The camp of the Company of Rose which had been mostly empty for the past few days was bustling once again, as the victorious soldiers began ambling in.
Every single returning warrior had a wide smile on his face, and even the injured ones were laughing and joking.
The atmosphere didn't feel at all as if the sellswords were coming back after a battle, instead, it felt as if they had just gone for a peaceful walk and were now coming back after a picnic.
And why wouldn't they be happy... after all, a head-on battle between three big sellswords companies, consisting of more than four thousand warriors had occurred, and to think that their side had emerged victorious without taking any more than a handful of casualties and injuries... it was almost magical.
"Oi! Tark! Karl!" A guard loudly called his friends while waving his hands, "Come here, You fuckers!!"
"Ah! Darren, my friend, it's so good to see you again—"
"What the fuck are you talking about, you idiot! We saw each other just two days ago."
"Did we? Ah! I thought more than a week had passed since we left the camp... Aren't I right, Tarl?"
"Yes. I mean, we marched for our destination, we reached our destination, we fought the battle, we killed our enemies, and then marched back to our camp... It's hard to believe that it all happened in a matter of days... it honestly still feels like a dream.
"Was the battle really that easy?" The guard knew that the battle was a successful one from the smiles on their faces but he couldn't understand why they were exaggerating it so much...
"Easy? Easy?! It was fucking massacre, my friend, we absolutely slaughtered them... our usual training is more exhausting than this battle..."
"Really?"
"He's not lying Darren. The Company of Cats actually felt like just a gathering of wild cats... Their food storage was on fire, their horses were running away, and all of them were stumbling around like headless chickens... I don't think they even noticed us when until we actually hit their camps..."
"And even then they could barely put up any fight... They didn't mount any defence, they had no sembling of any formation, half of them had no weapon or armour on them, and even the ones who had them... the swings of their swords felt so weak, it was as if they had never held a sword before that day..."
"Yes, In fact, quite a few of them were just holding onto their stomach and kneeling on the ground, waiting for their deaths..." the man explained excitedly while waving his hands, "I wonder if they had eaten something bad before the battle..."
"You're right. I even saw one of them with his pants halfway down, shitting on the side..."
"Yes, Yes, I saw one too... but I felt so bad about him that I left him alone..."
"I didn't. I killed quite a few of those squatters. In fact, I was specifically searching for those shitting idiots because they were so easy to kill, HaHa!!"
"Ugh! I always knew that you were an evil bastard, Tarl... but to think you would kill a man going about his business... that is just wrong."
"Who cares! Those bastards from the Company of Cats were always so arrogant whenever we met them in the cities and they always looked at us as if we were just roadside beggars... this will show those cunts their place..."
"Argh! Now I wish that I hadn't been left behind to guard this empty camp..." The guard said enviously. "You all must have gotten plenty of loot too, right..."
"That... we didn't..."
"You didn't? Why?"
"Well... it seems that the commander had an agreement with the Windblown, that all the loot from the battle would go to them... so we had to leave the camp of Cats immediately after the battle was over..."
"What?! That's not fair!"
"Oh! don't worry, we are all going to be rewarded and get a big prize when we start our next contract with that young Northerner called Jon... The commander made a big speech about it and everything..."
"Bah! Who cares about that far-away thing... Hehe, let me tell you a secret, I sneakily stole a lot of gold from the enemy bodies before leaving..."
While the sellswords all around the camp were bragging and having a lively discussion about the recent fight, Jon was having his own conversation with Bran, the commander's son, who had been the one to lead all of these soldiers back to the camp.
"... And about three to four hundred of them scattered and managed to escape but the rest of them were annihilated, and their captain was also slain, so I don't think the Cats will be a sellswords company after today," Bran explained with a satisfied expression on his face, "and even if they regrouped, they wouldn't dare to show their faces in the Disputed Lands for a long long time..."
"Hmm..." Jon simply nodded his head while listening to Bran's report even though he already knew about most of these things because of his friends in the sky, "By the way, where's Gared? I didn't see him come with you..."
"Oh! Father and the commander of the Windblown, the Tattered Prince, went straight to the city of Myr. He wanted to meet with the nobles of the city as soon as he could because they couldn't be sure when Tyrosh would hire other sellswords company to take back their base and their lost land... so they wanted to take care of their rewards and complete their contract before any unfortunate complications arise..."
"That's good then," Jon nodded his head before he took out a few pieces of parchments and a piece of charcoal from his vest, "Here take these,"
"Huh? What's this for?"
"You know how to read and write, right?"
"Y-Yes." It was necessary as the son of the commander for him to know his numbers and how to read a letter, so he learned all that in his childhood.
"Perfect," Jon said with a satisfied expression on his face before waving his hands at the sellswords all around the camp, "I want you to gather all sellswords warriors in our company and do a simple survey on them... I want you to write their names, their measurements, and their preferred choice of weapons. Can you do that?"
"I can.... but, Why are you—Wait! Don't tell me, you're really going to—"
"I am," Jon simply nodded his head with a smile on his face, "So I need that information soon... and the ones whose names are on the top would get their gifts much sooner so If I were you I'd write Bran at the top..." He winked before patting his shoulder, "So get on with it, my friend." Jon said as he left the ecstatic boy behind him and began moving in the direction of the biggest tent in the middle.
"Did he say anything? Or try to leave?" Jon asked the two guards stationed a few meters away from the entrance keeping watch on the guest inside the Tent.
"No," one of the guards answered with a shrug, "Other than the cook delivering food, no one has gone in or out of this tent."
"Good." Jon nodded before removing the flap and entering the tent.\
But the next moment he froze and a weird look appeared on his face as Jon saw a completely different scene than the one he had been expecting.
Instead of an angry prisoner refusing to eat food, he found the Dornish prince calmly sitting on the table in the middle and heartily enjoying the meat and soup that had been prepared for him.
"I see that you've made yourself comfortable," Jon commented with an amused look on his face as he came to a stop in front of the table.
"Hmm..." Oberyn just hummed in reply without looking up as if he was more interested in the delicious rabbit meat in front of him than Jon.
"You're eating quite well for a man who was almost poisoned twice," Jon said after a while when it seemed like Oberyn wouldn't be the one initiating the conversation. It had been quite the sore spot for the man, so Jon was hoping for it to be a good way to begin their talk.
"For your information," Oberyn didn't quite grit his teeth but from the looks of it he was quite close to it, "I wasn't actually poisoned by your trick back in the camp, and the second time was nothing more than a fluke, so don't expect me to fall for that again..." he warned with his signature viper smile before he abruptly leaned back and wiped his hands with a cloth before picking up the cup of ale, "And since I easily can tell that this food isn't poisoned, I figured that it would be better for me eat it to retain my strength for... when I want to escape from this place..."
"You aren't really my prisoner, you know," Jon said while taking a seat in front of the table as Oberyn was finally done with his food, "You can leave anytime you want. After all, I wouldn't be so stupid as to capture a Noble of Westeros... especially one as beloved as you..."
"You've taken my weapon, you've placed guards outside this shabby tent, and you've placed my daughter away from me so that I don't... misbehave." Oberyn drawled in a thick Dornish accent, "I don't know what a prisoner means in that frozen wasteland of yours but from what I see this place is the exact definition of what a prison is..."
"You know who I am?" Jon asked with a raised eyebrow and for the time since Oberyn had met the boy, he saw surprise in his eyes.
"You thought I wouldn't investigate the boys who had robbed me in the centre of the Citadel." Oberyn said with a sarcastic smile on his face, "You're quite bold for a bastard, Jon Snow, aren't you?"
"Bastards need to be bold to survive in this world, don't we?" Jon replied after silently scrutinising Oberyn for a while, "Anyhow, you knowing my identity makes it much easier since you know about my father's honour and—"
"Tell me, then. What would your honourable father think when he finds out that you've forcefully seized a prince of Dorne and made him your prisoner? Which one could even go as far as to say is enough cause for war..."
"You have no shackles on your hands, you are eating the best food that this company can offer, you are staying in the Commander's own tent, and the only reason you don't have your weapon with you is so that you don't immediately try to fight your way out of this camp full of sellswords and injure yourself, and your daughter is already out and about..." Jon replied in a single breath, "So from where I am standing, I am giving you the best treatment I can give to a noble guest in the middle of nowhere. So no, I don't think my father would be too unhappy with me."
Oberyn was silent for a while before abruptly asking, "Where is Obara? Tell me where my daughter is, and maybe I won't try to kill you the next time I have a weapon in my hands."
"Well, when she woke up... her approach was as violent as you would expect from a daughter of yours, so I had to subdue and bind her. But even then she wouldn't stop trying to escape even at the cost of causing herself harm, so seeing that my assurance of not wanting to hurt either of you was not working, I had to take a more forceful approach..."
"What did you do?" Oberyn asked in a dangerously low tone.
"I just told her that if she can beat my young friend Sam twenty times in a training bout, then I would let the both of you leave unharmed and she..." Jon said with a small smirk on his face, "jumped on my offer quite happily."
'Ah that stupid girl,' Oberyn thought while shaking his head as most of his tension left his shoulders, "Aren't you worried that my daughter will kill the little Tarly?" he asked curiously after a few seconds.
"They are both fighting with blunted weapons in the middle of an open training ground, so no." Jon shook his head with a shrug, "Besides, Sam is a resilient boy and learns very quickly. In fact, after three quick losses, he even managed to clinch a lucky victory... so I am not too worried about him."
Oberyn was silent for a while before he nodded and smirked, "This is the commander's tent? Really? How poor is this company?"
"Don't worry, it won't be poor for long, now that it has come under me," Jon replied with absolute confidence, "But we're getting off-topic here, so let us get back to the reason I went to all this effort to talk to you."
"Very well, tell me, boy. What did you want to talk about?"
"I want to talk to you about my plan... to kill the person you hate the most in this world."
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