Lord Lannister swung himself into the saddle with a lightness that Ser Joren Potts couldn't help envying. There had only been time for a few snatched hours of sleep in the night before the army had to awaken again and get itself in order for this new day of battle. Joren could feel every ache and pain in his muscles and bones from the day before, and he was young and strong. What the older men like iron-bearded Ser Mikkel Bedvyr might feel like he didn't care to imagine.

But a look down the line of the army was enough to banish pain. Devil Dario had thrown the best and strongest blow he could hope to throw at the Army of the South the day before, and only a fool would deny that it was battered and bruised. But that same bruising had made it angry, like a proud man feeling a slight. And the news that Lord Corbray was down with what promised to be a mortal wound had fanned the sullen fire in the hearts of the men; Lord Corbray was the Stormcrow, the shield and sword of the southern kingdom. He had led these men in raid, battle and siege a dozen times or more. They wanted revenge for his blood.

Lord Lannister sat his horse like a graven image for a long moment, the remnants of gilding on his armor glinting even in the half-light of the early dawn, and then he walked his horse out in front of the line with his standard-bearer and raised a gauntleted hand. "Brothers!" he shouted. "These dogs of slavers feared us so much that they only dared attack us in our sleep! Imagine how they shall fear us now that we are roused in wrath!"

A bloodthirsty howl from the serried ranks, where men from half a dozen different companies might be clustered under a single banner and knights and men-at-arms who had no horses stood in the rear ranks of the Legion, ready to plug any gaps that opened or plunge into any general scrums that developed.

"Yesterday, we cried 'Free or Dead'," Lord Lannister continued. "But we are free, and will remain so until we die, and all know this! So today, we shall take a new cry, one that shall tell the slavers what we will do to any who would place chains upon free men!" He drew his sword and raised it overhead, and the rising sun flamed on the blade. "Feed the Birds!" he roared.

"Feed the Birds!" the Army chorused back, brandishing spears and swords. "Feed the Birds! Feed the Birds!"

"For our Stormcrow and revenge!" Lord Lannister bellowed, turning his horse to level his sword at the camp where the slavers waited. "At them!"

The infantry stepped off with a wordless roar and Joren spurred his horse forward, taking his war hammer off his shoulder as the chivalry rumbled forward, knights and squires and men-at-arms snarling fury around him. As one of the senior landed knights in Lord Corbray's former retinue, he was their second-in-command this day; Ser Henryk Ford had command, as the senior survivor of Lord Corbray's household knights. But Joren didn't think that there would be much need for orders this day. Every man knew what was to be done, and wanted it with all his heart. Lord Corbray had been the best of lords, after King Robert, and there was not a man of his knights that was not chanting "Stormcrow, Stormcrow, Stormcrow!" as they roweled their chargers into the canter.

XXX

"The sellswords folded!" Captain Nakano Sanolis yelled as he saw Captain-General Naharis come pounding up with his household. "Folded like ragdolls, the cowards . . ."

"I'll deal with the sellswords!" Naharis shouted. "In the meantime, get your company back in order and back in the fight . . ."

"They've been in the fucking fight!" Sanolis howled, indignation overwhelming the despair that had started to creep into his veins. "They've been in the fucking fight for the last day and a half, while those cowardly fucks in the sellsword companies looted the enemies we killed for them . . ."

"I said I'll deal with the fucking sellswords!" Naharis roared back, his face stormy above his pointed beard and mustachios, which were in disarray from the hard days and nights that had brought them to this field. "But I can't do that without your company keeping those bastards," he gestured at the Myrish knights reforming in the distance, "from collapsing our flank! Now lead your men, Captain, or I'll find someone who will!"

Sanolis felt hot anger surge through his veins and turn his vision red for a long moment before discipline reasserted itself. "At your command, sir," he snarled as he wheeled his horse and started bawling for his men to reform, reform! They would survive this day where nothing was going right, and he would have a reckoning with this upjumped mercenary who thought he could speak to a scion of a proud house of the Old Blood like a master spoke to a slave.

Behind him, Daario Naharis shook his head in frustration; he knew he had just made a mortal enemy, but it couldn't be helped. Any other army would have broken under the beating he had given them yesterday, but the fucking abolitionists had somehow managed to pull themselves together overnight and now they were pressing him for everything he was worth. They hadn't broken his line yet, but only by a miracle. He had started the battle yesterday with thirty captains; by midnight he had had nineteen fit for duty, and four of those had already gone down, with the sun not yet at high noon. The lieutenants and corporals had taken similar casualties, and the companies they officered were becoming more rickety by the hour. The two companies of Unsullied that formed the center of his line were as steady as ever, of course, but they had already had to withdraw under cover of cavalry attacks twice to avoid being outflanked. Even the Unsullied couldn't hold a phalanx against attacks from front and flank at the same time, not unless they had time to form a hedgehog. And being forced back into the campground had disrupted their ability to form that phalanx, what with all the tents and other obstructions being in the way.

He wheeled his horse, swearing savagely as he did; damn Lyn Corbray and every lord and knight of Myr to the deepest of their seven hells for pulling a miracle out of their ass like this. Was it too much to ask that Fortune favor him for once? "Follow me," he growled at his household, reduced to standard-bearer, trumpeter, and a handful of couriers; his Stormcrows were scattered across half the field acting as temporary officers. "I need to talk to the Black Hands." Their captain would have much to answer for if they had indeed folded as Sanolis said they had.

XXX

Jalabhar Xho had never felt so jittery, not even when he had first ascended his throne and had to make his first judgement; he had seen his father do it often enough, and spent years learning how to do it. Nothing had prepared him for this.

This being something on the order of forty thousand men, more or less evenly divided, doing their level best to exterminate each other. Even the wildest imaginings of his youth had not encompassed such a scale of violence. Nor had he guessed what such slaughter would entail in sounds and sights and smells. Gods, I was eager for this?

Not that he could let it show, of course. He was the Prince of Red Flower Vale; he could not show weakness, and fear was weakness. And it wasn't just fear that was making his hands twitch as liquid fire seared along his nerves. It was also fury, and the savage elation that came with having the enemy under your spear. Beside him, Balabos Rhosas's battered face was split by a grin of murderous anticipation as he watched the Legion grind away at the battle-line the slavers had assembled. On the other flank, Ser Jaime was leading the cavalry in charge after charge to try and cave in the slavers' left flank and drive them into the Claymoor Water. So far he was being stymied in that effort, but to do that the slavers had had to pull more and more forces away from their right. At the start of the battle there had been two companies of horse positioned behind the slavers' right flank, ready to pounce on any attempt by the Islanders to leave the boulder field along the bank of the Water and do what the slavers had tried to do the day before. Now both of those companies were gone, except for a single banda that had spread itself out into a widely-spaced line to try and bluff that it was still a mighty force.

Of course, even a single banda of cavalry could still wreak havoc on infantry that wasn't formed to repel them, especially if they were busy fighting someone else when the cavalry hit. Although there were ways to counter that . . . Jalabhar glanced at Balabos, who caught his eye and shook his head. "Not yet," he rasped; everyone was hoarse and harsh of voice this morning, from all the shouting the day before. "Wait for them to stall the Legion, think they can still win. We'll shock the shit out of them."

Jalabhar nodded, fingering the arrows in the bag that hung at his waist. He was a fair hand with spear and mace, but he was best with the goldenheart bow that was the guardian of the freedom of Islands. It was a common saying that a Summer Islander archer carried forty men's lives in his arrow bag. Jalabhar had only half that many after yesterday's fighting, but he meant to make the saying true.

And even to his inexperienced eye it looked like he would have the opportunity soon. The Legion and the dismounted knights were doing everything that men could, but so far the slavers had managed to hold them to a bloody stalemate, if at the cost of giving ground. The Unsullied were upholding their reputation as the best defensive infantry in the known world, but the Lyseni and the sellswords fighting on either side of them didn't have the same ironbound discipline. What they did have was desperation; they had to know as well as Jalabhar did that if the Army of the South broke them then it would make mainland Lys a welter of blood from the border hills to the sea strand. Animals, Jalabhar had learned from his father and uncles on his first hunt, were never more dangerous than when they were cornered. Men, he had found, were no different.

Before his eyes the slow progress of the Legion slowed even further as a company of sellswords distinguished by red cloths wrapped around their helmets was committed. Jalabhar looked at Balabos again; Balabos shook his head again. "Not yet," he repeated.

XXX

"Blind me, gods," Daario Naharis whispered to himself as he saw a wave of bellowing warriors come boiling out of the boulder field on his right. The green banda of the Wild Hunt, the last cavalry reserve he had on that flank, rocked forward into the beginnings of a charge as the enemy broke cover, but Daario knew what was going to happen next even before it happened; no competent commander would have let his troops expose themselves to cavalry in that way if they didn't have a plan to deal with that cavalry. He flicked his eyes towards the boulders and saw, with sickening certainty that archers had been lifted up onto the boulders, where they could shoot over the heads of their comrades. He also saw, with numbing dread, that they were Summer Islanders; if the guttural war cry they had voiced hadn't given it away, the bows they bent would have; goldenheart wood had a distinctive sheen, even at this distance.

The strongest bows in the world were made from goldenheart wood; only weirwood and dragonbone compared. The charge of the Wild Hunt came apart before Daario's eyes as the yard-long shafts of the Islanders tore through their horses, spilling riders to the unforgiving earth. At the same time, the other Islanders went at the militia company that formed Daario's right flank with a roar and tore it apart. Even the Unsullied might have crumbled under that onslaught, pinned from the front by heavy infantry and caught in the flank by Islander headhunters. As Daario watched the debacle unfold he felt the abyss open beneath him. He had no cavalry still in reserve, nothing that could restore the situation quickly. His Stormcrows were holding his left against the Myrish chivalry by luck, guts, and the help of the remaining diehards in his cavalry companies, those that weren't temporarily commanding otherwise leaderless companies. Virtually all his infantry was in the line that had just ground the Iron Legion to a halt; his only reserve was one company of sellswords, the Maiden's Men, and the odds that they would be willing to charge into that maelstrom on a slim hope of restoring the balance were long; a sellsword's contract obligated him to be brave, but not suicidal.

There were, in fact, only two things he could do. He turned to one of his two remaining couriers. "Bring the Maiden's Men up and have them form a line a hundred yards behind where we are now," he said briskly. "Inform Captain Haegert that he has my express permission to use any means necessary to halt fleeing men and bring them back into order." As the courier galloped away he turned to his standard-bearer and trumpeter. "With me, gentlemen, and stay right on my heels if you please," he said, and raked his spurs down his horse's flanks.

He was shouting even as he reached the first fugitives from the flank's collapse. "Rally, boys! Rally on the Maiden's Men! Don't disgrace yourselves!" He turned his horse and began cantering the length of the faltering line. "Back, boys!" he roared. "Back, and rally on the Maiden's Men! Courage now, lads; keep with your officers!" His men obeyed, too well. Men began to stream backwards from the line, some discarding weapons and shields. Daario, seized by desperation, tore his helmet from his head and brandished it high, sunlight glancing from the burnished metal and horsehair plume streaming. "Rally to me, lads!" he bellowed. "Here is your Captain! Come on, lads, don't disgrace me, not now! Stand to your Captain, men!" Arrows and crossbow bolts began whistling past him but he cantered on, throwing caution to the winds as he resorted to beseeching for once in his life. "Rally to your Captain, men!" he begged. "For your homes, your families, and your lives, rally to me! To me, men of Essos! Don't disgrace your banners, rally to me!" He cast aside his helmet and seized a Lyseni banner from a fleeing standard-bearer, punching it into the air. "Rally to the Lady, men!" he implored. "Defend your Lady, don't let the foreigners defile her! Rally to me and the Lady, men of Lys, of Volantis, of Essos! Rally, rally, rally!"

Between his entreaties, his trumpeter blowing regroup until he was red in the face and gasping, and what he could only describe as a miracle, the burgeoning retreat slowed. Men began to clump together again, around lieutenants and sergeants and corporals. Instead of running they walked, many of them backwards to keep their shields and their spears towards the foe with one of their number facing rearwards and calling the step. Daario felt an arrow spang off his pauldron but when it didn't go home in his head or neck he ignored the blow and rode on, bawling for his men to rally, to stand together, to hold fast for their gods, their families, and their freedoms.

XXX

Ser Joren Potts handed his helmet and gauntlets to his squire Draqos and knelt at Lord Corbray's bedside. "You called for me, my lord?" he asked.

Lord Corbray's eyes, already glassy with fever from the wound-rot that Joren could already smell from under his bandages, focused on him. "I did, Ser Joren," he said softly. "The day went well?"

Joren nodded. "We drove the enemy out of the camp, and down the Water for half a mile," he replied. "We nearly broke them entirely, but Devil Daario rallied them by some art of the hells. Lord Lannister thinks that he will withdraw, though, rather than risk another day of battle. Even the skeptics agree with him." He shook his head. "You should have seen it, my lord; the whole army was chanting your name as the slavers retreated. Even men I know are Baelorites. Every man I've spoken to thinks the Lyseni are finished if only Lord Greyjoy breaks their fleet as we have their army, for all Devil Daario can do."

Lord Corbray nodded. "A splendid day, then, and pass my compliments to the men for it. As for Naharis," his voice turned wry. "The Lord of the Seven Hells takes care of his own. But even Naharis won't push his luck too far; he's too much the sellsword. But enough of that; I would have you do me a service, ser."

Joren nodded. "Anything, my lord."

"Finish me off," Lord Corbray said bluntly. "I'd rather die with all my faculties intact, instead of going mad with disease."

Joren's jaw dropped. "My lord, is this even permissible?" he asked when he finally mastered his shock. "The Faith . . ."

"The Faith can lick my ass on this question," Lord Corbray said crudely. "A septon might be able to bear dying like a sheep, but not me. A son of House Corbray should only die on his own terms. Besides," he smirked crookedly, "I put in my will that if I took a mortal wound and one of my knights put me out of my misery, they were to be the first of my heirs to have their portion settled, after my wife and children. It's not much, just the rents of a few villages near Sirmium, but the lawyers won't be able to peel it off to settle any debts I've forgotten about."

Joren's jaw dropped again. "My lord, I've always been your man," he said. "But to put me in your will . . ."

"Is no more than you deserve, ser knight," Lord Corbray insisted. "You and I have had our differences, deny it if you like, but you never made a show of them. Nor did you ever let it affect your fealty to me." He reached out and clutched at Joren's arm. "You've always been one of the best of my knights, ser. Don't fail me now. There's no one else I would trust with this."

Joren hesitated, then drew his dagger. "Where do you want it, my lord?" he asked.

"Straight to the heart," Lord Corbray said, letting go of Joren's arm and plucking at his shirt. "And don't cock it up, ser knight; I've had enough pain and inconvenience for one lifetime already."

Joren gulped, whispered a prayer to steady his nerves, and then thrust.

Lord Corbray was a legend even before his final battle, but his death, coming as it did at the close of such a hard-fought victory, made him into a myth. The story that his last words were "Myr. The Army, Freedom. Lady Forlorn." is now considered an invention of various writers of chivalric propaganda in King Robert's court, but it was incontestably believed to be true until a few short decades ago. Even his rivals found themselves singing his praises. Septon Edmynd, one of the most prominent Baelorite septons in the Kingdom of Myr, offered a eulogy wherein he said of Lyn Corbray that, his heresy notwithstanding, he "by his zeal for glory, by the prudence of his counsel, by his heroic bravery in the field, and by the steadfast rigor of his rule, was one of the miracles of the Seven."

Champion or Charlatan?: A critical study of Lord Lyn Corbray and his deeds by Maester Gilbert, written for New Medieval Studies periodical.