Late

The next day, Lord Stark's mood was sour but had a mix of hope. The source of the sourness was Legio's demand and if it wasn't for Lord Stark's practice of avoiding making decisions in anger, he would have the hunter arrested and thrown into the dungeon. The hope came in the form of Littlefinger directing him towards Lord Aryn's former squire who had just been recently knighted, Ser Hugh.

Then there was the topic of Bloodlines and Ancestry of Great Houses of Westeros, something which according to fellow Small council member; Maester Pycelle, had Lord Arryn immersed for quite some until his death. This however didn't lead to anything so anywhere in Lord Stark's mind so he put it aside and pursued the former lead.

He had sent one of his men, Jory Cassel, to question Ser Hugh early morning but the knight refused to speak. No Knight of his status would refuse when the Hand of the King calls him, but Hugh did and that commanded suspicion. Lord Stark sighed, he needed to wait until his joust ended, and that was the last bit of respect he would give Ser Hugh should he remain uncooperative.

As the loud buisine resounded Lord Stark broke out of his thoughts and looked below at the jousting ground from his elevated platform.

The jousting ground stretched out before the assembled nobles, a vast expanse of carefully tended earth bordered by wooden barriers adorned with the heraldry of noble houses. Rows of grandstands flanked the field, rising high to accommodate the highborn spectators who eagerly awaited the day's events.

At the far end of the field stood the imposing lists, where knights would soon clash in glorious combat. The wooden barriers formed a narrow corridor, lined with colorful pennants and shields bearing the sigils of competing houses. The ground beneath was packed hard and smooth, meticulously groomed to provide a level playing field for the knights and their noble steeds.

Near the lists, attendants bustled about, preparing the knights for their contests. Squires clad in the livery of their masters' polished armour to a brilliant sheen, while grooms tended to the warhorses, grooming their coats and checking the fittings of their armour.

The air was filled with the sound of hoofbeats and the clatter of armour as the knights made their final preparations. Sunlight danced off the gleaming metal of their armour, casting dazzling reflections across the field.

As the heralds announced the beginning of the day's jousts, the crowd fell silent in anticipation. All eyes turned to the lists, where the first competitors mounted their steeds and took up their positions.

Two riders armed and armoured on horseback appeared on the opposite side of the ground divided by the tilt, both facing each other, ready to charge at each other.

"Ser Horas Redwyne, from House Redwyne of Reach. Are you ready?" The announcer asked.

Ser Horas raised his orange lance in response. He wore full plate armour with various decorations and had a shield attached to his arm which picture of a burgundy grape cluster against everything blue. This was the sigil of House Redwyne.

"Jory Cassel of House Cassel. Are you ready?"

Jory's armour was blue-grey plate without device or ornament, and a thin grey cloak hung from his shoulders like a soiled rag. He wielded an equally impressive lance and his shield was painted with ten white wolf heads on grey with a black border. This was a sigil of Housel Cassel, a minor noble house in the North in service to the Starks. With one look at the crowd, one could tell that most didn't believe Jory would win.

"Jory looks like a beggar among the

others," Septa Mordane sneered and Sansa who sat beside her among the audience of nobles, couldn't help but agree with her tutor.

"But don't you lose composure over it," Septa Mordane said to Sansa, "A lady's armour after all is her courtesy."

With a thunderous roar, the heralds announced the beginning of the joust, signalling the start of the confrontation. Jory and Ser Horas spurred their steeds forward, their lances levelled with deadly precision as they thundered down the weapon towards each other.

The clash of the lance against the shield reverberated through the air as the two knights met in a bone-jarring collision. Jory's lance almost shattered against the unyielding defence of his opponent. Ser Horas, however, remained firmly seated in his saddle, his own lance finding its mark on Jory's armour.

The force of the impact threatened to unseat Jory, but he gritted his teeth and clung fiercely to his mount, refusing to yield to the pain. With a surge of anger-fueled determination, he drove his spurs into his warhorse's flanks, urging the steed forward with renewed vigour.

As the two knights circled each other once more, the crowd held its breath, their hearts pounding in their chests as they awaited the outcome of the confrontation. Jory's armour bore the marks of the collision, dented and scratched from the force of the blow, but his spirit remained unbroken, his resolve unwavering in the face of adversity.

With a mighty roar, the combatants charged once more, their lances lowered like deadly spears aimed at each other's hearts. This time, however, it was Jory who emerged victorious, his lance finding its mark with accuracy as it struck Ser Horas squarely in the chest. The lance shattered with the collision and splinters flew in all directions.

The Redwyne knight was thrown from his saddle with a resounding crash, his armour clattering loudly as it hit the ground. Jory, his chest heaving with exertion, reined in his warhorse with a triumphant cry, his victory assured as he basked in the adulation of the crowd.

As Ser Horas lay defeated upon the ground, his armour battered but not broken, Jory emerged as the undisputed champion of the joust, his courage and skill celebrated by all who bore witness to his triumph on the tourney grounds.

'This is what all I was meant for.' Sansa felt.

When Sansa rode here, to the Hand's tourney with Septa Mordane and Jeyne Poole, in a litter with curtains of yellow silk so fine she could see right through them. They turned the whole world gold. Beyond the city walls, a hundred pavilions had been raised beside the river, and the common folk came out in the thousands to watch the games. The splendour of it all took Sansa's breath away; the shining armour, the great chargers caparisoned in silver and gold, the shouts of the crowd, the banners snapping in the wind and the knights themselves, the knights most of all.

"It is better than the songs," she whispered when they found the places that her father had promised her, among the high lords and ladies. Sansa was dressed beautifully that day, in a green gown that brought out the auburn of her hair, and she knew they were looking at her and smiling.

They watched the heroes of a hundred songs ride forth, each more fabulous than the last. The seven knights of the Kingsguard took the field, all but Jaime Lannister in scaled armour the colour of milk, their cloaks as white as fresh-fallen snow. Ser Jaime wore the white cloak as well, but beneath it, he was shining gold from head to foot, with a lion's-head helm and a golden sword. Ser Gregor Clegane, the Mountain That Rides, thundered past them like an avalanche on the largest horse there. He was a giant, the biggest man in Westeros, many peasants believed him to be actually a monster and in black metal bulky armour of his, with the metal bucket-like helmet, he even looked like a monster from the stories. It seemed only his brother, the Hound, who although not as big as the Mountain, was big enough that he might stand a semblance of a chance. Quite a few among the audience were visibly frightened of the Mountain.

Other riders appeared. Sansa remembered Lord Yohn Royce, who had guested at Winterfell two years before. "His armour is bronze, thousands and thousands of years old, engraved with magic runes that ward him against harm," she whispered to Jeyne, her friend from Winterfell beside her.

Septa Mordane pointed out Lord Jason Mallister, in indigo chased with silver, the wings of an eagle on his helm. He had cut down three of Rhaegar's bannermen on the Trident. The girls giggled over the warrior priest Thoros of Myr, with his flapping red robes and shaven head, until the septa told them that he had once scaled the walls of Pyke with a flaming sword in hand.

Other riders Sansa did not know; hedge knights from the Fingers and Highgarden and the mountains of Dorne, unsung freeriders and new-made squires, the younger sons of high lords and the heirs of lesser houses. Younger men, most had done no great deeds as yet, but Sansa and Jeyne agreed that one day the Seven Kingdoms would resound to the sound of their names. Ser Balon Swann. Lord Bryce Caron of the Marches. Bronze Yohn's heir, Ser Andar Royce, and his younger brother Ser Robar, their silvered steel plate filigreed in bronze with the same ancient runes that warded their father. Many others Sansa didn't know and had to be told about.

Jeyne Poole had earlier confessed herself frightened by the look of Jalabhar Xho, but when she saw young Lord Beric Dondarrion, with his hair like red gold and his black shield slashed by lightning, she pronounced herself willing to marry him on the instant.

When the time for the next tilt comes, the scene turns a bit strange as Legio Cainhurst appears. He was adorned with an armour of gleaming silver, a smooth curved helmet with a pointy almost beak-like end, covering the armoured chin with various metal engravings, but no holes or slits for one to see through. The rest of the set consisted of draping of silver pate with chainmail from the shoulder, over the torso, with a black-red cap. Silver gauntlets and silver armouring over the legs. To every noble, it looked more like an expensive decorative piece rather than war equipment. The shield he bore had the sigil of two golden lions rearing up back to back on a red background. Like that of House Lannister but with two Lions instead of one.

With all this seemed showy, the lance and the horse were the complete opposite. The lance was undecorated and cheap like that off Jory and the brown horse, wasn't no war horse, it was thinner and smaller, more like a beast of burden than a beast of war.

"Legio Cainhurst, of House Cainhurst. Are you ready?" the announcer asked.

Legio raised his lance in response.

Then the announcer asked, "Lothor Brune, of House Brune. Are you ready?"

Loth raised his lance in response.

"Charge!"

As the tension mounts on the tourney grounds, Legio and Lothor Brune charged towards each other with thunderous hooves pounding against the earth. But just as the clash seemed inevitable, Lothor's sturdy brune warhorse suddenly baulked, its muscles tense with fear, refusing to heed its rider's commands.

With a sudden and violent lurch, the horse reared up on its hind legs, its nostrils flaring with panic as it threw Lothor Brune off balance. The seasoned warrior, caught off guard by his mount's unexpected rebellion, is unable to maintain his seat, and he is sent hurtling through the air with a resounding crash.

The crowd erupts into gasps of astonishment and murmurs of disbelief as Lothor Brune hits the ground with a heavy thud, his armour clattering loudly upon impact. For a moment, there is stunned silence as the spectators process the unexpected turn of events, their eyes wide with shock. The rules were simple, the first rider to fall off his horse loses.

"Legio Cainhurst victorious against Lothor Brune!"

So although Lothor wasn't personally unhorsed by Legio's lance, that changed nothing about it.

The jousting went all day and into the dusk, the hooves of the great warhorses pounding down the lists until the field was a ragged wasteland of torn earth. A dozen times Jeyne and Sansa cried out in unison as riders crashed together, lances exploding into splinters while the commons screamed for their favourites. Jeyne covered her eyes whenever a man fell, like a frightened little girl, but Sansa was made of sterner stuff. A great lady knew how to behave at tournaments. Even Septa Mordane noted her composure and nodded in approval.

The Kingslayer rode brilliantly. He overthrew Ser Andar Royce and the Marcher Lord Bryce Caron as easily as if he were riding at rings and then took a hard-fought match from white-haired Barristan Selmy, who had won his first two tilts against men thirty and forty years his junior. Legio faced against two more opponents that day, his archery competitors of the previous day Balon Swann and Jory. He won the same way as he did before with Lothor Brune. The warhorses became frightened when they came face to face with Legio and in their fear they threw off their riders, rather than charge at the hunter.

As the jousting continued, whispers spread through the ranks of the highborn spectators like wildfire, fueled by the startling events witnessed on the tourney grounds.

"Did you see how those warhorses reacted to Legio?" murmured a lord, her voice tinged with suspicion. "It's as if they sensed something... unnatural about him."

"Unnatural indeed," agreed another lord, his brow furrowed in concern. "I've never seen horses behave in such a manner, especially in the presence of a mere hunter."

Lord Stark, his suspicions already stirred by Legio's unusual request for Arya's blood, listened intently to the hushed conversations around him. The pieces of the puzzle were slowly falling into place, and the picture they painted was deeply troubling.

"It's foul play, mark my words," declared an old lady, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. "No ordinary man could elicit such fear from noble warhorses. There's dark magic at work here."

Lord Stark's jaw tightened at the mention of dark magic, his suspicions about Legio Cainhurst growing with each passing moment. He glanced toward the royal box, expecting to see King Robert's disapproval mirrored in his expression. Yet, to his dismay, the king seemed indifferent to the whispers and rumours swirling around them, his attention focused solely on the joust unfolding before them.

The tension on the tourney grounds reached a fever pitch as the next joust was announced. Two formidable opponents stepped forward, their presence commanding the attention of all who bore witness to their confrontation.

"Ser Gregor Clegane, the Mountain That Rides!" boomed the announcer, his voice echoing across the field.

Ser Gregor, clad in blackened plate armour that seemed to swallow the light around him, mounted his massive destrier with ease. The towering knight's presence cast a shadow over the field, his sheer size and strength intimidating even from a distance.

Lord Stark sighed and watched the scene as a servant approached, bearing a rolled-up parchment in hand. The servant, looking nervous under the weight of Lord Stark's piercing gaze, extended the paper towards him with trembling hands.

"What is this?" Lord Stark demanded, his voice sharp with authority.

The servant stammered, "A message, my lord. It's from... from Legio Cainhurst."

Lord Stark's eyes narrowed as he glanced over at the distant figure of Legio Cainhurst, who stood among the other competitors, his presence casting a dark shadow over the tourney grounds. With a low growl of frustration, Lord Stark snatched the parchment from the servant's grasp and unrolled it with swift, decisive movements.

The words inscribed on the paper were short and to the point, but they carried a weight of ominous warning: "It's in your better interest to stop the joust now."

A surge of anger coursed through Lord Stark's veins as he read the message, his grip tightening on the parchment until his knuckles turned white. The audacity of Legio Cainhurst, to presume to dictate the course of the tournament with such brazen arrogance, filled Lord Stark with fury. The paper crumbled in his fist.

With that, Lord Stark turned away from Legio Cainhurst, his gaze sweeping over the assembled nobles with a silent warning. The tournament would continue, no matter what. His gaze went back to the ground.

As the two knights thundered towards each other, the ground shook beneath the weight of their warhorses, their hooves kicking up clouds of dust as they charged with deadly intent. Ser Hugh, his lance held high, aimed for the Mountain's chest, hoping to unseat the towering knight with a well-placed blow.

But Ser Gregor Clegane, the Mountain That Rides, was not one to be easily bested. With a roar that echoed across the tourney grounds, he met Ser Hugh's lance head-on, his own lance driving forward with terrifying speed and precision.

The impact was bone-jarring, the sound of splintering wood filling the air as the two lances collided with brutal force. Ser Hugh's lance shattered against the Mountain's armour, sending wooden shards flying in all directions. But before he could even register the pain, Ser Hugh felt a searing agony explode in his throat as the Mountain's lance found its mark with deadly accuracy.

The force of the blow lifted Ser Hugh from his saddle, sending him hurtling through the air like a ragdoll before crashing to the ground with a sickening thud. Blood gushed from the grievous wound in his throat, staining his armour crimson as he lay motionless upon the earth.

The crowd fell silent, the shock of Ser Hugh's death rippling through the assembled nobles like a wave. Some gasped in horror, while others turned away in disgust, unable to bear witness to the gruesome spectacle before them. Sansa hugged her friend as she started crying, and then they both started crying. The word of songs that had her charmed earlier turned nightmarish.

The realisation hit Lord Stark harder than a lance, and just like that the hope of his investigation was extinguished. He turned to face Legio in the distance, his red eyes above his toothy smile.