Grey Worm's hand snapped to his sword as a sentry rushed into the tent, brandishing the scroll arrow.
"What is it?"
"They nearly shot me!"
Grey Worm took the arrow and glanced at an Unsullied guard.
"Summon the westerners."
Some time later, the command staff were assembled under the tent, to find Grey Worm looking disturbed, holding a scrap of parchment in his hand. Tyrion came last, eyes bleary and holding his head.
"What is it?"
Grey Worm gave the message to Jon, who read it aloud.
"I am to propose a more peaceful end to this war. In three days, at noon, we will meet on the battleground between the camp and the castle."
"I will come alone, bring as many as you are willing to sacrifice to make your escape should you feel treacherous."
There was a moment's silence as Jon dropped the scroll, interrupted by a Red Priest entering the tent.
"You sent for me?"
It was not Parltro but Aldma, for which a now completely sober Tyrion was secretly relieved. The other priest would probably have lambasted them for receiving messages from the Wolf and set it on fire for good measure.
"We did, your reverence."
Tyrion held up the scrap of parchment.
"He wants to negotiate."
The priest's face took on a grim countenance, but he said nothing, only reading the short message.
"What is your counsel? Do we do as he says? Or is this a ruse to draw us out and be massacred?"
Aldma frowned.
"It is... difficult to say. That he means us further harm is assured, but he may make a mistake in revealing what he wants."
"Then you believe we can go without risk of being abducted or murdered?"
Aldma's pondering did nothing to reassure them.
"Perhaps."
He looked at the message again.
"He says he will come alone, it will be easy to see if he is truthful, at least."
Grey Worm asked the question every man was thinking.
"If he does, can we not use this opportunity to be rid of him?"
There were many silent nods and agreements. Only Jon shook his head.
"How? The closest we've ever come to seeing him dead was after a fight with a dragon, and even that wasn't enough."
Aldma agreed.
"His foul gods give him power. You may be certain that if he comes alone, it is because he knows himself to be protected."
Jon gestured out to the battlefield.
"And the meeting place is in the middle of an open field. We could get crossbowmen there, but he'd see them coming as easily as he'd see us."
"Longbows then. We could send the Wildlings to tie him up, and rain arrows until nothing moves."
There was silence at the suggestion, made by a Northerner lord's son. Tyrion realized Tormund was not among the commanders. Many seemed in agreement, though Jon was clearly aghast at such a betrayal. It was Grey Worm who brought it down.
"It will not work. His armor is too thick for arrows, only striking the head would wound him, and his shield is wider than he is. We would anger him, nothing more."
"And the Wildlings would probably join him on seeing they'd been betrayed.'
There was silence for a time.
"Cavalry?"
"Same problem, unless he comes on foot. And as he kindly let us know, his archers can strike the outside of the camp at any time from the walls. Horses'd get worn down even before they could reach him."
The possibilities of assassination exhausted, they turned to diplomacy.
"He doesn't say he wants someone to negotiate. Maybe a messenger will do?"
"But who? Just someone to take down his demands? He'd probably see it an insult."
A Crownlands bannerman spoke up.
"The ginger wildling then."
His neighbor, a petty lord from Storm's End, shook his head.
"They'd fight even faster."
"Then who will go?"
To no one's surprise, Jon stood up.
"I will."
To everyone's surprise, Grey Worm shook his head.
"No. You are needed here, or the men of the North will not fight."
"By the same token, the Unsullied won't fight without you."
"They will, in memory of Daenerys."
But without Grey Worm to plan the attacks or lead them to battle, the coalition as a whole would have a harder time of it. Tyrion realized the obvious truth, accompanied by glances in his direction. Some were guilty, some smug.
"I'll go."
In the uncomfortable silence that ensued, he heard no objections. Jon looked even unhappier and tired than before. He at least did not view Tyrion's death as a cause for celebration.
"You'll need a bodyguard at least."
Jon looked around for volunteers and saw a great deal of eyes looking up, down, at the tent walls or the map, but none meeting his gaze, save Aldma.
"Your reverence?"
"The Flame Guard will certainly accompany you. I shall-"
"No."
Tyrion's refusal sounded quite loud despite having said it quietly.
"No? But-"
Tyrion looked up at Aldma.
"Can we trust any of them not to attack him once he insults their courage or mothers or whatever it is he finds lacking about them? I have no hope against him and I still want to punch him every time he opens his mouth."
The expressions on Jon and Grey Worm's faces were completely identical, both radiating absolute agreement. The Red Priest also looked uncomfortable at the unchallenged assertion that faith in R'hllor was not a shield sufficient against the Wolf's boorish taunting.
"I'll go alone. He seems to like me, I might even come back alive."
"Back to the horses. Don't run."
Beric did not look back as Arya followed him, still confused. The villagers were still minding their own business.
They had only just reached the horses when the doors of the hall opened behind them.
A tall man clad in a full suit of armor engraved with Ironborn designs, wearing a fist-sized chunk of glowing green stone as a pendant, his face hidden by a ludicrously horned helmet stood in the doorway. His armor was liberally daubed with red and he lifted a battleaxe, bellowing with a voice audible from one end of the village to the other.
"BROTHERS! OUR FAITH IS REWARDED!"
Heads turned in his direction. Khal Goro barked an order to his bloodriders, who drew their arakhs and bows. The Ironborn pointed at them with his weapon.
"THE BRASS LORD OF BATTLE SENDS US NEW FOES TO TEST OUR METTLE, THAT WE MIGHT PROVE OUR DEVOTION! ATTAAAAAAACCCCCCKKKKK!"
In an instant the villagers turned as one to face the Dothraki. Behind the armored Ironborn, the cultists emerged from the hall, still bleeding, clutching their whips and screaming about corn as they rushed the Dothraki.
Behind them two monstrous figures emerged, taller than the villagers and even the Warrior, dog-headed masks covering their heads, smaller versions of the Warrior's pendants dangling from their necks. Their forearms had been hideously mutilated, the flesh stripped from the wrists down. Serrated axeblades were clamped directly to the bones of their hands.
Khal Goro cursed and ordered his warriors forward. Their foes were unarmored, and their arakhs reaped a bloody toll. But the cultists were possessed of a frenzy only Sandor, Beric and Arya had witnessed, seemingly immune to fear or pain, and more than one warrior was dragged off his horse and butchered.
Beric had mounted his horse and drawn his sword. Fire flared along its blade, and the first cultist to reach him had her face charred in an instant. With a bellow, Sandor lowered his visor and spurred his warhorse into the fight, his blade cleaving through necks by virtue of strength rather than its edge. Pitchforks, hoes and wheat flails bounced off his armor.
The villagers on the walls had shortbows which they used relentlessly on the Dothraki outside, ducking on occasion or falling off the platform when an Essosi arrow found its mark. They had nowhere near the range of the Dothraki bows, but at such a short distance it made no difference.
The Dothraki outside quickly mounted and attempted to force their way through the gaps, but could not to pick up enough speed and were easy prey for arrows and the berserk cultists waiting for them.
Goro spat out an order. The bloodriders still near him turned their horses about and started picking off the wall archers and ambushers.
Through it all, the Warrior bellowed encouragement to his forces even as his battleaxe fell on horses and horsemen alike.
"SPLIT THEM OPEN! KILL! KILLLLLL!"
The Dothraki inside might yet have have prevailed, five cultists falling for every downed horseman, but the Warrior threw his head back and roared to the sky.
"WARRIORS OF CORN, TO WAR FOR HIS FAVOR!"
The doors of the hut and houses opened, and the hidden villagers emerged from their homes.
Many were twisted and bestial, deformed beyond recognition. Carrying crude weapons in malformed hands, the fragments of green stone embedded in their heads glowing, they lurched forward, maws gaping and claws spread wide. Others were strikingly muscular rather than monstrous, and without their expressions of bestial fury, could have passed for ordinary men.
"BREAK THEM IN HAAAALF!"
Arya had a hand on Needle's hilt when she felt herself lifted bodily and landed in her saddle. Pulling his arm back, Goro pointed at the gap in the fence.
"Pull back! You cannot die here!"
A cultist rushed them. Goro's arakh smashed into the man's neck, cleaving not just the man's head but his arm as well.
"BREAK THEIR BACKS!"
A thrown pitchfork struck Arya's horse in the hindquarters. Whinnying in pain, it bolted straight for a gap in the fence close to the forest. Arya did her best to hold on as they passed the palisade, when a sudden jerk threw her forward, the horse giving a final cry that was cut short.
Arya tumbled and rolled as she landed in the grass outside the village, turning and crouching with her hands on the hilt of her blades. One of the dog-masked monsters was digging into her horse's guts headfirst, heedless of the beast's twitching. Then its head lifted and it looked straight at her.
As their gazes locked, Arya felt uncontrollable dread seize her, and thought she briefly saw an angular red shape flare into existence around the dog's head. Without conscious thought she turned and ran for the trees.
Something grabbed her ankle and she fell face-down. She felt a sharp pain as her dagger jumped from its sheath and cut her hand.
Scrabbling in the dirt, she looked behind her.
The dog-headed monster had followed her. From its mouth extended an absurdly long tongue that still wrapped around her foot, and now it approached her almost leisurely.
Coherent thought returned, and she grabbed her dagger to stab through the organ, looking askance at the monster and certainly not at its eyes.
For an instant she took in the embattled Dothraki, who were making little progress getting through the palisade, none of which were looking at her. She would get no help from there.
Still she stabbed furiously, the monster crouching on all fours before lunging towards her. At last the tough flesh gave way and she kicked herself free, just before the axe-hands could slice her leg off.
There was no hope of fighting such a nightmare. Arya turned and fled for the forest, hearing the beast on her trail and its mocking laughter. An axeblade caught on her traveling cloak, and she stumbled and tripped, rolling and hitting her head against a tree.
The monster loomed over her, arms spread wide in grotesque triumph. Her vision faded, replaced for an instant by the sight of herself and the approaching cultist, growing ever larger.
A flash of gray streaked above her head, slamming into the monster's chest and knocking it to the ground. The dog mask flew off as hideous snarling filled the air, its axe-hands thrashing uselessly. More lithe shapes flowed among the trees, an endless tide of gray and white and black.
Finally the monster's spasms ceased and its limbs collapsed with a thud, blood still pumping from its torn and ragged throat.
Jaws dripping with gore, Nymeria hurled herself into the fray, and all the wolves of the Riverlands followed.