"Crack!"
The oak-and-steel gates of Silverhill were quickly burned through by Dragonfire, and the air was filled with the scorching smell of flame.
Balerion looked down on all things with eyes like molten lava. The Dragon lowered his body, then began circling high in the sky again.
Only the swirling black-red flames gave off a brilliant glow.
The green dragon Vhagar and the white dragon Viserion roared after him, their voices shaking all of Silverhill.
Lances of fire poured out endless heat, as if even the rocks themselves knew fear.
"For the king!"
"For the king!"
Timett son of Timett and Lord Jack Crabb led every skilled climber in the army forward along the ridge.
The ridge leading to Silverhill was dangerous, and the defenders had prepared fire oil, rolling logs, and archers.
But with the Dragons dancing wildly overhead, the defenders scattered in every direction. Taking Silverhill was plainly an easy victory.
Below Silverhill, on the Mander, longships stood like a forest.
Patrek led the sailors in tearing apart the water defenses House Serrett had prepared, a river gate meant to guard against House Rowan suddenly breaking out.
"Dragons! Three Dragons!"
"Seven save us."
"It is the king. King Gendry is here!"
"Gods, how are the Dragons so huge?"
On the walls of Silverhill, scorpions and ballistae had been set up as well.
But the instant the Dragons roared, House Serrett's army scattered like frightened birds and beasts.
The battle ended quickly. Although Silverhill was wealthy, it had lost many men after Tywin marched east, and those left behind were mostly old, weak, sick, or wounded.
The first time Tywin left the Westerlands, he had taken thirty-five thousand men with him, splitting his forces so his son Jaime could besiege Riverrun while he himself led troops to block the Riverlands.
But after successive setbacks at the Battle of the Whispering Wood, the Battle of the Camps, the desperate fight against the Winter Wolves, and the Battle of the Blackwater in King's Landing, Tywin's elite forces had suffered terrible losses.
Under Tywin Lannister's iron hand, the lords of the Westerlands could never have hidden away large numbers of troops as House Stark's bannermen had done when they marched south.
Now, faced with irresistible Dragon might, they quickly collapsed.
"The Westerlands did the best job of centralizing power," Gendry thought. "And they already had advantages in population and gold."
Tywin was different from the Great Lords of old. He had rooted out House Reyne and House Tarbeck utterly, directly destroying powerful second-tier lords.
Tywin was more cold-blooded and brutal than the lords who had struggled against one another in the past. In a way, he was an anomaly across hundreds and thousands of years, utterly merciless.
House Tyrell's centralization, by contrast, had been achieved through marriage alliances, because Tyrell prestige truly lagged far behind that of the old royal houses.
Although the Rose's schemes appeared far gentler, its allies all had their own minds.
House Rowan was a hidden sympathizer of House Targaryen, while Hightower had simply acted on its own and refused to send its elite troops.
"If we are doing this, we may as well do it completely."
For the captain of the guards, an absolute confidant and distant kinsman of House Serrett, loyalty did not mean blind devotion. Rather than die loyally for the lions, he chose to let his own house survive.
Instead, the squad of reinforcements sent by Tywin was trapped in the courtyard, blocked first by House Serrett's men.
The young Ser Gerold Serrett was brought over in disarray, missing even one shoe.
"Your Grace, I..." The young knight, wearing only a white undershirt, was pale as he awaited his fate.
In the blazing firelight, Ser Gerold naturally recognized that knight, the towering warrior surrounded by the lords, tall and imposing.
The unique helm with its two great branching horns already declared the king's identity.
Gendry stood in a golden cloak and black armor, his bearing unmatched.
"Your Grace, please spare Silverhill. I am willing to obey your commands," Gerold pleaded on his knees.
"Get up. Whimpering like a woman." Gendry looked at the young man before him. "Where is your father?"
"Hahahaha."
The victorious knights laughed with open malice.
"You surrendered quickly enough, fool. My lady is still thirsting for blood," Lyn Corbray said disdainfully.
They had thought Silverhill would have some defenses and were already prepared to burn the place and make an example of it. Unexpectedly, Silverhill had surrendered almost at once.
"He is still in Tywin's army."
"So he is a hostage," Yohn Royce said bluntly.
"My father. My father is indeed a hostage, controlled by Tywin. I beg Your Grace to pardon his treason."
Gendry very much wanted to say that those who achieved great things could not be bound by trifles, and that at a time like this, he could not concern himself with Gerold's father.
But to these Westerosi, inheritance was inheritance.
Even if one hardened one's heart, hostages might still prove useless. Gendry found it hard to say whether Tywin's move was good or bad.
Perhaps Ser Gerold was secretly pleased. Once he surrendered and Tywin killed the Lord, he would inherit early.
"Very well, Ser Gerold, rise. I understand what you have said. Have all the lords of the Westerlands handed over hostages?"
"Yes, Your Grace."
Tywin was still an old hand. Though he used few clever stratagems, his ordinary measures were extremely steady, relying on advantages in equipment and training.
At the very least, the Lannister army was defeated but not disordered. Hostages and new troops were the lion's final tools, and that was a rather pitiful state.
"Your Grace, House Serrett has long wished to submit. We were only restrained because Tywin kidnapped our lord," the blue-cloaked captain of House Serrett's guards said respectfully.
"I understand what you are saying. Where are Tywin's reinforcements?" Gendry asked.
"I will lead the way for Your Grace," Ser Gerold said at once, flustered.
The Dragons roared over Silverhill, displaying Dragon might like a surging sea and rolling waves.
And the elite veterans led by Gendry displayed the might of the king.
In one courtyard of the castle, red-cloaked soldiers wearing lion half-helms had been trapped inside their barracks by House Serrett's blue-cloaked soldiers in a crescent spear formation. They could neither advance nor retreat.
When the battle turned bad, those blue cloaks, familiar with the terrain, had blocked the road first and refused to let the red cloaks move out.
"Traitors! You traitors!" the red-cloaked leader cursed, the lion half-helm on his head making him look like an enraged lion.
"Welcome His Grace Gendry, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Ruler of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, King of Myr, Tyrosh, the Stepstones, and the Disputed Lands, Commander of the Wolf Pack Company.
"Breaker, Lord of Dragons, Breaker of Chains, Shatterer of Crowns, the Triumphant, Breaker of Swords, Sword of Morning, Dragonlord Storm."
Gendry's squire, Dickon Tarly, read aloud in a clear voice. It was impressive that the boy could recite such a long list in one breath.
In truth, Gendry also thought highly of that child, Edric Dayne. House Dayne had all sorts of mysteries about it as well.
But Edric following his future uncle on guerrilla warfare through the Riverlands was not a bad thing either.
House Serrett's blue-cloaked soldiers immediately knelt in a dark mass. Seeing the situation turn against them, many red cloaks hurriedly threw down their weapons as well.
"After ten breaths, anyone who still refuses to surrender will be executed for treason!" Gendry declared.
The king's gold cloaks were already prepared, crossbows loaded, spearmen and swordsmen ready to clear the field at any moment.
"One. Two. Three..."
"We surrender! We surrender!"
The red cloaks' surrender became a rout.
"Traitors! You are all traitors!" the red-cloaked leader roared.
"What traitors are we? We are just small merchants from Lannisport. Why should we be buried with the Lannisters?"
"Exactly. I farm the land. I never slept with Queen Dowager Cersei, Ser Jaime's whore."
The red cloaks fired back angrily, refusing to accept the accusation.
"King Tommen is the rightful king. You are nothing but seed spilled by the drunkard king in a gutter, and yet those nobles treat you like a treasure."
"For House Lannister! Long live the lion!"
The red-cloaked leader roared and charged forward alone, rushing at the king all by himself.
"Seeking death?"
The blade flashed bright. Gendry drew Just Maid, and blue light burst from the sword. Its shadow moved with incredible speed.
Ser Gerold saw it clearly. It was a strike of unmatched force, and with the sharpness of the magic sword Just Maid itself, no one could block it.
Gendry was tall and powerful, with advantages in both speed and strength, giving him a tremendous reach.
Then the red-cloaked leader fell to the ground. His longsword, armor, flesh, and organs had all been cut apart in a single sweep.
Ser Barristan removed the man's lion half-helm. Blond hair, blue eyes, plainly the look of a Lannister.
"Your Grace, the leader was a distant kinsman of House Lannister. That is why he always used it to insult us," the surrendered red cloaks said pitifully.
House Lannister had many branches. Even if everyone else abandoned Casterly Rock, these kinsmen would still hold on to the very end.
"Bury him," Gendry said. "His head is not worth much. What I want are the heads of Tywin, Kevan, and the others."
"Yes, Your Grace," Lord Gerold said softly, and the blue cloaks stepped forward to clear away the body.
Tywin was short of men now. It was said he was raising a new army and taking in many miscellaneous troops.
Mounted archers wearing only leather armor, large numbers of undisciplined freeriders and hedge knights, farmers on plow horses with sickles and rusty swords left from their grandfathers' time, and boys from the alleys of Lannisport who had not even finished training. Now even these men had been given better arms.
"For the king!"
"For the king!"
The royalist army cheered.
House Serrett's troops and the red cloaks all knelt on the ground.
"Honored Your Grace Gendry, on behalf of House Serrett and all the people of Silverhill, I swear fealty to you. To the true and lawful King Gendry, I offer my loyalty. Absolute loyalty, without fear. I swear it upon the honor of House Serrett."
"Rise, Gerold."
Gendry pressed Just Maid to Gerold's shoulder, then withdrew the longsword.
"How are Tywin's men deployed?"
"After Jaime fled back to the Golden Tooth with his hand severed, Great Lord Tywin had men begin training new recruits in Lannisport. Originally, Tywin's good-brother, Stafford Lannister, was in charge, but Ser Jaime thought him too incapable. Now it should be his son, Ser Daven, training them. Jaime commands the routed soldiers and elites Tywin pulled back from the east."
"And the soldiers' movements?"
"That. I only know the rough outline."
Silverhill had fallen. Next was Deep Den.