GOTP Chapter 29

The sky was deep blue when I reached the heart of the Riverlands.
The sun climbed slow as ever, and below, the land already burned. Columns of smoke rose from farms and villages that used to be quiet, usually.

So early in the day, and already someone was dying.

I didn’t need to guess who.
There’s only one kind of bastard who burns this early and I know whom he is doing for.
And I’d been waiting for this day.

When I saw the biggest flame and the man inside it, I knew it.
The Mountain.

The name was a ghost, but the memory stayed sharp.
For a heartbeat, it wasn’t the Riverlands, it was a room, stone walls, Elia’s voice, a child crying until the sound broke itself against stone. Those were things I knew too well from those cursed pages. I didn’t want to imagine again.

I didn’t think.
I dropped.

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Below, one of his dogs was chasing a girl across a burned yard. She reached a hut, slammed the door, held it with everything she had left. The man outside laughed, hammering on the wood.

“Open up, or I’ll burn you out!”
He sounded like he wanted her to resist.

The girl didn’t answer. Her shadow shook against the door.
He muttered something about “tasting” her first.

Then came wind. Mine.
He turned just as I struck.

A wet crack, and then silence.

The door stayed still.
She waited. Too long. Then eased it open an inch, saw the head, froze.
Her breath hitched, then she ran, barefoot, half-crazed, away from the hut and what she had seen.

Good. Run. Don’t look back.

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I stayed low, wings close, scanning through the smoke.
Men in Lannister colors. Five. Maybe six.
All from Clegane’s lot. They were spread out, torching houses, laughing about it.

One saw me too late.
One didn’t see me at all.
It didn’t matter.

I wasn’t kind.
I wasn’t quick either.

One by one, they went down.
A shout, a swing, the crack of burning wood.
Well, it's never been about mercy. Never matter to begin with.

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Then came him.
Gregor Clegane.
The Mountain.

He stood by a half-burned hut, holding a girl by the neck. She barely breathed. Skin gray, eyes empty. And he, blood streaked his face, soot clung to his armor, and that look.

Can't hold back anymore.

The wind shifted. Gregor looked up, squinting through the smoke.
He saw a shadow with wings, fire in its eyes.

For once, the man stepped back.

Velmir landed on the burning roof. The hut sagged under the weight. Gregor dropped the girl, drew his sword, muttered a curse.

The roof cracked. Velmir launched again, circled once, then came down hard before him, fire rippling off his feathers.

Gregor raised his sword.
Big mistake.

Heat rolled out in waves.
He screamed as the steel turned red and the edges ran like wax.
He dropped to one knee, then the other.

Velmir saw nothing but that face, name, memory, pain and tore the head free with a single blow of his claw.

Then came silence and distant sound of burning.

The girl watched, too hurt to move, too shocked to cry. When the fire dimmed, she smiled, a faint, broken thing that said it’s over.

Velmir looked at her once, then away.
There was nothing left to save.

He spread his wings, gripped the Mountain’s head in one claw, and rose into the smoke.

Below, the Riverlands kept burning.
One monster less.

Just another thing that needed doing. 

But never been mine to do.