[right][img]https://i.imgur.com/UYMxcxX.jpeg[/img][/right]

[sub][color=037a03][b]Lady Vittoria Tyrell, High Marshall of the Reach[/b][/color][/sub]
[sub][color=5869e3][b]Ser William Marston[/b][/color][/sub]
[sub][color=e35858][b]Garin Sands, Captain[/b][/color][/sub]

[color=gray]Though the dust from the battle had begun to settle, the cloying stench of ruptured organs and the piled corpses of the slain was already rising.  The oppressive heat would only make it worse.  But Vittoria had planned for that.  Teams of camp followers and soldiers were already moving to dig the wide trenches that would serve as mass graves for the fallen soldiers of the Faith.  Women and men toiled under the sun’s unrelenting fury, their faces shrouded by cloth masks as they broke the parched ground with picks and spades.

Beyond the sound of horses and hurried commands, there was a low and distant sound on the oven-like breeze.  The quiet moans and sobs of those who still clung to life or simply hadn’t finished dying.

Vittoria stood in her stirrups and tried to ignore the dull ache in her joints and hands.  The tough little mare she’d chosen, munched contentedly on the dry grass, heedless or perhaps inured to the death and pain around.

Her infantry and knights had reformed and dressed their lines.  Though her men were tired from the battle, they still had strength enough to hold the line at least longer.  Garin’s scouts and the main body of his cavalry were already at work, setting pickets, patrolling beyond her forces, securing the enemy camp and harrying any survivors.

All was . . . not well, thousands of men had just fallen at her command.  But things were in order.  She ran a hand through her dusty hair and forced her tired mind to think over whether or not she was forgetting anything.

The battle was scarcely over, when essengers began to arrive almost instantly. Lord Theo congratulated her and asked her to see him as soon as she could. She read the scrawl of ink and parchment, barely big enough to hold with two hands, five times…the contents of it never did give way to the power of her gaze, remaining the same as it been when it arrived in her hands from the messenger.

It said nothing about the Faith’s camp. It said nothing about Rowan or Oakheart. Garin Sand’s last missive had little else.  The enemy camp and baggage train had been taken, the few Faith servants who’d survived the massacre were being pursued.  Her response was loud and deflating; the kind of sigh that came from the depth of one’s gut and slow rumbled its way out of their lips with exasperation.

“…we’re not done, are we?”

The question came from a man with a tone of pain. It wasn’t until the second messenger in quick measure, producing the second missive from the commander of their van, that her mood visibly perked: [i]Davos and his people were only minorly injured.[/i] Smiling, she responded to the exhausted sworn shield and cousin of her’s, Ser Ryam, “…no, I don’t think we are.”

The third messenger came, presented his tightly rolled parchment, and left with the urgency of a man worried about his brothers. It was a small reminder that the fighting was still playing out. That danger was still in the air for some of those under her banners. The message made her blink: [i]Ser Morgan Hightower has been taken prisoner.[/i]

The world around them was brown and gray, with all colors but blood red. long dead.  Even that was already turning black in the summer heat.  Another sigh came, smaller, silent, her own kind of prayer in that field of dead. That was when the fourth messenger arrived from the dust and death, a man-at-arms sent from Ser William Marston, the cold-eyed killer who’d held the bridge for her.  The disheveled soldier dropped to his knees before her, breathless and gasping for air.

Ser Ryam was suddenly not so exhausted, stepping his horse between the man-at-arms and the High Marshall, but Vittoria placed a hand on his armored shoulder, with a gentle smile.  There wasn’t any fear left for her this day. As she leaned from the saddle to take the message, a flash of light off metal caught her eye.  

In the distance, she could see Garin Sand’s banner held aloft . . . and the head of whatever poor unfortunate who hadn't run fast enough from the Dothraki warrior who held it.  Garin raised his spear in salute as he drew closer.  Though he was covered in dust, she saw the easy set to his shoulders and the jauntiness in the way he rode.  All must be well then.  Suddenly her body didn’t ache so much, and her head felt clearer than ever. She felt as if she could glow.

Vittoria Tyrell felt powerful again. “Tell me.”

“Ser William Marston bade me give you his compliments and to tell you that he has captured a Septon in the field—”[i]Anyone[/i], Vittoria prayed, [i]but[/i]—“a Septon Pater. North and east from here.”

Before the name was even out of his mouth she was turning her horse and shouting for her bodyguard to follow her.  Ryam was already turning in his saddle to call for his remount.  Her hand touched his left shoulder, as she smiled at him, “Thank you. Rest, Ser Ryam.  You have done all that I could ask.”

The capacity of Creation for tragedy and pain became the landscape, thick with dust, highlighted in drying blood and rotting flesh and smashed brains. Bile, entrails, vomit—there was every smell contained within men as fragrance of the thick air. Vittoria had hated every battlefield she had ever had to be on.

As she drew closer to Garin, she pointed to the north-east.  “If you will ride with me, Captain?”

Garin nodded and the small column of riders he had with him, turned to follow their captain.

“My scouts report that they’ve found only stragglers, the camp is taken and some of your own footmen have already crossed the bridge to go and stand guard there.  Lord Theo has sent his men to inventory the baggage train.  As for my cavalry, we’ll keep up the pursuit through the night.

“But there’s very little left of the enemy.”

Garin’s voice was raspy from barking orders and dust, sweat had ran down from his helm, through the dust that caked his lined features.  His eyes were red and puffy from stress and exhaustion, no doubt his body ached under his armor.  But he still rode tall and proud.  Then again, he could not afford to show weakness before the kind of mercenaries he commanded.

Vittoria nodded as she blinked her red-rimmed eyes and tried to think through the fog in her brain.

“So you’ve taken the baggage train and the bulk of your cavalry are still in play.  You’ve done a great feat of arms here, Garin.  It will not be forgotten.”

Sands nodded, no doubt he understood, she couldn’t make promises.  But at least Vittoria had recognized the importance of dividing the loot from the baggage train.

Fighting her own Reachmen, fighting the Faith…she had never hated a battlefield more. She had a won battle that many an experienced commander would have found a challenge.  But it held no glory for her.  Any thoughts of honor and victory were overshadowed by the empty gazes of the dead and sobs of the wounded.

If it were possible to spare the day one more tragedy? She rode quicker than she should have, her little mare moving over the rough ground with the grace of a dancer. There was still some fighting northward, where Northern mercenaries were said to appear—from where, at the expense of what accounts, she was still dying to learn.

Well, regardless of their intentions, her army was deployed and ready for them.  If nothing, a show force was sometimes a good idea.

The ground rose before a quick dip in the spot beside a small stream now choked with dead and blood and worse, down the small slope and across that stream Vittoria Tyrell found the men she sought:

“SER WILLIAM!”

It was before they came within earshot, next to Ser William, that Septon Pater spoke in wry tones as he heard that voice and saw the distant figure of the Lord Commander ahorse, “…you’ve done it now, Ser. Both the Mother and the Warrior, entwined, come to judge us, now.”

William turned to regard the Septon with the blank stare of his gore-spattered great helm.  If the heat discomfited him under his armor, he showed no sign.

“It seems to me, priest, that the judgment has already been passed.”

Despite himself, the old Septon felt a shiver crawl up his spine.  In the same way a man might give pause when having rounded a bend in the trail, to come across an angry bear.

Pater had met such men before.  Indeed, more than one old Septon had been a knight in his younger days.  He glanced at the carnage around them and counted himself lucky that the hulking knight beside him had seen his bloodlust slaked.  If Lady Vittoria was the Warrior and the Mother, then Marston had been the merciless Stranger at this bridge.

He watched as his menacing captor stood in his stirrups and waved his newly acquired lance at the approaching cavalcade.  Pater knew little of knighthood but he knew enough to realize Marston was a warrior with great strength and a brutal drive for combat that few men ever experienced.  He felt respect for the young knight but there was pity in his old eyes as well.

In his experience, men like that were rarely happy unless they were fighting.  Usually they would fall in battle.  Or they lived long enough to look back on the life they’d led and begin to wonder what it had all been for.  Pater wasn’t sure which fate was crueler.

“Tell me, Ser.  Was the death at this bridge all your doing?”

William turned again and his helm moved slowly from side to side.  “No, some of those Essossi,” he waved a gauntleted hand at the approaching horsemen, “feathered a few of the ones on the eastern bank.”

Pater nodded gently.  “Still, Ser.  You showed great bravery today.”

William’s pauldrons clanked as he shrugged.

“He does the most, who is worth the most.”  He said, the sound distorted behind his helm.

Vittoria was staring both men down as she approached, as Garin and Ryam took to looking around their surroundings intently and dismounted without a word said. Pater took the opening and ran with it, beginning to explain even before her booted feet hit the dust and dirt and blood of the battleground. “I struck out to find you before this…” Pater paused, but only for a heartbeat, “fine Knight found me and graciously did me no harm.”

“You thought you might be a threat to Ser William?”

Pater stuttered, “Well, uh, um…no, I suppose not, just the grace that I was not immediately thrashed upon discovery from the Knight of the Bridge.”


Vittoria looked past Pater, to William, “…still getting your strength back?” She asked, as if there could be no other reasoning behind why William left Septon Pater unbruised. It was dry, battlefield, humor—the real reason was what she had first alluded to, that Pater had been no threat, so he suffered no harm.

“He told me he knew you.  I decided to wait . . . if he was lying I was going to hold his ankles and bounce his head off the bridge.”  William said.

There was a long pause and Vittoria made a note that Marston had very little in the way of a sense of humor.  Well, or at least anything that she would have considered amusing.

“I would offer my congratulations on your victory, High Marshall…but I’m sorry, Vittoria, I’m sure this day was no happy day” Pater offered the girl he had helped mentor to womanhood.

Her nostrils flared. Deep within the chasm of her spirit, she was as heartbroken as she was absolutely furious…and it was a fury with focus. With intent. Instead of showing it, Vittoria smiled brightly at the man, “Congratulations are in order for you as well, Pater.”

The Septon blinked, the look in his eyes shifting as suddenly as if he’d just realized he were standing on quicksand, “Oh?”

“You will be good for the Realm, your High Holi—”

“—the High Septon lives, Vittoria, it’s—”

Her head dipped to the left, just-so, in as close to a shrug as she’d allow, “Not for long. The Most Devout accompanied the Faith Militant’s host not because of holy purpose, Pater, let us be clear: You didn’t want to burn to death from Maegor’s dragonfire.”

“The High Septon must be chosen, fairly, as a decision from the whole of the Most Devout, you know this.”

Pater looked at her as if he were lost. Or perhaps, as if he did not recognize the young woman before him. He’d seen nearly every side and facet of her being that existed over the long years, but he’d never seen here, like this…he’d never met the High Marshall of the Reach in the aftermath of battle.

When she turned to him, she squared completely, her eyes numb, her body still high on the supply of victory, on the fact that nothing stood between King’s Landing and her…nothing. The tone that followed her dull gaze gave the Septon chills, “The Most Devout allowed this. Men that followed me, loved me…are dead, Pater. Children not yet the age of a grown man died in that dust today, Pater…I KILLED MY OWN REACHMEN, I ORDERED THE ASSAULT ON THE BANNER OF THE SEVEN, MY GODS!”

Even Ryam and Garin had stopped being alert, instead turning in their saddles to stare: by the time she was done speaking, she had been screaming. The careful façade had broken, and the rage, the anguish, had been left bare…even if for one fleeting moment. Her hands busied themselves shoving hair behind her shoulders and ears, her red lips parted as she breathed deep, slow, breaths until her composure returned.

“I have committed sins on this day that I will never be able to atone for…fine,” she said the word like most men spat, something she wanted out of her mouth, now, “Fine, this is my burden. I will bear it…but I will make this day WORTH this burden, Pater.”

He said nothing as he stood there, staring, his inner turmoil plan on his face as her pain was on her face. “Garin, take Pater with you, round up as many of the Most Devout as we can…hiding in their camp? Hiding in the surrounding areas?”

She had asked, turning from Garin, back to Pater, in time to watch Pater nod, and sigh, “Most of us did not ‘hide’, we waited, and we prayed. You will find them in a few of the largest pavilions in our camp.”

Garin smirked, his reverence for the divine was real but he had only contempt for the Septons of the Seven.

Vittoria turned back to Pater, looking him straight in the eyes as she issued her orders.

“Garin, I want them rounded up and escorted into the biggest pavilion they have. Surround it with your most trusted men,” her head snapped back to Pater as her seething rage poured out of her, “the Most Devout will choose a new High Septon. When you have been selected, Pater, it will be over. Until then you will all stay in that pavilion.”

“Vittoria—” his protest began.

She appeared to ignore it, “If a member of the Most Devout tries to leave…fill them with arrows.” Then, only then, did she address the Septon’s protest, “Let us not pretend the Most Devout have never selected a High Septon they were instructed to select, Pater, I know the history as well as any Septon.”

Garin grinned mirthlessly.  “Better than that, my boys are itching for sport.  I’ll let them draw and quarter any man who tries to escape.”

“You would kill us if we leave? Vittoria…are you hearing yourself?” It was in disbelief that Pater nearly chuckled.

“Today will NEVER happen again, Pater.”

Pater opened his mouth again and then Marston’s gauntleted hand clasped the back of his neck.

“You live only because the High Marshal wishes it and I let you live because I deemed there’s little honor in killing you.

“But do not test me or the Lord Commander again.  You and your ilk can bend the knee and obey . . . or be made to.”  Martson’s voice was as cold and hard as the steel he was clad in.

Pater stood stock still in shock and growing fear.  He gazed up at Vittoria in mute appeal but in her bloodshot eyes, he only saw the same cold ruthlessness of the soldiers beside her.[/color]