294 ac
They had ridden hard, and the party was only two days from the Bloody Gate. It was noon, and Artys was bored out of his mind with no books to occupy him. He decided to slip into Horus—the feeling of soaring through the clouds was too addictive to pass up. Zeta could ride straight ahead without his guidance.
Through the falcon's eyes, Artys climbed the sky and began scouting miles ahead. Perhaps I should return, he thought, banking Horus back along the road the company traveled. What he saw below froze him—his party was under attack.
Ser Harrick was slumped over a body—his body—with arrows jutting from him like quills. Ser Steffon crouched behind his shield, and Ser Shadrich was sprinting toward the treeline. On the far side, Ser Robar Royce and ten mounted men-at-arms charged into the brush, trying to scatter the hidden archers.
Artys abandoned the falcon and crashed back into himself.
Two arrows were already in him—one buried in his thigh and another through his left arm.
Ser Harrick still lay across him, looking like a porcupine, eight or nine arrows piercing him in cruel angles. Artys was soaked in Harrick's blood.
Rage flooded him.
He heaved the dead knight's body aside. The nearest men-at-arms, who had believed their young lord dead a heartbeat ago, stared wide-eyed as Artys rose to his feet. He heard Shadrich yell for him to stop and get down he didnt listen. Artys didn't bother yanking the arrows free. He snapped the shafts at the flesh with two sharp movements, breath hissing between his teeth. Blood soaked his leggings and sleeve, but the pain only sharpened the heat rising behind his eyes.
Harrick's corpse slid off him with a wet slap as he rose. Men were shouting now—his, theirs, it all blurred. His heartbeat thundered like hooves in his skull.
He walked toward the trees at first, then broke into a run.
A crossbowman stepped from behind an oak and loosed at his chest.
Artys' hand flashed up and caught the bolt in mid-flight. The wood splintered in his fist as he snapped it in two and let the pieces fall.
The crossbowman tried to reload. Artys was already on him.
He seized the man's forearm with one hand and wrenched free . Bone popped and tendons tore as the limb came away in a gout of blood. The man's scream died when Artys drove the jagged stump of the arm back into his throat, dropping him to the roots.
Another stood farther back, fumbling with his windlass. Artys crossed the space in heartbeats. The bowman swung the crossbow like a club—Artys slipped under it and smashed his fist into the man's face. The skull crumpled beneath his knuckles with a wet, cracking crunch, as though he'd punched through rotten wood. The corpse collapsed bonelessly, eyes leaking red.
Branches rustled to his right—two hillmen rushed him with axes. One blow glanced off his chest plate , the other missed entirely as Artys stepped in and took the first by the throat. His fingers dug into windpipe and spine alike, lifting the man from the ground. He hurled him into a tree so hard the bark split with the sound.
The second raised his axe again, but Artys was already moving. He grabbed a fistful of greasy hair and slammed the man's head against a rock until it broke like an egg.
Another tried to dart away through a tangle of brush. Artys stooped, snatched a fallen spear, and flung it end over end. It punched clean through the man's back and jutted out beneath his ribs. The hillman collapsed, coughing wetly into the dirt.
The rest loosed arrows wildly from cover, blinded by panic. One shaft grazed Artys' shoulder, spinning him halfway 'round. He charged the direction it came from, crashing through briar and sapling alike. A bowman emerged too slow—Artys struck him with the flat of his sword hard enough to shatter ribs and spine both. The body folded over a root and did not rise again.
Another tried to run, stumbling and sobbing, but Artys caught him by the belt and flung him down. The man squealed as the young lord planted a boot on his arm and ground until the joint cracked. His dirk opened the man's belly without ceremony, hot entrails slopping over moss and leaves.
Somewhere behind him, men were still fighting—Royce voices shouting orders—but none of it reached him. The world had gone red and close and simple. Only those in front of him existed, and they died.
When at last the woods fell still, Artys stood among the dead, breath steaming in the cool air. Blood soaked his sleeves, his hands, his throat. His hair was matted with it, his eyes wild.
Only one still lived nearby—a man crawling through the ferns, clutching at his side where an arrow had snapped to splinters. His steel cap was dented, his cloak of dyed brown wool too fine for a true tribesman. Chain gleamed beneath his leathers.
Artys stalked toward him, sword low, ears still ringing with the phantom of battle.
He kicked the wounded man onto his back.
The fellow spat blood and tried to scramble away.
Artys put his boot on the man's chest and pressed down, voice flat and cold:
"You're no clansman."
The man froze, eyes wide with terror.
"Who are you ?" Artys asked.
The man's lips trembled as he spoke, the words of the Common Tongue twisted by a Tyroshi lilt. Up close, Artys saw the glint of two gold teeth when the fellow gasped for breath.
Artys seized him by the scruff and half dragged, half carried him back toward the camp. The sellsword whimpered with every stumble, clutching his ruined side. Around them, the dead and wounded lay scattered where the fighting had been fiercest.
Five Arryn men-at-arms were gone. Ser Steffon and Ser Shadrich had both lost their horses. But Ser Harrick—Harrick who had guarded him since he'd been a boy of two—was nothing now but cooling meat in the grass. Artys could still feel the man's blood drying on his skin. His chest was tight with rage, but most of it bent inward, aimed squarely at himself.
All because he'd been bored. All because he'd flown.
He said nothing as he hauled the Tyroshi past the shocked, silent faces of his men. The prisoner was babbling in his own tongue, pleading, promising gods knew what. Artys ignored him. He dragged him beyond the camp's edge and flung him against the bole of an ash tree.
"Stay there," he told him in rough, accented Tyroshi.
Before the man could scramble away, Artys stamped down on his knee. Bone shattered under his heel with a sharp, wet crack. The sellsword's scream tore through the trees as Artys turned his back and walked away.
The men were staring at him when he returned—somewide-eyed, some pale, most unsettled. He could read the thought in their faces: they had seen. Or guessed. The cat is out of its back, then, he thought. No sense pretending otherwise. Forward and be done with it.
"Steffon. Shadrich," he called, voice level. "There are corpses over there, past that brush. Lay them by the great oak."
"Aye, my lord," they answered at once and hurried off, glad for the task.
Artys gave the rest their orders. "See a fire laid. Boil wine and water both."
They scattered to obey.
He caught Ser Robar Royce by the arm and drew him aside, out of earshot of the others.
"The men who struck us were no hillfolk," Artys said.
Robar's mouth was grim. "Aye. I saw the crossbows. Tyroshi make—dear and deadly. Not something clansmen carry."
Artys inclined his head toward the treeline. "I kept one breathing. We'll have answers before nightfall."
Robar glanced to where the prisoner still howled, clutching at the ruin of his knee. "They meant to kill you," he said quietly. His eyes shifted to Ser Harrick's body, laid out with a cloak over him. "He died as knights should—steel in hand, guarding his charge. We called your name, but you would not stir. You did not so much as flinch when the quarrels struck home."
Artys said nothing. His gaze dropped to the earth.
Robar laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. "'Twas your first battle. You fought like a storm come down the mountain. The men… gods, I've not seen the like in all my years."
Artys did not answer. The screams from the trees still carried over the camp, ragged and fading.
"We will speak of this to no one," he said at last, voice low but cold. "If men ask, we were set upon by hill tribes. That is the tale, and we will all keep to it. Now—let us question the prisoner. Afterward, I'll speak with my uncle, the Blackfish."
They dragged the Tyroshi closer to the firelight. The man was half-delirious from pain, but terror made him sharp enough when a dirk's point rested against his throat.
Bit by bit, the sellsword spilled what he knew. They had been hired in Pentos, then landed at Saltpans under false names. Paid well—half in advance, the rest upon proof the boy was dead. They were told to make it look like a hill tribe ambush, to draw no suspicion from the high lords. Their only task: kill Artys Arryn.
When the man had said all he could, Artys slid the dirk cleanly into his heart. The body slumped to the roots of the tree.
"Shadrich," Artys called, wiping the blade. "Strip their corpses and search their camp. Half of what we find goes to the families of the fallen, a quarter to the wounded, and the rest to be divided among the men."
"It will be done, my lord," Shadrich said, already moving.
"We ride at first light," Artys told them before turning away toward his tent.
Inside the canvas, the stench of blood lingered on his clothes and skin. Two quarrels still jutted from his arm and thigh, but the flesh beneath was hot, knitting fast. By morning, there would be little more than faint scars. He could feel the strength humming through him like a fever.
Enough of skinchanging for now, he told himself. The memory of soaring through Horus's wings turned sour in his gut. Had I died with my mind in the bird… would I have been trapped there? The thought chilled him more than steel ever had.
He sat heavily on his bedroll, restless, mind turning over the attack.
Littlefinger had coin enough, and the whispers in Pentos to arrange such a thing. But why? Killing Artys would not profit him. It would leave the Vale to Sweetrobin—a sickly, coddled child—and after him Harry Hardyng, some distant cousin and the son of a landed knight. Chaos perhaps, but chaos for what gain?
No. Petyr Baelish had means, not motive.
So who does? Someone who craved turmoil in the Vale. Someone who wished the line of Arryn weak, broken, or uncertain.
He shifted again, unable to still his thoughts. The canvas walls felt too close.
Uncle Brynden will know what to make of this, he told himself. The Blackfish has seen every sort of treachery in his time. He'll see the shape of this plot where I cannot.
Outside, the night stretched dark and silent over the dead. Artys lay down at last, though sleep did not come quickly. The flicker of the campfire cast shadows along the tent wall, and with them came the memory of wings and blood.
He closed his eyes and waited for dawn.