The Throne’s Last Flame

Chapter 221 — Lady Forlorn

“Randyll Tarly…” Stannis Baratheon ground the name between his teeth.

Ser Davos Seaworth kept his face respectful, but worry churned beneath. Since Dragonstone, his “king”—his “god,” as the faithful called him—had changed in ways Davos could not like.

What had bent him? Power? The red priestess? Or both?

Davos shook the thought away. What did a smuggler know of a Stannis the First? It was not his place to doubt his “god.”

“My king,” Davos said, “if we take King’s Landing swiftly, I believe the men of the Reach will soon make the prudent choice.”

“Smuggler…” Stannis’s voice was cold. “Sixteen years ago Mace Tyrell chose to stand against me. Now…”

His jaw creaked. “I will not leave him at my back.”

Davos’s pupils tightened. “Your Grace, do you mean—”

Stannis’s eyes were dark wells. “Davos. I do not forget.”

Davos opened his mouth. “Your Grace, Salladhor Saan (my friend—see Ch. 203) told me—”

Stannis cut him off, rough as a rasp. “That pirate dreams only of the treasure buried beneath the Red Keep. He counts gold and nothing else. Speak his name to me no more. The day I need a Lyseni pirate to teach me war, I’ll lay down my crown and don black.”

He drank a cup of cool, salted water, then said, “We need grain, and my brother’s grain lies at Bitterbridge.”

He eyed Davos. “My head is clear, smuggler. Melisandre foresaw Renly’s fall—on Dragonstone, and told my wife. Many urged me to strike Joffrey at once; she said if I went to Storm’s End, I would win the flower of Renly’s host. The flames have not lied.”

Davos’s brow pinched. So that was why the king leaned ever harder on the red woman.

Everything has a price, Earl Gawen had warned him last they spoke.

Stannis’s aged face… the red woman’s shadow… cold crept over Davos’s skin.

No. His “god” must not be led deeper into her snare.

“Your Grace,” Davos pressed, “Renly meant to march on the capital and chastise the Lannisters. Had you not invested Storm’s End, he would never have turned back. He’d have struck King’s Landing, and you could have let them bleed each other before you rose.”

“I do not bandy what-ifs,” Stannis frowned. “Renly came, and met his doom. That cannot be changed—and serves me twice.”

He went on, flat and sure, “Melisandre saw another vision as well—Renly in green, riding north to break me beneath King’s Landing.”

“Plainly, had I met him there, it would be my corpse, not his, Ser Davos.”

Davos tried again. “If she can see two futures, then perhaps… both are shadows that lie.”

“You are wrong, Onion Knight.” Stannis lifted one finger. “Light casts many shadows. Flames leap and change; so do the shadows—long, short, shifting. Any man may cast a dozen at once, some clearer than others. So with a man’s future. Whether he throws one shadow or many, Melisandre can see them.”

Davos felt the futility settle. He held his tongue; the king’s patience was almost spent, and this much speech was already a mercy.

“Stand before a bonfire yourself, smuggler. Look,” Stannis said.

Davos’s cheeks heated; he had already tried—stared until his eyes wept at nothing but fire.

“Go, then,” Stannis finished, rising—tall, hard, his near-black eyes turned, as if he could see Bitterbridge through canvas and cloud. “Make ready.”

The Vale

Crabbers say one of theirs can beat ten men of the Vale.

The Vale’s men say one of theirs can beat ten crabbers.

Boast, battle-charm—who could prove it? Yet some believed it wholly.

Chief among them: Ser Lyn Corbray, whose Valyrian steel sword was named Lady Forlorn.

Ser Lyn reined in at the head of his column. His horse rose high, screaming.

Banners of House Corbray—three ravens in flight—snapped above nearly two hundred riders: oath-knights and squires.

Lean as a blade, brown hair to his shoulders, handsome as sin, Ser Lyn peered ahead and snorted. “I believe I see wildling pickets. Hm…”

“And not a few, either.”

He flicked his whip toward the plain and called back, all mockery, “Since when do fur-clad savages dare bait knights of the Vale on the flat?”

Laughter rippled through the ranks.

His destrier sidled; Lyn raised his chin. “My knights—let’s teach these louts their manners!”

They cheered. His squire, uneasy, ventured, “Ser… our orders…”

They were the League of the Just’s vanguard. Bronze Yohn had tasked them to watch the Crabb men near Gulltown and shield nearby villages from raiding.

Ser Lyn commanded this troop.

Vain and hot-tempered, the Vale’s most dangerous man, they said. He chopped his squire off with a gesture. “They’ve left their friendly valleys. Their doom is set. On the plain, one knight of the Vale can kill ten wild men!”

Steel hissed free. The ruby in Lady Forlorn’s hilt burned like a coal. “With me!”

Hooves thundered. The column surged.

High on a shoulder of ground, Gawen Crabb watched the crawling snake of horsemen below. Beside him stood Ser Amparo Thorns, captain of the Thorn Regiment.

“Intelligence wins battles, ser,” Gawen said mildly. “With the right report, we choose how to fight.”

Amparo drank the words in, committing them to heart.

“You’ve worn my marigold cloak well (see Ch. 6). I am proud of you, Ser Thorns.”

Her pale lips trembled; she pressed them together.

He clasped her arm. “Go on then, Knight of the Crab. Let the Crabb longbows test the Vale’s horse.”

Amparo drew herself tall and saluted. “By your leave, my lord!”

“Run them down!” Lyn roared.

The “wildling” light cavalry slipped away, farther and farther. Lyn dug in his spurs; the horse leapt.

Old knights in the rear smelled the trap, but could not rein their captain. They gritted their teeth and followed.

Two hundred hooves beat one drum. The ground itself seemed to shake.

On the slope ahead, a thousand archers of the Thorn Regiment had lain in wait. At Rena the lieutenant’s signal, bowstrings drew—heavy bows bending like yew in a storm—broad shafts nocked, heads glinting.

A sharp whistle cut the air.

A sky of arrows answered.

Shh-shh-shh-shh—

A black rain fell. Horses screamed; men toppled.

Plate stopped many a shaft—on men. But the horses had no such grace.

These arrows were thicker, longer, driving through mail and sinew, scything squires from saddles. A few deft knights tried to answer with short bows—to find their shots fell far short.

Faces set, the Thorn archers loosed and loosed again, a single machine of death. Wherever the storm swept, the plain filled with shrieks and the crash of falling horseflesh.

Some writhed and crawled. None outran the shadowing rain.

The field lay thick with men and mounts. Blood salted the wind.

Rena pulled off her coif; small of frame, her voice now rang clear. “Spearmen—forward!”

Fifty Crabb spears advanced in step—their work was the finishing.

Thunk—thunk—thunk—thunk—

Red hafts rose and fell; the cries guttered out.

A “corpse” sprang—Ser Lyn Corbray. He rolled, Lady Forlorn flashing, and drove the point through a spearman’s breastplate.

He ripped free in a gout of blood—then took two more with a sweep of Valyrian steel.

He turned on a fourth—

—but a forest of spears pinned him where he stood. Rena’s spear lanced through his mouth; the tip burst from the back of his head.

Next day — Gulltown, Governor’s Palace

Gawen Crabb rubbed an oiled scrap of leather along Lady Forlorn’s rippled blade.

He was in fine spirits. Petyr’s gifts never failed to please; he would have to treat the man a little better next time.

It was not only Valyrian steel lifting his mood. The Gulltown Fleet had yielded.

Twenty-eight warships—larger and stronger than the swift little Crabb cutters—true blue-water hulls. With their kin in Gulltown, the officers and sailors had few choices. To speed a clean handover, Gawen paid generously, and left the fleet’s admiral in his chair.

Transition takes time. Gawen had patience.

And truth be told, his admiral’s body was in Crabb service now… but his heart still beat for Baratheon.

“A letter from the Red Keep, my lord.” Layton handed it over.

Gawen slid Lady Forlorn home, broke the seal, and read the lioness’s hand.

His good mood shattered.

Crab Claw Peninsula — a valley northeast of Whispering City

“Dra—dra—dragons?!” Samwell Tarly sat down hard, eyes huge.

Ser Mason Beck, standing by Daenerys, spared Sam a contemptuous glance and sniffed.

Thin Dick Crabb needed both arms to haul broad Samwell up again.

Panting, Dick heard Sam mutter, “Forgive me, Your Highness.”

Daenerys laughed lightly. “Don’t fret, Sam. They’re well-behaved.”

The three little dragons hissed at him together; he stumbled back, scratching his head. “Sorry. I just—seven save me, living dragons—to see them…”

Daenerys went to them, crouched, and stroked each sinuous neck. “My children,” she cooed, “it’s time to feed.”

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