Outside the gates of Storm's End, Ser Cortnay Penrose sat astride his chestnut courser, his eyes locked in solemn judgment upon the knight who stood before him.
The man's eyes were downcast and gloomy beneath heavy brows, his rust-colored beard jutting like a crude weapon. His white scale armor was etched with delicate threads of gold that caught the sunlight. Upon his head rested a helm adorned with sunbursts of beaten gold, while his knee guards, gorget, gauntlets, and boots were all polished iron that gleamed like mirrors in the morning light.
Whether this display was meant to flaunt his status or betray his fear of death, Cortnay could not say.
Most telling was the woolen cloak that hung from the knight's shoulders, fastened by a clasp wrought in the shape of a golden lion.
"Ser Cortnay Penrose," the knight said, his rust-colored beard swaying gently as he spoke. "It has been too long."
Cortnay snorted with cold derision. "You've grown fat and comfortable in the Red Keep. I fear you've forgotten the Stormlands entirely, Maron Trant!"
Cortnay recognized the face well enough.
How could he not? From his own ancestral seat at Paps to Storm's End itself, between them lay the Trant family's lands of Haystack Hall.
"What's this? The Hangman Knight has transformed himself into a proud golden lion?"
Cortnay's face twisted with mockery.
Maron Trant appeared unmoved by the barb, absently stroking the golden lion clasp that secured his cloak. "As a Kingsguard, one must naturally forsake his family, take no wife, father no children, and serve the king with his whole heart. Should a true knight not praise me for honoring my sacred vows? Why do you speak with such contempt?"
If it were truly out of devotion to his duty as a Kingsguard, perhaps such choices would be excusable, even worthy of respect. But Maron Trant? Was he truly such a man?
Cortnay Penrose had little patience for empty words.
"Say what you've come to say and be quick about it. You can hurry back to lick your master's boots, and I can return to the leisure of preparing Storm's End to slaughter your companions."
Cortnay glanced at Maron Trant with unconcealed disgust.
Had this craven not been waving two peace banners as he approached, visible to all the defenders on the walls, Cortnay might have challenged him to single combat then and there, ridding the world of one more faithless villain.
A pity.
His gaze drifted upward to the banners Trant's squire held.
One peace banner was painted with seven-colored stripes, connected to seven long tails, tied to a pole crowned with a seven-pointed star.
The other banner was nearly identical, save that all the "sevens" had been replaced with "sixes."
He recognized this as yet another consequence of the false king Joffrey's willfulness. The boy had apparently decreed that "The symbol of the Seven Gods is a six-pointed star"—an absurdity that boggled the mind!
And Maron Trant, it seemed, neither respected the gods nor possessed the courage to face death with conviction.
Cortnay glanced at him again with disdain. Had this man truly dared to come bearing only the six-pointed star, it might have suggested some measure of loyalty and courage, misplaced though they might be. But no—he carried the seven-pointed star as well. Craven to the last!
As if stung by Cortnay's contemptuous stare, Maron Trant finally unfurled a scroll bearing the king's warrant.
"I, Joffrey of the Houses Baratheon and Lannister, by the Grace of the Gods, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm..."
Cortnay Penrose lazily picked at his ear, making a show of his indifference.
"...infinite power, rebellion will be destroyed. To show the mercy of the gods, immediately open the city gates and pledge allegiance to justice. All within the city can still be forgiven, merit will be rewarded regardless of past crimes."
Maron Trant extended the warrant toward him, his face a mask of indifference and arrogance.
"Finished your recitation?" Cortnay Penrose spat upon the ground between them. "There is my answer. Go back and report to your boy-king. Let those poor soldiers come and dash themselves to pieces upon our walls. Their blood will be on your hands."
"Or perhaps," he added, his hand moving to rest upon the hilt of his sword, "you would prefer to die by my blade here and now?"
Facing a man like Maron Trant, Cortnay would never dream of coming unarmed.
Trant showed neither surprise nor anger at the challenge.
"Sword duels," he sighed with condescending weariness, "are relics of a bygone age."
Without another word, he turned and made his way back toward the enemy camp, not once glancing over his shoulder.
Watching Trant's distant, shining figure retreat, Cortnay Penrose knew he had rejected the only chance to avoid bloodshed.
So be it. The enemy's blood would flow ten or a hundred times more freely than that of Storm's End!
Cortnay Penrose turned his mount around.
As he crossed the drawbridge and entered the gatehouse, he felt the weight of centuries pressing down upon him. Above his head, countless murder holes gaped like hungry mouths, and all around him, deadly mechanisms lay hidden in the shadows.
From above, solid stones would come rolling down, and boiling oil would pour in cascades of liquid fire.
To his left and right, bows would be drawn, crossbows would loose their bolts, and fire-spewing weapons would belch forth dragon's breath.
Once the portcullis fell, it could cleave a man in two, grinding flesh and bone into a bloody paste. Afterward, it would separate the world into two realms—those inside doomed to immediate death, and those outside merely awaiting their inevitable end.
The city gate itself was bound with iron bars and, if necessary, could be covered with a layer of iron spikes to thwart any attempt to tamper with it.
Even the ground beneath was not simply stone and mortar.
Inside the walls, mechanisms controlled hidden underground passages. Once activated, the floor of the gatehouse would collapse, revealing a pit two men long and two men deep.
Not only would heavy equipment like battering rams find no purchase there, but even lightly armored soldiers would struggle to cross, all while subjected to a merciless hail from the murder holes above.
All of this represented the enemy's worst nightmare—and Storm's End's lullaby.
Cortnay Penrose knew it as intimately as a lover.
Click, click, click.
The iron cables tightened around the winch, drawing the drawbridge up behind him, sealing the breach in the outer wall.
The gatehouse plunged into sudden darkness.
In that confined space, subtle sounds began to fill the void from above and below, left and right—the quiet movements of soldiers taking their positions behind the murder holes.
Boom.
The heavy city gate was lifted gradually by iron cables, and light spilled into the gatehouse from below, growing brighter and wider until a man on horseback might pass through.
Cortnay Penrose spurred his mount across the threshold.
Thump.
The city gate crashed to the ground with finality, none could say when it might open again.
"Ser, a raven from Amberly."
Cortnay Penrose had just mounted the steps to the northern wall when the maester hurried toward him, clutching a sealed parchment.
The letter's seal bore the sigil of House Rogers—black wax impressed with nine silver unicorns surrounding a silver maze.
House Rogers of Amberly, neighbors to the west of Rain House. The fleet from King's Landing had struck there too, it seemed.
He could already guess the contents.
Breaking the seal and unfolding the letter, his suspicions were confirmed.
Amberly had indeed suffered raids from the fleet. Though the castle itself remained secure, many fishing villages and towns along the coast had been plundered or put to the torch. Some enemy forces had even penetrated inland, clearly intending to ravage yet more settlements.
More and more like pirates, he thought.
Cortnay Penrose's feelings were a tangled knot.
"Ser, how shall we report this to His Grace?" the maester inquired cautiously.
Cortnay's gaze drifted northward toward the enemy encampment.
It was now certain that the foe had not brought siege engines of any significance. Their supplies appeared insufficient, their camps scattered and disorganized. They didn't even employ military drums or horns to coordinate their movements!
As for the reason...
The letter from Amberly had verified a suspicion he had previously deemed too outlandish to credit.
The enemy's white light and deafening sound were not without limits, it seemed. Amberly had also heard the fleet's thunderous demands for surrender, but only half-complete—the rest had abruptly ceased.
So it appeared that, emboldened by this strange power, the enemy had felt confident enough to dispense with traditional drums and horns.
But what if this power had suddenly failed them, leaving them without means to issue commands effectively?
"Ser!"
A soldier came running from the eastern battlements. "The besieging fleet is moving! They—"
Cortnay Penrose raised his hand, cutting off the man's report.
There was no need for words. The fleet had already arranged itself in formation before his eyes, sailing farther northward.
He turned his attention to the true north.
In the center of the enemy encampment on the shore, a crowned stag banner larger than a ship's sail had been planted above the main pavilion.
Joffrey, he thought grimly. Arrogant as ever.
Before long, every raven in Storm's End's rookery had been released.
The besieging soldiers loosed several volleys of arrows skyward, but six or seven of the dark birds still managed to evade the deadly shafts.
They flew northward, bearing Cortnay's tidings to King Renly.
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