It was high noon. The sun hung directly overhead, pouring its scorching heat onto the tourney grounds without mercy, as if lighting a natural, sacred fire for this ultimate test of strength and precision.
The axe-throwing finals were underway.
Brawny men from every corner of the realm stood bare-chested, sweat rolling down their bronzed, muscle-knotted skin. With earth-shaking roars, they unleashed their explosive power, hurling heavy battle axes with wild abandon. The axes screamed through the air, spinning rapidly to carve lethal arcs before slamming into distant targets with enough force to split stone.
The rules mirrored the archery contest—featuring both fixed and moving targets—but the distance was cut by nearly half.
This wasn't a slight against the throwers' skill. A battle axe is far heavier than an arrow; it cannot ride the wind. It relies entirely on the thrower's raw arm strength and instantaneous explosive power to fly true.
You could often spot a few light throwing axes tucked into the belts of mercenaries who roamed the battlefields, used as tools for mid-range ambushes. But the people who truly treated the throwing axe as a primary weapon, who wove it into their very blood and culture, were the savage tribes of the Northern mountain clans, the pirates of the Narrow Sea, and the Ironborn, who believed that "We Do Not Sow."
Balon Greyjoy was indisputably the master among them. His skill with the axe had reached the peak of perfection.
Since childhood, Balon had been obsessed with an extremely dangerous game known as the "Finger Dance." In this game, two participants threw sharp axes at each other, catching the incoming blade while dodging. A single slip in judgment meant lost fingers, or worse.
Balon had never missed a catch in this bloody pastime.
Later, his father, King Corren, seeing the game as unnecessarily reckless, tried to ban it across the Iron Islands to stop his people from maiming themselves. But his decrees had little effect; the wild Ironborn viewed this dance with death as a badge of courage.
It wasn't until Euron stepped in that the game ended. He didn't appeal to their safety; he threatened their way of life. He coldly declared that anyone caught playing the Finger Dance would be permanently banned from sailing and raiding.
For an Ironborn, whose soul is tied to the sea and the reaving life, being grounded was a punishment far worse than a severed finger. With this ruthless ultimatum, the cruel game was finally extinguished amidst the storms and reefs of the Iron Islands.
On the field of the finals, Balon Greyjoy crushed his opponents with undeniable, absolute power.
When his final axe thundered into the bullseye, splitting the target, the arena fell silent for a heartbeat before erupting into a tsunami of noise.
The Ironborn spectators went wild. They thumped their chests, clashed their tankards together, and chanted the victor's name in a deafening rhythm:
"BALON! BALON! BALON!"
The chant was rough and fervent, like the relentless waves of their homeland, filled with a primal pride for their kin's strength.
King Corren watched his eldest son, a rare look of approval crossing his stern face. He strode forward and thumped Balon heavily on the chest—the Ironborn way of saying "Well done." Euron followed with a grin, delivering his own solid thump. One by one, the Greyjoy kin stepped up, sharing in the family's glory through these powerful, physical gestures.
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As the celebration quieted, the crowd's attention was drawn magnetically to the center of the arena. The most breathtaking duel of the day was about to begin.
The final of the Single Combat. This match would decide who stood at the apex of warriors in the Seven Kingdoms.
On one side stood Euron Greyjoy of the Iron Islands, fresh from earning high praise in the joust.
His opponent was a man whose very name was used to frighten children across the realm into silence—Gregor Clegane, "The Mountain That Rides."
Gregor Clegane was less a man and more a living nightmare.
He stood in the center of the ring, his eyes radiating a ferocious cruelty. He was nearly eight feet tall, a moving tower of a man. He weighed an astounding thirty stone (over 400 pounds) of muscle that was knotted like hard rock. To call him "strong" was an understatement; he was practically inhuman.
He wore a flat-topped greathelm that left only a breathing hole and a narrow slit for vision. Atop the helm, a stone fist punched toward the sky. His weapon was a massive greatsword that any ordinary strongman would need two hands to lift, yet the Mountain waved it about with a single hand as if it were a switch.
Rumor had it he could cleave a fully armored knight—and his horse—in half with a single swing.
But more terrifying than his size or strength was the twisted, sadistic darkness in his heart.
The Mountain was a sadist, a murderer, and a rapist. As a child, he had burned his younger brother Sandor's face in a brazier simply for playing with a discarded toy, leaving the Hound with scars that would never heal. He was rumored to have killed his father, his sister, and two wives. His keep was a place of horror where servants disappeared without a trace, and even hunting dogs dared not enter the hall. The accusations of rape and slaughter trailing behind him were too numerous to count.
He was a walking calamity. An incarnation of pure violence. And now, he stood opposite Euron.
Normally, The Mountain was known for his suffocating defense.
In battle, he wore the heaviest, thickest full plate armor in the Seven Kingdoms—steel so heavy it took several men to lift. Beneath this moving fortress of plate, he wore layers of chainmail and boiled leather. He was armored to the teeth, without a single gap. He usually carried a massive oak shield rimmed in black iron, painted with the three black dogs of House Clegane.
However, for this specific duel, the rules had changed.
Gregor Clegane was forced to wear the standardized, relatively thin leather armor provided by the tourney organizers. Without his shell of steel, his massive frame looked strangely exposed.
The rules for the final were strict: No poisoned weapons. No hidden blades. No shields. And absolutely no personal heavy armor.
These restrictions stripped The Mountain of his "turtle shell" tactic, where he relied on absolute defense to crush opponents with brute force. To the onlookers, this rule seemed to level the playing field significantly, giving Euron a fighting chance against the monster.
The judge for this life-or-death struggle was the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Ser Gerold Hightower, the "White Bull."
Among the Kingsguard, Ser Barristan and Ser Arthur Dayne were perhaps more famous for their skill. However, Barristan was preparing for the jousting finals tomorrow, and Arthur had to recuse himself due to his sister's engagement to Euron.
Thus, the burden of ensuring fairness in this brutal clash fell upon the broad shoulders of the White Bull, a man known for his unwavering stability and ironclad sense of justice.