The morning air tasted of salt and copper. Sunlight crested over the Narrow Sea, bathing the high walls, towers, and manses of Myr in a pale, unforgiving light.
While the waters off Tyrosh had boiled with war, the streets of Myr had erupted into their own localized hell. Sensing weakness with the Wolf Pack deployed elsewhere, the ousted Myrish Magisters had armed their hidden loyalists, dreaming of a swift restoration. They found instead a meat grinder.
Brown Ben Plumm stood upon the battlements, his dark, almond eyes—a gift from a Dothraki grandmother—narrowed against the glare. The urban war raged below, but the restorationist forces moved with sluggish desperation. The Second Sons and the Free Army garrison held the walls, the high ground, and the choke points. The freedmen defended their new lives tooth and nail, while the common citizens of Myr simply barred their heavy oak doors and waited for the victor to emerge.
A long, ragged breath escaped Brown Ben's lips. The banners cresting the horizon on the Valyrian dragonroad did not bear the three heads of Tyrosh. They were grey and white, snapping fiercely in the wind, depicting a roaring wolf.
The vanguard rode hard, a tidal wave of polished steel and thundering hooves.
"Tell the men," Brown Ben shouted, his voice carrying over the clamor. "The Hammer King returns!"
The ancient bronze war-horns of the city answered, their deep, rhythmic blasts shattering the morning calm. A roar went up from the Second Sons and the garrison troops lining the battlements.
"The Commander returns!"
"Tyrosh has fallen!"
Down in the winding streets, the blood drained from the faces of the rebel Magisters. Their grand coup, built on the assumption that the Wolf Pack would drown in the Stepstones, was collapsing around them.
The heavy cavalry did not slow until they reached the shadow of the Myrish gates. Brown Ben Plumm scrambled down the stone steps, leading a dozen officers to meet the approaching column.
He dropped to one knee on the cobblestones as Gendry reined in his black destrier.
"Commander," Brown Ben reported, his leather armor speckled with dried blood. "The slavers moved the moment they heard of the naval clash. We held the high ground and locked down the port and the town hall. They are bleeding themselves dry against our barricades."
"Well done, Ben," Gendry replied, his gaze sweeping over the smoke rising from the merchant quarters. To hold the city with only five hundred Second Sons and a skeletal garrison was a testament to the old sellsword's cunning. "But I have no time to indulge a street brawl. The horse lords are coming."
"I have something that will speed things along," Brown Ben murmured, producing a tightly rolled parchment. "A full ledger of the conspirators."
Gendry took the list, a hard, humorless smile touching his lips. He drew his warhammer, raising the heavy iron head high.
"Victory!" Gendry's voice boomed over the gathered host.
"Victory!" the cavalry roared back. A thousand blades, morningstars, and axes cleared their scabbards in a deafening chorus of steel.
The gates swung wide, and Gendry led the charge into the city.
As the column poured through, Brown Ben caught sight of the rider beside the Commander. He blinked in surprise. "Prince Oberyn? The years have added some frost to your hair."
Oberyn Martell offered a dangerous, white-toothed grin. "And you are still breathing, Ben. I rode with your Sons for a year, as I recall."
"That you did, Prince," Ben replied, suppressing his countless questions about why a Martell was riding beside a Baratheon bastard. Survival demanded focus. "We will drink to it when the rats are purged."
The Wolf Pack swept through the main thoroughfares like a scythe. Heavy cavalry crushed the barricades, while the light horsemen of the Free Army flanked through the alleys.
The Myrish rebels boasted fine armor and repeating crossbows that loosed three quarrels in rapid succession, but they lacked discipline. Confronted by veterans hardened in the siege of Qohor and the capture of Myr, the restorationists shattered like parchment.
A young Myrish noble, clad in gilded scale armor, stepped into Gendry's path, his face twisted in a snarl. He swung a heavy broadsword, his movements frantic and untrained.
Gendry did not even break his horse's stride. He leaned in the saddle and swung his warhammer in a brutal, sweeping arc. The iron head connected with the young man's chest. The gilded breastplate caved inward with a sickening crunch of splintering bone. The noble crumpled to the cobblestones, blood bubbling past his lips.
"Demons!" a surviving guardsman shrieked, breaking rank and fleeing. Gendry's riders ran him down before he reached the corner.
Oberyn rode quietly in Gendry's wake, his spear resting easily across his saddle. It was not a battle; it was an execution. The Myrish had walked into a trap they had set for themselves.
Seeing the rebel lines break, the barricaded citizens and freedmen poured out of their homes, armed with butcher's cleavers and iron pipes, eager to curry favor with the returning conqueror by hacking at the retreating loyalists.
By midday, the last pockets of resistance were crushed. In a sprawling manse near the city center, the ringleader—Magister Khasa—chose the coward's exit. When the Wolf Pack battered down his heavy oak doors, they found the Magister and his entire family dead in their dining hall, their wine cups smelling sharply of sweet almonds.
Veterans dragged the pale corpses out into the sunlight, tossing them onto a growing pile of the dead in the central plaza.
Gendry stared down at the bodies. The weight of his rule was written in the blood pooling on the stones. He was forging a new world, and it required a foundation of absolute, terrifying authority.
He turned his horse, looking down at Brown Ben Plumm.
"You know what comes next."
"I do, Commander," Ben replied solemnly. "The names on the list swing from the walls. Those who knew and stayed silent will be invited to the town hall to discuss their fines."
"Make it quick," Gendry ordered, his eyes drifting toward the eastern horizon. "The men who smell of horses are nearly here. And they will not break so easily."
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