Chapter 88

You had to admit that you were more than a bit curious about this master of yours, as you had never encountered a lord of such power as honest as the one you were apparently serving. But things being as they were you still had a good bit of work ahead of you before you could leave the Vale and make for the Westerlands, so meeting your lord in person was by that point still a thing of the future, which of course required that you actually succeeded.

It was a little bothersome that you and your companion were forced to take some time-consuming detours to evade the host of the Arryns on your way to the coast, but you had little to complain about, everything considered. Boredom and unplanned detours were simply part of life, and while you would have preferred the soft downward slopes of the Vale's valleys over braving its mountain passes, there were still some good advantages to be had beyond avoiding detection. For one, the once in a lifetime sight of the ravaged valley to your left, as well as the chance to walk on solid ground consistently and naturally the luxury of actually seeing what awaited you ahead.

The wild forests of the Vale had been sufficient when it came to moving unseen by House Arryn, but the sudden and constant encounters you two had with the warriors of the Mountain Clans had gotten old the moment they had started. And while your companion was an untiring spirit, the thought of genuinely complaining while he carried several times your weight in supplies simply seemed revolting to you. For you had been raised with the mentality that it's best to grit your teeth and get the job done while you naturally kept anything annoying bound inside, which overtime didn't mix well with thoughts of whining in general despite how often it still happened.

You knew of course that it was better to complain about a situation and change it than it was to simply accept and struggle through it, but you were never any good at fixing these things before you managed to get yourself stuck in them. Which was why your former master hadn't even bothered with it, he had been an advocate of strengthening one's strengths long before he had picked you up as experience and thus results and thus more experience could be guaranteed. Hence, why he had entirely focused on making sure that whatever trouble you managed to get yourself into wouldn't require you to change your way of thinking, though you very much so doubted your master had ever met a Lannister.

You had been improvising like a madwoman since they got their hands on you, and the lacking experience in the field of improvisation had come to bite you in the rear far too often, as you found yourself walking behind your companion once more. There was talent in you, and saying that wasn't hubris but a simple fact as far as you or your former master were concerned, the problem being that even the most talented of assassins couldn't beat a walking mountain when it came to killing things. Which had once and for all turned your lethality that you had thought of as your greatest strength into nothing more than the requirements for the job.

It would take an exceptionally deadly assassin to take care of the Lord of the Vale, that much was clear, but you really weren't anything beyond what was required, which was a problem since you and your greatest talent were only worth as much as the death of the good Lord Arryn. And then it would be entirely up to your new master if you still had so much as a shred of value to him, which was quite the growing concern as you continued to look at the ravaged back of your companion's armour while the hours flew by unnoticed.

The supplies he carried had naturally concealed a lot of the damage you had seen before you had departed, but you knew that his back alone had quite literally taken countless blows, even if most had done nothing more than add another scratch. Swords despite their versatility just lacked the power required to cut through plate armour, so even the extensive amount of damage that could be seen was still deceptive as the three centimeter thick plates of steel on your companion should have been impervious.

Yet despite it all he stood and walked without a problem, these displays of resilience and power had shaken your confidence quite a bit while you two journeyed to the Vale, but even so, the titan was another matter entirely. If your lord had truly created something that ridiculously powerful from half a continent away within less than a day, the abilities you had focused your training on had truly become useless. From what you knew you could probably fill the role of House Lannister's best assassin just fine even if you failed to improve in other fields, and since they had their fair share of enemies, you would still have your work cut out for you.

But you found after a short moment of thought that you only had disgust for such a mindset, for while you were never the ambitious sort when it came to what you achieved in life, that didn't mean your master had raised a quitter. And quite honestly, you didn't think your pride could have taken it if you remained as expendable as a town guard or the like to someone you might just hold some respect for. Hmm, mayhaps you could follow the path of your former master and take on a few apprentices of your own now that you think about it.

There might be no single human as devastating as your companion or that titan of your master, but perhaps a few dozen blows in quick success directed at the administration of an enemy House might come in handy. You were still a bit unsure if it was really the right course of action, as you just came up with it, but you very much so doubted that you had the mind to come up with something more refined. But since armies had always expended mountains of resources throughout the ages just to secure the most basic supply lines to stave off the hunger, thirst, and cold, you saw little reason not to prepare the infrastructure to strike where the troops of the Lannisters couldn't.