Lord Beric's Flame

Ronan leaned aside and let the first arrow pass. His hand brushed his horse's neck, steadying the animal before fear could carry it into danger.

The last arrow he caught from the air. Then he took the bow from his saddle, drew, and answered the shape hidden above him. A body fell from the branches with a heavy crash.

Ronan looked toward the trees. "Come out. You had the courage to shoot. Have the courage to stand in the open." The insult worked.

The man who stepped from cover was lean, hard-eyed, and angrier than a dead scout deserved. He glanced at the body, then back at Ronan.

"No wonder Robert called you a warrior," he said. "Or should I say Lannister dog now, Commander Ronan?"

"Beric Dondarrion," Ronan said. "Eddard Stark sent you to arrest Gregor Clegane. You failed to take the Mountain and became a rat in the kingswood. Is that the tale?"

Beric's face darkened.

"Better a rat than a dog."

Ronan had no patience for speeches. "You know why I am here. If you want to avoid my men combing this wood clean, kill me now. Otherwise keep running."

"Bold words."

Beric attacked. Ronan caught the sword on the bow's reinforced curve and kicked Beric's forward leg hard enough to make the man's stance buckle. Pain flashed across the lord's face, but pride drove him onward.

"You are too slow," Ronan said.

Beric's men tightened around the clearing. One of them, a red-robed priest with tired eyes, watched with the expression of a man who already knew how badly this would end.

Beric fought as if death had lost its power to frighten him. He lunged through openings he should have defended, using each wound as the price of coming closer.

Only then did Ronan remember the oddity in Beric Dondarrion's story. There was a priest here.

And if the stories had begun early in this world, death might not be as final for Beric as it should have been. Ronan's expression cooled. One clean motion ended the exchange.

Beric froze mid-strike, eyes wide with disbelief. Blood opened at his throat. He fell to his knees, then collapsed.

The red priest stepped forward quickly, both hands raised. "Commander Ronan, let this end here. We leave the kingswood."

"Thoros of Myr," Ronan said. "I hear you can call men back from death."

Thoros went still.

"Show me."

The priest did not know how Ronan had learned the secret. It hardly mattered. If he wanted Beric alive, he could not delay.

He gathered dry branches, set them burning, and laid Beric near the flames rather than inside them. Then he knelt and prayed in a language Ronan did not know.

It was not the Common Tongue, not Valyrian, not any trade speech Ronan had heard in Essos. Yet some rhythm inside it felt strangely familiar, as if the words had come from a place older than the language itself.

The small fire should have died quickly. It did not. The flames grew brighter, feeding on almost nothing. Ronan took a step closer. Thoros's eyes opened.

For an instant they were not the eyes of a drunken priest from Myr. They were gold, terrible, and full of something vast enough to make Ronan's body lock in place.

He saw a presence inside the gaze. Not a man. Not exactly a god. Something behind the fire, looking through a servant because it had chosen to look. It did not harm him.

Instead, light flooded the air. If anyone had been watching Ronan closely, they would have seen his eyes pale toward gold. The world changed.

Countless motes of light drifted through the clearing, quiet and weightless, and when Ronan looked at Beric, those motes rushed into the dead man's body.

The cut in Beric's throat began to close. Ronan understood. The prayer had guided the light, and the light obeyed a will beyond Thoros.

Perhaps Thoros was not the one working the miracle at all. Ronan opened the system panel.

[System]
Name: Ronan Harrow
Class: Ambitious Conqueror
Weapons: Dagger, bow, spear, knife, single-edged sword.
Talent: Conquest (An unpredictable talent with a chance to inspire absolute loyalty and infatuation in the target.)
Skills: Advanced Combat, Survival Mastery, Master of the Forge, Mounted Archery, Miracle (Rudimentary: resurrection, healing, and purification. Requires fire, a fresh death or living body, and heavy spiritual expenditure).
Summoned Units: Mongol Cavalry (one thousand), Jomsviking Warband (1,600-man warband).
Followers: Jebe, Toki Haraldsson, Khal Sido and his warriors, Khal Drogo and the Dothraki, Daenerys Targaryen, Magister Illyrio Mopatis, Varys, Rovyn Meeks, and several thousand gold cloaks.
Divergence Points: 45,914.
Repeatable Units: Mongol Cavalry, 160,000 points per thousand; fallen soldiers can be replaced for 100 points each. Jomsviking Warband, self-replenishing through Jomsborg. Varangian Guard, heavy infantry, 150 points per man, no fixed limit.

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