Chapter 78

Considering your Companion's Tendency to solve Problems with copious Amounts of Violence, you probably should have been prepared for a Situation like this one to eventually happen, but knowing that things like this could transpire just wasn't the same as genuinely believing that something would actually happen. For while this Companion of yours has already shown you his nigh endless Potential when it came to ending Lives, that never meant that he would actually rely on brute Force to carry the Day as long as there were still other Options.

You understood that your Companion enjoyed Violence far too much for his own good, but it didn't really make any Sense to you that he would ignore his thus far pretty clear better judgement and actually go out of his Way to die through the Hands of his Master's Allies. There would have been plenty of other Options if he truly sought the destruction of this massive if somewhat damaged Camp, and it wasn't like you weren't willing to help him out if it was truly necessary. But literally none of these Tactics you had come up with on the Spot would have employed his Abilities like this, simply because you were absolutely sure that the Number of the Camp's Defenders far exceeded two thousand.

And these very same Options that you were still thinking about while you dealt with your Assailants one by one would have come with a guaranteed success if the two of you had worked together to pull them off. You were sure of it till now, but while none of this was truly making Sense to you, that didn't mean that your Companion had suddenly gone Insane. No, it was a decent bit more likely that this Haste of his was actually well-founded, as you silently observed a suspiciously large Amount of both Magpies and Pigeons in the Sky.

Hmm, you supposed that it made Sense that the Mountain Clans would care very little for what Birds they used to deliver their Messages, but even so, weren't three to four dozen of them a bit too much just to request some Reinforcements? Yes, everything considered, there really shouldn't be a Reason for them to send that many outgoing Messages with how little they actually knew about the Monster you called your Companion. But even more concerning was that you had really no Idea how many of those Birds you had missed while you dealt with your Assailants, and that Fact was becoming more and more bothersome the longer you thought about it.

The most sound Conclusion you could draw from all you've seen so far was a rather simple one, namely that this wasn't just one of the many Hosts that the Mountain Clans have sent against the Arryns. No, this Host was far too impressively equipped even if they had plundered the entire Camp trice over, and then there was the matter of what could only be called a suspicious Amount of Means to Communicate for a tribal Host. Which meant that this Host was an actual Army that exceeded the Standards most Houses of the Seven Kingdoms could meet quite a few times over, or in other Words, this was if you had to guess the very Host the Lannisters had created to start this entire Madness off.

That was actually quite good, in Fact, the Paths that taking this Camp would open up were nigh endless if your Companion had been given enough Authority by the Lannisters to move forward with his Slaughter. Who knows, mayhaps these were the very Possibilities that had motivated this Companion of yours to seek out this Treasure Trove of a Camp in the first Place. You couldn't be entirely sure till you actually managed to ask him about it at Length, but even without knowing the exact Details of the Situation, your Mission just got a whole lot more simple.

But that being said, the Sight and Sounds this Knight of yours was creating couldn't be stomached easily, despite how entrancing it was to see the Spirit's Martial Prowess from behind the safety of your own little Pile of Corpses. For the first few moments in which you were occupied with your own little problems, you honestly couldn't bring yourself to believe that your Companion had genuinely planned to take on the entire Camp all on his own, so you had no Idea what you should expect. But the moment you actually managed to get a properly Look at your Companion as he was still fighting some two meters before the Gate, you just supposed that you should really thank the Gods that you never dared that Spirit to do anything as he was still happily laying into those dark Parodies of Knights.

You didn't really know what to do with yourself as you continued to watch as another Swing of his Hammer sent two of the Mountain Knights, as you had decided to call them, into the Line of Knights to his Left. He had told you that your Help wouldn't be needed, and it most certainly didn't look like he had been lying, but you still found yourself quite troubled when they actually managed to fully encircle him with half a dozen Ranks of Heavy Knights. The Option to support him was of course still there as the Clansmen were all enticingly bunched up, and you doubted that your Companion needed to breathe, but without knowing for sure that he didn't you just couldn't do so in good Faith.

Sigh, you were honestly not sure what to think of this Madness you had the pleasure of seeing as that Monster of a Spirit just continued swinging that Hammer of his with ever-increasing Strength and Speed as if it was nothing. Yet the more you watched his Hammer move, the more bothersome it became as he continued to abuse his greater Reach and Strength while he trusted that massive Armour of his to take all Blows the Clansmen could get in.

And things only got worse for them from there, as your Companion swiftly began to change the intensity of his Attacks as he slowly began to carefully move with his Swings. Yet while some of these Fools had apparently deluded themselves into thinking that they were finally getting him tired, you knew better, for you had seen that very same Change before. And the Reason for why that was as terrible as it was quickly became apparent, as the Struggle between the Host of the false Knights and the Monster below the Gate was suddenly interrupted. For said Monster had just introduced one of them most Spine-chilling Sounds you've ever heard to the Memories of everyone present, as your Companion's sadistic and wolflike Side had happily taken him over.