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What kind of turn of events was this?
To have someone's hand chopped clean off, and still not react? Not even a flicker of pain?
Clay felt no guilt at all for hurting them.
After all, that limb was already rotted through, dead flesh with no meaning or value left in it. It hardly counted.
So, his sword slid forward again, this time piercing into the thigh of another poor soul.
He did not drive it all the way through. Clay was no sadist who took pleasure in crippling people.
Dark red blood welled slowly from the wound, yet even with such pain, the injured man showed no sign of waking. His body lay slack, trapped in a dreamless void.
That was enough for Clay. He knew then there was no point in further testing.
What in the world was this?
Some kind of mass hypnosis?
The three-eyed crow could pull off tricks like this? How had he never heard of it before?
Granted, this kind of sorcery did fit the style and grandeur of an messenger of the Old Gods, but Clay still found it almost impossible to believe.
At last, he understood why news from the North had failed to reach him.
Thinking it through, it seemed likely the messengers had fallen asleep before they ever made it out.
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Clay tried everything he could imagine to rouse the crew, exhausting every method that came to mind. It was useless. None of them could be awakened.
From that, he finally pieced together how this ship had run aground.
The scene was like a drunken accident. At some unknown moment, every man aboard had been seized by a sudden and collective sleep.
And once the ship lost all human control, it never changed course. It sailed straight on, etching a perfect line across the surface of the sea, until it finally rammed itself onto the sandbank. That was why it now lay stranded here, silent and helpless.
There was nothing more worth seeing in this place.
Clay was no philanthropist, much less a saint.
He had no time to waste wondering whether these men, trapped in their strange sleep for days on end, would survive or not.
There were others, people far more important to him, waiting desperately for his help. He could not afford to squander his strength or precious hours here.
So he mounted his dragon once more and set his course northward, toward White Harbor.
Before long, the great city came into view.
And to his surprise, there were still people awake here.
The dragon descended onto the vast open ground before New Castle, its wings stirring up gusts of wind that rattled the gates and sent dust swirling.
Clay strode straight for the castle doors. As he pushed his way in, several startled screams rang out, followed by the sharp hiss of steel being drawn from scabbards.
"Don't panic, it's me!" Clay's voice carried through the hall.
Inside the castle, guards were huddled together, yawning endlessly, their eyelids heavy as lead. Yet they stubbornly forced themselves to stay awake, fighting against the pull of sleep. At the sound of his voice, they struggled to focus and see clearly who had come.
"Lord Clay!" one of them cried in recognition.
For a moment they all stood frozen, their eyes drawn past him to the colossal dragon looming outside. Its sudden appearance was so unreal that it left them utterly speechless.
On any ordinary day, White Harbor would have erupted into chaos at such a sight. The streets would have been in an uproar, as though an enemy army had come crashing against their gates.
But after the strange events of four days ago, their hearts no longer carried that same fear or frenzy.
Even so, none of them had expected that the man who leapt down from the dragon's back would be their own young lord.
These guards were all old retainers of White Harbor, men who had served here for years. Not one of them would mistake his face.
"I don't have time to explain what bond I share with the dragon," Clay said sharply. "All you need to know is that your young lord can command it. Now tell me… what in the world is going on here?"
He was, after all, the young lord of White Harbor, one of the core figures of the family itself. The guards, though bleary-eyed, swaying where they stood, still struggling against the heavy pull of sleep, exchanged glances. Fear and confusion pressed down on them, but with their lord before them, they felt steadied.
He was here. That was enough.
So long as it was truly the young lord, there was no room for doubt.
And if he could ride a dragon… well, that wasn't a bad thing. Whatever he said, they would accept.
At last one of them stepped forward and answered, his voice hoarse from exhaustion. "Young Lord Clay, we honestly don't know exactly what happened."
"Four days ago, we suddenly felt as if something had been stripped from our minds. Then, all around us, some people just collapsed where they stood, sinking into sleep they couldn't be woken from no matter what we tried."
"As for those of us left standing, we were all swallowed by a crushing drowsiness."
"But we knew something was wrong. We couldn't allow ourselves to give in and fall asleep completely."
"Fortunately, our condition wasn't as bad as theirs. Even if we drifted, we could be shaken awake again. But still… we've been so bone-tired we can hardly do anything at all. And with the snowstorm outside raging so fiercely, there's simply nothing we could manage."
Clay's brows tightened until they knotted together. His voice dropped low. "With something this serious happening, why didn't you send word to the Twins? Does the old lord even know what's going on?"
One of the guards let out a bitter laugh. "Young Lord, of course we wanted to. But all the ravens… every last one of them fell asleep. What could we possibly do?"
Right. Clay cursed himself inwardly. He had forgotten that birds counted as living creatures too.
No wonder the land along his journey had felt so lifeless. In just four days, delicate creatures like birds must have perished in great numbers, their bodies buried beneath the snow.
"And what about Uncle Wylis? How is his condition?" Clay asked.
The guard shook his head. "Lord Wylis was among the very first to fall asleep. These past few days we've been taking turns watching over him. For now, at least, his condition hasn't worsened."
Clay gave a slow nod. If Wylis himself was unharmed, he had nothing more to add on that matter.
Among the direct line of the family, Wylis was the only one stationed in White Harbor as its guardian. The rest of the main kin were all in the Twins. As long as Wylis was safe, Clay could set aside his concern.
"Have you given any thought as to why some of you can still remain awake, while others can't? Have you tried to find what you have in common?" Clay pressed, genuinely eager for an answer.
But what the guard said next caught him completely off guard.
After a long hesitation, the man finally muttered, "Young Lord Clay, we… we've been talking among ourselves, and the only conclusion we can reach is this: we're all the sort of people who tend to be stubborn, hold fast to our own way of thinking, and… we've always had trouble sleeping soundly. In other words, we're the kind who can hardly fall asleep in the first place."
Clay's expression froze into something complicated, caught somewhere between disbelief, faint amusement, and a flicker of unease. What kind of answer was that supposed to be?
"You're certain about this?" he pressed.
"Uh… yes, Young Lord. Our faiths aren't the same, our duties aren't the same, our ages and even our sexes are different. Aside from those two points, we've really found nothing else in common."
Even the guard himself seemed embarrassed, as though hearing the absurdity of his own words aloud. Yet after days of anxious discussion, this was still the best explanation they could offer, flimsy as it sounded.
Clay sat with the words, chewing them over carefully.
No matter how absurd it might sound, the very fact they dared bring it to him meant there had to be some truth buried in it.
To grasp the essence behind the surface, Clay felt as though he was missing one crucial piece of the puzzle, something that would neatly explain this strange conclusion.
But no matter how he turned it over in his mind, he could not catch hold of that elusive thread.
"Oh, right! Lord Clay, a letter came from Winterfell not long ago. They said it was to be passed directly to you."
"It hadn't been delivered yet when all of this happened."
The personal guard of Wylis Manderly, who had been leaning drowsily against the table and stifling yawns, suddenly remembered and straightened up, blurting out the reminder.
"Hm?"
Clay blinked, taken aback. What business could Winterfell possibly have with him?
"Where's the letter?"
"In Lord Wylis's study."
"Take me there."
"Yes, Lord Clay."
He followed the guard through the winding corridors until they reached the Sea God's Tower, a place Clay knew well. Wylis's study was located directly beneath the chamber that had once belonged to the old lord.
When the door swung open, a blast of chill air rushed out, biting against the skin like knives.
The room had stood empty for four days. With no one to tend it, the guards had long since let the fire in the hearth burn out. Now the chamber's air was cold and heavy, the sort of damp chill that seeped into the bones, as if the place had become an ice cellar.
Clay paid it no mind. He strode straight to Wylis's desk and began rifling through the heap of scattered documents, searching for the letter the guard had mentioned.
Winterfell would not send a message without cause. If they had written to him, it could only mean something serious.
Clay felt a gnawing certainty that whatever was sealed within that letter, it would somehow be tied to the strange mass slumber that had struck his people.
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Meanwhile, in the Riverlands, at Riverrun, within the great hall of the castle, events were quietly unfolding.
At this moment, Edmure Tully could only curse himself with bitter regret. He must have been blind, his wits dulled like fat clogging his head, to have ever provoked Clay Manderly.
Never, not even in his most fevered nightmares, had he imagined that the heir of White Harbor, who had risen like a bolt of lightning across the North, would turn out to be, Seven help them all, an actual dragonlord.
What kind of cruel and absurd script of fate was this?
Yet no matter how much he raged within, the truth stood unyielding, cold as stone. What was done could never be undone.
Even a fool would know that the return of House Targaryen meant old debts would be settled, and the Tullys would surely be made to answer.
And here was Clay Manderly, leaving behind a single command before he departed: the host was to withdraw to Riverrun.
He had flown north on the back of a great dragon, Robb Stark's body carried away in his keeping.
And yet, among all the great lords of the Riverlands, not one of them dared rise, not one found the courage to speak a word of defiance.
Clay Manderly had spoken to them in his capacity as commander of the host. Who among them would dare disobey?
And so it was that the lords of the Riverlands, each burdened with his own secret schemes and private fears, marched their armies back to Riverrun, the heavy weight of silence hanging over them like a funeral pall.
In truth, though none would admit it aloud, they were grateful that Clay Manderly had given such an order.
For the very next day after their departure, Rickard Karstark arrived at last, leading ten thousand Manderly men to the south.
The army pressed close on their heels, a looming weight they could not ignore, its pressure constantly felt at their backs.
But once they returned to Riverrun, the atmosphere quickly soured and turned strange.
The nobles clustered together, whispering in corners, holding countless private meetings in back rooms and secluded chambers. Even in the castle's great hall, where all were gathered, every glance, whether deliberate or disguised, seemed to drift toward the high seat where Edmure Tully presided.
For when it came to Clay's troubles and the obstacles thrown in his path, these men had been no strangers. They had known, they had watched, and some had even taken quiet satisfaction in it.
The Tullys, after all, were already on House Targaryen's list for retribution. If they hoped to escape with their lives and titles intact, their only chance lay with the other Dragonlord: Clay Manderly.
But fate had played them a cruel jest. Edmure Tully himself had provoked Clay, ruining that one fragile thread of hope.
Now every noble in the Riverlands felt the same unease gnawing in their gut. This land, they thought, might well be on the verge of changing hands.
The Tullys had ridden atop them for three hundred years, and they had bent the knee for just as long. But they, better than anyone, knew what that loyalty was worth.
And in the present, the moment mirrored the past. Just as it had been three centuries ago, a chance now lay before them. If the timing was chosen carefully, perhaps one of them could rise higher.
The thought crept, unbidden but irresistible, into the hearts of every noble who fancied themselves fit for greater things.
And so, when they looked at Edmure Tully upon the dais, drinking alone and heavily to dull his own dread, what they saw was not a liege lord but a fattened swine waiting to be led to slaughter.
In these uneasy days, Brynden Tully, the Blackfish, who still commanded a measure of respect among the Riverland houses, swallowed his pride and forced his weathered face into countless visits. He went from hall to hall, meeting lord after lord, begging and bargaining, trying desperately to rally the great families into standing with House Tully at this critical hour.
But men are creatures of profit, and profit speaks louder than loyalty!
Seeing the Tullys as a leaking, half-sunken vessel, about to be swallowed whole by the tide, most lords felt that not trampling the wreck underfoot was kindness enough. To offer help at such a moment? That was unthinkable.
One by one, they grew bolder. In Edmure Tully's presence their words became sharper, more insolent, each remark a small test to see just how far they could push before he snapped.
Yet unlike Tytos Lannister, Edmure had no ruthless son to guard his back, no hard edge to shore up his weakness.
It was plain to all that House Tully's misfortune was about to reach its bitter peak.
And within this hall, another group watched the spectacle with cold, measuring eyes.
These were the remnants of the northern nobles from Harrenhal, those who had already bent the knee to Clay Manderly.
They had nowhere else to go. It was not that Clay forbade them from returning north, but rather that their armies were gone, their men scattered and broken, their strength firmly in Clay's hands. What few soldiers remained with them were wounded and weary, in desperate need of rest and healing.
So they had no choice but to follow the Riverland host back to Riverrun, and now they stood by as outsiders, silent witnesses to this ugly game of schemes and betrayals.
The Riverland lords circled one another like wolves, whispering and plotting, their ambitions laid bare, their suspicions deeper than ever.
Again and again, men came to sound out the northern exiles, probing, hinting, asking whether there was hope of shelter under Clay's shadow.
But those men had already made landfall. They were safely ashore, while the Riverland lords were still floundering in deep water, struggling not to drown. Of course the northerners were in no hurry.
And of course, they were no fools. Who among them would dare make a promise at such a time?
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[Chapter End's]
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