Smoke & Salt: A Horse Grenadier Company in Westeros

[Balaur]

Everything hurt. His face, his leg, his pride.

His face had been torn open by a sword stroke, ear to chin, and was likely to be a terrible scar. Not the kind of scratch the more dashing sellswords had, but something worse, a twisted sunken furrow down his face that stung every time he smiled or spoke.

His leg had been snapped by the fall of his horse. The Maesters said he would eventually be able to walk, but always with a limp.

Worst of all was his pride.

He'd given Stannis the throne. He'd given him an army, near a hundred thousand Tyrell lances and bows and pikes. He'd given him everything.

But lose one battle, and Stannis had washed his hands of him.

As far as Stannis was concerned, it was apparently all his fault. Not Tarly, who had suggested the plan, not Stannis and Mace for not moving up fast enough to pin Tywin's army, and not simply the fact that all of them were outmatched by Tywin.

Stannis had only visited him once when he was wounded, for only an hour, before marching off to make a bastard a Warden of the West. If Stannis ever had the temerity to complain about how hard done by he was over Dragonstone to Renly's face again…

I'd smile and laugh and jape.

That's what he'd always done. That was how he'd won the loyalty of the lords of the Stormlands away from Stannis, how he'd won Loras's love, even Brienne's. But it would never work on Stannis.

"Lord Baratheon, your wine" Brienne said, opening the door and letting a pair of Highgarden servants in. He'd only just arrived in Highgarden, after beginning to recover in Crakehall, and Brienne had ensured the servants made him comfortable before standing guard at his door. At least she wasn't at his bedside.

Why couldn't I be lucid when Loras was watching over me?

Loras had defied Stannis to visit him at his bedside, standing vigil for a full day before Stannis had forced him to leave as they marched north. Unfortunately, he'd been barely awake when that happened. He was sure what memories he had of Loras before they'd doubled the strongwine dose were actually of Brienne, distorted by milk of the poppy.

He'd die a happy man if he never had to see her face again. Granted, he'd already be a dead man if he'd never seen her face, so he supposed it evened out.

Olenna came tottering in after the servants.

Gods have mercy on me.

He shook himself out of his thoughts and pulled himself up, grabbing his crutches.

"Oh, don't look so poleaxed, it's just your dear old grandmother" Ollenna said.

"It was a sword." Renly said, smiling disarmingly on instinct. His voice slurred. The left side of his face didn't quite work properly. He ground his teeth as the pain flared up, taking a sip from the strongwine.

He suspected his smile wasn't going to be charming any maidens.

Or knights, he thought darkly.

"Did you enjoy going to the great tournament? I heard Garlan lost the joust but Mace and Loras restored our honour at the melee. Or was it you who lost the joust? I forget things sometimes, it happens when you're old."

Renly laughed. "Oh, I always get knocked on my arse at the joust."

"It's all very funny until someone gets hurt." Olenna said.

"Just ask Willas. Loras would say that glory has its price." Renly said.

Which Stannis has bought while I pay for it.

"Willas still has his wits. It skipped a generation. Loras is good at..."

"Knocking men off horses with sticks, and it doesn't make him wise. Yes, I know." Renly sighed.

Mother have mercy, I hope Margaery isn't like this when she lets her maiden's mask fall.

"Ah, you're learning. They say you should lose a battle in your youth so you don't lose a war when you're old. Of course, that's a silly saying. You can't win anything if you're dead. Or crippled."

He wanted to slap her for that.

Crippled? Is that the way of it?

Instead, he did what he always did. He smiled and laughed and japed.

"It could be worse. I could have ridden my army off a cliff."

And I see why. If he'd been married to Olenna, he would have arranged a hunting accident for himself too. Or her, more likely.

"Now, enough of that. Onto business. Stannis and Mace have arrived in King's Landing. If you don't want Stannis to amputate his wounded hand and get a new one, you'd best get yourself cleaned out and sewn up and get back out there. My poor granddaughter must be terribly lonely. She's already declared war on the Grumpkins and Snarks." Olenna said.

"What?"

"Didn't you hear? There's some rotting hand, no, not you, that's twitching and clawing, that the Night's Watch took down from the south. It's magic all right, but that red witch has fooled even her. She wrote to us, telling us the Night's Watch was doing the seven's work and worse than cold was coming this winter."

He remembered stories he'd been told by one of the guardsmen, an inveterate storyteller, when he was a child.

Demons from the seven hells, with spiders big as an auroch that would wrap you up in their icy webs and drag you all the way to hell. Cressen had said it was a mangled account of a wildling invasion. The Septon said it was just an old First Men story with a new lick of paint, not worth listening to.

He was inclined to agree. They were tales to scare children.

"Stannis believes it too. It must be why he spared so many prisoners and sent them to the wall. As much of a death sentence, just that they'll die of boredom. Much kinder to take their heads." Olenna continued.

Tales to scare kings too. Ah, Stannis.

"Does the red woman have anything to do with this?" Renly said. She had influence over the king, and far too much over the queen.

"The Faith and the Red Rahloos are at each other's throats. Margaery made an attempt to smooth things other but made it worse. I've no idea how; I've never heard the details. Seems rather unlike her."

"Well, if you want me to travel, I can." Renly said. The road jarred his leg, but anything was better than being stuck in a confined space with Olenna Tyrell, the result of degenerate, lustful acts between a woods witch and an Other of the Seven Hells.

"I'll have Willas loan you one of his special saddles. Never mind your dear old grandmother, she says things she doesn't mean sometimes. It happens when you're old." Olenna said, turning to leave.

Renly took a long draught of strongwine and sunk back into his featherbed, resisting the urge to rub at his scarred face.

His wife had gone mad, his lover had been shackled to the King of the Teeth Grinders, and he'd lost a battle.

But not the war. He was still Lord of Storm's End, he was still hand of the King, he was still Heir to the Iron Throne. He was married into the most powerful family in Westeros. He had some of the deadliest soldiers alive at his beck and call, with sorcerous power that matched anything Melisandre was even rumoured to have. He had a knight who should be crowned Champion of the Tourney and King of Love and Beauty both as his lover. Unlike Stannis, he was born to lead and rule.

If Stannis could not rule the Seven Kingdoms properly, then he would, from behind the iron throne. Or if need be, on it.

 

[Balaur]

The small council was less crowded than it had been, back in the chaos after the coup where every noble in the city with an opinion and some sort of connection to Stannis or Renly had stuffed themselves into the chamber. Now, it was smaller: Stannis and Selyse at the head of the table, looking singularly unamused, the arbiters of royal will and their favour, the high ground that the battle of the court would be waged around, and their councillors beneath them: Herself and Melisandre as "advisors", Alester Florent as Master of Law, Randyll Tarly as Master of War and Davos Seaworth as Master of Whispers. Renly sat as Hand of the King, his face healing into a furrow of flesh through his black beard. Guncer Sunglass was Master of Coin, while Lord Velaryon was Master of Ships but was busy at Dragonstone taking account of the fleet there. Pycelle had been packed off back to the Citadel with a request for a new grandmaester.

"The first matter to discuss for the day" Stannis said, clearing his throat, "is the matter of the pretenders across the waters. Davos, what news?"

"Viserys is dead. Khal Drogo killed by pouring molten gold onto his head. Since then, some of my sources say Khal Drogo has gathered a vast horde and is heading west, others east, and yet others say he is died and his Khallassar had scattered, while his queen is in Qarth."

"I saw it in the flames." Melisandre intoned from behind Stannis.

I'm sure you did.

"A boy and a girl with golden hair have been spotted in Pentos." Davos added. "In the company of a Westerosi man matching Lord Baelish's description."

Oh dear. The best thing for those two would be to vanish, becoming a loose end in history. Them trying to take back the throne…

"I saw them in the flames, last night. Tommen sat the iron throne." Melisandre said. "The visions show me what could be, not what will be. We must take action against them!"

Either she's lying through her teeth or we're all fucked. Tane preferred the former.

"This is the small council, not the nightfires." Stannis said. "Make it known that Robert's bounty is still out on Daenerys. Investigate the Lannister children in Myr further." He ordered Davos.

"What of the debt?" he asked, turning to Guncer Sunglass.

Littlefinger is the true threat. A few discredited claimants with no army and no support was no threat and was best ignored, but Baelish could use his knowledge of gunpowder to buy the loyalty of powerful allies and put his choice of pretenders on the throne.

"The Lannister debt is forgiven by edict of Emmon Frey. That still leaves several million dragons of debt to the Tyrells, the Faith and the Iron Bank. More, now that the war is over."

Stannis was unfazed.

"Request that the Iron Bank send an emissary to discuss loans. Send a raven to Emmon and telling them that resuming mining in Casterly Rock and Castamere is of the utmost importance."

"Of course, your grace. The Faith has requested that I speak to you about their debt in particular. They have suggested that a large portion of the proceeds from the sack of the Westerlands go to them as penance for bloodying the steps of the Great Sept of Baelor at the execution of Cersei Lannister and for allowing the Red Witch to preach unmolested." Guncer explained.

"That will not happen." Stannis said bluntly.

"Arousing the anger of the faith would be a poor idea." Renly said. He'd been quiet all meeting long, quieter than he normally was.

"The faith can complain all they like. They exist to serve the realm, not the other way round. The Septon will receive what he is owed. Nothing more, nothing less." Stannis answered.

"The nightfires will light our way, not the seven pointed sta-" Selyse began to say.

"Be quiet, woman."

"Your Grace, paying penance to the faith would do well to quell some of the more unsavoury rumours." Alester Florent said.

"What sort of rumours?" Tane asked.

"That, Your Grace, pardon me, the King has abandoned the true faith, and is planning to burn the Seven in the Nightfires. Or the Godswood. A most terrible slander."

Selyse manfully resisted the urge to say anything.

Stannis ground his teeth. "Make it known I have nothing against the Faith of the Seven. Lord Randyll, how is the plans for the royal army coming along?"

"Poorly. We still have the Crown troops Bayder commanded in the West, but the funds allocated are not enough to pay and equip the 4,000 men you wish for. Bayder insists on armouring them with plate, and having half of them with firearms, which will only increase the costs." Randyll said, glaring at her.

"Oh, any armour and any weapon is decent enough, as long as it's not that bloody butted mail and arquebuses that burst when you fire them."
Tane snapped.

The silvercloaks equipment had been a slipshod mess, poor Westerosi armour and rushed imitations of the Grenadier's own kit thrown together in the hurry to get them into the field. Men under her command had died or been maimed because of it. Several of the Calivers and Hand-cannons had cracked barrels. She was going to do better this time around.

"And that is an expense we cannot afford. Riveting mail is only done by the best armourers, and any child knows how hard it is to beat out plates." Randyll said.

Christ-Horus, we've already been over this.

She raised her hands in frustration. "Fine, you can't make cheap plate and can't afford good quality mail. Get Brigandines. Or padded jacks, those turn cuts and catch arrows as well as your butted mail. If you're worried about money, there are better things to spend it on than useless mail."

"Like guns." Alester said. "A most impressive weapon, I must say."

"Dangerous and unproven. And only useful for infantry." Randyll said.

"You've never seen what siege guns can do to a fortress." Tane said. "If it's not a proper bastion fortress, a few shots and it all comes crumbling down. Or gun armed warships."

"And where will the money for this come from? It will take time until we can begin mining and taxing Casterly Rock again, Baelish's records are nigh unreadable, the Faith is offended, the war has put us nearly another million dragons in debt. The Tyrells offered us a loan, but the interest rates were steep." Guncer Sunglass said.

"But worth it. The Tyrells are rather less usurious than the Lannisters." Renly said.

"I wrote to Lady Arryn asking her to seize all of Baelish's monies and goods in Gulltown and have them sent here, but she has not yet responded. The vale's tax payments are late as well." Alester Florent added.

"Again, Lord Guncer, send an emissary to the Iron Bank with all haste." Stannis said.

It didn't take a genius to realize that the Tyrell's contribution to Stannis's crown had done nothing to reduce Stannis's enmity to them.

Stannis stood up, pulling himself to his full, impressive height. His blue eyes glared at the dozen or so courtiers and soldiers that ruled a continent three thousand miles from north to south.

"There are false kings across the narrow sea. The rangers say there is another King beyond the Wall. The dead walk. Winter is coming. I want a united realm. Can you offer me that much?"

 

[Balaur]

"Always up. Always to your right." The warlock said, repeating her instructions yet again. "Always up, always to your right."

"I understand. And I am to leave the same way, not by reversing the order?" Daenerys asked.

"Yes, yes'. Within, you will see things. Things of horror and of loveliness. Things that will be, that have been, that could be. Things of other worlds, even. We have begun to see that lately…"

"I understand."

She turned away from her bodyguards, towards a tiny, shrunken man who stood by the oval door. He held out a stoppered vial for her to take.

"Shade of the evening. One draught will unstop your ears and clear the caul from your eyes, to understand the truths that will be revealed." Pyat Pree said when she asked if it would turn her lips blue.

"Now you may enter."

She stepped inside, into a stone antechamber with a door on each side. She picked the right and stepped through. She pushed through two more such doorways, then into an oval, wooden antechamber with six moth eaten doors. Drogon flapped ahead of her, screeching in annoyance as he struggled to fly and thudded to the ground. Rats scurried in the walls, Drogon keeping a watchful eye on them.

Something thumped against one door, and piping played from behind another. She ignored them, striding towards the door on the right. Some where open. She tried to ignore them, and failed. She saw two dwarf women, cheered on by crowned, fighting over a baby, tearing and clawing and screaming at each other.

The next door showed her three men, all finely dressed; a king, a septon, and a rich man in chains of gold. All were on their knees before a woman, hard faced, in battered grey armour, with the wickedest looking axe Daenerys had ever seen in her hands.

"Spare me because the gods will it."

"I am your king, my word is law!"

"Imagine what my wealth and influence could gain you…"

She hurried past, hurried past another doorway, into the house with the Red Door and Ser Willem Darry welcoming her home. She could not be tempted. She must not.

It went on, endlessly. She ran, as fast as she could, past doors of every description, Drogon flapping at her back, not daring to look.

She came upon two great doors of bronze. The one on the left was open, and she saw a great crowned king on the Iron Throne, surrounded by dragon skulls. His hair was silver and his eyes dark, and a man lay prostrate before him, and others around him. "Spare him? Do we think me mad?"

"Your Grace, we could send him to the wa-" the second said.

"I would hear no such thing. I want him burnt."

She saw a man, almost but not quite like Viserys, holding a babe. "Aegon. A fitting name for a prince."

"Will he have a song?" a woman asked, lying on his bed.

"He has a song. He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire."

"There must be one more. The Dragon has three heads." The man said, whether to her or the woman on the bed she could not tell. He began to pluck his harp, and Daenerys turned away.

There were no doors on her right, only on her left, forever and ever. Some of them were open.

She marched on. The torches guttered, going out, and she broke into a run until she came to the end of the hall. Stairs led downwards, and there was no right door.

The first door on the right is the last on the left, she remembered, and she took it.

It was another sequence of small square rooms, and she took the right door over and over.

Pyat Pree stood before her, ahead of a door leading out into a green field.

He began to say something, but his door was not to the right, so she ignored him and took off to the right, climbing, climbing up an endless staircase. Her legs felt half dead, and she wondered how on earth the staircase fit within the house which had no towers.

Finally, she came into a room filled with warlocks. They of every age, every sex, dressed in fine robes, in Qartheen dresses, in armour. They told her they had seen her coming; they told her they had power, knowledge. They told her she had passed their tests. She once again pushed the great old door open, then the smaller door behind it, and continued onwards.

A human heart, blue and swollen, floated at the centre of the new chamber, surrounded by blue shadows. She stepped forwards, towards a single empty chair.

Mother of Dragons… something moaned.

"I am Daenerys Stormborn, Queen of the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros. Grant me your counsel, and speak to me with the wisdom of those who have conquered death."

She made out their features through the indigo murk, old men and women, ancient, beyond ancient, every part of them stained blue.

We know… the shape of shadows… morrows not yet made… worlds that are, that would be, that could be… drink from the cup of ice… drink from the cup of fire… Mother of Dragons… Child of Three… three heads has the dragon… three fires must you light: one for life and one for death and one to love… three mounts must you ride: one to bed and one to dread and one to love… three treasons will you know: once for blood and once for gold and once for love… daughter of death, slayer of lies, bride of fire, yours is the song of ice and fire, but the song is broken, the song of lies that are true and truths that are false…

"Show me what the visions mean. Let me understand!"

Then she saw it, Viserys screaming as the gold burnt his face.
A cloth dragon swayed amidst a cheering crowd as a flesh and blood dragon circled. An olive skinned man with silver hair charged against men in black iron. A little girl ran barefoot towards a house with a grey door. A dragon's shadow flew over the water, and something vast, impossibly so, matched it beneath the waves. A crowned man was burnt alive before something tore through his brain, killing him instantly.

She saw mummers playing, a grand show of life and death, loyalty and treason, ice and fire. Then another mummer came in amongst them, in brutal grey armour, cutting some down, sending some fleeing, crowning one, a sword in one hand and a club that spat fire and sparks in the other.

She saws lines of marching men, endless, heads bowed, broken, marching north towards the Wall, led by a boy with a head of blonde, She saw a city, unlike any she'd ever seen, through a window from a city in the sky. As she watched, glowing, smoking streaks of steel flashed down, bursting amongst the city, as clouds of canvas and wood burned beneath her.

She saw three stags, grazing, next to the body of a dragon. She saw a lion spring from the bushes, tear down one stag down and crush its throat. But then the others turned on the lion, goring at it, sending the lion fleeing, cowering. It tried to flee to the south; the thorns tore its flesh. It tried to flee to the west; a kraken burst from the water, tentacles flailing. It tried to flee to the north, but wolves came from the forests, all the while a falcon soared and watched.

She saw a great turning wheel, and then it only had three spokes, before it was filled with strange geometries. Figures with long, whip thin swords danced across it, then it was a pentagram while liquid serpents writhed on it, then some sort of vast castle, it's walls angular, spitting fire, and finally three dragons lying dead in the snow and the wheel broke.

Crows scattered from a burning forest. She was below the water, looking up, into a tangle of ships above, some burning green and others red. Corpses sank around her, Viserys and Drogon and a girl she recognized as herself.

Then, finally, she was above a field as men fought without colours or banners, without order, without sides, a war of all against all. The clockwork of the world went to rust around them, spinning too fast one moment and too slow the next. The bodies piled up, into a mountain, and they simply kept coming, swarming over the carrion to kill and die on top of it, growing the pile higher and higher until it took on a life of its own. Dragons circled around it, melting the dead together with their flames into one great beast. The leviathan of the dead rose from the mountain, stretching out arms, one with steel, the other with fire, and its face formed, cold and hard as iron and crowned with gold. It stared upon the ruin around it, and the fighting ceased, and the warriors set to farming, to raising castles and septs. Its features shifted and warped. It had a bristling beard; it was clean shaven; it had hair of silver and black and blonde. It had a man's face, and a woman's. It was human, and then it was something other.

 

[Balaur]

Lancel retched over the side of the ship and leaned against the railings, groaning in pain. This was the third day of rough weather in a row now, and he could barely stay on his feet or keep his food down.

"If you think this bad, wait till you reach the wall." Allister Thorne said. The humourless man, always in black mail in case of pirates, was like a shadow dogging his footsteps.

"You highborn pricks won't last a day. The lowborn ones, the rapers and thieves, they know what it's like to go hungry, they know what it's like to work until their body gives up and keep working anyway. You highborn, though, you'll just melt like snow in a fire when winter comes."

He'd done worse than raping and stealing, though.

He'd killed a king.

He'd killed a king, and his whole family too, and paid the price.

A kiss and the promise of more to push a wineflask in Robert's face and ask him "More wine, your grace?". It had seemed so easy at the time; vengeance on the man who had treated him like a slave and a jester, and a night with the queen, the most beautiful woman in the seven kingdoms in return for getting a drunkard drunker.

If he could have talked to himself back when he'd done it, he would have shaken himself, screamed in his face, told him it wasn't worth it.

He'd wanted to do it the moment he'd seen Robert down, snarling and swearing and moaning, his blood running out in a torrent. He'd wanted to do it when he'd faced goldcloaks, half a dozen of them, surrounding him in a ring of spears, as his friends and family where killed and routed by alchemy.

He'd wanted to do it when he was trapped in that bloody tower with half a dozen other squires taken hostage. The only people who'd entered had been servants, to bring in food and clean clothes and remove the chamberpots. They'd gone half mad in there. Tyrek had gotten into a fistfight with a Sarsfield squire over gods know what. Tyon Hill, a bastard of one of the Lannisport houses and a page to a knight killed by goldcloaks, had cried so much a man-at-arms had threatened to break his neck.

Most of all, he'd wanted to do as he'd found out in dribs and drabs what had happened to his family. Cersei, the whole reason he'd done it, had lost her head. Tommen and Myrcella had vanished, feared dead. Tywin had been killed by his own men, Jaime executed. Worst of all, his own father had been bludgeoned and hurled off Casterly Rock.

Lancel had wanted to talk to someone, anyone, confess his sins, tell them what he'd done. But he was too scared to admit to anyone, even a Septon. As bad as being locked in that tower was, being killed for treason was worse.

So he'd kept his mouth shut for what felt like a year, and now here he was, on a ship to the wall with the older of the squires and the surviving Lannister Men-at-Arms alongside a fresh crop of criminal scum.

"You listening to me? Or are you too high-and-mighty to listen to someone as humble as a mere knight?" Allister said.

"I was… thinking, Ser."

"About how quick you'll die when the wildlings, let alone more dead things, come south?" Alliser said.

Allister was worse than Robert, truth be told.

At least Robert mostly ignored him, rather than following him about like a ghost in mail and leather.

"N-no, Ser."

Allister shook his head and stalked off, yelling orders to the Eastwatch galley's crew.

Lancel threw up over the side of the ship again.

*

Are those clouds?

A vast low white smear crossed the northern horizon.

The clouds caught the light of the sun, and he squinted against the glare.

No, no….

That was the Wall.

When he'd heard the bards sing of it, he'd thought it was just some castle wall. High enough, and long, but not quite so vast. This, though, was like a mountain range of ice, only without peaks or valleys, just a single straight line from the shore to the western horizon.

Seven be good….

As they drew in closer, retching up his breakfast all the while, he saw a faint black blotch at the base of the Wall that slowly resolved into a squat castle, little more than a mass of towers without walls or a central keep. The sailors were yelling to the recruits to get up onto deck, and bringing in the sails and running out the oars for the final approach into the harbour.

"Lion of Lannister! Get over here!" Allister called from behind him.

If it had been Robert who'd called that, he would have expected to be asked for more wine, or sent off on some snark hunt. If he took the bait, he'd be laughed at. If he didn't, he would be yelled at.

Caught between the Giants and the Children.

Lancel staggered towards him, keeping one hand on the rails. The other recruits were slowly gathering as well, two dozen Lannister men and a dozen criminals. A couple of watchmen with crossbows in their hands and swords on their belts flanked Allisser.

We could take them. Overwhelm the guards, capture the ship, run for Essos….

It was too risky. They'd be hunted down and killed without mercy.

Besides, he was already doomed for the Seven Hells. There was no need to make his stay longer.

They were within a few miles of Eastwatch, now.

"Lannister, I told you get over here. The rails are not over here."

Lancel shut his eyes. He didn't have sea legs worth speaking of.

"Get over here!" Allister said. "Or are you afraid of walking?"

Yes.

He staggered towards Allister, trying to keep his balance. He was swaying like he was drunk. The world swam.

The ship hit a wave and pitched and rolled, and he went down like he'd been pollaxed.

The world spun around him, and for a moment he feared the ship was capsizing.

He could hear laughter as he struggled to his feet, grabbing a rope for support.

"The Lion of Lannister rises again!" Allisser said, to laughter from some of the recruits.

As it died down, he turned to address them as a group.

"Listen, you soft Southron bastards. None of you chose this. None of you want to be here. Good. Men with nowhere to run fight harder. You'll die like flies when winter comes, you'll be wheat for the threshers, that much is certain, but as long as you stand your ground and take even one wildling or wight with you, you will have done your duty and dragging you all the way up here will have been worth it."

Wights?

He'd heard the rumours, but thought it only a mummer's trick, a recruitment ploy.

One of the Lannister men, Will Harrow, spat and said "So our duty is to die? Why not desert? At least then we'll have a chance of surviving."

Alliser stalked forwards, right into Will's face. "Would you rather die on your feet or on your knees?"

Will didn't flinch.

"Seems to me dying in your open-air dungeon is dying on my knees, and running is living on my feet."

The others backed away slowly, and Alliser put his hand on his pommel.

For a moment, it looked like they might mutiny.

They didn't, though.

They only stared at Alliser, and the galleys coming from Eastwatch to escort them in. It was too late to steal the ship and flee, and too soon to flee overland.

 

[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. He seemed hesitant, but there was obvious speed behind his attacks when he actually committed. I'm better trained than a whore, at least…

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 were mostly already trained and only needed to get back into their stride after their imprisonment, 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 sword down on Satin's helmet, hard enough to send sparks flying. Lancel kept pushing the attack, throwing another cut at Satin's leg, using his shield to protect his face. It thudded into boiled leather greaves with a satisfying thunk. The boy was cringing away, almost falling over backwards. He feinted 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 up his coat, doublet and undershirt. A week later, the bruise was gone.

"Barely anything. Now my stomach still has a bruise about the size and 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 trying to beat 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. "You choose this too."

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.

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 hear 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.

There were 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, already well 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 Old 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, tumbling through a hole in the roof she must have hacked. 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 sleet 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 the King Tower was burning, bits of thatching falling away even as crossbow bolts flew from its windows. The 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 formed 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 freezing rain and embers running into his eyes.

"Look out!" Henly roared, and then he was staring a couple of wildlings, one with a spear and a slung bow and one with an axe, neither with shields, rushing at him. Time seemed to slow down. Henly pressed 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, lunging in at the spearwoman. She danced back as he pressed in on her, 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! Lancel, get back in 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. He saw that other wildlings were rushing in; moving to cut him off from the main body. They'd have succeeded if not for Henly.

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 his crossbow. 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 right…

"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 slipped on the slicked ground 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, turning, 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 a mutineer, 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 both took off at a run.

Lancel was panting, shivering, his heart beating so fast it was like to burst.

"King's Tower!" someone else 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 and beat their weapons off-line. 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 teardrop 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's crotch, knocking him back, and chopped his head open from left ear to the right corner of his mouth before he 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.

 

[Yla]

I'm rather silent because I believe I reacted to this on SB already, but... *sigh*
I'm really annoyed at the Lannister mutineers, and I'm really enjoying reading Lancel becoming a badass again.

 

[Balaur]

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

The Northmen 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, retreating back into the buildings and pelting the riders with spears and arrows, bringing down or panicking the unarmoured horses. Then men on foot with shortened lances and two-handed long axes came on, under the cover of a hail of arrows from dismounted archers who'd somehow kept their strings dry and with a hulk of a man with the biggest sword Lancel had ever seen leading the way. The fight turned into a melee, wildlings dodging between the remaining buildings while others tried to fall back up the staircase.

*

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 Lord Umber's 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 in 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 among 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 second biggest man 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 Umber 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 out there." 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."

*

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, and 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, clipping a crossbow into his belt-hook 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 arrows 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 war 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 and swords and axes on their belts, jogging forwards from the staircase.

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 and to keep them focused on the fight rather than petty squabbles.

He shook his head. There was nothing to be worried about. Even if there was, 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, the tower many of the watchmen had moved into, and 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 as well as the bulk of the common brothers.

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." 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.

"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…

"Not a lion. A shadowcat." Satin said as Lancel began to get to his feet. That actually made him smile, for the first time in a long time.

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 close enough to block it. It was so covered in crows that it looked like flies swarming rotten meat, the gore-streaked birds scattering as their human brethren approached.

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, some smashed with rocks, others impaled or burnt or both. 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.

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 you 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. He was neither short nor tall, his brown hair going to grey with his age. An utterly average man, if not for his station.

"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, the Neverborn. Beings 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 south 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 and the wildlings 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.

The defenders had put up tents and fires atop the wall, and most of the men were around those, but he'd been posted away from them on sentry duty. 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 wall 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, panic 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, 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 burst, there was screaming, rage and fear and above all pain mixed together into one, burning people scattering from the gate and collapsing, 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 fresh bodies in sight. Just blood and bone, ash and snow.

 

[Balaur]

"Hurry up and ride! We haven't got all day!" Ser Patrek of King's Mountain snapped behind her.

"Hard to do that when you put me on the weakest horse you had and bound my hands." Genna said. She couldn't believe a dozen men-at-arms, a dozen mounted crossbowmen and two knights had to resort to that to stop a women of well over fifty escaping.

"I thought you swore a vow of silence." One of the men-at-arms grumbled.

"I haven't said my vows yet, and I intend to enjoy my tongue as long as it remains in my mouth."

"Should just cut the bitches tongue out already, save the sisters the trouble." Ser Clayton Suggs grumbled.

"Alas, that is against your orders." she answered. "If you cut my tongue out, Stannis might very well cut yours out. He did maim that smuggler for saving his life."

Jape as she might, she was an unarmed, aging woman surrounded by younger, stronger killers. She full well intended to remind them there was always a bigger fish in the sea.

"What he doesn't know can't hurt him." Clayton said.

The Golden Tooth rose up ahead of them, positioned to block the northern passes with a garrison of near three hundred knights and more foot and light horse. Most of those would have left with the traitor Lord Lefford, and were still with the army camped with her Ser Rolland Stormsong, the new warden of the west. A bastard Marcher being appointed warden of the west had the Westerlords bristling, but not so much as her lord husband being made Lord of Casterly Rock and promptly packing her off to the silent sisters at Stannis's behest.

This is what you brought us to, Tywin.

Tywin had been prideful, stubborn and needlessly cruel when he wished to be, but he had still made the Westerlands great again with his grandchild poised to inherit the throne. That had been before it had all gone to hell. Between the periodic ravens, Stannis's ultimatums and Joffrey's mad ravings, she'd managed to work out what had happened or near enough. Renly, Eddard and some foreign witch had imprisoned, tried and executed her niece, crowned Stannis, and raised three armies against Tywin. He should have done what Balon did, bent the knee and waited for the chance to rise again harder and stronger, but it had evaded him.

Now House Lannister was in ruins. Half her children dead and the other half vanished, dear little Dorna spared the faith only because of her young children, virtually everyone not killed made to take the black. Herself condemned to a life of silence and chastity.

All over a boy who made Emmon look like the fucking dragonknight in comparison.

Gods be good, she'd known Tywin would ruin their house like this when she'd refused to talk to her for six bloody months because she'd said Tyrion was his true son.

He was one of those people who would rather break than bend.

"Are those riders?" one of the soldiers asked.

She squinted at the patchwork of fields and houses that lay in the valley floor, before the pass got high and narrow past the golden tooth.

Her eyes weren't what they used to be, but she could still make out a column of something or other coming up the slope, a blue and gold banner over their head.

"Indeed they are." Ser Patrek said. The men grew in closer, and she saw the manticore on the lead knights shield. That would be Ser Lorent Lorch, one of the most important of Lefford's bannermen though not a lord himself, and Lady Alysanne's lover.

Lord Leo Lefford was a traitor; his men had killed her boy Walder during the fall of Casterly Rock. Tion had died in the Riverlands, Lyonel at the fall of Crakehall. Cleos was sentenced to the wall. Only her two grandchildren remained under Emmon's charge as heirs to Casterly Rock.

His sister, however, was an old, loyal friend and commanded the loyalty of much of the guard, for all her eccentricities. Leo was often absent for business in Lannisport; as the only other member of the family, she managed the Tooth in his absence.

If I can talk to her, she may be able to get me out of this predicament. Even if sent to the silent sisters, she had every intent of trying to escape. She also had no illusions about her chances of success.

"Form up!" Suggs barked as the knights trotted uphill. A man grabbed her mare by the reins and dragged it into the middle as they formed into a line, spilling off the sides of the road.

"You fly no banner. Who do you serve?" asked Lorch.

"The king. We might ask the same of you." Ser Patrek said.

"My lady of Lefford. She would love to hear of the feats of such knights as you in the war of the Lannister Usurper and has sent me to greet you."

"We have urgent business." Ser Patrek growled.

"The courteous thing to do would be accepting a ladies invitation to dine. Besides, the sun is getting low, and there are worse places to rest than in a castle."

"If you insist."

Lady Lefford greeted them at the gate a miles ride later, dressed in blue and gold. She was thin and gaunt, nearing fifty, but her arms were wiry. She practised archery quite publicly, and swordfighting in private.

"I see you've honoured our new king" Genna said, when she saw that Aly had hair of black. Her hair had began to fall out when she was thirty, so she'd made the best of it by shaving it off and wearing an increasingly varied collection of wigs. She had one imported from the free cities in Valyrian silver, and another dyed Tyroshi green.

"Indeed." Alysanne said. "May his reign and life be long and prosperous."

"You're still supposed to be silent." Ser Patrek said, glaring at Genna.

"I'm sorry to arrange the feast on such short notice" Aly said, "but my cooks shall make do."

"I am sure they will. Please refrain from speaking to Genna Frey. She is to take a silent sisters vows." Ser Patrek said.

Aly's face told Genna exactly what she thought of that.

*

The feast was near the most miserable of her life. Aly, an old and dear friend, sat at the head of the table, with her honoured guests Ser Patrek and Ser Clayton on one side and Ser Lorent Lorch on the other. He was younger than Aly, five and forty, and his hair was turning an attractive shade of silver. Courteous and cunning, it wasn't hard to see why Aly liked him.

Genna was seated at the base of the table, wedged in between a couple of spearmen. She gnawed at the roast mutton half heartedly. The Leffords threw a banquet as good as any in the West, but now she was a prisoner, with the hosts and the hosted glaring at each other while making nervous small talk. Ser Patrek was telling a bored Aly of his part in Tywin's downfall-sitting on a horse while traitors did all the real work-and grumbling about Stannis denying them the chance to loot Lannisport.

I need to find a way to talk to Aly without these men watching me.

So she kept eating, waiting for an opportunity. This might very well be the last good food she ever ate.

It was what seemed like an eternity before Aly got up to go to the privy.

Genna waited a few minutes, then excused herself to go herself. She waited on the corridor that led back to the feast hall, until Aly came around the corner, adjusting her wig.

"Is there anything that can be done?" Genna asked in hushed tones.

"Yes. I mean to see you freed. As to the means, I need to talk to Lorch in private."

"How will I escape after getting free?"

"I find having so many wigs about will help with your disguise while you escape to Essos…"

"And from there, Tommen and Myrcella are in Essos most likely, if Stannis did not kill them."

"Precisely." Aly said. "The West will rise again, and I mean for both of us to live long enough to see it."

*

Just as Aly promised, her chance came soon enough. The mountain road was narrow and winding, more dirt than cobbles, cut into the side of a steep slope. A creek ran through the centre of the, the slopes on either side near bare. More than once, they passed carts that had been laboriously pulled off the road by peasants to let them pass.

Thirty of Aly's men, mounted archers mostly, rode behind them, led by Lorent Lorch. They were there for "protection from bandits", but she had an inkling of what their real purpose was. From how wary Suggs looked, it seemed she wasn't the only one.

She saw a stuck cart up ahead, a couple of men in what looked suspiciously like leather jacks trying half-heartedly to clear it.

"Clear the way!" Patrek yelled.

"We can't hear you! Come over here!" one of the men shouted back.

Patrek didn't get a chance to answer as a longbow arrow lodged in his eye.

All hell broke loose. More arrows came hissing in, ripping through the light armour of the crossbowmen and spinning away from the knight's plate in a shower of splinters. Men-at-Arms leapt up from behind boulders and charged, spear and sword and axe drawn, and she could hear the sound of close combat behind her. Her horse screamed and reared, and something slammed into it hard enough to knock it staggering. With her hands tied, she pitched off, splashing down into the mud.

That was all that saved her from breaking something important. A horse backed up towards her, impossibly vast viewed from the ground, the rider struggling to get his crossbow locked into his belt hook. She rolled away from the beast as its hoof came down an inch from her head, damn near pissing herself in fear. A man fell next to her, screaming, a bolt through his groin. A Lefford man was on him a moment later, hacking his arms apart when he raised them to protect his face then stabbing him through the face and moving on to the next opponent.

"Kill the bitch! Kill the bitch!" Suggs was bellowing, and someone else was screaming and a third man was yelling for mercy. She tried to get to her feet, but a stormlander shoved into her shield first, and she was on the ground again. He raised his sword, bellowing something about letting them go or he'd kill the lioness, and her life flashed before her eyes, but it didn't get much further than her being bitterly disappointed to be marrying Emmon before a Marbrand knight knocked him to his knees with one mace blow and crushed his skull with the second.

The fighting was moving up the road, a few remaining stormlanders with their backs to a boulder fighting on foot and another couple of survivors being chased by mounted men. She saw longbowmen shooting down the scree at fleeing men.

The Marbrand offered her his hand, his mace dangling from his lanyard.

"Lady Lefford pays her debts." he said, his weather lined face half smirking.

"With interest, it seems." Genna said, her voice shaking from fright even though this was the best thing to happen to her since the fall of House Lannister began.

 

[Balaur]

It was a dark and stormy night on Pyke as he gathered his brothers and daughter about himself, before the seastone chair.

He'd spent the day inspecting the last of the new warships-sleek galleys, swarms of longships, and no less than five heavy galleasses bristling with scorpions. He'd brought them with the iron price; wealth beyond imagining sacked from Lannister ports.

He'd waited for this moment for years. The time was now ripe. His agents reported that there were dragons and lions both in Essos. The realm was in a frenzy of fear, mad rumours spreading about goings on to the north and foreign witches. One kick would bring the whole rotten house down, and he would at last have his vengeance and his redemption on the Greenlanders for the humiliations they had inflicted, the sons and brothers they had killed.

"The time to strike is now." Victarion said, near as soon as Balon entered. He gritted his teeth. Victarion had never been the smartest of his brothers, though by far the bravest. He would have rathered Euron, the mind behind the first raid on Lannisport, be the one sitting on his council and Victarion the one exiled, but that was not to be.

"Soon." Balon said. The map of Westeros was already unfurled, playing pieces scattered about.

"Theon-" Asha began.

"Is a lost cause. We have no way to retrieve him. We must continue with our plans. Plunder the Reach and the Riverlands, and the North too. By the time Stannis has turned to face us, the Targaryens should already be falling upon him and he will have to turn his attention away. The only question now is of timing."

The Drowned God detested a coward, but he also detested a fool. Balon would not waste this chance.

"I've heard rumours Stannis is sending the remaining troops in the Westerlands east." Asha said.

"Even better." Victarion said.

"Tonight, I will send the ravens commanding the captains to make ready to sail as soon as I know for sure than Aegon has set sail. When that happens, the Iron fleet will gather under Victarion and sail south, to attack the Redwyne fleet at anchor, sack Oldtown, and intercept any royal fleet that tries to round Dorne. Asha, you will command the forces that lay sack to the west of the North and Riverlands. You already know which ships you've been assigned. I want to see the western ocean painted black and gold."

They'd been over this half a hundred times, many of his lords and veteran captains participating in the planning. Captains would argue about which squadron they'd be part of, and lords would insist on having this or that place of honour, but the foundations were already in place.

"When the time comes, Stannis must face the wrath of the kraken and the dragon both." Victarion said.

"Not even a dragon can stand against the might of the drowned god." Aeron said, looking up from where he sat at the back of the table.

"Indeed." Victarion said. "If these rumours of dragons are true, they will be young. Our scorpions should be able to bring them down."

"If they can hit them." Asha said. "The dragons are real, all right. I met one sailor who said he was there at the sack of Astapor, saw slavers roasted with his own eyes."

"In that case, we shall glut ourselves on the wealth of the realm for as long as possible, then turn on Essos when the dragons come." Victarion said. "We'll bend one knee, but not both."

"I'd like to see how that works, nuncle." Asha said.

Balon ignored the jibe. She was as worthy an heir as an ironborn lord could ask for, sex aside, but her needless levity sometimes grated upon his nerves.

"Now, we need to discuss how many longships the Harlaws can bring…"

*

By the time they were done, the candles were burning low and the winds were howling outside. Cold spray whipped through the arrow slits. He didn't shiver. He'd been drowned as a babe. He was made of sterner stuff than that.

What is dead can never die, only rise again harder and stronger. That was the Ironborn way. The defeated must not slink away with their tails between their legs. They must lick their wounds and return to the fray when the time was right. Soon, the Old Ways would return. They were sea-wolves; proudest on the western seas, who sailed the roaring oceans with the Drowned God at their heels. Not shrinking Greenlanders who feared to leave sight of land. Even their castles where built in defiance of the storm god.

He opened the door that led out into the final, rope bridge, leading to his chambers in the Sea Tower. In his youth, Quellon had suggested having it replaced with stone bridges; safer and easier to move supplies through the castle. He'd answered that anyone who feared to trust in rope and wood had no place in Pyke. Quellon had eventually replaced some of the bridges, but not this one.

He pulled his cloak around himself and trod across, the heavy rope twisting and kicking under him. It wasn't as if he hadn't done it well over a thousand times before, but this time, even with the storm it seemed fiercer than usual.

He suddenly halted when the door swung open. A lone figure stood there, backlit by a roaring hearth.

"Who are you!" he called out.

There was no answer. He took another step forwards, reaching for his sword. "Who are you!"

One more step, and one of the ropes snapped. He barely had time to see what had happened before the world pitched and spun and for a moment he was falling and then he wasn't, but he was, and white-hot was tearing through his hip. He screamed as he hung, swinging, staring at the pounding sea between the towers lit by lightning. His foot was wedged through the ropes, bent at an unnatural angle that he could see even half-blinded by rain.

Not here, not like this-

He tried to twist his body up, tried to get at the ropes and pull himself up. His hands were shaking, the ropes slick. His fingers brushed a rope, slipped, and then his body swung back down again.

At least if I fall, I'll die at sea-

There was a crack as loud as thunder from up above, and then the rope bridge was swinging down, and the cliffs that Pyke was built upon were looming up.

The last thing he ever saw was not the Drowned God's salt sea, but the Storm God's rocks and winds.

 

[Jarrik32]

I find it interesting that Greyjoys first thoughts for how humiliated he felt, not about anyone that had died. Doesn't say anything good about him or to be honest his family.

 

[Balaur]

"I'm having the dreams again." Bran said, sitting in his wheelchair in the ravenry.

"The same nightmares as before? Or different?" Luwin asked, nodding to him.

"The same. I… I saw the three eyed crow, but he was rotting, and his eyes were missing… He showed me things. Terrible things."

"What were they?" Luwin asked, as much gentleness as possible in his voice.

"The dead. They gathered from a hundred places, all forming into one great colossus of the dead that reached up to touch the sky." Bran said, his voice suddenly distant. "But the wall held them back, until a traitor in black and gold let them through. And the Three Eyed Crow spoke. He told me his plans were ruined, that the coming of a foreign witch had broken the song, that he saw triple, two worlds brushing against each other to create a third. That it was too late for a new Three-Eyed Crow to be born, for there was no way to safely reach him."

Bran sounded cold and old then, far more than any boy of eleven should.

The foreigners. They started this. They claimed to have come from another world, from what he'd gleaned from Eddard and Arya. And soon after that, one after the other, Bran had his visions, there were dragons in the east, the red comet lit the night sky.

Magic had once existed in the world, he knew that well enough. And it had once died. That too he knew. He still had the scar on his hand from where he'd tried to light a glass candle the night he was locked in the Citadel vaults. Those had once burnt in the Citadel, and peering through them allowed one to see far away.

Their light had died with the dragons, but the Citadel had still taken to locking acolytes in with only the candles that could not be lit for light. A lesson in humility.

Then he had heard the news that some bold apprentice had actually succeeded lighting the candles, just as rumours of dragons in the east became more and more credible and the walking dead wiped entire armies off the face of the earth.

"That is… a traitor in black and gold? The Greyjoys?"

He already had a bad feeling about this. Theon. He was a loyal friend to Robb, but there was a certain side to him that Luwin had seen. Something angry, resentful. Something that could be turned against the Starks.

"The Three-Eyed Crow told me there are two traitors amongst them, he says. One to the Starks, and one to humanity. Or at least, that was what he once saw, before everything changed. He says some of his visions are false and some true, with no way to tell which is which…"

One to the Starks…

Bran had long been nervous around Theon, scared of him even.

"Prophecy" Luwin said, "is a future that could be, not that will be." If this even is prophecy, rather than Bran's mind being damaged by the fall or some madman manipulating his mind with sorcery. "You would do well to bear that in mind."

Bran nodded. "Jojen's told me that not all green dreams are true. He said that he saw visions of how he should have died a year ago and they never came to pass."

"Then he is wise." Luwin said. The strange, quiet boy had come north with his sister to swear the loyalty of the Crannogmen to Winterfell in the dangerous days to come. He had become a fast friend to Bran, and his sister Meera was almost worshipped by Arya Stark.

A raven fluttered down into the ravenry, a message tied to it's ankle. The bird obediently raised its leg as he pulled it off.

He unwrapped it. For the eyes of Lord Eddard Stark only.

Just as quickly, he wrapped it again.

"I have to go speak with your father, Bran. Where's Walder gotten to?"

"He's outside." Bran said.

Walder was, indeed, outside, fidgeting nervously despite his bulk and height. He'd been a stableboy once, though strange and slow witted, never saying anything but Hodor, to the point where it was virtually his name. Even that had only come to him at twelve. Three or four years ago, a little after the news of Jon Arryn's death had arrived, he'd stopped saying Hodor, and returned to his boyhood silence.

"Take Bran back to his rooms." Luwin said. Walder did as he was told.

"Good Man."

*

"Balon Greyjoy is dead. I don't know who this letter was from. Some lordling hostile to Euron, no doubt." Maester Luwin explained, passing Robb a letter. Catelyn's face was grave as she watched him read.

…Ironborn ships are gathering. Euron Greyjoy has usurped the rightful inheritance of Theon Greyjoy, calling him a Greenlander, and Asha, saying that a daughter may come before an uncle in Greenlander laws, but a woman may never sit the seastone throne. Many dispute his claim. He looks likely to crown himself and declare war. Theon has the best claim to the Iron Islands. Release him and you may yet avert a war…

The letter was signed only A well-wisher of the true lord of the Iron Islands.

"Who is Euron? One of Balon's brothers? The one who burnt the Lannister fleet in the rebellion?" Robb asked.

"All I know of him is that he was exiled for reasons unknown, and that he did indeed plan the attack on Lannisport. He also returned immediately after Balon died. That is auspicious timing." Luwin said.

"Theon is our only leverage. Release him, and Euron has no reason not to attack." Rodrik Cassel said behind him. Since his son's death in the south, the master-at-arms had taken over command of the remaining Winterfell garrison.

"Considering how Euron is an usurper, I do not think he cares about his family overmuch." Robb said. "The threat of execution would do little to stop him."

"Rodrik is right. Releasing Theon is too dangerous." Mother said.

"Why so? We cannot afford another Greyjoy rebellion! Father needs to focus on the Wall, and Stannis on the dragons. If Theon can depose this Euron and take his rightful place, he could well stop this madness!" Robb answered.

"He could very well launch a revolt of his own. Or Euron could have him killed or imprisoned." Luwin said. "And kept free in Winterfell, it is possible he would side with the Ironborn and betray us." A traitor in black and gold…

"No man is as accursed as the kinslayer. Euron wouldn't dare, and if he did, all his allies would desert him." Robb answered.

"Euron killed his brother. Why else would Balon die just as he returns from exile? What is a nephew to that, especially if he can claim Theon as a puppet?" Luwin said.

Robb leaned over the table, rubbing his temples in frustration. "Eddard left me in charge of Winterfell, not the North and not the Realm. Send the letter to Father. Ask him what he would have us do. Theon doesn't leave the castle without trusted men watching him. Don't tell him why, find excuses." Robb finally said.

"And if he finds out about this?"

Robb gulped.

"Have him confined to his chambers. Keep him unharmed. Tell him that the Ironborn might rebel, but that if it comes to it I have no intention of executing him."

"And if you have to kill him anyway?" Luwin asked.

"I'll do what has to be done." Robb said. There was less resolve in his voice than Luwin would have liked.

 

[Balaur]

I find it interesting that Greyjoys first thoughts for how humiliated he felt, not about anyone that had died. Doesn't say anything good about him or to be honest his family.

Click to shrink...

The Greyjoys are the most hated faction in canon for a reason, let's put it that way.

 

[Balaur]

The falcon flew swift as a crossbow bolt, its claws unravelling from her leather, sweeping forwards over snow-spattered grass as a flight of cranes scattered up and away from the reeds of the blackwater shores.

Margaery whooped with excitement, urging her horse onwards as the hounds darted out ahead of the riders. The crane beat its wings frantically, trying to get up above her gyrfalcon, but her own bird was swifter, and they slammed together, tumbling through the sky like leaves caught in the wind before they went down amidst the reeds. The second falcon's wings flared as it veered aside. Shireen's Proudwing was faster than Margaeries Lancer, but she'd put Lancer in the air first.

Margaery reined her horse in as the hunting dogs vanished into the reeds.

Lancer took to the skies once again, and she extended her arm, armoured in leather, for it. The dogs had been trained not to attack falcons, but the falcons had been kept fearful of dogs, so as to ensure they would surrender the kill without issue. The bird came in, landing on her arm with a reassuring thump, the talons digging into the leather. It could put the talons straight through her glove if it wanted to, but it didn't. Lancer was a well trained bird.

The dogs emerged moments later, sopping wet with their tails wagging, one of them dragging the sodden crane's corpse. Elinor vaulted down from horseback, cooing over the dogs, throwing them bits of dried meat, as the handlers ran up and took the crane from them.

She put the hood back in place, Lancer watching her calmly with black-and-yellow eyes. Meredyth Crane trotted up next to them, her own hawk perched on her glove.

"Felt like it was kinslaying to launch your bird?" Margaery asked, turning to her.

Merry laughed. "Mayhaps. Or mayhaps you just spotted them quicker."

She turned to Shireen, sitting beside her on a jenet. The Baratheon girl had put on height, and was now nearly as tall as Margaery despite being six years younger. "Proudwing flew well. If I'd launched a moment later, you would have taken the crane."

They'd been hunting down the blackwater for two days now, people, horses, dogs and birds working together in a rolling slaughter of everything from field mice to a deer that Selyse's great eagle had killed. She glanced at the sky. "Sun's getting low." The winter chill meant that she'd prefer to get themselves around a fire sooner rather than later. "We should be getting back."

"Aye" Elinor agreed. She had the hood of her cloak pulled up over her head. "That we should."

They wheeled back and set off back down the coast, the servants carrying their kills for the day. Shireen rode at Margaeries side. Margaery was working to pull Shireen into her circle. Margaery did like the girl; she was clever, and could be rather funny when she broke through her shyness, but as with everything in life, there was another layer to it.

Stannis had, with much grumbling, proclaimed Renly his heir, but that was not certain. Selyse was pushing back, insisting that Stannis stand up for their daughter's rights, and she suspected that Stannis was champing at the bit for an excuse to put Shireen on the way to the throne. If she befriended Shireen, then that would both assure Stannis that his daughter would be well treated if Renly inherited, drive a wedge between Shireen and Selyse, and increase the odds of Shireen not carrying on her parent's grudge against House Tyrell if she did become queen.

They'd set up two dozen pavilions, a mile back down the river, and moored a great pleasure barge just off the shore. There were nearly a hundred highborn and more servants with the hawking party, a good chunk of the court.

She dismounted, tossing the reins to a servant to put them out on the horselines, Elinor and Merry jumping down alongside her. She made for the field kitchen. They should have some lemon cakes or somesuch for her to make off with.

She was walking off, lemon cake in hand, when she came face with Selyse. She barely came up to the Queen's chest. Selyse was as large as her husband, and Stannis was not a small man. Selyse looked tense, angry even.

"How has my daughter been?" Selyse asked.

"Oh, Shireen had an excellent time. We took down a crane, and she is becoming fast friends with Alla."

"That is very good." Selyse said, her voice strained.

"Indeed." Margaery said. She knew why Selyse was angry; as far as she was concerned, Renly had first stolen her husband's rightful castle and then her daughter's rightful throne.

"How have you been? I believe they shall be cooking up the deer you took this morning?" Margaery asked.

"Yes. We shall be doing that." Selyse said. "I am sure that she will tell me all about it at the Nightfires."

"Of course. I'm sure she'll tell you she had much joy."

*

She could hear the yells of sailors crewing their guns, out across the blackwater, the bow of the ship lit by a lantern, the rest of the boat bathed in moonlight. The Margaery Rose, the first of the great gun-armed war dromonds Stannis was having built. Each had a pair of cannons made of iron forged together like the hoops and staves of a barrel mounted to fire forwards, with smaller guns mounted alongside the scorpions on the rails.

"Load! Your! Gun!" the captain of her namesake warship barked at the cannon crew, his yell carrying across the water. She more or less knew how guns worked-stuff an explosive and a projectile down a tube, ignite the powder, the flash 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 swivel-gun crew with a breech-loader or a revolving cannon could put down six shots 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, another massacre a year later at Hardhome, and then silence for over a year now. Stannis was preparing a royal expedition to the North, even as winter truly settled in, 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 that lit up the blackwater like a lightning bolt.

Margaery nearly jumped in shock, and Elinor shrieked besides her. "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 only a few years older than Margaery was, and only a little taller. 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 hunting camp and the Queensmen, followers of Melisandre, the Red God and Selyse on the other. The Queen's group was far smaller. For now, it was only a struggle for influence; for sinecures and holdings still 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.

Selyse strode to the front of the assembled courtiers, one of her handmaiden-a harried looking girl from a minor crownlander house-carrying a lit lantern for her.

"And with that display of my lord husband's might" Selyse called, "may the eating of today's game begin!"

Margaery tore through the game offered up; crane and venison(of which Selyse had the choicest cuts, being both the queen and having made the beast) and what had to be a warren's worth of rabbits. Renly and the other knights had taken a deer as well, but it had been gutshot and much of it was inedible. She bolted down the lemoncakes as well. She'd been wanting some of those all day, and the few that she'd scrounged off the cook weren't enough to satisfy her.

They broke up for dancing then, in the lanternlight and the chill. Margaery was loathe to admit it, but she was glad for the warmth of the great roaring nightfire Selyse had ordered built. Renly danced with her first, to a slow melody from the minstrels. She knew why he had picked then to dance; to avoid having to slow down and show his injured leg during the swifter parts of the dance. Being scarred was a mark of honour. Being mutilated or crippled was a mark of shame.

She danced with other men as well; Ser Parmen Crane, Aurane Waters, what seemed like half a hundred other knights and squires, virtually tripping over each other for a chance to dance with her. She bathed in the attention, flirted back, but never going too far. She had no love for Renly and he none for her, but for someone of her station, taking a lover was far too dangerous. She would end her life sitting besides the Iron Throne or safe in Storm's End or Highgarden, not dead on the executioner's block.

Others had no such restrictions. Ser Alyn Ambrose dipped Elinor down in the middle of the dance-ground and kissed her in front of half the court, and for a moment Margaery wished she was in the place of her cousin.

She probably wishes the same. Margaery was the crown jewel of the court, married to the heir to the throne, with all the power and influence of Highgarden and Storm's End behind her. Elinor was only part of a cadet house of landed knights, married to a second son.

"I heard Selyse in her cups last night." Merry said, as they stood off to the side. "My aunt was with her." That would be Melera Crane, both Merry and Selyse's aunt and Alester Florent's wife. Merry's branch of the family were half-Tyrell, and she was far closer to Margaery than she was to her aunt.

"Oh?"

"She was bemoaning that Renly first stole Storm's End from her husband, then the throne from her daughter. And that she believes you are now trying to steal Shireen from her." Merry said, dropping her voice down to a whisper. It wasn't really necessary, with the loud music, but it didn't hurt.

"Oh."

The occasional tussle over kingsguard and small council positions, or which second son should be granted empty holdings in the Westerlands was one thing. Selyse looking ready to start a feud… that was quite another. The realm could ill afford division with the threat of Aegon across the narrow sea and the Others north of the wall.

She glanced at what Selyse was doing. She was with Melera Florent-her only real friend amongst the court women-and Melisandre. Stannis was nowhere to be seen, but Renly and Loras were avidly talking to a half dozen other knights. They'd been out boar hunting on horseback, but hadn't managed to make a kill. Better than getting gutted by a pig, I suppose.

Margaery took another sip of wine.

"You know, I missed my moon's blood three moons in a row. And this was the third morning in a row I've vomited." Margaery said. She'd had her suspicions for a while now, but it was high time to begin announcing it to the court.

Merry's face lit up. "Oh!"

"Indeed." Margaery said, smiling despite herself. If she could give Renly a male heir… her position in the line of succession was assured. Renly would sit the Iron throne, and her child after him.

 

[Balaur]

"I never should have asked Stannis to put you onto the kingsguard." Renly said.

Loras leaned back into his chair in Renly's temporary apartments, stretching his legs. "Why do you say that? I fill the part far better than those louts the Genians rid us of, and Stannis won't be king forever."

Renly had to laugh. "You're worth seven Trants and forty-nine Blounts. Just, well, you're bound to Stannis now. And we all know what Stannis's opinion of Tyrells is."

"The man doesn't know what love or friendship is, only duty, and he expects everyone else to act the same out of spite." Loras said.

"Oh, I know. But remember how Jaime got his Kingsguard post? Jon Arryn once told me why Jaime was picked for the Kingsguard. He wanted to take a hostage against Lord Tywin." Renly said.

He'd been a child in those years. He remembered almost nothing of the time before the rebellion, and little of the rebellion itself, only the gnawing hunger and the fear of the bad men outside the walls and Stannis's bloody minded insistence on staying in the fight even as he'd begged him to yield.

Loras snorted. "That turned out well for him."

"By Aerys standards, that was wise. My point is, though, that Stannis still fears House Tyrell, their sheer numbers, their popularity with the smallfolk. Margaery is constantly throwing money at the smallfolk while Selyse hides behind Melisandre's skirts. Stannis is scared of House Tyrell."

"He should be scared of you. I'm seven times the knight the old kingsguard were, and you'd be seven times the king that-"

"The walls have ears." Renly reminded him.

As much as the fact that he'd make a better king than Stannis was true, voicing it out loud could doom him if Davos's men were listening. He knew about the tunnels in the walls, and his men had to be learning to use them.

"In any case, it's been too long." Loras said, unbuttoning the top of his doublet.

Renly laughed. "Oh, only since yesterday?"

"Still too long." Loras answered.

"You're right." Renly said, standing up.

They were interrupted by a knock on the door. "Come in" Renly said, hoping the annoyance didn't tinge into his voice.

Margaery pushed the door open.

He was never less glad in his life to see her than now.

"Ah, my dear Renly." Margaery said, her voice all rehearsed affection. "One of the servants was asking after you. Stannis wishes to meet with you, apparently. About the Kingsguard."

"Where?"

"In his solar."

"Well, Stannis is not a man to be refused." Renly said, smiling by way of apology at Loras. He out at once. To his surprise, Margaery trotted after him.

"I know the way to Stannis's solar." Renly said.

"We need to talk." Margaery said.

Renly sighed under his breath.

"About what?"

"I'm with child." Margaery said.

Oh, finally. Trying to get her pregnant had been roughly as pleasant as talking to her grandmother. Not very. Better yet, if she had a male heir… that would ensure that Stannis would never change his mind on the succession like Selyse wanted him to.

"Congratulations" Loras said, though he looked distinctly uncomfortable with the whole thing. Renly didn't blame him.

"Indeed, congratulations." Renly added.

*

He found Stannis waiting in Maegor's holdfast's solar, in his usual dull clothes with the crown sitting on his desk.

"You summoned me about the Kingsguard?" Renly said.

Stannis nodded grimly. "We have only six, and I mistrust Ser Arys Oakheart. And you are mightily fond of tourneys and knights."

"Why?" Renly asked. He could guess the answer: he had failed to notice the incest.

"He had failed to notice the incest."

A most unpredictable man, is our king.

"And yet you made him Lord-Commander." Renly said.

"For a while, he was the only Kingsguard left. He is Lord-Commander by default." Stannis said. "I like it as little as you do, which is why we need more Kingsguard. There are several promising candidates."

"Ser Bryce Caron. Ser Gerold Dayne. Lord Rolland Stormsong would have been ideal, if you hadn't made him Warden of the West."

Renly hadn't known what Stannis was thinking with that one. A newly legitimized bastard, not even a Westerman, as Warden of the West?

Well, he supposed he would loyal to Stannis, and was a competent soldier. That had to count for something, and he wasn't actually Lord of Casterly Rock, that was Emmon Frey. He'd certainly done a good enough job as whipping the Westerlands into shape.

"The Florents want Ser Imry, and I am inclined to agree. He is good with sword and lance both, and he managed the fleet well." Stannis said.

"Aye. But there is only one place remaining. This must be chosen well." Renly said. Getting a Florent onto the Kingsguard would cut down on the amount of pissing and moaning about the Tyrell's influence, without actually giving the Florents more real influence. Not a bad idea.

Stannis ground his teeth. "Your candidates are possible, but the Riverlands and Vale will be wroth if the Kingsguard ends up stuffed with Stormlanders, Reachmen and Dornishmen.

"Ser Robar Royce is a fine warrior. He's a Valeman of the old blood. He would placate them well enough."

"And untested in battle." Stannis said.

"So were Loras and Swann, until the war. And yet they fought well.
Renly shrugged. "Then hold a tourney, with the winner being chosen for the Kingsguard if they are suitable. I'll pay for it out of my own coffers. Give the people their show, and win a great knight to stand by your side."

"And if they aren't, we shall have wasted funds we don't have on nothing."

"Not on nothing. The people love tourneys. The pageantry, the fine food, the chance to see the finest swords in the realm fight for their entertainment. Besides, between the jousts and the melee, there should be a champion who is suitable for the kingsguard. And it would be the perfect occasion to announce that Margaery is pregnant. Your heir has an heir."


Stannis gritted his teeth. "Truly a miracle."

"I do believe I got Margaery pregnant swifter than you did Selyse."

That was something of an exaggeration, but he couldn't resist the opening.

Stannis looked to respond, then stopped himself. "If you want to pay for something out of your own money, pay for Tane's army. She wants tens of thousands of dragons to pay for the force we need."

"Oh, I think I have quite enough money to assist with both."

"No thanks to you. Lord Baelish was-"

"Jon Arryn's idea." Renly said. "If a man bakes twenty pies and takes a few for himself, I see no problem. Little did we know he was stealing our flour to make his pies, and saying he only made two when he was making twenty."

"You were Master of Laws. That was your duty." Stannis said.

"You did nothing either even though you knew." Renly said.

"Only because I lacked enough evidence to move against Lord Baelish. I needed to destroy him, not merely warn him to be more careful covering his tracks."

"And why not the same for me?" Renly asked. "I brought down the Lannisters, while you waited for the opportunity I created."

Fled in fear, more like. Where was your duty then?

"The Lannisters would kill me like they did Jon Arryn."

So you left Robert to his death.

"Do you know what being King means?" Renly suddenly asked.

"It means that it is my duty to rule the Andals, Roynar, and First Men." Stannis said, grinding his teeth.

"It means making men love and fear you both. It means making men believe you are king, with as much faith as they hold in the gods."

"There are no gods, or they are cruel and not to be worshipped." Stannis's face was cold and hard. "I knew that the moment our parents died before our eyes. All that matters are the laws of men."

"Love and fear are real, though, and they win and keep thrones. Ask Robert how he brought down the Targaryens. Men no longer feared them when the dragons died, and then a monster like Aerys comes along… no love, only hate. And if you want the people to love you, you must give them what they want. The Valryians had a saying. "Panyr Ludyr." Feasts and Games. That is how you win the hearts of men, and the power to make men fear you."

 

[Jarrik32]

While Renly would but just as bad at being king and his 'dear' brother and probably even worse; he isn't wrong about the value of PR. People who hate you have a habit of ignoring the costs to themselves if their angry enough and while you can't please everyone pissing off everyone is a recipe for disaster.

Let's not even touch his plans to change the rules of succession. Westeros is a land of fossils glorifying even idolising events that happened 8 thousand years ago. Changing something as important and emotionally invested as inheritance is liable to cause s rebellion.

 

[Balaur]

Tane leaned back against the chair in the small council chamber, tapping her finger on the table. The meeting would be due in a few minutes. She could guess what it was going to be; more dire warnings about the preachings of some septon or another, more arguments about how bloody expensive Stannis's new army was and how to raise money for it, Randyll Tarly picking a fight with her over some triviality of equipment or training in his I'm-the-real-soldier-you're-just-a-lowly-women game of oneupsmanship, and then another letter about the latest disaster at the wall.

She could scarcely believe what was going on up there. Demons were real; of course; she'd seen enough war witches in action to know that, even if they were invisible to the natural eyes. Even talk of pale beings leading hordes of minions was within reason. The fair folk of her own world had enslaved humanity with their witchcraft, after all; and some demons could possess humans and use them as their vehicles in the physical world. What got her was that this was the walking dead they were dealing with.

Death broke the connection between body, mind and soul. If these northern fey had some way to restore the vital force to a dead body… that was powerful magic, unprecedented even. The moving hand-long rotted away now-suggested that the wights didn't need a mind or a soul; only dead flesh and black magic.

Morgan said it would be more powerful than even the fountain of youth or the rituals of immortality. That merely stopped aging and boosted the bodies natural healing processes, not allowed the dead to walk as the slaves of the living.

To the people of the old world, Fey must have seemed scarcely believable. Arthur still came to the new world and defeated the unbelievable.

The door creaked open, interrupting her thoughts, as Stannis Baratheon strode into the room, Melisandre gliding after him. He looked even more hardset and determined than usual.

"There is grave news from the wall, graver even than last time." he said.

"Are there more savages? Has the army of the dead attacked?" Guncer Sunglass asked.

"Not quite that dire. The watchers on the wall and the few short-range patrols have seen small groups of wights and even Others travelling near the wall. Lord-Commander Bowen Marsh fears that they are scouts, and that the Others are massing to breach the wall. After they killed the last Wildling survivors at Hardhome, this is the first activity we have heard of from the Others." Davos explained, rubbing the bag that held his fingerbones.

"Then they're retreating." Randyll spat. "The Watch and the Wall did it's job. They've killed what they can but cannot pass. What is there to fear?"

"Many things. I see a wall torn down in my fires. Sometimes by giants, sometimes by krakens, sometimes by dragons." Melisandre said.

"Your fires have lied before." Stannis said. "They showed Joffrey crowned and a traitor who claimed the Iron Throne beheaded. You said Tywin would be shot through with bolts by his son."

"Both of those came true. Joffrey was a traitor, and he falsely claimed the crown. The fires tell it true, it is only the failings of mortals that distort their meaning. And Tywin was shot with crossbows because of his son's actions."

"It's a wall. With nothing covering its flanks people can go around those." Tane said. "These Others, White Walkers, Ice Fey, whatever you want to call them, they bring the cold, right?"

If magic could suck the force out of an object, like a ward slowing bullets then it stood to reason that magic could suck the heat out as well.

"The Great Other is to Ice as the Lord of Light is to Fire." Melisandre intoned.

"Well then, they can freeze the waters and flank around the wall" Tane continued.

Undead not being able to walk through running water was a common superstition. She didn't put much stock in it. Then again, undead existing in the first place was a common superstition, and look where they were now…

"The northerners have enough men to deal with this. We should look to the east. What news of the bastards and the dragons?" Randyll asked.

"Nothing good. Last I heard, the Golden Company stormed Yunkai, and Daenerys is building war galleys after marrying another supposed Targaryen who calls himself Aegon." Davos said.

For a while, it had looked like the Targaryen problem might solve itself, with Dany vanishing from Meereen and the city under siege, but then there had come rumours of Daenerys returning to the city with a horde of Dothraki at her back, and of the Golden Company marching east to her aid.

"Aegon died in the sack, how could he be in the east-" Guncer said, shocked.

"The dead are restless lately" Renly answered.

"He's almost certainly an imposter." Tane said.

"There is more." Davos said. "There are no ships coming or going from the Iron Islands, and from what I have been able to discover, shortly after Balon died his brother Euron seized the islands. He is a cruel and dangerous man exiled for raping his brother's wife. We would do well to prepare for another Ironborn revolt."

"There is but one option. Randyll, you are right, the North has strong armies. The Royal Army will remain in the south to ward against all threats. I will personally lead a detachment of the royal fleet north in two weeks time, to see the situation on the wall for myself." Stannis said.

That was a change. The expedition had been in the works ever since the gravity of the situation in the north became clear, but this was the first she'd heard of Stannis leading the expedition himself.

"Surely you cannot think to risk yourself in those heathen lands-" Guncer said.

"A king should lead his men at war, not leave it to criminals and exiles." Renly said. "Brother, this is an excellent choice."

Stannis nodded grimly. "I expect to return with King's Landing in good hands."

"May the Lord of Light be with us in these terrible times." Melisandre added.

*

The flames roared into the night sky, sparks going fluttering as idols burned. They were of a hundred gods; a dozen faiths, trophies of wars across the narrow sea.

Tane's hand rested uneasily on the hilt of her rapier. She'd never been particularly religious, but even so, Melisandre's fanaticism unnerved her. The Triadist priest-scholars had forced out many lesser religions over the years, but it had devoured and digested them, rooting about in their remains for bits of true theology, not burned them wholesale as offerings like some war-witch cutting chicken throats before a battle.

"There's a disturbance in the aether around her" Morgan said beside her. "Not like a witch or a demon. Something else. It's the first thing I've seen in the aether besides souls since we arrived here. It comes every time I've seen her at the nightfire."

Tane shivered under her wool cassock, the sleeves buttoned up against the cold. That wasn't what brought the chill, though.

"I have something to ask of you." Stannis said behind her.

She jerked around. Stannis loomed over her, more than a head taller. She was taller than most women and many men, but even so, standing in front of Stannis, she felt in the shadow of a giant.

"Yes, your Grace?" Tane asked.

"I want your witch"-he pronounced the word like it tasted of venom-"to accompany me to the north. She has what you call a third eye, yes?"

"A third eye and a second sight, and the knowledge to do more." Morgan said, turning to face him. Her dress rustled against the scabbard of her rapier. Her face was as still as a lake. Sometimes Tane forgot how strange Morgan was to people who weren't used to her. Part of it was that Morgan played up her strangeness, for her own amusement and her reputation as a war-witch. Part of it was that she actually was that odd.

Tane knew something like this was coming. Stannis wouldn't have insisted that she visit the nightfires otherwise.

"Melisandre says that she sees souls. I want her to see the true nature of the walking dead. I have sent for the Maesters to send a representative."

"You wanted my forces in the south. We'll need our full strength in the south." Tane said. "Morgan is part of my full strength."

"Our armour can skip their weapons without wards, and we've got more than enough firepower to break up formations without witchcraft. There's no demons for me to bind here and the watchers in the walls are gone after we got rid of Varys, for the most part. I'm more useful in the north." Morgan said, switching instantly into her soldier's tone.

Morgan was her most powerful weapon; the only witch on the planet, as far as Tane knew. Still though, she was right. Morgan Half-Fey had been Arthur's clever left hand in the war against the Fey, fending off their witchcraft while his better armed warriors overwhelmed the Fey in melee. The Westerosi had no such advantage that needed to be countered. Her own Morgan could go north.

"You have my leave." Tane said, nodding to Morgan. "We've got plenty of powder, lead and steel in the south. Magic is what is needed in the north."

 

[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. 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 crab-claw hilted 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. They had been here for only a few moons, after having to leave Tyrosh in a hurry when Petyr heard rumours that sellswords were planning on kidnapping Tommen for a bounty.

"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 men's quarters. 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. Every other band of sellswords she'd approached had named too high a price, or had been too few to actually be an effective force.

"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, she'd united with Aegon, another Targaryen candidate, and was busy gathering her forces in Slaver's Bay to move on Volantis.

"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 Magister Nelyn's manse.

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 exploding pots and hissing 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. We have to wait."

"No." Petyr said. "We must act, seek out new allies. And I have just the plan for that."

He turned away, smiling to myself.

 

[Balaur]

A Horse Grenadier in action:

 

[Balaur]

Stannis lifted his hard gaze from the pile of parchment he was looking over in his solar as Renly entered and shut the door behind himself.

"You have scribes for that, you know." Renly said. He'd been summoned to meet with Stannis to discuss the final preparations for the Northern expedition.

"Robert trusted his underlings to deal with such matters, and look where that got him. I have intention of repeating his mistakes. Neither should you" Stannis said. Renly rankled. He was Hand of the King, scarred in battle, not some squire to be told off.

"In any case, the preparations for the expedition are almost ready." Stannis continued. "I will be taking half the royal fleet. The other half will be left behind in King's Landing as a line of defence against the Ironborn, Targaryens and Myrish. Half the necessary victuals have already been loaded, and the others are stockpiled. There's little booty in the North, and the treasury is overstrained as-is."

He continued on like that for what seemed like an eternity, explaining every detail of the preparations for his expedition-ships, supplies, manpower, leadership. Renly's eyes glazed over.

There was only thing Stannis missed, and only thing that Renly actually cared about: Which of the Kingsguard were being sent north?

"Additionally, our Maester informs me that he found references to dragonglass being able to harm Wights. I have ordered obsidian from Dragonstone prepared to be picked up by the fleet on the way out-"

"Which of the kingsguard will you be taking with you? Surely not all of them? I am your heir, and Selyse and Shireen need protection as well."

"Indeed." Stannis said. "Arys Oakheart, Balon Swann, Emmon Cuy, and Loras Tyrell. Good men all."

He mistrusts Oakheart for not discovering the incest, Emmon Cuy was one of my picks, he must know Loras is only loyal to me…

Those weren't men he trusted with his life. They were men he wanted an eye kept on.

"Margaery might be bearing your heir. Surely a proven warrior of House Tyrell would be best to protect her-"

"She has the Tyrell household guard with her. Spread the kingsguard too thin and they are next to useless. Seven men can scarcely cover one man, let alone a whole family. She's safer with her Men-at-Arms. You rely on the Grenadiers, don't you?"

Truth be told, lately he didn't. Back before the war, what seemed an eternity ago, Tane was in his pocket and his most potent weapon. Now, he couldn't tell who she was loyal to-himself, Stannis, herself, the Commonwealth she sometimes spoke of...

He preferred to rely on his household men for that kind of protection.

"I would prefer knights of the kingsguard protecting my dear Margaery. She is pregnant with my heir."


"It is Loras you want to protect, not Margaery." Stannis said, his tone barely changing.


He knows. Spies amongst the servants, or Margaery not being able to keep her mouth shut and telling one of her friends.

"Is it-"

"I do not care if you want to keep a catamite, distasteful as it is. At least Loras will produce no bastards, and you have done your duty and produced an heir. Just as Loras will do his. He was elevated to the Kingsguard. He shall guard his king."

Renly's fists balls under the desk. Catamite? Loras was not some Essosi boy-whore, but a highborn knight proven in battle, every part the equal of himself and Stannis.

"Even though you are leaving three knights behind? Why not ask one of them to be your fourth, not Loras?"

"At the Battle of the Goldroad, Loras took part in the charge to break the Lannister rearguard after Ser Rolland Stormsong outflanked them. He drove his lance through Clegane's breastplate, sorely wounding him. I want only the finest knights accompanying me against the savages and demons."

Loras had told him of that many times before. Sweet vengeance for the tourney of King's Landing.

You want a hostage against House Tyrell and your own brother.

"Just as your queen and your heir need fine knights! Lions and dragons lurk across the narrow sea, waiting for the chance to pounce. Euron will make his play sooner or later. The wall protects us from the North, and Ned has plenty of soldiers to protect his own lands."

Stannis glowered. "So do you. My decision is final. I sail in two days times."

Renly ground his teeth as the dull aching pain of his scar started up again.

"A king should listen to his advisors-"

"But he must not let them rule him. That was where Robert failed. The people serve the king and the king serves the people."

"As you wish." Renly said, resigned. He'd fought Stannis to a standstill last time he had tried to take Loras from him. He could never win such a fight. Stannis was immovable on such matters, and trying to push the immovable would only make him look a fool. "I will keep the realm in good order for you when you return."

If you return.

If Stannis died in the north, he could easily lay hold of the entire seven kingdoms. In these dark times, he was what was needed to unify the realm and lead it to victory, not a tight-fisted, humourless brute.

*

The cannons roared, hurling stone cannonballs from the prows of the Margaery Rose and Salt & Smoke out into Blackwater Bay as the first of the royal fleet set sail for the north. Crowned stags-the lions of Robert's day long gone-flew fluttering over the warships, at least three dozen in numbers, and the supply cogs and heavy dromons that sailed in the middle of the convoy.

By the time the last of the ships had pulled out from the docks, the first few ships were well out into the bay, sparkling green under the midday sun.

He'd said his goodbyes to Loras last night. When the sun set, no candle could replace it, but it would rise again.

Even the long night had ended.

"King's Landing will be all the darker without them." Selyse said. "Alas, the Red God calls north."

A good thing. Melisandre's light was like looking into the sun. Renly was glad for her to be gone.

He turned back from the battlements, gazing out over the city.

Once he had been a third son, sure to inherit nothing besides what he could be gifted or earned. Then he had been made Lord of Storm's End, elevated above the tooth-grinder and his men, and risen further to become Master of Laws.

Now, he stood hand of the King, master of the realm, and he intended to end his life even higher. He had work to do.

 

[Balaur]

Lord Renly Baratheon: