ASOIAF: King of Winter

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Chapter 5

Tyrion Lannister

"Our scouts tell us the Stark host has moved south from the Twins." One of Tyrion's father's sycophants speaks. "With Lord Frey's levies in tail."

"The boy may lack experience and sense." Tywin pours himself a cup of wine. "But he does have a certain, mindless, provincial courage."

Tyrion enters the command tent brazenly, grabbing an empty cup and extending it to the maidservant, who promptly fills it with wine.

He turns toward the others as they turn silent. "Oh do continue." He makes sure to tint his voice the utmost seriousness. "Didn't mean to interrupt."

His father had too much self-control to bristle, even if Tyrion was sure he's much too eager to do so. "I do hope your savages are going to be of some use." Tywin addresses his son. "Otherwise we'd have wasted some steel on them."

"The great hairy one insisted he must have two battle axes, heavy black steel, double sided." Kevan Lannister, his uncle, is as always of same mind as his father.

"Shagga likes axes." Tyrion shrugs.

"When the battle commences you and your wildlings will be in the vanguard." Tywin orders the dwarf.

Tyrion startles, it is a sound idea, of course. The mountain clansmen of the vale –whilst brave and strong- are a rowdy bunch, too eager to spill blood and too stubborn to listen to orders, putting them anywhere else means creating a compromised section in the army's formation.

No, it is not their position that shocked Tyrion; it is his inclusion in their ranks, presumably as their commander.

"The vanguard?" He asks. "Me and the tribesmen?"

Tywin hums in agreement.

"On the frontlines?" He questions further.

"They seem rather ferocious." Kevan, ever the diplomat, says.

"Ferocious?!" Tyrion scoffs. "Last night, a moon brother stabbed a stone crow over a sausage! Three stone crows seized the moon brother and opened his throat! Bronn managed to stop Shagga from chopping up the dead man's cock, which is fortunate, but even still, Ulf is demanding blood money! With Shagga and Gunthor refusing to pay!" He jokingly complains.

"When soldiers lack discipline." Tywin answers. "The fault lies in their commander."

"Surely there are ways to have me killed that would be less detrimental to the war effort!" Tyrion half-screams.

"There will be no more discussion on the matter." Tywin takes drinks from his cup.

Tyrion realizes that there is no convincing his father otherwise, he felt that Tywin must feel that with Robert Baratheon dead, he'd be easily able to dismiss Jaime from the Kingsguard, and hence, Tyrion's usefulness in his eyes would end.

"It appears I'm not hungry after all." Tyrion puts down his cup and hops down from his chair. "Excuse me my Lords."

When Tyrion enters his tent, fuming from restrained rage, he finds Bronn looking up and down at a beautiful woman.

The woman looks young and stands slightly over five feet tall. Slim and pretty, she has small firm breasts, large dark eyes, and short dark hair. She had a shy smile that radiated a small degree of mischief.

Tyrion turns to Bronn. "Where did you find one so pretty at this hour."

"I took her." Bronn answers.

"You took her? From whom?"

"Form… Uh" Bronn makes to think for a moment. "Ser- What's his name?" He shrugs. "I don't know, ginger cunt three tents down."

"And he didn't have anything to say about it?" Tyrion pours himself some wine, turning his back on the girl.

"He said something." Bronn answers.

Tyrion shares a knowing look with the sellsword.

"Well." He turns to the woman. "The odds of me living long enough for him to retaliate have just dropped drastically." He speaks to Bronn. "We'll be at the vanguard tomorrow."

Bronn takes a silent deep breath. "Oh well…" He eyes Shae again. "I… Think I'll go and find myself one." Then he swaggers out of the tent, leaving Tyrion and the prostitute alone.

"Who are you?" He asks her.

She smiles demurely. "Who would you like me to be?"

"What did your mother call you?"

The shy demeanor gets tainted by a drop of mischief. "Shae." She says. "What did your mother call you?" She asks.

Tyrion's face unconsciously turned grave, the topic of his mother corrupted any joy he may have felt. "My mother died giving birth to me." His voice was chiding, yet not angry.

But 'Shae' did not act the widow. "Is that why I'm here? So we can talk about our mothers?"

He was glad for it, in reality. No one spoke about his mother's death so casually before, it somehow mitigated the sadness.

"What sort of accent is that?" He asks, with a slight smile.

"Foreign."

"For-." Tyrion lets out a sigh at her answer.

"What do you want from me?"

"What do I want from you?" His question is entirely rhetorical, of course. "I want you to share my tent, I want you to pour my wine, laugh at my jokes, rub my legs when they're sore after a day's ride." He instructs. "I want you to take no other man to bed, as long as we're together, and, I want you to fuck me like it's my last night in this world—which it may well be."

"And what do I get?" She cheekily asks.

"One, safety." He explains. "No one will hurt you, for as long as you're mine." He makes for the chair; his legs were sore from the long day. "Two, the pleasure of my company, which I have heard is spectacular." He jokes.

"Who told you this? Women you paid?" Tyrion smiles at her joke, yet doesn't acknowledge it.

"AND three, more gold than you can spend if you lived a thousand years." He finishes. "Do you accept my proposal?" He asks, rubbing his own thighs.

Shae wordlessly lets her cape slip, shedding out her upper garments entirely.

She approaches and sits on his lap, tenderly grasping his nape whilst deeply kissing him.

After the sensual scene ends, she speaks. "Let's start with your last night in this world."

And what a night it was.

*-*-*

[A.N: Before this scene, I'd to talk about what happened in the original Battle of the Green Fork. In the original, Bolton tries to surprise Tywin by beginning his march at night, yet the Lannister army is well paid and disciplined, so they array themselves before the Northern army arrives. Roose loses several thousand men but retreats well enough, then Tywin figures out he didn't fight Robb and gets paranoid, obviously, this had two goals, in victory, Roose would get the glory as a great commander, in defeat, he'd be able to get rid of several Northern lords that would be an obstacle.

Obviously, this doesn't happen here.]

Tywin had put Tyrion and the 300 tribesmen on the vanguard of the left, consisting of one thousand men, all mounted, led by Ser Gregor Clegane.

The center is commanded by Ser Kevan Lannister, with ten thousand men, it includes lords Lefford, Lydden, and Serret with three hundred heavy horses. Tyrion could notice that His foot archers are arranged in three long lines east and west of the kingsroad. Between the archers are squares of pikemen, and behind them are ranks of men-at-arms wielding axes, swords, and spears.

On the right, Ser Addam Marbrand commands four thousand knights and other heavy lancers, among them Ser Flement Brax and members of Houses Crakehall, Swyft, and other families.

And finally, from the high ground of a hilltop, Lord Tywin Lannister commands the reserve of five thousand men, half mounted, half afoot.

His father's plan was clear even in Tyrion's eyes, the left flank –where he is- is comprised of freeriders, sellswords, raw field hands and smallfolk from Lannisport, in addition to his three hundred clansmen, they must make for a pathetic sight, even from afar.

Disorganized, and with Gregor at the helm, they were scared just enough not to rout, yet not enough to hold.

He must be betting on the little Stark's inexperience to bait him there. Once his army is busy chasing their left flank, Ser Addam Marbrand's heavy horsemen would fall upon them like wheat to the slaughter, upon which the infantry and the archers at the center finally interrupts their eventual retreat.

A simple plan, yet one that has low chance to backfire, and most of all, one that puts Tyrion straight into the center of the slaughter, probably left to die.

And so, as Tyrion sits on his small stallion, next to the huge monstrosity that is the Mountain and his non-faithful bodyguard Bronn, his fists whiten as he tightens their hold on their reins, staring at the opposing army with trepidation.

"Strange." Bronn pipes up from his left. "Their army is set with the Green Fork at their backs." He frowns. "That is a bad position."

Indeed, while this part of the Green Fork's flow isn't fast, the waters are deep enough that any man in armor would simply drown.

In Tyrion's inexperienced mind, the only reason he could think of this is if the enemy was afraid of an attack from their rear, yet that is not a good enough reason.

Bronn squints even further. "They aren't moving, why would they just stand there, waiting for us to come to them when we have more numbers?" He explains. "Something ain't right about this."

Tyrion turns to the Mountain in order to gauge his reaction, only to find him looking back at his father's hilltop, staring as horsemen exit at full speed toward the kingsroad.

"Scouts." Tyrion comments. "It seems you aren't the only person suspicious of the enemy."

It took a long time for the scouts to return, but return they did, and so, a couple of hours before dawn, the horns blew.

"We march at once!" The Mountain's voice was loud and intimidating, and so the men endeavored to walk toward their enemy.

Yet, the situation still seemed strange in anyone smart enough to realize it.