The Dragon of Duskendale -- A Song of Ice and Fire Fanfic

Chapter 23

Across the river a man held court, determining the fate of thousands.

Including mine, and my child's.

A tent stood on the Royalist side of the river, its black material bearing the crimson three-headed dragon and housing a war council. The ground before it had been cleared of bodies but remained a muddy, bloody mess, evidence to the slaughter that had happened there. And that bank saw far less fighting. Ned glanced around him. Where once there had been reeds and riverbank there was only mud and blood. Teams of men were still scouring the Trident, pulling bodies half buried in silt from below. She no longer ran red, fresh water from upstream cleansing the ford of some of its horrors and washing them towards the sea, but Eddard wondered if it would ever truly be clean again.

The Ruby Ford, they call it now. Men of both sides had combed the waters around Rhaegar Targaryen's body for the gemstones Robert's hammer had smashed from his breastplate. Such a pretty name for a place of such horror.

"Ned," a voice called behind him, and Ned realized he'd been staring at the Trident for a good while. He turned, seeing Jon Arryn waving towards him from a chair. "I would come to you, but you moved better than I even before the wound." The Lord of the Vale had had his own pavilion brought up, as had Lord Tully, though Hoster now sat beside Jon in the Valeman's tent. Ned had not called for his own, having had too much energy to stay still for long, his mind never far from the fate of his child.

But it would be rude to reject the man who had risked everything to protect him. And might have lost everything, if Aelor is not as lenient as he indicated he would be. Ned entered the pavilion, taking a seat at a small table beside his mentor.

Lord Tully gestured across the river. "Surreal, isn't it."

Ned nodded, glad he wasn't the only one. "We were all trying to kill one another yesterday. Now we're all sitting by a river in the shade." He gestured towards the trays of cheese and bread on the table before them. "Like it's a bloody picnic."

Arryn laughed, though it was a hollow thing. Jon had not truly laughed or even genuinely smiled since before the battle that claimed his heir and surrogate son. Ned didn't blame him, for neither had he. "The perplexities of war, lad."

"Your leg?"

"It will heal." Arryn lowered his voice a moment later, to where only Eddard and Hoster could hear. "If the terms are unacceptable, know I will have your back, my boy. I swore to protect you and Robert when this all began. I failed him. I won't fail you."

"You didn't fail Robert," Ned said, a lump in his throat at the loyalty of the old man. Jon had been a second father to Eddard, and a closer one than his first since Ned had been in the Eyrie and under his protection from the age of eight. Rickard Stark had been a good man who loved his children, but he had been a hard man as well. Jon was a different type of strong, the sort who cared deeply and let you know it. The sort I intend to be for my child, Gods willing. "We fought. We lost. We all knew the risks."

Hoster Tully nodded. "True enough, and he's right, Jon. You failed no one."

Arryn didn't acknowledge that. It was clear that, to Jon Arryn, he had failed, and would not be convinced otherwise. "Just know that I stand with the North, should things turn sour."

"As do I," Lord Tully said. "We are tied together, the three of us, come what may."

What came was a blessing, in the grand scheme of war.

Ser Desmond Langward, having continued his role as envoy between the two sides, summoned them two hours before dusk. The three lord's paramount and their chosen lords, as well as Lord Tarth and a handful of others from the Stormlands, crossed the Ruby Ford and climbed the muddy bank, dismounting under the eyes of a hundred royalist knights. Their eyes were hard and unfriendly, as were the looks returned by the rebellious lord's own guards, but no threats or jibes were exchanged as the men entered the black pavilion.