Nine horses rode along a broad country road.  Dense trees and underbrush lined the road to the left, while the right sloped down into wide fields.  Smoke drifted lazily from a farmhouse in the distance.  A magpie followed the riders in the branches above their heads, loudly calling at them to show his displeasure that they dare to ride through his territory without making an offering of crumbs.

At the back of the group, two boys laughed and joked with each other while between them a slightly older girl tried to ignore their attempts to impress her. 

At the head of the group, two knights rode side by side.  Their conversation was light, born of the familiarity of two soldiers who have ridden and fought together for many years.  Ser Boggs, whose helm bore the likeness of a golden lion, and who carried the Somercrag royal standard, told a ribald joke to a younger woman in the red and green livery of house Tallman, whose sudden bright laugh carried in the open air, scattering shocked songbirds from the treeline. 

In the middle, between her knights and the squires rides ser Sola Somercrag and the two members of house Hayford she was bringing to the capital to demonstrate their innocence.  These three were less talkative than the other groups.  The princess was somewhat relieved by this, ser Edam and Duke Brennar having spent much of the ride thus far complaining about not being present at Tayach Dam to see ser Edgarth rescued.  In comparison, the uncomfortable silence they had shared since beginning the second day's ride was an improvement. 

"Milady, if I may-" began ser Edam again.  Sola let out a sigh before cutting him off. 

"You may not, ser.  I know what you mean to ask.  My answer is still the same.  Your testimony will exonerate your lord, so you are needed in the capital. 

"And besides, the fighting at Tayach Dam is surely done now, for good or ill.  All being well, young ser Edgarth will be brought to Bayglen in time for this whole matter to be dealt with." 

Ser Edam muttered something to himself and returned to sullen silence, busying himself with fidgeting at the straps of his new armour.

At the head of the party ser Boggs reined in his horse as he rounded a bend in the road, calling out for the others to wait a moment before moving forward slowly.  In the middle of the pathway ahead a wagon lay askew, one of its wheels caught in a ditch and its massive axle snapped in half like a twig.  Crates and sacks were spilled out upon the road, and an old man and young girl stood distraught staring at their possessions littering the road.  To the right, the fence had been broken down where the wagon collided with it, and in the distance two cart horses could be seen still yoked to one another, grazing amongst a number of sheep. 

"Hail travellers, well met!" ser Boggs called down from his horse, one hand resting on the reins as the other held the royal banner high. 

The old man went to one knee when he saw the knight, and pulled the young girl down to a knee beside him.

"Good morrow milord.  My apologies, we'll have this stuff moved from your path in but a moment." 

Hearing the exchange, ser Sola spurred her horse to catch up to her knight.  When she lay her eye on the spilled cart she called back to the rest of her party. 

"This will go much quicker if we lend a hand.  Ser Alysia, take Miyah and Alvar and see if you can't round up those horses.  Lisbeth, maybe you have something in your pack that will steady this young lady?  The men and I will help to right your cart and load it for you." 

As ser Sola issued her orders she swung a leg over her saddle and slipped to the ground. 

"It won't get you moving again, but we'll send aid from Arrowbreach when we arrive tonight." 

She went to take the hand of the old man, shaking it and helping him to his feet.  Behind her the other knights were also now afoot, tying their reins to the fence and setting about their appointed tasks. 

The old man's hand tightened around hers, and when she met his eyes she found tears in his eyes.  Gratitude, no doubt. 

The world suddenly turned white, as a light bright enough to overpower the midday sun erupted from the wagon.  Ser Sola was thrown from her feet and her helm clattered against the stones of the road, bounced once and then fell away from her head.  As she tried to regain her feet, she realised she was still holding the hand of the old man, the tatters of his arm and sleeve stopping suddenly.  She dropped the severed limb in disgust and looked around.  The treeline was suddenly bursting with men, men in the liveries of House Hayford and House Crowler intermingled.  They rushed out of the trees, mouths hanging open, weapons readied.  Lady Sola stumbled, wondering why she couldn't hear her knights rallying, hear the screams of the men around her, hear the clash of steel on steel.  A man ran at her with a sharp spear poised to strike.  She drew her own sword to parry, but the movement seemed impossibly slow.  Every detail seemed to freeze in her mind.  The glint of flames on the tip of her opponent's spear, the spittle flying from his mouth as he charges, the tugging feeling in her gut… 

Looking down at her sword, she saw that her hands had instead closed around a large splinter of gaily painted wood, which penetrated between her breastplate and her fauld.  Blood poured out around the wound.  She hadn't even realised she had fallen to her knees.  The spearman charged past her, and as she turned to follow him her body instead fell sideways to the ground.  The spearman joined several of his fellows surrounding ser Boggs, who was desperately trying to fight from his knees, but was caught between four uninjured men.  Weapons rose and fell, and the knight went down.  Only when his body hit the floor did he finally relinquish his hold on the royal standard, which fell into the burning wreckage of the cart. 

Lady Sola's eyes drifted.  She could feel herself growing dim within her body, each breath an impossible effort.  Suddenly her eyes caught upon three figures in the field beyond the road.  Ser Alysia and the two squire boys. 

Please, please let them escape she willed, watching them ride away from the fighting.  But then from amongst the sheep in the field, several soldiers stood.  From this distance Lady Sola could not see the bolts fly through the air or hear the twang of the strings, but she saw the three figures fall from their horses. 

It is only when she heard her own hoarse scream that she realised her hearing is returning slowly.  She heard two voices in muffled conversation somewhere above her, but couldn't muster the strength even to turn her head and see the speakers. 

"All is……ser Kyra." 

"My thanks, ser……you played your part we…" 

"What of the Duke?  He……, what do you want done with him?" 

"Kill him.  His corpse……better than his tongue could." 

"By your command, ser." 

"Hey!  This one's still breathing!" 

There was the sound of footsteps, and a pair of boots stepped into Lady Sola's field of vision. 

She was suddenly yanked upright by fingers tangled in her hair.  The pain in her guts almost caused her to black out.  She recognised ser Kyra Crowler standing in front of her, the rest of the road littered with the bodies of dead men and knights.  In the distance, she could just make out the form of Duke Brennar slumped against a tree.  A figure approached him, drew back a sword and plunged it into his chest. 

"Bring me the Duke's sword!" Ser Kyra calls, and the figure bent down and did as she said, drawing the Duke's longsword from his belt before turning to bring it to the Lady Crowler. 

Sola desperately tried to focus, to gain command of her limbs, to curse the false knight in front of her.  Instead she watched helplessly as a man in House Hayford livery passed ser Kyra the sword, and ser Kyra raised it above her head to catch the sun…and then brought it down in an arc that ended in only blackness for ser Sola Somercrag. 

“My mother told me,

One day I would buy,

Galley with good oars,

Sail for distant shores”

Hallkatla’s voice was rough, unsteady, but loud and confident as the party rode up the cattlepath that wound its way through the Southern Witwells.

“Stand up on the prow,

Noble barque I steer,

Steady course to the haven,

Hew many foe-men,

Hew many foe-men.”

The song ends and Hallkatla returned to quiet.

“Doesn’t your land border the great grinding?” one of her companions asked.

Hallkatla only grunted and nodded in agreement.

“Must be some time since any of you Darklyn folk ‘sailed for distant shores’ then.”

Another grunt.

“S’true enough.  Ma used to sing that to me all the same.  Maybe once it was true.  Maybe it never was.  But when I turn for home, I think of that song, and of my ma singing it.”

“Some lullaby!”

“That’s Darklyn folk for you.”

“You speak so fondly of your ma, are you really going to ride home and slaughter all your kin?”

“They’d do the same to me.”

“I don’t know how you live that way.”

“That’s Darklyn folk for you.”

Darklyn Point was nestled into a gap in the rock that was part cliff overhang and part cavemouth, with a sheer drop the other side and nothing behind but the crashing tides of the narrow southern sea and the colossal towering glaciers of the great grinding.

The sky above was grim and grey, a solid wall of cloud from horizon to horizon.  It seemed to suit the place, as though a clear blue sky would be an insult to the grim rugged beauty of the surroundings.

Behind Hallkatla her companions shivered.  Ser Prestan Greydall, heir to one of her father’s - no, her neighbouring houses - pulled his woollen cloak tight around him, and his companion ser Arlow Teeze reached over absent mindedly to rub his back.  Hallkatla knew Prestan was suffering with the cold, and recalled his previous boasts about being from ’the Peak’ and being used to the cold.  She’d tried to warn him that the cold air off the great grinding was different, but he wouldn’t have it.  So now whenever he grumbled she just smiled at him.

Beside those two rode ser Darris Blackmyre,  another heir.  Blackmyre was also on the southern coast, a small castle in a dank swamp as the name suggested, so he was much more used to the climate.

Behind the leaders of the houses came the rest of their households - knights, captains and men at arms from the houses who had answered Hallkatla’s call to action.  Columns of men stretching back through the mountain pass, banners bearing mountaintops, bulrushes, and of course at the head of them her own banner, the bloodied black iron blade, the reminder of an ancient promise - and of a new one. 

By the time Hallkatla rode to the gate of Darklyn Point the massive iron and oak gates were wide open.  She slipped down off her horse outside the gate, handing the reins to a waiting serf and walking through on foot.  Inside the gate, in the wide open courtyard, three of her siblings stood ready to greet her.

“You return safely from the tournament I see,” Her eldest brother, Eskil, made no attempts to conceal the venom in his voice.  He was stooped, the Warhammer in his hands as much a crutch as a weapon, his long hair and full beard had once been black, then speckled with white, now barely any signs of the black remained.

“And with so many new friends.  Too afraid to travel the roads alone sister?” Runa may have been half Eskil’s age, but her tongue was no less barbed.  The two women eyed each other, well aware of the threat Hallkatla’s accompaniment carried.

“Need we speak to each other this way?” Ludin, the youngest of the three come to greet Hallkatla, stepped forward as he spoke, chain rattling with each step betraying that even he had come armed and armoured to this meeting “our pa lives yet, so nothing needs to change…does it?”

“Ludin,” Hallkatla replied,  ”Sweet boy, for the love I bore your mother and bear you yet…go out that gate and tell them you want to live.”

Runa’s hand tightened on the hilt of the sword at her hip as Hallkatla spoke.

“As for you two…it will bring me no joy to kill you.  But I respect you too much to suggest you leave.  I’m going under that tower to make the old man dead, and when I’m done it’ll be time to do what we’ve always known we must do to one another.”

“Murder?” Eskil was clearly incensed, spittle flying between his teeth as he spoke, “and foreigners?  How dare you insult the old ways with this cowardice? Why, if we did things this way I-“

“You’d have killed him before Runa or Ludin or me or half the people in this castle were born?  Maybe you should have!  You call me a coward, but you were so afraid of your old ways that you sat and waited so long for the Giant to die that you’re half dead yourself!”

“And you!” Hallkatla rounded on Runa before she could begin to hurl the string of abuse she was clearly working up to “you’ve spent so long in this castle waiting for this to happen that you’ve forgotten what a real fight even looks like.  There’s a world out there that’s running red with blood, and for all our talk of being bloodthirsty, savage killers you and all the others have spent your whole lives hiding behind someone else’s stone walls waiting for one fight to happen!

“So the both of you, can either try to stop me now, or you can try to stop me once I’ve done for him, it really doesn’t matter to me.  Which one of you is going to go first?”

Neither of them did.

There was the distinctive sound of a crossbow firing, the wet thud of it hitting flesh, and a gasp.  Hallkatla whirled to see behind her.  Ludin stood for a second, frozen in shock, his axe raised in both hands behind her back, the end of the crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest welling with blood.  Behind him one of the men Hallkatla had brought was already reloading his crossbow.

Hallkatla barely had time to process the youngster’s death, throwing herself to the side and whirling to face her foe as Eskil’s hammer swept through the air her head had occupied a second before.  She parried the next swing with the haft of her axe as she regained her footing, then met Runa’s charge from the other side of her with the butt of the axe, driving the wind out of her sister’s lungs.

Eskil was barely a threat, moving slowly and swinging wide and wild.  But he was enough to keep her from focussing on Runa completely, and she on the other hand was a serious danger, sword in one hand and hatchet in the other, a whirlwind of slashing blades and pure hatred.

Fortunately for Hallkatla she was not alone either - the knights she had brought with her finally joined the fray, an onslaught of steel plate and swords that even her siblings could not withstand.  Before long Eskil and Runa joined Ludin on the cobbles and the party began moving toward the castle proper.

It was several hours later.  Hallkatla and the knights stood at the bottom of a flight of stone steps, their heavy breathing echoing loudly in the small space.  They were all battered, bruised and bloodied.

 Ser Prestan reached out a gauntleted hand to open the door ahead of them.

“No.”

“No?”

“No.  You all leave now.”

“Leave?  But…”

“He’s behind that door.  Once he’s dead….you know the rules.”

“I thought you were past all that?”

“You know the rules.  Once he’s dead…I have to be the last person here.”

“But…aren’t there more of your siblings in the hall?”

“Not for long.”

Ser Prestan shook his head, but turned and started waving the other knights and gathered fighters back down the stairs and out of the castle.

Hallkatla meanwhile put a hand on the door and pushed hard, the door swinging slowly open.

“Father, it’s time.”

It was dark by the time there was movement in the courtyard again.  The doors of the great hall swung open, and a single figure was illuminated  in the light of a fire which roared in the great hall.  A fire which, as the various soldiers waiting outside the castle grounds watched, began to stretch up through the roof of the hall, jumping from wooden beam to wooden beam.

The figure staggered forwards, leaning heavily to favour one leg, almost seeming to drag the other behind.  An apothecary from among the Blackmyre forces instinctively darted forwards but was caught by their fellows and stopped from crossing under the gate into the castle grounds.

The figure dragged themselves slowly across the courtyard, finally passing under the gate and becoming clear enough to be recognisable.

“Duchess Hallkatla!  Hallkatla Darklyn!” Ser Darris exclaimed, stepping forward to clasp Hallkatla’s arm in victory.

As he did so however the gathered crowd gasped and recoiled almost as one as the extent of her injuries became clear.  This time, when the apothecary surged forward, no one stopped them.

Mattheo knelt in the long grass beside the thicket with the other volunteers for the raid.  He reached out and flicked a small insect from the padded knee of his underarmour, as much out of frustration with the wait as anything else.  He reached back to his belt and retrieved a leather and steel waterflask engraved with the skull of House Gaunt - a gift from his new master - and took a swig of cool refreshing water, likely the last drink he would get for some hours once battle was joined.

Though all around them was still and quiet, the sounds of carousing carried on the evening air.  As planned, the camp back along the road to the North was full of life, music, singing, cheering and the sounds of celebration.  Ahead, beyond the trees, lay the main road and the defences of the pass.  Visibility of that was fading though, as the darkness of the night deepened.

Beside him ser Cadder, still on his feet, paced.  Mattheo could not tell if the pacing was nerves or excitement - probably some combination.  He checked that his sword and dirk were sitting well in their scabbards, and found himself wondering the same about himself.  Behind them ser Theadwyn and their knights were uncharacteristically still and quiet, radiating the grim silence of professionals.  Mattheo wondered how many battles they had waited to begin like this.

Ahead high up on the walls a torch suddenly blazed to life, a bright spark against the dark of the night, the walls and the mountainside behind.  It was followed soon by another, then several more, until all the walls of the castle ahead were crawling with little dots of light.

"That's a good sign," ser Theadwyn whispered from behind, "means those soldiers don't know the castle well enough to trust their night eyes.  They've chosen to see their surroundings easier, instead of what's far from them - we should be able to make it to the base of the walls without being seen."

The seven volunteers for the raid started to gather themselves for the approach to the walls, shaking out stiff limbs from the long wait, when there was the sound of a great number of feet on the road ahead.

"Get down!" hissed ser Valentianus, and the knights took cover once more, and not a moment too soon as the first of the soldiers marched along the road ahead, pools of torchlight passing their vantage point, the only things visible past the trees and bushes except the tips of their spears glowing red in the torchlight.

When at last the column passed, it was ser Theadwyn again who spoke first.

"Four dozen?"

"Five, ser," ser Grahar corrected, pushing himself up by the haft of his warhammer as he did so.

"Ha!  I brought more men than that myself!  There's many times that number down in our camp."

"Ah, but they think our men will be falling down drunk by now," replied ser Valentianus, "won't they be shocked when they find their prey to be ringed with steady spears?"

"And that's sixty men less for us to contend with in the castle!  Let's be off then, quick across the road and into the shadows under the walls."

They take off - a brief jog along the edge of the thicket, across the wide flat ground of the roadway, and then weaving between the rows of stakes planted between the road and the gatehouse.

One of ser Theadwyn's knights, the hulking Josesh Flitch, unshoulders a canvas sack and begins to pull out a massive bundle of heavy rope.

Understanding the plan, Mattheo spots an advantage.

"To the west, there, where the wall joins the mountainside and the ground rises up, there's less distance to the top of the wall there," he says, pointing.  Josesh nods and sets off in that direction with his rope.  He stops at the bottom of the wall, uncoils the rope from around the weighted anchor on one end, and with a single mighty swing heaves the anchor up onto the wall above.

"Mattheo," ser Cadder says, pushing the young squire forward "you're the lightest of us.  Climb the rope and then haul it up - there's a rope ladder attached, see?"

Mattheo nods, and begins the ascent, climbing hand over hand up the rough, knotted rope.

Just as Mattheo is about to reach the top, a circle of torchlight approaches.  Not wanting to raise the alarm before his companions are inside the walls, he chooses to wait until the guard passes.  For what feels like hours but is in reality barely a minute, Mattheo is painfully aware of every sound - his breathing, the creaking of the rope bearing his weight, the slowly approaching and then receding footsteps on the rough stone above.

Then, the moment is over.  The circle of torchlight and its accompanying footsteps disappear along the wall, and Mattheo finally hauls himself over the parapet to land softly on the stones of the ramparts.  He turns back and begins to haul the rope up, coiling its length around the merlon as he does so until the top of the rope ladder is secured to the wall.  As soon as the ladder stops moving upward the knights below climb up, while Mattheo keeps watch from above for any more patrols.

Ser Mariyanna Tyde felt confident as she approached the camp.  The enemy were disorganised, clearly drunk with revelry from all the noise they were making.  And she had brought enough of the garrison and their reinforcements to put down a few drunk traitors, she was sure of that.

"They haven't even bothered to raise defences around their camp," she observed to her squire, Marcyl, who marched beside her with a long spear in hand.

The nearest tents were set with their backs to the road, with celebrants visible between the canvas and guylines.  If they'd had a watch standing they would surely have seen the force bearing down upon them, but they didn't even have that.

"This is their rebellion?  We'll have it quashed in a night!"

"Yes milady."

Suddenly there was a single horn blast from ahead - the enemy had sighted them at last.  This was good, there was no honour in killing these rebels if they did not at least have a weapon in their hands.

Then, everything happened at once.

The row of tents ahead of ser Mariyanna collapsed - the central pole of each tent tied to a rope and pulled out from under the canvas to drop it.

The revellers behind those tents were already on their feet and retreating - not the hasty, clumsy retreat of the drunk and afraid but the ordered retreat of disciplined, most importantly, sober soldiers.

Behind that, the collapsing tents revealed a row of stakelines and barricades and felled tree trunks providing ample cover to the enemy's true forces.

And behind that, some two dozen men with crossbows or longbows aimed directly at ser Mariyanna's forces.

The heavy tent poles thudded to the ground, raising a cloud of dust from the road.  The canvas they were supporting billowed for a moment, then settled.  There was the space of a breath maybe before a voice was heard from the enemy camp.

"Loose!"

Ser Mariyanna felt the impact of the arrow passing through her and driving the air from her lungs, but she was dead before she could feel herself hit the ground.

What battle there was in the castle passed quickly.  Ser Cadder proved himself to be a competent, if not particularly impressive fighter, more than capable of holding his own against the soldiers defending the fortifications.  The Wynch knights however, were something else.  At one point Mattheo watched Josesh Flitch swing his greatsword in a wide arc through several enemies at once, only stopping when it lodged partway into the placart of the third man, the two before being cut entirely in half.

By the time they had cleared the walls, towers and courtyard and raised the portcullis over the gate the road below the walls was heaving with the grey garbed men of house Wynch and the pale blue of house Skanler - they had clearly made short work of the enemies sent to attack the camp.

From then it was a simple matter of clearing out the remining defenders in the keep and guardhouses.  Many chose to surrender rather than continue to fight a battle that was already lost.

By morning, the red flag with the lion over the gatehouse had been replaced with the pale blue and lightning bolt of house Skanler and the orange with the monstrous jaws of house Cray.

Across the road, smoke billowed into the morning sky from fires raging within the walls of the southern pass fort, but the flags of the rebellion had been raised there too.