The crescent moon hung in the sky like a hook, and the Red Comet burned like a crimson war banner, silently watching the bloodshed and cruelty of the mortal world.
The Twins had already become a vast battlefield, the sum of all the world's chaos. The western gates, the walls, the square, and the arch bridge were where the fighting burned hottest. Soldiers' battle cries, the clash of steel, the neighing of warhorses, and the shrill wails of the wounded and dying twisted together into one.
The high points atop the western castle of The Twins had all been taken. Most of the House Frey archers stationed at the merlons and arrow slits had surrendered, while a handful who still resisted were either killed outright or shoved from the walls.
Torches were lit again atop the walls, and the flames cast a red glow over every face smeared with blood and dust. Ser Mychel of the Vale and the heir of House Grafton drew their longswords and secured the wall.
The gates of the western castle had all been thrown open. Some of the oak doors still bore scorch marks from the flames, and the drawbridge came down with a creaking groan. Cheering cavalry poured out through every gate passage like a rising tide.
"Long live the Storm!"
"Long live the Storm!"
"For Seagard!"
"Surrender and live!"
The gold-cloaked riders, the Crackclaw men, the knights of the Vale, and Seagard's cavalry all shouted their battle cries as they surged into the western castle.
"For Frey!"
"For The Twins!"
The hard-core Frey loyalists fought desperately to the death, but the gap in numbers and strength was simply too great.
"It's the Dragon-Stag banner. No, Seagard and the Vale banners too. These bastards."
"It's that black-hearted bastard."
The Frey soldiers gradually realized where the enemy had come from.
Gendry led the gold cloaks at the very front. With the western castle breached, it was starting to collapse. The cavalry charged into The Twins, seized the high ground, took control of key figures, fought their way through the square, and then converged at the arched gate of the inner castle.
"Spare me!" Hosteen Frey wailed as he looked at the blood and mud before him. He had been guarding the gate of the western fortress.
Most of the Frey soldiers had fallen beside him, dead in pitiful, gruesome ways. Some had been hacked apart, some cut in two, and even the Frey twin-tower banner was stained with blood, its blue turned dark red.
Gendry planted the arakh before him. Hosteen's surrender meant the western fortress was largely settled. The arakh had drunk its fill of blood, yet still gleamed as bright as new. With the curved blade in hand, Gendry looked like a horned god of slaughter rampaging through The Twins. The surrendered Frey soldiers did not even dare look straight at him.
"Black Walder is here!"
Someone shouted it, and the Freys seemed to regain a little spirit. A group of Frey soldiers emerged from the darkness and appeared in the square.
Their leader was Walder Frey, lean and solidly built, his face covered in beard, savage in appearance. He seemed drunk, reeking of wine.
Black Walder was the second son of Ryman Frey, the grandson of Stevron Frey, and the great-grandson of Lord Walder Frey. Everyone around him feared him. He was strong, and his violent temper and harsh manner had earned him the name Black Walder.
Black Walder led House Frey's true elite. These companions of his were the very same men who, in the original timeline, had climbed the walls for Robb, the King in the North, and taken the first assault.
"Run, Black Walder! Don't come here. Take the Lord and leave. Go east!" Hosteen suddenly lurched to his feet, unable to stop himself from shouting, and tried to pick up the sword from the ground. Almost everyone in the family had a bad relationship with Black Walder, but they still could not just watch him come here to die too.
The old knight Barristan glanced at Hosteen, then struck with his sword. Hosteen stiffly toppled into a pool of blood.
"It's too late." Gendry looked at Black Walder and tightened his grip on the long blade in his hand.
Black Walder had already charged over, a dozen or so Frey soldiers behind him, all carrying long-handled heavy axes. More soldiers followed with spears in their hands.
"So this was all your doing? Bastard. Oh, let me see, men from the Vale, and Seagard's hawks.
Neither the trout nor the eagle would have come up with something like this. This was all your idea. You bastard, you schemer, you black-hearted little smith." At the sight of The Twins in ruins and his uncle dying before his eyes, Black Walder felt the blood in his body begin to burn. He was already quick to anger by nature. "Since I couldn't find Marq Piper, then let me be the stag-slayer instead. This sword was meant for Marq and Bluebeard in the first place."
"It was me." Gendry looked at Black Walder, his long blade thrusting forward without hesitation. "The Freys are traitors to the Riverlands. Resist and die."
Black Walder had already recognized the enemy before him. Who else could it be? The giant-horned knight's height and strength were beyond anyone else's. The forked great helm on his head looked like the fine antlers of a stag.
"Damn it. Hoster, Mallister, and the wild stag. I've hunted deer in the forest before, and today I can hunt a wild stag in The Twins too. I'll nail your head to your antlers. I'm sure the little king on the Iron Throne will like a gift like that."
The pleasing dance of steel rang out once more as weapon met weapon.
Gendry swung the arakh, moving at astonishing speed. A shrill whistle followed every stroke, and a storm of steel moved with him, with almost every killing blow aimed straight at Black Walder's head.
Black Walder suddenly sensed trouble. He could feel the blade's sharpness and speed. Black ripples ran along the edge of the arakh. That edge belonged to Valyrian steel, and no weapon in the world could match it. Black Walder's wine-fogged head started to clear, and he raised his longsword to block the strike.
Then Gendry heaved hard, and the longsword snapped cleanly in two with a sharp clang. Black Walder barely had time to register it before the blade flashed past his body and hacked straight into the gap in his armor beneath his armpit. A moment later, Black Walder's sword arm, part of his body, and his head all dropped to the ground, as though he had been sliced away on a slant.
"Thud!" Black Walder's body crashed to the ground, along with half his blue-steel armor. Some of his companions with heavy axes could no longer pull their blows and had no choice but to charge on. But death was all that awaited them. Ser Barristan, Bluebeard, Bronze Yohn, and the others had already joined the fighting.
The clash of steel rang out without pause. After killing Black Walder, Gendry shattered every attack that came at him with his long blade. He attacked with cold composure. Offense was the best defense. A knight needed strength and speed, and he only had to carry them through to the end.
The Frey elites in blue-steel ringmail fought on like trapped beasts. Even with Black Walder dead, not one of them threw down his weapon. Gendry's scimitar whirled madly, as if he had grown several extra arms. The blade flowed like a surging river, sweeping through every enemy before him, and several more of the heavy-axe guards fell in turn.
This special detachment under Black Walder, the finest warriors House Frey possessed, had all paid the price for their commander's rashness. Once Black Walder was cut down, the Frey detachment lost its command. Their fighting skill was solid enough, but they still were not truly among the first rank in the Seven Kingdoms.
Unfortunately for them, this force of Gendry, Barristan, Bluebeard, Bronze Yohn, Ser Boggs, Anguy, and the Gold Cloaks might well have been the most star-studded lineup in the known world. Gendry stood at the spearpoint of the wedge, unstoppable wherever he went. He was tall and long-limbed, giving him far greater reach than his foes. He wore heavy armor, and the Valyrian steel scimitar in his hand could cut through anything.
After several charges by Gendry and the others, Black Walder's men collapsed completely, most of them ending up sprawled on the ground. First the heavy-axe men fell, then the spearmen, and after them the swordsmen with round shields. For them to hold out this long after their commander died showed why they were House Frey's striking force, but that was the limit of it.
"Kill."
House Frey's elite were buried with Black Walder in the square, and the inner gate behind the castle's drawbridge had already been taken by the soldiers of Seagard. Now all that remained was to find the Freys and take the eastern castle.
...
In a bedchamber of the western castle, Lord Walder was still sunk in his sweet dream, grinning from ear to ear.
"Noble blood. Noble status. As long as House Frey holds its position, then any Arryn or Stark that wants to move will have to accept my terms."
If Lord Walder's weasel-like descendants could enter the court, become foster sons to the ancient royal houses, and rise high in the palace, if the girls of House Frey could share the beds of direwolves, eagles, or trout, then Lord Walder felt his life would be complete.
What were great houses worth? What were thousand-year-old lineages worth? If they wanted to cross the bridge, these false nobles still had to come currying favor with him. House Frey was already rich. The only thing it lacked was true nobility, real prestige.
"Damn that lion, Tywin. You'll regret this yet."
Even in his dreams, Lord Walder still muttered bitterly. House Lannister had been the first lofty branch House Frey had clambered onto, the ancient royal line of the westerlands, yet Tywin had never thought much of the Freys. Once the war began, he burned Frey lands all the same. Even before that, no matter how often Walder fawned over him, Tywin had never once offered to take any Frey descendant as a squire. Lord Walder hated the Lannisters just as much.
Lord Walder dreamed of marrying into House Tully, House Stark, and House Arryn. He dreamed of Tywin, dressed in red, kneeling before him in repentance and knocking his head on the ground like a clown. It truly was a wonderful dream.
Then the sudden pounding on the door shattered it.
"Who is it?" Lord Walder shouted in fury.
The sounds of fighting suddenly became all too real, giving Walder a fright.
"Father, hurry," said Walder's heir.
Only then did Walder see that his son was already dressed in blue ringmail armor, longsword in hand, his face grim and exhausted. Only then did he realize disaster had struck.
"Who dares run wild in my castle? Is it the lion? Or the direwolf? Is it the eagle of the Eyrie, or the eagle of Seagard?" old Walder asked in confusion.
"None of them." Walder's heir shook his head. "It's hard to explain, Father. It isn't them. It's the Storm. The Storm has come."