The High Hall of Riverrun had become a hell on earth.
Walder Frey's head rolled down the steps like a battered ball, his eyes still wide in death.
It finally came to rest in a puddle of filth mixed with wine and blood.
His cloudy old eyes stared sightlessly, reflecting the candlelight flickering overhead-and the grave he had dug for his own house.
Hundreds of House Frey soldiers stood frozen, unable to bring their blades down another inch.
They watched the man standing at the place of honor casually flick blood from his ice blade onto the sumptuous carpet, and felt their very souls tremble.
That was no man.
That was death itself, come from the Lands of Always Winter beyond the North.
"Father... Father's dead..."
"He killed Lord Frey!"
A trembling voice rose from the crowd, breaking the frozen silence.
It was Black Walder Frey.
One of Walder Frey's most ruthless sons.
He stared at his father's headless corpse. Horror flashed in his eyes, only to give way to the desperate madness of a cornered beast.
Surrender?
They had planned this bloody massacre and violated the sacred guest right.
Surrender now?
What awaited them would be a judgment worse than death!
All of House Frey would be nailed to history's pillar of shame, their name reviled forever!
They were dead either way!
"He's only one man! There are hundreds of us!"
Black Walder drew his longsword, his spiteful face, so like his father's, flushed crimson with agitation.
"Kill him! Avenge my father! Cut a way out for House Frey!"
His roar instantly rekindled the dying will to survive in every House Frey man's heart.
That was right!
There were still hundreds of them!
Hundreds of sharp swords!
Did he have any idea what that meant?
*Even if he truly