The dead would have to bury themselves, Dacey could spare them no further thought.
Weeks had passed. How many, she could not rightly say, but they must have clashed with the Lannister host half a dozen times, and Riverrun remained another week distant. She had seen their position on the map in Bracken's tent and knew that they were far north of the most direct path back to safety, but such matters were above her concern. More pressing was the lack of food. 'An army marches on its stomach.' That had been one of Mother's favorite sayings, and Dacey felt the truth of it now. Men went out to 'forage' often enough, and sometimes they even came back, but this area of the Riverlands had been all but de-peopled, and not even banditry could keep the army fed.
They had some thousands with them still, though she could not be sure whether it was three or four or five. They never gathered in one place long enough to be counted, and there were always hundreds of stragglers. The Smalljon and Bracken and their riders remained firm at the helm, steadfast as ever, and with each day that passed Dacey felt more thankful for them. Half the army would have deserted without those two in the fore.
"We've found food, Lady Dacey," her man Corran stated flatly. He was a sandy-haired boy who had come south with some mad dream of becoming a squire. Well, he bore the title of knight now, but he had lost the light from his eyes. Had that been worth it?
"That is some good news at least. What kind?"
"Bread and salted pork," Ser Corran stated. She did not care to ask where he had found it. Some wandering boar, if they were lucky, but more likely it had been pried from some poor starving family hiding in their hovel. In the Westerlands they had reaved, but always then she had told herself that the people might travel a few villages over to where the reaving had been less bad, and save themselves.
These smallfolk were their own, and most would not live through the winter. Idly she remembered the stories her uncle had told her, of proud Bear Island standing stalwart against raiders. Had that not been her reason for coming south so long ago, to defend against the Lannisters who had raped the land of their friends and allies?
Dacey ate with her men. Outside of battle, she had not made pretense of rank since the Red Wedding. She would eat no more than them, would hear their stories, hear their questions. It was the least she could do for the few brave boys that remained with her. She forced herself to smile and nod, to say words of thanks to the men. They had to know her as a commander who trusted them, who relied upon them.
It was Ser Corran who raised the idea first. "Do you ever think, Lady Dacey, we might just cut our way free of here, meet up with your Lady Mother in the North?"
Dacey swallowed. The eyes of all the men were on her now. No doubt every one of them had the same question on their lips. Corran had a brother who had gone North with Dacey's mother. She had an ax for a tongue, but even an ax could be wielded with skill if it came to it.
"Once we get to Riverrun, we will see," Dacey replied. "As to breaking with the host now?" she managed a laugh, "I have thought of that every day since Harenhall. But no. We cannot. Even if my nature allowed me to betray our allies of many months, the truth is that we could not escape far. Dran and his outriders speak of the Freys rallying a host of traitors near the Twins, blocking the great causeway such that none may cross. Even if we got past them, the Ironborn still hold Moat Cailin. We would have to try for the fens, and I'd sooner take my chances with men than with lizard-lions."
"The Reeds are loyal," Ser Corran pressed.
"The Crannogmen are few in number and spread wide over hundreds of miles of the roughest terrain you've ever seen, Corran. It took us twelve days to cross the causeway when we were fresh. How long would it take us if we were moving through the swamps themselves? A month? We would be delirious, drowned, or dead long before we found them."
No one had any more to say to that. After a moment Dacey made an effort to keep their spirits alive, to get them speaking of the old stories. Florian and Jonquil, Symeon Star-Eyes, and the tale of the Last Hero. That story perhaps felt too close to truth, and the faces of the men were somber when it finished.
The Smalljon appeared at the edge of the campfire and Dacey found the tune of the Last of the Giants coming into her mind. That described the Smalljon all too well, she thought with remorse. The big man had living family at Last Hearth, but it still seemed wrong to see Jon Umber without his mighty father alongside him. Had Jon grown taller? Or was that just a trick of the light?
"Greetings," he rumbled, pulling himself to the campfire. The men went quiet. Lord Umber was not a person they could be familiar with, not in the way they were familiar with Lady Dacey. "Please, keep telling the old stories, I came here to listen, not to interrupt."
Ser Corran cleared his voice and began again, the story of the Knight of the Laughing Tree. A newer story, in truth, but a favorite. After that came the tale of Aemon the Dragonknight, then the story of the Winter Roses. Finally, Dacey leaned forward and, catching the Smalljon's eye, said, "Come now, Jon, you must have a tale of your own to tell, if you've come all this way."
The Smalljon laughed. "I've only sad tales to tell."
"Tell them anyway," Dacey prompted, "Sad stories are the truest ones."
"Stories aren't any better for being true."
"Tell us some news then."
"Against all rights, there are reports that the Mountain lives. One of our scouts saw him riding at the head of the Lannister host." Jon smiled, "It's true, but it's not a good story."
"It's a bad turn, to be sure," Dacey said with a grimace. "But it might yet have a happy ending. If I get the chance to kill that monster myself before I die it will all have been worth it."
The men laughed at that, though there had been no humor in the statement itself. They had all given themselves up for dead long ago. What could wait for them back home? Dacey grimaced to think of it. Her nieces and sisters would scarcely know her. Ser Corran might go wherever he liked if he shed the banner of the bear. Highgarden or Sunspear or Storm's End would all pay good coin for a new sword. Lord Umber would have to marry, would have to set his lands to rights. Dacey wondered if that idea even tempted the Smalljon. Was he like her, too drenched in death to contemplate any other sort of future?
"Well," Ser Corran said, rising. "We can always hope for a good turn. Nothing for it but to take our sleep where we can and continue on day by day."
Dacey nodded, and opened her mouth to reply - only to be cut off as a great horn blast split the air!
"The Lannisters, the Lannisters!" A cry went up, and faster than thought the whole camp sprang into action. The sound of the horns would be coming from their scouts, but it might already be too late. When had nighttime raids become routine? Dacey fiddled with the ties to her padded shirt and slipped into her coat of mail as she ran to find her horse. All around her a thousand men were doing much the same. Horses screamed and trumpets blew. No man knew how close the Lannisters were, no-one ever did. The Lannisters were coming and every moment the outriders bought them was worth precious blood.
She had only just mounted her horse when she heard the screams of dying men. The east, they were fighting in the east. The scouts had bought them precious little time. "Mormont!" She called "Bear Island!" Her men fell in around her in varying states of readiness. "The east side of the camp is under attack! With me!"
She nearly ran a fleeing man-at-arms over as she rode. At another point, her men had to stop entirely to move a tangled mass of carts aside. Then all at once, they stumbled into a group of horsemen who were raiding a rich lord's tent, bodies of men half-armored strewn across the ground. For a moment, both sides merely stood in shock at coming upon each other so at random, but the shock quickly gave way to rage.
"Kill the traitors, men! Kill them all!"
Her patchwork force of horse and foot charged into the disorganized raiders and shattered them in a single sweep. Dacey's ax came up bloody and she drew in a breath. This had not been the main force, this… It was all too dark, the campfires spread too much smoke, and nothing could be made out. But she could hear the men dying, she could see the men fleeing. A cold weight settled in her gut. Was this what it had been like, at the Battle of the Camps? The raiders should not have been able to get into the camp itself. Before the Northern remnants had always been able to rally a defense, to answer them and keep them away, but this time, this time… their pickets had caught this attack too late.
"We need to retreat, milady!" Ser Corran called, and Dacey cursed. The sounds of the dying were coming from all around them now, the fires of burning tents lit the sky around them in nearly every direction. This raid had turned into a rout.
"Retreat!" She called, "Retreat! To the river!" They had been following the Red Fork for several weeks now, and the northern edge of their camp guarded a crossing. If they could get to it, some sort of defense might be made. Perhaps other men of sense had rallied there as well.
As before, her meager force had difficulty making its way through the camp. She wanted to urge her horse into a gallop, to run faster and farther, but she could not leave her foot behind. She could not give up on them now. The Mormont men nearly collided with a party of fleeing camp followers in the dark. "Come with us, retreat to the river!" Dacey screamed. "Follow us and live!"
"There's Lannister men the way you're going!" They cried.
"There's Lannister men behind us as well! But we can cut through to the river for you, and then we will be able to stand!"
They came upon the raiders in the dark, a knot of red-cloaked knights fighting Lord Bracken's men, illuminated only by the burning tents. There were too many of them, too many for Dacey's little force to make much difference… But here in the dark, the Lannisters might mistake her handful of knights and spearmen for a host. "Charge!" She cried, and her band charged forward.
Lannister men turned to face them… too late. Her small force was already among the red-cloaked men. Dacey took a knight's sword on her shield, the shock traveling up her arm. She returned with an ax-blow to the side of the man's helm, and the knight reeled back. She struck a second time and a third and at last, the man fell from his horse. Only then did Dacey realize she had been screaming herself hoarse.
"Lady Dacey!" She turned to see Bracken, his huge red horse towering over hers. She swallowed a breath and calmed herself. The Lannisters were retreating, she realized absently. "Lady Dacey, we need to make a stand," he said, half-repeating himself. "We need to make a stand by the river!"
"I know!" She said, "Men! Form up! Behind me! Don't chase those Lannister dogs, they'll only pull you into a trap!" There were dozens of dead men on the ground around her, Lannister and Bracken and… other, bannerless forms that might have been washerwomen or smiths or prostitutes for all she knew. It was said an army could lose one in ten of its number before shattering entirely; how many had they lost tonight?
They formed up to march to the river, triple time, dozens of men joining their number as they rode. If they could get to the crossing, they could make a stand, they could… She shook her head. They lived for the moment, everything else must be set aside. What did she fear, death? What was death except for an old acquaintance of many months?
Men were coming. Hundreds of them by the sound. They… they bore the banner of the giant. Umber Men. Jon Umber's men, with the giant himself at the front of them! Like those under Dacey and Bracken, the Umber men had been bloodied, and their retreat was a scattered, strung out affair with hundreds of men stretched out over a mile of bad road.
"Form up!" The Smalljon bellowed, riding up and down the length of his army, "Form up, or the lions will come from the rear and fuck us bloody! Sergeant, get your men in order!"
There were others too, Piper was there, behind Umber, as well as a few others. Behind them, the slaughter continued, and Dacey's mind was too fatigued to account for who must be back there amidst the carnage. The men that remained moved like dead walkers, every step an effort.
The crossing. They came at last to the crossing, and then the men stopped to rest themselves. Dacey did her best to count them in the dark.
"More than I hoped," she said, but it was a cold comfort.
"The crossing is narrow enough we can defend it from either side," Bracken stated. Did he say that to convince his men, Dacey thought, or to convince himself? "They must have force-marched to catch us out here, they cannot be in full strength. A narrow point like this, we can hold it."
No, thought Dacey, no we cannot. The heat of battle left her in a rush and cold realization rose to replace it. "If the Lannister horse had time to ride around to a different crossing and catch us in the rear, the Lannister foot may be nearly on top of us already."
"If they are, there's little that can be done about it. Would you have me try to set these men to marching?"
Dacey frowned, looking over the huddled masses of men. She saw one who had forgotten his shoes in the rush, and another who was simply staring into the void, rambling nonsense words to himself in an unending stream of gibberish. This army could not march under an open sun, let alone on a night with no moon. They would bleed a hundred men every mile, and there was nowhere to turn at all.
This… was the end. Lord Umber saw it too, she realized.
He came and stood beside her in silence a moment, looking out into the blackness across the river. "Others take the Blackfish for leading that charge," Dacey said finally, for no other reason than to break the silence. "Others take him for dying before we were done."
"Would it have made a difference?" Jon replied. "If he had lived, I mean. He was a good commander, but..."
"...But he wasn't a sorcerer," Dacey acknowledged. "He couldn't conjure us an army from the woods." It was a bitter pill. Where had they gone wrong? If their scouts had found the Lannister riders earlier tonight? If Blackwood had not betrayed them? If… if they had known of the betrayal of the Freys, perhaps? She laughed. Perhaps if they had never ridden south, then Robb's army might have survived. But it was all senseless, all futile. The fates fell where they would, and man could only accept the cold of death in peace. A thousand decisions, a thousand mistakes, and now only one choice more: the decision of how to die.
"Do you think they will even make a pretense of offering us ransom?" she asked.
The Smalljon laughed. "You forget my letter, Lady Dacey. The War for the Riverlands ends tonight, but the War for the North is just beginning. You and I… there will be no pretense. I think they will want to take us captive, to bring our houses in against the brother of the Young Wolf."
Jon Stark. She had almost forgotten the boy. Had Hother and Mors succeeded in freeing the boy from his oaths to the Watch? Surely Uncle Jeor would hear them. But then, she and the Smalljon did not even know if his letter had reached Last Hearth in the first place. But if the boy had taken up the iron crown of the North, if he had… Her resolve turned to iron.
"So we must die on their swords, then," Dacey replied. "If a Stark rules in the North, I'll not be used against him. I've failed one king, I'll not fail another."
"Aye," Lord Umber replied, his eyes glittering. "Death or victory. Others take the man who settles for less."
"Death or victory," she murmured, touching the haft of her ax pensively. Her hands had worn the haft of the weapon smooth, and the ax had worn her hands rough. Her mother wore a Weirwood pendant around her neck, a sacred fetish which she was fond of holding while she prayed. "Death or Victory," she said again, quieter, and this time it was a prayer.
They heard them coming before they saw them. The clanking of steel came from the far shore. The men roused themselves from their short rest and formed up on the riverbank behind hastily constructed breastworks. Finally the Lannister host did come into view, torches flickering through the woods. "They must be mad to be marching after us on a moonless night," Dacey stated. How many must they have lost to the road and the woods?
The Smalljon chuckled. "Lord Tywin must be furious we've lived as long as we have. I am glad for it. These Lannister dogs will be as tired as our own men."
"They still have twice our numbers," she reminded him. "The force that attacked our camp is still behind us. They'll camp on the far side of the crossing until morning and surround us. Or they will put those famous Blackwood bowmen to use and force us into charging them. We cannot march from here and live."
"You overestimate Ser Kevan's patience. You've heard of the trouble in King's Landing, same as me. The Lannisters need this war to be over as soon as possible. I don't doubt he'd sacrifice every man in his host if it meant he could put us down a few hours earlier."
"It won't make a difference in the end."
"We'll sell our lives better," Jon replied, a dark smile on his lips. "It'll make for a good story, even if I'm not here to tell it."
Grim talk. She wondered how many of the men would be so happy to be facing their doom. The men's faces were ashen and starved, staring down their pikes and halberds toward what they knew spelled death. None of these would be ransomed. They were from lands too distant and too poor. Many of them had been simple levies when the war started, only coming into riches and fine equipment on the field of battle.
Dacey looked around. Lord Blackfish could have rallied them, but he was dead. Piper looked half ready to flee himself, and Bracken and the Smalljon were in grim moods, pacing their horses back and forth as though they meant to charge the Lannister lines themselves. Dacey's lip curled. She thought of riding forward herself, making a speech to inspire the men. The thought made her sick. What could she say to them? She had an ax for a tongue and there was nothing to be said, here at the end, other than to pray for a swift death.
The Lannister line was full in view now, a line of red torches illuminating red cloaks. Dacey squinted in the gloom, trying to make out the banners. She saw the Burning Tree of house Marbrand, and almost laughed to see it. The last she had seen that banner it had been lying in the dirt of a castle courtyard as Robb and his host sacked those soldiers fight more bitterly, thinking themselves to be avenging their home? Come on then, Dacey thought, come and find your vengeance, if you can, and I'll find mine.
She turned her head to look behind, but for now there was no sign of approaching Lannisters. No doubt Ser Kevan had planned to catch what was left of King Robb's host between hammer and anvil, but such strokes were hard to pull off even in the light of day. In the nighttime armies missed their timing by hours. Would Ser Kevan wait?
But no, the line reached the far bank and then moved forward. Ser Kevan is as impatient for battle as I am, Dacey thought with a grin. Well, good, let them have it. The Lannister host was in the crossing now, the dark waters of the river splashing under their boots as they advanced. How many were there? They seemed innumerable in the dark, but Dacey could not be sure. What archers they had left loosed into the ranks of the enemy, with little effect. These men in the front of the host were too thickly armored for the short bows of the North to find much purchase. Cries of death went up, but too few, too few. Her nerves seemed half-ready to snap, but she held firm, bracing, holding, waiting. There would be a signal, a horn blast, or perhaps a beacon, that would signal the Lannister to charge. She waited for it like a quarrel held in a crossbow.
Cries came up from the rear of their host, and Dacey felt her heart drop through her stomach. Had the Lannisters come upon them in the rear in the dark, without light or sound? It seemed impossible, it seemed.
A great series of horn blasts rang out from the crossing, and with a snarl she turned her mind back to the front. She could not afford to distract herself now, so close to the end so close… But the Lannisters were not charging. Their advance continued, but no faster than it had before. The horn blasts… they came not from the line of Westermen, but from behind them, from the woods. What could be making such a sound? Could it be reinforcements for the Westermen?
But now the signal for the Lannister charge had been given, and the men clashed in a desperate struggle on the river's edge. In the dark, all pretense of strategy or tactics had been lost, replaced with a mad, dirty struggle for life and death. The Westermen ran forward heedless, impaling themselves on the breastworks or the pikes, or their own swords in some cases. They pushed up the bank, flooding around the battle line in a clustering, shambling mess. This was madness, sheer madness. In the gloom, no man could tell friend from foe, and chaos reigned supreme.
"They've left their flank exposed!" Bracken bellowed, waving a great torch. "Follow the light! Follow me toward Lannister blood!"
The remnant of the horse charged, all feelings of weariness evaporating as their blood rose to a boiling point. The tumbled forward in a mad rush, the entire wedge spreading out to avoid tripping over itself as it ran. Again the horns sounded from behind the Lannister horse. They were nearer now, and Dacey could not think what they could be. But there was no time for thought. The Northern horse splashed as they entered the shallows of the crossing, and then a moment later came the crash of first contact with the Lannister men.
Between the casualties they had taken, the spread of the force during the charge, and the lack of equipment common amongst the Northern horse, the charge had been blunted severely. Dacey pushed to the front again and struck down a boy of Crakehall with her horse's hooves. Another man came close to her side and she turned in her saddle to lash out at him with her ax. But already they were losing steam. If they could just keep fighting if they could just…
All at once, her world pivoted and she fell. Jump clear of the horse! A crash. She had landed beside her horse, rather than under it. In the dim of the torchlight, she could make out a man charging her, spear upraised. Rise to your feet, Dacey! The man thrust toward her heart and she pulled the tip away from herself with her axehead, throwing a weak punch as she rose. The blow caught the man in his nose and he stumbled back. Dacey took his arm off with a stroke of her ax, blinking as she did. The world seemed unsteady, and bright spots were flashing in her vision. Keep your shield up, Dacey!
Another man assaulted her, and she retreated, deflecting each blow as best she could. The Northern horse was being driven back, she realized, and soon she would be left alone on the battlefield.
She was almost fighting alone now. Belatedly she noticed that Ser Corran had been alongside her this whole time, but now he too had fallen under the weight of the enemy's advance. Dacey gave ground as fast as she could, lunging with her ax to attempt to protect herself, but the enemy advanced faster than she could retreat. Victory or death, that was the only thought she could contemplate. She swung her ax in wide arcs, trying to intimidate those near and hold them back, if only for a second longer. She would not live to fight another day, but she would die as a hero tonight. Here We Stand. Her house words echoed in her mind and set her feet to stone. She regained her footing and stood fast.
The horns from the distance sounded again as the press of bodies fell in around her. A spear glanced off her mail and she slammed its owner's helm with the backside of her ax, stunning him. Another closed before she could finish the kill and this one she warded off with her shield, pushing into him and forcing him to fall back into his comrades. You aren't stronger than them, Dacey thought, but with good reach and good footing, a mouse can move a mountain. Make your life count, make them pay for every drop of your blood with a river full of their own.
Her shield arm ached from weathering too many blows. Her thighs, her core, her shoulders, every piece of her ached. She moved through sheer force now, old wounds she had thought long-healed sending shivers of pain throughout her body. Fight. Fight, fight on…
And then… and then the Westermen pulled away, Leaving Dacey with only a few men on the side of the river, barely able to stand. Was Ser Kevan Lannister sounding the retreat? She heard horns, but once again they were the horns from the woods, the horns from the distance. Spots were still dancing in her vision, she could scarcely make out the distant shore. There were thousands of torches on the farther shore, but she could not make out the colors of the men who were holding them.
The torch-bearers… they were killing the Lannisters! Gods, but they must have outnumbered the Westermen three to one! No wonder Ser Kevan had called for a retreat. But she had other matters to attend to. She stirred herself and rushed to the side of Ser Corran, who lay bleeding freely into the shallows. He struggled to rise as she approached, but she stayed him with her hand.
"M'thanks, Lady Dacey," he breathed, "M'thanks for letting me... letting me not…" but then his voice trailed off and his eyes rolled back. She breathed a prayer, not knowing if any gods would hear, and bowed her head. A carpet of bodies surrounded. Human forms littered the crossing, the waters of the river pouring over them as though they were nothing more than clumps of soil. Westermen, Rivermen, and Northmen. In the dark, she could not tell the difference between them. She cradled her friend's head in her arms and looked up to the stars. Even those had gone dim, now, covered over by a great sheet of clouds, a great, endless void without light and without hope.
The horns called again, and she looked down. The Lannisters were beating a retreat as best they could, while the torchbearers pursued them. A part of Dacey groaned with weariness. They had won the battle, somehow, against impossible odds, but how? Why? These torchbearers must have been stalking the Lannisters for some time, killing their scouts, and remaining unseen. They must be Riverlanders, she realized, to know the land so well and to time such an assault perfectly. But where had they come from? Who commanded them?
"Lady Dacey!" She turned her head behind her to see the Northern horse arriving again to the battlefield, the Smalljon at the fore. "You are uninjured?"
She stood, and bowed, every fiber of her being protesting with the effort. But bowing felt easier than speaking at the moment.
"Gods be good," the Smalljon rumbled. "But we have been blessed with more than one miracle tonight. Do you know who these torchbearers are?"
She shook her head. Some of them were coming closer now, close enough that Dacey could see them to be rag-wearing, colorless warriors with scavenged mail and no proper coat of arms. They looked half like corpses come-to-life, so rusted and stained was their equipage.
"Who is in command?" One of them called. "Our King would treat with you!"
"As Lord Bracken has been wounded, I lead this host!" The Smalljon replied, "But what king do you serve? We serve only the King in the North!"
"Ours is the Red King," the man replied, "The King who died and was returned to life, the emissary of the Red God, brought back to wreak vengeance on those whose misrule has ruined these lands. You will treat with him?"
No reply was made for the moment, the Smalljon looking over their huddled, starving masses that they called an army. Dacey said a silent prayer, hoping that the Smalljon's pride would bend a little this once. Whoever this Red King was, he had saved them and could kill them now if he liked.
"We will meet," Lord Umber replied. "Where is this Red King?"
The messenger bowed, "If you would follow me and mine…"
Jon Umber huffed. "Maxwell, Garl, Taff… form up what's left of my honor guard. Someone get Lady Dacey a horse! I'll have her and Lord Piper with me as well if they are willing."
"Jon..." she half-whispered, "Why am I being included in this council? There are more notable lords who you are overlooking."
"You were the one who saved us at the Red Wedding, whereby all accounts we should have died." He smiled, his teeth reflecting the light of the torches. "You've lived again now when the odds were even worse. Whatever luck the gods bestow, they've given you a double measure, and I'll not leave you behind if I can."
Dacey snorted. The gods could take her luck and curse some other poor bastard with it. But she mounted the horse they brought her all the same and rode out behind the messengers that had come from the host of the torchbearers. They were in and among them now, and Dacey did not much like what she saw. They were picking over the corpses of Westermen like hounds fighting over a kill, laughing and fighting and cursing as they went about the grim business. Some of them had livery of this house or that. Blackwood, Bracken, Cerwyn, or Glover… all assorted houses from the Northern host. These must be deserters, she realized, or some of them must be. Forces that had been scattered at the Twins or earlier. Who had rallied them, who had brought them together?
They were amongst the trees now, tall trees with broad leaves that blocked out even the distant torchlight. The world was truly black now, save for the torches they carried with them, and Dacey could half imagine the branches reaching out to pluck them from their horses. Whoever this king was, he had stayed far back from the fighting.
The trees parted up ahead to reveal more of the Red King's men, perhaps a hundred or so gathered in a clearing not far in the woods. In the center of the clearing stood a Weirwood sapling, scarcely twice as tall as a man. Before the tree, in the center of those gathered, but apart from them, sat a boy, facing away from them, cleaning a longsword with utmost care. Dacey felt bile rise into her mouth as the tangy smell of blood filled the air. Only now did she see that the redness of the ground around the tree was no trick of the torchlight, but that the grass had been made slick with blood. The men were chanting loudly, offering praise for their king, until at last he stood and silenced them with a single wave of his hand.
"Men of the North," the King stated loudly, "You have come far and fought well… Who do you serve?"
"We serve the King in the North," the Smalljon stated, his voice firm. "We are not callow boys, do not think to intimidate us with this mummery."
"There is no King in the North," The Red King stated. "And if there were, what would his kingdom be? Burnt farms, empty castles, and homeless vagrants? Is this the domain of your King in the North?"
"Do not think to hold us in contempt," the Smalljon snarled, and would have said more, had not Dacey interrupted him.
"Why will you not turn around, Red King, and show us your face?" something of the Red King's voice had set her mind whirling with possibility. Who was this boy and how did he command such loyalty? Why did he remind her so much of her long-dead king?
The boy turned, and Dacey nearly lost the meager rations she had eaten the day before. From behind, the boy had looked no different than any other. Brown hair streaked with gray, pale white skin under the nape of the neck… but now, but as he turned and the front of his face came into view, she saw the terrible red-pink color of his skin, as though his whole face were an angry red scar. She could scarcely bear to look at it, but even worse were the eyes. Blue eyes, bright as a star, bright as… the pair of eyes she had last seen in the Twins, eyes she had thought extinguished forever.
"Your Grace..." she breathed, "Your Grace, can it be..." Hope blossomed within her. This… this was impossible, and yet, this was King Robb, her own King Robb Stark, come to them again somehow after so many had died. All the terrors she had endured, all the terrible wickedness she had done… had it all been worth it?
"No," The King said, his face twisting in a grimace. "I am not the King you knew. I died in the waters, but I have been reborn with the gift of the Lord of Light. I come now not to rule, not to bring order, but to kill and destroy. We cannot bring our brothers, mothers, fathers, and sisters back to life, but we may yet repay treachery with its just reward. I cannot promise you gold, or lands, or even long life and happiness, but I can promise you blood, I can promise you purpose."
The Smalljon was at a loss for words. Slowly he dismounted, and then swiftly dropped to one knee in a vow of fealty. "You were my King and you are, now and forever." he said quietly, "The Red King!" he shouted, and Dacey found herself and half the guard shouting along with him. "The King of Blood and the King of Vengeance!"
