The Hollow Hill was no place for the living. The air was a stagnant soup of rot and damp earth that clung to the skin like a wet shroud. After a final, grim council, Rand led the company to the surface. Tents were pitched in a clearing where the trees stood like skeletal sentinels. The camp was a hive of quiet activity—sharpening steel, checking cinches, and tending to horses.
Kevin found Rand near the edge of the camp, methodically running a whetstone over his blade. The forest around them felt like a crouching beast, the moonlight barely piercing the thick canopy to leave dappled, ghost-pale spots on the mud.
"You've been chewing on those words for a long time, haven't you?" Kevin asked softly.
Rand didn't look up. The shrr-shrr of the stone was the only sound for a heartbeat. "It was always going to end here, Kevin. Your Master sent you to us knowing the Lightning Lord was a dying flame. It was better that the suggestion came from me than from one of his own disciples."
Kevin looked at his hands, remembering the way Aldric had looked at Beric Dondarrion on the Isle of Faces—not with rivalry, but with a profound, heavy pity. "Perhaps. He knew the Lord of Light was a demanding master."
Rand sheathed his sword with a decisive click. "It's for the best. Thoros said Beric's last wish was for those who couldn't follow a corpse to find the Lightbringer. If the Lady merges us into the Dawn, the Brotherhood lives on. If not... we're just another pack of broken men waiting for a rope."
"I'll speak to the Master," Kevin promised. "The Brotherhood's spirit shouldn't be broken, only tempered."
Two days later, Harwin, Tom Sevenstrings, and One-Eyed Jack returned with grain and salt. The news of the proposed merger hit them like a northern gale.
"Is this Aldric Cerese truly reliable?" Harwin asked, his brow furrowed in suspicion. "He calls himself the Lightbringer, yet his 'Alliance' sat idle while the Young Wolf was butchered. Not a single spear from the Gods Eye marched for the King in the North."
"My Master harbors no ill-will toward the Starks," Kevin countered calmly. "But he saw how the Northmen treated the smallfolk in the West. He realized then that fighting for one Lord over another is just choosing which boot treads on your neck. The Dawn fights for the people, not the banners."
Harwin shook his head. "He occupies St. Maur's without a royal decree or the blessing of the High Septon. When the war ends, Littlefinger or the Iron Throne will come to reclaim it. Why join a house built on sand?"
Kevin didn't blink. "I thought the same once. Then I saw what he built. See it for yourself, Harwin. That's all I ask."
The decision ultimately rested with the thing that had been Catelyn Stark.
"If the Lightbringer seeks the blood of the Freys," her voice rasped—a sound like dry leaves skittering over a tombstone—"then I will lead my brothers to his fire."
Harwin, whose father had been the master of horse at Winterfell, looked at the ruined woman who was once his Lady and bowed his head. If she commanded it, he would follow.
The journey to the monastery took nine days, cutting through the lands of House Goodbrook. On the fifth day, the column ground to a halt.
By the roadside, a dozen Goodbrook soldiers were busy. A gray-robed man swayed from an oak limb, his tongue protruding, eyes bulging with the finality of the noose. Several other men lay in the dirt, their lifeblood staining the autumn grass a dark, muddy crimson. Three young women knelt nearby, their clothes torn, eyes vacant with a horror that transcended tears.
One-Eyed Jack rode forward, his hand on his hilt. "Identify yourselves!"
The soldiers turned. Seeing fifty armed riders, the leader—a bearded man with a scarred lip—stepped forward, resting a hand on his sword. "Goodbrook business. Move along, traveler."
"We're moving," Jack said with a mocking grin. "But you're blocking the road with your butcher's work."
The bearded man signaled his men to drag the bodies aside. As the Brotherhood began to file past, Rand pulled a wineskin from his saddle and tossed it to the leader.
"A long day for hanging," Rand said.
The man caught it, taking a deep swig. "Grey's men?" he asked, misidentifying Rand's worn surcoat. "Our Lords are old friends from the brothels of Maidenpool."
"Aye," Rand lied smoothly. "Taking captives to the capital to sue for peace?" He gestured to the women.
"Something like that," the soldier laughed. "The Earl sent his tribute yesterday."
Rand nodded toward the swaying monk. "And him? A Mummer? A Northman?"
"A heretic," the man spat. "He'd been whispering the 'Word' of some sun-god called Anshe. Telling the smallfolk there's a paradise at the Gods Eye where no man kneels. Our Lord offered him a sept to keep him quiet, but the old fool kept urging the peasants to flee their land and skip their leavetaking fines. We had to teach them a lesson."
"A lesson," Rand repeated, looking at the dead youth in the grass.
"Aye. And if your boys want a go at the girls, it's a copper star a head. We aren't greedy."
Rand's expression didn't change. He raised his hand to his mouth and let out a sharp, rhythmic whistle.
In a heartbeat, the Hollow Hill Company shifted. The weary travelers became a pack of wolves. Fifty blades cleared their scabbards, leveled at the throats of the Goodbrook men.
"What is this?" the leader stammered, his hand shaking. "We're allies!"
Kevin Turner rode up, his eyes burning with a golden fury. He stared at the dead monk. "That man was a Sunwalker."
"Lay down your steel," Rand commanded. "Now."
A soldier tried to raise a crossbow. A bolt from the Brotherhood's ranks hissed past his ear, thudding into a tree. "My finger slipped," a voice called out. "Next one finds a heart."
The swords clattered into the mud.
Kevin and Roger Hughes knelt by the dead monk. They recognized him—Brother Morgan, a wandering septon who had received the Seed at the Great Assembly. He was a man who had only ever known how to heal.
"You killed a man of peace," Kevin said, his voice a low, vibrating growl.
"Peace? He stole the Lord's property!" the bearded leader shouted. "Those peasants are bound to the dirt! They can't just leave because some sun-cult tells them they're free!"
An old woman among the refugees shrieked, throwing a rock at the soldier. "You took our grain! You ate our last sheep! My husband died for your Lord, and you killed my son for wanting to find bread! You are the thieves! You are the monsters!"
Lem Lemoncloak turned to Lady Stoneheart. The company waited. Between the high-born and the low, between the law of the Lords and the mercy of the Light—where did she stand?
The Lady didn't lower her hood. She looked at the soldiers, then at the weeping women. She uttered a single, rasping word.
"Trial."
The soldiers were dragged to the oaks. Under the accusations of the refugees, their crimes were tallied: rapine, murder, theft under the guise of law. One by one, the Goodbrook men were hoisted into the canopy.
As the last soldier stopped kicking, Rand turned to Kevin.
"A greeting gift for the Lightbringer," Rand said grimly. "Do you think he'll find it sincere?"
Kevin watched the bodies sway in the autumn wind. "I think he'll find it... appropriate."
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