No Greater Fury: A Horse Grenadier company in Westeros

[Balaur]

Alliser Thorne had a smirk on his face that Lancel didn't like the look of. "They say the Kingslayer was the finest sword that ever lived. I doubt if that's true. But his cousin might be." He said as he barked orders to the trainees lining up. "So I think we'll start by watching you and Crakehall spar. Let's see how our best fighters measure up."

Lancel winced. Crakehall was a hulk of a man, and an experienced tourney fighter as well. Lancel had been beaten the only time he'd ever had to fight in earnest, and hadn't trained in what felt like a year.

When he'd been sent to King's Landing to squire for the demon of the trident, he'd been overjoyed. Cousin to the kingslayer, squire of a princeslayer. He'd told himself that he would be master of sword and hammer both within the year. Instead, what further training he'd managed to get had been wheedled out of Aron Santagnar, while Robert's training had mostly consisted of new and interesting ways to humiliate him. He'd still sparred in the yards, but that alone was no good if you wanted to learn to fight properly.

He gripped his sword tighter and settled his padding with a roll of his shoulders. I'm going to lose, but I don't have to make it easy for him.

He lowed his visor and advanced forwards. Crakehall was on him a moment later, sweeping aside his attempt at a parry then coming back in with a cut to the wrist. Lancel yelped in pain, but somehow managed to keep his grip on the weapon, only for Crakehall to slam into him shield first.

He went down sprawling into the snow. It was all over in seconds. How?!

"Up. Again." Alliser said.

In the end, he did, in fact, make it easy for Lyle Crakehall. Three rounds, and all of them ended with him soundly beaten to the ground.

"Seems like Robert's squire is as bad at fighting boars as Robert himself." Ser Alliser said. Someone chuckled behind him, amongst the pack of rapers and thieves who formed the smaller part of this batch of recruits.

Only when his wine was spiked.

He picked himself up, flushed.

'Now, let's see what kind of fighter you can beat." Ser Alliser asked. "Satin, if you'd please."

He wants me to fight a whore?

"Are you sure, Ser?" Satin asked, stepping forwards.

"Yes." Alliser said. "Or are you afraid?"

"No, Ser."

Satin hefted his longsword and advanced on him, hunkering behind his shield.

Lancel did the same.

"The wildlings haven't got all day." Alliser said.

He cut at Satin's unshielded side. The boy caught it, riposted, and then they were actually fighting each other blow for blow.

Then Satin bounced a cut off his helmet. His vision jarred.

He heard hoots of laughter behind him, and his face flushed further.

"Robert might not have taught you how to kill a boar, but he sure as hell told you how to get fucked by a whore!" someone bellowed.

Lancel turned, trying to see who it was. The recruits had sorted themselves into two groups; the Lannister prisoners who scarcely needed any training on one side, and the mob of rapists, bastards and street rats on the other.

I got hit by a bloody whore…

Satin was actually smiling, hefting his sword and coming back in for another pass.

Lancel gritted his teeth. He was done with being humiliated by crows.

When Satin came in with a cut under his shield, he slipped back his leading leg so Satin's blade arced through thin air and brought his longsword down on Satin's head, hard enough to send sparks flying. He kept pushing the attack, throwing another cut at Lancel's leg, using his shield to protect his face. The boy was cringing away, almost falling over backwards. He jabbed at Satin's face, then when the whore jerked his shield up, blinding himself, he slammed his point into his guts. Satin doubled over, wheezing.

"Enough!" Alliser roared, shoving in between them.

"Do you they ever teach you highborn how to pull your hits! You're worse than Lord Snow! And you, Satin! You'd be beheaded, crippled and dying of a gut wound if not for the fact that you cut down the Lion of Lannister first. What did I tell you about blows to the legs? Protect your head!"

"Enough." Alliser repeated. "Marbrand, Sarsfield, you two, show the Lion of Lannister how it's done."

*

"Lancel?" Satin asked, walking up to him.

"What?" Lancel said. He'd been avoiding talking to anyone if he could avoid it, the boy whore most of all.

Killed a king, seduced by my own cousin, surrendered with barely a fight, and now beaten by a whore…

It had only happened once, but he'd heard that Satin was already going by Lionsbane, and any time he went near the other boys he'd been mocked savagely.

"Bowen Marsh told me to find you. All of us have already been told. He's having the Lannister men take your vows tonight."

"Tonight?"

"Yes. Say's we've already been trained to arms." He shrugged. "He wants us at the sept. With all Mormont's boys up north, I reckon he needs more men, and fast. Wants to ensure our loyalty."

"If you say so…"

"Show me your wrist." Satin suddenly said.

"What?"

"Show me your wrist. Where strongboar hit you."

He pulled back his coat, doublet and undershirt. A week later, the bruise was scarcely there.

"Barely anything. Now my stomach still has a bruise about the size of colour of a rotted apple. Think about it. You hurt me worse than a man twice your size did to you."

Lancel flinched. "You're saying…"

"That you bloody highborn need to learn to control yourselves. I don't care if I hit you, I just got lucky. That didn't stop you beating me bloody." Satin said.

"But…"

"What, I'm a whore?" He shrugged. "I didn't choose to be a whore. I did choose to be a man of the Night's Watch."

"And I didn't get to choose-"

"You got to choose to support King Joffrey. You got to choose to take the black rather than die." he said.

He didn't have anything to say to that.

*

They gathered in the sept, all crystals and rainbows, Bowen Marsh with a diadem on his head. He looked downright absurd in it. "Some of you have only been here for a week." He said. "Others for months. All of you, however, must know that it is not only wildlings that we face."

The hand. He's going to mention the wight's hand.

"I have received grave news from Lord-Commander Mormont. His forces have been attacked and taken heavy casualties from a horde of wights."

What?

There were yells of horror and surprise, and someone called out "You jest!"

Bowen grimaced. "This is no jest. Two attempted to kill the Lord-Commander, and now thousands have attacked the Great Ranging. There are raiders loose in the gift and the Shadow Tower is under attack. Lord Stark is calling his banners, but it will take time for them to arrive. The watch needs men to hold until the Starks can arrive. Some of you are rebels and criminals given a second chance. Others of you are here of free will. I expect all of you to do your duty against what is coming. Any of you who keep to the Old Gods, you will take your vows at the godswood. The rest, here."

There were only a few who left.

The rest, nearly seventy men, took their vows as one.

Lancel was almost shaking. The dead, the dead are coming, gods be good, he's lying or mad or the seven hells have broke open.

But Satin and Bowen were right. He'd chosen to kill Robert, and yet he'd been given a second chance.

He had to take it.

"The Night Gathers, and now my watch begins…"

 

[Balaur]

Bowen left with the near three hundred men, including half the Lannisters, at first light. They rode without banners, without the bright colours Lancel was accustomed to seeing on soldiers going to war, just black and grey. All where ahorse, and many were double-armed with both bow and spear as well as sword and dagger.

Ser Alliser padded up next to him. "The stables need mucking, Lion of Lannister." . He'd been picked as a Steward, as had most of the Lannister men. Ser Addam Marbrand reckoned it was because most of them could read and do sums; they were wasted as builders, but too unreliable to be rangers without the worry of them deciding to rebuild Casterly rock beyond the wall.

"What are you waiting for? Too highborn for your tastes?"

Lancel shook his head. It was vile work, but it was better than rotting in an ice cell.

Or that accursed tower.

He set off to the stables, Will Harrow walking besides him. The spearman had been assigned to the builders; he was illiterate but had been a stonemason before he'd joined the Lannister Household guard. "Wonder how many of them there are now." Harrow asked.

"How many of what?"

"Watchmen left in the castle."

Lancel thought on it. "About seventy or so."

"And how many of those are us?"

"Twenty-five."

He almost looked ready to mutiny on the galley.

Harrow raised an eyebrow. "Think about it."

They reached the stables.

It was hard, gruelling, filthy work. He'd almost refused to do it the first time he'd been assigned the job; even as a black brother, he was a highborn knight-to-be, not a bloody stableboy. That had ended when Alliser had threatened to have him flogged if he didn't follow orders.

By the end, he'd gotten horse shit all over his black breeches.

"I'm a bloody soldier and you're a lordling. They've got a bloody horde of wildlings out there for us to go kill, and they have us shovelling shit?". His voice was a low growl. Harrow spat. "They should have those rapers and thieves doing this, not us."

I'm worse than that. Murderer.

"We took the same vows they did-" he began. He'd rather have been beheaded with Cersei than face this humiliation, but if this was the punishment the Father had judged fit…

"The traitors forced us to take vows at swordspoint. They're meaningless."

"That would make us oathbreakers…" Lancel muttered.

"And? I heard Tommen escaped. We owe him our loyalty more than the Watch."

Desertion. He's planning on desertion.

"You'd be hunted down like a dog." Lancel said.

The officers never missed an opportunity to remind them of how the Northerners punished desertion. If you were caught by the Starks, it was a single blow of the greatsword. The Umbers were rumoured to still hang oathbreakers from weirwoods. If you got as far as the Neck, the Crannogmen strangled men and flung them into the bogs. Sometimes, peat-cutters found the bodies of millennia old deserters, their faces cured into leather screams.

And the Boltons… Alliser had been the closest Lancel had ever seen to him smiling when he'd told them what the Boltons did.

He shrugged. "Not if they're more worried about the wildlings."

"They'll have our heads if they hear of this." Lancel said, leaving him to go clean his breeches. His hands were almost shaking. We swore oaths. Satin was right, I should've died for what I've done, but they gave me a second chance….

But Will had trusted him enough to warn him of what he was planning.

I'm a Lannister. He's just a soldier. He went to me with his plan first, he looked to me as a leader…

Some small part of him, the part that had tried to earn Robert's respect and then to please Cersei in spite of everything, smiled at that.

The other part reacted with horror. Why would anyone trust him? In spite of being a man of House Lannister, he'd failed everything he'd ever tried except for the one thing that he should never have done.

*

"If someone trusted with a secret, but keeping that secret broke your oaths, would you judge me for keeping it?" Lancel asked, standing alone in the Sept, praying to the statue of the Father. The wood was dark and cracked It was dark and dank; one of the rainbow windows had been replaced with common glass. It was lit only by a single candle.

"What secret?" someone asked behind him. Lancel nearly jumped out of his skin.

He turned to face Septon Cellador. As always, he was only half on his feet, his voice thick with wine. The man was tall and half-bald, with the biggest beer belly Lancel had ever seen, exceeding even the hulking mass of Robert.

"I…"

"What secret?" Cellador repeated. "The father abhors a liar."

And an oathbreaker.

"That…"

He couldn't force himself to say it. Letting Will run wouldn't harm anyone, and he'd already gotten enough people killed.

"I, I killed Robert. I got him drunk, too drunk, when he went to spear the boar. I'm as much of a kingslayer as my coz."

Why the hell did I just say that-

Cellador almost recoiled. "The kingslayer is abhorred in the sights of gods and men."

He didn't need to be told that. He'd known from the moment Robert had missed his thrust.

The drunken Septon was the first person he'd ever told.

Cellador took another swig from his bottle of wine.

"Why would any man do such a thing?". His face was searching and accusatory, but mostly just drunk.

"For love. Lust."

For wanting something vaguely resembling affection.

Cellador leaned against the wall, barely standing. "For who?"

"For, for Cersei. She tried to seduce me."

She didn't just try. She succeeded.

"Robert should never have slept with a Lannister. I knew a girl who made that mistake. That dwarf, what was his name, he wanted to marry some peasant girl."

Lancel knew that tale well enough. Tywin had tried to keep it quiet, but the guards had told the servants, the servants had told the other squires, and they'd told him. She'd been a whore who Tyrion had been fool enough to get Tywin's permission to marry. Instead, he'd paid her to fuck every soldier in the barracks for a handsome profit to prove to Tyrion what sort of women she was.

"Maiden have mercy on her soul, I did it for a bagful of coin. Tywin had her raped around the barracks then threatened to have me tortured to death if I ever told anyone. Now his own men murdered him, may the Father judge him harshly."

"They didn't rape her, she was just a whore-"

"She was crying and bloody and could barely stand when I last saw her. Tywin made me watch, told me worse would happen to me if I told anyone. Some wandering crow convinced me to take the black a while after that."

My cousins are monsters. Tyrion twisted and stunted, Cersei a seducing bitch even if a beautiful one, Jaime a traitor, Tywin cruel and merciless. He, though, was worst of all…

No one is as accursed as the Kinglslayer.

And all of them were dead because of him.

Is why the gods made Stannis stay his hand? So I could see the ruin I have caused?

He left, wordless. The Septon had no comfort for him.

*

He tossed sleeplessly in his bunk, shivering under the covers. Wolves were howling off in the distance, one of them monstrously loud. He dreaded sleep. He always dreamt of the same things; being trapped and unable to escape, or being hunted down by that boar. Sometimes he ended up naked on the streets of kings landing, mocked by all.

That wolf is bloody close… he thought. The wall sometimes did strange things to noise, though.

Something screamed.

Not something. Someone.

He froze, his ears straining.

What seemed like an eternity later, there was another yell, and this time the almighty blast of a warhorn, coming right after.

He remembered the warhorn calls. One for rangers, two for wildlings, three for others but if they were under attack, the blast might have been cut off.

He rolled out of bed and started shouting.

 

[Balaur]

"What the bloody hell is going on?" Rast bellowed as Lancel raised the alarm. "I don't know, I don't know, I heard someone screaming, I think it's wildlings!"

"Fucking wildlings? Here?" someone else hooted.

"More likely than you think." Satin answered. He could here yells and screams and the clash of steel on wood outside; at least some of the sentries must have avoided being surprised.

Someone managed to get a torch lit, and then another, and they huddled together in the firelight of the flint barracks.

"If there's wildlings, we need to get to the armoury." Harrow said. Lancel nodded in agreement as someone had the bright idea of blasting the horn like their life depended on it. Probably because it did.

Yells of agreement, Lyle Crakehall loudest amongst them.

"What the hell are we waiting for! If they get the armoury first, we're all buggered" Harrow said, setting off at a jog for the barrack's doors, Rast and Lyle racing ahead of him. Lancel ran after them, torch in hand.

They flung the doors open, and stared half a dozen wildlings-scarred savages with squat little bows-in the face. He could see warriors running in the darkness behind them, straight towards the door, sword and axe and spear glinting in the torchlight.

One of them, a big leader, screamed something in a language Lancel didn't recognize.

"Shut the do-" Rast began to say, before an arrow took him full in the face and fell back screaming. Lancel threw himself at the door, putting his shoulder into it even as another arrow buzzed into the doorway an inch from his face. He flinched back, but shoved himself back into the door.

I am a Lion of Lannister, I am a Watcher on the Wall…

He forced himself to keep pushing. If he kept pushing, he might die. If he gave up, he would die.

He'd been putting on muscle since he'd gotten to Castle Black, and started eating and exercising properly again. Between himself, Lyle and Harrow, they managed to slam the doors just as the widlings slammed up against it, yelling and beating at it. Lyle flung himself against the doors, holding them shut, while Lancel glanced about for something to use to hold the door. "The table! Get a table!" he yelled. Himself and Harrow managed to haul it across and fling it against the door.

"The other doors!" he heard someone yell. Satin. The whore was already running for the north door, throwing it shut and wedging it with a crude chair a bored builder had made.

He leaned against the wall, panting.

"What now? They got us trapped!" Dornish Dilly asked, panic creeping into his voice.

They've got us surrounded, we don't have weapons, they'll just burn down the whole building and kill anyone who tries to flee…

"The wormwalks." Will said, thinking out loud. "If we can get to the armoury through them, we'll be able to get our weapons and fight back."

With the Lannisters about, Bowen had tightened the usually relaxed rules on keeping weapons. Now anything deadlier than a kitchen knife or a wood axe had to be kept under lock and key.

"Then what? There's too many out there to kill…" Satin asked.

"We, uh…"

The wall. Of course!

"We could retreat onto the wall. Smash the staircase after us, it'll fall onto the gate. Bowen sent for reinforcements, didn't he? We just need to wait until they arrive…" Lancel said.

He realized his hands were shaking.

He could hear the thud of footsteps up on the roof, and then the rapid thunk of an axeman getting to work.

"I'd rather kill the bastards than starve or burn." Lyle roared. "I shall die a knight, not a wretch. To the armoury and the Others take any man who won't fight!"

He kicked open the doorway that led down into the dark wormwalks, hunched over to fit his bulk into the tunnels. Lancel followed, ignoring someone screaming behind and the yells of "They're shooting from the roof!" and "Bloody leave him, go!"

They took the right in the tunnel, shuffling through the dark lit only by torchlight. Lyle had an arrow in his thigh, and he swore every time it bumped into something. They reached another turn, and he could hear yells and snarls, almost animalistic, from the rear, and someone screaming "I'll hold them! Save yourselves!"

They followed us in into the tunnel…

His stomach was clawing up into his throat, and he realized he'd pissed himself.

Someone slammed into his back, pushing him into Lyle's back, the big knight grunting in pain. He could scarcely breath in the musty, smoky air, especially crushed in the mob, pushed forwards by the inexorable pressure. He didn't dare look back. The meaty wet thack of blades hitting flesh echoed down the tunnel.

Finally, Lyle reached the staircase and began to ascend. Lancel followed after him, stuffed like a sausage through the tunnel. He threw the door open and staggered out into the torchlight of the armoury, Lancel following. He collapsed to his feet, panting as the tunnel vomited forth its contents.

"Don't bloody shoot, they're ours!" he heard a voice roar. One armed Donal Noyne, who'd always slept in the armoury, stood over him, a bloodied axe in his hand. A small group of men with crossbows huddled behind him, standing over a dead man.

"They nearly killed us all…" Old Henly said as the old crow past seventy staggered out of the tunnel.

Then a wildling stepped out of the blackness, cut his throat and all hell broke loose. Lyle had already grabbed a mace and flew straight at him, shoving Deaf Dick Follard out of the way. The others stumbled away, screaming, except for the recruit they called Green Will, who lunged at the wildling with a pocket knife and ended up just as dead as Henly.

Get a weapon. Stand up and fight! You're in the watch now.

He scrambled to his feet, racing to the armoury wall, and snatched up the first weapon he saw-a brutal, single edged falchion. He tossed the scabbard away and turned, just in time to see Noyne take the wildlings head off… only for two more, one with what looked like a burnt face, come out of the darkness at him, and then everything was hidden by struggling bodies.

"Bloody get to the stairs and bring them down! They cannot pass-!" he heard Donal roar, pushing forwards into the melee like he was swimming in pack ice. He saw Satin clambering up onto an anvil, trying to shoot over the fighters holding the doorway, Will and the rest of the pack of King's Landing Lannisters he'd gathered around himself gathering near the armoury door, Lyle vanishing under the scrum like a sinking ship, watchman milling about, half panicked. He realized he was one of them.

He grabbed a shield from where it hung on the wall. "Get yourselves armed!" he yelled, and then Noyne was repeating it, shoving the men ahead of him, herding them towards the door. "All the ones in the tunnel are down!" someone else shouted, before an arrow sprouted from his throat. A moment later, Satin lifted his crossbow and loosed a single bolt, and a woman with bright red hair, her body twitching and shaking in it's death throes, slammed down in front of him. He jolted back in shock, then forced himself forwards, stepping over the dying girl. Will Harrow and his men-Wyl Sarsfield, Karl Tanner, Bad Bill-were forming up on one side of the door, and the veteran men, Keg and Dill and Red Alyn, were formed up on the other behind Noye. He fell in at the back with Satin and Young Henly. They'd need a rearguard.

"Is everyone armed?" Donal shouted.

"Yeah!" the men shouted.

He glanced back. Lyle was leaning against the wall, blood running down his belly, mace still in his hand. Four wildlings and three crows lay dead around him. "On the seven I shall hold them." He called.

"Night gathers, and our watch begins. To the wall!" Donal shouted, axe lifted high.

They threw open the door and charged out into the ice and fire.

 

[Balaur]

The Black Brothers charged out into the cold, shields locked, Donal bellowing for them to keep the shieldwall. Lancel was at the back, waiting as the men began to spill out through the doorway like water from a drain. He could see the glow of flames and falling snow through the gap between their heads and the top of the doorway, and then arrows flicking through the air. Donal bellowed out "tortoise!" and the watchmen near the middle raised their shields over their heads.

"When it's our turn, keep to the back and hug their rear like your life depends on it. Face back, they'll need someone covering that way and we're most vulnerable from that direction anyway." Young Henly said. Despite the name, he was well over fifty, his face weather lined and scarred. "Whore, you stay in close on me and Lannister. Focus on dealing with archers; you've got the crossbow. Don't get cut off. You got no shield and you're no good at sword-"

He was interrupted as a couple of wildlings came charging out of the tunnel-or tried to, because Lyle smashed the first ones head with his mace and tackled the second, both of them vanishing into the tunnel.

Lancel could already hear the noise of hand-to-hand fighting outside, and the last of the watchmen were spilling out.

"Go, go!" Henly shouted, moving as fast as he could despite his old wound. Lancel followed shield raised over his face, stepping over the body of a man with an arrow between his eyes blocking the doorway.

The courtyard was utter chaos. The roofs of King Tower was burning, bits of thatching falling away even as crossbow bolts flew from its windows. They flint barracks had torches on its roof, but they hadn't caught, and the great hall was a tower of flame. A few bodies were lying about, watch and wildling alike, already crusted with falling sleet. Lancel regretted that he hadn't had time to get more than his cloak, his breeches and his nightshirt on before they'd had to run or fight.

"Fall in! Fall in!" someone was calling as Lancel raced up to the back, forcing himself to slow down to avoid leaving Old Henly on his own. An arrow buzzed into his shield, and he overlapped his shield with the fighters in the rear, side by side with Henly, Satin falling in behind him.

"Left! To our left! They got a fookin' shieldwall!" someone yelled. Lancel glanced about as he shuffled backwards, trying to see it over the heads of the other black brothers. He was taller than most, even at his age, and he saw the spears bobbing in the light thrown out by the column of fire that was once the great hall, moving to cut them off from the staircase. He blinked at the sleet and embers running into his eyes.

"Look out!" Henly roared, and then he was staring a couple of wildlings, one with a spear and one with an axe, neither with shields, rushing at him. Time seemed to slow down. Henly seemed to press in tighter on his left; the man on the right, Lancel didn't know his name, almost recoiled. He could see the frost in the axeman's beard, the glint of his axe, hear the clatter of the arrows in the spearwoman's quiver. His whole body tensed as the axeman raised his weapon…

Lancel stepped forwards, wrenching his shield clear of the wall and jamming it up into the haft of the axe, catching the weapon near its weak and whipping the falchion across his leading arm. The man screamed, stumbling back, dropping the weapon, his hand severed and spurting blood.

Lancel paused in shock, surprised more than anything else. I got him, I got him-

Something flicked at his face and he jerked his shield up and caught it.

"Get back in the wall!" Henly was yelling, and then he was scrambling back, catching blows to his legs with his falchion and to his body with his shield, the woman's face screwed up in fear or fury as her spear darted out like a biting serpent. It thudded into his shield long enough for it to get stuck, and Lancel took the opportunity, snapping the weapon and lunging at her-

"Keep the tortoise!" Henly roared, and Donal and the other veterans in the formation echoed it. He pulled himself back into the line as the woman threw aside her broken spear and drew a wicked little hand axe. Someone was pushing at his back as he shuffled back, and then he heard Satin yelling "Give me a shot! Give me a shot!" and remembered how he'd seen the Men-at-Arms drilling at Casterly Rock what seemed like an eternity ago. He half-crouched, and Satin loosed. The buzz from that close stung his ears. An arrow hit the woman with the axe, but not Satins; it came down from impossibly high, almost nailing her to the ground.

The wall. They're shooting from the top of the wall, gods be good, we're not alone…

But up ahead the Thenns had nearly cut in between the watchers and the wall.

I'm going to die tonight, he realized with a start.

"They're going to cut us off!" someone was shouting, and then Donal was yelling "Wedge! Wedge! We'll crack their line open!", his bulky frame pushing through the mire of bodies that surrounded him. "Harrow, I want you to lead a dozen men around, rush forwards, see if you can flank them or force them to thin o-"

Lancel didn't see much, just the flash of a sword being swung inwards and then a yell of "Lannister! Lannister for Aye!" and "Murderer!" and suddenly the whole shieldwall just disintegrated, Lannister men turning inwards. Someone bulled into him from behind, knocking him flat on his face, and he rolled over just in time to put his shield between his face and a hobnailed ranger's boot. Henly was turned inwards, pushing into the men with his shield. He swore, his hand scrabbling on icy slick ground, as he tried to stand. The night's watch formation ahead of him was nothing more than a mass of stamping bodies, wildlings to their left and front, mutineers to their rights…

"Get up! Get up!" Satin was yelling, before someone kicked him to the ground, grunting with the effort.

Will Harrow stood over him, hard faced and wiry. His sword was running red. "Get up, m'lord. We're running for Essos."

Now of all times…

He was frozen in shock, too numb to move.

"Get up and run!"

"Traitor!" someone yelled. Satin had his sword drawn, and was advancing on Will. "You fool, you killed us all! They, they eat us southrons!"

Harrow lunged and they fought, blades flashing.

He began to pull himself up, swearing under his breath. I'll not have less honour than a whore.

Someone staggered back and tripped over Lancel, and then he was sliding back as the whole line collapsed in, some turning and running, others caught in the human river, wildlings falling in amongst them with axes and knives. They were lost, they were routing, they were to be butchered like sheep. He managed to get to his feet, pushing against the current, searching for Will. A Thenn came at him with a copper sword, and for a moment they were trading blows, beating at each others shields, before the Thenn tripped over a body and went down. He saw Satin then, being almost chased by Will Harrow, the veteran driving him backwards with ease. The King's Tower blazed behind like a beacon, with no wildlings in sight between the men and the tower…

"King's Tower! Make for the King's Tower!" Lancel found himself yelling as he charged at Will Harrow.

"Coward! Coward!" Lancel screamed.

I should have died on the executioners block. The seven were merciful, letting me die with honour.

"What the hell are you-" Harrow asked, before Satin slashed him across the back and Lancel chopped his head near in half. The boy was panting, his face bleeding from a gash above the eye. "King's tower!" Lancel yelled, and then Satin was yelling it too.

"Traitor! Traitor!" someone was yelling, and then a couple of watchmen came at him with swords drawn. Lancel was scrambling back, parrying furiously, never attacking, struggling to keep both of them to his front. "No, no, he killed Harrow, he's loyal!" Satin was yelling, over and over, and lancel kept shouting "Kings Tower!" over and over. They must have gotten the message, because one of them turned back to deal with a Thenn, then took off at a run.

Lancel was panting, his clothes sweated through despite the cold.

"King's Tower!" the ranger was shouting, and others were echoing it, running for the tower in twos and threes, breaking off from the slaughter at the base of the wall. Lancel ran with them, and Satin too. He could hear the yells of wildlings in close pursuit, and saw a ranger fall with a spear between his shoulder blades.

We're the rearguard. We're the rearguard. You're going to die, do it with courage.

He glanced back and saw a Thenn hot on his heels. He stopped and turned, almost sliding on the ice, and caught the rushing warrior's sword on his shield before taking his leg clean off with a low cut. He turned and ran again before the next two could catch up, glancing back. Fifty yards, thirty, twenty to the tower…

The first of them had gotten ahead of the second by a good ten yards and was gaining on him fast. Satin was running barely five yards ahead, already slowing.

Lancel turned and fought again. This time, the wildling slipped back his leg when Lancel tried to chop it off, and the second was on him as well. He scrambled back, hoping to god he didn't trip, turning left and right, trying to keep them both on his shield side while they tried to flank him. He swept his falchion in figures-of-eight, trying to use the mass of the blade to keep them back. He wished he had a greatsword. The first of them went for him, catching his falchion on a shaggy shield and going to saw at the back of his legs with his sword. Lancel lowered his shield, closing that line, and beat at his head with his pommel, knowing that at any moment the second would open his throat. Lancel slammed a knee into the wildling, knocking him back, and opened him from shoulder to hip then whirled around, looking for the second wildling. Satin stood over him, bloodied sword in hand.

"Run!" Satin was yelling, and then he did just that, rushing pell mell for the door of the tower. It slammed shut after him.

He collapsed against the wall, panting, the falchion clunking down into the floor.

Up above, faint, he heard a ranger shout out "The Starks are coming!" and cheering, then Alliser bellowing for silence.

 

[Balaur]

The chained giants and white suns flying in the guttering torch light seemed the sweetest sight Lancel had ever seen.

They came in rivers of fire and steel, fanning out to take the wildlings from all sides. He heard the horn blasts, heard the yells, saw the wildlings forming up into a shieldwall, falling back on the staircase. They were yelling, both in Westerosi and in a tongue he could not decipher, though he didn't know what it was.

The watchmen, what few were left, were cheering, while Alister yelled for them to get their weapons and get organized.

We're going out there again?

The Northerners were coming on at a trot, the blazing torchlight giving them enough light to move fast without breaking their mounts legs. The right column stopped and began to fan out, men dismounting, while the center rode into the burning castle. He could hear horses whickering over the roar of flames.

The wildlings threw back the first attack, pelting the riders with spears and arrows but then the archers came on and put a hail of arrows into one flank while dismounted lancers from a third group hacked their way through the other. The fight turned into a melee, wildlings running for safety in the remaining buildings while others tried to fall back up the staircase, harried by Umbers, a hulk of a man with the biggest sword Lancel had ever seen leading the way.

*

It was midday by the time they'd killed or captured the last of the raiders in Castle Black. Some had holed up in buildings and been flushed out by Umbers axemen, or tried to retreat up the stairway and been caught hammer and anvil by the sentries on the top of the wall. The rest had scattered into the countryside.

The garrison of Castle Black was a ruin. Half had been butchered-sentries found with their throats slit, bodies thrown about in heaps on the courtyard, three dead in the tunnel, Lyle Crakehall with a spear through his throat and a dead wildling clutched beneath his bulk. Donal Noye was dead, too, his skull opened by Will's longsword, and stabbed half a hundred times by a wildling to be sure. More were wounded, fished out from the bodies still breathing, or sheltering in the King's Tower that by now had burnt itself out, the top half collapsed.

Most of the Lannister men were amongst the dead or the living, although a few seemed to have vanished in the chaos, Wyl Sarsfield amongst them.

"We'll have patrols out to butcher them lions" the Greatjon said, when they gathered on the bloodstained courtyard to count the living and burn the dead. He was a hulk of a man, the second biggest Lancel had ever seen, only outmatched by the Mountain that Rode.

"And then?" Alliser Thorne asked. "We're a red ruin now. We can't hold Castle Black alone, Bowen's men are fighting under the Shadow Tower, Mormont's men are most likely routed. There could be more wildling bands south of the wall. And the dead are coming, north of the wall."

"If they come, we'll find them them and rout them like this sorry lot" the Greatjon said.

Harrion Karstark, gaunt of face and burly of body, nodded beside him. "We have near a thousand horse between us. The Ned's bringing more, from what I hear. The wildlings won't have a chance."

"Worse than wildlings." Alliser said.

"Worse than wildlings? What could be worse than wildlings? Every winter the bastards come raiding. Last winter, they murdered my steward and carried off his wife." Greatjon rumbled.

"The old enemy. The Others and their dead. What we were founded to defeat. Or are Northern memories shorter than the Southrons?" Alliser said, almost sneering.

Umber drew his sword. "Are you accusing me of forgetting! You, a southron! I know what the Others are, aye. We crushed them with northern steel, and now there are naught but wildlings north of the wall." He bulled forwards, brushing aside Harrion.

Lancel's hand went to his falchion, and he saw Satin and Pyp do the same.

"Do you know why the Lord Commander's Tower burned?" Alliser asked. "To kill the walking dead. I saw the living hand with my own eyes. I took it south as warning, while Mormont went north for answers. We received word he was attacked by an army of the dead and have no word of his forces. Then survivors returned, and it was no fancy cooked up in the fear of the fight. Jeor Mormont and near three hundred of his brothers are dead, killed by the Old Enemy and traitors within the watch. Even as we speak, the bodies of those dead rangers may be slouching towards the wall. Do you deny this?"

The Greatjon glared at him, then sheathed his sword. "I don't deny it, southron. The north remembers."

Lancel would have rolled his eyes if they weren't half shut from exhaustion.

"Good. I need men to hold Castle Black until Bowen Marsh returns, I need men to hunt down any other wildling bands, I need men to range out from the wall and see how close the main wildling force is."

The Greatjon nodded. "My men are yours on one condition."

"What?" Alliser asked.

"If we get the chance, I want to kill a giant. Or the king beyond the wall. Either is good."

*

It was near two weeks since the attack on Castle Black when Mance Rayder came for them. Eddard still hadn't arrived, but Castle Black was more alive than he'd ever seen it; with northern soldiers, with refugees from moletown seeking the protection of armed men, with the few remaining black brothers.

Lancel was rubbing his hands in the warming shed when the horn blasts went up, one after the other, and someone began pounding on the door. He scrambled to his feet, Pyp besides him. Grenn was at the door, in mail. "There's someone out there." Satin said behind him, winching a crossbow in the light of a sconce. Lancel strode out onto the wall, squinting into the dark. There were fires out there, moving, little flickering points of light in a sea of black. There was something trumpeting down there, and warhorns blowing. "Mammoths." Pyp murmured. "Mammoths!"

"What do we do?" Satin was asking, scanning the land beyond the wall.

"We, we send someone down. Raise the alarm. The Greatjon brought archers. Uh, Pyp, you should go down." Lancel said.

"We should get flaming arrows ready. So we can see what we're shooting at." Satin added.

Lancel nodded in agreement. "Get the bows and arrows!" He slung a sheath of arrow that lay besides the warming house over his shoulder, unwrapped the longbow and strung it, then tossed a spare crossbow to Grenn. He wasn't trained to use the heavy longbows his father's men used, but he knew well enough how to use a lighter hunting bow.

Beneath them, the wildling torches drew in closer and closer through the gloom.

"There must be hundreds of them." Satin murmured, leaning out from behind a sconce.

Lancel tried to count them. "Thousands".

Here and there, he could make out glimpses of warriors running alongside the torchbearers, and bigger things, towering, moving with them.

Wildlings and Wights weren't the only horror beyond the wall.

Satin's crossbow buzzed besides his ear, and then he was shooting too, loosing pitch arrows that he lit from the sconce.

The streaking light showed the giants down there, and mammoths, and mammoths on giants.

"I got one! I got one!" Satin yelled, and then the drums started up below, strange deep queer voices mixing in with them.

"I got one too!" Lancel answered, as a torch went tumbling from a mans hand. Truth be told, he had no idea if it was him or Satin or someone else, or if the man had dropped it to make himself less of a target, but it felt good anyhow.

Gods be good, there's only eight of us up here…

How can we stand against so many?

He'd emptied his first quiver and was halfway through the second by the time the elevator arrived, the Greatjon and Alliser and eight archers marching out onto the ice.

Alliser scanned the burning world. Over the yells and screams and that bloody singing, there was pounding from far below.

Satin leaned out from over the wall, scanning the ground. "They're at the gate! The gate!"

"Get the pitch barrels ready!" Alliser barked, while the Greatjon bellowed "I hear those wildlings eat each other! Let's give 'em a roast!"

The barrels burst, sending burning mammoths stampeding away, and moments later, the wall was alive with northmen in furs and mail, longbows in their hands.

The wildlings didn't have a flame's chance in the frozen hells.

 

[Balaur]

He awoke to a commotion outside, the booming voice of the greatjon matched against the calm of Eddard Stark and the half sneer of Alliser.

They're coming again?

If they were north of the wall, there was no need for concern. The archers on the wall would see them off, like they had the last half dozen attacks. The ground was already thick with arrows, corpses and pitch, and the wildlings were no closer to breaking through than they were a week ago.

If they were south of the wall, though…

A patrol atop the wall had ambushed exhausted, disorientated climbers and cut their ropes only a day ago, sending dozens of wildlings plunging to their deaths, while Bowen's men had encountered and defeated another warband on their way back to Castle Black. Castle Black was crawling with soldiers now, over a thousand; Eddard was sending them out on patrols just to cut down on the crowding.

He shook his head. There was nothing to be worried about. Even if there, he had his falchion, shield and mail shirt stashed under his bed. Alliser had grudgingly let even the recruits do that after the wildling attack; any potential mutineers had been killed with the wildlings and the need was clear to have weapons at hand.

He nearly killed us all.

He shook the thought out of his head as he rolled out of bed and pulled his clothes on. It was high time he broke his fast, wildlings or no. He emerged from the Lance out into the morning sun, glinting off the patches of snow. Tents swarmed around the burnt out towers and halls like mushrooms, though the number of fires could scarcely match anything the wildlings had…

Of course, ten on a wall were equal to a hundred on the ground. And considering that this wall was the wall, you could almost count ten as worth a thousand.

Up above, he heard the thump of the catapults flinging stones against the wildlings morning harassment. The only casualty they'd taken all week was an Umber who'd gotten shot in the shoulder and was dying of infection. Every other arrow had fallen short and missed.

He pulled his cloak tighter as he walked through the light snow, speckling the black wool. He swore people were watching him.

With the Great Hall burnt by wildlings, they'd moved the few survivors and Bowen Marsh's men into the Shield Hall. Once, every knight and noble that joined the watch had the right to hang their old shields in the hall, but now only a dozen were left. He pushed open the door, got himself a bowl of oatmeal and sat down in his usual corner-as far as possible from Alliser and the other officers, and the bulk of the common brothers, as possible.

He was halfway through his bowl when Satin, Pyp and Green sat themselves down next to him.

"You shouldn't eat alone." Pyp said.

"Why shouldn't I? I'm a traitor and a murderer." Lancel said, cringing at how pathetic he sounded.

"Traitor? You're no traitor. You stayed loyal when all seemed lost." Satin said, half smiling.

"Not against the watch. Against the crown."

"Whatever your aunt the Queen did is no fault of yours, otherwise we're all damned to the seven hells." Pyp said.

They know nothing.

"She was my cousin, not my aunt." Lancel said.

He couldn't bear to actually tell them the truth. The one time he'd tried that, he'd gotten only scorn.

"It doesn't matter what you did. If it did, we'd all be eating alone. You raised the alarm, took charge and saved my life when the wildlings attacked. You told us to get our shit together when we were on the wall. You're a man of the night's watch now." Satin said.

He's right.

"Lion of Lannister!" Alliser called, his voice thin and sharp.

Lancel turned to find the iron faced knight had crept up behind him somehow.

"Yes?"

"Lord Eddard Stark wants to see you. What use he has for you I do not know, but he demands your presence, Lion."

He felt a chill go through him.

He must know what I did…

Lancel sighed, getting to his feet.

"Not a lion, a shadowcat!" Pyp called out as Lancel began to walk to the courtyard. Alliser glared at him.

He found Eddard waiting in the courtyard, flanked by Karstark and Umber.

He shifted uncomfortably as those icy grey eyes watched him.

He killed Cersei and Jaime with that sword of his.

"Mance Rayder has sent us envoys under a truce flag. He wants to meet me personally, man to man. I want you as part of my escort. I hear you acquitted yourself very well against the wildlings, and you have little value as a hostage." Eddard said.

Lancel blinked in shock.

He what?

"I'm to take five northmen and five watchmen with me. I don't intend to have what Tywin had planned for Stannis happen to me. Fetch your armour, we'll be leaving in half an hour." he continued.

*

The other four Black Brothers Eddard had picked were all veteran rangers who'd returned with Bowen Marsh, armed to the teeth with swords and spears. Eddard was talking in hushed tones with one of his Winterfell men, armoured in plain grey plate. Lancel overheard snippets of their conversation. "If I don't return…", "everything a lord could want for his heir and everything a father could want from his son…", "Marsh thinks him as dead as Benjen…", "Under no circumstances are armed warriors to be let south of the wall. Women and children, mayhaps, but never warriors…", "One mans life isn't worth the North".

The gates creaked open ahead of them, rangers opening winches and grates. Ned was fully armoured in plate and mail and so were his guards.

He fears treachery.

"Let us go." Eddard said. The rangers took the lead. The tunnel was cold and damp, water dripping down from rusted grates. Lancel shivered as he realized the sheer enormity of the ice above his head. Eddard walked with a slight limp. My cousin's doing.

A dead mammoth and giant lay tangled together in front of the gate, though not enough to block it. The smell wafted up through the tunnel with a gust of wind, and Lancel retched.

"Mammoths can't go up. Rocks can go down. Bloody fools." One of the rangers muttered.

They stepped out of the tunnel, blinking at the light. Ahead of them a decent approximation of the seven hells: Snow and death. Shattered bodies were strewn about here and there, crows taking flight from their human brethren as they emerged out. Hardened pitch was splashed across the ground, while blades of grass poked through snow pierced with arrows and scorpion bolts. Across the no man's land, smoke rose from a thousand campfires.

The true north.

They stepped around the dead giant.

A giant strode towards them across the ground, a man in a flapping cloak of black and red and two warriors in gleaming bronze at his feet.

Giants lost much of their intimidation value when your were atop a wall, but on the ground…

The thing was bestial, shaggy hunched over. It dwarfed Mance; it was big enough that it could probably crush Gregor's head with one hand and Sandor's with the other.

"All of you, stay here. Keep ten yards back, don't threaten him. Lancel, Cayn, with me."

Eddard strode out ten yards from his men, Lancel following. He fingered his falchion nervously, then thought better of it.

Mance kept coming unflinching, then halted.

"You brought more guards than I expected." Mance shouted.

"You brought a giant." Eddard shouted back.

Mance turned and said something to his giant, then strode another ten paces forwards, the two Thenns coming with him. Ned did the same, Lancel and Cayn coming with him.

They stopped five yards away. Close enough to talk with raised voices, but not so close that they could close with daggers without having time to react.

Lancel eyed the giant nervously. Thenns he could deal with. That thing, though…

"You wanted to treat with me. What is your proposal?" Eddard asked.

"My proposal? That there's a simple way to gain yourself a hundred thousand loyal followers and deny the true enemy a hundred thousand at the same time."

"And what would that way be?"

"To let us through the wall."

Eddard almost laughed. "And why should I do that?"

"Because a horde of wildlings is easier to manage than a horde of dead men with cold hands and blue eyes."

Eddard paused in thought. "There are queer happenings, that is true, but what you ask is madness. How do I know you won't turn on us as soon as you're through the wall?"

"That would see my people slaughtered as soon as the North rallies. That rather misses the whole bloody point of this."

"Tell me about the dead." Stark said.

"The dead aren't the true threat. They're just the catspaws. Wights, we call them. Men, women, bears, giants, horses-anything that walks on two or four legs. Swords won't hurt them, nor will arrows. Only burning. Some men say dragonglass works, but others deny that. Their leaders are the White Walkers. The Others. Being of ice, not flesh and blood. They're herding the wights just as the wights are herding us. No one knows how to kill them."

They're coming for us all, watch and wildling alike.

"Can you fight them?"

"If I could, we'd be marching north, not south."

There was a long silence.

"My chieftains are saying I should blow the Horn of Winter, you know." He said something after that in a deep, clanging tongue Lancel did not recognize. Behind him, the giant moved, and Lancel flinched, his hand going to his falchion, but the beast was just taking something off its back-the biggest horn Lancel had ever seen, banded in bronze.

Oh, he's going to blow a horn, I'm so scared.

"Do you believe that a fairy tale will make me back down?" Eddard said.

"The Others were a fairy tale to you southrons, until they came screaming out of the dark. Do you want to risk that? The wall crumbled, the North open to the living and the dead? I think resorting to that is madness, but all it takes is one desperate man sneaking into my tent and giving it a toot."

Eddard paused in thought.

"I'll consult with my lords, and you your chiefs, but this is my first proposal. You and all your fighters will remain north of the wall. You will be the first line of defence, the moat before the wall. However, your women and children will be permitted to cross and live in the gift, until such time as the present threat has passed. The Umbers will never consent to let wildling warriors north of the wall, and I refuse to close our eyes to affairs north of the wall. We shall meet again on the morrow to discuss it further."

"As you wish." Mance said. "On the morrow."

He turned away, and Eddard did the same.

 

[Balaur]

When he'd been told that Ned Stark wanted to see him, scarcely a few hours after the confrontation, he'd been quaking in his boots. What does he want me for now?

His fears had been quashed when Eddard turned out to want him as part of his bodyguard, but now?

He knows, he has to know.

He shuffled nervously at the door to Lord Stark's chosen tower, the Silent Tower, before Alyn opened the door and ushered him in. Lancel followed the guard up the spiral staircase, creaking alarmingly.

Eddard was waiting in his quarters, his sheathed greatsword propped up on the wall behind him.

He watched Lancel wordlessly for a moment.

Lancel gulped.

"What is it that you want, Lord Stark?"

"The truth."

"About what?"

"You were with Robert when he was mortally wounded, and had his wine."

Oh seven be good he knows.

Confess. There's nothing else for it.

He stammered, trying to force the words out, and couldn't.

"You're a man of the Night's Watch. Your crimes are forgiven. You have nothing to fear. All I want to know is if you killed Robert. He was almost a brother to me."

Lancel again tried to force it out. He'd confessed before, he could do it again.

"I gave Robert the strongwine." He said. "Cersei told me to. I knew he beat and raped her, and he often mocked me and treated me as his common servant, and-"

He couldn't tell this man he barely knew that his cousin had actually managed to seduce him. He couldn't.

"Robert Baratheon was not the man he once was when he died." Eddard said quietly.

He was a brute and a sot, but he still deserved better than what I did to him.

"Murdering your king is a base and treacherous act, and one that Lannisters seem fond of" He continued, "but the watch is where the low can become great and the great are cast down amongst the low. You would appear to be both."

*

That night atop the wall seemed the coldest and darkest he'd ever seen. The wildling fires spackled the ground, while the stars were hidden by clouds, like the earth itself had decided it would not be outdone by the sky and spawned forth its own stars. They'd stopped the nightly probing attacks; they were building a ram, but it wasn't quite ready so Eddard had only thirty or so archers up on the wall, alongside the half a dozen Night's Watchmen. Dolorous Edd had counted the bodies down on the ground.

"They left a thousand down there. Just a hundred more weeks and we'll have won this." he'd said.

They'd put up tents and fires atop the wall, and most of the men were around those, but he'd been posted away from them. Something about too much light wrecking his night vision.

The nightfires twinkled sometimes, as people walked in front of them. He wasn't watching particularly closely, though, just shaking under his furs and hoping the sergeant would let him back in the heating shed.

Snow began to fall, and he huddled tighter under his cloak. There must have been fog coming in, because the firelight seemed distorted, like seen through a cheap window.

It stayed like that for what seemed like then hours.

Then all of a sudden the dogs began barking, the mammoths trumpeting, the horses on his own side of the neighing.

"The fuck got them so worked up?" someone groused behind him.

Suddenly, the wildlings were screaming and yelling and crying, down in the camp, panick stricken. Some of the lights around the edges seemed to flicker, wildlings raced to and fro with lit torches, and horns were blowing, over and over.

What is-

Are they getting ready for an attack?

Has another wildling band fallen on them?

Then the fighting started in earnest. He heard screams, yells, a sound like ice cracking. Flames lighting and moving and going out. Something massive burned, plunging forwards through the camp before it collapsed and died.

The dead. The dead are coming.

It went on like that what seemed like forever, the flames going out one by one, the sounds of fighting moving northwards. Someone blew the three horn blasts. Men rushed up the staircases of them, whole companies of them.

"Get fire arrows ready." Eddard barked, and Lancel realized he was up on the wall too, alongside the throngs of men crowding it.

Pitch was thrown into no-man's land and dropped down upon the wildlings or worse Pyp swore he could see beating at the gates. The catapults illuminated nothing but the bare snow and mud and grass, not even bodies. The pitch did a little better; when it heard, there was screaming, rage and fear and above all pain mixed together in one, burning people scattering from the gate, then silence.

Lancel didn't say anything, didn't move from his post. He just watched, numb with shock.

*

The sounds of fighting had faded besides the occasional distant scream when the sun began to rise, visible as little more than the fog turning from black to grey. Slowly but surely, the mist lifted.

First they saw the base of the wall; the scattered, charred corpses that had tried to break through the gates for the past weeks.

Next was the no man's land, empty of corpses, but scattered with bloodstains, severed limbs, charred ruins of humans covered with snow.

Then there was the camp. Nothing but tents, many burnt, most collapsed. Smoke still rising from a few campfires. Piles of charred bones, the biggest, that of a mammoth, lying near the massive tent that had been Mance's.

There were no bodies in sight. Just blood and bone, ash and snow.

 

[Balaur]

As a heads up, now that the A Song of Lancels and Lannisters subplot is complete and I have a lot of free time up ahead, we'll be returning to the scheduled programming. I'm looking for someone to bounce ideas off of and possibly a beta reader for the purposes of avoiding things like the Stannis Incident in the future. I'm also thinking of ways of ways to try and show the massive, multi-sided conflict that's coming without turning this into something as sprawling and time-consuming to write as, well Canon ASOIAF.

The State of the Realm as of 300 AC, when the white ravens flew:

The King on the Iron Throne: Stannis Baratheon, First of His Name. The legitimate heir of King Robert Baratheon, he won the Iron throne through the sword and the lance from the usurpers now sometimes called the Goldwater children, begat by the traitor Cersei Lannister. He is iron man, hard and unyielding, and fanatically dedicated to preparing Westeros for the triple threat of the Others, Daenerys and Tommen. Many whisper his brother, Renly Baratheon, would make a finer king, and that Stannis is a madman and an apostate. Stannis is unpopular with his lords, due to his heavy land taxes and having personally affronted many of them, but is popular with the merchant class, due to his crackdown on goldcloak corruption and aggressive use of the royal navy to hunt down pirates. The smallfolk's opinion of him depends mostly on which set of rumours they believe, although many blame his wife and advisors for the kingdoms ills.

The Queen on the Iron Throne: Selyse Baratheon nee Florent. A sour, unpleasant woman, she is responsible for introducing the Red Gods cult into King's Landing, making her widely hated amongst the faithful.

The Heir Apparent: Shireen Baratheon, a sweet and intelligent girl with a face marred by greyscale. In the event of Stannis's death, it is unlikely that she would ever be able to rule in her own right.

The Hand of The King: Renly Baratheon, Lord of Storm's End. A charming and courageous young man with the scars to prove it. Immensely popular, he handles the delicate politics of the realm while Stannis deals with his armies and red priestesses. He has organized a series of tournaments to refill the ranks of the Kingsguard, donated lavish sums to the faith, and is often seen in the company of his young Tyrell wife Margaery, now pregnant with what the Maesters say are twins. Those who know him well, however, know that it is Loras Tyrell he truly loves. Either way, he is ambitious, popular and well connected to the most powerful house in the realm-indeed, some say he is too ambitious.

Master of Laws: Mace Tyrell, Lord of Highgarden. With Stannis's dislike of Tyrells, he was mostly given the position as a sop to House Tyrell and an excuse to keep him where Stannis can keep an eye on him. Stannis does many of the actual duties of the Master of Laws personally.

Master of Ships: Alester Florent, Lord of Brightwater Keep. With respectable though not extensive experience with ships and trade, he manages the Seven Kingdom's fleets, including the two experimental cannon armed galleys Stannis has had ordered. A friend to both Baratheon brothers, he seemingly supports the Tyrells-but may have greater ambitions, for his house claims to be the Gardener's true heirs…

Master of Whispers: Davos Seaworth, appointed for his wide connections, talent for stealth, and honesty. Varys was planned to be shot and dumped in the Blackwater after the capture of a tongueless child by the War Witch Morgan was the last straw for Stannis, but he vanished just as the Horse Grenadiers arrived to have him captured, summarily trialled and executed.

Master of Coin: Guncer Sunglass. A deeply pious man, he has gone a long way to restoring some semblance of sanity to the kingdoms finances, even if he doesn't have the financial skills to actually make up the losses rather than simply figuring out how badly Robert and Petyr wrecked the treasury. He dislikes Stannis, both for his rumoured apostasy and for his increasingly exorbitant demands of money to pay for Stannis's mad dream of a standing army and a cannon armed fleet. Nonetheless, he is try to levy an unpopular land tax on the nobility, bitterly resented by the smallfolk because the nobility charge them higher rents and tariffs in turn to raise the necessary sums.

Master of Armies: Randyll Tarly. A hard, brutal man, he has the honour of being, by reputation, perhaps the finest soldier in Westeros. However, he is also known to be responsible for planning the Battle of the Oceanroad, playing straight into Tywin's hands, and his forcing his heir to take the black on pain of death is also whispered of. He loathes Tane Bayder, Captain-General of the Royal Army, and two's rivalry has made many things much harder than they need to be.

Lord Commander of the Kingsguard: Ser Arys Oakheart, sole survivor of King Robert's Kingsguard. His sworn brothers are Ser Loras Tyrell, Ser Balon Swann, Ser Guyard Morrigen, Ser Emmon Cuy, Ser Gerold Dayne, and Ser Fiche Goodmen.

Captain-General of the Royal Army: Tane Bayder. A woman with mysterious origins-no one is quite sure if her company are stranded travellers from very far away or from another world althogether-and a professional soldier of modest experience in her homeland, she spearheaded the downfall of the Lannister dynasty, flinging her into the highest reaches of Westerosi power. She heads the nearly 3,000 troops in Stannis's Royal Guard, and had an advisory role during the preparations to launch the cannon armed war galleys Smoke & Salt & Margaery Rose.

She is also a figure of obsession for the King's Landing rumour mill, who variously claim she is a saviour sent by the seven to cast down the abominations of incest, an evil hermaphrodite, Cersei's scorned lover who destroyed her in revenge, the lover of Margaery/Renly/Loras/Brienne/Stannis/Selyse, or an uppity woman who should know her place. She is chiefly loyal to Renly Baratheon, who helped facilitate her rise, but no-one can be quite sure anymore. In particular, the situation of a foreign bastard woman leading an army loyal only to herself and an apostate king has much of the nobility very worried.

High Septon: Enormously fat, the High Septon has been mocked for his tardy response to the apostasy growing within the realm-the queen is a heretic, Others come from the seven hells, incest occurs in the halls of power… radical septons are said to be scheming on ways to restore the faith to its past glory, including moving the heart of the faith back to Oldtown.

Great Lords:

Lord Paramount of the reach: Mace Tyrell, with Willas currently acting in his stead while he is in King's Landing. The reach is restless, with the tensions between the Florents and Tyrell from the court flowing back to cause the lesser houses to begin to take sides.

Lady Regent of The Vale: Lysa Arryn. Mad, unstable, and paranoid, many of her lords mind their own business or look to the Crown for guidance, leaving the Vale with significant unpaid taxes and the potential for a civil war. Her young son Lord Robert is in poor health with regular seizures but slowly improving; Lysa says it is the mountain air.

Lord of the riverlands: Edmure Tully, a man neither noted for his competence nor his incompetence except for the minor matter of his complete lack of an heir.

Lord of the westerlands: Emmon Frey. A pathetic, cowardly man, he is holed up in what remains of Casterly Rock's bricked up fortifications. The true power in the west is the Warden of the West, Lord Rolland Stormsong of Castamere, arguably the biggest winner of the Western rising. He still commands a fairly large force in the Westerlands, tasked with keeping down banditry and finishing off the last few die-hards.

Prince of Dorne: Doran Martell, a sick man reaching the end of his life. His unmarried daughter Arianne Martell is his heir apparent, leaving more men than ever chasing her hand.

Lord of the Iron Isles: Balon Greyjoy, enjoying the considerable proceeds of the sack of Lannisport and using it to build up the Iron Fleet to "stop the usurpers across the Narrow sea crossing." No-one is convinced.

Lord of the Stormlands: Renly Baratheon, hand of the king.

Lord of the North: Eddard Stark, an honourable who distinguished himself crushing Jaime Lannister on the Riverroad after leaving King's Landing after a dispute with Stannis. He is now involved in preparing the defence of the north.

Pretenders:

The Golden King: Tommen Baratheon. Trueborn son of Robert or another Blackfyre depending on who you ask, he, alongside his sister Myrcella, reside in Myr under heavy guard. They have the full backing of the Myrish military, in return for his gunpowder weaponry. His Hand of the King is Lord Petyr Baelish, while Lady Genna Lannister of Casterly Rock is also involved in recruiting sellswords for his planned attempt at a restoration.

The Dragon King and Queen: Aegon and Danerys Targaryen, the two heads of the Dragon were married after an assault by the golden company and a sellsail fleet shattered the Siege of Meereen, with Hizdahr Zo Loraq conveniently killed in the fighting. With an ample force of sellswords, unsullied, freedmen and even Dothraki following an unfortunate incident in the fighting pits, they are now subjugating the remaining opposition in Slaver's Bay and looking for a source of ships to travel to Westeros in.

 

[Balaur]

She was beginning to like Myr, she decided, as she rode down the waterfront flanked by bravos. It was too big, for sure, and the slavery was rather distasteful, but there was much more to recommend it. The wine was magnificent, as was the food. The clothes were the finest she'd ever worn, sleek myrish lace at once exotic and familiar, paid for by Triarch Nelyn's generous pension. Traders from all the known world came to dock here. Petyr had merchant contacts here, men from Yi-Ti, the summer isles, Ibben. The streets swarmed with life and colour. Slaves carrying loads, bravos with needle-thin swords on their hips, merchants on horseback above the filth of the streets. Galleys and cogs and swan-ships crowded the harbour, thick as a forest.

"That would be the man." Asyrio said next to her, pointing at a burly, tanned man in old furs leaning on the doorway of a winesink. She had a bad feeling about this. The Company of the Rose's captain, Tomas Stark, had insisted on meeting with her personally at his mens quarter. He wanted to offer her the services of his men, on one condition. She mistrusted this sellsword, but they needed swords if she were ever to return Tommen to his rightful place on the iron throne, and herself as the new Lady of Casterly Rock rather than her fool husband and her sole trueborn son.

"Tomas wanted to meet with me." Genna called to the man.

"I was expecting someone younger." The big man said, knocking on the door and throwing the door open. She clambered down from horseback, Asyrio tossing the reins to his apprentice and leaping down next to her then holding out his hand as she dismounted. She took it. He was lean and lithe, with dark skin and darker hair, and moved like a dancer, every movement light and full of power at once-

Don't get distracted.

"I am Lady Genna of House Lannister" she said, lifting her skirts to avoid getting them caught in the mud.

"Joren of House Umber." He said in what sounded suspiciously like he was trying make a Free Cities accent sound Northern.

"Asyrio, of House I know little of my mother and less of my father" the bravo muttered behind her. Genna tittered.

The room was low and smoky. Two dozen men and a few women, all of them in scale armour and ragged furs, stood about with weapons propped up against the wall. Massive two-handed axes mostly, though she also saw crossbows and spears.

"I hear that your boy's throne's been taken by an usurper." A man said behind her. She turned to face a young man, black haired and scarcely out of his twenties with the biggest sword she'd ever seen this side of Gregor Clegane's propped up against the wall.

"The true Ice." He said. "Made out of a falling meteorite, like the sword Dawn and forged by the First Men. The grandfather of Torrhen Stark laid it aside when he had a new sword spellforged by dragons. Our founder took the true steel from the crypts of Winterfell, alongside ice dragon eggs when Torrhen bent the knee to the perfidious southrons."

"I thank you for the history lesson, Maester, but I'm here for steel for my grandnephews."

"Steel you'll have plenty of. I have a hundred northmen and another three hundred, ah, auxilias, Southrons, not as reliable as us Northerners but soldiers all the same, at your service and you'll not pay a penny for it."

She leaned over the table. "You don't want payment in gold, yes. What's your price?"

"Myself as lord of Winterfell. My lieutenants restored to their rightful seats. The bloodline of House Stark is that of a traitor and a coward. The current heir is a cripple-"

"That was his second son." Genna said. "Robb is by all accounts quite well."

"Yes. Uh. You know what rumours are like. The gossip mongers would have you believe that there's one dragon with three heads as that FOOKIN INBRED BINTS mount!"

She flinched as he began ranting. It took her a moment to realize what he was talking of.

Oh, the Dragon Queen. Last that she'd heard of her, her dragons had set Slaver's Bay alight, both metaphorically and literally.

"If I hire you, I get four hundred swords and a guarantee that none of the Northern Lords will ever bend the knee when they could be usurped by some sellsword. That seems rather more like we're paying to help you than the other way round." Genna said, making to leave. Either she could wash her hands of this mummers farce, or force him to make a better deal.

"Wait! We have kinship! We are both true leaders ran ashore by cowards! Hear me out-"

She ignored him. He knew where to find her if he had a saner deal.

*

"I miss the Red Keep." Tommen said, standing on the rooftop of the manse the triarchy had hired them.

And I don't miss Westeros. The wall was nothing less than the fool Cleos deserved, but her bastard sons, the ones that she'd horned Emmon with, the ones who had fathers of her own choosing, were all dead.

"I wish I still had mother" he murmured. Myrcella put an arm around his shoulder. "At least Joffy's gone."

"I suppose so." He said. "And I have more friends here." Genna allowed him to play with the children of the servants and slaves. If they actually liked him rather than just viewing him as yet another lordling they had to bow and scrape to, the slaves would be less likely to aid an assassin.

"How did the negotiations go?" Petyr asked.

She smirked. "They want the whole north for four hundred swords. I told them exactly where they could put their contract."

"Where, aunty?" Tommen asked.

She didn't answer. Such things weren't for young minds.

"We still need troops if we wish to secure your claim." Petyr said.

"Every day rumour comes of some absurd law or another Stannis has passed. Men openly wish his brother was the king. The West will rise again, given half a chance. Oldtown's crawling with Septons who are saying they should refound the old faith there, the one that could stand up against incest and apostasy. There's black magic afoot in the north. We should wait until Stannis's straw house burns down."

"I'd like to be hand and I suspect you'd like to be Lady of Casterly Rock sooner rather than later. For that we need soldiers. Not many, but enough."

"And how do you intend to do this? Renly has bound the Stormlands and the Tyrells, near a hundred thousand men between them, to his cause, and Stannis's. The Myrishmen have those bomb-bolts and rocket-arrows, sure, but Stannis has far worse tools of war at his disposal. His realm threatens to slide into the pit of chaos at any moment, but for now he is too strong to face-"

"Chaos is only a pit if you're at the top. If you're at the bottom, well, chaos is a ladder. I mean to cut the rope holding Stannis above the pit. And I mean to have knights to climb the ladder sword in hand." He had a vicious gleam in his eyes and a quirk in his lips.

Petyr Baelish, Hand of the King was about to do something very, very clever or very, very foolish.

 

[Balaur]

"Load! Your! Gun!" the captain of her namesake warship barked at the cannon crew. They swarmed around it, ramming and probing the barrel. She more or less knew how guns worked-stuff an explosive and a projectile down a tube, ignite the powder, the flash blows the projectile blows it out-but the cannon seemed a whole new step up.

"A good cannon crew back home could have one of those loaded in under a minute. A good revolver-cannon crew could put down ten shots in a minute." Sace said, the Horse Grenadier's hand resting on the handle of her smallsword, poking up from under her exotic dress.

She hoped that those could shoot pitch arrows of some sort, because that was what they really needed. She'd heard the news from the north. A whole army, just vanished, wiped off the face of the earth by things that should never have been. Stannis was preparing a royal expedition to the North, even as winter fell, and had already sent stockpiles of food, money and pitch arrows as well as dragonglass from Dragonstone to the Wall.

And now he was going to be sending this beast north.

"Shot the gun!" the captain yelled as they rolled a cannonball down the muzzle.

"You might want to cover your ears." Sace said.

Margaery nodded and did exactly as she was told.

"Fire!"

The cannon fired with a blast like a thunderclap, hurling a gout of smoke and flame out its muzzle. The pile of wood they'd set up as a target shattered, sending splinters scything through the air.

Margaery nearly jumped in shock, and Elinor shrieked besides her. She swore she could feel her baby kicking inside her. Poor fellow must have heard it. "You can tell who's a gunner because you have to yell at them to get them to understand you." Sace said. She barely seemed to flinch.

She was scarcely older than Margaery was, and a little shorter. Looking at her in her green riding dress, it was hard to believe that she'd killed men in hand-to-hand combat.

That could have been me, if I was born in their world.

There was cheering and clapping from the assembled nobles. It wasn't hard to see that there were two broad camps-the Handsmen, supporters of her husband, clustered on one side of the tourney grounds and the Queensmen, followers of Melisandre, the Red God and Selyse on the other. It was only a struggle for influence; for sinecures and holdings left empty by war, for Kingsguard and Silvercloak positions. No one was fool enough to start a war with Others and dragons and bastards born of incest looming on the horizon.

Stannis's preparations scarcely seemed enough, though. Preparing for a horde of the living dead and demons like it was an invading army wouldn't be enough, she knew in her heart. They would faith against those abominations.

*

"I am pleased that you allowed me to meet with you." Septon Olius said as he escorted her into the great sept. He was an old man, with crazed whiskers about his chin and a clean shaven head. He had an eccentric reputation to say the least, but when he'd heard of her concern over the walking dead, he'd insisted on speaking to her.

"There are many concerning matters to discuss." Margaery said. "For starters, the most disturbing rumours of the going-ons north of the wall."

He stroked his beard. "The Others. The peasants and the northerners speak of them as if they were some race of black sorcerors. They, I believe, are something much worse."

"Demons loose from the Seven Hells."

He smiled. "I see your septa taught you well. But what set them loose?"

"Magic. A sin against the seven, the Septons say, though the maesters say that it is merely cheap tricks."

"The last time that the Others attacked, there was faithlessness in the realm, and Andals arrived soon afterwards to conquer the weakened First Men and spread the true faith. Today, we are in the midst of an unprecedented crisis."

Margaery raised an eyebrow. "How so?"

"A cuckold replaced a madmen, then an abomination born of incest fought for the throne. Apostasy is taught in the highest halls. There are dragons in the east, and the glass candles are burning. The red comet comes. And then a band of faithless foreigners armed with sorcery and led by a woman who acts like a man have come, sent by a seeming miracle. Does it not strike you as odd?"

"The red god may be dangerous, but we cannot lose sight of the true enemy…"

"The Others, yes. But why are they active? I think that chaos and disorder feeds them, against the will of the Seven. The first time they came, there were a thousand kingdoms and men worshipped by sacrificing before heart trees. Now, I fear, things are near as bad."

"You believe that the Others are a warning to purge the Seven Kingdoms of the faithless?" she asked in her most innocent voice. The last thing they needed was another faith rebellion on top of the other troubles brewing.

"Perhaps they are a warning. Perhaps they are the purge themselves." He said gravely.

Oh, lovely.

"And how do you know this?"

"I once studied to be a Maester and forged a Valyrian steel link, you know, before I felt the call of the Gods. There are many texts long forgotten that speak of this."

"I thank you for your time. I will ask my lord husband to hear you out on this. Matters of faith are of great importance to the realm."

She had no such intention. He sounded half a madman. Indeed, it almost seemed like Stannis of all people was their best hope against the Others. At least he had a plan that might work, rather than ravings of purges.