Read the author's note at the end
[King's Landing, Late 10th moon, 298AC]
The first blow of the ram came, and the gate began to strain under the force
The second strike soon came, the gate groaned, and it split.
The third tore it from its hinges.
Oak burst inward in a storm of splinters and iron nails, crashing across the stone floor of the yard of the Tower of the Hand. Dust leapt into the air. Smoke from torches rolled through the breach. And behind it came red.
Lannister guards poured through the opening in ordered ranks, shields raised, spears bristling. Not a mob of unorganized levies, but disciplined warriors.
This was no arrest, that farce had come and gone with the shedding of blood earlier.
This was an extermination attempt.
"Shields!" Ser Torrhen roared.
Grey cloaks snapped together. Winter Guard locked shoulder to shoulder. The yard around the gate became a wall of northern steel.
The first red cloak hit them at a run and died on Torrhen's blade.
The second lost his footing in blood.
The third drove his spear forward and found Ser Harald's shield instead, the shaft splintering beneath the impact.
Steel rang.
Men grunted.
The corridor filled with the close, choking press of bodies and the copper scent of opened flesh.
Alaric stepped into the line beside Torrhen.
Not behind him.
Beside him.
Ice, the great valyrian steel sword, met the first Lannister blade in a jarring clash that numbed his fingers with that familiar feel. He shoved forward, shoulder to shield, driving the man back down to the ground. A quick cut opened the guard's throat. Blood sprayed hot across Alaric's cheek.
He did not flinch.
They fought in inches. No room for flourish. No room for fear.
A crossbow bolt whistled past Alaric's ear and struck the stone behind him.
"They've archers outside!" someone shouted.
"Keep the shields high!" Torrhen bellowed.
More red cloaks forced their way in, climbing over their fallen. A spear slid under a northern shield and bit into a Greycloak's thigh. The man screamed and fell, another replaced him without hesitation.
Alaric cut a man across the face and drove him backward into his fellows. He felt no triumph. Only pressure. Endless pressure.
Then the red cloaks parted.
The fighting did not stop, but it shifted.
A single knight stepped through the breach.
The shine of polished white steel, and a bellowing white cloak beneath torchlight. The lion embossed upon his breastplate caught the fire and threw it back.
Ser Jaime Lannister opened his helm with one smooth motion, eyes surveying the battle.
His hair shone like beaten gold, even streaked with soot.
His eyes found Alaric's immediately, closing his helm with a lion's smile.
Recognition, no mockery, only inevitability.
"Stand aside," Jaime said, calm as summer rain despite the carnage unfolding around him.
Torrhen answered with steel.
Jaime met him easily, blade flashing. The sound of their swords cut through the chaos, sharper, cleaner.
Alaric moved to flank him, but several red cloaks intercepted, forcing him into another tight exchange. He fought blind to the duel at his side, hearing only fragments, the heavy rhythm of Torrhen's strikes, the faster cadence of Jaime's counters.
Then Jaime stepped inside Torrhen's guard and twisted, forcing the older knight back a pace.
Alaric broke free and engaged him.
The impact jarred his shoulder.
Jaime was fast, impossibly fast, his blade weaving in precise arcs. Alaric met him blow for blow, strength driving his counters, steel ringing like hammered bells.
Neither yielded.
Neither spoke.
A spear thrust separated them as men surged between, and the moment was gone.
"Back!" Torrhen shouted. "They're flanking!"
The lower level had fallen.
Red cloaks were pouring in from side passages. Crossbow bolts punched into wood and flesh alike.
Ser Harald staggered as a bolt struck his shoulder, punching through mail with a sickening crunch. He dropped to one knee but did not fall.
"Leave it!" he snarled when a man reached for him. With grim determination, he snapped the shaft short and forced himself upright, blood soaking his surcoat.
Alaric felt something cold settle in his chest.
They would need to break out of the yard and fight their way through the city streets to escape the lion's den.
'Well, not the first time I've had such odds against me,' he thought with grim determination
"Form on me!" Torrhen roared.
They surged forward, not retreating but driving through the broken gateway into the area beyond.
The night air hit Alaric like a slap.
The surrounding area was worse.
Red cloaks filled it in waves. Archers lined the walls. The portcullis stood half-raised at the main gate, iron teeth descending inch by inch.
This had been prepared.
They were never meant to leave alive.
"Gate!" Torrhen shouted.
They formed a wedge and charged.
Men fell on both sides. A Greycloak took a cut across the ribs but kept moving. Another stumbled from a gash to the brow, vision red but blade steady. Harald fought one-handed now, his wounded arm hanging useless, blood trailing in his wake.
Alaric carved a path through two guards and shoved forward.
The portcullis was dropping.
Slow.
Relentless.
If it fell, they were finished.
"Lift it!" Torrhen commanded.
Four Winter Guard rushed beneath the iron teeth, bracing shoulders and shields upward, straining against its weight. The metal groaned but halted.
Lannister men surged to stop them.
Greycloaks and Winter Guard flooded through the gate. Smalljon and Derrick Umber led the charge, cutting down man after man who stood in the northmen's way.
Ser Lucion cut down one Lannister man-at-arms only to be set upon by another
Ser Desmond whirled around, his halberd keeping men at bay, flesh and steel alike being torn into by his massive weapon.
Tempest and Cinder raged beside him, tearing through mail, leather, and flesh, their fur stained red yet, largely uninjured.
Even Ned, with Red Rain in hand, was in the thick of it, blood-soaked through his gambeson, mail still intact. Tundra was likewise tearing into a man's neck, quickly leaping to another after.
As more and more northmen fled through the gate, keeping rank as best they could, Alaric led the rear guard, Ser Torrhen at his side, carnage and blood everywhere.
As they reached the gate, the men holding it up began to buckle. Ice bit into a Lannister knight's helm, and he soon turned to find his sworn shield and father figure, only to be met with a calm, resigned look
Torrhen stepped into the gateway.
He did not hesitate.
He did not look back.
He planted himself between the narrowing gap and the oncoming tide, a dozen men of the Winter Guard forming rank with him.
Alaric saw the calculation in his eyes, clear, immediate.
There was only one way they would make it through, if a few brave men held the line until the gate shut, leaving themselves trapped and at the lion's mercy.
For the first time since his first life, Alaric felt true fear, not of death or battle, but for his companion and surrogate father's intentions.
He roared as he cut a man down, whirling around, yelling. "Come, we need to go Torrhen!"
Alaric reached out, and instead of Torrhen pulling toward him, Alaric felt as he was shoved through the gate.
"Take Lord Stark and go, do not look back!" He called, Smalljon and Ser Desmond, despite their pause, resigned themselves and nodded, the only two men large enough to drag Alaric away from the gate grabbed ahold of him, and even Tempest and Cinder, ignoring his orders, nudged him forward.
It took two giants of the north and two massive Direwolves to restrain him enough to pull him out of the gateway and away from the only true father he had known in this life.
"No! Torrhen i command you–" he raged, only to be cut off
"GO! Let me do my duty!" the knight roared.
The first spear struck his side, piercing mail beneath the arm. He did not fall.
His sword biting into the spearmen's neck, and then another, and another after
More men came at him, the twelve Winter Guard who stood with him now down to seven, and almost about to drop two more.
A second blade opened his thigh. Blood poured dark down his greaves.
Still, he stood, the northern knight cut down man after man, a true force of nature.
Ser Harald led the last of the men out from beneath the gate. The massive iron entrance soon started to buckle, and the men beneath it were ready to go after the last man made it through
"Torrhen, fall back!" Alaric shouted, still being dragged away, using every ounce of his being to try to break free from his friends and wolves.
Another sword drove into Torrhen's shoulder. He tore it free and killed the man who held it.
"I said GO!" he called, striking another man across the face with the flat of his blade
He hurled his shield into a charging guard's face, crushing nose and teeth in a spray of red. A mace struck his helm and dented it. He swayed but did not yield.
The Winter Guard strained beneath the portcullis.
"Now!" one gasped.
Once the last of the fleeing men were through, those who held it open soon threw it down, the portcullis slowly falling, and ran as well, forming the rear guard once again
For a heartbeat, he stood just beyond the gate, staring.
Torrhen stood alone within the archway, the brave twelve Winter Guard all lay dead or soon dying around him, joined fivefold by Lannister men.
Blood soaked him. His beard was thick with it. His armor was split in a dozen places. A spear jutted from his side. An arrow quivered from his shoulder.
And still he stood.
He drove his sword through one man's chest and wrenched it free.
Another blade pierced him low in the belly.
He did not bend.
More and more red cloaks flooded in, one after one. Ser Torrhen cut down as many as he could, taking cuts and blows, even another arrow into his right shoulder, and yet, he still stood, raging like the very Direwolf that adorned their house sigil
Alaric took a step forward.
Hands seized him.
"If you go back and die, he dies for nothing, my lord!" someone shouted in his ear.
Torrhen's eyes found his.
Not fear, only resignation, and calm.
And something else, something more illuminating, Pride.
The iron gate finally crashed down between them with a thunderous finality.
The last thing Alaric saw was Ser Torrhen Stark, his father in all but name and blood, still standing upright against the gates' bars, holding back three men at once, sword still rising and falling.
Alaric, with the beginnings of tears, wiped his eyes and resolved himself to not let Torrhen's sacrifice be in vain.
'Once we get out of this blasted city, I shall find, maim, and kill every lion I can get my hands on, none shall be left breathing air within my world without my say so.'
The city roared around them. Gold cloaks joined the pursuit. Crossbow bolts cracked against stone. A Greycloak stumbled with a cut to his arm but kept pace. Harald bled steadily but refused aid.
They cut through a narrow lane toward the River Gate, fighting at every turn.
At last, they reached the river, loading every last man still standing onto the various Stark-owned ships, being augmented by the Greycloaks who had held the warehouses.
Once every last northman was on the ships, save a brave few dozen who stayed to hold off their pursuers, they cast off into the water, trailed by a hail of arrows.
Only then did the shouting fade.
Only then did the Red Keep shrink into the distance.
They counted themselves.
Far fewer than before, of the original 700 men, both Greycloaks and Winter Guard, they brought south, only less than 300 remained.
Ser Harald sat pale but upright, jaw clenched against pain.
Smalljon and Ser Desmond looked at Alaric, watching him with sadness and regret for what they had to do.
One man's absence rang loudly among them.
No one asked the question.
They all knew.
Alaric stood at the stern, staring back at the looming silhouette of the keep.
He did not weep.
He planned his next move, banners shall be called, men and warriors honed and trained, the south will burn for what happened here, and he would lead the charge.
"It's time these southern fucks learn why our house words are, Winter is Coming."
[Back at the Red Keep]
On the battlements above the gate, Ser Jaime Lannister stood still as stone.
Below him lay the bodies.
Among them, propped against the iron bars of the portcullis, stood a knight in torn grey and white.
He had died on his feet.
Sword still in hand, blood dripping from the blade along with the many wounds that adorned his body, armor almost dyed red in blood, some his, most not.
Jaime regarded him in silence.
Then, quietly, to no one at all, he said…
"He may have been a Northman and a Stark, but that man was as true a knight as any."
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Author's Note:
Hey guys, so, big chapter, huh? It personally pained me to do what I had to do, but although many things have gone right for Alaric and the Starks, at the end of the day, life still is a fickle endeavor, and shit happens. So with that being said, I hope y'all enjoyed the chapter, and I can't wait to fully get into the swing of things with the Wot5k!
Another quick thing, my paternal grandpa recently passed this last week, and tomorrow I hop on a plane to attend his funeral and be with family, so there won't be another chapter till late Wednesday at the earliest. And I know many might think "shit, well there goes the story updates," but I promise y'all not to drop off the face of the earth again, scouts honor lol.