The road was a river of chaos. At the head of the Myrish column, the Brave Companions rode with a swagger that masked their lack of discipline, their exotic zorses—striped and lean—snorting at the humidity of the marshes. Behind them followed the Myrish levies, a mix of harbor thugs and desperate sellswords who spent more time cursing each other than watching the treeline.
Commander Qobo rode near the center, his hand never far from his sword hilt. He didn't trust the slaves in his baggage train, and he trusted the Bloody Mummers even less. His uncle, Magister Joios, had left him with thirty Unsullied and four Meereenese pit champions—the only truly reliable steel in his thousand-man host.
"How much further, Lord Vargo?" Qobo asked, pulling his horse up beside the Qohorik leader.
Vargo Hoat sat atop his black-and-white zorse, his long, bell-laden beard twitching as he chewed a sourleaf. He adjusted his grotesque goat-headed helm.
"Two dayth," Vargo lisped, his mouth wet with red juice. "Maybe leth if the puppy-dogth don't hide in their kennel."
"We should have waited for the fleet," Qobo muttered, his eyes darting to the dense woods on their right. "The 'Butter King' is a demon with a hammer. They say he tears through Unsullied like they were made of silk. We are exposed here."
"Why wait for a fleet? To thare the thilver? To thare the thpoilth?" Vargo sneered. "They are run-away thlaveth and Northern trash. We will thlaughter them and take their fire-weed for ourthelveth."
Nearby, the psychopathic jester Shagwell was juggling two severed heads he had taken from runaway slaves earlier that morning. He made them "talk" to each other in high-pitched, mocking voices.
"Oh, Mr. Head, why are you dead?" Shagwell squeaked for the first head.
"Because I believed in the Butter King!" he answered for the second, before cackling wildly.
Qobo felt a wave of nausea. He had commanded city guards for years, but he had never seen anything as depraved as the Mummers. "Is there any sign of the enemy?"
"None, Commander," Shagwell replied, stopping his juggling. "The road is empty. The local estate owners have bolted their gates, terrified of the 'Wolf-Pups'. We found two runaways trying to join the rebels, but we... discouraged them." He gestured to the heads.
"It's too quiet," Qobo whispered. This fertile stretch of the Disputed Lands was full of forests and small rivers—the kind of terrain where an army could vanish and reappear in a heartbeat.
"The area is full of Magisterial property," Shagwell noted, his eyes gleaming with greed. "Since the Butter King is stealing everything, why shouldn't we have a little fun first? A few bags of gold from the nearby manse would go a long way."
"No!" Qobo snapped. "We are here to suppress a rebellion, not start a new one with the other Magisters. Keep your men on the road!"
"Tho theriouth, Commander Qobo," Vargo Hoat lisped, a cold smile touching his thin lips. "We are only jeting."
"Speed up the pace!" Vargo roared to his men. "We camp on the hill ahead!"
The black goat banner moved forward. As they crest the final rise before the marshy flats, Qobo's blood turned to ice.
The road below was blocked.
A massive shield-wall of overlapping oak and iron-bound timber stood across the main road. Behind the shields stood the "Free Army"—thousands of former slaves in mismatched mail and leather, their faces grim and set. On the hill to the left, the sunlight glinted off the longbows of the Wolf Pack veterans.
Dread. Dread. Dread.
A sharp, piercing horn-blast echoed across the valley, followed by the deep, rhythmic thrumming of Northern war drums.
"Move! Form up!" Qobo screamed, but his levies were already panicking, the baggage train piling into the rear of the column.
"Quiet, Commander," Vargo Hoat growled, his eyes narrowing. "Brotherth, form the wedge! Look at them—they are thlaveth. They haven't theen blood yet. We will break them in one charge."
Vargo looked at the Free Army. Their armor was rusted, their shields were chipped, and they stood in the mud like peasants. To a seasoned killer like the Goat of Qohor, they looked like easy meat.
"Take twenty of the Unthullied," Vargo ordered Qobo. "We hit the center. Once the thlaveth run, we hunt the pithieth on the hill."
Vargo led the charge himself. Twenty Unsullied moved in perfect, silent unison at the center of the Mummer wedge, their spears leveled. They hit the Free Army's shield-wall like a thunderbolt.
CRASH.
The shield-wall buckled. The former slaves groaned under the impact of the Unsullied phalanx. Spears darted into the gaps, finding meat. But the "Anvil" held. Driven by the memory of the lash and the promise of their own land, the freedmen didn't break. They threw their weight against their shields, locking their boots into the mud, refusing to give an inch.
"Archers! Loose!" Fletcher Dick's voice rang out from the heights.
A storm of cloth-yard shafts plunged into the Myrish rear. Crossbowmen trying to load were pinned to their carts. The Myrish levies, caught in the bottleneck, began to dissolve into chaos.
"They're holding!" Qobo shouted, disbelief coloring his voice. "How are they holding against Unsullied?"
"Puth harder!" Vargo screamed, his zorse rearing as he swung his longsword.
But then, the world changed.
From the woods on the right, a different sound emerged. Not the rhythmic drumming of the infantry, but the tectonic thundering of sixty heavy destriers at a full gallop.
Gendry led the charge.
He was a vision of black iron and fury. He wore his horned helm and black scale mail, his warhammer raised high. The Wolf Pack veterans rode beside him, their plate armor gleaming. They didn't hit the front; they hit the exposed Myrish flank at the exact moment the Mummers were committed to the center.
CRUNCH.
Gendry's warhammer obliterated the skull of a Mummer sellsword, sending a spray of blood across the black goat banner.
"FOR THE PACK!"
The heavy cavalry tore through the Myrish center like a hot knife through wax. Maces, axes, and morningstars rose and fell in a blur of violence. Gendry was a hurricane, his hammer shattering shields, breastplates, and bones with every swing. His Storm's Blood was a wildfire in his veins, granting him a speed that defied his armored weight.
Qobo watched in horror as his elite Meereenese champions were ridden down and his Unsullied were flanked. The "Butter King" wasn't a soft merchant. He was a Baratheon storm in iron skin.
The glory Qobo had imagined evaporated. There was no victory here. There was only the hammer.