@Sigurd@ethanjory@Stormborn@Dusty@HeySeuss

The raven had circled the field below the overcast layer of cloud several times already, descending lower and lower with each sphere, mass blocks of men, horses, and likely a few women shifting themselves into battle-ready formations in preparation for the inevitable clash that all knew was coming. Of course the raven was just an avian creature, intelligent yes, but unaware of what was progressing between the ant-like figures beneath it. All it knew was that, at some point, they would meet, death would follow, and there would be more than enough flesh for the buzzards and itself to gorge upon...

Meanwhile, from a more ground-based view of the proceeding events, Jago Flowers - who men openly referred to as 'the Mad Maester' even within hearing distance - wet his lips in anticipation of the carnage about to unfold in this rather arid region of the Disputed Lands; indeed, rain clouds whirled overhead, and the usually blinding Essos sun cast its rays sporadically over the lowlands, but of moisture there was no sign this day.

At his side the Reachland bastard tabbed his pouch, writing implements already arrayed about him on the dry soil of the hillock on which he sat. He was to have no part in the battle this day, save as an observer - though even at the age of seven-and-fifty he was still capable of it - for the 'commander' of the Meereenese Knots had made it clear he wished to have his victory recorded for posterity. The thin lips of Jago's gaunt face had peeled back at this, revealing a set of oddly pointed teeth, but he had bobbed and nodded in agreement with the foolish man...and now he was here, his emaciated body swaddled in his black hooded robes, his perplexingly clear eyes watching all as his steady hands made note of all-and-sundry.

After taking a brief glance into the air to see where his black-feathered companion had gotten to, he put quill to scroll and began to scribble.

The field, as it contained in the way of terrain, was almost perfect for a pitched battle. There were no woodlands to conceal ones enemy, not for miles around at least, no rivers or bridges or mountains to use as chokepoints either, only several small knolls and hummocks - such as the one upon which Jago sat - where each army had encamped, but which would make for rather useless strongpoints.

The Reachlander knew this because he was not a stranger to conflict, the mace that hanged from his rope-belt still encrusted with the dried blood of men, women and even children, things having been done during his youth that even now made the toes of other men curl to hear them.

Anyway...

Both armies, made up of Sellswords and not a single militiaman from the three city-states employing them standing among them, would need to challenge one another over the flat ground that made up the mid-part of the field; this ground was relatively solid, moistureless and hard-packed brown dirt, with dry grass being the only thing 'growing' there, but soon to be watered with blood.

What of the armies themselves?

On the one side were those Companies hired by the alliance of Tyrosh and Lys, a Grand Company of several smaller ones that formed to somewhere around a thousand cavalry and ten-thousand men-at-arms at least.

Therein were men from all over; Westerosi bastards, criminals and runaways of all stripes - forming a solid backbone of heavy infantry and the majority of the mounted contingent - savage clansmen from beyond the wall and the mountain clans come together as lighter but more fierce combatants, volunteers from the Free Cities and even a handful of slaves forced into a skirmish they had no place waging.

Their adversaries were not much different it had to be said, the Knots a majority Westerosi formation of some three-hundred heavy cavalry and five-hundred infantry including two-hundred archers - most hardened individuals but not yet a coherent fighting force - given the centre of the line to protect.

On their flanks were such esteemed bands as the black-clad pike-wielding Sons of the Goat out of Qohor, or the infamous Blade-Dancers of Leng far to the east known for using their twin blades to deadly effect, a body of some two-thousand Dothraki, known simply as The Khal's Men, being their primary reserve of horsemen.

Altogether, Jago guessed at his best count, some thousand cavalry and ten-thousand infantry stood against near three-thousand horse of varying types and four-to-five-thousand infantry; it truly was a test of a larger force fighting one with more experience, the Tyroshi magisters clearly thinking that one would outdo the other.

Peering on, sat as he was well away from harm, the Bastard of Old Oak could only imagine and empathise with those now striding reluctantly or otherwise to fight for their pay.

Of the Knots he wrote in particular, the way that their infantry formed in front of the archers (a notable addition to their ranks, being longbowmen all), how their cavalry - heavily armoured knights from Westeros to a man - assembled into the famous lance, and how Alon Peckledon, the man responsible for their presence here today, had surrounded himself with the hundred or so men he had named his 'Guard of Valour'.

Well, what did one expect from a former brothel owner anyway?

So the stage was set, sunlight briefly bursting through the clouds, and the buzzards prepared for a feast.

'Still no rain, maester,', Fyren said, sleepy and displeased, as he was yawning and dragging his gear behind him. 'How sad. It would've been really convenient for you, woulnd't it? For your glorious new tale you are writing, I mean.' He dropped the load he was carrying and took a long swallow from his waterskin. It was near empty, he felt when he gave it a shake. He looked at the mostly obscured field around him and at the granite skies above him. Something was wrong with his health, he thought. His thirst had been insatiable for a few days, and his lips were always cracked and dry, and his eye watery. He did not feel weak, however. That was all that mattered. 'All the big battles in the books and songs are always taking place when it's raining. It's a pity yours will be so dry.'

He found a nice spot a little further on, with a huge solitary boulder hollowed out in such a way that it made a nice place to sit. The first big battle of his sellsword career would soon begin, and yet he did not have any grand thoughts to busy himself with while he was cleaning his sword and checking his gear. He did not care about any valour, or any spoils, or killing any great warrior, or any bloody tale for the posterity. There still had to be some fear in him, though, he thought, if nothing else. Yes, he feared for his life, but not because he was scared of death. He was afraid because he would never unravel the mystery that brought him there if he died that day. Or any day. He absolutely could not die, and he would do anything not to.

He cursed he knew not what and drained the waterskin of what little water remained in it. He wiped his mouth clean with his red cloak. 'That's all you were ever good for,' he said silently to the colour of his house, if his he could call it. 'Wiping myself.' There were lions in the enemy ranks, some man told him last night, large, trained to kill and starved before the battle. He even said there were dwarves riding them. Surely a lie, but interesting imagery nonetheless. He wondered what lord Lannister would think about it: lions caged by some brutes in the East and used like swine in those travelling bands of entertainers, in which dwarves ride pigs and pretend to be knights. Even at that moment it made him smile. 'Perhaps they'll spare us. For family's sake. What do you think?' he asked his cloak and gave the blade one last measuring look. Castle-forged and blazing in the pathetic ray of sunlight that made its way through the clouds. Somehow it looked shorter than it really was when observed with one eye that had little sense of depth. 'If not... Well, I've got a claw too.'

All in all, he was ready. Waiting was all that was left to do, the last and most annoying part of it all. If only things would begin as soon he was ready, that would be the life. To get it over with and move on. He got up and took his stuff. He decided to look for someone he knew, to pass the time somehow. Somehow time always passed more quickly if he had company. Company was no different than wine in that regard. He also liked to listen to others talking, the hard men all of them, because that way it felt as if they would all have a flawless victory, escape unscathed, and leave only enemy corpses burning behind them as they laugh because they are invincible. At least it felt that way before small skirmishes and raiding attacks they'd performed. This was different, he knew, a big battle on the open field, between thousands of men, hundreds of peoples. But the men in his band were the same, so surely they would all live to fight another day this time as well, wouldn't they? No, said a voice in his head. The maestar's tale won't be dry at all.

Check the arrows, check the bowstave. Check the arrows, check the bowstave.

That occupied part of Red Harry's brain as he looked out over a bleak, sandy vista of all that the Disputed Lands had to offer. Others, less used to the condition of campaigning here, were sweating profusely and were red from exposure to the sun, but Harry managed to weather it from under a red and white checked scarf wrapped over his head, a trick learned from a Dornishman some years back. Them that had water had some, finding it warm and tinged with something that gave it a slightly metallic taste. It came from a watering hole in the Disputed Lands, something their local guides knew about, and the best that could be said for it was that it was wet.

It'd taste like the purest, coldest stream fifteen seconds into the fight, and they had barrels of it ready for after. There'd be less of them by then.

There was a centennar giving direction to the longbowmen in the Knot, but Harry knew the sort of orders by rote. The man was a boor, but he'd learned some time ago the value of holding one's tongue, even if one did know better, when confronted with someone that would not hear. The rest of the longbows were of the same mind; there were enough experienced men about the company to know how to space themselves to give room not long to draw the bows, but for the runners to deliver more arrows. They marched, but the carts hauled arrows and the means to make more, which they spent the night doing.

He'd drawn the bow, as a boy and man both, for enough years to know what the work was about. He was illiterate and had no math training, but he could mark out a desiccated tree here, a hill there, to mark the range and how much to adjust the angle of his bowshot. He knew, by long practice, where the arrows would reach and where they wouldn't.

Occasionally, he nudged a man alongside him and pointed out these landmarks. There was a mutual interest among longbowmen to survive the day, because no one loved them much and the Sers might ransom each other, but the peasant scum without money were enslaved at best, if not outright executed. Harry figured that a slaver would take one look at him and know that he'd never make an obedient slave. Worse, the bastard might decide he'd be more docile without a cock...

The deliberations on Harry's part and the conversations in the scattered line of longbowmen ended abruptly as the enemy decided to start the advance. In the way of things, they thought they could sweep the line and be done with the fight, which was expected to be a tentative affair of carefully managed expectations and performative, choreographed advances matched by performative, choreographed, carefully-timed defending that would look stout enough to satisfy an employer.

That, after all, was the way mercenaries fought. You couldn't be paid if you were dead. And your company didn't get hired if it didn't have men.

He bent the bowstave and put the string in the grooves cut into the wood for the purpose, making sure the loops were settled in behind the pieces of horn that held them in place when bent. Then, figuring that there was no time like the present, he had himself a piss right out on the sand, aiming for a nearby rock. He made sure he wasn't hitting anyone with it, but that was it as far as concern went. He'd seen worse, many of them had, after a diseased-wracked march, men fighting ankle-deep in their own watery shit, but there was a younger lad looking on with disbelief at the shamelessly public display.

As he told the younger man, wryly, "Now or in your pants boy, your choice!"

They were pulled from the front, those two brothers, despite their eager willingness to fight in that crucial spot. The tall hook nosed Tyroshi man Byden had come to despise, grabbed them by their ears and dragged them back into the middle of the growing formation, five or six ranks deep. It was hard to tell in the poorly organized press of bodies. He left them in the care of a older Westerosi, who claimed he was some bastard or another of a Ironborn king, Byden could not care less and only glared daggers at the back of the retreating Tyroshi. He did not know the man’s name, no one seemed to. All anyone was sure of was that he had a very hooked nose, and he was big and tough and was more or less in charge of this particular mercenary cohort. Byden scuffed the dirt with his sandals, thinking of all the things he would do or say to the big Tyroshi if they weren’t surrounded by ‘comrades’ and on the verge of a battle. The best of which ended in Byden knocking the man down, calling him a whoreson, and stomping his face until his teeth came free. He did not have much time to fantasize his dark thoughts. The lines were coming together, and men pressed in tight all around, heel to toe, shoulder to shoulder until Byden felt he could barely breathe. The stench caught in his throat, and it took everything he had not to retch on the man in front of him. After weeks of marching with every little bathing water the men had taken on a very sour smell, one that reminded Byden of old cheese stuffed within a rotting fish.

“Ye’d best put your fancy weapons away lads, you’re too far back in the line for them to be of much use to anyone.” The greybeard Ironborn was saying, in a melancholy way. “Spears will be the way forward, aye, and shields, keep them high. Archers will be loosing more than one volley our way ye can be sure of that. Typical for men back here to only die cause they didn’t keep their shields up. A good friend O’ mine died that way, we were near Maidenpool as I recall, and I told him, keep your shield up, I told him. But did he listen ye might be wondering?”

“Why did he put us here?” Byden groused, cutting across the greybeard’s boring tale. “We wanted to fight, not watch the glory-making from all the way back here.” Byden might have been new to proper warfare, but even he could see they were far to deep in the line for even their long spears to be employed. At least four ranks would have to fall before they could even consider fighting, and Byden had been told they numbered near ten thousand in total, while the enemy was some half of that. How anyone could count that high, or how they had accomplished such an impressive feat with the constant movement of the men he could not say. He had enough trouble just counting to a hundred, and that was when he had a ledger to make marks on, and every remained still and in neat orderly lines. Anyway, ten thousand shoulder surely smash half that, Byden reasoned, and his brother Tebyn had come to the same conclusion. Which meant, if they wished to wet their sword and club they would need to be in the front and middle where the fighting would be heaviest.

They risen earlier than normal, on the day some unknown force had determined the battle would take place, and found a good spot, right next to the bannerman and trumpeter. From that vantage they could even watch the enemy, in the shadowy morning light form up, and Tebyn who had the better eyes was calling out the different banners and colors he could see dancing above the heads of their foemen. Until the Tyroshi hook nose arrived, marching down the line and leering at the men in his stupid iron helm and red gambeson. He spotted them in a hurry, and with the strength no man should be afforded placed them so far back and behind so many tightly packed men even Tebyn couldn’t see the enemy lines, let alone their colors and insignia.

Their ironborn guardian did not mind being cut off from his tale, and he explained the Tyroshi's reasoning in simple terms, as if he was speaking to a pair of children. “Best count yourselves lucky he spotted ye lads. The Hook did you a service putting you back here. He wants skilled and blooded men up front, folk he’s seen killing and slaying and fighting before. He knows his men that one, and his battles.”

“I can fight, aye, and kill.” Tebyn insisted, and Byden chorused in righteous umbrage.

“Fight and kill with the best of them. You’ll see, he’s making a mistake pulling us away, and leaving those ancients. They look as if a strong breeze will blow them away!”

“In this army,” the greybeard countered. “They are like to be the only ones not blown away. You’re in a good spot, far enough away to run if things go bad, and close enough forward to chase and loot if they enemy breaks. Aye, the best spot.”

“More like the cowards spot.” Byden muttered.

Tebyn was more diplomatic however. “Will we be able to find some enemy to slay in battle? There is no glory in chasing down a man and shoving a dagger in his back…”

The greybeard shrugged. “Who can say, ye might find a few who will fight you, whom you can slay if that be your wish.”

“Wish!” Byden snorted incredulously. “Why in the name of the Seven would anyone be here if not to kill someone?”

The greybeard shrugged again, he did that a lot Byden noticed. Perhaps because the raising and lowering one's shoulders was the most expressive gesture one could hope for in the tight formation. “Pay is good I suppose, never killed a man myself, and never wanted to.”

Byden could feel his temper flaring and he began spewing forth a stream of curses and oaths in three different languages he had learned on the way there. He was a sailor after all, and had the mouth to prove it. They had marched, and stood watches in uncomfortable conditions for weeks, only, on the precipice of a great battle be forced into the care of a coward, far from any fighting behind a force of men who would be wetting their swords, and hoarding all the glory. Even Tebyn, who normally had twice the patience looked frustrated, and rightly so Byden thought. They were being cheated, and it was all the fault of the big Tyroshi man who fancied himself an officer. The few marks and coins they would make would never justify this shit he reasoned. Byden resolved to shove his spear through the back of the big Tyroshi’s throat should he happen to see him and get the chance, that at least would be justice in part.