GoT: From Mud To Iron

Seeing the tension between the arrogant young lord and the seasoned veteran nearing a boiling point, another knight spurred his horse forward, attempting to defuse the situation.

Furthermore, destroying a functional keep—even a miserable one—was a profound tactical error. He tried to appeal to Jero's pragmatism from another angle. "It is true, Young Lord."

"The men have marched a long way and are exhausted. Forcing them into heavy labor now will only waste their strength for nothing."

Jero brutally cut him off. What is wrong with these bastards? If my father were here, would they dare treat his commands with such blatant disrespect? "Shut your mouths!"

"Do I need the likes of you to teach me how to wage war?!"

He swept a venomous glare over his weary soldiers, a sneer twisting his features. "Carry out the order!!!"

Under the harsh barks of their officers, the reluctant soldiers laid down their packs, picked up their heavy tools and weapons, and trudged toward the solitary stone tower.

Soon, the heavy, rhythmic thuds of iron striking stone rang out, accompanied by the rumble of tumbling masonry. The crude banner of the Reekfort was slashed down and trampled into the mud.

Watching the tower slowly come apart seemed to cool the burning anger in Jero's chest, but only slightly. It was not enough.

He turned his horse toward the cluster of hovels by the riverbank.

Looking at the dilapidated structures built of mud and river reeds, he spat out two simple words. "Burn it."

Torches were tossed onto the thatched roofs. The dry, brittle reeds ignited instantly. The flames licked greedily upward, rapidly merging into a roaring sea of fire. Thick, acrid columns of black smoke billowed into the sky, blotting out the afternoon sun.

Listening to the sharp crackle of burning timber, feeling the wave of blistering heat wash over his face, and smelling the ash in the air, Jero Lege finally let out a sharp, vindictive laugh.

His laughter echoed across the desolate, muck-covered marshland, sounding incredibly harsh against the backdrop of destruction.

Yet, simply knocking down stones and burning empty huts was not enough to extinguish the toxic, consuming jealousy in Jero's mind.

His gaze drifted past the burning village and landed on a small, weed-choked hill in the distance.

A cruel, malicious smile crept onto his lips. His scouts had reported what that hill was: the ancestral burial ground of House Solomon.

A darker, far more venomous idea took shape in his mind.

I will dig up their graves! I will humiliate this upstart bloodline down to its very roots!

When he voiced the command to his knights, their faces instantly froze. The air around them seemed to solidify.

Even the soldiers hacking at the tower stopped their work, looking toward their lord in pure, unadulterated horror. The order was a blasphemy beyond comprehension.

Ser Adam's face turned the color of spoilt milk. He practically threw himself from his saddle, scrambling over the mud to stand before Jero.

His voice shook violently. The madness of the boy was terrifying. "Young Lord!!!"

"Have you lost your mind?!!!"

"Digging up the graves of the dead!!!"

Jero looked down at him coldly, his irritation with the old man morphing into outright hostility. "I am perfectly lucid."

Ser Adam's voice grew hoarse with desperation. "Desecrating a grave—a noble's grave, no less—is the most vile, unforgivable insult to the peace of the dead!"

"It is an atrocity! The Seven will curse us for this!!! Neither the Old Gods nor the New will ever grant us forgiveness!!!!"

Jero simply let out a dark, mocking snort.

The other knight threw himself from his horse, his face twisted in panic. "My Lord! If you do this, it ceases to be a war! This becomes a blood feud without end! You are breeding an eternal, rabid enemy for your House!!"

"We are nobles!! We are not wildlings!!!"

"The wars of Westeros have rules!! We can kill! We can plunder! But we absolutely cannot touch this taboo!!"

The intense, panicked reactions of the veteran knights only stoked the fires of Jero Lege's rebellious arrogance.

He kicked out, his heavy riding boot planting itself squarely in Ser Adam's chest, sending the old knight sprawling backward into the mud. "A pack of gutless cowards!"

He threw his head back and laughed maniacally, his face looking twisted and demonic in the orange glow of the burning village. My father is going to exterminate House Solomon anyway. Why should I fear the curse of a dead house?!

"What are you afraid of?! The Solomon bloodline is about to be wiped from the earth! Do you think I fear the ghosts of a dead family?!!"

Jero pointed his riding crop toward the burial hill, screaming at the paralyzed soldiers. "I will show him today! I will show the entire world the price of offending my House! I will dig up his ancestors' bones and feed them to the dogs!"

"I will make sure every fool who dares challenge House Lege remembers the cost!!!"

"Just like Lord Tywin Lannister of the Westerlands!!"

"Yes!! Exactly like Lord Tywin Lannister!!"

"DIG THEM UP!!!"

As night fell, a constellation of torches dotted the small burial hill.

The soldiers, forced to carry out the abhorrent command under threat of the whip, wore expressions of pure terror and revulsion.

As they drove their iron spades into the earth, they muttered silent, desperate prayers to the Mother and the Crone, begging for forgiveness for the terrible sin they were being forced to commit.

Mound by mound, the dirt was turned over. Crude wooden coffins were exposed to the night air and violently smashed open.

Jero sat on a camp chair nearby, sipping heavily from a skin of wine, admiring the utter desecration of the gods' laws with satisfied grunts.

Ser Adam and the other knights stood a long distance away. Their faces were as dark as the night sky, their bodies trembling with suppressed fury and shame.

They looked at Jero with a mixture of profound disgust and crushing powerlessness. By participating in this atrocity, their own names would be reviled across the Seven Kingdoms.

Suddenly, the sharp, metallic clink of iron striking something solid rang out. A soldier in the oldest section of the graveyard let out a startled shout. "I... I hit something!!!"

Jero lowered his wineskin, his eyes snapping up. "What did you find?!!"

The soldier, who had been digging into the most ancient, unassuming grave on the hill, dropped his spade. He crouched down, using his bare hands to hastily scrape away the damp soil. He unearthed a long, heavy object meticulously wrapped in layers of oiled cloth and hardened leather.

Trembling with curiosity, the soldier untied the rotted bindings and peeled back the ancient leather.

A longsword was revealed to the night air.

The dancing firelight washed over the blade, yet the metal did not reflect a blinding glare. Instead, it seemed to absorb the light into itself. The steel was an unusual, dusky dark grey, and its surface was covered in a distinctive, flowing, rippled pattern—as if the metal had been forged from dark, moving water.

The soldier inhaled sharply. Gods, what a sword!

It had been buried in the damp earth for who knew how many generations, yet there was not a single speck of rust on the edge!

The soldier knew nothing of metallurgy, but the moment his calloused hand closed around the cold hilt, a sensation of impossible lightness and absolute, perfect balance shot up his arm.

He knew instantly that this was a weapon of legend.

A wild thought flared in his mind: I'm going to be rich!

He hoisted the blade and scrambled out of the dirt, jogging over to Jero with a fawning, sycophantic grin. "My Lord! Look at this!!!"

Jero Lege snatched the longsword from the man's hands. He gave it a casual, one-handed swing. The blade sliced through the air, letting out a faint, lethal hiss that seemed to cut the wind itself.

"Gods!!!" Jero gasped, leaping to his feet. He weighed the sword in his hand, his eyes widening with pure, unadulterated greedy joy.

"Damn me!! Who would have thought?! This miserable, shit-wiping family actually had something like this hiding in their dirt!!!"

He held the sword up to the torchlight, meticulously examining the strange, rippling folds in the dark steel.

At that exact moment, the silent, brooding Ser Adam happened to glance over and catch sight of the blade in Jero's hands.

The old knight's body went completely rigid, as if a bolt of lightning had struck him dead center.

The last remnants of color fled from his weathered face. His eyes locked onto the dark, water-patterned steel, and his lips began to quiver uncontrollably.

Stumbling forward like a man trapped in a dream, Ser Adam reached a trembling hand out, instinctively wanting to touch the blade, but he stopped short—as if terrified of defiling something profoundly sacred.

A choked, strangling sound tore from his throat.

Finally, in a voice laced with absolute, mind-shattering shock, reverence, and raw terror, the veteran knight cried out:

"Valyrian... steel..."

"By the Seven!! That is a Valyrian steel sword!!!!"

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