Chapter 147 — The Mountain in the Night Rain
At first Gregor Clegane thought they had been ambushed.
Instead, a single man had stepped out of the darkness, claimed his name was Podrick Payne, and calmly announced that he had come to take his life.
Gregor tilted his head slightly and glanced at the men beside him, wondering if he might still be dreaming.
After all, such absurdity belonged more in dreams than reality.
But when he looked around, his soldiers wore the exact same bewildered expressions.
Then someone finally burst out laughing.
Gregor confirmed that he was, in fact, awake.
Turning his head back, he stared at the strange figure standing in the rain.
"What did you just say?" he asked.
The mocking laughter around them didn't change Podrick's expression at all.
Instead of answering with words, he lifted Ice, the Stark Valyrian steel greatsword he had been dragging, and held it upright before him.
His action only made the soldiers laugh harder.
But Gregor Clegane did not laugh.
He simply waved his hand lazily.
"Bring me his head."
The command immediately triggered a response.
Four or five riders surged forward, weapons raised, charging toward Podrick.
---
Beneath the antlered helmet, Podrick's lips curled into a cold smile.
He suddenly tossed the torch in his hand high into the air.
Instinctively, the five charging riders looked up toward the rising flame.
At that exact moment—
Podrick gripped the greatsword with both hands.
Then he kicked off the ground.
The sudden explosive force crushed a deep footprint into the rain-soaked mud.
The recoil launched him forward like an arrow.
Night.
Rain.
Darkness everywhere.
The torch flew through the air, its flame extinguished by the storm before it completed its arc.
As it fell toward the charging riders, the last faint light vanished.
The target disappeared.
The riders had lost sight of him.
No one had expected the mysterious man calling himself Podrick Payne to pull such a trick.
But before they could tighten their reins or regain their vision—
the shadow reappeared.
Right in front of them.
And in a way none of them could have imagined.
Podrick was flying through the air.
The massive black greatsword rose high above his head.
Then—
A flash of black steel.
One of the Lannister riders stared upward in stunned confusion.
The Valyrian steel blade descended directly toward his skull.
SLASH.
The sound was like cloth tearing.
The soldier didn't even have time to scream.
Man and horse were split in two from head to saddle.
Against Valyrian steel, iron helmets and chainmail meant nothing.
The force of gravity and momentum drove the blade downward like a guillotine.
The rider and his mount separated violently, torn apart.
Blood and organs burst outward, mixing with the rain before collapsing into the mud.
---
A leaping cleave.
After throwing the torch, Podrick sprinted three steps across the mud, each footprint deeper than the last.
With the final step, he launched himself skyward.
A rising strike.
A falling execution.
If this were a game, perhaps his line would have been:
"Big talk."
But Podrick said nothing.
The moment he landed among the riders, his wrist twisted.
The vertical blade turned horizontal.
His knees bent with the landing.
His hips rotated.
Power rose from the ground through his body.
The massive black blade danced.
Like a playful spirit awakened by blood.
A circle of steel cut through the rain.
Four riders were sliced cleanly across the waist.
Their bodies slid from the saddles in confusion.
They didn't even feel pain.
Only a strange chill across their midsections before they fell.
Looking down, they saw something impossible.
Their horses still carried half of their bodies.
---
One man cleaved vertically.
Four cut in half horizontally.
Five enemies killed in an instant.
Two strikes.
That was all.
Podrick ended the spinning slash and stopped.
He flicked the blade.
Rain washed the blood from the steel.
The sight left the remaining soldiers speechless.
Moments ago they had been laughing.
Now the laughter died instantly.
The cold rain seemed to chill their bones.
Those who had been cut in half began screaming in delayed agony.
The others trembled in shock.
Amid the screams, the figure standing in the darkness slowly straightened.
"Who's next?"
The demon's voice was calm.
Almost playful.
But no one dared answer.
Even the horses recoiled in fear.
They pulled back on their reins, whinnying desperately as if begging for mercy.
Podrick's gaze remained fixed on Gregor Clegane.
The soldiers' eyes followed his.
---
Gregor had not clearly seen what had just happened.
Yet he remained seated firmly on his massive warhorse.
Behind his helmet visor, his eyes narrowed.
The rain grew heavier.
The oil torches were nearly spent.
The light grew dimmer.
Somewhere in the distance, a wolf howled.
Inside a nearby mud hut, Sansa Stark stirred in her sleep.
Wrapped tightly in her cloak on a bed of straw, she murmured something unintelligible.
Her long eyelashes fluttered slightly.
But in the end—
she did not wake.
Sansa Stark curled tighter into her cloak.
The rain drummed softly on the ruined roof, and she sank even deeper into sleep.
Perhaps she was dreaming of something pleasant.
A faint, peaceful smile touched her lips.
---
Not more than a dozen steps away from the hut, behind the crumbling wall of a burned-out ruin, Jalabhar Xho crouched beneath his cloak to shield himself from the rain.
His eyes were wide in the darkness.
He had witnessed everything that had just happened.
Though the rain and darkness blurred the details, he knew exactly who the antlered monster was.
The leaps were inhuman.
The killing effortless—like slicing through butter.
The young man he had chosen to follow was far more terrifying than he had imagined.
Hidden in the ruins, his dark skin blending perfectly with the night, Jalabhar pressed his lips together.
His hand rested on the gilded longbow beneath his cloak.
It trembled slightly.
Then—
he rose from his hiding place.
An arrow was already between his fingers.
He nocked it quietly.
Taking a deep breath, Jalabhar drew the bowstring to his cheek.
The arrow tip pointed silently toward the cluster of soldiers.
Cold rain ran down his arm, along his fingers, across the bowstring, and down the arrow shaft.
For a moment everything was still.
Then his fingers loosened.
The bowstring snapped.
The storm swallowed the sound of the arrow's flight.
Only when the arrow drilled through a soldier's temple—piercing through one side of his skull and exiting the other—did anyone realize what had happened.
A silent arrow.
One more man dead.
Seeing their companion fall with an arrow through his helmet, the already shaken Lannister soldiers descended into chaos.
Some shouted wildly about an ambush.
Others kicked their horses and fled blindly into the darkness.
Some panicked and began swinging their weapons wildly, accidentally cutting their own comrades.
Shouting.
Confusion.
Flight.
But the chaos did nothing to stop the arrows.
From the darkness, shafts continued flying one after another.
Gregor Clegane had just turned his gaze away from the corpse with the arrow through its head—
when another soldier galloped past him.
Suddenly a bloody arrow burst through the man's chest.
Gregor understood immediately.
He had been lured out.
And now he had walked directly into a trap.
The solution was simple.
---
The Mountain dismounted.
In one hand he lifted his grotesquely large two-handed sword.
With the other he grabbed a massive tower shield from his back—large enough to cover his entire upper body.
His left arm slid through the shield straps.
He raised it before him, facing the direction from which the arrows came.
His right hand held the sword low at his side, its tip pointing forward.
He would fight.
Arrows continued to whistle through the rain.
Almost none missed.
The remaining Lannister soldiers—barely a few dozen now—scattered like frightened insects.
Their torches fell everywhere.
Some splashed into muddy water and died instantly with a hissing sound.
Others landed on dry patches of ground and flickered weakly.
A few rolled against half-burned beams.
Oil soaked into the wood.
Flames began to spread.
Strangely, the battlefield grew brighter in the rain.
Through the growing light, the towering figure of Gregor Clegane advanced step by step toward Podrick.
The Mountain moved slowly.
As if he had all the time in the world.
Two arrows struck his shield along the way.
They made dull thuds and fell uselessly aside.
When he finally reached Podrick, he twisted his shield aside and swept his sword.
The arrows embedded in the shield snapped apart.
"I told you already," Gregor said coldly.
"I want your head."
"When I take it, I'll boil the flesh from your face with lime… and keep it as a trophy."
His voice was flat, as if describing a simple fact.
Podrick had not moved from the pile of corpses where he had slain the five riders earlier.
Of the four men he had cut in half, one was already dead.
The other three still writhed and screamed weakly in the mud.
At Gregor's threat, Podrick merely raised his sword.
The blade pointed straight at the giant.
"When I kill you…"
"I'll do the same."
---
The battle ignited instantly.
Gregor's fury exploded.
With one arm he swung the massive oak shield—rimmed with iron and painted with the three black dogs of House Clegane—straight at Podrick's head.
Given the difference in size between them, the strike looked like a man smashing a large mole with a hammer.
Facing the crushing blow, Podrick only raised an eyebrow.
Then he stepped lightly to the side.
With elegant ease, he avoided the reckless strike.
In a single movement, he slipped to the Mountain's left rear.
Behind him.
But just as Podrick prepared to capitalize on the advantage—
Gregor reacted.
Using the shield's impact with the ground to shift his center of gravity, the giant twisted his entire body.
The two-handed sword he had held in one hand surged upward.
Then it came crashing down toward Podrick's head.
Podrick's expression turned amused.
Instead of retreating, he stepped forward.
Ice rose in his hands.
The Valyrian steel blade slashed upward.
The two greatswords collided midair.
BOOM!
The crash echoed through the rain.
Sparks exploded in the darkness.
Steel rang across the battlefield.
Gregor had struck from a rotating downward blow.
Podrick lunged forward with an upward strike.
The result—
a perfect stalemate.
For the first time in his life, Gregor Clegane's strength had been stopped by an equal force.
The recoil nearly tore the sword from his grip.
His blade flew upward.
And because of his spinning attack, the Mountain lost his balance.
Gregor always wore the heaviest armor in the Seven Kingdoms.
Most men could barely lift it.
Normally, that armor made him nearly invincible.
But now—
it became the final weight that toppled him.
The Mountain fell onto his back.
Meanwhile, Podrick's sword was also knocked away.
But Podrick was different.
Because he cheated the rules of reality.
---
[Flowing Motion: Your speed and reactions exceed mortal limits.]
[After completing an action, you may immediately perform another action regardless of circumstance.]
[Example: attack twice, cast two spells, or perform chained combinations.]
Remark:
Remember to weave normal attacks between abilities.
---
Podrick's sword, knocked aside by the clash—
stopped in midair.
For a moment, the blade hung motionless.
Then—
as if time had reversed—
the Valyrian steel sword retraced its path and swung back upward.
But this time, the obstacle in its path was no longer Gregor's blade.
It was Gregor Clegane's head.
The Valyrian steel cut effortlessly through iron chainmail.
Through bone.
Through flesh.
The massive helmeted head—decorated with a stone fist pointing skyward—fell heavily into the mud.
Blood splashed across the rain-soaked ground.