Sellsword Cd

[Maren Ruminski]

Amercenary[1] is an independent soldier who has no official allegiance to any lord or country, but who instead hires out his services for payment. They are most commonly known by the term "sellsword,"[2] as they sell their services with a sword.

The quality and reputation of sellswords ranges across a very wide spectrum. They are often professional soldiers, moving from one temporary contract to the next, though particularly poor-quality sellswords might just be a gang of untrained thugs. However, even sellswords who receive no "formal" training make a living by engaging in combat on a regular basis. Thus even a mercenary that is initially low-born and without expensive training will gain a great amount of combat experience ("hands on" training) throughout his career. Provided that he survives that long, a veteran sellsword may become a highly skilled fighter. A sellsword that has significantly distinguished himself in combat may even be rewarded by being dubbed a knight, though this is uncommon. Knights tend to look down on sellswords, due to their usually low-birth and their reputation as rogues.

Songs of chivalry and romance often portray war as a glamorous series of duels between knights in shining armor: fighting for love, honor and homeland. While this may be sometimes the case, in truth a large extent of the day to day combat in real wars in both Westeros and Essos is fought by hired sellswords, often companies of sellswords, fighting only for money. These sellsword armies often switch sides or abandon their employer when they realize that their patron is losing a battle or when the enemy offers them better coin.

Although mounted sellswords are sometimes called "freeriders," strictly speaking they are not the same thing. The difference is that true freeriders do not fight for regular payment, receiving only a share of the food supplies to sustain them and the promise of a share of the plunder (gold, weapons, armor, etc.). Essentially, they are "riders" that fight for "free".

Freeriders are usually a motley mix of two drastically different sources. Some freeriders are hedge knights; low-ranking freelance knights unattached to any noble House, and they are fighting for free because they hope that if they distinguish themselves in combat, they will be formally taken into a lord's service as a sworn sword (who gets regular payment). The other kind of freeriders are truly poor hangers-on, usually farm-boys whose homes were burnt out during the military campaign and who joined up with the army because they have nowhere else to go and are only a step above camp followers. This second type are actually by far the most common freeriders. Either way, freeriders are rarely used in direct combat between armies, instead more often serving as scouts and foragers. They can see combat, but this usually takes the form of raids, burning down enemy villages, often as their own homes were once burned down.

Note: The German dub refers to freeriders as "freier Ritter", or "free knights". Most freeriders are not actually anointed knights - though a great many freeriders are indeed poor "hedge knights". The slight difference in meaning stems from the fact that the German word for "knight", ritter, literally means "rider". "Freeriders" in Westeros can be knights, but they might just be "riders" in the sense that they are farm-boys who ride their horses ahead of the main army as scouts. A closer translation into German would probably be "freier Reiter" as in "riders/scouts".

Sellsails are mercenary sailors who engage in naval battles. Sellsails are the captain and crew of a boat, whose service is the actual operation of their vessel. Of course, the crews of many sellsail ships are also proficient in combat during boarding operations and coastal raids. Sellsails are quite frequently pirates who have decided to make quick money by hiring out the services of their ships during a current conflict, and in return charging far more than they'd normally make in their usual raiding activities. During peacetime, they usually go right back to being regular pirates.

While many sellswords function independently of any larger organization, there are also many sellsword companies which hire out their services as a unit. Again, the quality of these sellsword companies varies across a wide spectrum. Some can be little more than poorly trained gangs of a few dozen men who have combined their strength - though major lords who want to supplement their armies with sellswords will still prefer to hire a pre-assembled collection of such sellswords rather than go through the trouble of hiring them one by one. The best sellsword companies are essentially small private armies, highly trained and serving under their own officers.

While sellsword companies are encountered in Westeros, they are much more common in the city-states of Essos, particularly in the Free Cities and Slaver's Bay. The Seven Kingdoms are predominantly a feudal society, in which each lord raises soldiers from his own lands.

In contrast, the Free Cities are an urban society, and thus better fitted to paying coin to mercenaries. As a result, the Free Cities and Slaver's Bay have a much more developed system and history of fielding professional mercenaries organized into independent companies for hire.

In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels there are actually several more mercenary companies than have been revealed in the TV series so far, several of which have been condensed in adaptation by either changing them to groups of regular soldiers or by combining different sellsword companies into a single group; this was probably done to avoid confusing the TV audience with too many new names, i.e. a sellsword company hired by the Lannisters in the books is changed to simply a group of Lannister soldiers in the TV series. The allegiances of sellsword companies can at times be confusing even within the narrative of the books: mercenaries are a fickle bunch who easily change allegiances multiple times, depending on where the most gold is.

In the books, Yunkai actually hired two different sellsword companies to defend itself against Daenerys Targaryen, the Second Sons and the Stormcrows, but these were combined in the TV series, so all of the major mercenary captains are from a single company known as the Second Sons. In the books, the Second Sons are led by Mero (as in the TV series), while the Stormcrows are led by Prendahl na Ghezn, Sallor the Bald, and Daario Naharis. Daario killed Prendahl and Sallor to seize leadership of the Stormcrows, and then switched their loyalty to Daenerys. Meanwhile, Daenerys tricked Mero by giving him the large wagon full of wine he requested - for which he would consider, but not promise, to change sides. Daenerys then sent her forces to ambush the Second Sons that same night while Mero and his men were fall-over drunk on the wine she had given them, and most surrendered without a fight. Mero fled during the night and was later killed in a separate incident. The remaining Second Sons voted to have one of their other lieutenants, Brown Ben Plumm, serve as their new captain, and switched allegiances to Daenerys. In the TV series, Mero asked for the wagon of wine but curiously, there was no following ambush during the night as in the novel.

In the books, the Second Sons and Stormcrows consist of about 500 men each, for a total of one thousand mercenaries. The TV series not only combined the two mercenary companies, but doubled the total number of mercenaries from one thousand to two thousand.

Ser Barristan Selmy has a very negative opinion about sellswords, claiming that they are loyal only to themselves and cannot be trusted. During the second siege of Meereen, Ser Barristan's statement proves to be correct about the Second Sons who switch sides because their leader Ben Plumm does not wish to fight for the inferior party (but later changes his mind), but not about Daario's Stormcrows who remain loyal to Daenerys even after her departure.

During the third book, Jaime and Brienne are captured by the infamous sellsword company known as the Brave Companions - an ironic name, as they aren't particularly brave and are most famous for horrifically torturing unarmed prisoners. They become a major set of antagonists in the storyline throughout the third and fourth novels. Their penchant for maiming their captives by amputating their arms and/or feet has led to them being dismissively nicknamed "the Footmen". The Brave Companions are the terror of two continents, infamous across Essos and Westeros as the most ill-reputed, vicious, and cruel sellsword company in existence. They are not well-known for being particularly skilled at arms, but rather are infamous for the atrocities they are willing to commit against the enemy's civilian population. They are normally active in Essos, particularly the Free Cities, but when the War of the Five Kings first broke out Tywin Lannister hired them and brought them to the Riverlands of Westeros to burn out and terrorize the defenseless villages of the smallfolk loyal to his enemies. Even Gregor Clegane's men, including vicious torturers such as the Tickler, are considered to be not quite as despicable as the Brave Companions.

Moreover, the Brave Companions are composed of a veritable rogue's gallery of the absolute lowliest dregs of humanity, with an extremely diverse membership composed of the worst criminals from across the known world: cut throats, murderers, rustlers, rapers, ass-kickers, Qohorik butchers, Ibbenese thieves, Dothraki thugs, Dornish vipers, Braavosi buggerers, a child-molesting Westerosi priest, and a psychotic jester. They ride bizarre black-and-white striped horse-like animals known as zorses (horse-zebra hybrids), which they brought with them from Essos. Their diverse and indeed outlandish appearance has led to them also being nicknamed the "Bloody Mummers" (mummers are a kind of wandering troupe of actors), though they think this nickname is insulting. Their leader is Vargo Hoat, a cruel man from Qohor who has a bad speech impediment that leaves him lisping and slobbering. Hoat enjoys cutting the hands and feet off of his captives with little or no provocation, particularly anyone who points out his speech impediment - which, given that his lisp is so bad that it truly makes his speech barely intelligible at times, means that Hoat and the Brave Companions leave piles of severed hands and feet in their wake.

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