The arrival of the Golden Company was not a rescue; it was an execution.
From the rear, the Golden Company's heavy knights crashed into the Company of the Cat, their gilded armor flashing like a second sun. But it was the war elephants that broke the spirit of the Myrish host. The massive, grey behemoths trumpeted a sound that shook the very marrow of the mercenary horses, turning the Myrish cavalry into a panicked, trampling mess.
High on a nearby ridge, the high command of the Golden Company watched the slaughter. They stood beneath a forest of pikes, each topped with a gilded skull that grinned eternally at the carnage below. One skull was grotesquely large, with a secondary, fist-sized cranium sprouting from its neck—the remains of Maelys the Monstrous, the last of the Blackfyre line.
"They fight with the hunger of the North," noted Gorys Edoryan, the company's Volantene treasurer. He adjusted his silk sleeves, his eyes on the disciplined movements of Gendry's freedmen. "I didn't think slaves could be forged into such a sharp blade."
"Bloodbeard was a butcher, but the boy is a surgeon," added Lysono Maar. The Lysene spymaster looked more like a noblewoman than a soldier, with his long, white-gold hair and lilac eyes. "His use of the cavalry to pin the Second Sons while the infantry formed the anvil... it was elegant. He is a man we can use."
"It's a risk!" Harry Strickland sighed. The Captain-General of the Golden Company—known as 'Homeless Harry'—looked more like a tired merchant than a warlord. He was stout, round-headed, and meticulously combed his thinning hair over a bald spot. "The Magisters pay in gold. This 'Liberator' pays in blood and high ideals. If he fails, we go down with him before we ever see the shores of Westeros."
"The Magisters give us gold, but they don't give us a home," Franklyn Flowers countered, his hand resting on his sword hilt. The Bastard of Cider Hall looked down at the field with a predator's grin. "The Wolf King has the momentum. He has the men. And he has the balls."
"If he takes the 'Three Sisters' of Myr, we join him formally," Harry muttered, still unconvinced. "Until then, we are just mercenaries engaging in a bit of 'mutually beneficial' skirmishing."
On the field below, the "smiling death" of the Wolf Pack infantry closed in.
The shield wall of the Free Army advanced with the steady, rhythmic clatter of spears against wood. They were no longer a rabble of runaway slaves; they were a machine. Bloodbeard saw his elite vanguard crumbling, his men throwing away their shields and fleeing into the woods.
"You ruined me!" a voice roared over the din.
Gendry turned his horse toward the sound. Bloodbeard stood by a shallow stream, his red beard matted with grime. He drew a longsword, the steel whistling as it cut through the air in a toxic, rapid arc.
Gendry met him with the hammer. He parried a blow that would have taken his head, his movements as fluid as a lynx. He feinted a high strike, then brought the spiked head of the warhammer down against Bloodbeard's ribs.
CRACK.
The mercenary captain staggered, his plate armor caving in like a dented pot. He spat blood but reached into his saddle for a hidden weapon—a dark, rippled blade that seemed to drink the morning light. It was a Valyrian steel arakh, black as smoke and sharper than a winter's breath.
"Die, whelp!" Bloodbeard lunged.
Gendry twisted in the saddle, the Valyrian blade missing his throat by an inch. He didn't give the captain a second chance. He swung the hammer in a short, brutal arc that caught Bloodbeard square in the temple. The helmet shattered, and the captain fell into the mud, his life leaking out in a red tide.
Gendry dismounted and picked up the dark arakh. It was light, perfectly balanced, and terrifyingly cold to the touch. He wondered why the captain hadn't led with it—perhaps he had saved it as a final, desperate trick.
"Good steel," a voice boomed.
The Golden Company knights were surrounding him now, but they weren't attacking. They looked at the mangled remains of Bloodbeard and then at the young man holding the black blade.
Franklyn Flowers rode forward, his armor gleaming. "The Wolf King indeed. You strike like a Baratheon and think like a Stark. My Captain-General would like a word, 'Liberator'."
Gendry wiped the blood from his brow and looked up at the ridge. The Golden Company was here. The game had truly changed.