Anger well gave way to fatigue by the time Jaime Lannister was at the foot of the hill, on which stood the ruins of a castle no man or maester knew the true name of but simply called Oldstones. This was the point when Euron Greyjoy and his forces were to part ways with the infantry by ship, and in all honesty, Jaime was glad to be shorn of his society.
Lannister and Greyjoy forces had reached a long way. From Highgarden, Jaime had chartered the safest course – they had marched past Lannisport, from where they rode through Whispering Wood and continued their way north. Snows were falling for days, but the forests had at least spared them from the winds.
Jaime rode with eighty-thousand strong men. He supposed the journey and the brief but inevitable skirmish with Edmure Tully at the Twins would cause some casualties on his side, but not nearly enough for Jon Snow to dismiss him as a threat. Weeds here were thicker than trees, reaching Jaime’s chest as he made his way up the hill with the Lannister army. If their maester was to be believed, a night or two of rest in the abandoned castle would be enough for the speed of snows to lessen.
The journey from Highgarden to Oldstones was laborious, but made a million times tenser owing to Euron keeping him on knife-edges. If the Mad King were to spill his seed inside Cersei and from them came the Greyjoy, even they would stand aghast at how fickle-minded their cunt of a child was.
There were days when not a word escaped his lips spare absolute obedience. When Jaime ordered the Lannister forces to scout and march in certain ways, he grunted in brief assent and carried commands dutifully. On those same nights, even crickets feared to sing as the sound of his cackles rang through the forests. Once, when Jaime thought to barge into his pavilion and implore him to stay silent, he saw from outside blue and crimson lights dancing in his tent, and thought better of it. It would not be long before fishmongers would hear the sound and rename it The Cackling Woods.
The same people always rode close with him. In rare moments when he had to speak with Euron, Jaime saw him muttering away with people who could not have been Westerosi. Some looked up to Euron, some spoke with him gruffly, and all called him the Crow’s Eye. If one was bald, another would have hair reaching his thighs, and if one spoke the Common Tongue in thickly laced accents, another stood in a silence more total than Ilyn Payne’s.
“They are men I met in my exile,” Euron had told him once. He was having one of his crazier days – the fire in his eyes and rasp in his voice were distinctly noticeable. “Sometimes I wonder if my banishment was punishment or reward. I’ve seen the most desperate of passions, visited islands Oldtown thought to be the tales of wet nurses, traded secrets with wizards.” He cackled into the dark sky. “Spare the ironborn, you Westerosi are too cultured for my taste. At times, I find myself thinking if the Iron Throne is a waste of my time. But then the next battle comes along, and I see in the eyes of men again the rawest of passions, before I steal from them their lives.” He licked his lips, which left on them a blue stain.
Father’s mad beast was Gregor Clegane as much as Cersei’s beast is him. But my sweet, sweet sister is in for a rude awakening if she believes she can chain the Crow’s Eye to a leash.
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