A crude spear came whistling through the air. Ser Pell twisted aside to avoid the wildling's thrust, his sword flashing as he lopped off the man's forearm.
Without pausing, Pell kicked the enemy to the ground and drove his blade three times, hard and fast, into his throat and chest.
A hiss split the night—the whistle of an arrow.
Pell turned instinctively, but pain seared his side.
The wildling's bone-tipped arrow pierced his leather, but the mail beneath stopped it short.
Cursing under his breath, Pell seized the trembling shaft, yanked it free, and flung it to the ground.
"Protect the ser!"
"Archers! On the western rise!"
"Loose! Loose, damn you!"
Moonlight swam with shadows. The killing went on.
A burly wildling chief gnashed his teeth at Pell, blood pouring from his mouth, his eyes bursting red as rage and death overtook him.
The short swords of the Scout Corps stabbed again and again into his belly, gutting him until entrails spilled and the body twitched no more.
Usually, it was the wildling clans who fell prey to Pell's sudden raids.
But tonight, for the first time, the raiders had turned upon the Scouts. The reversal stoked a rare anger in Pell's steady heart.
He cast a cold glance at the butchered chieftain sprawled on the earth.
The deeper into the valleys they pressed, the fiercer the tribes became.
Ser Masson, Pell's old comrade and friend, remained behind under Lord Gawen's orders, charged with overseeing the building of new farmsteads upon the reclaimed Crabb lands.
Masson's need for food grew greater by the day, and so Pell had been forced to quicken his campaigns against the clans.
Yet the deeper the Scouts ventured, the heavier the resistance. Casualties mounted.
Every soldier in the Scout Corps had been handpicked by Pell—nearly all were famed hunters of the peninsula.
But even the finest hunters needed steel to survive. More mail, more shields. Even Pell himself had begun to feel the weight of exhaustion.
They would have to rest.
And when the Scouts struck again, it would be to bring true terror.
The camp that summer night glittered with stars.
"Fear?" Jaime echoed.
Gawen shrugged. "The Targaryens won Westeros because they brought fear, Ser Jaime. Dragons gave them the Iron Throne. If the Mad King had held dragons, even Robert's great warhammer could have done no more than smash crabs on the Stormlands shore."
Jaime tried to smile, but it twisted into something strained.
Catching his unease, Gawen's brown eyes softened. For the lion's sake, he spoke gently:
"Ser Jaime, I favor putting myself in another's place. I ask what I would do, were it me.
King's Landing on the verge of falling, wildfire set to consume the city, my father's head demanded as tribute.
I've thought it through more than once—what choice would I have made? What else could be done?"
Jaime flinched, ever so slightly. Something new flickered in his eyes.
Gawen gazed up at the night, sighing. "And each time, my answer has been the same."
He turned, laying a hand on Jaime's arm. "You lost your honor, yes. But you saved lives. That choice was not so terrible. Hold fast to that, Ser Jaime. Be open-hearted. Fear no man's scorn."
What Gawen admired most in Jaime was not valor nor skill, but this—he never used people. It sounded simple, but it was a rare and precious thing.
For the first time, Jaime found Gawen's wisdom… dazzling.
For a fleeting heartbeat, Tyrion's counsel seemed worth heeding.
No. Impossible. Absolutely not.
Night fell deeper. Gawen turned to rest, unmoved by Jaime's turmoil. To him, this was only a bargain.
As they parted, Gawen said lightly, "And Ser Jaime—if ever you face a stubborn man, sometimes it helps to answer with a question."
A gift, offered freely.
Beyond King's Landing, the sky over the Crabb Estate shone bright and blue.
Within the estate, new grooms busied themselves tending the horses.
Rossell, having finished with Jeyfreis's funeral, sat now with Steward Sulana in a shaded pavilion.
Sulana wore a long gown, and at her waist a short sword hung from a leather belt. Rossell's eyes strayed to it more than once.
He had spent his years in the capital, serving Jeyfreis. Never had he come to the Crabb lands.
But he had heard tales of the Crabb spear-wives, their "fame" well known.
Seeing Sulana, the stories became easier to picture.
Catching his glance, Sulana smiled faintly. "The sword? King's Landing merchants are sly as foxes. Since I took to wearing this, they've grown more… honest."
Rossell chuckled. "If it works, Lady Sulana, then it works."
She let the matter drop. "I thought I'd earned a spell of rest, but Lord Gawen means to take you south with him."
Rossell nodded. "We'll return soon enough."
"Then I'll wait here. One thing I know—I'm ill-suited to dealing with merchants."
"Very well, my lady. Then I depart at once."
On the Crab Claw Peninsula, the sun blazed high over Whisper City.
Hesher, the steward, waddled through his duties, plumper now than when Gawen had departed.
Since reclaiming the Crabb ancestral lands, Ser Masson's new farmsteads had swelled with wildlings turned farmers, their numbers rising without end.
The Scout Corps and Thorn Legion raided steadily, seizing goods from wildling tribes, but the plunder could not keep pace with mouths to feed.
Hesher knew he must purchase grain in advance, stockpiling for lean days and for Masson's needs.
Mermaid's Port, newly built, had yet to lure the great trading houses. Only petty merchants came to barter. For larger ventures, they still relied upon the merchants of the Vale.
And so, the gold dragons Gawen had labored to wring from King's Landing would line the purses of Vale grain-sellers.
The thought stabbed Hesher like a dagger. In the storehouse lay one thousand golden dragons, and his heart bled for every last one.
Since Lady Lianna Crabb's marriage to Seagard, the Vale lords had lifted their embargo, but Vale merchants still charged the Crabbs dear for trade.
And should the Crabbs refuse their coin, even for a short time, prices only climbed higher.
Hesher clutched at his aching heart.
But he was Gawen's man to the bone. He knew what was at stake. The realm's future lay in turning wildlings into subjects.
If they could endure this stretch, the fields would yield. The wheat would grow again on the old farmlands.
.
.
.
🔥 The Throne's Last Flame — A Song Forged in Ice and Wrath 🔥
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