14. Gendry

The day after Arya left her sister arrived at the gates with forty thousand soldiers.

She had been hiding in the Vale for most of the last two years, the whispers said. The one they called Littlefinger had married and murdered her Tully aunt and had tried to use Sansa to make himself Warden of the North as well as Regent of the Vale; but she had got the better of him and he was freezing in a moon cell in the mountain fortress.

Three months ago a emissary from the Citadel had been sent to all the great houses prophesying the fall of the wall and the calling for every warrior that was able to go north to stand in the second great battle (no one knew what had happened to the emissary sent North, or to any ravens that had brought the tidings). Lady Sansa had convinced Robin Arryn, her cousin to call together the lords of the Vale, and she herself led the assembled army out of the mountains and across the Riverlands, collecting men as she went. Thirty thousand Dornishmen joined her host in the North, led by Arianne Martell of Dorne. They too had responded to the call, and had sailed into White Harbor two weeks prior.

There was no room for the soldiers in the keep of course, especially not with the Northern lords still camped throughout the Godswood and the yards, and the spread across the plain in front of Winterfell, turning the white fields black.

Sansa herself rode though the gates without opposition, and smoothly took control. Gendry watched her arrive from the door of the forge, arms folded. She looked little like the sister he had heard Arya describe. This woman was confident, and direct; her face (beautiful, but so unlike Arya's) was composed and her expression shrewd. She didn't know her sister was alive, Gendry thought. Like Arya, she thought she was the only one left. He went back into the forge.

Gendry had spent the day before making a mold for the greatsword that Oathbreaker and the Widow's Wail would become. Milken had kept many molds of different shapes and sizes, but none large enough for a greatsword; Gendry had had to join his two largest together. That night he had melted the two together; the heat required to work the Valerian steel was much greater than the heat Gendry was used to working with, closer to the level that had been required to melt the obsidian.

When he reheated the metal the morning of Sansa's arrival to shape it, he found that what he had poured was brittle and nearly unusable. The metal snapped in the fire and he had to start again, this time heating the metal to an even higher heat before placing it into the mold. The steel was a sickening red and black, a result, he knew, from a type of dye that Tohbo often used in softer metal. When metal and the mold had cooled, he found it still too brittle to work with. He started to grow frustrated. If Tohbo had split the sword, he should be able to remake it.

He was pouring the metal into the mold for the third time when the maester arrived. Gendry had propped the door open to let out the heat from the extra-hot fire, and the maester hovered awkwardly outside for a few minutes before entering.

"Hello!" said the master, who Gendry saw was still young, with chubby cheeks and a thin beard. He reminded Gendry of Hot Pie. "I heard you were the blacksmith. I mean I can see you are the blacksmith, what I heard was that you have been working with some of the obsidian powder."

"I have," said Gendry, keeping half of his attention on the molten metal in the mold, looking at how it cooled.

"Good! That's good!" said the maester. "Oh, I'm Sam by the way. Samwell Tarly. And you're Gendry. Baratheon." Gendry turned to look at him fully. "I mean, uh, Waters," said the maester hurriedly. "What I mean is, I've been reading everything I can find on obsidian at the Citadel, you see, it's really the only thing that will stop the White Walkers."

"The what?" said Gendry.

"The White Walkers! From behind the wall. Surely you've heard of them here?" Sam looked concerned by the possibility that Gendry hadn't heard of them.

"You mean the things that raise the dead?" said Gendry. "Aye, sure I heard of them. You were the maester that sent that raven a few months back then?"

"Yes, I did! Right before I left. So you see, I don't know much about smithing, I do have a my link—" he thrust a pale steel link at Gendry — " but I'm afraid that's because I did so well on the theory exam, seemed like no one had ever bothered to memorize all the properties of metals — but in any case, I've thought for some time that the proper thing to do would be to mix that dust into the metal and have obsidian swords - the daggers are just too small for combat, and there isn't enough solid obsidian to go around—"

"Yea I tried that, doesn't work," Gendry grunted.

"What do you mean, doesn't work?" said Sam.

"I mean the steel and the powder, they — get hot at different temperatures." Gendry stumbled a bit; he couldn't remember ever explaining smithing in words to anyone, he just knew what he knew. "And so they also cool at different temperatures, and then the metal is worthless, it breaks. Here—" Gendry walked to the cluttered table where the obsidian sword he had tried to forge lay, picked it up and threw it handle first to the maester, who droped it. Sam picked it up and Gendry said, "Hit something with it. Anything."

Sam nervously gripped the weapon and then swung it, not hard, against the stone door frame. The blade gave a short white of protest and cleaved into two jagged halves on impact. "Besides, I'm just one man. I can't make weapons for an army," Gendry added.

Samwell was still staring at the broken sword, looking profoundly disappointed. "Have you tried anything else?" he said.

"Well there's that," Gendry scoffed, pointing to the sword he had coated in obsidian powder in a fit of frustration a week ago. The blade looked like it had been dipped in tar. The maester walked to the tar-sword from Gendry and examined it closely. "This is simple… this could be done by almost anyone, with campfire…"

Gendry felt a stab of annoyance. "You can't be serious. That blade is ridiculous."

Samwell looked at him sharply. "Right now we've got an army with weapons that don't work. Obsidian is the only thing that we can use against the White Walkers—that and Valyrian steel." Gendry looked involuntarily at the greatsword mold, where enough Valyrian steel for three weapons was cooling into long, blood-red block. Sam followed his eyes.

"What—" the maester began, taking a step toward the metal. Gendry took another look and picked out a few fine lines in the red swirls that shouldn't be there. He would have to recast it again. He sighed.

"This is Valyrian steel!" Sam cried excitedly. Gendry shifted uncomfortably. It hadn't occurred to him to worry before, but this maester could make a lot of trouble for him if he tried. "It may be," said Gendry, crossing his arms and setting his jaw.

"Where—where did you get it? And why is — red like that?" said Sam. He seemed disconcerted, perhaps because at his full height Gendry towered nearly a foot over him. And the cut on his face from Arya's cuffs must look bad, he thought.

"It doesn't matter where I got it," Gendry said

"Well you must have got it from somebody, I mean, there only maybe forty Valyrian blades in the seven Kingdoms, and to have enough steel for a Greatsword, unless you know how to forge it, but you couldn't, oh, that could mean three more knights with real weapons, I'll have to tell Lady Sansa—"

Sam was pacing nervously back and forth, gesticulating absent-mindedly with the broken but still very sharp obsidian steel sword. Gendry's annoyance grew until it bubbled over, and he picked up the second sword from the table and brought it to the chubby maester's throat. Sam froze and dropped the broken sword on the dusty floor of the forge.

"Look. I get that you've done all sorts of book learning and think you know all sorts of things about how things work," Gendry said, staring the quivering maester. "I'm sure you want to know how a bastard came to have Valyrian steel. All I'm going to tell you is that the steel was given to me, and given to me for one purpose only. And I'm not going to leave this forge until I've completed that task. Do you understand?"

Sam nodded. Gendry could see that he was sweating profusely, but he stood his ground, and as Gendry watched, set his mouth into a firm line.

"All right. But you have to promise me something—that you'll fight. The wall's going to come down any day now — it's in the prophecies, and we're la-late, so terribly late. We missed the signs, and we're going to need all of the help we can ge-get."

Gendry's eyes softened. He liked this man, he was sincere. He'd clearly been through a lot. Gendry lowered his sword, feeling somewhat guilty, but too stubborn to apologize, turned back to his work. Sam's shoulders slumped forward in relief when the steel was taken from his neck, his breath coming in great gulps, and he moved almost involuntarily toward the door. He paused in the open frame and turned back toward Gendry, who was already engrossed in his task.

"You do look a lot like him, you know," Sam said,

"Renly?" said Gendry, without looking up.

"No—Stannis."

After that, Gendry lost track of time.

Valyrian steel was difficult to work with, he knew. Only blacksmiths from Qohor knew the secret, but Gendry had trained under a blacksmith from Qohor. When he was in Tohbo Mott's shop he had only seen his master work with Valyrian steel once, to reforge a thick dagger into two light knives for a Southron house. Gendry had been responsible for folding the steel. He remembered spending much longer on it than he had expected to for a reforging job; Mott had told him to keep folding and refolding until he told him to stop, and he hadn't told him to stop for a day and half a night.

He tried this technique on the greatsword, heating the metal until it red hot and folding it upon itself, again and again to remove impurities. The sword was so long and the steel so strong that it took him a long time to complete each fold. He worked an entire day, but by the end he saw that the metal the next day, he saw that it was still unsuitable for shaping. Next he worked through the day and into the night, but still metal was flawed.

Calin started bringing him food; the boy hadn't spoken to him since the night he saw Gendry's fight with Arya, and he looked scared and somewhat ashamed when he came to him the first time, holding out a bowl of mush and a thick slab of bread from the kitchens like a white flag. Gendry was grateful and thanked the boy. Calin remained in the forge, nervously watching as Gendry ate. Gendry asked him what he wanted. "Well, you see Ser… " Calin had never called him that before. "They're making all th' boys move outa of the castle, to sleep wi- with the Dornishmen. I tol' them I was your apprentice but they dinna believe me an.." After that, Calin resumed his duties in the forge, mainly feeding the fire and completing some smaller tasks that the castle people requested, while Gendry focused on the greatsword. He knew that he was acting strangely, and that Calin was telling stories about the six foot, blood-red weapon that Gendry hammered at day and night.

He had begun to shape the sword, something he could do only after folding the metal for a full day and a night. He completed the greatsword for the first time the night Barth arrived, but when he tempered it in water he saw that the metal was unstable, and the blade shattered on the first stroke. The next time, he decided that he needed warmer water, but the again the tempering failed.

Sometime later, Barth came by and and nervously watched from the doorway. Gendry had been folding the sword for more than a day and a night and was caked in soot and sweat. He glanced at Barth and returned to his work.

Barth made a sound of exasperation and stepped into the forge. "Gendry, the boys are worried about you. Calin says you haven't left the forge for nearly a week. And—you've been refusing requests. We've got an army out there, we need a working blacksmith!" Gendry grunted and brought his hammer down particularly hard on the greatsword, which sprayed sparks and sang, a clear, round note. Barth recoiled. "Gendry, please…" he said, and then in a lower voice: "Is it—that thing? Is it making you do this?" He craned his neck, scanning the tables and trying to seen into the backroom, the door to which was slightly ajar. "She left." said Gendry shortly.

That night, the sword shattered again. Gendry threw his hammer at the wall in frustration, chipping the stone and sending some old iron tools clattering to the ground. He needed to get out. He wrapped the pieces of the greatsword the cloth Arya had brought them in and strapped the metal to his back, using an old piece of leather to fashion a makeshift bandolier, and slipped out of the castle and into the night.

Sansa, it seemed, was a natural warlord. He had heard from Calin that her first act at Winterfell had been to charge Lord Karstark with raising what little of the North remained, and bringing them to Winterfell, at the same time establishing herself as the rightful lord of the northern vessels and eliminating one of the most dangerous political elements from her court.

She had appointed Samwell to be her weapons master, and he had ordered the troops who were spread across the plain to learn to fight with fire and obsidian. They spent their days cutting down the forests that encircled the plain to fashion long spears with torches on the end, designed to pierce and then ignite wights. All of the obsidian they had dug from Winterfell had been made into daggers, but Gendry knew that there would still not be enough for a twentieth of this army.

Their fires stretched out for several square miles, turning the winter blue landscape orange. He could see, as he walked through the tents, hundreds of swords heating in campfires. There were short, broad northern blades, and the longer, delicate swords that Gendry knew were favored in the Vale of Arryn, and curved scythes that the realized must belong to the Dornishmen. A thousand beautiful burning blades.

It wasn't until he was halfway across the camp that he realized with horror what they were doing. A red priest was chanting over a Dornish fire - he could tell by the blades, and Gendry paused to watch. The priest's chant grew louder and the men took their swords from the fire, and carefully sprinkled each with a black powder that glinted in the firelight. Obsidian. The maester, he thought angrily, had convinced these men to destroy their steel.

Just then Gendry heard a noise that was like a wind rising, but it was not the wind; a collective cry came rushing through the camp like a wave. "The wall!" panted a northern man-at-arms who came running frantically past the Dornish fire. "The wall has fallen!" The priest's chant turned into a wail and the Dornishmen stood, blades still hot in their hands. There was something coming, and Gendry withdrew into the shadow between two tents to make way. It was a group of thirty or so men wearing ragged black cloaks. There clothing and hair were caked with snow, and they looked dirty and exhausted. A massive crowd had formed behind them and was pushing them forward.

"The wall has fallen!" shouted one of ragged men. He had a rough face and a gray-brown beard. "We have come to warn you—aughh!" The man had been hit by a piece of ice that had been lobbed from the camp and stumbled sideways before regaining his balance. "Coward!" came a shout from the crowd. The cry was repeated and ice began to rain on the brothers—Gendry realized that they were brothers of the Night's Watch—from both sides. The crows broke into a run, aiming for the gates to Winterfell, and passed out of Gendry's sight.

He started again on the greatsword the next day. Time was running short now, and he needed to work faster; all he thought about was steel and fire, all he saw was the blade, its metal shifting and reforming in ever more subtle patterns, always, always tinted with the color of blood. Blood. Blood was warm, and thick; it would hold the heat better than water. That was what he needed, he thought as he swung.

A dim memory came to him: blood on the floor of the forge, in the dust. Tobho had not let him finish the Valyrian steel dagger, but had sent him away, and when he had returned there was blood on the floor of the forge. His master had told him to clean it, and he had asked where it came from. Mott had told him not to ask stupid questions.

If Calin came or went, he did not know; if there was food, he ate; when he could work no longer, he slept. "Queen Margery and Lady Shireen have come," someone whispered, when he had fallen in fatigue on the bench. He stirred. "The army is moving north tomorrow, to try to stop the wights by the crossing of the Last River." Gendry sat up suddenly roaring and Calin screamed and ran from the room, dropping a plate of food on the ground. The sword was still hot on the anvil from before his slumber, and Gendry took up his hammer and swung.

When he finished heating the blade for the last time, he took the burning sword from the fire and carried it out of the forge across the yard. The last light was dying on the horizon, and Winterfell was fast fading into night. He heard a woman scream but did not pause, making his way towards the stables. The horse that he had ridden to Winterfell was still stabled there, among many others; Gendry had effectively given him to the castle when he became blacksmith. The horse reared when he saw the six-foot red sword and tried to back away, but Gendry grabbed his bridle, and plunged the blade into the horse's chest.

The horse screamed, a terrible, high-pitched sound, but Gendry held the blade and the bridle firm. Warm blood poured from the horse's chest, on to his hands and his boots, and splattering on his face. Only when the blood stopped flowing did Gendry remove the sword.

He left the stables and walked back into the courtyard, where a small crowd had gathered. He heard several screams. The greatsword was dripping blood and still glowing faintly, and he knew that his face was covered in blood as well, blue eyes wild. A knight stepped into the yard, sword raised, blocking his return to the forge. He was as large as Gendry, and his face was utterly ruined, a mass of burns on one side and a long scar running down the other. His hair was lanky and unkempt, but his stance was strong.

"You!" Gendry said, the blood and the heat running through his veins, along with something like triumph. He adjusted the greatsword into a fighting stance and raised it to swing.

"STOP!" said a female voice.

It was Sansa Stark. She stepped into the middle of the yard. Her auburn hair piled elegantly on top of her head, and she wore a simple fur-lined robe. "Milady, step back, it's not safe," the Hound muttered, and there was a softness in his gruff voice that made Gendry pause.

"They told me the blacksmith had gone mad, but I did not think it was the type of madness that would endanger this keep," Sansa said smoothly. "Sandor, do you know him?" The Hound kept his eyes on Gendry. "He was one of the Brotherhood, milady. He — he was there when I found your sister. They had been together for some time, I think. He's one of Robert's bastards, I'm sure of it."

Gendry's blood boiled. "Found her?" he said. "You mean TOOK her. She was safe and you—" Gendry couldn't wait for words any longer, and instead he swung, the massive greatsword sweeping down toward Sandor Clegane's ruined face and spraying blood where it went. The big knight brought up his sword to parry the Valerian steel. When the two blades connected they made a great clanging noise, and then with a heartwrenching crack the Valyrian steel rent into two pieces. To Gendry the break in the blade felt like a mortal wound, and he fell to his knees. Sandor brought his sword to his throat.

"I didn't kill Arya Stark, you fool," he said.

"I know," Gendry spat.

Behind him, a man had run to where top half of the shattered sword lay—the chubby-cheeked maester. "It's still warm," he said. The bloody blade was in fact glowing faintly. "This is blood magic," he said in an awed voice.

"What do you mean, Sam?" said Sansa. "Oh, I'm not sure milady - you see, like I told you this is Valyrian steel, I don't know where he got it, and no one knows how to reforge Valyrian steel except the weaponmasters of Qohor. I tried to find out how they they did it, in Oldtown, but it was a secret, so it's not in the books—"

"Sam."

"Right, but there were a few strange references to blood, so I think the reforging somehow needed —blood magic."

"That is Valyrian Steel?" Sansa said, walking towards the blade that Sam held, and making a face when she got close. Sam nodded. "Where did you get Valyrian steel," Sansa said, wheeling towards Gendry.

"It was given to me, milady."

"By whom?" said Sansa.

"I was given two swords, that were made by my master, Tohbo Mott in King's Landing - for the Lannister. Before there were two blades, there was one. I believe it was called Ice, milady. My master is dead. I am the only one in Westeros who can forge this sword anew."

"My father's sword," she said quietly. "You didn't answer my question. Who gave you the Lannister swords?"

Gendry gritted his teeth. He couldn't explain. He could never explain. "Someone I trust. Please, milady. This is my task." He looked at her, begging. He didn't want to live, not exactly. But he needed his life. He needed to finish this.

"Shall I kill him, Lady Sansa," said Clegane harshly. Gendry felt the blade push into his neck, and some of his own blood mixed with the horse's.

Sansa looked back at Gendry, thinking. Then her eyes flashed to Clegane's, and she spoke in a clear, confident voice. "No. We are here to fight against the Dead, Ser. This is not a time to kill the living. Leave him. We march tomorrow, and he will not bother us where we go."

Sandor grunted and jerked the sword from Gendry's throat. "As you wish milady." Gendry bent over the broken hilt of the greatsword, which was still larger than most swords he had touched. Sam walked to him quickly and pressed the second, blood-covered shard into his hands. "I'll make sure you have another horse," he whispered.

Gendry vomited.

The next morning the sun did not rise.

Gendry had washed himself when he returned to the forge, and then slept, a long deep sleep, longer than he had slept since Arya had arrived. When he woke Winterfell was empty, except for a few children and elderly that had stayed behind. Even the women had marched, Gendry thought. This was truly the end.

He felt strangely calm when he set back upon the steel, beginning the endless folding and refolding that he had done so many times before. His arm felt strong and his aim was true, and the steel sang for him in the way it had not for a long while. He kept the fire hot and the door open, and the frosty night kept the air in the forge fresh.

He did not look to see if the horse that Sam had promised was waiting. He could not bear the thought of doing that to an animal again, although he knew that when he needed too, he would. There was sun to mark the hours, and there were no people to interrupt his work. There was only the anvil, and the hammer, and the fire. He put more care into shaping the blade than he had ever done before, and looking at the untempered steel he knew that this was the best work he had ever done, and possibly the best work he would ever do.

The wind had picked up outside and was howling past and through the door, blowing at the flames. He had just placed the blade in the fire for the final time and went to shut it. He needed an even heat.

"Well met, Gendry, son of a King."

Gendry spun, leaving the door open. In the corner of the forge, on one of the stools, sat a woman. Her hair and her cloak were a violent red, and her skin was very pale. Her dress was cut into a deep V and around her neck was a choker with a red ruby. She looked at Gendry with hard, glinting eyes, and a half smile that was eerie at the dawn of an endless night.

"Who are you?" said Gendry. How had she gotten in? He felt a wild urge to harm this woman, to throw her out into the cold. It was too late for distraction.

"I am Melisandre," she said, smiling slightly wider. "Priestess of R'hollor."

"Stannis's Red Woman," said Gendry, returning slowly to the fire. Thoros had spoken of her in the Brotherhood; he said that she had been known in Myr and a great worker of magic even before he arrived in Westeros, and that is she had chosen him, Stannis had a powerful ally. Still, she had no place here.

"Stannis is dead," she said. "Do you follow the Lord of Light, Ser Gendry."

"I do and I do not, mildady," he said, gritting his teeth. "I cannot believe that he is a false god, having seen what I have seen." He thought of the Lady, tall and gaunt and gray, and shivered. "But I have never seen his power produce anything but harm, and therefore I do not pray to him."

"I see." Melisandre pursed her lips, but did not lose her look of amusement. Gendry was growing angry. He wanted the priestess to leave, but he did not want the priestess to jeopardize his work. He bent back to the forge.

"I did not have a choice either, to believe," Melisandre continued. "I was sold to the Red God when I was but a child. For many years I hated the Lord of Light and his servants for taking me from my family, and for forcing me to sacrifice my body for the service of the Lord. But then I began to have visions, to see shapes in the flames. At first, my vision was always the same. A tall, dark haired man, with a flaming sword, leading an army against the dead. They told me that I the man I saw was Azor Ahai returned, and that it was my destiny to serve him." She paused. "I trained for many years. I learned the ancient craft of Asshai, and became a shadowbinder. I learned power and the tricks of flame. And every day I looked into the flames for hours, waiting for a sign to tell me that it was time to serve my Lord. That moment came. I saw the Red Keep ,a and I saw his eyes, blue, so blue. I travelled across the sea, and I searched, and when I found Stannis, I knew."

The blade was nearly heated through now, and he would need to temper it.

"But I was wrong," she said. "Stannis was not Azor Ahai. You are."

Gendry's attention snapped to her. She looked back at him, eyes wide and unblinking, the ruby at her throat glowing eerily. "And my duty is not to serve him. My duty is to die for him."

Gendry swept his hand around the forge. "I'm sorry," he said scornfully. "There is nothing to die for here."

Melisandre stood, her expression wild and the ruby now burning. ""The sword you forge is Lightbringer, and you the hero that will wield it, to end the long night and defeat the Great Other. The sword cannot be tempered by water," she said, her voice rising in a terrible crescendo. "You know it must be tempered by blood. But it cannot be tempered by an animal's blood. Not this sword."

She fell to her knees in front of Gendry and loosed the tie that held her cloak, throwing her head back so that her breast was exposed to him. Gendry stared at the woman below him. It seemed to him that her eyes were at once both fire and ice. He did not hesitate. He took the sword from the fire, and drove it into her her heart.

Only as the sword entered her breast did he notice the small, curved birthmark below her left collarbone. She screamed as the greatsword ripped into her body, and as she screamed her face changed until he was looking not at Melisandre, but Arya. His eyes met hers and he saw that they were grey but not cold, fire in ice. He watched as her brow, contorted in pain relaxed and her mouth went slack, her head falling back on her neck. But the scream went on, and dimly he realized that it was his.

**NOTES

And finally we get to the climax. "Blood Steel" gettit? Yep, Gendry is Azor Ahai, which I realized i have repeatedly misspelled in various places, maybe at some point I will fix that.

So Yep, basically this whole thing was about Gendry getting to be the hero. I mean, Gendry is just great and he's the only smith in the series, and he was born in King's Landing where there is plenty of salt and smoke.

And Gendry being Azor Ahai means that Arya needs to be Nissa Nissa, but even tho Gendry does go pretty whack he doesn't go whack enough to kill his boo, but conveniently Arya is faceless so there can be tricks. It works out so well that that sometimes I wonder if GRRM planned it this way, but then I'm like no, I'm a hopeless shipper with a pipe dream. sigh.

PS the Melisandre incarnation was inspired largely by the TV series, although for many other reasons this needs to be a strictly book world, so she and Gendry never met.

Don't worry, there are another couple chapters, I'm just not quite finished with them yet.