Chapter 40
Elmar stepped up as I charged, taking the center position in their line that spanned the width of the hallway, four knights in full plate bracketing their lord.
The math was simple and ugly. Eight men in mail against five in steel. Gaps existed in plate armor, but finding them in the middle of a brawl was a different proposition than in a training yard back in Tarth.
With Elmar in front of me, every fiber of me wanted to drive my blade into his throat, to feel it punch through mail and flesh and end this. But I was no fool.
Before I could close on his lord, the knight next to Elmar stepped forward, angling to strike me down from the side.
I didn't flinch. I kept my own blade pointed high, tip aimed at Elmar's visor as if I meant to run him straight through. And the knight must have taken my lack of reaction to mean I hadn't seen him coming.
He overextended. Committed to his swing before confirming I'd missed it, certain he'd caught me blind, arm sweeping down in a diagonal cut that would open me up from collar to hip.
At the last moment I pivoted back on my heel.
The blade carved air a hand's width in front of my chest with a low hiss. Close enough that I felt the wind of it brush my chest through the mail. Before the knight could recover his balance, I was already moving. Went low, driving forward beneath his guard. My sword thrust up with everything I had, aiming for the gap under his arm where the pauldron ended and only mail protected the armpit.
The blade punched through and I felt the resistance give way. Flesh. Bone. The knight gasped, a wet, choking sound that bubbled in his throat. His sword clattered to the stone floor.
Twisting the hilt, I tried to wrench my blade free, pulling at it hard, but it was stuck fast. Caught in mail rings and the suction of the wound.
By then Elmar was already swinging at me. I quickly let go of the hilt. Had no choice. His strike came fast for a man his age, and I gave ground, backpedaling, using the dead knight's falling body as a half-second of cover while I got my feet under me. The sword stayed where it was, buried somewhere it wouldn't come out without effort.
To both sides, my men crashed into the line of knights. Steel rang against steel in the narrow space, the noise bouncing back from the walls until it was nearly disorienting. Someone screamed. More than one roared. The hallway erupted into chaos, bodies pressing together, no room to maneuver.
Through the gap where the dead knight had stood, Jack and Codin slipped past. I caught a glimpse of them taking the stairs two at a time, their footfalls swallowed by the noise.
I watched them go and felt the wrongness of it settle in my gut. I shouldn't have ordered them up. Two men. Two of the best I had here. With them, we might've overwhelmed them quickly, drowned them in numbers. My lads were taught to fight cautiously against better armored enemies, but that didn't guarantee success. Two more fighters might have saved some of their lives.
It was a stupid decision, but my mother was up there. And all I could think about is Lord Elmar having orders for her to be dealt with should he fall in battle. I couldn't have that. She came first. She had to come first, even if that calculus ended with some of these men bleeding out on stone, or with me joining them.
A sword skittered across the stone floor, spinning, and stopped at my feet.
"Pick up the blade, Tarth," Elmar Whitehead said.
He'd kicked it. The dead knight's sword, fallen from his cold fingers. I stared down at it, then up at him. His breath came heavy inside his helm. Blood dripped from the body between us, pooling dark on the floor.
I didn't understand Elmar Whitehead. Why play at honor now, after all this? After kidnapping my mother, cutting off her finger, sending it to my father like some trophy? After threatening to destroy everything my house had built?
Still, I bent and picked up the sword. The grip was warm from the dead man's hand. I hefted it, testing the balance. Well-made. The blade caught the torchlight as I brought it up.
Whatever honor impulse he was having now, none of it mattered. All Elmar Whitehead represented was the last obstacle standing between myself and my mother.
As I faced him, my eyes flicked to the fighting around us. My men were holding, though it wouldn't last long. In the cramped hallway, the knights' plate armor gave them too much advantage if the fight drew on. Every exchange cost us. A cut that would fell one of my men glanced harmlessly off steel.
The quickest way to spare my men's lives now was to bring down their lord. The knights would either lose heart when he fell, or I would be free to join the fight myself and turn the tide.
I thought of many words I wanted to say to Elmar Whitehead as I advanced. Accusations. Curses. Questions about how a man could do this to a woman he'd known since she was a girl. But I settled on silence instead.
I would speak with my sword.
He parried my first strike cleanly. The impact jarred up my arm, and Elmar struck back immediately, no hesitation, swinging his shield arm around in a tight arc. I leaned back from it, feeling the rush of air as the steel boss passed inches from my face. His sword followed, a low cut aimed at my legs.
That I caught on my blade and deflected, then kicked out with my front leg in the same motion.
Elmar grunted. The blow rocked him back half a step, but that was all.
My foot connected with his chest. It was like kicking a mountain. He barely moved, just absorbed it with a grunt, and I was the one whose leg rang from the impact. Something about connecting with two hundred pounds of armored man doesn't go the way your body expects.
He came forward, and the man was strong. Much older than any man I had ever fought, and the weight behind his swings made my teeth knock together when I caught them wrong. He hammered down in a rhythm that forced me back a step, then another, the reverberations crawling up my forearms. He was trying to tire me or drive me into a wall.
He was good. I'd known he would be by reputation. But he wasn't Areo Hotah, and I wasn't fifteen anymore. I'd been growing into my body recently, filling out in ways I hadn't in my previous life. Standing as tall as my father now, a couple inches shy of six and a half feet. Bulkier through the shoulders and chest, muscle layered over the frame I'd built through years of relentless training.
So I matched him, putting my own weight behind my swings, and felt the exchanges shift. He was strong. As was I, and faster.
I parried his next overhand strike, the force of it shivering down my arms. Then my blade flicked up like a viper, aiming for the narrow slit of his visor—a trick I'd learned sparring with Oberyn Martell in Sunspear, meant to make your opponent flinch more than actually trying to thread the needle.
Elmar jerked his head to the side at the last second. My blade scraped across his full-faced helm instead, steel shrieking against steel. It left a bright scratch in the dark metal but didn't penetrate. He'd been fast. Faster than a man his age in full plate had any right to be.
I knew then I couldn't win this in a contest of blades. Eventually, yes, but not quickly enough. Not in time to join my men before more of them died. The old man was good enough to protect the spots his armor didn't cover, disciplined enough not to give me openings.
As Elmar swung his head back, recovering from the near-miss, I made my choice. When his next strike came, I let go of the sword instead of meeting his swing.
Behind the visor, Elmar's eyes widened, confusion flickering there for just a heartbeat. The lack of impact must've caught him off guard. I used that to close the distance.
Ducking under the swing and hitting him from the side, I drove my shoulder into his ribs, arms wrapping around his torso. One hand hooked under his sword arm, the other clamping against his body.
He went rigid with surprise, the word "what—" starting somewhere in his chest.
Before he could finish the word, I was heaving.
My feet were set wide, heels pushing against the floor, legs screaming with effort. Every muscle in my body engaged at once. The barrel-chested lord—armor and all, easily three hundred pounds of man and steel—left the ground.
All I could think about was my mother. Trapped in a cell in this gods-damned tower. My sister, threatened with marriage to a boy to seal our house's destruction. My father receiving a box with his wife's severed finger inside. Our name dragged through the mud. House Tarth reduced to nothing.
A deep roar filled the hallway. I only realized it was coming from my own mouth when I was already driving Elmar Whitehead up and over my head, and then down, muscles burning, back arching, and the crash when steel met stone rang off every wall in the hallway like a church bell struck with a sledgehammer.
I ended half on the ground myself, my back screaming from the effort, but I didn't let myself think. Just rolled, scrambling, putting myself above the stunned lord.
Elmar let out a wheezing gasp. All the air had been driven from his lungs on impact. His chest heaved uselessly, trying to draw breath that wouldn't come.
His sword had slipped from his fingers when he hit, skittering away across the floor. When he weakly tried to swing his strapped shield at me, I caught it with both hands and wrenched it away. The straps tore. I brought it up and bashed it down against his helmet. Once. Twice.
His head lolled back after the second impact, movements sluggish. He was out of the fight. Dazed.
I threw the shield aside and it clattered against the wall. Reaching behind my back with trembling hands, I pulled out my dagger. The blade came free smooth and cold.
With one hand, I wrenched the visor of his helm up. It resisted for a moment, then gave way with a screech of metal. Elmar's face appeared beneath—gray-bearded, lined with age, eyes unfocused. Blood ran from his nose.
A growl tore from my throat. The shining tip of my dagger hovered inches from his eye. Ready to slip into the socket. Into the brain. To end this. For what he did to my mother. What he wanted to do to my sister, my house.
"Father!"
It was a child's voice.
My hand stopped. Breathing hard, I didn't lower the blade. Just turned my head toward the stairs, every muscle still coiled tight.
A boy stood there on the landing, small hands gripping the thick stone banisters. He was half-hiding behind them, as if the wood could protect him from what he was seeing. As if forcing himself to stand there and scream had taken every scrap of courage in his small body.
The ringing of steel carried on for a few more seconds. Then the men in the hallway began to pause, one by one. Eyes flickered between the boy and Elmar Whitehead's prone form beneath me. The fighting died to stillness, everyone frozen in tableau.
In that moment of quiet, I noticed the casualties. One of Elmar's knights lay dead, blood pooling beneath him. And two more of my men. Their bodies crumpled against the walls where they'd fallen.
Even flat on his back, Elmar's hazy eyes tracked to the boy. "Addam?" His voice came out weak, strained through his battered chest. "Damn it, boy. Why are you here?"
My eyes narrowed. Addam Whitehead. Lord Elmar's only son and heir. The one they'd meant to marry to my sister Arianne.
Just a boy. Eight summers, maybe. Nine at most. He looked gaunt and tear-streaked and pale. His eyes, shining with terror, looked at me as if seeing a monster made flesh.
I looked back at the boy, seeing him flinch yet stand his ground all the same. The dagger trembled in my hand.
I turned to the man beneath me. "Order your men to yield, Lord Elmar," I said instead. My voice came out flat. Hard as the stone beneath us.
He looked back at me. And then, slowly, a grim smile spread across his bloodied face. "You… you think I'm afraid to die, Tarth?" He coughed, wincing at the pain. "I'm a soldier. Have been since before you were born. This is as good a death as I can hope for." Another ragged breath. "But I will not yield my castle to you. Not to a boy. Go ahead and be done with it."
I gritted my teeth so hard my jaw ached.
Looked back at the boy. At Addam, who stared at me with wide, horrified eyes. Watching me prepare to kill his father. To murder the man in cold blood while he lay helpless on the ground.
My resolve solidified like a stone lodged inside my chest. Heavy enough to choke me. Cold enough to freeze my blood. But I was prepared to bear its weight. Had to be.
I pressed the dagger tighter against the skin just below Elmar's eye. Close enough to the socket that one quick thrust would do it. A bead of blood appeared where the point dimpled flesh, running down toward his ear in a thin red line.
"Then do it for your son, my lord," I said. "For if you do not yield, I shall not kill you. I will make you watch as I butcher my way through your castle. Every man, woman, and child inside these walls." I leaned closer, close enough to see my reflection in his eyes. "And I will not spare your wife. I will not spare your son. I will make you watch as I hang young Addam above your gatehouse by his own intestines for all the town to see. For all of Westeros to see what happens to those who threaten House Tarth. Then—only then—will I kill you, Elmar Whitehead."
The words tasted like ash and bile in my mouth. Like poison. But I forced them out anyway, each one a nail driven home.
"Please, Father," the boy cried. His voice broke completely now, dissolving into sobs. "Please don't die! Please!"
Beneath me, Elmar Whitehead shook. Not from pain or fear for himself. His gray eyes filled with tears that spilled down his temples into his hair. "Gods be damned," he muttered. His voice cracked, breaking like his son's. He looked at the boy one last time before he seemed to sag.
"And the gods damn you, Galladon Tarth. Damn you as my ancestors will damn me for this cowardice." He drew in a shuddering breath that rattled in his chest. "Aye. I yield. I yield my castle to you." Another breath, weaker. "I only ask that you spare the boy. Spare Addam. And spare any of my men who put down their blades."
Around us, his knights were already lowering their swords. The clatter of steel on stone echoed as they dropped their weapons. My men moved quickly, pulling out the ropes that had bound us on our way into the castle, now put to use tying the wrists of my mother's captors.
Then I heard it. Footsteps. Running. Coming down the stairs fast.
Jack appeared, breathing hard. Blood was splattered across his face in dark streaks, some of it fresh enough to still be wet. His eyes were wide.
"My lord," he said. His voice was urgent. "It's the Lady Addison."
I was moving before the words fully registered. Pushed myself up off Elmar and bounded toward the stairs, taking them two and three at a time.
Behind me, I heard myself shouting back—something about watching the lord and his heir—but I was already halfway up. Jack followed, his footsteps echoing mine.
At the top, I saw the bodies immediately. Three men in Whitehead colors. One was a knight, his armor dented and bloodied. Codin sat with his back against the wall, teeth gritted, one hand pressed against a wound in his arm. Blood seeped between his fingers. But he was conscious, alert. He'd live.
I didn't stop to check on him. The door to the room was already open.
My mother knelt on the floor above a corpse. The sight of her stopped me cold for a heartbeat. Her dress was torn in several places, the fabric hanging in strips. Her bare arms were covered in scratches and bruises, some fresh and bleeding, others already darkening. As if she'd fought something wild.
Her golden hair, usually so carefully kept, was disheveled and matted. Chunks of it were missing, torn out at the roots.
"I couldn't move her, m'lord," Jack said quietly behind me. "She won't speak. Won't let anyone near."
"Mother." The word came out softer than I intended. I approached slowly, hands out where she could see them. Like approaching a wounded animal backed into a corner.
Her whole body shook with silent sobs. Her shoulders jerked with each breath. She didn't seem to hear me.
I knelt on the cold stone beside her, next to the head of the corpse. A woman, her face scratched and torn. Lips split and bleeding. Deep red bruises circled her slender neck like a collar, the skin already turning purple-black. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing.
"Mum." I tried again, my voice barely above a whisper. "It's me. It's Gal."
This time, her head slowly lifted. The movement was mechanical, like a puppet on strings. "Gal?" The word was choked, strangled. As if her throat had forgotten how to form sounds.
When I saw her face fully, something broke inside my chest. Tears ran in tracks down her cheeks, streaking through nail-cuts on her face. A wound on her temple still seeped, the blood matting her hair. Her left hand was wrapped in stained linen, the bandages soaked through. But it was her eyes that destroyed me. Empty. Hollowed out. Like something vital had been scooped away and only the shell remained.
Then I was gathering her into my arms, pulling her close. Held her like she would disappear again if I loosened my grip even slightly. Like some other lord would come and drag her away to some other tower in some other castle and I'd never see her again.
My breathing got choked up. My throat tightened until I could barely draw air. Something burned hot behind my eyes, blurring my vision.
Never again.
The vow formed in my mind with absolute clarity, cold and hard as forged steel.
Never again would another house think Tarth so weak, so feeble, so pathetic that they would dare threaten my mother. My father. My sisters. Anyone close to me.
Never.
I swore it as I held my mother and felt hot tears slip down my face. Swore it on everything I was and everything I'd ever been. On both my lives.
I didn't know if we stayed like that for an hour or a minute. The world narrowed to just her in my arms, shaking, and me holding on.
Then pounding footsteps rushed into the room. Heavy boots, multiple men. I was already moving, already putting myself between my mother and the door, when I saw who it was.
"Father?"
Lord Selwyn Tarth stood in the doorway. His sword slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor. For a moment, I thought he would fall with it. His knees buckled, his whole body swaying. He caught himself against the doorframe.
"You're safe," he breathed. The words came out like a prayer. Like seeing his wife alive had taken every ounce of strength from his body and left him hollow.
I stepped aside.
My parents came together in an embrace that looked like drowning people clinging to driftwood. My mother cried fully now, great wracking sobs against her husband's chest. He buried his face in her ruined hair and held her like she was the only real thing left in the world.
"My lord." Jack's voice cut through after a moment.
When I looked at him, he was pointing out the small window cut into the stone wall, and my stomach clenched when I followed his gesture and saw what lay beyond.
Orange. The entire northern district of the Weeping Town burned. Flames climbed into the night sky, bright enough to turn the darkness into a hellish twilight. Smoke billowed up in massive black columns. The bells tolled endlessly, something I had tuned out during the fighting, but their sound carried even through the thick stone walls. A dirge for a funeral pyre.
Gods. How many people were dying out there right now?
xxx
Everything happened quickly after that.
Father's men swept through the castle, securing it room by room. The remaining Whitehead guards gave up without a fight, eagerly trading their swords for shovels and hammers. Anything to help stop the spread of the fire before it consumed the entire town.
People fled through the gates. Families carrying children, pulling carts loaded with whatever possessions they could grab. Heading out beyond the walls to the countryside, to anywhere that wasn't burning.
And in the confusion, even as the desperate tide of humanity flowed one direction, Pate would later tell me he rode the donkeys through the open gates toward the castle, carrying with him three very important things to me: a glass candle, a dying Jace, and my passed out sister.
xxx
Two Months Later
The Pride of Tarth put in at Durranton just as the sun began its descent toward the western horizon.
It had been a short trip across Shipbreaker Bay. We'd left Tarth at dawn, and the crossing had been smooth despite the bay's reputation. The wind had been favorable, filling our sails and giving the rowers an easier time of it. I'd spent most of the voyage on deck, watching the crew work, noting which men moved with confidence and which still fumbled with the rigging.
The village itself sat in the shadow of Durran's Point, those white cliffs rising stark against the sky like the bones of some ancient giant. And above them, Storm's End.
I'd been here before, twice actually, but the sight still stopped me cold every time. The castle was colossal, its drum tower rising impossibly high, its walls so thick and tall they didn't feel like something human hands could build. Like the gods themselves had set them there and dared the storms to do their worst. According to legend, Durran Godsgrief had raised six castles, each one torn down by the wrathful gods, until the seventh stood eternal. Looking at those massive walls now, I could almost believe it.
Durranton itself was nothing special. A few dozen houses clustered near the water, built for the fisherfolk and those who worked in the castle but either chose or were forced to live outside its walls. Smoke rose from chimneys. Children played in the dirt streets. A woman hung laundry on a line, the fabric snapping in the wind.
The docks were the only notable construction, a series of shallow berths jutting out into the protected cove. They couldn't accommodate most ocean-going trading vessels, their drafts too deep for these waters. Instead, the docks were used primarily by the Baratheon lords and those coming to visit them.
This was the Pride of Tarth's second voyage, though it was really its first. The only other time it had sailed was when Lannister sailors brought it over from Lannisport in its maiden voyage, a gift—or perhaps a calculated investment—from Lord Tywin. A two-hundred-oar galley, new and sleek and deadly. Father had only half-crewed it with rowers and sailors for this trip, using the journey more as a training exercise than anything else.
He'd spent the two months since the Weeping Town this way. Every waking hour that wasn't spent at my mother's side went into the ships,overseeing the training for the new captains and crews of the galleys that now belonged to House Tarth.
We'd had three before, smaller, older galleys that had seen better days, but now he'd had them refitted and worked on, the sails replaced, hulls scraped and re-tarred, iron fastenings reforged. He approached it all with the focused intensity of a man who had found something concrete to do with an anger he couldn't directly express.
Now he commanded them along with the Pride, the flagship of our fledgling fleet, and the captured pirate galley that Doran Martell had sent me after the business in Sunspear.
Five war galleys. Not a massive fleet by any means, but respectable for a house our size.
He wasn't much interested in the trading and money-making aspect of it all, though. The merchant ventures, the negotiations with Essosi traders, the careful balancing of cargo manifests and profit margins, all of that bored him. That mostly left me in charge of the carracks and cogs that flew our banner.
The venture was only just starting. I put my ships to run simple, low-risk trading routes, taking our own goods—marble, wool, dyes, some grain—and those we bought from Essosi traders who came to Dawnrest to other ports in Westeros. Mostly, it involved sending letters to leverage the contacts I'd made in Dorne, Oldtown, and Lannisport, along with finding reliable captains smart enough not to be swindled in those ports but not so clever as to try and deceive me.
To make sure, I stationed one or two of my Companions on each ship, ostensibly as crewmen or junior officers, though actually as insurance against the particular creativity that distance and opportunity tend to inspire in people.
So far, the numbers had come back honest. Whether that was the Companions' presence or just early luck, I couldn't be sure yet.
The only conversations Father and I had anymore went through the ships now. He would send word about a galley's position; I'd reply about which trading vessel needed an escort through the Stepstones. All very functional and professional.
And as we mounted the horses already waiting for us alongside a knight in Lord Steffon's service, Lord Selwyn kept up his frosty mask as we started the trek up to Storm's End. The path wound up the cliff face, carved into the rock generations ago, wide enough for a wagon but narrow enough that my horse kept to the center, away from the edge.
Father rode ahead of me. Didn't look back. Didn't speak.
He had not forgiven me for Arianne being in the Weeping Town. Worse, for refusing to tell him why she was there.
I thought it was childish of Selwyn to give me the silent treatment. But in a way, I understood him. Before I'd come of age, he'd given me freedoms that most lords wouldn't extend to sons twice my age: included me in the house's finances, consulted me on decisions, treated my counsel as something worth weighing rather than enduring.
He'd only ever asked for honesty in return. And in that sense, I'd betrayed him.
The thing about implicit bargains is that breaking them hits harder than breaking an explicit rule, because there's no document to point to, just a violation of something both parties understood without needing to say it.
But the girl was adamant. If I ever told anyone, even our parents, she would just deny her powers all the way and leave me by myself speaking of magic and visions and glass candles like a fool. And I believed her. Arianne was thirteen now, but she had a stubborn streak a mile wide.
So it hurt, though it didn't surprise me, when we stepped through Storm's End's massive gates and took the offered bread and salt from the steward—a thin man with a pinched face who recited the guest rites in a bored monotone—and Lord Selwyn turned to me hard-faced.
"Stay outside for now, Galladon."
I frowned. "What? You don't want me in the meeting?"
Father only shook his head. His jaw was set, eyes forward.
"Why bring me, then?"
"Lord Steffon asked for you as well, but not for this." Then he turned around and followed the steward toward the keep, his boots echoing on the stone courtyard.
I stood there watching him go, my jaw tight. A few servants hurried past, carrying bundles. Somewhere, a blacksmith's hammer rang against an anvil in a steady rhythm. The wind coming off the sea was strong here, carrying the salt spray and the distant sound of waves crashing against the cliffs far below.
Clicking my tongue, I set off deeper into the castle, and I remembered enough about it to only need to ask for directions once.
xxx
I'd been in the library when someone came to call me.
Storm's End had a decent one, from what I'd seen. Not as extensive as the glimpse I had of the one at Casterly Rock or even Sunspear, but certainly respectable for a house famed for its disregard of scholarly pursuits. Lots of histories, some philosophy, a few treatises on warfare and strategy.
I'd been reading about the Dornish Wars when the servant found me—a young boy, maybe ten, who stammered through his message about Lord Baratheon requesting my presence.
It hadn't taken long. The meeting with Father, I mean. Barely more than a couple of hours. The strange thing was that I was summoned not to Lord Baratheon's solar, but to a small practice yard squeezed against the seaward walls of Storm's End.
On my previous visits, I'd been to the castle's main yard to watch the knights' training while my father did his thing, but this was not it. And when I got there, the place was empty. No men-at-arms drilling. No knights practicing their forms. Just the sound of wind and waves and the cry of gulls wheeling overhead.
Only the towering form of Lord Steffon stood out, already decked in training pads as if he'd been waiting for me. I had matched him in height since I last saw him, but he was broader through the shoulders still. Built like a bull, or like a Baratheon, with the face of a man who laughed often and meant it, and the hands of one who'd been swinging heavy things since he was old enough to lift them.
"Gear up, lad," he said before I got halfway through my bow. His voice carried easily over the wind.
He held a warhammer in both hands, blunted and not as heavy for training, but still a brutal weapon. The head was the size of a small melon, one side flat for crushing, the other bristling with rounded spikes. The haft was ash wood, worn smooth from use.
On my end, I pulled on what the rack offered—a padded gambeson, a blunted training sword that was heavier than I liked and balanced toward the tip, and a practice shield. Then, after a few minutes of lacing the gambeson tight, we stood ten feet apart in the deserted yard, and I tried to read what this was while keeping my face neutral.
He didn't leave me long to wonder. Closing the distance in three quick steps, the first attack came paired with a verbal jab.
"You burned down the Stormlands' only mainland port, boy."
The hammer came around in a horizontal arc. I dodged back, feeling the displacement of air as the head whooshed past where my chest had been a heartbeat before. Close enough that I felt the wind of it through my padding.
I frowned. Is this why he'd asked for a spar? To berate me while we beat each other with training weapons?
I didn't give myself time to think about it. I pressed forward instead, shield up, sword angling for his side in a quick thrust.
"Would you not have done the same for your mother, my lord?" I asked. "Your lady wife?"
Steffon brought the hammer across to block, using the haft. The impact of my blade against the wood jarred up my arm, rattling my teeth. He pushed back with surprising force, leveraging his weight and strength. I had to give ground or be overbalanced.
Then he came at me with a series of tight, controlled swings. High, low, middle. Each one precise, economical. No wasted motion. I deflected one with my shield, the impact resonating through my arm. Sidestepped another, pivoting on my back foot. Felt the wind of the third pass close enough to my ear it tickled me.
For a few seconds, I was purely on the defensive. Moving. Reacting. Reading his body language to predict where the next strike would come from. No space to counter, no opening to exploit.
Then he pulled back slightly, creating distance. A smirk spread across his face, half-hidden by his beard.
"I would've done worse," he said.
The warhammer moved in tighter, shorter arcs than I'd expect from a weapon that size, the power contained rather than wound up—until it wasn't.
He came at me then in earnest, and I realized he'd been holding back before. The warhammer swung in tighter, shorter arcs than I'd expect from a weapon that size, the power contained rather than wound up. Until it wasn't.
When I blocked one instead of dodging, trying to test his strength against mine, the impact coursed up my shoulder like I'd been kicked by a horse. Nearly tore the sword from my hand. My fingers went numb for a second before feeling rushed back in, pins and needles.
"House Tarth will be paying half the cost of its rebuilding," Steffon said between strikes, his breathing still even despite the exertion. "Did you know that?"
I froze in place. The words registered a split-second too late and I didn't dodge in time, getting a chestful of blunted hammerhead for my trouble. Even with the padding, the blow drove the air from my lungs with a wheeze. I stumbled back, gasping.
"What?" The word came out strangled. "That's madness. Father would never agree to that."
Steffon's expression grew dark, like storm clouds gathering. The hammer came around again, faster this time, more aggressive. "You doubt my word? Am I not your liege, Ser Galladon Tarth?"
I ducked under the swing, rolled right, came up with my shield between us. My mind raced even as my body moved on instinct. He was testing me. I knew that much. Just wasn't quite sure what answer he was looking for. What response would satisfy him.
"You would punish our house for protecting ourselves?" I asked, circling now, keeping my distance. The shield felt heavy on my arm, my shoulder still aching from that earlier impact.
Steffon stepped back. We both took a breath, circling each other like wolves sizing up prey. The wind gusted between us, tugging at our training clothes, carrying the smell of salt and seaweed from the ocean below.
"Tell me then," he said, watching me carefully. "What would you do in my place?"
My heart hammered in my chest. Is this what this was? Did he think we were planning some form of rebellion because we'd taken too long to answer his summons? Or was he genuinely curious how I'd handle the political fallout?
"I am not in your place, my lord," I said carefully, measuring each word. "Nor would I dare presume."
Steffon chuckled. Low and rough, like rocks grinding together. Then he pressed the attack.
Hammering down on me with overhead swings that would have caved in my skull if they connected full force. I got my shield up, took one on the boss. The impact drove me to one knee, my leg buckling. Rolled sideways as the next blow cratered the stone where I'd just been. Came up swinging, forcing him back a step.
He backstroke with the heavy spike on the weapon's reverse side, a vicious arc that would have torn through mail if this were a real fight. I leaned back, feeling it pass inches from my face. He used the haft to knock aside my attempted counterstrike, then came at me with the butt of the hammer like a cudgel, catching me on the shoulder.
Pain bloomed, but I grit my teeth. Truth be told, the man was starting to piss me off.
"Humor me, boy," he said, not even breathing hard.
I decided to answer his violence with some of my own.
Stepping inside his guard, too close for him to use the hammer effectively, I drove forward with my shield, rim aimed at his chest. The impact forced him back a step—only one, but I'd take it. My sword came around in a tight arc aimed at his ribs, looking for the gap between his padding. He twisted at the last second, took it on the haft, wood meeting steel with a crack.
But I was already moving. Hooked my leg behind his, tried to unbalance him while he was recovering.
The old bastard just grinned and shifted his weight, staying upright. His free hand shot out and grabbed my sword arm, strong as an iron vice. For a moment we were locked together, straining, faces inches apart.
Then we broke apart by mutual agreement, both stepping back.
We traded blows after that. Fast and brutal, the kind of fighting that left bruises even through padding. The courtyard rang with the clash of steel on steel, the thud of hammer against shield, the scrape of boots on stone. My arms burned with the effort. Sweat ran down my back despite the cool wind coming off the ocean.
I was gaining ground. Could feel it in the way he had to work harder to keep up, the way his breathing had finally started to labor. He was strong—gods, he was strong, and skilled beyond most men I'd faced, but I was younger. Faster. Had more stamina to burn.
I saw an opening. A moment where his guard dropped just slightly after a particularly heavy swing. His hammer was out of position, his balance committed forward.
I could have ended it there. Stepped in with my sword and put the blade against his throat, forced the yield. But I didn't take it. Let the moment pass and wound down instead, pulling back, breathing hard. Lowered my sword.
I saw it in his eyes, though. He knew it as well as I where this fight was going. He watched me for a moment, something approving shifted in his face, though he didn't say it.
The spar stopped completely now. We simply stood there, facing each other across a few feet of stone, both of us sweating and breathing hard. An eyebrow rose, spurring me on.
I had to remind myself what his question had been before I spoke.
"I'd strip the Whiteheads of their lands and titles, for one," I said between breaths, my chest heaving. "Then I'd compensate the aggrieved party with their seized assets. Gold and land. Perhaps rights to their ports for the next hundred years."
Steffon barked out a laugh that echoed off the castle walls. "A great solution for whoever ends up as Lord Tarth in the future."
I shrugged, letting my shield arm drop. What should I say? That I wasn't biased toward my family? That I'd somehow found perfect objectivity despite nearly losing my mother?
But I understood what he meant. No great lord wanted to create their own Bolton or Yronwood in their lands, a powerful enough vassal that could compete for supremacy within their land. For the sake of his own power and to balance out the strength of his bannermen, Lord Steffon would never favor us too much, no matter how justified our actions.
"What is to be their fate, then?" I asked, wiping sweat from my forehead. "The Whiteheads?"
We'd delayed coming to Storm's End for two months, using the excuse of Mother's recovery and the need to secure our own holdings. But we'd sent Elmar and Addam Whitehead ahead along with Ser Endrew to speak on our behalf, to present our case before Lord Steffon passed judgment.
"Elmar Whitehead has already left," Steffon said. He lowered the hammer, resting the head against the ground, leaning on it slightly. "Bound for the Wall with a wandering crow who came through last week."
"I see." Something twisted in my chest. Not quite satisfaction at the justice of it. Not quite regret for the man's fate. Just a complicated knot of feeling I couldn't quite untangle. "And the boy?"
"He will be my page for now. A castellan of my choosing will rule the Weeping Town until Addam Whitehead comes of age and his seat is rebuilt."
"A reconstruction House Tarth will be paying, it seems." I couldn't help the bitterness that rose in my voice.
Was this to be it? Had Father truly bowed so low? I would not gainsay my old man in front of someone else, much less our liege lord, but this was ridiculous.
Steffon nodded slowly. "Aye. Do you know how many Stormlords wrote to me about this, Galladon?" He stepped closer, his expression serious now, the earlier humor gone. "Oh, they all sympathized with your mother. All wrote down the right words. 'Terrible tragedy,' 'glad she survived,' 'justice must be served.' Selwyn Tarth is a well-liked lord, after all. Good man, fair lord, loyal bannerman." He paused. "But behind all the gruff courtesies and martial bluntness, some of these men are more crafty than they seem. More than one lord thinks this was a ruse. That your house arranged the whole thing to burn down the only port on the mainland that could compete with Dawnrest."
"That's absurd." Heat rose in my chest. "Mother almost died. She lost a finger. Some of my men died in that castle."
"I know that, son." His voice was patient in a way that was also a correction. "I know. But you're a smart lad. Tell me—is it the absolute truth that matters here?"
I opened my mouth to argue. Closed it. Thought for a second.
Then shook my head slowly, the anger draining away into something colder.
I sighed, the sound heavy with resignation. I was too close to this. Thinking too much with my heart than with my head, letting emotion cloud my judgment the way I'd trained myself not to.
Why wouldn't the other Stormlords think this was some scheme we had concocted? If I removed myself from the situation entirely and looked at the outcome, House Tarth had emerged from this with every major advantage.
The family was intact. Our port town stood proud and thriving, its warehouses full, its docks busy. Our wealth had only increased as trade was driven away from the burned Weeping Town to Dawnrest. The only house that had lost anything was the Whiteheads.
If it had been another house getting this outcome—say, House Connington or House Caron—I'd surely think it some clever plot by them. Wonder what strings they'd pulled, what deals they'd made in the shadows.
"You see it then," Steffon said. Not a question.
I closed my eyes briefly. "Aye, my lord. I understand."
"Good. That will be my answer to those letters, Galladon. Elmar Whitehead will take the black for his crimes, and House Tarth will pay in part to rebuild the port at the Weeping Town. The bad blood ends there, aye? No feuds, no vendettas, no lingering resentments poisoning my lands."
I nodded. He was using the reconstruction payment not as punishment but as theater, a public signal to the other Stormlords that House Tarth had been made to account for the damage, whether it had started the whole thing or not.
"But you can't spurn one of your more important bannermen based on the suspicions of the others, either," I said. "Not entirely. It would push us away from you. Make us angry at the seeming injustice of it all."
Steffon's smile was wide and genuine, reaching his eyes. "You will make a good lord in the future, Galladon. You see the game clearly." He reached for a water skin hanging from the post, took a swig. "When the port reopens, your house will have some advantages in its use. Berthing rights and whatnot. Reduced tariffs for a period. Your father has all the details." He paused, then continued. "More than that, there's a large piece of land in the northern coast of the Rainwood that used to belong to an extinct cadet house of the Whiteheads. Not particularly fertile, it's true, rocky soil, lots of hills, but that small knightly house could once call up two hundred spears from its levies. The forests run to good timber. Oak, pine, fir. The coast is teeming with amber."
"A fine reward." Very fine, even. Nothing was worth more in this medieval world than land. My eyes narrowed as I processed the implications. It was too complicated. Too many intricacies, too many moving pieces. The berthing rights, the land grant, the reconstruction payment creating cover for all of it. "This was not arranged in a couple of hours today."
"Did you truly think your father would ignore my summons for so long?" Steffon asked, his tone almost amused. "And that I would allow such unruliness from my banners? That I wouldn't demand answers, demand his presence immediately?"
Despite myself, I felt my cheeks flushing with embarrassment. Of course. Selwyn had likely been in correspondence with Lord Baratheon this whole time. Letters carried by fast ships or ravens. And through Ser Endrew when he came to deliver the prisoners.
The delay hadn't been defiance, just negotiation. Hammering out the details, reaching an agreement that satisfied honor and politics both.
I'd been kept in the dark, it seemed. Deliberately excluded from the planning.
It rankled more than I wanted to admit.
"You are young yet, Galladon. Young and bold and ambitious. Some impudence is allowed in the youth." He walked up to me and put a hand on my shoulder, giving it a squeeze. His grip was firm, almost paternal. "Only some, though. Your father knows better than to try and deceive his liege. He knows the proper forms, the proper respect. I hope you will learn the same from him."
There was no sting in it. That was almost what made it land harder, that it was just said plainly, from one man who understood how this worked to one who was still learning.
I said the only thing I could. "Aye, my lord."
I didn't like it. I hated being managed like a child, left out of important decisions. But it was the reality of it all. There were men above me in the medieval hierarchy just as I sat above the throngs of smallfolk in Westeros. Lords and kings and the complex web of obligations that bound them all together.
That could change, of course. But only when paired with overwhelming might. Military strength, economic power, political alliances. Might that I or my house did not yet possess.
"Good. I say that for more than myself, Galladon." His expression shifted, grew more serious. The hand on my shoulder tightened slightly. "A raven arrived yesterday summoning me to court. I trust you're aware of what happened in Duskendale with the king?"
I nodded. How could I not? My own misadventures in the Weeping Town paled in comparison to what had been dubbed the Defiance of Duskendale. An event I'd known would happen eventually and had been waiting for, dreading in some ways, but hadn't expected to come so soon and so out of nowhere.
We'd been back in Tarth for less than a week when the first news came. Lord Tywin Lannister marching an army to besiege Lord Denys Darklyn. The king held captive in the dungeons beneath the Dun Fort. But from my recollection, the Defiance had lasted months. Nearly half a year of siege and negotiation before it came to a resolution.
Instead, it had all happened in only a couple of months. The details remained similar—Ser Barristan the Bold climbing the walls of Duskendale in the dead of night, cutting his way through Darklyn's guards, freeing the king from his captivity. At least, that's what the ravens had reported.
"I've heard," I said.
"Then be sure to keep your healthy impudence to a minimum in these coming days," Steffon said, his voice carrying a warning edge. "You'll join me when I take the Kingsroad a week from now."
"To King's Landing?" I asked, my stomach sinking slightly. "Why?"
"Because King Aerys called on you by name in his letter," Steffon said, watching my reaction carefully. "And you would be wise not to ignore him."