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Tyrion

You want eat?" Mord asked, glowering He had a plate of oiled beans in one thick, stub-fingered hand

Tyrion Lannister was starved, but he refused to let this brute see hi of lamb would be pleasant," he said, from the heap of soiled straw in the corner of his cell "Perhaps a dish of peas and onions, soon of mulled wine to wash it down Or beer, if that’s easier I try not to be overly particular"

"Is beans," Mord said "Here" He held out the plate

Tyrion sighed The turnkey enty stone of gross stupidity, with brown rotting teeth and small dark eyes The left side of his face was slick with scar where an axe had cut off his ear and part of his cheek He was as predictable as he was ugly, but Tyrion was hungry He reached up for the plate

Mord jerked it away, grinning "Is here," he said, holding it out beyond Tyrion’s reach

The dwarf cli "Must we play the sarab for the beans

Mord shah his rotten teeth "Is here, dwarf e where the cell ended and the sky began "You not want eat? Here Come take"

Tyrion’s arms were too short to reach the plate, and he was not about to step that close to the edge All it would take would be a quick shove of Mord’s heavy white belly, and he would end up a sickening red splotch on the stones of Sky, like so many other prisoners of the Eyrie over the centuries "Cory after all," he declared, retreating to the corner of his cell

Mord grunted and opened his thick fingers The wind took the plate, flipping it over as it fell A handful of beans sprayed back at theut shaking like a bowl of pudding

Tyrion felt a pang of rage "You fucking son of a pox-ridden ass," he spat "I hope you die of a bloody flux"

For that, Mord gave hi a steel-toed boot hard into Tyrion’s ribs on the way out "I take it back!" he gasped as he doubled over on the straw "I’ll kill you myself, I swear it!" The heavy iron-bound door slammed shut Tyrion heard the rattle of keys

For a s mouth, he reflected as he crawled back to his corner of what the Arryns laughably called their dungeon He huddled beneath the thin blanket that was his only bedding, staring out at a blaze of eo on forever, wishing he still had the shadowskin cloak he’d won froer had stolen it off the body of that brigand chief The skin had smelled of blood and mold, but it arm and thick Mord had taken it the ed at his blanket with gusts sharp as talons His cell was miserably sht to have been, where a ould be in a proper dungeon, the floor ended and the sky began He had plenty of fresh air and sunshine, and the ht, but Tyrion would have traded it all in an instant for the dankest, gloomiest pit in the bowels of the Casterly Rock

"You fly," Mord had promised him, when he’d shoved him into the cell "Twenty day, thirty, fifty maybe Then you fly"

The Arryns kept the only dungeon in the realm where the prisoners elco up his courage for hours, Tyrion had lain flat on his stoe, to poke out his head and look down Sky was six hundred feet beloith nothing between but eo, he could see other cells to his right and left and above him He was a bee in a stone honeycos

It was cold in the cell, the wind screaht and day, and worst of all, the floor sloped Ever so slightly, yet it was enough He was afraid to close his eyes, afraid that he ht roll over in his steep and wake in sudden terror as he went sliding off the edge Small wonder the sky cells drove men mad

Gods savethat looked suspiciously like blood, the blue is calling At first Tyrion wondered who he’d been, and what had become of him; later, he decided that he would rather not know

If only he had shut his mouth

The wretched boy had started it, looking down on him from a throne of carved ood beneath the moon-and-falcon banners of House Arryn Tyrion Lannister had been looked down on all his life, but seldom by rheumy-eyed six-year-olds who needed to stuff fat cushions under their cheeks to lift theht of ahis doll

"He is," the Lady Lysa had said from the lesser throne beside him She was all in blue, powdered and perfumed for the suitors who filled her court

"He’s so s

"This is Tyrion the Imp, of House Lannister, who murdered your father" She raised her voice so it carried down the length of High Hall of the Eyrie, ringing off the milk-white walls and the slender pillars, so every !"

"Oh, did I kill him too?" Tyrion had said, like a fool

That would have been a very good time to have kept his mouth closed and his head bowed He could see that now; seven hells, he had seen it then The High Hall of the Arryns was long and austere, with a forbidding coldness to its walls of blue-veined white marble, but the faces around him had been colder by far The power of Casterly Rock was far away, and there were no friends of the Lannisters in the Vale of Arryn Submission and silence would have been his best defenses

But Tyrion’s mood had been too foul for sense To his sha clis unable to take hiher Bronn had carried him the rest of the way, and the huer "It would seem I’ve been a busy little fellow," he said with bitter sarcas and ht to have re with Lysa Arryn and her half-sane weakling son had not been known at court for their love of wit, especially when it was directed at theuard that ue of yours and speak to ret it Rehts of the Vale you see around you, true men who loved Jon Arryn well Every one of them would die for me"

"Lady Arryn, should any harm come to me, my brother Jaime will be pleased to see that they do" Even as he spat out the words, Tyrion knew they were folly

"Can you fly, my lord of Lannister?" Lady Lysa asked "Does a dwarf have wings? If not, you would be wiser to s the next threat that comes to mind"

"I made no threats," Tyrion said "That was a promise"

Little Lord Robert hopped to his feet at that, so upset he dropped his doll "You can’t hurt us," he screamed "No one can hurt us here Tell hian to twitch

"The Eyrie is inable," Lysa Arryn declared cal him safe in the circle of her pluhten us, sweet baby The Lannisters are all liars No one will hurt my sweet boy"

The hell of it was, she was no doubt right Having seen what it took to get here, Tyrion could well iht his way up in armor, while stones and arrows poured down frohtin to describe it Small wonder the Eyrie had never been taken

Still, Tyrion had been unable to silence hinable," he said, " Robert pointed down, his hand tre "You’re a liar Mother, I want to see hiuards hiht have happened then were it not for Catelyn Stark "Sister," she called out fro you to remember, this man is my prisoner I will not have hilanced at her sister coolly for askirts trailing after her For an instant he feared she would strike him, but instead she commanded thes went out from under hiht as he struggled to his knees, only to feel his right leg spashter booh Hall of the Arryns

"My sister’s little guest is too weary to stand," Lady Lysa announced "Ser Vardis, take hieon A rest in one of our sky cells will do hiht Tyrion Lannister dangled between the feebly, his face red with shame "I will remember this," he told them all as they carried hiood it did him

At first he had consoled hi Lysa Arryn wanted to huain, and soon If not her, then Catelyn Stark would want to question hiue more closely They dare not kill him out of hand; he was still a Lannister of Casterly Rock, and if they shed his blood, it would mean war Or so he had told himself

Noas not so certain

Perhaps his captors only meant to let hith to rot for long He was groeaker every day, and it was only a matter of time until Mord’s kicks and blows did hiaoler did not starve hier, and the blue would start calling to hi beyond the walls (such as they were) of his cell Lord Tyould surely have sent out riders when the word reached hih the Mountains of the Moon even nowunless he was riding north against Winterfell instead Did anyone outside the Vale even suspect where Catelyn Stark had taken hi could order him freed, but would Robert listen to his queen or his Hand? Tyrion had no illusions about the king’s love for his sister

If Cersei kept her wits about her, she would insist the king sit in judgment of Tyrion himself Even Ned Stark could scarcely object to that, not without ilad to take his chances in a trial Whatever ht lay at his door, the Starks had no proof of anything so far as he could see Let them make their case before the Iron Throne and the lords of the land It would be the end of theh to see that

Tyrion Lannister sighed His sister was not without a certain low cunning, but her pride blinded her She would see the insult in this, not the opportunity And Jaier His brother never untied a knot when he could slash it in tith his sword

He wondered which of them had sent the footpad to silence the Stark boy, and whether they had truly conspired at the death of Lord Arryn If the old Hand had been e died of sudden illness all the ti some oaf with a stolen knife after Brandon Stark struck him as unbelievably clumsy And wasn’t that peculiar, come to think on it

Tyrion shivered Now there was a nasty suspicion Perhaps the direwolf and the lion were not the only beasts in the woods, and if that was true, so used

He would have to get out of here, and soon His chances of overpowering Mord were sle hi rope, so he would have to talk hiotten hiet hi his best to ignore the slope of the floor beneath hie He hammered on the door with a fist "Mord!" he shouted "Turnkey! Mord, I want you!" He had to keep it up a good ten minutes before he heard footsteps Tyrion stepped back an instant before the door opened with a crash

"Making noise," Mord growled, with blood in his eyes Dangling from one meaty hand was a leather strap, wide and thick, doubled over in his fist

Never show them you’re afraid, Tyrion reminded himself "Hoould you like to be rich?" he asked

Mord hit hiht Tyrion high on the arrit his teeth "No mouth, dwarf man," Mord warned hi a soldahhhh" This time the bloas a forehand, and Mord putthe leather crack and juht Tyrion in the ribs and dropped hi He forced hiaoler "As rich as the Lannisters," he wheezed "That’s what they say, Mord--"

Mord grunted The strap whistled through the air and smashed Tyrion full in the face The pain was so bad he did not reain he was on the floor of his cell His ear was ringing, and his roped for purchase, to push hi Tyrion snatched his hand back as fast as if it had been scalded, and tried his best to stop breathing He had fallen right on the edge, inches from the blue

"More to say?" Mord held the strap between his fists and gave it a sharp pull The snap hed

He won’t push me over, Tyrion told hie Catelyn Stark wants me alive, he doesn’t dare kill me He wiped the blood off his lips with the back of his hand, grinned, and said, "That was a stiff one, Mord" The gaoler squinted at hiood use of a strong man like you" The strap flew at hie away frobackward like a crab, "h to buy land, women, horsesyou could be a lord Lord Mord" Tyrion hawked up a glob of blood and phlegold," Mord said