Chapter 137: The Cruel Gods We Follow
Across the grounds, Gregor Clegane's ruined throat released a low, guttural sound that might once have been laughter.
The second trial of the day began to take shape beneath a sky already heavy with the weight of everything that had come before it.
The heralds called for silence, and slowly, reluctantly, the grounds obeyed.
Robert rose from his seat, jaw tight, the earlier tremor in his voice replaced now by something harder, more resigned.
"Ser Gregor Clegane stands accused of continuing violence against Ser Loras Tyrell, in defiance of the King's peace during a sanctioned tourney."
He paused, eyes flicking briefly toward Artos.
"And to represent the Crown, Lord Artos Stark, Hand of the King, stands as judge and champion both, by right claimed and granted. The accused, Ser Gregor Clegane, has chosen trial by combat, so he shall have one."
A murmur swept through the stands—not surprise, not after everything the day had already shown them, but something closer to dread, anticipating exactly what came next.
Gregor said nothing. He rarely did anymore.
Only guttural sounds came from him now, barely human.
The ruined thing wearing his face simply turned toward Artos, breath rattling low and wet in what remained of his throat, and waited.
"Let the trial begin," Robert said.
This time there was no shout in it, no theater. Just a tired king wanting the day to end.
Artos rolled the hammer once across his shoulders, feeling its unfamiliar weight settle into muscles that had spent years learning steel.
"Let us begin the hour of the demon."
The Mountain did not react kindly to the words. He was not appreciative of the sentence.
Gregor came first, predictably, swinging that massive greatsword in a wide, brutal arc meant to end things quickly.
Artos, on the other hand, did not rush the opening. He circled instead, slow and deliberate, watching Gregor's ruined body for the particular, lumbering signs of how Marwyn's work had changed him—the reduced flinch, the absent guard, the way pain no longer seemed to register as it once had.
Artos did not meet Gregor head-on. He stepped inside the swing instead, his hammer coming up to crack hard against Gregor's exposed elbow.
Bone cracked audibly.
Gregor did not scream. He grunted, low and startled, more surprise than pain in the sound, then swung again with the same arm as though nothing had happened at all.
"There it is," Artos muttered, mostly to himself, dancing back out of range. "Marwyn's poison really did dull you good, didn't it? I suppose I'll have to put much more effort into hurting you."
His lips pulled into a thin, joyless smile.
"Well. I will enjoy it."
He circled again, hammer loose in his grip, and this time, when Gregor lunged, the strike landed—a glancing blow across Artos's forearm, steel biting shallow but real, blood welling immediately along the cut.
Stig, watching from the stands, went rigid.
"He let that happen, right?" he asked, worry entering his voice. "There is no way he could not dodge it. Or is he slower than before?"
Beside him, Eddard's hands had curled white-knuckled against the rail.
"He is not fighting to win quickly. But he should have been able to dodge it."
"He is pissed," Yor said quietly, watching with an expression that mixed old, weary familiarity with something closer to dread. "He wants to hurt him rather than kill him."
Artos, unlike his usual aggressive and dominant style of combat, had been passive rather than active. He threw good attacks, but they seemed to mean little to Gregor. On top of that, he took several strikes in exchange for every blow he delivered.
The problem was that being struck meant almost nothing to the Mountain now.
But Artos clearly felt pain. He clearly felt exhaustion.
Robert's eyes narrowed as Artos let a second strike land, this one opening a shallow gash along his ribs.
"Why in seven hells is he letting himself get cut like that?"
Beside him, Barristan's expression had gone grim.
Artos absorbed another strike, deliberately this time, steel scraping across his shoulder. He answered it with the hammer coming down hard against Gregor's left knee.
The joint buckled with a wet, grinding crunch.
This time, Gregor did make a sound—low and guttural, more animal than man.
"That's one. Hurts, doesn't it?" Artos said, circling again, breathing harder now, blood soaking through his sleeve. "Despite you being a freak now, you are not better. You remember counting, Gregor? Or did Marwyn's work take that from you too? To be honest, I am not sure you could count even before it."
Gregor lurched forward on the ruined leg, swinging wild and unbalanced. Artos was slashed by the blade again—a deep line across his thigh this time, enough to make his own leg falter briefly beneath him.
"My lord," Raka murmured, close enough to Ethan to be heard. "Ethan, should we—"
Despite all his training, discipline, and confidence, Raka sounded uncertain.
"No," Ethan said. His voice carried some confidence, but he was not sure anymore. Pain was what brought a man down. Their lord was not fighting to kill, but to inflict pain. If he had been fighting to kill, this would have already been over.
Still, Ethan remained calm.
"Nobody interrupts. You know that already."
Artos brought the hammer down again, this time against Gregor's right knee. The leg gave out entirely, dropping the massive body half-sideways, one arm bracing against the earth to keep from falling completely.
"Finally, you are down," Artos said, sighing with exhaustion.
Gregor's ruined throat released something between a growl and a scream, low and building. It was the first real sound of pain the crowd had heard from him since Marwyn's work had remade him.
Cersei had gone pale, one hand pressed to her mouth. Even Tywin's composure had cracked slightly, his jaw tight, his eyes fixed on the ruin unfolding before him with an expression that gave away, for once, something close to genuine discomfort.
"Gods have mercy," Edmure muttered, unable to look away despite himself. "As My brother will have none today."
Oberyn, beside him, watched with none of his usual detached amusement. Something colder and more focused lived in his gaze.
"Yes," he said quietly. "Let him have none. Not after what he did to my sister's memory. Not after every girl and boy who screamed under that blade before today."
Artos circled to Gregor's other side, the hammer swinging low, and caught the remaining functional leg at the ankle. Bone shattered with a crack that echoed sharply off the stone walls surrounding the grounds.
Gregor collapsed fully now, both legs ruined beneath him.
The sound that tore out of his throat this time was undeniably a scream—raw, guttural, and horrifying in a way that made half the stands flinch bodily away from it.
Artos began to pound the Mountain with heavy blows of the warhammer.
He laughed, grim and empty.
"Enjoy your hell!" Artos yelled.
The hammer had been specially made in Mott's forge, built to inflict as much pain as possible.
And what weapon was better for that than a hammer?
Artos deliberately struck the fallen Mountain across every part of his body, trying to give him as much pain as he could.
Sansa had turned her face away entirely, one hand gripping Robb's sleeve.
"Why couldn't he just end it?"
"Because ending it would not be enough," Bjorn said beside her, still blood-painted from his own trial. He watched his father with an expression that held no horror at all—only quiet, terrible understanding.
"He told me the gods we worship are cruel. But I do not know if the men who serve them are crueler."
The words shocked both Robb and Sansa.
Bjorn had thought deeply about it, because he included himself in that question. After all, he too was a cruel and savage man.
Bjorn scoffed, though he did not know whether it was mockery or something genuine.
I suppose I truly am my father's son.
Gregor dragged himself upright on ruined legs with sheer, monstrous strength. Then he swung his greatsword one final time in a desperate, wild arc.
Artos stared in surprise at the Mountain's tenacity, even after being struck across nearly every inch of his body.
"Fuck," he yelled instinctively.
The blade caught him across the chest, deep enough to draw a sharp gasp from the crowd. Blood bloomed fast and dark across his shirt.
Yor was on her feet before she consciously decided to move, but Stig's hand caught her arm and held her back.
"Let him finish it," Stig said, his voice tight. "He knows what he is doing."
"He is bleeding, Stig!" Yor yelled. "He is being stupid and crazy. Just finish him already!"
"He is always bleeding," Stig said, looking at Artos. "And he is always stupid and crazy. That has never stopped him."
Artos staggered back a step, one hand pressing briefly against the wound. Then he straightened, the hammer rising once more.
"Oh, you got me good," Artos said, his voice carrying despite the pain written across his face. "Well, almost. You want to know something, Gregor?"
He took another step closer.
"The gods I worship do not care much for mercy. Never have. They are cruel, cold, and harsh, like the winters they send. But they are honest cruelty."
The hammer came down against Gregor's remaining good arm, shattering it at the elbow.
"So are we men who survive them. Harsh men. We do not pretend to be anything else."
Artos leaned closer, his eyes empty and cold.
"You pretended to be a knight. Pretended honor meant something to you. But you are a monster who kills children. You are nothing but a monster."
He struck Gregor again, a powerful blow that made him feel pain unlike anything he had known before.
Gregor's scream had gone ragged now, his voice cracking under the strain. Something almost pleading bled through the animal sound of it.
Artos raised the hammer one final time and brought it down against Gregor's battered body, grinding whatever remained into ruin.
Gregor's scream tore through the grounds one last time, climbing higher and higher until it simply broke apart entirely. His voice gave out mid-sound, reduced to nothing but a raw, wet rasp that carried more silence than any scream could have.
The grounds went utterly still.
Artos stood over him, chest heaving, blood running freely from three separate wounds, the hammer hanging heavy and final in his grip.
"That is for every person who screamed exactly like that under your blade, and nobody came to answer it."
He raised the hammer.
And—
It came down against Gregor's skull.
The ruined thing that had once called itself Ser Gregor Clegane finally, mercifully, stopped moving.
But Artos did not stop.
He kept hammering, again and again, until there was nothing left to hammer.
The silence that followed stretched long enough to feel unbearable.
Robert sat frozen on his dais, face pale, hands gripping the arms of his chair hard enough to whiten his knuckles.
"Seven hells," he muttered, mostly to himself.
Beside him, Barristan said nothing at all. He simply stared at the ruined body with an expression that mixed an old soldier's grief with something closer to relief.
Eddard's face had settled back into careful blankness. The silence stretched a beat too long before he finally spoke.
"Justice has been served, it seems."
"Is that what you would call it?" Oberyn murmured, still watching Artos, who stood swaying slightly, blood soaking through his shirt in three separate places. "I would call it something closer to a reckoning."
Eddard went very still, watching his brother stand over the body.
Yor finally broke free of Stig's grip, crossing the grounds at a near run toward where Artos stood, the hammer at last lowering from his grip, his legs beginning to visibly shake beneath him.
He caught her weight against his own as she reached him. For a long moment, neither of them said anything at all—blood, exhaustion, and old, complicated love tangled together in the sudden, fierce grip of her arms around him.
Bjorn watched his father from a distance, Ice still resting against his shoulder.
So, are my gods crueler, or is my father?
He looked at the ruined remains of the Mountain.
I suppose my father really knows how to hold a grudge.
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