The village was burning.
Black smoke billowed into the sky. The bodies of civilians lay sprawled beside the road.
Soldiers of the Starry Warriors walked past the burning houses, their arms laden with plunder, without sparing the bodies a glance.
Dickon Tarly sat on his horse, his brow tightly furrowed.
Earl Rowan's second son rode beside him, accompanied by a squad of personal guards.
He fought to hold back his anger.
He had been holding it back the entire way.
He had discovered that marching to war was nothing like what he had imagined.
After entering the Stormlands, the Starry Warriors had spent less time reclaiming castles and towns occupied by House Targaryen than burning, killing, and looting.
Everything they captured, whether a castle or a village, was stripped bare.
Any civilians who offered even the slightest resistance were slaughtered.
He wanted to stop it.
He wanted to impose the military discipline he had learned from his father, Randyll Tarly, to rein these men in and put an end to their atrocities.
But he could not control them at all.
They simply refused to listen to him.
Whenever his orders were passed down, the mob ignored them outright. He could not make his soldiers obey as his father could.
Yes, to Dickon, these men were nothing more than a mob.
They marched under the banner of the Seven, yet all they did was burn, kill, and loot.
Dickon took a deep breath and forced himself to look away from the devastation left in the pillaged villages.
Earl Rowan's second son glanced at him from the horse beside his and shook his head.
Dickon was still too young.
This was the Stormlands, not the Reach. Why care about these people?
Besides, they were only commoners.
Earlier, Dickon had taken his guards