The Mountain of Ice and Fire

Amory divided his four hundred soldiers into four groups, each with a little over a hundred men. He himself led the charge with a team of twenty-seven cavalrymen.

Amory originally wanted a full cavalry night raid, but his request to borrow a hundred cavalry from the Mountain was flatly refused. Considering that Thoros and Beric also mainly had infantry, Amory mobilized all his soldiers to pursue Thoros and Beric westward.

After Amory set off, the Mountain, who had agreed to advance west in parallel, held his ground, ordering his three hundred-plus cavalrymen to rest and sleep inside the camp that Amory had set up, and to set off west the next morning.

The Mountain’s three hundred-plus cavalrymen had five leaders: the former royal courtier Ser Gregor, the archery champion of the Seven Kingdoms Anguy, his adopted daughter Julie Clegane, the former captain of Eddard Stark’s guard Alyn, and the chief administrator’s clerk Mark, who was given special permission to come along to do his job and earn merit.

*

Night. In a large village by a small stream.

“Lord Thoros, what are you looking at?” a former Kings Landing guardsman asked curiously.

“There are many secrets in the flames. With a sincere heart, one can receive the Red God’s enlightenment and see the future, present, or past in the flames,” Thoros said earnestly.

The soldiers around the campfire burst into laughter.

But Thoros stared at the flames, completely absorbed.

*

Half of Thoros’s soldiers were from the King’s Landing guard, the royal forces known as the Gold Cloaks.

The red priest Thoros and Beric Dondarrion were their leaders.

In King’s Landing, once the Mountain left, King Joffrey no longer feared anyone. Thoros and Beric were to be executed for the crime of deceiving the king. The king’s so-called crime of deceiving the king was that Thoros and Beric had followed the orders of the great rebel Eddard Stark to take a hundred-plus men to the Riverlands to investigate a case and arrest the Westerlands knight Amory Lorch.

The Hand and courtiers were shocked. If the king killed the red priest and Beric, it would chill the hearts of all the knights and lords in the Red Keep. Thoros and Beric were both generals loyal to the Baratheon dynasty. If the king killed Beric, the people of Blackhaven in the Red Mountains of Dorne would surely rebel.

Before leaving King’s Landing, the Mountain had told Queen Cersei that, given the current situation, it was not advisable to kill too many people, but rather to win the hearts of the courtiers instead of the opposite.

Cersei listened to the Mountain’s advice. She also did not agree with the king’s execution of famous and powerful courtiers at this time of turmoil. She persuaded Joffrey to let the red priest and Beric lead troops to hunt down and kill Robert Baratheon’s bastards throughout the city in exchange for merit, and to show their loyalty to King Joffrey through practical actions.

There were rumors of more than a dozen of Robert Baratheon’s bastards in King’s Landing, some true and some purely rumors, but whether the children were true bastards was not important. What mattered was killing all the children on the list.

So, Joffrey ordered the red priest Thoros and Lord Beric of Blackhaven to kill all of the late King Robert’s bastards in one day.

The red priest Thoros and Beric Dondarrion, who were ordered to take their family guards and a team of King’s Landing guardsmen, did not kill all of Robert’s bastards in one day. They persuaded a team of guardsmen to rebel against King’s Landing with them and enter the Riverlands, becoming a powerful band of brigands.

What set this band of brigands apart was that they never robbed ordinary people. Wherever they went, they treated the common people with great respect. Whether they ate and stayed in the homes of villagers or fed their horses, Beric and Thoros insisted on paying, refusing to let the people of the Riverlands suffer even a little loss. Before long, they won the support and love of the people of the Riverlands.

The news of Thoros and Beric’s defiance and escape from King’s Landing reached the palace at noon that day, which infuriated Joffrey. He immediately ordered the Hound to pursue Thoros and Beric, and to bring these two rebels back to be hanged in public.

The Hound led the King’s Landing guard and the Westerlands red cloaks, riding day and night. He crossed the Blackwater Rush and entered the Kingsroad in the Kingswood. Along the way, he asked pedestrians, passers-by, villagers, and inns large and small. Thoros and Beric seemed to have evaporated into thin air. The Hound chased all the way to the edge of the Tyrell family’s territory, but could not find any trace of Thoros and Beric.

The Hound went south, while Beric went north!

This was why Thoros and Beric did not go south to their homes after defying orders, but instead went north to fight as guerrillas. If they had gone south, they would have been caught by the Hound.

No one would have thought that Lord Beric would go north. His home was in the southern Dornish mountains. Since he had rebelled against the palace, he would inevitably go south to his home, but he went north instead.

The Hound worked hard, but returned empty-handed.

The Hound’s subordinate, King’s Landing guard officer Yaros Dimitt, used to be a member of Janos Slynt’s gang, and was fierce and brutal. The people of King’s Landing feared him. After Joffrey became king, he was deeply loved by Joffrey.

While the Hound went to pursue Thoros and Beric, Yaros Dimitt, under the king’s orders, broke into Chataya’s brothel and thrust his sword into the chest of Robert Baratheon’s bastard daughter, Barra, who was still in her swaddling clothes. Barra’s mother tried desperately to stop him, but was also struck in the neck by his sword, almost severing her neck, causing Chataya and her daughter to scream in horror. He then stabbed the mother in the abdomen, stabbing her a dozen times, until the soldiers reminded Yaros that the woman had been killed by him, and he stopped with a smile.

According to the list of bastards, Yaros Dimitt slaughtered all the children and their mothers, as well as anyone who dared to stop him, in one day. Yaros Dimitt was therefore granted the title of baron by King Joffrey, and his status was above the Hound. Many officers believed that Yaros Dimitt was more suitable for the position of commander of the King’s Landing guard than the Hound.

*

Thoros stared at the flames and suddenly said, “Amory will come after us tonight.”

The brothers were drinking wheat beer brewed by the villagers, and they were slightly drunk. They laughed when they heard Thoros’s words. But Thoros stood up with a serious face and strode out to find Beric.

Beric was in another villager’s house. Thoros found Beric, who had drunk a little too much beer and was tipsy. Thoros’s words about seeing a night raid in the flames were ridiculed by Beric and the brothers. No one believed Thoros’s words. How could it be possible to see the enemy coming for a night raid in the flames?!

Everyone knew that Thoros was a red priest from Myr who believed in the Red God, but that was in the past. He hadn’t preached for a long time, nor had he prayed sincerely. Thoros now believed in wine, women, and gold dragons.

Helpless, Thoros, with his courage and prestige, took away a group of brothers and fled into the woods to the west overnight, while Beric Dondarrion and his attendants, family knights, and free riders who had always followed him stayed behind, but he strengthened his guard and sent more men to the roads that were bound to be taken.

*

Amory Lorch was more careful this time in his night raid, no longer rushing to the front. The crushing defeat in the ambush by Beric and Thoros during the day left him with lingering fears. More importantly, he did not think he was a match for Thoros. As for Beric, he thought he could fight him, but he was not sure whether he could win against Beric. If he encountered these two in the dark, Amory would not be a match.

To avoid alarming the enemy, Amory’s army did not light any fires.

The summer nights in the Riverlands were not cold, and the moon and starlight allowed people to see the road. For professional soldiers, they had undergone special night marching training, and this night raid and pursuit was not a very big challenge.

Amory Lorch entered the village along the road, capturing a few villagers to threaten and entice them, and soon obtained information about Beric and others passing by. After passing through the fourth village, they were 100% sure of the direction in which Beric and others had fled, so everyone became excited and worked hard to move forward under the cover of the night.

*

An old woman at the entrance of the village was awakened by her child’s crying. She lit a candle and had just gotten out of bed when she saw a person standing in front of her with a sword in his hand. The old woman was completely stunned, like a clay sculpture.

“If you want your whole family to live, don’t make a sound,” the person whispered, holding the sword to the old woman’s throat.

The old woman dared not nod, fearing that the sharp sword would pierce her neck. Her eyes were filled with horror.

“How many outsiders came to the village tonight?”

This question was very skillful, and the words had already set that there were outsiders in the village tonight.

“…More than twenty people…”

“Did they all have weapons?”

This was the key to determining whether this group of outsiders was Beric and his men.

Since Lord Beric had become a bandit, he would not use his real name. Even if he did, the villagers would not know who Lord Beric was.