House Frey's decision to bar the gates of the Twins and refuse passage to the Northern army thoroughly enraged Eddard Stark and Euron Greyjoy. The coalition forces immediately launched a fierce assault on the fortress guarding the vital crossing. At the height of the battle, Euron summoned the massive beast lurking in the Green Fork—the "Giant Pincer King Crab."
The behemoth crushed the stone bridge connecting the two castles and tore down sections of the walls with devastating force, allowing the coalition to storm the city.
After capturing the castle, the coalition discovered a truth far more heinous than the war itself during their search. They found the secret chamber hidden by Old Walder Frey, complete with its evil black bloodstone altar.
Evidence revealed that House Frey had been performing cruel rituals, sacrificing pregnant women and their unborn fetuses to an evil god named "Life Debt" in exchange for the family's "prosperity."
This horrifying scandal, along with the news of the Twins' fall, took wing. Through merchants, ravens, and refugees, it spread rapidly across the Seven Kingdoms.
For a time, nobles and smallfolk alike were shocked and outraged.
House Frey was not only militarily annihilated but also morally nailed to the pillar of shame. Every house that had ever married into or dealt with them rushed to draw a line. The shockwaves of this scandal reverberated across Westeros for a long time.
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Others merely heard of it, as if listening to a legend or a dark tale, and couldn't match the fury of those who saw it with their own eyes.
The Northern warriors and Ironborn reavers, men who killed without blinking and were accustomed to blood and death on the battlefield, felt a pure disgust that transcended factional lines when they clearly understood what Old Walder and his family had done. Especially the evil ritual in that secret chamber—blaspheming the gods and using mothers and unborn children as sacrifices.
Killing in war could perhaps be justified by honor, loyalty, or survival.
But this dark act, hidden in the shadows, trading the most fragile and innocent lives for selfish desire and family propagation, crossed a primal, fundamental line.
The stench it emitted was far more nauseating than the smell of blood on a battlefield.
Whether it was the Northmen following ancient traditions or the Ironborn who believed in the Old Way of taking what was theirs, they reached a rare consensus in their hearts: The destruction of House Frey was exactly what they deserved.
Driven by towering rage and extreme disgust, the Northern and Ironborn coalition wasn't satisfied with simply capturing the Twins.
Soldiers used every tool available—warhammers, axes, even captured siege engines—to carry out a thorough, vengeful demolition of the twin castles that held six hundred years of Frey history and sin.
High stone walls were pushed over section by section, heavy stones rolling to the ground and kicking up dust that filled the sky. The twin towers, once symbols of absolute control over the Green Fork, groaned and collapsed under sustained battering, plunging into the muddy moat.
The soldiers worked like they were performing a sacred purification ritual, smashing every stone carved with the Frey sigil to powder, swearing to wipe every trace of filth from the earth.
Only when the once-magnificent castle was reduced to unrecognizable rubble did the stifled anger in the warriors' chests, born of the evil sacrifices, seem to vent and settle with the settling dust.
This ruin would become the most silent and powerful tombstone for House Frey's crimes.
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Robert Baratheon's warhorse trampled the morning mist as the drawbridge of Storm's End slowly rose behind him.
Robert tightened his reins and looked back at his ancestral fortress perched on the cliff. The dark walls were still soaked with water marks from last night's storm, looking like a giant beast bowing its head to drink from the sea. At this moment, the Stormlands army surged past him on both sides like a flood of steel. Spear tips broke the hazy light, and the golden crowned stags on the snapping banners seemed ready to gallop into the humid air.
Stannis Baratheon stood on the gatehouse battlements, his figure as thin and sharp as a tempered sword. For a brief moment when their eyes met, Robert raised his warhammer and waved, his wide grin coated in salty mist by the sea breeze. Stannis merely nodded slightly, his right hand resting on the pommel of his sword, as if nailing himself to this stone island.
As the last archer disappeared down the winding Kingsroad, Stannis turned and walked into the shadows. The booming sound of the gates closing startled the circling gulls.
Robert Baratheon's blood was already roaring in his veins. The long wait at Storm's End had nearly exhausted all his patience.
The gloomy high walls of Storm's End had confined him like a cage. Now, leading the Stormlands army along the Kingsroad, every hoofbeat, every clank of armor, sounded like a war drum beating for his racing heart.
News traveled like wildfire, faster than the army marched.
When Robert's army camped by the river, every soldier whispered the blood-pumping news: The Twins had fallen. House Frey, which spanned the Green Fork with twin towers and charged exorbitant tolls with a single drawbridge; Lord Walder, who swung like a hyena in every war without a shred of honor; and his countless offspring—all had been crushed by the combined forces of Euron's Ironborn and Ned's Northmen.
But even more hair-raising was the terrible secret uncovered in the cellars of the Twins. It was said that to buy the family's false prosperity and endless line of heirs, Old Walder had sacrificed innocent pregnant women to a nameless evil god.
On a cold stone altar, the wish for many sons and grandsons was watered with the lives of mothers and children.
Now, this monstrous sin had finally invited divine punishment.
The moment the coalition broke through the gates, the accumulated resentment burst like a dam. No one cared about the Freys lowering their banners, and no one heeded their belated pleas for mercy. Justice came too late, but because of that, it was exceptionally thorough. The twin towers of the Twins groaned in the fire and tilted, finally crashing into the Green Fork they had spanned for generations, kicking up waves of mud as if the river itself were struggling to wash away the filthy blood on this land.
The oathbreaker died by betrayal, the bloodthirsty died in a pool of blood. The ambitious man who traded lives for prosperity was finally uprooted along with his nest. This was the most just retribution.
"Hahaha! Good! Beautiful work!" Robert's booming laughter startled the birds in the forest.
Robert slapped his palm heavily on the map-covered board, shaking the wine cups. He could almost imagine the sight of the Twins collapsing, and it gave him immense satisfaction, like downing a keg of strong ale. However, this thrill was like an appetizer; instead of satisfying him, it completely ignited his long-suppressed desire for battle. After the applause came a deeper hunger—a hunger for the clash of steel and the spilling of hot blood on a real battlefield.
Robert stroked the warhammer leaning beside him, "Robert's Judgment." (Note: Previously called "Robert's Fury" / "Skullbreaker" in earlier chapters. I'll stick to the text here if it gives a specific name, but "Robert's Warhammer" is standard. If the author is giving it new names like "Judgment," I will translate as written).
Correction: The text says "Robert's Judgment" here. I will use that.
The cold touch of the metal made his blood surge.
He craved a war! A bloody, head-on collision!