"Storm?" Old Walder was taken aback, his eyes full of confusion. "Not the Lannister army or the Starks? How could it be the Storm?"
The door was already wide open. Stevron Frey pointed out beyond the stairwell window. A few Frey guards stood beside him, warriors in blue-steel ringmail and silver-gray cloaks, all of them visibly anxious. "Take a look and you'll understand. Hurry."
No one spared a thought for Lady Joyeuse in the bed. She was a pale, frail young woman, married to Lord Walder on his ninetieth nameday.
"My lord, please, please take me with you," Lady Joyeuse begged.
"Find somewhere to hide yourself, woman," Stevron said coldly, without another glance at her. In the middle of a battle, a woman's fate was naturally the most miserable of all. Her family was only a minor knightly house in the Riverlands, one of House Frey's vassals, of no real importance.
Everything was in complete chaos. Stevron could only look after his father first.
Lord Walder was hastily dragged out of bed, still wearing a simple nightrobe. He heard the shouting rising from the Twins, the invaders crying out, "Long live the Storm!" and in that instant Walder's mind snapped fully awake.
Old Walder saw the Gold Cloaks. Those proud soldiers had already swept across the square, and even his own main keep was no longer safe. Those golden cloaks, gold being one of the stag's colors, spread forward like a raging fire.
Old Walder saw the man leading them. His size and ferocity made him stand out from the rest at a glance. The blurred ornament atop his head looked like split giant antlers, and he was tall, broad, and imposing.
"The Laughing Storm?" Old Walder shouted hoarsely, as if he had seen a ghost. Robert had once been called the Laughing Storm reborn, and old Walder, born in 208 AC, had seen the real Laughing Storm with his own eyes.
Old memories came flooding back and struck him all at once. It was as if Walder had returned to his youth. His beard and hair seemed black again, the trees and grass lush and green, and he saw that laughing stag appear once more, dazzling in bright gold. Lyonel had always worn a golden surcoat adorned with his house's crowned stag, and a helm crowned with antlers.
To Walder's generation, Lyonel had been one of the finest warriors of his age, a man who won glory for House Baratheon. Lyonel had loved to laugh out loud, and that earned him the name "the Laughing Storm," making him one of the most beloved men among the smallfolk.
"Yes," Stevron Frey said with a nod.
"Liars, liars!" Old Walder wailed. "That Piper whelp and the sellswords betrayed us."
"Move," Ser Stevron Frey said, taking the lead as he had the guards escort them out.
The group hurried down the spiral stair, only to run into several silver-gray-cloaked soldiers charging up from below, the smell of blood still clinging to them.
"Out of the way! Don't block your lord's path. What are you rushing for?" Old Walder barked angrily.
"Fall back!" Ser Stevron shouted. He had already realized these men meant trouble.
The man in the silver-gray cloak lifted his head. It was Marq Piper.
"Bluebeard may have gotten there first, but my luck's not bad either. Good to see you again, Lord Walder."
Marq had been under some restraints, after all. Most of his men had gone looking for Bluebeard, though a few bolder ones had still slipped through the dark to join him. Ser Marq and his men had also prepared inside their room, and only after the Twins had fallen into total chaos, with the guards finally growing careless, had they found the chance to break free and disguise themselves as Freys.
A brutal fight broke out in the stairwell. Ser Marq was younger, and it did not take him long to beat back Ser Stevron, who was around sixty. The older knight was forced backward, clearly struggling.
But the spiral stair was too cramped, and the Frey guards were able to cover the retreat of Lord Walder and his heir, Stevron.
Then the doors of the main keeps in both the east and west castles were thrown open, and ranks of Gold Cloaks poured in in perfect order. Frey captives were driven along among them, and some heads had even been mounted on spearpoints. The most eye-catching of all were Hosteen, and Black Walder's half body.
A tall golden knight and a white knight stood side by side, majestic and awe-inspiring. Gendry and his Kingsguard, the old knight Ser Barristan.
"My grandson..." The moment Ser Stevron saw the mangled remains of Black Walder and Hosteen, his eyes turned red. He let out a howl and collapsed to the floor. Black Walder had commanded the Freys' elite soldiers. With his miserable death, House Frey was truly finished.
The Gold Cloaks surged forward, and the main keep fell completely.
"You liars. Thieves!" Old Walder cursed at the enemies below.
"Lord Walder, my apologies, but you are already a traitor to the Riverlands. Since you're always late, I had no choice but to come meet you at the Crossing." Gendry laughed loudly. The bell was tolling for House Frey.
"You bastard, butcher-smith. Black-hearted thief, schemer, Gendry the stag!" Old Walder screamed abuse at him. Age had stripped away his hair, his teeth, and the firmness of his skin, but his temper was as fierce as ever. To outsiders, old Walder looked as sly as a weasel.
"That's enough, Frey. Perhaps you ought to call me Heir Gendry instead. Would someone escort this old gentleman?"
Lord Walder's cursing did not last long. Ser Marq came clattering straight up to the top of the spiral stair, and when the Frey soldiers saw the cause was lost, they surrendered one after another. Marq pressed his longsword to Old Walder's throat and drove the old man back into his bedchamber once more. With the doors and windows tightly shut, Old Walder and his young wife could only stare at each other and weep.
"Lord Yohn," Gendry ordered.
"I am here, Prince," Yohn replied, draped in a blood-orange cloak and clad in silver armor engraved with runes.
"You're in charge of rounding up all the weasels. Not one of them is to escape, and no one is to touch the women of the household. Once the fighting in East River Castle is over, I'll have Lord Jason take temporary charge."
Gendry trusted Yohn. Like Ser Barristan, he was loyal to the knightly code. If a knight could not hold fast to that, he was no different from a killer.
"Yes."
"Come with me."
Gendry called out again. With the western castle now firmly in hand, his only remaining concern was taking the east side and relieving the Seagard soldiers.
"Kill! Kill! Kill!"
Gendry led the main force out of the castle, circling around the square, passing through the inner ward, and advancing onto the arched bridge like a long steel dragon. Seagard soldiers could already be seen at the inner gate.
"Reinforcements! Reinforcements are here!" the Seagard soldiers on the bridge shouted, their morale surging.
A great mass of infantry rushed into the fight. The soldiers from Seagard had already secured the western arched bridge, the inner gate, and the Water Tower. Now the only place still locked in a bloody struggle was the inner gate at the East River Castle end of the bridge.
The long arched bridge had turned into a grinder of flesh and blood, especially on the eastern side and around the inner gate. House Frey was still holding fast inside East River Castle, and had inflicted heavy losses on the men of Seagard.
"Hold the line! Hold it!" Lord Jason had personally come to the inner gate of East River Castle's bridge. This was the moment that would decide his house's fate, the chance to drive out its greatest rival.
"Put Black Walder's and Hosteen's heads on display," Gendry said.
"Yes," Ser Barristan replied, ordering two tall Gold Cloaks to raise their spears high. The severed heads and clotted flesh hung there like silent trophies for all to see.
"Black Walder is dead! Hosteen Frey is dead! Surrender at once!"
"Black Walder is dead!"
"Surrender!"
"Surrender!"
The reinforcements from the western side of the bridge shouted at the top of their lungs and then strode forward in a great wave. The hard-pressed Seagard defenders were instantly heartened. The western castle had already fallen completely, and now the men defending the eastern castle were in no better shape.
The fighting had already been savage. Both sides had turned the eastern end of the bridge and the inner gate passage into a pit of mangled flesh. Frey soldiers were shooting downward from the heights of East River Castle. The passage was choked with corpses. The portcullis stood open, and the Seagard soldiers had formed a shield wall, refusing to let House Frey's spear formation break through.
The Frey soldiers launched charge after charge, only to be met with dreadful news. Their spearmen, clad in blue ringmail and silver cloaks, had formed up in columns, but the mouth of the passage was too narrow for them to make use of their numbers. The Seagard soldiers held their ground stubbornly.
"What? Black Walder is dead?" Ser Danwell Frey, standing behind the inner gate of the East River Castle bridge and overseeing the assault on the shield wall, went pale. If Black Walder was dead, then the elite force must have been wiped out as well. Lord Walder, and the bastard guarding the river tower, had likely both been taken captive.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
The drums sounded once more. Many of the archers on East River Castle's walls saw the bloody heads of Black Walder and Hosteen, and their will to fight broke at once. They abandoned their posts on the spot.
With Black Walder dead and the Marquis taken prisoner, how were they supposed to hold the castle? Black Walder may have been a rotten man, but he truly was one of House Frey's fiercest warriors.
"Retreat, or press on?" Ser Danwell Frey had no idea what to do. The troops from the east-bank camp might still come to reinforce them, but the moment they saw the battle was lost, they would vanish like smoke, and loot whatever they could on the way out.
"Long live the Storm!"
"Long live the Storm!"
The Seagard shield wall suddenly opened up, and the exhausted blue-violet-cloaked infantry made way for the reinforcements. The pressure on House Frey's spear line eased at once, but what came for them was death.
The soldiers led by Gendry and Ser Barristan charged in, wielding all manner of weapons. Some had even picked up House Frey's long-handled heavy axes and turned them back on their owners. Like a steel meat grinder, this relief force burst out of the passage and tore apart all resistance.
The exhausted Frey soldiers collapsed all at once. Their forest of spears began to break and recoil. Men stumbling backward even fell onto the comrades behind them. The slaughter at the choke point could no longer be sustained.
More and more reinforcements poured out of the passage. Blue-steel armor and silver-gray cloaks were gradually replaced by other colors, gold cloaks, black cloaks, red cloaks, and blue-violet cloaks. Gendry directed them with a wave of his hand. His force was like a wild army, wielding long blades, morningstars, and great axes, sweeping everything before them. The soldiers of East River Castle were not all that elite. At most, they only had somewhat greater numbers.
The Vale cavalry were orderly and precise, the image of classical elite troops. The men of Crackclaw fought with loud exultation, yet showed remarkably high battlefield discipline. But the fiercest of all were Gendry's Gold Cloaks, crashing forward with the force of a landslide and a tidal wave. Gendry's arakh carved a whirlwind of slaughter as he crushed his way onward.
"It's over!"
"It's all over!"
Ser Danwell Frey went ashen, and then a flying arrow struck him.
Gendry had fought his way from the western side to the eastern side. The soldiers in House Frey's east-bank camp had no time to reinforce the castle, and only a few were able to enter at all. Besides, these two thousand men were hardly die-hard loyalists. Some snatched what they could and ran.
"Triumph!"
"Triumph!"
"Victory!"
"Elite troops? We beat the elite!"
The soldiers cheered as they crowded around Gendry at the center. The sounds of battle continued all the way into the morning. House Frey suffered a humiliating defeat. The Twin castles fell outright, and the east-bank camp scattered like birds and beasts.
The price of storming the castle had not been small, but for such a strong fortress to be taken like this was nothing short of a miracle.
Gendry looked at the cheering soldiers. It was not quite three songs of victory in a single day, but it was still three victories in the span of a few days.
"The Triumphant One!"
"The Triumphant Storm!"