Game of Thrones: I'm Dothrak King!!
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Westerosi gates were usually wood reinforced with iron bars. Wildfire found every crack. It seeped into the timber, burned from the inside, and clung to the iron until the bars glowed red-hot.
Gravity still worked on it, though. The wildfire poured down the gate, so the upper half stayed more intact than the lower. A few twisted iron bars still blocked the doorway, glowing and deformed but not completely gone.
The defenders had abandoned the first wall the moment it fell. No murder holes spat spears. No boiling oil came down from above.
A slim soldier took a deep breath, turned sideways, and squeezed through the gap. His clothes brushed a still-hot bar and sent up a thin wisp of smoke. He ignored it, grabbed the hammer passed to him, and went straight for the hinges and locking bar.
Two solid swings. The ruined iron shattered.
The broken gate was dragged open.
The stone path inside was cracked and blackened. Bush roots twisted out of the mud like broken fingers. Ash and embers mixed with the turned earth. The air stank of burnt plants.
For thousands of years boys and girls had probably played in this garden. Chasing each other between the flower walls. Whispering under the trees. Now the maze was nothing but scorched ground.
The other gates were forced the same way. Highgarden's outer defenses collapsed completely.
Three thousand defenders crammed together behind the second wall.
That wall was only about thirty feet high—short by the standards of the great castles. But Highgarden sat on a hill. Each ring of walls was taller and thicker than the one before it, and the hundred yards between the first and second wall rose in a steady slope.
Archers on the second wall had a twenty-foot height advantage over anyone at the base of the outer wall. Shooting upward was still a losing fight.
They would have to take it with infantry and blood.
Joffrey sat in the main camp on the north bank of the Mander and read the latest reports.
Some victories came from swords and spears. Others came from paper and ravens.
He had ordered false rumors spread.
The army outside the walls had been wiped out. Renly had abandoned them and wasn't coming. He was trapped in the Westerlands and already dead at Lannisport, or so the story went.
A few well-fed prisoners were released to tell the defenders that King Joffrey was merciful. Surrender and live. Keep fighting and end up like the gate.
Someone had to play the bad cop too.
Lord Ryker spent the whole day shouting that if they waited any longer he would burn the entire city to ash with wildfire. Ser Barristan had already crushed the last Stormlands forces and taken the field. They were finished.
Stormlands. Edge of the kingswood.
The sky was just starting to lighten. Morning fog clung to the ground and turned the distant treetops into gray smears.
Ser Dermot crouched behind a bush and used his sword to push the branches aside. Cold mist dripped onto the back of his hand.
Two hundred men lay in the grass behind him. He could hear their breathing—short, tight, scared or freezing.
A scout came out of the fog, chest heaving.
"Ser, the supply column's coming. Three hundred men, but over two hundred are just porters."
Someone behind Dermot whispered, "Less than a hundred guards. Fat fucking sheep."
Dermot weighed it in his head.
Renly had taken the main army and left them ten thousand men to hold the Stormlands. Weeks had passed and the lords still couldn't pick a real commander. Now they were being hunted by Barristan himself.
The army had been torn apart. Most lords had pulled back into their castles. Dermot's group had scattered, refused to surrender, and ended up hiding in the kingswood like common bandits.
A man had to eat. Had to find a way to live.
"Ser," someone said. They were waiting.
Dermot stood. His knee cracked.
He looked back at his men. Bloodshot eyes. Hollow faces. The look of cornered animals.
"Wait until the wagons are in the trees," he said. "Then follow my signal."
The fog thickened.
Wheels rumbled over the muddy road. The sound promised full bellies.
The first wagons appeared, piled high with sacks. An old man drove the lead cart, shoulders hunched, face blank. Two spearmen walked beside him, yawning, spearpoints tilting toward the sky.
The column stretched long—over a hundred paces.
The guards were scattered and sloppy. Some weren't even wearing helmets. Only one man rode fully armed, and his surcoat carried no sigil. Another sellsword, probably.
The first few wagons rolled past Dermot. He smelled bread. Salt beef. A hint of wine.
When the middle of the column entered the kill zone, Dermot rose and drew his sword.
"Charge!"
Two hundred men burst from the grass and fog, screaming.
Dermot stayed in the middle of the pack. He had done this kind of work before.
By the time he reached the fight it was already chaos.
He picked a spearman trading blows with one of his men, circled behind, and swung two-handed.
The blade tore through the man's thin tunic with a sharp rip.
Wrong.
No meat. Just cloth.
The tunic shredded and revealed good mail underneath.
The "spearman" moved fast. He swept Dermot's man off his feet and drove the spear through his chest.
Then he turned. His eyes were cold and hard.
The porters didn't run. They moved like they had drilled it a hundred times. They ripped open the sacks, pulled out crossbows, and started cranking strings with steady hands.
Bolts hissed through the mist. Men screamed.
Dermot spun and ran.
"Fall back! Fall back!"
Something heavy slammed into his back. White pain exploded through him. He stumbled, dropped his sword, and went down face-first into the mud.
A boot planted itself between his shoulder blades.
Dermot turned his head and saw the sigil-less knight pull off his helmet. A bright red beard showed underneath.
"Well now," Red Ronnet said. "Old friend."