"George R. R. Martin
The Sworn Sword
A Tale of the Seven Kingdoms
***
The story offered here takes place about a hundred years prior to the events described in “A Game of Thrones”
In an iron cage at the crossroads, two dead men were rotting in the summer sun.
Egg stopped below to have a look at them. ""Who do you think they were, ser?"" His mule Maester, grateful for the respite, began to crop the dry brown devilgrass along the verges, heedless of the two huge wine casks on his back.
""Robbers"", Dunk said.
Mounted atop Thunder, he was much closer to the dead men. ""Rapers. Murderers"". Dark circles stained his old green tunic under both arms. The sky was blue and the sun was blazing hot, and he had sweated gallons since breaking camp this morning.
Egg took off his wide-brimmed floppy straw hat. Beneath, his head was bald and shiny. He used the hat to fan away the flies. There were hundreds crawling on the dead men, and more drifting lazily through the still, hot air. ""It must have been something bad, for them to be left to die inside a crow cage"".
Sometimes Egg could be as wise as any maester, but other times he was still a boy of ten. ""There are lords and lords"", Dunk said. ""Some don't need much reason to put a man to death"".
The iron cage was barely big enough to hold one man, yet two had been forced inside it. They stood face to face, with their arms and legs in a tangle and their backs against the hot black iron of the bars. One had tried to eat the other, gnawing at his neck and shoulder.
The crows had been at both of them. When Dunk and Egg had come around the hill, the birds had risen like a black cloud, so thick that Maester spooked.
""Whoever they were, they look half starved"", Dunk said. Skeletons in skin, and the skin is green and rotting. ""Might be they stole some bread, or poached a deer in some lord's wood"". With the drought entering its second year, most lords had become less tolerant of poaching, and they hadn't been very tolerant to begin with.
""It could be they were in some outlaw band"". At Dosk, they'd heard a harper sing ""The Day They Hanged Black Robin"". Ever since, Egg had been seeing gallant outlaws behind every bush.
Dunk had met a few outlaws while squiring for the old man. He was in no hurry to meet any more. None of the ones he'd known had been especially gallant. He remembered one outlaw Ser Arlan had helped hang, who'd been fond of stealing rings.
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