Mercenaries

 

A mercenary 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", 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.

 

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. In gritty and dirty reality, a large extent of the day to day combat in real wars in both Westeros and Essos is fought by hired sellswords, fighting only for money.