The Mountain of Ice and Fire

Tyrion sighed as he stood in the courtyard of the Inn at the Crossroads, beside the Trident River.

It was at this very inn that Catelyn Tully had seized him. Now, he was back, but nothing was the same.

His father, Lord Tywin, had commandeered the place, making it his temporary headquarters.

This entire war had sprung from his desire for a room, a meal, and a drink at this inn. If he hadn't crossed paths with Catelyn Tully here, could this war have been avoided?

Several people accompanied Tyrion.

The first was Bronn, who had been forced to kneel and apologize the previous night by the Mountain. The man was an oddity. After his forced apology, he returned to the tent with Tyrion. Tyrion had intended to offer a few words of comfort, but the sellsword had simply collapsed onto the rug inside the tent and began to snore. His breathing was steady and rhythmic, undoubtedly genuine sleep, not feigned.

The Mountain forcing him to kneel, Anguy's arrow aimed at his head, the taunts of Raff the Sweetling and the executioner Dunsen—Tyrion had expected Bronn to be consumed by resentment, to drink and curse in the tent, uttering a torrent of empty threats. But when he confirmed that Bronn was indeed sound asleep, he realized he had misjudged him.

The next morning, Tyrion awoke to find Bronn already practicing his swordsmanship on the grass outside the tent, with Shae watching him with undisguised excitement. Tyrion glanced at Bronn with some concern, but found him looking remarkably refreshed and full of energy. The humiliation he had suffered the night before seemed to have vanished completely.

Tyrion probed him with a few indirect questions, only to discover that Bronn genuinely seemed to have forgotten the whole incident. Tyrion ultimately confirmed that Bronn truly hadn't taken it to heart. Perhaps he had accepted it with equanimity because he knew revenge was impossible; perhaps he was simply accustomed to such humiliations from a young age and possessed an exceptional, or even desensitized, tolerance.

In any case, the Mountain's humiliation of Bronn had not bothered Bronn in the slightest, and for this, Tyrion's respect for Bronn deepened.

Tyrion mused that if he himself had encountered a force of nature like the Mountain, he would certainly choose to kneel rather than die, and he certainly wouldn't dwell on it too much.

After all, he couldn't beat the Mountain in close combat, nor could he match Anguy's archery skills at range. Seeking revenge would be tantamount to suicide, and dwelling on it would only torment himself.

Besides Bronn, Tyrion was also accompanied by a thin man wearing a horned helmet. The thin man held a hunting knife in his hand. He was Gunthor, son of Gunn, the leader of the Stone Crows, a Vale mountain clan.

Beside Gunthor stood a very strong, burly man. The man was powerfully built, dressed entirely in animal skins, wielding a wooden club in his right hand and an axe in his left. The man was named Shagga, also from the Stone Crows, and son of another leader, Dolf.

In addition, there was Chella, daughter of Cheyk, leader of the Black Ears. She was already a mother of several children, short in stature but fiercely aggressive, wearing a necklace made of human ears. For every person she killed, she would cut off their ears and string them into a necklace.

Standing alone to one side was the one-eyed warrior, Thimm, son of Tymett, leader of the Burned Men. At his coming-of-age ceremony, he had used a white-hot blade to gouge out his left eye, thereby earning the respect and awe of his tribe, who elected him as 'Red Hand'. Red Hand was similar to war leader, equivalent to a commander or general in a noble army.

In the Burned Men tribe, the coming-of-age ceremony for boys usually involved burning off one side of their genitals or a finger. Only the very brave or very insane would burn off an ear. But an hero who burned out his own eye was a first for the tribe, and that man was Thimm.

Everyone in the tribe feared Thimm, and he disdained being friendly with people from other tribes. He preferred his isolation.

Besides them was Ulla, leader of the Moon Brothers. The Moon Brothers and the Black Ears had always been allies, and Ulla and Chella, daughter of Cheyk, whose chest was as flat as a man's, were very close.

The Imp, Tyrion Lannister, turned back to look at the representatives of the mountain clans he had coaxed out of the Vale mountains, and said, "Today you've all seen it. My father's army camp stretches for miles, and every soldier is clad in armor and armed with a longsword. I told you in the mountains that my father's blacksmiths shit out better weapons than yours. As long as you listen to me, swords? Spears? Or armor? You can have whatever you want. My only concern now is whether your tribal warriors will start slaughtering each other on the east bank of the Green Fork while you and I are away."

Inter-tribal warfare was rampant among the mountain clans; they had never known peace.

"We won't fight until we get what we want, Halfman. Stop your nagging and take us to see your father so he can give us the weapons you promised," the Red Hand, Thimm of the Burned Men, growled fiercely, his one eye glaring.

Three hundred natives from the Stone Crows, Moon Brothers, Black Ears, and Burned Men were left on the east bank of the Green Fork. These three hundred natives were the seed of the army Tyrion was setting out to build. More natives had already been summoned and gathered, and as soon as the weapons here were secured, proving that the Halfman hadn't deceived them, Tyrion would soon possess an army of three thousand men. This strength would immediately place him among the ranks of the top-tier nobles in the Westerlands.

However, Tyrion was not yet the leader of these natives; he was, in fact, their prisoner. After he and Bronn escaped the Vale, they were ambushed by these natives. As they were about to be killed, he had used his silver tongue, promising them fine weapons and lands in the Vale, and had persuaded the natives to escort him down the mountain.

Last night, through the arrangements of Lord Leo Lefford, Tyrion had stayed in the camp on the east bank of the Green Fork, and only this morning had he crossed the Green Fork to meet his father, Lord Tywin Lannister, at the Inn at the Crossroads.

During his time with the natives, Tyrion had realized that the most troublesome aspect of them was their absolute 'democracy'. The natives believed that everyone had the right to express their opinion during meetings, even women had the right to speak, so they argued endlessly regardless of the size of the matter.

They could debate a small matter for ten days or half a month, or even longer, and often fail to resolve it. For centuries, the natives had been unable to truly threaten the Vale of Arryn, except for occasional small-scale raids. Tyrion intended to change this situation. He hoped to arm the natives and unite them, and then use their strength to threaten the Vale of Arryn.

His days trapped in the Vale of Arryn after being captured by Catelyn Tully had been unpleasant. His two attendants had been killed, and if Bronn hadn't stepped forward to fight a trial by combat and won, he would have been beheaded by the Vale.

A Lannister always pays his debts, including debts of hatred. The grudge from the Vale of Arryn had to be repaid!

This morning, Tyrion led Gunthor, Shagga, Thimm, Chella, Ulla, and others across the Green Fork. Along the way, the five mountain bandits couldn't hide their surprise. This delighted Tyrion, because the more impressed these five were with the power of House Lannister, the easier they would be to control.

Tyrion, Bronn, and the five native tribal leaders rode scrawny mountain ponies. As soon as they arrived, the guards at the Inn at the Crossroads recognized Tyrion. Their expressions of surprise upon seeing Thimm and the others were no less than Thimm's group's reaction to witnessing the Westerlands army.

A stable boy came to take the horses to care for them, but Thimm was afraid the stable boy would steal his horse. After Tyrion repeatedly assured him, Thimm finally agreed to hand over his pitifully thin horse to the stable boy to be taken to the stables for care.

"You stay here for now. Let me go in and see my father, tell him about your situation first, and then I'll come out and take you to the armory to collect weapons and armor."

When the natives captured Tyrion and Bronn in the mountains, they asked for weapons and armor instead of gold. In the mountains, weapons and armor were more useful than gold.

The captain of the guard led Tyrion into the inn's hall, where he saw four people: his father, Lord Tywin, his uncle Kevan Lannister, the Mountain, and a sorceress with a face covered in seven-pointed stars and wearing a wizard's robe.

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