Blackheart (GoT, Witcher, DC)

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***

Damian Rivers.

The journey to Highgarden wasn't all that long. Only travelled about 300 miles in fifteen days with the caravan and that's quite still fast. After all, along the way we stopped by both villages and castles to replenish supplies, trade or whatever.

On the way, I added three archers to my squad, who, despite their skills, were trained under Varik and Lesho's supervision. They are virtuosos in bow control, so they will be better at it than someone who has fought most of his life in hand-to-hand combat or knife fighting. It's in this world that I swing a sword, but before I could only swing a sword, and firearms, but I can't use firearms here.

And in general, no one relaxed, either on guard duty or in training. These are the two most popular activities in our squad during this half-month.

I did, however, train our entire squad along the lines of the Roman legion. Of course, they won't be full-fledged legionaries, but I will pass on their discipline and fortitude to the Westerosi. And it is easier to make of yesterday's farmers, townsfolk and hunters a semblance of the ancient army than full-fledged knights and foot soldiers on the model of other lands of the Seven Kingdoms. And it was dictated not so much by lack of time, but by logical considerations. After all, purely psychologically my guys are still those hardened in their thoughts "black-legged", who are afraid of the knights on the battlefield and timid in front of them. If they meet them one-on-one in the field, most of them will freeze in place, not knowing what to do or try to escape.

They're not mercenaries who know what to do, and they have good intuition.

And this way I will "break" their stereotypes and old thinking so that they are something worthwhile. And, of course, training in the ancient Roman military system. Of course that's not the key to this "breaking stereotypes", rather it's incidental. After all, I still have to talk to them with a mug of ale or wine to tell a couple of interesting stories and reveal the true essence of the institution of chivalry. Yes, and in general I know how to hang noodles on people's ears, so a light psychological processing of my people I think I will succeed. The only question is how effectively and how quickly it will pass?

By the way, we've been to Horn Hill. It's the Tarly family castle. The merchant we were guarding went in there and offered something to Tarly's wife. But I didn't see the castle owner or his eldest son, they were on a hunting trip, just a couple of hours before our arrival they had ridden away. It's a shame, I would have liked to meet someone as famous as Randyll Tarly. I'd have liked to see Sam Tarly, too. But no such luck. Within an hour of arriving, we'd gone on to Highgarden with nothing to show for it.

And on the sixteenth day, we crossed the town line.

Highgarden is the ancestral castle of House Tyrell. It's one of the most beautiful castles in the Seven Kingdoms. It sits on the banks of the River Mander, at the intersection of the Sea Road and the Rose Road that leads to King's Landing. What Damian remembered from the history of the city was that the Gardners had once ruled here and the Manderleys had come from here, but then they had been driven out of the Vale because of feuds and had come under Stark rule.

The city's main fortress was surrounded by three rings of crenellated white stone walls, one ring lower than the next. Between the outer wall, which girdled the foot of the hill, and the middle one lay the famous labyrinth of thorns, which, according to the merchant whom we accompanied, served both for amusement and defence of the place. Indeed, when proper, it retarded the advance of the enemy towards the main fortress.

The old buildings inside were overgrown with ivy, and vines and briars twined along the statues and walls. Elegant round towers towered above their much older and gothic congeners. And beyond that, the city was rich in gardens and fountains. This city reminded me of something from my past life, a city I had been to, but I couldn't remember which one. I had been to too many cities in my past life. However, it reminded me of Hungary. Although I'm not an expert in architecture and I could be wrong....

I was brought out of my musings by Varick's voice.

- It's a nice city. - he said approvingly, looking round. - I've been to King's Landing, and I must admit that the Southerners are much better at building and looking after the place where they live than the rulers of our kingdom. The capital stinks as if a hundred thousand pigs had died and shat before they did.

- Have you ever seen so many pigs shit and die, Varick? - Gerda interrogated him.

- Fuck you, Barley. - he frowned.

- It's better in a woman's vagina. - she smirked.

- I agree. - I smiled.

- Have you had any variety? - Our Valkyrie teased me. She was in a good mood today. - I didn't expect that from you.

- Fuck you. - followed Varick's lead. - I doubt you've ever been with a man.

- It's better in a woman's vagina. And don't doubt it, I haven't and I won't! - she repeated. - You guys are so boring today. Usually it's you who annoy me with your jokes.

- We're admiring the beautiful architectural style. But you're not like that today.

- You're a bad influence.

- Ser Damian! - I've been approached from the end by Ben. - Aubrey's done a recount of our personal provisions and possessions, and we'll quickly run out of wine, flour, and jerky when our contract expires. David - he means our "healer" - says we should go to the local shop his teacher told him about and buy some rare herbs if we have extra money.

- Money is never too much. - I admonished him. - But they're right, we need to stock up on what we need. Ride back and give them the go-ahead. Let them make a list, we'll buy everything we need. Gerda?

- I don't want to go shopping, I'm training the youngsters, and I don't like that sort of thing. - and she's not interested in this "thank you" business.

- Yesterday you asked me to ask the merchant and his guards to find out where they are going and whether they are going to hire us in the future.

- I see. I'll have to take care of that. - Buying medicine and food is obviously a big job, and you can't trust just anyone. - I'll take Marik, Tom, Larry and David to show me where the shop is. I don't think any of us have ever been here before.

- I see." Varick yawned, scratching his beard. - Are you going to participate in the tournament, by the way?

- Yes," I nodded, "and Lesho is going to participate in the archery contest. Are you going to try your luck?

- If luck doesn't torture me. - he grinned. - You can get a hundred dragons for competing as an archer. And if you win, how much do you get for winning?

- Five hundred gold for a skirmish, and two hundred for a skirmish. But any competition will be difficult. And it's not certain I can win. You'll have a better chance. Although... you know what? Let all our archers try their luck. The more of us that participate, the more likely we'll get something out of it.

- I agree. And you've got a good idea with the tithe to the squad treasury from any trades or tournament wins. It's good to have extra money for a rainy day. Besides, if we equip the whole squad with at least light armour, as you wanted, and teach them what you told me about the training of Giskar's legions, we will be a powerful force among mercenary squads, or we might even get to a lord.

There's that thinking again.

We settled in a good tavern of an old friend of our employer, so there were enough seats for everyone. I took Marik, Lari, Tom and David on an outing to the Highgarden market, as I had planned. And we went first where David advised us to go. He had been here once with one of his teachers, so he would probably be the one to consider as our guide.

The city is huge and it's easy to get lost. And there are just as many thieves. We were even tried twice just to cut us off, and once they even wanted to ambush us. David was the victim of a honey trap. We came out of the shop he'd brought us to a little later than he did and saw him being dragged round the corner by some girl, saying something with a chuckle. Marik smiled, but me, Tom and Larry realised that this wasn't going to end with sex. So we rushed after them. And we were right. David was surrounded by three tough guys with knives, trying to cut his other mouth out, but Larry threw his spear and killed the thief closest to him, and Marik knocked the other two to the ground with one throw and knocked them out with quick movements. My school. The girl wanted to run away at first, but I threatened to gut her, and she shrank back in fear and huddled in a corner. She wanted to plead pity and that she was forced to do it by "evil people", and then she begged us not to touch her because she had a sick mother and little sisters who would not survive without her. If I were Marik or Ben, I'd buy her story. Although even Tom was impressed by her story. With a little more time, she could've surpassed him in the telling of tales. As a professional, he appreciated that.

But I didn't care about her sob story. There was a reward to be had for it. It's a common practice in the Outlands and Riverlands, I don't know about the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. So if you apprehended a group of thieves and handed them over to the authorities, there was a reward. Although David showed unprecedented bloodthirstiness towards them, or rather wanted to show it and let them bleed. What a student, he doesn't know what's in it for him. And there could be. Though more than that we could spin them on the money they had already saved by stealing. Actually we did it, because not far from the place where David was going to be killed and robbed there was a den of the gang, which we intimidated and extracted all the information we could. Unfortunately, the catch was rather small: some thirty coppers and one silver stag. I tacitly gave them to David for moral damages on the whores, so that he wouldn't fall for a pretty face in the future. Then I handed the thieves over to the local guards, who paid thirty coppers, ten for each thief. Not much, but better than nothing.

Then we went to the bazaar and bought food. I stopped at a couple of shops on the way, where they sold weapons and armour, and eventually I spotted a blacksmith who sold the kind of armour that would be suitable for my squad. Though I could have any type of armour made to order.

Then I spotted a shop selling clothes, and there I found cloaks of dark green colour, rather cheap but good quality. They were not in great demand; the owner was desperate to find a buyer, so he sold them all in bulk for sixty coppers. There were twenty of them in all. I took, under the perplexed looks of my companions, all of them.

These cloaks would be perfect for working in the woods, only a couple of other shades of green to add to them and it would be camouflage. Still, I won't dress my guys in camouflage, it won't help them to hide, if they haven't learnt it from the beginning, and it will look stupid. But for sabotage and for our archers, who can be placed in the woods to fire at the enemy, it's just right. And besides, it can be our distinctive feature among other units. Maybe even take the name "Green Hoods" or "Green Cloaks". Why? We have Gold, Scarlet, White, and Black Cloaks in the Seven Kingdoms, so why not be Green?

So as soon as we arrived at our tavern I told my people about it. Not all of them took the idea well, but there were no strong protesters. Most of them didn't give a shit about it. They trusted me in principle and none of my suggestions had ever harmed them. That was the deal. Aubrey and our female archers spent the evening sewing, while Gerda, Tom, Varick, Barry and I talked over a mug of ale. Our employer, as it turned out, had decided not to return to Old Town, but to go further north. Our contract with our employer ended there, though he offered to just renew it and go with him wherever he went. But I wanted to stay in the Vastness for a while. It would be a good place to make some money.

After all, Prostor is the freehold of the knighthood of Westeros, and the Vale can still claim such a title, but still the Summer Knights are 25-30% majors, another 30-40% knightly soldiers who can not fight in any way except for the code of honour of a knight. And the rest are already, as a rule, either knights who are yesterday's mercenaries that got land, or knights of the marks. The population here is large, so the army is numerous, which forms light infantry, as well as archers. But in every barrel there is a spoon of tar. And this "spoon of tar" consists in the fact that on the huge population of Prostor, there is also crime on a large scale. Despite all the "raids" knights on the evil places of gangs and gangs of forest robbers, they are constantly again quite soon grow like mushrooms after the rain. Still, despite all the wealth of this region, and its as my late deputy would say "fed", there are still a lot of such gangs. Only the Royal Lands and the Riverlands have a higher crime rate, and the most law-abiding, as I understand it, are Dorne and the Western Lands. Though that's not surprising considering who rules them.

I've learnt all this by analysing the information I learned while guarding the caravan and from the interrogation of those hapless robbers who got on us today.

What's to say when we were attacked by two more of these gangs on the way here. Only, one of them was quite badly armed with clubs, sticks and pitchforks with scythes for forty snouts, and the second one we found out during the forest hunt and then we killed them, so that they would not attack us from behind after we had passed on. So, that it is possible to raise a little bit your material well-being on such raids, and authority on the part of local noblewomen to gain. After all, such deeds as "punishing criminals and saving the innocent" are honoured here. Maybe I'll make some connections.

My guys, after a bit of thinking, also supported me in this, and we drank to it. And then we went to our bunks.

The local mattress did not please me. Lots of bedbugs, despite all the good looks of the tavern. In the end I decided to sleep on the floor with some animal skin and a cloak laid on it. It's safer for my body.

***

A week passed and the long-awaited gay parade... ahem, I mean knight's tournament took place. I was the only one with knight's spurs, and my boys were either cheering me on and placing bets, or participating as archers in another competition.

There were knights from the Westlands, Stormlands and Dorne, and a lot of landless knights trying to get some rich lord to hire them. Too bad Tywin Lannister or just someone from his house isn't there. If I'd flashed them and they'd offered me service to them I'd have accepted, most likely. But, alas, neither of them were there, and I lost in both contests. And most importantly, it all happened quite stupidly.

I had two victories in a horse race in a row until I came up against Loras Tyrell, the most famous sword-swallower in the Expanse. As soon as we got close to each other, my trusty horse "Ravenclaw" reared up and threw me off. The result was a technical defeat. After that I thought that the "bitch + dog" move he used with Clegane was his favourite. However, I even kind of respected him. Using advantage and ingenuity wherever he can is the right thing to do in my opinion. But Sparrow, such a male dog, today was left without a tasty supplement for the day.

But that wasn't enough for fate. As soon as I got together in the "dump", I lost there too. And my karma was really messed up. I managed to drop a dozen of my opponents to the ground, moreover, in the finals it was me and Garlan Tyrell, but as soon as we spotted each other, I rushed on the Ravenclaw to him, I had a chance to take him by surprise, because he was turned to me more backwards than sideways. But the unexpected happened. My horse managed to fall and break his neck. And I can't even figure out what caused him to fall. But the fact remains that I lost! Then, I was knocked out by the impact of my head hitting the ground, at least I didn't die like some people. An accident, but an unfortunate one that cost me the victory.

But what surprised me was that Garlan Tyrell found out about me and managed to congratulate me on my recovery, though not personally, but through the servants. And what's more, he admitted that if it hadn't been for chance, I probably would have won. As a sort of consolation prize and token of respect he presented me with a good horse, strong and black as coal. I liked him. Both the horse and Garlan. At least this time.

At least my boys made me happy. Lesho managed to win the archery competition and took the 90 gold he was entitled to and gave the other ten to the treasury. The money he received was quite a lot of money for a mercenary, you could buy land somewhere and settle down, but Lesho liked travelling with us, and all he needs is new impressions, wine, women and good archery. That's what we provide. So he was in no hurry to leave us. That's good.

After another week we started another job to escort a food caravan to the Celestial Empire, which was the fiefdom of the Fowlers, vassals, if I'm not mistaken, of the Martells and the lands of Dorne. But we didn't go any further, we went back to Highgarden with the same caravan. On the way we partially destroyed and partially arrested a gang of forest bandits and handed them over to the authorities and took a couple of Dornish men to our group.

Then a couple of days after arriving in Highgarden we had a new contract, but with an entire knight in the service of the Tyrells - Ser Emmon Q, who seems to have been Renly's guard according to canon. Mace Tyrell decided to "clean up" his lands from "dirty thieves" and so he sent his vassal to clean up, but just before he was given the task, Ser Emmon let some of his men go to his family's fief, and he only had a dozen soldiers and a couple of squires at hand. In the end, he had to resort to mercenaries. We were recommended to him because we had already made a name for ourselves as "fighters" against forest bandits and not bad warriors, at least that's what Q said. Though maybe we were just the closest and more or less pleasing to the eye of a Knight of the Expanse.

Anyway, we took it upon ourselves to help him, and spent a few weeks raiding, thus ending the existence of several gangs. We lost the two Dornish fools who had managed to be the first to die in the first skirmish, and one warrior who had been with us since the Riverlands. The one who had been a peasant girl, but who had fancied herself a kind of Gerda during the fight and had fought a big man, who had thrown an axe into her chest. Ben also lost a finger because of a stray arrow - the little finger of his left hand. But in the realities of this world, that's nothing.

Then, when Q decided he'd had enough of the forest brotherhood, he finished the raid. We got our pay, and he advised me that if I decided to end my life as a mercenary, I should go to the Tyrells for service, and he'd put in a good word for me. He and I got on well and became friends while we were together, so we parted as good acquaintances. I half-jokingly suggested to him that if he wanted to go to "free bread" he should join our unit.

Then followed another three months of our stay in Spacious. We harassed brigands, thieves and all sorts of scum. We got a little rich off them. And from time to time we took on contracts to catch criminals or guards. And we also took part in two tournaments. One was in Staromest and the other in Golden Grove. It was me and Larry as knights. He was familiar with the institution of knighthood and was not a bad warrior, and after he saved my life in one battle I decided to knight him. After all, any knight could do it if he thought he was worthy. They just didn't do it often enough. If you made a mistake, you'd get a shadow on you from your fellow knights. But Larry's a good man, and I think he's earned that title in the eyes of the Westerosi. We ended up with another knight in our squad, and we both competed in tournaments. Larry won one of them (the first one) in the "dump", and I managed to win in the last one in the skirmish. And we both got offers from the Hightowers and the Rovans to join their service. But we declined. But we received our rightful prize money, and went off to celebrate, of course, before depositing our share in the treasury.

Then we met in Staromest in the new year 297 W.E. with our mutual acquaintance, the Dornish merchant Harven, who offered to escort him all the way to Braavos. He promised to pay generously, and I wanted a change of scenery. And my men were tired of just "chasing pennies" in Prostor. Even the newcomers said so. By the way, in the new year 297 there were four dozen of us, plus a dozen and a half of our markswomen and a one-armed blacksmith, he was Marik's namesake both by name and craft. First he had been a blacksmith's assistant in his youth, then he had gone into the local lord's retinue, and there he had lost an arm and was no longer of any use to anyone. Ended up begging for alms, but Marik had a drunken chat with him one day and found out his story. Then I brought him to the detachment, I had already talked to him, and there he had already settled down with us and did a lot of useful things together with his assistant. Marik helped him to forge swords and armour, which we got in our hands or we bought cheaply, and then armed and equipped our squad.

It was a pretty good squad. And Harven understood that, and we had worked with each other before. So there was a certain amount of trust.

So we decided to go to Braavos.

To be continued...