In the square before the Great Sept of Baelor, the pent-up fury finally erupted!
More and more people stepped forward, their voices full of blood and tears as they denounced the atrocities the soldiers had committed!
They pointed at Stannis's soldiers standing in the distance with swords in hand, their eyes filled with bone-deep hatred.
They demanded that Stannis execute every soldier who had committed a crime!
Not just these few!
All of them!
These few were barely a start!
Stannis stood beside the execution block, watching the agitated crowd below without any change in his expression.
But his clenched fists betrayed his suppressed fury.
Davos Seaworth stood behind him, looking grim. As he watched those faces twisted with anger, a sense of foreboding rose in his heart.
Things were heading in the worst possible direction.
"Your Grace!"
A commander from Dragonstone strode up to Stannis, his voice brimming with barely contained anger.
"These peasants! They keep pushing their luck!"
"We've already killed the men responsible! What more do they want?!"
"Let me take some men in and cut off the heads of a few ringleaders! That'll keep them in line!"
Stannis did not answer him.
His gaze swept across the dense crowd filling the square.
Then he looked back at the army behind him.
He saw tension and anger on his soldiers' faces as well.
They looked at the people accusing them as though they were a mob of mortal enemies.
Yet at the same time, they were looking at him too.
There was a faint, almost imperceptible fear in their eyes.
They were afraid as well.
Afraid they would be the next unlucky man dragged onto the execution block.
Stannis understood.
He could not keep killing his own soldiers.
At least, he could no longer kill them before