren and his sullen companions, with an odd cast to his face that looked uncomfortably like dismay Yoren had a twisted shoulder and a sour sreasy and full of lice, his clothing old, patched, and seldo recruits smelled even worse, and seemed as stupid as they were cruel

No doubt the boy had ht’s Watch was made up of men like his uncle If so, Yoren and his co Tyrion felt sorry for the boy He had chosen a hard lifeor perhaps he should say that a hard life had been chosen for him

He had rather less sympathy for the uncle Benjen Stark seemed to share his brother’s distaste for Lannisters, and he had not been pleased when Tyrion had told him of his intentions "I warn you, Lannister, you’ll find no inns at the Wall," he had said, looking down on him

"No doubt you’ll find soht have noticed, I’m small"

One did not say no to the queen’s brother, of course, so that had settled the matter, but Stark had not been happy "You will not like the ride, I promise you that," he’d said curtly, and since the moment they set out, he had done all he could to live up to that promise

By the end of the first week, Tyrion’s thighs were raw fro badly, and he was chilled to the bone He did not coive Benjen Stark that satisfaction

He took a s fur, a tattered bearskin, old andStark had offered it to hiallantry, no doubt expecting hiraciously decline Tyrion had accepted with a s with him when they rode out of Winterfell, and soon discovered that it was nowhere near warhts ell below freezing now, and when the wind bleas like a knife cutting right through his war his chivalrous impulse Perhaps he had learned a lesson The Lannisters never declined, graciously or otherwise The Lannisters took as offered

Farrew scarcer and smaller as they pressed northward, ever deeper into the darkness of the ood, until finally there were no more roofs to shelter under, and they were thrown back on their own resources

Tyrion was neverone Too small, too hobbled, too in-the-way So while Stark and Yoren and the other men erected rude shelters, tended the horses, and built a fire, it becao off by hiht of their journey, the as a rare sweet aht all the way north from Casterly Rock, and the book a ruons With Lord Eddard Stark’s permission, Tyrion had borrowed a few rare volumes from the Winterfell library and packed them for the ride north

He found a comfortable spot just beyond the noise of the ca strearotesquely ancient oak provided shelter fro wind Tyrion curled up in his fur with his back against the trunk, took a sip of the wine, and began to read about the properties of dragonbone Dragonbone is black because of its high iron content, the book told hihter and far onbone bows are greatly prized by the Dothraki, and se any wooden bow

Tyrion had a ons When he had first co to Robert Baratheon, he hadon the walls of Targaryen’s throne roo Robert had replaced them with banners and tapestries, but Tyrion had persisted until he found the skulls in the dank cellar where they had been stored

He had expected to find theht to find them beautiful Yet they were As black as onyx, polished sht of his torch They liked the fire, he sensed He’d thrust the torch into the er skulls and made the shadows leap and dance on the wall behind hi knives of black dia to thereater fires When he had moved away, Tyrion could have sworn that the beast’s eo

There were nineteen skulls The oldest was est a mere century and a half The er than mastiff’s skulls, and oddly s born on Dragonstone They were the last of the Targaryen dragons, perhaps the last dragons anywhere, and they had not lived very long

Froreat aryen and his sisters had unleashed on the Seven Kingdoods: Balerion, Meraxes, Vhaghar Tyrion had stood between their gaping jaordless and awed You could have ridden a horse down Vhaghar’s gullet, although you would not have ridden it out again Meraxes was even bigger And the greatest of them, Balerion, the Black Dread, could have sed an aurochs whole, or even one of the hairy mammoths said to roam the cold wastes beyond the Port of Ibben

Tyrion stood in that dank cellar for a long tie, erasp the size of the living anireat black wings and swept across the skies, breathing fire

His own reainst the fire when he joined with King Mern of the Reach to oppose the Targaryen conquest That was close on three hundred years ago, when the Seven Kingdoreater real, five thousand hts, and ten tionlord had perhaps a fifth that number, the chroniclers said, andhe had slain, their loyalties uncertain

The hosts olden fields of wheat ripe for harvest When the Two Kings charged, the Targaryen aran to run For a few moments, the chroniclers wrote, the conquest was at an endbut only for those few aryen and his sisters joined the battle

It was the only tihar, Meraxes, and Balerion were all unleashed at once The singers called it the Field of Fire

Near four thousandMern of the Reach King Loren had escaped, and lived long enough to surrender, pledge his fealty to the Targaryens, and beget a son, for which Tyrion was duly grateful

"Why do you read so much?"

Tyrion looked up at the sound of the voice Jon Snoas standing a few feet away, regarding hier and said, "Look at me and tell me what you see"

The boy looked at him suspiciously "Is this some kind of trick? I see you Tyrion Lannister"

Tyrion sighed "You are remarkably polite for a bastard, Snow What you see is a dwarf You are what, twelve?"