Hall and the others noticed Kal's return.
Seeing his gaze lingering on Jon as he gathered Kennedy's remains, Hall dropped the corpse he had been dragging toward the roadside to dig a grave, and walked over with a grave expression.
"My lord—"
Hearing Hall call out, Kal turned his head toward him.
Hall pointed to the bodies on the ground—aside from the five mutilated ones Kal had cut down at the start, there were four others.
"These were the men who ambushed us from the cliffs. There were six in all, but we only managed to keep four."
"The other two ran off. We didn't dare chase them too far," Hall explained, clarifying how the extra corpses had come about, and mentioning the two who had escaped.
Kal looked at the four bodies, each riddled with wounds but all bearing the same gaping slash across the neck. He only gave a silent nod.
"You were right not to pursue them. In the dense forest, without experience, you'd never match them. And no one knows if they have more companions lurking out there."
"As for Kennedy's vengeance—I've already taken it for him."
"Yes, my lord." Hearing Kal's reassurance, Hall let out a small breath of relief.
That Hall and the others had managed to deal with the attackers on the cliffs did not surprise Kal.
After all, aside from Samwell, who was now pale as a sheet and retching until only spittle dribbled from his mouth—these men were ones he had personally drilled from time to time, and had deliberately taken to the battlefield to see blood with their own eyes. That they could dispatch the remaining enemies was no surprise to him.
In fact, one could even say he had deliberately left those enemies for them to handle. Kal trusted that they would deal with them properly.
Whether or not their combat strength was anything special, the equipment Jon and the other two bore was already on an entirely different level from that of these half-starved wildlings.
As for the two who had fled, Kal cared little.
The mountain clan—since he now bore the title of Warden of the East, he would in time find a way to root out that hidden danger.
He intended to give them only two choices.
And those two who had escaped would serve another purpose: to run back and announce his arrival to their tribe.
Turning these thoughts over in his mind, Kal finally looked down at the fat boy lying helpless on the ground.
"How do you feel? Are you all right?
"Seems the Qarth sorcerer's ritual, bathing you in aurochs' blood, didn't do much after all."
Kal came closer, crouched down, and pulled a waterskin from his belt, handing it over.
It was a goatskin bladder, soft and easy to carry. Inside, Kal had even placed a lemon to steep.
But the dazed Samwell neither caught his words nor even noticed his approach.
Only when he heard the voice at his ear did he turn his head by instinct—and at once, seeing Kal covered head to toe in reeking blood, his stomach lurched again. He gagged, mouth opening wide, but only dry heaves came out, nothing of substance.
In the end he slumped down, back pressed to the rock wall, and with trembling effort managed to take the waterskin from Kal's hand.
He gulped down several mouthfuls of the clean water, and only then did he feel life creeping back into him.
Then, staring at the corpses strewn across the ground, his eyes glazed as he lifted his head toward Kal.
"I… am I still alive?" Samwell murmured.
But before he could get an answer, his eyes flew wide and a cry, almost like a sob, burst from his lips. Startled, Hall, Jory Cassel, and the others digging graves all turned to look.
Sam instinctively curled up, lowering his head—only to realize that the pain came from Kal, who had lightly kicked the outside of his thigh.
"Well, at least you can still feel pain. Congratulations—you're alive. So, if you can, would you hurry up and get back on your feet to help out?"
"If you keep lying there like that, I can't promise the others won't start having… different thoughts about your backside."
Kal, his face spattered with blood, looked down at Samwell with a smile that seemed almost gentle, his expression warm and kind—like that of a good man.
If not for the reeking gore covering him head to toe, one might almost have believed it.
Sam couldn't bear that gaze. A shiver ran through him. Hastily he handed the waterskin back, scrambled up, and half-stumbled, half-jogged toward Jon.
Strangely, the moment he moved, he realized he wasn't feeling quite as bad as before.
Seeing the fat boy's pitiful antics, Kal allowed himself a faint smile. His mood eased somewhat.
"I'll go find the horses—and wash up a bit while I'm at it," he said, and turned, following the fresh hoofprints along the trail.
Kal had to admit Samwell's earlier complaint wasn't wrong. This road, called the Valley Road, was indeed no easy path.
Especially considering its far more common name: the "Uphill Road."
The mountains here were steep, the forests dense; only by crossing the high ridges could one reach the bottom of the Vale.
In some stretches, it was little more than a mountain trail, rough and stony.
Compared with horses, donkeys were far better suited to such terrain.
Kal, recalling his days in these parts, suddenly remembered that this road was often closed in winter when heavy snows sealed the mountains. At such times, the Vale's supplies had to come entirely through trade via Gulltown, the main port.
But such memories were vague for Kal—he had only ever heard others speak of them.
Walking this road now, he realized this was actually his first time setting foot on it.
That gave the path a strange sense of both familiarity and unfamiliarity.
So it was, after the ambush by the mountain clan in the Mountains of the Moon, that Kal had managed to recover the frightened, scattered horses. He even found time to slip back into the game world for a hot bath.
Leading the horses back, he visited Kennedy's grave—now at rest beneath the soil—and snapped off a branch, planting it at the mound as a token of respect. Then he took up the reins again and led the group onward toward the Eyrie.
Thus, the company, subdued after the sudden misfortune, marched on in silence along the mountain road for four more days.
During that time, no further wildling ambushes came.
At last, when the five of them—now whole again as a party—reached a stretch of road that wound from the Mountains of the Moon into the Vale, they halted before a fortification: battlements built into the sheer cliffs on either side.
Looking up, Kal saw twin watchtowers clinging to the rock face, joined by a weathered gray-stone arch bridge that formed a sealed gate between them. He let out a quiet breath of relief.
And just then, from the archway linking the towers, a man stepped out.
His face was lined by years, his head full of gray hair, thick brows framing blue eyes. He wore heavy armor with a helmet, and over it a surcoat of gray, patterned with a black trout on a field of red and blue stripes.
The man stepped into the middle of the arch bridge, looking down at the five figures standing before the Bloody Gate.
"Who seeks passage through the Bloody Gate?"
His voice was hoarse.
At the question, Hall stepped forward.
"Before you stands Ser Kal Stone—the King's firstborn son, who uncovered the treachery of the Lannisters, the fearless knight who slew the oath-breaking Kingsguard, and the one King Robert himself has named 'Warden of the East.'"
Hall's voice rose and fell with practiced cadence, ringing with pride.
Yet as the string of titles—none of which Kal had ever expected—came spilling out, Kal himself, unprepared, widened his eyes, staring at Hall with a look of disbelief.
It wasn't that he minded Hall stepping forward to declare his name.
It was that these titles were utter nonsense. Inwardly Kal cursed—next time, he would have to find a maester to drill some proper knowledge into this man. At the very least, Hall ought to make his lord's name sound grand and dignified.
Just look at Daenerys Targaryen—"Stormborn," "Mother of Dragons"—every title loud, resonant, brimming with presence.
But as Hall, chest puffed with pride, announced Kal's identity to the knight upon the bridge, the names he had chosen only made the air grow awkward.
Wind swept along the cliff walls, over the gray-stone arch, whistling in everyone's ears.
Only the knight above and the five men below remained, staring at one another, wide-eyed and silent.
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