The air at dawn smelled of fire and blood, and the Kingswood camp rang with slaughter and shouts.
Flaming arrows cut through the morning mist, trailing like ribbons before they buried themselves in the wildlings' tents. Then blazing serpents of fire began to swallow the camp.
"Long live the Storm!"
"Long live the Storm!"
The standard-bearers carried golden battle standards as the guard cavalry and the hand-picked elite of the Stormlands charged into the wildling camp at daybreak, while most of the enemy were still dreaming. Shouts and battle cries rose, followed by the clash of steel and the agony of men on the edge of death.
Squadrons of cavalry charged, killed, then charged again, moving with practiced ease. They had strong leadership, and more importantly, the element of surprise against these mountain wildlings who fought like bandits. Still groggy from sleep, the wildlings' attempts to regroup came to nothing. The camp of the High Mountain clans was reduced to blood and fire.
The sentries and hornblowers around the camp were shot down, and the panicked men who tried to resist were cut down as well. Those wildlings still caught in their sleep died without ever understanding what had happened.
At the Stone Crows camp, Lothor and Anguy swept through the place.
"That big brute wasted two of my arrows. I can't afford to waste any more," Anguy said, snatching another arrow from his quiver. "Lothor, speed this up. We need to join the others. This isn't a tourney."
His arrows were fletched with gray goose feathers and fitted with bodkin heads that armor could not easily stop.
Archers were supposed to slip in quietly, but dealing with this pack of wildlings was simple enough. This was not the Mountains of the Moon, but the open Kingswood, and the wildlings' usual ambush tactics had been broken.
Lothor nodded and looked at the opponent before him.
Shagga, the huge bearded man of the Stone Crows, raised his double-bladed great axe and stared at Lothor Brune. He had thrown on his armor in a hurry, and his simple helm had neither visor nor gorget. To wildlings, overly complicated equipment was a torment. They were used to staying light and mobile.
Shagga opened his mouth, showing yellowed teeth, and glared at Lothor.
"I think I've seen you before."
"We have met," Lothor said, lifting the longsword in his hand.
"I remember. You belonged to that grinning, bearded little dwarf," Shagga said, realization dawning on him.
"He's dead. I am only a servant of the Storm now," Lothor replied expressionlessly.
"Heartless lowlander. Once I kill you, there'll be goats waiting for me when I return to King's Landing."
"Clang! Clang!"
In the light of dawn, the two began their dance of steel. Shagga's double-bladed great axe came whistling through the air. He forced himself to endure the pain. His hide was thick and his body tough, but two arrows were still lodged in him, and the agony made him sluggish.
Lothor was no ordinary fighter either. As an unacknowledged distant relative of House Brune of Brownhollow Mountain on Crackclaw Point, he had endured plenty of hardship before tempering himself into a skilled warrior. Lothor's combat strength was also somewhat beyond measure. In the original Battle of the Blackwater Rush, he charged through more than ten soldiers of House Fossoway, slew Bryan and Ser Edwyd Fossoway of the Red Apple branch, and captured Ser Jon Fossoway of the Green Apple branch.
"Surrender or die!" Lothor said.
"Shagga, son of Dolf, never surrenders," Shagga snarled. "I'll cut off your head and chop off your manhood."
Then I can only kill you, Lothor thought.
"Cunning lowlander! Coward!" Shagga cursed.
"You talk too much."
Lothor's golden cloak streamed behind him as he spurred his horse forward and cut with his sword, the blade whistling. Shagga swung his axe and met him.
Lothor kept carefully out of reach of the great axe. This brute's dying counterattack was not something to take lightly. The wildlings Tyrion had found were far fiercer than sellswords, and utterly fearless. When Shagga left an opening, Lothor charged in again. His blade swept across Shagga's face first, carving away a large chunk of flesh.
"Aaaah! How dare you hurt Shagga, son of Dolf!" Shagga roared in fury, blood streaming down his face.
"Clang! Clang!"
Lothor's longsword moved with dazzling speed, like a Storm woven from iron light.
The shield painted with Lothor's four symbols shattered into pieces under Shagga's furious blows, but Lothor's blade also stabbed into Shagga's throat.
"Long live the Half-Men!" Shagga cried before he died, bloody foam spilling from his mouth.
"Thud!"
Shagga's massive body hit the ground with a terrifying sound.
"You still stink, big man. Seems you still never learned to bathe."
"Cut off his head."
Lothor rode after him and looked down at the fallen Shagga. Shagga had always liked chopping people apart, and now his own head was taken off by an axe.
"Crack!"
One of Lothor's men used all his strength to sever Shagga's head with a great axe, then tore a strip from a ruined tent and wrapped up the blood-soaked head. Flames still burned fiercely, while the sounds of resistance gradually died away.
Lothor saw a wounded, dying wildling crawl out from a tent and drag himself across the battlefield in agony, struggling toward the river. His lifeblood left a thin red line through the mud and dust.
The shadow of death covered this patch of earth. The Stone Crows had been wiped out to the last man.
"Let's go," Anguy said, riding up beside Lothor. "It looks like the fighting on Prince Gendry's side and Ser Guyard's side is over too."
At the Burned Men camp, every survivor apart from the dead warriors had been herded into a circle. Gendry waved his hand, and the Stormlands knights stopped shooting.
"Blue eyes too, with delicate features and a hooked nose. This feels... oddly familiar."
Gendry looked at "Redhand" Timett as he rode toward him. He was still a young man, not yet twenty, and he had only one eye. Timett wore the black armor Tyrion had given him and carried a longsword.
The Burned Men were known for self-mutilation. For the boys of the clan, the rite of manhood meant burning off one nipple, one finger, or, for the very brave or the very mad, one ear.
"Redhand! Redhand!"
The surviving Burned Men shouted. Though every warrior of this tribe was missing some body part, their courage truly stood above the other High Mountain clans, and they did not fear death. They also seemed better fed, not as thin and stunted as ordinary wildlings.
Every tribe in the Mountains of the Moon feared the Burned Men. And Timett was feared even by the Burned Men themselves, because when he came of age, he dug out his own left eye with a white-hot dagger.
"Are you their leader?" Timett asked.
Timett son of Timett had always led the Burned Men on his own and rarely mingled with others. He looked at Gendry's beautiful black scale armor and golden surcoat, with the stag and dragon outlined in black and red crystal across the breastplate.
"I am," Gendry said.
"A terrible opponent."
Timett watched his own men fleeing in disgrace, now trembling with fear. The tall youth before him looked at him the way a cat looked at a mouse.
"If I kill you, that armor is mine."
Timett drew his longsword and charged.
The warhammer whistled through the air as Gendry swung his spiked warhammer. Left, right, high, low. He simply crushed his opponent with strength and speed. He kept advancing, kept pressing forward, one step and one blow at a time, relentless and unbroken.
Steel struck steel.
The instant Timett made contact, he felt a vast force crash down on him, as if the Mountains of the Moon themselves were collapsing one after another.
"What strength!"
Timett knew he was in trouble. He wanted to pull back and slash, but it was already too late.
The heavy hammer came howling in, carrying wave after wave of force. Sparks flew from Timett's longsword, and every muscle in his body began to ache. In the end, he dropped his weapon.
Timett watched his longsword fall in front of him, while Gendry moved as if taking an easy stroll, without having used his fiercest attack at all.
"Storm!"
"Storm!"
The vanguard attackers burst into cheers, their voices shaking the wilderness.
"I lost!"
Timett looked at Gendry. His arms were so sore he could no longer lift a weapon. His longsword lay on the ground, and his shield had been shattered into pieces.
The self-mutilated wildlings of the Burned Men were stunned speechless as well. Timett had always been the strongest among them, yet now he looked like a kitten being toyed with.
"Want to continue?" Gendry asked. "Redhand."
Timett shook his head. The pain in his arms and the sheer weight of that overwhelming strength told him this had been a complete defeat. If that blow had struck his head, his skull would have burst.
"A wager is a wager. We won't let others say we have no honor," he said. "You were still holding back, weren't you?"
"The flames will return one day. Look at the Blood-Weeping Sword in the sky. The true savior is right beside you."
The red priestess suddenly pointed at the red comet in the sky and shouted, leaving the wildlings terrified.
"The Blood-Weeping Sword, the Savior. Are you the one chosen by the Flame?" Timett asked, looking at Gendry.
"It is him. Chieftain, Redhand, standing before you is the true Storm, the Savior in the Night."