The air in Widow's Cove was thick with salt, fog, and the suffocating weight of dread. A pale, fractured moon did little to pierce the gloom, its light swallowed by the mist that clung to the jagged black cliffs. On the pebbled beach below, Lord Westerling trembled, his fine cloak providing no warmth against the chilling certainty that he was a dead man walking.
"It will be fine, my lord," Rennifer said, his voice a calm anchor in the tense silence. He stood beside the carts laden with the Alchemist's deadly deceptions: crates of swords that would shatter, scorpion bolts that would splinter. "You will play your part, and you will live to see the dawn."
Westerling could not see them, but he could feel them. The ghosts in his castle. For the past week, since the arrival of the Warden's ten quiet professionals, he had been a prisoner in his own home. He would catch a glimpse of a shadow in a hallway or find a locked door mysteriously open. It was a constant, unnerving reminder that he was merely a puppet, his strings held by a man a thousand leagues away in King's Landing. One of them, the silent ranger Loras, was perched like a gargoyle on the cliff face a hundred feet above, a sentinel Westerling would never know was there.
High above, hidden in a thicket of gorse on the cliff's edge, Kaelen watched the scene through a Myrish spyglass. His Warden's Men were perfectly still, a hundred and fifty of them concealed in the rocks and scrubland that encircled the cove. They were a ring of invisible, patient steel. He had spent the last two weeks drilling them, molding them from disgruntled soldiers into a disciplined, silent force. Tonight was their test. Kaelen scanned the dark, churning water, waiting.
A ship emerged from the fog like a nightmare, its single sail black against the grey sky. A longship, sleek and menacing, bearing the golden kraken of House Greyjoy. The Sea Vulture. It dropped anchor a hundred yards from the shore, and a longboat was lowered, slicing through the waves towards the beach.
The boat scraped against the pebbles and a dozen men disembarked. Most were Ironborn, clad in mail and leather, their faces hard, their axes held with casual menace. But at their lead was a man in the dark, flowing robes of Dorne. It was Vorian Sand, his handsome face twisted into a contemptuous sneer as he approached Lord Westerling.
"You are late, my lord," Vorian snapped, his voice carrying in the quiet cove.
"The tides… the carts were slow," Westerling stammered, flinching as an Ironborn reaver spat near his boots.
"Excuses," Vorian scoffed. He gestured to a crate. "Open it."
An Ironborn smashed the lid with his axe. Vorian pulled out a sword, its steel gleaming in the faint moonlight. It looked perfect. He tested its weight, its edge. Satisfied, he tossed it back. "Begin loading. The Prince grows impatient."
The Ironborn and Dornish began hauling the heavy crates towards their longboat. They worked with arrogant confidence, their backs turned to the cliffs, their focus on their prize. They believed they had won. They were at their most vulnerable.
On the clifftop, Kaelen lowered his spyglass. He took a single, black-fletched arrow from his quiver and nocked it to his bow. He had wrapped the head in oil-soaked cloth. He lit it from a shielded torch, the small flame a tiny, hungry star in the darkness. He took a breath, aimed not at the men, but high into the night sky, and loosed.
The signal arrow traced a perfect, fiery arc over the cove.
For a heartbeat, there was only silence. Then, hell was unleashed.
From a hundred points in the cliffs, a sound like a tearing sheet of silk filled the air as bowstrings sang. The first volley was devastating. Men on the beach were pinned to the sand, their bodies sprouting arrows. The Dornish agent, Vorian, screamed as a shaft punched through his shoulder, spinning him to the ground.
Before the survivors could even process the attack, a war horn blew, a deep, guttural roar that was answered by the clang of steel. From the path leading down to the beach, the Warden's Men charged, a disciplined wall of shields and spears, cutting off the route to the longboat.
The Ironborn were born to chaos and battle, and they reacted with savage fury. They drew their axes and charged, a disorganized mob of individual fighters crashing against a unified formation. The result was a slaughter. The superior training and discipline of Kaelen's men were absolute. They held the line, their spears a hedgehog of death, while swordsmen cut down any reaver who broke through.
Simultaneously, a second wave of archers on the cliffs lit their arrows. Their targets were not the men, but the two ships. A rain of fire descended upon the longboat and the deck of the Sea Vulture. The small boat was engulfed in flames almost immediately. On the larger ship, panic erupted as the fire arrows found purchase in the sail and the rigging. The Ironborn on board were trapped, forced to choose between fighting the fires that were consuming their vessel or watching their comrades be massacred on the shore. They could do neither effectively.
The fight on the beach lasted less than five minutes. It was a brutal, one-sided extermination.
Kaelen walked down the path to the beach, his sword in hand, his face grim. The air was thick with the smell of blood and burning pitch. Lord Westerling was on his knees in the surf, vomiting. Rennifer stood over him, a dagger in his hand, his expression calm.
The last of the Ironborn was cut down. Kaelen surveyed the scene. His men had taken few losses. The enemy was annihilated. He saw Vorian Sand trying to crawl away, dragging his wounded body through the bloody sand.
"Take him alive," Kaelen commanded. "The Warden will want to ask him questions." He looked out at the burning Sea Vulture, its crew now trying desperately to escape into the dark water. "Secure the ship, if you can. Scuttle it if you can't. I want no survivors and no witnesses."
He stood amidst the carnage, the waves lapping at the bodies scattered across the beach. He had executed his lord's will with perfect, lethal precision. The message had been sent.
The work was done. The lion's claws were not just sharp; they were lethal. A raven would be sent to the capital at dawn. The Warden would be pleased.