The gates of King's Landing slowly swung open before Renly's army.
Riding beside him, Mathis Rowan, Earl of Goldengrove, said, "Your Grace, that is Joffrey's head. Your strategy worked. The starving people in the city overthrew the Lannisters and opened the gates for us."
Everyone saw Joffrey's head hanging high above the Gate of the Gods. Too many nobles recognized him for there to be any possibility of a trap.
Watching this, Renly commanded loudly, "Enter the gates, take the Red Keep, and seize Cersei and the rest of the bastards!"
With their armor clanking, the knights and soldiers of the Stormlands and the Reach streamed through the gates in formation.
When Renly's army entered King's Landing, they were greeted by bodies of the starved everywhere.
Countless withered human remains lay along both sides of the streets, in the shadows, beneath porches, and even in the middle of the road.
They were skin and bones, their eye sockets sunken, their skin a sickly blue-gray.
Flies buzzed through the air, which was thick with the stench of corpses. All of King's Landing resembled an enormous graveyard.
The triumphant look on Renly's face instantly froze.
He reined in his horse and looked around without a word.
"Gods have mercy..." Bryce Caron, Earl of Nightsong and one of the Rainbow Guard, whispered involuntarily beside him. "Your Grace, these are all people the Lannisters starved to death..."
Renly drew a sharp breath and immediately commanded, "Pass the order: distribute army rations to these starving people at once."
His officers hurriedly rode toward the rear of the army, repeating the order in hoarse voices.
Ser Armond of the Yellow Cloaks frowned and said to Renly, "Your Grace, these starving people can barely stand. Someone else executed Joffrey. Those people opened the gates for us, yet