Read my new story (CaveLeather)
Game of Thrones: The Sword King
Game of Thrones: From Deserter to Power
Game of Thrones: King of Harrenhal— Garth Greenhand Stat Panel
If Tiberius had to describe the cave in two words, he'd only need two:
Stinking. Black.
Yeah, stinking. The air didn't move at all, and the smell was a thick, sweet-rot cocktail of shit, piss, decaying meat, and something even worse that he couldn't name.
He'd once read that humans are hard-wired to fear the scent of their own dead—some ancient instinct yelling danger, this shit can kill us too.
Crunch.
Vito stepped on something. Looked down.
"Fuck!" he snarled. "A goddamn human skull!"
The second he kicked the bone away, a whistling sound sliced past his ear.
Tiberius!
The kid's throwing spear flew true and nailed a sneaking savage straight to the rock wall.
"Son of a bitch!" Vito roared. "Sneak attacks now?!"
Sure enough, deeper in the gloom, more twisted wildmen in ragged hides and filthy rags came charging—swinging wooden clubs, rusty knives, even broken farm tools.
"Meat!" they babbled in broken Common. "Iron-skin meat! Weapon meat! Meat came inside the house!"
"I'll meat your mother!" Vito shouted, cranking his crossbow with one hand while hurling his torch forward to drive the cannibals back. "House? You call this shithole a house? Go fuck yourselves!"
Still, the situation was never really in doubt.
The twenty-plus knights Jules had brought were all battle-hardened veterans. They'd killed more men than they'd ever eaten hot meals.
The cave cannibals looked ferocious, but they fought like amateurs—weak, clumsy, no real skill. Their weapons were pathetic: rusty little blades, iron-tipped sticks, pitchforks. None of it could pierce good plate armor.
And the cannibals themselves wore almost nothing. Every swing from the White Company knights hit flesh and bone with nothing to soften the blow.
Tiberius stood in the center with his curved knife out, watching the veterans carve through the mob. Every sword stroke, every mace swing dropped another screaming savage.
[Holy shit, these guys under my uncle can actually fight!] Tiberius thought, impressed.
But the deadliest man in the cave, no question, was Jules.
Dual-wielding longswords, the captain spun like a whirlwind—blades flashing up, down, left, right. In the space of a few heartbeats, half a dozen howling cannibals were just meat on the floor.
[Fuck me, Uncle's a beast!] Tiberius thought. [No wonder he carved out a name for himself in Essos.]
"Gods, these bastards reek!" Vito growled after the fighting died down. He yanked a crossbow bolt from a corpse, sniffed it, and nearly puked. "Don't they ever wash? Their front door is literally the ocean!"
"Uncle, remember—leave a few alive," Tiberius reminded him.
He didn't want these blood-mad killers turning every piece of evidence into hamburger.
"Don't worry, Vito's got the rope work," Jules said, tossing both bloody swords to Tiberius to clean. "He used to be a pirate."
"Boss, that wasn't piracy!" Vito complained while hog-tying a one-armed cannibal. "We had letters of marque from the Lysene governor!"
"Same difference," Jules shrugged. "One's robbery with paperwork, the other's robbery without. As for the Lysene governors… they're no different from bed slaves. Except one sells their body, the other sells their conscience—and the second group does it way more often."
[That's definitely a jab at Lysandro,] Tiberius thought.
"Alright, let's push deeper," Jules said, scooping up a fresh torch.
"But…" He paused and looked at Tiberius. "That spear throw of yours was damn fine. 'Lightning' might actually become a name that echoes across Essos one day."
The other knights nodded in open approval—especially Vito.
"Fuck, kid, that throw was perfect! Nailed that sneaky bastard right to the wall!" Vito clapped Tiberius on the shoulder. "Without you I might've taken that club straight to the skull. Probably would've been knocked out cold… Hey, you think getting hit on the head would make me smart like you?"
[Maybe,] Tiberius thought, [but then you'd probably wake up as another transmigrator.]
---
"Got you!" Tiberius dragged an old man out of a crack in the rocks. The second he got a good look, he burst out laughing.
"Come here—Uncle Jules, Vito! I think I just caught the big one!"
Jules squinted. This prisoner actually had a normal face—not the inbred, smashed-in features of the rest.
"This is…"
Tiberius tapped the old man's cheek with his knife sheath. "Judging by his age, I'd bet he's the head of this cannibal clan. Grandfather, maybe even great-grandfather."
He glanced at the infant corpses Vito was carrying—twisted little faces, more ape than human.
Clearly the inbreeding had finally wrecked their bloodline. A few more generations and they'd look like monkeys, not men.
Tiberius slammed the old man's head against the rock a couple times, then pressed the spear tip under his chin.
"Listen up, you old fuck. I ask, you answer."
The elder just cringed and whimpered, trying to look harmless.
"Tiberius, ask him about Lady Seraphys… Wait, never mind. Ask if they ate the two girls they took most recently."
After a few more punches and kicks, they learned his name: Sonny Bane.
When they pressed him about the two highborn girls, the old cannibal finally spoke.
"They… the two girls meant for the gods… they're in there." He pointed a trembling finger at a narrow fissure in the deepest wall—something you'd never notice unless you were looking right at it.
The crack was barely wide enough for one man.
When Tiberius and the others squeezed through, they found a much larger chamber. The cannibals clearly hadn't bothered cleaning or exploring it.
And there, tied up like hogs in the corner, lay two girls.
One had unmistakable silver-gold hair—House Rogare. The other had bright red hair—Lia Haen, the companion.
Both were bound hand and foot. Both looked half-starved.
Tiberius didn't know if the cannibals fattened their victims like pigs before the slaughter, or if they'd simply run low on food themselves.
The moment he pulled the silk gags from their mouths, both girls screamed loud enough to burst eardrums.
"Lady Seraphys! We're sellswords sent by your father, Lord Lysandro!" Tiberius dropped to one knee, voice gentle. "We're here for you and Lady Haen!"
"You don't believe me? Look—this is the White Company sigil! We really were sent by your father!"
Thank the gods his young, still-boyish face worked wonders when calming terrified girls.
"Vito," Tiberius called. "Have a couple knights carry them out."
Then he and Vito pushed deeper into the cave.
"They've eaten a lot of people…" In one side chamber they found piles of clothing and valuables.
Tiberius hooked a few faded silk scraps on his spear tip. "How old are these clothes? And why don't the cannibals wear any of this?"
"Gold and silver too," Vito said, scooping up a handful. "Lysene, Myr, Tyrosh… fuck, even Braavosi square iron coins?"
"Guess they've sampled travelers from everywhere," Tiberius muttered.
Then Vito picked up a relatively new dress and his face twisted.
"I think I know why Lady Seraphys and Lady Haen haven't been eaten yet," he said, barely holding back laughter. "Promise you won't laugh. It's some dark-as-fuck humor."
"Why?" Tiberius asked.
Vito waited until the two girls were safely out of the chamber, then used his sword tip to lift a very large dress.
It was fairly new—probably belonged to the most recent victim.
But the girl who'd worn it must have been tank-sized.
"Simple. The lady they ate right before these two was… uh… plump." Vito chose his words carefully. "This dress is proof."
"So they ate the fat one first," Tiberius said, "and Seraphys and Lia—chest, ass, everything—weren't tempting enough."
Vito shrugged. "Hey, in these animals' eyes, 'tempting' and our idea of tempting are two very different things."