Soldiers in old gray-black leather armor, knights with various family crests stamped on their plate, nobles in fine fur cloaks, a cook with her forehead wrapped in linen, and a pimply stable boy.
Hundreds, thousands of people flushed red with excitement, shouting fanatically as they surged toward the castle gates.
The frenzied scene looked exactly like a supermarket overrun by bargain-hunting aunties scrambling for discounted goods.
"Holy Mother, what are they doing?!" the Hound exclaimed, dumbfounded.
"Didn't you hear? They're all fighting to get indulgences," a magnetic female voice replied from beside him.
The Hound turned his head and saw a plump woman barely over five feet tall curiously studying the burn scars on the right side of his face.
"You're the Hound? Everyone said you turned bandit in the Riverlands and were killed by the Dragon Queen. What happened?" the woman asked first.
She had olive skin, large black eyes, and glossy black curls. She was very beautiful.
Several tall and charming young women with heroic bearing stood beside her, ranging from their teens to their twenties. All had darker skin than most people.
Seeing the gold-and-white "sun-piercing spear" emblem on their leather breastplates, the Hound guessed their identities.
House Martell of Dorne.
"The bandit killed by the Dragon Queen wasn't me. And I never raided Saltpans," the Hound said calmly.
"Everyone saw it. That's what they all say," Arianne said, puzzled.
"They took the Hound's helmet. He's a septon on the Quiet Isle now!" Arya said.
After that, the Princess of the North and the Princess of Dorne exchanged courtesies and greetings before continuing their conversation beside the Moon Door.
"Even Dorne has come to Winterfell, and with the heir princess no less. That doesn't seem like Prince Doran's style," the Hound remarked.
"Whether Winterfell can be held is uncertain. But know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated. The Long Night is descending, yet we don't even know what the Others look like or what abilities they have," said Obara Sand, a whip coiled at her waist.
She was the eldest of the Sand Snakes, nearly thirty years old, tall with long legs, though somewhat rough-looking compared to her more beautiful sisters.
Casting a glance at her blunt elder cousin, Arianne said, "My father began long ago preparing to build defensive lines at the Boneway and the Prince's Pass to block the Others.
But even without seeing them, from the legends we understand that strongholds that can stop the living may not be able to stop the dead. So this time we've come not only to support Winterfell, but also to assess the Others' combat strength."
"What's going on here?" the Hound asked, pointing at the crowd.
"Have you heard about Karhold?" Arianne asked in a low voice.
Arya's eyes flickered as understanding dawned on her. "Lord Saigon of Karhold not only sacrificed to the Others, he also killed the envoy Stannis sent. Has another Karhold appeared in the North now?"
"Just last night, Randyll Tarly urgently sent a letter to Dragonstone," Arianne's expression grew strange. "After killing Stannis's man, Saigon immediately wrote to the 'Dreadfort Duke,' Roose Bolton, pledging his allegiance. In the letter, he detailed the entire process of sacrificing to the Others.
Roose Bolton is the King in the North appointed by the Iron Throne. He had every reason to forward Saigon's letter to the Red Keep. So you understand the situation now, right?"
"Fuck!" the Hound cursed, his ugly face twisting.
"Men like Saigon and Roose Bolton should have been killed long ago. Why were they left alive until now?"
Arya entered her deathly state again. Her face, her eyes, her very heart turned cold as ice, making Arianne and the nearby Sand Snakes feel inexplicably uneasy.
Arianne shot Arya a surprised look and said, "Who would kill them? Stannis tried, but his envoy was beheaded. Your brother has the will but not the strength."
"What about Daenerys? She has dragons," Arya asked.
"They've already been there. The dragons burned Karhold's main keep and killed hundreds. But Saigon was prepared and hid in the cellar in advance. The dragons didn't find him at the time.
In fact, Saigon is very likely not the first lord to sacrifice to the Others. The Stark lord investigated and found that most of the clans north of the Wolfswood survived.
You could say that now, north of Winterfell, any settlement of living people is suspected of making sacrifices to the Others."
"So the Dragon Queen plans to use indulgences to boost morale?" the Hound asked thoughtfully.
"Yes." Arianne nodded. "After the news arrived from Dragonstone last night, Daenerys informed all members of the 'Anti-Other Committee' to discuss promoting the plan 'Fight the Others, Ascend to Heaven' throughout the Seven Kingdoms."
"Fight the Others, ascend to heaven? Does that mean anyone who resists the Others can go to heaven?" the Hound stared in shock.
"Yes. To stabilize public sentiment and strengthen the resolve of the people of the Seven Kingdoms, the Dragon Queen has decided to distribute indulgences without limit.
This morning, Barristan announced the matter to the nobles on her behalf. That's why so many have gathered here."
Arya hesitated. "If ascending to heaven is so easy, won't heaven seem a bit too…"
"The Long Night is long, and danger lurks everywhere. Only the Seven Gods can save mankind." The Hound's face was solemn. "Now the Long Night has come, yet the lords of the Seven Kingdoms seek to survive temporarily by sacrificing to the cold god. Their actions put the world in peril.
The Holy Mother's actions fulfill the prophecy of the Seven Gods to save humanity. It is both the prophecy of the Seven and their promise to the faithful."
Arianne added, "The Long Night comes only once every eight thousand years. The chance to fight the Others and ascend to heaven comes only this once."
Arya slowly nodded, accepting their reasoning.
"There are nearly twenty thousand people in Winterfell alone, hundreds of thousands in the North, millions across Westeros. Are there really that many indulgences?" she asked doubtfully.
"Well…" Arianne was unsure. "Let's watch. Daenerys should be coming out soon."
They did not wait long. Less than a quarter of an hour later, a squad of Unsullied in silver armor and thick blue wool cloaks emerged from the castle, forming a line in front of the crowd.
The Dragon Queen, clad head to toe in iron armor, rode at the front, leading several knights carrying wooden chests and two attendants out of the castle.
When the queen appeared, the previously noisy crowd in the courtyard fell silent instead.
Standing atop the stone steps before the gate, the Dragon Queen faced the crowd below. Her voice rang clear and bright: "The Long Night is long, and danger lurks everywhere. Have mercy on us mortals, burdened by endless suffering. What joy is there in life? What pain in death? Do good, purge evil, and heaven awaits!"
The Unsullied maintaining order and the knights behind her chanted solemnly in unison, "The Long Night is long, and danger lurks everywhere. Have mercy on us mortals, burdened by endless suffering. What joy is there in life? What pain in death? Do good, purge evil, and heaven awaits!"
A sacred and solemn atmosphere began to fill the courtyard. Everyone murmured along, lost in thought.
A White Knight with a protruding belly stepped to the foot of the stairs and shouted, "On this day when the Long Night descends, life may not be as joyful as we imagine, and death may not be as painful as we fear.
As long as there is light in our hearts, as long as we uphold justice and human goodness, regardless of faith or lack thereof, all can receive ultimate salvation.
That is eternal radiant heaven!"
"It actually makes some sense. Rather than struggle to survive through the Long Night, it's better to fight gloriously once and then go to heaven to enjoy endless wine and eternal sunshine," Nymeria Sand murmured, her long black braid swaying.
"Now it depends on how many indulgences the Dragon Queen has. If—"
Arya's voice cut off abruptly. As she spoke, the Dragon Queen lifted a chest from beside her and opened it on the table.
The wooden chest, about the size of a suitcase, released a powerful, vast, profound, sacred yet dark divine aura the moment the lid was lifted.
Any extraordinary individual could immediately sense the surge of high-tier magical energy like a tidal wave.
It came from that wooden chest.
From the neatly stacked palm-sized scrolls inside.
Even ordinary people could see milky white and grayish light intertwining on the surface of the chest like a thin layer of glowing mist. They could also feel a strange, suffocating force emanating from within.
The divine power of the Stranger was too abundant and concentrated. The radiation of high-level magic had produced visible phenomena in the natural world.
The chest was the size of a travel bag, while each indulgence was only a small parchment scroll about the size of a movie ticket. How many indulgences could fit into a chest that large?
And each indulgence contained a portion of the Stranger's divine power.
One or two meant little. What about thousands, tens of thousands?
Melisandre next door, and farther away Jon and Sansa, were all alarmed.
"She's insane. How much divine power must this consume?" the Red Woman cried out in disbelief from the balcony.
"At such a critical moment, on the eve of battle with the King of the Others, isn't she afraid of severely weakening herself?"
Hearing this, Stannis walked out from inside and stood beside her. After watching for a while, he asked, "Can those scrolls truly send the undead to heaven?"
"They should be able to. The divine power is genuine," the Red Woman said without turning her head, staring fixedly as the Dragon Queen took bundle after bundle of indulgences from the chest and neatly stacked them on the table.
"You said heaven was false, and that the Seven Gods were nothing but seven pieces of wood," Stannis said, grinding his teeth.
"I also said Daenerys is a demigod. She and her dragons usurped the place of the Seven."
"A demigod can establish heaven? Why does the great Lord of Light not have one?" Stannis's eyes flickered.
Melisandre suddenly turned back and said sternly, "Richard Hope betrayed the faith. Do not believe his words.
Where there is firelight, there is shadow. Thus the Lord of Light is the lord of fire and shadow.
The bull-headed serpent form is the shadow-lord of the dark world, punishing sinful souls, similar to the seven hells in the Faith of the Seven.
You now know what Richard did, don't you?
Someone like him would naturally enter the dark hell to receive the punishment of the shadow sovereign.
And the divine kingdom of the Lord of Light, the ruler of fire, is the heaven in the faith of R'hllor, and the final destination of us believers."
"Even if Richard stabbed…" Stannis's face twisted. "Even if he blasphemed and deserved hell, what about Gaudi Farin and the others?
Those subordinates who died fighting for me, they all went to hell, even forged into chains and reduced to vengeful wraiths filled only with malice. How can that be?"
"An illusion. It was all Richard's illusion. The shadow sovereign punished him by showing him the most terrifying scenes.
In truth, brave knights like Gaudi Farin all went to heaven. What Richard saw were mere phantoms," the Red Woman insisted. Gradually, Stannis believed her.
"Daenerys has trained for only a few years, yet she forged a heaven. Has she become a god?" he returned gloomily to the earlier topic.
"That is a false heaven!"
"How is it false? The High Sparrow and Aegon both ascended," Stannis said.
"Perhaps those souls are imprisoned in a vast illusion," Melisandre said, frowning, her tone uncertain.
"Then can you expose her deception?" Stannis asked hesitantly.
(End of Chapter)
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