The King of Winters

Chapter 40

He slid his short, fat hand around Joy's neck and tightened his grip. He could see the discomfort in her shining green eyes. Andrew swallowed his anger. Rage was not always the answer, he had learnt that lesson once and he would not make the mistake again not when Joy's life is in danger. "Get your hands off of her," Andrew told to Janos. "I'm the one who you need. Leave her alone."

"And who are you to command us?" Deem chuckled from behind Joy. "We don't serve your royal father, boy."

"Boy," snapped the jowly man. "You will not talk a thing with that traitor mouth of yours. I am free to do whatever I want with her. You brought her into this yourself, boy. The pretty little thing and you brought her into this." He took his hand away from Joy's throat and pointed a meaty finger at Andrew's face. "How good was she in your bed?"

Andrew gritted his teeth and fisted his hand.

"I suppose I'll know it when I fuck her," Janos Slynt said with a smirk. "When we all do." His men laughed at that.

Andrew looked to Joy and he remembered his mother. He had left her in the Torrentine river in the same way he is leaving Joy to the likes of men like Janos.

Slynt slammed a fist against his jaw again. "I've seen you! His Grace had your measure true enough, it seems. You are a traitor's son, not fit to live. I will kill you now. I, Janos Slynt will end the legend of the Born King. After I kill you, I'll go for your traitor uncle in the Night's Watch. It would not surprise me to learn that it was all part of the same fell plot. Benjen Stark may well have a hand in all this as well. I know you Starks better than anyone."

"My uncle is a man of honor."

"Honorable as Arthur Dayne who took up arms against the king he swore to protect," mocked Deem.

"More honorable than the likes of you," Andrew spat. "You don't even have the right to speak his name." 

"Right?" said Slynt. "Well, we don't have the right to speak traitors' name. Your whole family was a traitorous one. Oh, yes. And I know the ways of wolves as well." He pointed at Andrew's face. "Your father died a traitor."

"My father was murdered." Andrew was past caring what they did to him, but he would not suffer any more lies about his father. "I remember you now. You were the one who led the armies into the Great Hall of Starfall."

Slynt purpled. "Murder? You insolent pup. Your father, the Great King Eddard moved against his liege and rightful king. Do you know how your father died? He watched how your mother was raped, again and again, and only when all of us were done with her, we chopped off his head and threw it into the sea along with your mother."

Andrew twisted and yanked away from the men's grasp and grabbed the dagger of the man to his right. He slashed open the belly of the man from whom he took the dagger and slit the throat of the other one who had held him before he could even draw his sword. He moved to Joy at once. Janos Slynt backed away behind the table and Deem held Joy, his dagger against her throat. Joy bit his hand and when the man took his hand away Andrew pushed Joy away and buried his dagger in Deem's right eye. He threw the dagger at the last one who had a longbow and the dagger lodged itself in his throat. 

Janos Slynt ran to the door but Andrew was much quicker. He grabbed Slynt by the throat with such ferocity that he lifted him off the floor. He would have gladly throttled him but the frog-faced man had talked too much. "Rhaegar," Janos Slynt gasped, his jowls quivering and face turning purple. "It was Rhaegar." 

Andrew took Slynt's own dagger from his belt. "Don't worry, he's next." He plunged the dagger deep into Slynt's gut and drew it upwards, tearing open his belly and spilling his insides out. 

When Slynt grew limp in his hand he dropped the corpse down. His head throbbed badly where they had hit him with the wood. 

"Andrew," he heard Joy call him, her voice faint as a whisper. He dropped the dagger and turned to her.

He found Joy laying on the wooden floor, with an arrow between her breasts. Her face had gone pale, and in the moonlight it looked as though she wore a glittering silver mask.

"No, no, no, no." Andrew rushed beside her, took her in his arms and cradled her against his chest. "Andrew," she said, very softly. It sounded as though the arrow had found a lung.

"Shhh." He took her hand. "It's alright. It's alright."

"Andrew," she whispered. "I would have loved to go and see Winterfell with you."

"We'll see Winterfell," he promised her. "It is big and shiny, you'd love it. There is this big picture of my father and mother. And father, he will protect us. No one dares to enter the north." He touched her hair. "We'll see mother as well. She would love you."

Joy just smiled at that. She cupped his cheek with her hand. "I love you, Andrew," she sighed, dying in his arms.

Author's Notes: Yes, that's it, Andrew is going to Westeros with double the need for vengeance.