“No, no.” I fell to my knees on Jaime’s side, one hand going to his chest. The dagger had gone beneath two scales in his armor and punched through the mail beneath. I frowned down at it. The handle was wrapped in tanned leather, but I could see a hint of a dark hilt beneath. It must have been jostled around in their struggle, as instead of a clean wound, his life’s blood gushed from around the blade. “Fuck. You can’t die, Jaime.”

His good hand grasped my own with a strength that surprised me. “No, don’t. Let it.” His words were slurred and groggy, and his rib cage rattled every time he breathed in. There was blood in his lungs. “Tommen… I… I’m proud of you.”

“No, Jai—father. Listen. You have to listen.” I wanted to keep him awake, to keep him fighting. And he needed a reason to do so. “Myrcella. She… she has written about you,” I lied. “She knows the truth, too, and she’s happier for it. You must live, father. For her… and for me.”

And that was true, too. I realized that I didn’t want him to die. Not only because Tywin would probably self-implode and take me with him, but because I knew that deep down, Jaime was a good guy—attempted child-murder and incest aside.

I needed men like that at my side to ground me. And, though I hated to admit it, he’d become a friend. Someone I could trust to have my back.

Jaime looked at me through glassy eyes. “I used to think of you as no more than a squirt of seed in your mother.” He tried to laugh, only to cough out a wad of phlegm and blood. His face had turned pale as a ghost. “But… now I know that I’d take this knife for you, or for Myrcella, a hundred times over if needs be.”

“Damn it, Jaime. Then fucking live long enough to take ninety-nine others,” I said, then shook my head. Sitting there like a character in a play going through dramatic lines wouldn’t help either of us. I needed to do something.

I glanced down at Jaime. He had his head thrown back, teeth clamped shut, and his hand still clenched into a tight fist around my own. As someone who’d died slowly before, I knew exactly the type of agony he was going through. But if he’d lived this long, then he could still make it. The dagger clearly had missed his heart.

And there was that village, I remembered, not that far away. Surely there was a healer there, a woodswitch or something of the like. It was no Qyburn, but they would do.

“Listen, Jaime, we’ll get you—” Horses. Several of them. I looked up. My first instinct was to reach for Lightbringer and start chopping heads off out of anger and frustration alone, then I realized bandits didn’t wear white-enameled scale armor.

“Your Grace!” Ser Lyle Crakehall called with that booming voice of his, riding at the front of ten Baratheon knights. Ser Loras was at his side, holding his left arm close to his body. The Strongboar opened his mouth to speak again, then blanched as he saw Jaime laid out on the ground.

“No time for this, ser,” I said when they were close enough. “There’s a village a few minutes away. We’ll take Ser Jaime there. Might be someone there can help us.”

Ser Lyle grimaced. “Your Grace… if the bandits are here, then it’s likely that the village has suffered their presence as well.”

That stopped me. Fuck. I wanted to slap myself. I clearly wasn’t thinking straight. Of course they’d already raided the village. Still, I had to try. And if not… there were other ways. Worse ways, yes, but they existed in this world.

“We go forward, sers. There might be survivors who can help. He won’t make it back to King’s Landing in time. You took prisoners, I take it?” I didn’t even bother looking behind them. If they were here and not rushing me to safety, then the rest of the bandits were surely taken care of. “We’ll bring them, and our least injured men.”

“As you say, Your Grace.” The Strongboar jumped down from his charger and flagged another three knights. “Come help me with Ser Jaime. We’ll ride knee to knee and lay him down across the horses’ backs.”

The other seven Baratheon men went back the way they came to organize the prisoners. I stepped aside to let them get to work, grabbed Lightbringer and my helmet off the ground, and looked to Loras. “Are you alright, ser?”

He nodded grimly. “Yes, Your Grace. Just a scratch.”

Jaime was my priority here, as he was worth a thousand knights by the virtue of his birth alone, but I couldn't be seen to be heartless. They were still my knights, after all. “Do we have any injured men?” I asked.

“Some eight, Your Grace,” Loras said, “and four dead.”

This time, I gazed back to the road. Bodies littered the ground there, men and horses. A group of knights had a clump of bandits at swordpoint, and another two were going around tying hands behind backs. “How did it happen?” I asked. “For a moment there they had us surrounded.”

“They were still bandits,” he said, a sneer coming to his face at the very word. “No discipline and steel behind the veneer of strength. In the end, we had the better armor. Our men were surprised and scattered at first, but four knights charging the outlaw’s backs broke them.” Loras seemed to look at me with some new found respect, more than what I knew he had before. Like it or not, even the people closest to me still saw me as a green boy of fifteen who’s never seen a battlefield in his life. “I’m told you commanded them to do so, Your Grace. That was well done.”

I simply nodded. Exhaustion had stolen much of my fire from the start of the fighting, and it was pure worry and anger that kept me on my feet. Anger at myself, mostly. I had known there were bandits in the area. And ten or a hundred of the fuckers, there was no reason to come unprepared.

To the side, the Strongboar and the knights were hauling Jaime up. My father must have whispered something to him, as Ser Lyle barked with laughter, almost slapping Jaime on the shoulder before he stopped himself. Below that levity though, I could see his face screwing up each time he looked down at Jaime’s wound.

He was alive still, but he didn’t have long.

By the time they had finished laying Jaime down on the horses, someone had brought me a new mount. Pushing through the fatigue in my legs, I climbed up and flagged Ser Loras. “I need you to take the injured and the dead back to King’s Landing.”

He frowned. “Your Grace that’s—”

“An order, ser,” I cut him, “from your liege. Some of these men can still survive, and I won’t gamble their life away for a chance to save Ser Jaime. Take another five hale men with you, to help with the dead. They deserve a proper burial back in the city.”

Reluctantly, Ser Loras nodded and took off on his mount. He might be a spoiled brat sometimes, but he had his honor, and that honor was sworn to me. I saw him picking a few knights as he passed them, and they started gathering up the wounded.

I turned back to the Strongboar. “Ready, ser?”

Ser Lyle looked comically out of place, squeezed in between two other mounted knights. His face was anything other than humorous, though. “Ready, Your Grace,” he said, much quieter than usual. They’d wrapped some straps of leather around jaimes legs and hips to keep him in place, but it would be a bumpy and painful ride for him.

I nodded to him, and we made for the road, picking up the rest of the men who were going with us—some thirty something knights. They had a long line of prisoners with them, near twenty at a quick glance. I didn’t bother looking too closely at them. Not yet. There might still be hope to save Jaime normally.

The smell of blood and shit from men soiling themselves at their death was heavy in the air, but I blocked all of that out. I looked back at the knights. “We’ll ride fast,” I said, loudly enough everyone there would be able to hear me. “If one of the prisoners can’t keep up, cut them down.” That wasn’t the done thing in these parts, but none of the bandits seemed to be nobles beside that Brune fellow, and I got grim nods all across the column. “Then we ride!”