They said Ser Gregor Clegane rode like a storm with a man inside it.
Before the realm tore itself apart—before banners burned and kings multiplied—there were still quieter cruelties, the kind that never made it into songs. A lord who took an extra tithe because no one could stop him. The lord's man who "lost" the ledger and found it again now with more taxes owed. Smallfolk who learned to bow low enough that their hunger didn't show.
On a gray morning in the Westerlands border hills, the Mountain rode toward such a place: a squat keep of stone and timber squatting over a river ford. Its lord was nobody to court, but important enough to squeeze his villages and call it order.
Behind Ser Gregor came the whole familiar pack, as if the gods had arranged them by smell.
Chiswyck, broad and ugly, laughing even when he wasn't speaking.
Polliver, neat as a nail, with a soldier's patience and a gambler's eyes.
The Tickler, thin and quiet, whose silences had a way of making men remember every lie they'd ever told.
Rafford—Raff, to his friends—smiling like the world owed him amusement.
The pimply squire, too young for his mail, too eager to please, forever staring at Ser Gregor as if waiting to learn what a man was supposed to be.
And Shitmouth, slouching on his saddle with a spear, foul-tongued and oddly attentive whenever the Mountain's deep voice began to do its new, unsettling thing.
No one among them said it aloud, but all had noticed: Ser Gregor talked differently now.
Not much. Not kindly. But differently—in measured lines, as if he were reciting from some book no maester in the west had ever owned. The words came out of that scarred mouth like iron coins: heavy, cold, and unmistakably real.
No one knew why the Mountain had changed. No one even said the word changed. Saying that out loud about Ser Gregor felt like inviting lightning to strike you for sport.
But the evidence was hard to ignore.
A crow hopped along the road and cawed something rude. The Mountain watched it for a moment, then rumbled, "The wise are not confused; the benevolent are not worried; the brave are not afraid."
Chiswyck stared. "Did… did the crow just offend you, ser?"
Shitmouth spat. "If the Mountain's saying he ain't afraid of a bloody crow, I'm with him. Crows is shifty."
Polliver nodded thoughtfully, as if evaluating a wine. "Good line, that."
Rafford squinted at the Mountain. "Ser, is that—poetry?"
The Mountain didn't look back. "It is instruction."
The pimply squire immediately fumbled for parchment like this was a lesson, not a traveling massacre. He couldn't find parchment, so he started scratching the quote into a strip of leather with a dagger.
The Tickler watched him with mild interest, like a man observing a rabbit trying to teach itself sums.
On the road, they passed smallfolk repairing a washed-out ditch. A man with hands like roots glanced up, saw the hound on a cloak, and flinched so hard he nearly fell into his own mud.
The Mountain reined in.
The gang halted behind him as one creature, all teeth and leers.
Ser Gregor looked down at the ditch workers for a long moment. His eyes—pale, watchful—did not drift the way they once did. They rested on faces, on posture, on the bruised knuckles and the thin shoulders. It was as if something inside him was taking attendance.
Then he spoke.
"To govern is to set things right." The Mountain's voice was low and steady, the way an older man might speak to a boy who'd broken a tool. "If you set an example by being correct, who would dare remain incorrect?"
Chiswyck snorted. "Hear that? The Mountain's turned septon."
Shitmouth spat to the side. "More like he's turned… I dunno. Like them fancy words is marching in him." He sniffed, then added, dutiful as prayer, "Begging your pardon, ser."
Polliver didn't laugh. Polliver rarely laughed at anything that could get him killed. He just nodded as if Ser Gregor had commented on the weather. "Aye. Setting things right. That's—" He searched for the shape of it. "Sound."
The ditch man swallowed. "M'lord—ser—we didn't—"
The Mountain lifted one gauntleted hand. Silence snapped into place.
"Who takes your grain?" he asked.
No one answered. They stared at the ground, at the mud, at anything but the riders.
Raff's grin widened pleasantly, like a host encouraging guests to speak freely. The Tickler merely watched, expression mild, as if he had all day.
The ditch man finally rasped, "The keep, ser. The lord's men. Says it's for—" He glanced up and back down. "For the lord's stores."
The Mountain let the words hang a moment, like a weight on a line.
Then he said, "You will show me."
They rode on.
It was a strange ride: not a raid, not a patrol, not one of Lord Tywin's hard errands delivered with fire and screaming. The Clegane men were almost… mannerly. Smiling, even. Not because they were soft—no one rode with Ser Gregor and became soft—but because whatever had happened to the Mountain had settled over them like a new rule.
If Ser Gregor quoted his cold little sayings and demanded a thing in that calm voice, you did it. Not because you understood. Because you wanted to keep breathing.
The keep's gates were shut when they arrived, though there was no war to justify it. The palisade looked patched in places where rot had been nailed over. In the yard beyond, a few men-at-arms hovered uncertainly, suddenly remembering they had wives and lives to keep.
A serjeant called down nervously, "State your business!"
Polliver leaned forward in his saddle, smiling with perfect politeness. "Open the gate."
"That's not business—"
The Mountain spoke, not louder, just deeper, and the sound of it seemed to enter the wood.
"Open."
The bar came up. The gate creaked wide.
Inside, the lord came out quickly, as if speed could become courage. He was middle-aged, ruddy, well-fed, dressed in fur meant for someone grander. A maester trailed him with a worried mouth; a septon with pinched eyes; guards with spears held too tight.
"Ser Gregor," the lord said, trying on joviality the way a man might try on armor that didn't fit. "To what do I owe the honor?"
The Mountain dismounted. The earth seemed to accept his weight reluctantly.
His men followed suit, spreading in a loose half circle without being told: Chiswyck on one side, grinning; Rafford on the other, smiling; Polliver near the front, hand resting lightly on his sword as if it were a pet; Shitmouth rocking on his heels with his spear; the pimply squire hovering behind the Mountain's shoulder with wide eyes; and the Tickler—quietly, naturally—standing where his gaze could reach everyone.
They did not draw weapons.
They did not need to.
The Mountain looked past the lord toward the gate. Outside, the line of smallfolk had begun to gather, drawn by rumor and dread. He could see their sacks, their thin faces, the way they held children behind their legs as if children could be hidden from wolves.
"Your people are hungry," the Mountain said.
The lord blinked. "My… people?"
"If the people have no trust in their rulers, there is no standing for the state." The Mountain's voice did not change. "He who rules by moral force is like the North Star: it remains in its place while all the lesser stars do homage."
The maester stared, as if Ser Gregor had suddenly begun speaking Valyrian.
The lord forced a laugh. "You've been drinking with some learned man, I see. Ser, times are—"
"Peaceful," the Mountain said.
That single word, spoken like a correction, made the lord's mouth close.
Chiswyck's grin turned a touch wider, almost friendly. Rafford's smile was genial, inviting. Shitmouth looked faintly proud, as if Ser Gregor had just won a wager.
The Tickler said nothing at all. He simply folded his hands and watched the lord the way a cat watches a mouse that has forgotten what a cat is.
The Mountain took one step closer.
The lord's guards shifted uneasily. One of them glanced to the septon as if the Seven might give instructions on how to survive a Mountain.
"Your men take seed grain," Ser Gregor said. "Then takes coin for 'protection' on the road. Then takes daughters for the kitchens and sons for the yard. Your men beat those who complain."
The lord's face tightened. "Those are lies."
The Mountain tilted his head.
"To see what is right and not do it is want of courage."
Polliver's hand slid a finger-width along his sword hilt. Not drawing. Merely reminding.
Rafford's eyes crinkled in a pleasant way that did not reach his heart.
Shitmouth, still smiling, leaned his spear a little closer to the lord's nearest guard, close enough that the guard swallowed.
Chiswyck gave an amiable little nod, as if agreeing with a fine point in a tavern argument.
The pimply squire stood very straight, trying to look like a man, failing, and learning.
The Tickler's expression remained mild—milder than the rest, which somehow made it worse.
They still didn't speak.
Their silence did all the threatening for them.
The lord tried to gather himself. "Ser Gregor, you come here to—what? Tell me how to rule my own lands?"
The Mountain answered without heat.
"Lead them with virtue and restrain them with rites, and they will have shame and moreover will set themselves right."
"I don't know what that means," the lord snapped, voice cracking.
"It means," the Mountain said, "you will stop."
He turned slightly, speaking as though laying out a plan for repairing a roof.
"You will open your granary to the villages you've bled. You will set a fixed levy and post it where all can see. You will forbid your men to take fees on the road. You will hear complaints in the yard on a set day, with witnesses. You will return what was taken beyond measure."
The maester made a small, strangled sound. "My lord, that would reduce—"
The Mountain looked at him.
The maester stopped.
The lord's cheeks flushed. "This is absurd. I answer to—"
"To Lord Tywin," Polliver supplied gently, still smiling.
The lord's eyes darted to him.
Polliver's smile did not change.
No one had said "we will kill you." No one had said "we will burn your hall." No one had even raised a voice.
And yet the yard felt suddenly full of endings.
The lord swallowed. "You can't—Ser Gregor, if I do this, I look weak."
The Mountain's voice came like a closing door.
"The gentleman is ashamed if his words are better than his deeds."
For a long moment, the only sound was the creak of leather and the distant nervous shifting of horses.
Then the lord's shoulders sagged, as if his bones had accepted something his pride could not.
"Fine," he said hoarsely. "Fine. I will… I will open the granary. I will speak with my men. I will set a day. But—"
The Mountain cut him off with the calm of a man finishing a recitation.
"When you have done your best, then you can worry about the result."
He turned his head toward the gate. "Bring them in."
Polliver bowed slightly, as if receiving a gracious command at court. "As you say, ser."
He walked to the gate with easy steps and waved the smallfolk forward like invited guests.
Rafford helped an old man lift a sack over the threshold, smiling brightly the whole time.
Shitmouth murmured, "Come on then. Nicely now," in the tone of a man herding sheep—except the sheep knew the shepherd liked mutton.
Chiswyck stood aside, arms crossed, grin wide and welcoming in the way a pit is welcoming.
The Tickler watched the lord's guards. He did not touch them. He didn't have to. They held very still anyway.
The pimply squire hurried after Polliver to fetch keys, eager to be useful, glancing back at the Mountain as though expecting approval.
The lord stood in his own yard while mud-footed peasants entered it for the first time without being beaten. Some stared at the hall as if it were a temple. Some stared at Ser Gregor as if he were a nightmare that had learned manners.
The Mountain watched them—watched their hunger, their fear, their practiced silence—and for an instant something passed behind his brutal face that did not belong to Ser Gregor Clegane at all. Not mercy, exactly. Something older. Something like duty.
He spoke again, more quietly, as if the words were meant for himself as much as anyone.
"Within the four seas, all men are brothers."
No one understood the phrase. Not the lord, not the maester, not the septon, not the Mountain's own men.
Yet the effect was plain enough: the Mountain stood like a great immovable thing in the center of a lord's power and made that power bend toward the people it was supposed to shelter.
And around him, the worst men in the west smiled warmly at everyone they might have butchered, saying nothing—because they didn't need to.
Their friendliness was the threat.
Their silence was the blade.
And the lord, pale and sweating in his fine furs, nodded along to the Mountain's strange, quoted "poetry" the way smallfolk nodded to gods: not because they believed, but because disbelief was dangerous.
By the time the granary doors were opened and grain began to be measured out in the yard—measured honestly, under the Mountain's steady gaze—the keep felt altered, as if some new law had been hammered into its stones.
No one would ever say why Ser Gregor Clegane had done it. No one would ever dare ask him what book he'd swallowed.
They only knew this:
On that day, before the war, when the realm still pretended it was whole, the Mountain rode into a nameless lord's yard with a gang of killers behind him—and taught a lord to fear something other than swords.