After swiftly finishing the fight, Barristan quickly lifted his head and glanced outside the tent.
In just a second, he grasped the situation.
From the moment Renly had his throat cut by the shadow to the chaos unfolding now, the outside had already been thrown into turmoil.
The sounds of fighting, the screams, and the shouted curses from earlier were not something a single tent could keep out.
Barristan hurriedly called out to Loras, who was still holding Renly's corpse and standing there in a daze.
He was clear-headed. In the present circumstances, there was no room for detailed explanations.
Only by withdrawing quickly would they have any chance to do anything else.
Moreover, Barristan knew even better that since Stannis had done such a thing, he would certainly have further moves prepared.
If this had been a conspiracy long planned in advance, then what was about to happen next was already easy to imagine.
Barristan's shout jolted Loras out of his grief. The word revenge stirred the seething fire in his heart.
He knew Barristan was right. At present, only the two of them knew the truth of Renly's death. If they were kept here—or died here—then Renly's death would be meaningless, and no one would be left to avenge him.
"Go!"
Looking at the blood on Barristan's blade and the four bodies lying within the tent, Loras gently set Renly's corpse down and then rose to his feet.
Instinctively reaching toward his waist, Loras immediately realized his sword was not on him. He could not help but look toward the blade he had personally fastened to Renly moments earlier.
"I will use it to avenge you with my own hands… I will kill Stannis myself!"
Loras whispered, making a vow to his lover, and drew Renly's sword from its sheath.
By then, more people were already forcing their way into the tent from outside.
"Go!"
With no time to say anything else, and seeing that the situation was beyond saving, Barristan grabbed Loras and immediately slammed straight through the gash in the tent wall he had just cut open.
They left the shouts and cries of alarm behind them.
"The killers are Barristan Selmy and Loras Tyrell! Catch them!"
Running through the cold wind before dawn, Loras's eyes and face were already drowned in tears.
"What was that?"
"How did Stannis do it?!"
His vision blurred by tears, Loras raised his sleeve to wipe them away and asked Barristan, who had been the first to react.
After all, the only one who had truly exchanged blows with that shadow had been Barristan alone.
As for this question, Barristan himself had been thinking about it as well.
But what could he really know?
"I don't know. It should have been some kind of sorcery, some kind of dark magic. You saw it—that was a shadow, just a shadow… and it was holding a sword."
"But the shadow bore Stannis's appearance, and even the sword looked much the same."
"I think all of this must be connected to the witch we saw during the day. She even cursed Lord Eddard Stark at the time. We… wait."
As he spoke, Barristan suddenly sensed that something was wrong and instinctively halted his flight.
"Damn it! Lord Eddard Stark is in danger! We must go back—he is still in Storm's End!"
Hearing this, Loras reacted at once and stopped as well.
But they had not yet escaped the camp.
The two of them instinctively looked back. The green tent they had just fled from had, at some point, already caught fire, standing out starkly in the night.
In the distance, Storm's End still loomed beneath the starlit darkness.
But the enemy was already in pursuit.
"What do we do?!"
Loras no longer had the leisure to weep for Renly's death. Both of them had realized how grave the situation was.
"Leave. We must leave, then go around them or shake them off, and find a way to notify the Hand of the King in Storm's End."
It was not that Barristan and Loras did not know to slow their pace when bursting out of the tent, so as to avoid arousing suspicion.
They simply had no way to do so. The enemy had been chasing them all along, and with their attire—coupled with the shouts behind them—there was no possibility of keeping a low profile.
"We must fight our way out. Only we know the truth, and even if we stopped now and surrendered, it would already be too late."
"Ser Loras, I think I must remind you—this matter has grown dire. From now on, anyone who stands in our way, I suggest we kill without mercy!"
With the situation urgent and fully aware of its severity, Barristan clenched his teeth and made his decision.
To his words, Loras had no way to object.
He knew he had to live.
At the very least—for Renly's sake.
The night wind already carried the scent of rain. Not far away, Renly's tent was fully ablaze, the surging flames shooting straight into the night sky.
Some people were chasing them, while others paid them no heed at all.
Everyone was simply rushing past in haste. Cries of fire, murder, conspiracy rang out again and again through the camp, along with the names of Barristan and Loras being shouted as the killers.
And as time went on, Barristan and Loras were by now completely stained with blood—blood not only of Renly's, but even more of those who had once been their own companions.
Killing as they fled, fleeing as they killed, they no longer knew how much time had passed. Fortunately, the camp they were in had been set up in a stretch of woodland beneath Storm's End.
So with the sparse trees, the dim light of night, and the deterrence of sheer force, after great effort they finally twisted and turned their way out of the fighting. In the end, they hid within a gully, and only then did they truly shake off the pursuers behind them.
"Ser Barristan, I mean no disrespect, but you had best deal with your problem. Otherwise, even if we try to circle back, we will still be stopped again."
Seeing that they had finally evaded the pursuit, Loras struggled to catch his breath. After swallowing to moisten his throat, he spoke to Barristan.
He pointed to the white cloak and white armor on Barristan's body, indicating that unless those were dealt with, they would never be able to make their way back.
Barristan also sat up, glanced at the equipment on his body—now stained with blood yet still conspicuous.
"…"
Grasping the corner of his white cloak, Barristan fell silent for a long moment before finally letting out a sigh.
"Help me. When this is over, we will come back for them."
As he spoke, Barristan began to undo the clasp of the mantle at his shoulder.
Seeing Barristan act, Loras had nothing more to say and stepped in to help him remove his armor.
After stripping Barristan of his armor and white cloak, Loras likewise took off the armor he himself was wearing.
"Mine is just as eye-catching. What matters most now is getting back to Storm's End—confirming the Hand's safety and telling him the truth."
In response to Barristan's questioning look, Loras offered this explanation.
When the words fell, the two exchanged a nod and said no more.
Using their swords, they cut down some branches and brush nearby to give a rough concealment to the armor they had taken off.
After roughly fixing a direction, the two quietly made their way back.
This time their movement was far smoother. As expected, no one paid them much attention along the way.
The whole of Renly's army had already fallen into chaos and was gradually breaking apart.
Worse still, a portion of the troops from the Reach had actually come to blows with the Stormlands forces.
The two sides fought fiercely, to the point that lives were being lost.
This only further magnified the spreading disorder.
Among the pursuers hunting Barristan and Loras earlier, some had been shouting that Loras Tyrell was the murderer who killed Renly. Coupled with Renly's death and Loras's flight, this had invisibly fixed that accusation in place.
But how could the troops of the Reach possibly accept it.
This Reach host had already been in an awkward position among the Stormlands forces ever since Kal Baratheon had subdued the Reach.
Had it not been for Loras's status suppressing these latent dangers, this situation would have erupted long ago—back when Renly had not yet abandoned his contest with Kal.
Yet with this sudden assassination, those long-suppressed tensions broke out at once.
Watching from concealment, Loras saw it all, yet could do nothing. He bit down on his lip in anguish, a streak of crimson flowing at its edge.
"To resolve matters here, the first thing we must do is secure Storm's End."
"As long as Lord Eddard Stark still lives, we still have a chance. Lord Eddard Stark has sufficient authority to suppress the present chaos and to carry on the war against Stannis afterward."
Barristan saw everything before them as well. He hurriedly seized Loras and explained urgently.
Then he went on to mention what had happened earlier that day.
"And earlier today, Lord Eddard Stark also sent letters to King's Landing and Oldtown. I believe other forces will soon arrive as reinforcements."
"As long as we can stabilize the situation, even if everything is in ruins we can still hold fast by relying on Storm's End. When that time comes, all that will await Stannis will be defeat."
Yet although this was what they said, both of them understood that, given what they had seen earlier, the chances that Eddard was still alive were not great.
Even so, they had to make the attempt.
Even in the worst case—if both Eddard and Renly had been assassinated by sorcery—they still had to find a way to stabilize the situation.
Otherwise, the outcome would be unthinkable.
"I know… Ser Barristan, let us continue."
Loras naturally understood this as well. Seeing Renly's men and his own turning on each other and fighting as one, he could only grit his teeth and press on toward Storm's End.
"If I were Stannis, amid such chaos I would immediately gather my host and advance."
Dodging left and right along the way, doing their utmost to avoid the crowds rushing past and the disorder all around, the two kept their heads down and hurried toward Storm's End.
Earlier, when they had been fleeing their pursuers, neither of them had paid attention to direction. Now that they were trying to return, it had become no easy task.
Seeing that Loras was still somewhat distracted, Barristan could only offer a remark that might—or might not—serve as comfort.
To this, Loras could only respond with a bitter smile.
They had no time at all to weigh whether Stannis's forces would seize the moment, because there was no doubt about it.
Just as the two of them, with great difficulty, felt their way through the darkness and reached the gates of Storm's End, they discovered that a force had already arrived there.
At a glance, a contingent of more than two hundred men was blocking the gate. The light from their torches was dim, the flames wavering, the scene noisy and unsettled.
At the same time, the gates of Storm's End were being opened. People inside hurried out to receive them, and from afar shouts could be heard, seemingly asking what had happened in the camp ahead.
"Has a force returned to seek aid?"
"Whose men are these?"
Hidden in the darkness and watching the scene ahead, Loras and Barristan both looked on in confusion. Because of the night, neither of them could make out which house this force belonged to, nor why it had reacted so quickly.
After circling back, they had seen the state of the camp clearly enough.
That degree of chaos—mutual suspicion and killing—had already fully developed into a grave case of a camp in turmoil.
Both men were nobles with formal military training, and they understood all too well what that situation meant.
It could be said to be the most severe disaster in warfare, a sight no commander ever wished to see.
Under such circumstances, the only way to bring matters to a good end was for outside force to intervene and put a stop to it.
Yet here someone had managed to extricate themselves from that situation and react quickly enough to come to Storm's End for aid.
This, at present, was the best possible solution.
But just as Barristan and Loras were still observing in curiosity, weighing in their minds how to slip in unnoticed, the man who had stepped out earlier to question them was suddenly stabbed through the belly by a soldier who approached from behind.
That sudden assassination was like a signal. In the very next instant, the mass of troops crowded before the gates of Storm's End erupted into action.
They surged forward in a rush and swiftly seized control of the castle gates.
At that point, there was no need to say more—both Barristan and Loras understood where this force had come from.
"Damn it—it's Stannis's men!"
The moment the force moved, the confusion Barristan and Loras had felt over which house they belonged to vanished at once.
What they had not expected was that, faced with Renly's army already in chaos, Stannis's first move would be to send a detachment to trick its way in and force open the gates of Storm's End.
"No—he cannot be allowed to take Storm's End. If he does, things will only become harder."
"Damn Stannis. His aim from the very beginning was Storm's End!"
In a few sharp exchanges, Barristan and Loras quickly laid bare the reality before them.
But they were not the only ones waiting for this force.
At the very instant the gates of Storm's End fell, patches of fire suddenly flared up in the darkness not far from them.
Torches ignited one after another, lit by flames that seemed to appear out of the night itself.
Then a force, roughly estimated at over a thousand men, surged toward the breached opening of Storm's End in a roaring tide.
Seeing this, Barristan and Loras, who had originally been preparing to rush forward to help, froze in place.
At that sight, both of them understood at once that the situation was beyond saving.
During the day, because of the agreed battle with Stannis, Storm's End had also been mobilized, with most of its manpower deployed outside the walls to prepare for the fighting on the following day.
Who could have known that this had all been a plot from the very beginning.
In such pitch darkness, the fall of Storm's End was already a foregone conclusion.
And it was easy to foresee what would come next, once Renly had been slain by sorcery and Stannis had taken possession of the castle.
In his anxiety, Loras instinctively raised his sword, ready to charge forward.
But his movement was stopped at once by Barristan, quick-eyed and quicker-handed.
"Ser Loras Tyrell, though the truth is cruel, I must say that I believe the only thing we can do now is leave."
"The fate of Storm's End is already sealed, but we must inform King Kal of what has happened here as quickly as possible. For now, all we can do is wait for the main host to arrive."
"But this task, I intend to entrust to you, because I must remain here."
"I must confirm whether Lord Eddard Stark is still alive, and see if there is any chance to rescue him."
"Because if Lord Eddard Stark is still alive, yet is taken by Stannis afterward and used as a hostage…"
"After all, he is the father of the king's betrothed…"
Barristan's gaze was firm as he looked toward the breached gates of Storm's End not far away, his words concise and resolute.
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