In the distance, Lymond Lychester stood before his troops and took it all in. The cold wind stirred his gray-white hair, but he felt no chill. Instead, a coldness rose from his spine and shot straight to his head.
That young man, Suleiman—his son in name, at least—was playing the role of a regretful commander with practiced ease, comforting a group of underlings whose hands were stained with the blood of an extinguished house.
Everything was exactly as it had been in the scenario they had discussed on the road that day. No, it was even more real, even more ruthless, than they had imagined.
Lymond Lychester felt as though he wasn't watching a post-battle report, but a play written and directed by Suleiman himself. The actors were those greedy knights, the stage was the castle of House Pyle, and the script was nothing less than stark reality.
He had underestimated them. He'd thought Suleiman was merely using these low-ranking knights as a disposable blade.
But only now did he understand what he had truly underestimated: the people at the bottom. Whether commoners or minor nobles, the ambition and cruelty they could unleash to claim a piece of land for themselves were terrifying.
They could slaughter another noble house of higher standing without a second thought, and do so more cleanly and decisively than any sworn enemy—leaving not a single survivor. The dead couldn't speak, after all, and only that way could they claim their promised rewards and make them impossible to dispute.
"The commoners of the Riverlands will be our friends, the force that helps us rise."
"Give them a path upward, and they will fight for us."
"Those low-ranking knights and minor nobles will be our swords and shields, too."
Suleiman's words rang through his mind once more,