Old Lord Walder Frey traced a bony finger slowly across the map-covered table, stopping finally on the marker representing the Twins. His eyes flickered in the candlelight on his wrinkled face.
He could not offend the Mad King in King's Landing, nor could he clash head-on with the massive rebel army. Between these two impossible choices, Old Walder made the decision that seemed most likely to preserve his house.
He decided not to let the Northern army cross his bridge.
But he wasn't foolish enough to attack the Northmen, whose blood was running hot, directly. His plan was to bar the gates, reinforce the defenses, and maintain a posture of strict neutrality. Then... he would let Eddard Stark's army stare helplessly at the river from below his walls, forcing them to take the long, arduous detour.
He intended to be a stubborn rock in the middle of the river, letting the current flow around him while he remained unmoved. He would wait patiently until the slaughter on the battlefield produced a clear winner, until the dust settled around the Iron Throne. Only then would he step unhesitatingly to the side of the victor. In his eyes, this was the survival wisdom that had kept House Frey alive for six hundred years in a chaotic world.
But Euron wasn't giving Walder Frey the chance to play both sides and wait it out.
A rider from the Ironborn camp, carrying a handwritten letter from Euron, rode north through the night to meet the Northern host led by Eddard Stark, who was currently grappling with the difficult decision. The letter contained only a few short sentences:
"Do not detour. It wastes time, and House Frey is a bone stuck in our throat. Whether they are friend or foe is unclear. Before the great war begins, we must force them to show their hand and choose a side. I have deployed my forces on the south bank to support you. March straight for the Twins and force them to open the gates. If Frey dares to refuse, our combined armies will break him."
This letter completely changed Ned's decision. He no longer considered the long, uncertain detour. instead, he ordered the army to continue south along the Kingsroad, straight for the Twins.
Euron's intent was clear and hard: He would not tolerate House Frey sitting on the fence. He intended to secure this vital crossing firmly in his own hands, and the method was simple—force Old Walder to make an immediate, explicit choice.
Either open the gates and join the rebellion, or let the Twins and its master become a sacrifice under the coalition's blades.
When Eddard Stark's Northern host surged toward the Twins like a grey tide, forming a pincer attack on the castle with Euron's Ironborn, an Ironborn messenger shot an unsealed letter into the castle.
The letter was quickly brought to Lord Walder Frey. It contained only a few words, the handwriting sharp as a knife:
"One day. Open the gates, welcome us, and send troops to fight the Mad King. Otherwise, the day the walls fall is the day House Frey ends."
The withered fingers clutching the paper began to tremble uncontrollably, and soon his whole body was shaking. Extreme anger and fear intertwined, twisting his old face like dried orange peel.
"Threatening me!?" He crumpled the letter into a ball and smashed it onto the floor, his shrill voice cracking with emotion. "Kraken and Direwolf... I'd like to see what power they have to break my Twins, which I have held for six hundred years!"
He turned to his pale-faced sons, trying to mask his inner panic with a roar. "Pass the order! Raise the drawbridges! Bar all gates! Every soldier to the walls! I will make them break their heads against my stone!"
Behind his blustering rage, his eyes, constantly darting toward the sprawling camps outside, betrayed the immense, unspeakable fear deep in his heart.
Morning mist draped over the Green Fork like a veil. A suffocating silence hung between the two armies that had faced off through the night. Euron Greyjoy rode alone to the edge of the moat, looking up at the withered figure on the battlements surrounded by his many offspring.
His voice wasn't loud, but like a cold arrow, it pierced the mist clearly, nailing itself into the heart of every defender: "Walder Frey! One last time—open the gates and surrender, or not!"
On the wall, the old lord's face was iron-grey. He leaned forward abruptly and spat viciously toward the ground below. "Surrender? Pah! Kraken spawn! If you have the guts, come and take it!"
Euron showed no surprise. Instead, a cruel smile that bordered on pleasure curled his lips. He said no more, simply spitting out three words as if announcing something trivial: "Then we fight." With that, he turned his horse and rode back to his lines at a leisurely pace.
As his figure disappeared into the Ironborn ranks, the horn of attack sliced through the dawn silence like the low roar of a sea monster. Euron wasted no more words. He raised his hand and waved it gently backward.
In an instant, the low, earth-shaking throb of war drums rolled from the Ironborn camp like the heartbeat of a sleeping giant, weaving a symphony of death with the charging horns erupting simultaneously from the Northern lines. No probing, no holding back. The coalition of Northmen and Ironborn surged like two angry tides, launching a fierce assault on the Twins from both north and south!
Frey soldiers scrambled onto the walls and the crucial stone bridge connecting the two castles.
Arrows poured down like locusts from the battlements and the Water Tower on the bridge, trying to stem the coalition's advance. However, this dense rain of arrows seemed pathetic in the face of the dam-breaking assault.
The corner of Euron's mouth curled into a cold arc. Standing by the riverbank, he looked toward the turbulent Green Fork as if silently summoning something.
"Giant Pincer · King Crab!"
As his low voice fell, the river surface suddenly exploded into a massive curtain of water! A colossal behemoth broke the surface—a giant king crab over a hundred meters long, its shell black as abyssal iron, its jagged spines glinting with terrifying luster in the morning light. Its massive pincers, like living battering rams, were each large enough to easily snap the largest warship in two.
This terrifying creature, known as a Sea King, raised its mountain-like pincers the moment it appeared. With precise and brutal force, it clamped onto both ends of the stone arch bridge—the lifeline of the Twins!
CRACK—!!!
A sound like the tearing of the heavens exploded, as if the earth itself were splitting! The indestructible stone bridge, built by the blood and sweat of three generations of Freys, snapped like a brittle twig under the absolute, extreme brute force! Rubble, dust, and screams of despair instantly drowned the river channel.
The morale of the Twins shattered the moment they saw the Giant Pincer King Crab.
Before the crushing power of the King Crab, the sturdy stone walls of the Twins seemed like a child's sandcastle. With just a few violent slams of the massive crab claws, a breach large enough for several horses to pass abreast was torn into the thick walls. Stones crumbled like rain.
The Northern and Ironborn coalition, poised and ready, let out a sky-shaking roar and poured through the breach like a flood through a broken dam!
For the Northern army, this was the first real hard fight since marching south. The anger suppressed for so long, the grief and rage over the loss of their lord and his heir, exploded in this moment. Once inside the city, the soldiers fell into a frenzy. Their eyes saw only the fire of revenge. They killed anyone they saw. Swords swung, and blood instantly stained the streets and courtyards of the Twins red. The cruel nature of war was displayed in its fullest horror.
After the breach, the Twins instantly turned into a bloody purgatory.
Eddard Stark struggled to rush forward in the chaos, using his body and shouts to stop several red-eyed Northern warriors from hacking down terrified women and children.
"Stop! They are not soldiers!" Anger and undeniable authority burned in his grey eyes. Raised in the Vale as Jon Arryn's ward, he was educated in knightly honor and protection. This stood in stark contrast to the brutality the Northern soldiers displayed under the drive of vengeful fury, which he found almost instinctively repugnant.
On the other side, the Ironborn who stormed the castle completely indulged their innate nature for plunder and slaughter. Roaring, they swung axes at any moving target, armed or not.
Euron Greyjoy walked calmly through the carnage. He neither stopped the atrocities nor joined in. As long as the tragedy didn't happen right in front of his face, and as long as it didn't affect his strategic goals, he couldn't be bothered to care. This near-absolute indifference was more chilling than the frenzied killing.
When the shouting gradually died down, the air mixed with smoke and the smell of blood left only ruins and piles of corpses. After the battle, a headcount revealed that of this once-populous castle, the only survivors were a few dozen terrified women and children hiding in the deepest cellars, and some toddlers not even as tall as a table. Their sobbing was the final dirge of the fallen castle.
In the Great Hall of the Twins, the scene of noisy, extravagant banquets was gone, replaced by blood and silence. Lord Walder Frey sat slumped alone in his high lord's chair, like a puppet with its strings cut. He held a cup of cloudy wine, mechanically pouring it into his mouth. Wine spilled from the corner of his lips, mixing with dust to stain his expensive robes. He seemed indifferent to life or death, but deep in his empty eyes was a bone-deep despair that had accepted fate. He knew it was all over.
Euron Greyjoy's boots moved silently across the messy floor to the high table. He looked down at the old lord who had once been so arrogant, his voice flat, without a single ripple. "I told you. The day the walls fall is the day House Frey ends."
Old Walder's cloudy eyes rolled slightly to focus on Euron's face. He squeezed out a twisted, miserable smile full of endless regret. "I truly regret... that day at the Crossroads... I should have paid any price... to kill you..."
Euron nodded, as if stating an objective fact. "Mm. You're right. That is why I will never make the same mistake you did."
The moment his voice fell, the long blade "Cherry Ten" in his right hand flicked like a viper's tongue, drawing a cold light in the air so fast it was almost invisible.
A thin red line appeared on Old Walder's neck. He opened his mouth, seeming to want to say something more, but in the next second, hot blood sprayed from the cut like a pressurized fountain, splashing the chair and wall behind him. His wrinkled head slid from his neck and hit the floor heavily with a sickening thud. His eyes were still wide open, frozen in unwillingness.