The Riverlands, Stoney Sept.
The bells began ringing at noon.
Not one bell, but every bell in town.
The old sept's, the new sept's, the dilapidated little sept by the river's, even the abandoned chapel at the foot of the town wall that no one had visited in years.
They all thundered together, their overlapping peals forming a deafening wave of sound, as though they would overturn all of Stoney Sept.
"Lock your doors and windows!" someone shouted in the street. "Nobody come out!"
Leon looked out of a second-floor window of the Peach toward the north gate.
House Stark's Direwolf banner flew above the walls. House Tully's silver trout followed close behind. The eagle of the Vale of Arryn was there too.
The reinforcements had arrived.
Connington's army was retreating, but not out of town. They were falling back into it.
Driven by the allied forces that had breached the defenses, they flooded the streets of Stoney Sept like a tide.
The street fighting began.
Robert and Leon had already charged outside.
Tyrion stood in the doorway, watching their retreating backs, then looked down at the newly forged hand axe in his grip.
He swore for the thirteenth time that night, then lumbered after them.
The streets had become hell.
Soldiers in royal uniforms mingled with rebels in mismatched leather armor, the clash of blades, screams, curses, and bells blending into a chaotic din.
Some fought on rooftops, leaping about like crazed monkeys.
Others fought in doorways, bodies blocking half an alley. Blood flowed across the paving stones, slippery underfoot.
Leon stayed close behind Robert, his Eye of Insight fully activated.
The world slowed in his eyes.
Every swinging sword, every thrusting spear, every movement anyone made-he could see them in advance.
The soldier in the red cloak would charge from the left. His weight was on his right foot, and he would fall in three seconds.
The mounted knight was turning around. His horse would knock over the two foot soldiers blocking his path...
His small stature became an advantage in the street fighting.
He slipped through the crowd, thrusting his shortsword through gaps, targeting enemies whose formation Robert had broken.
The first. Pierced behind the knee, he fell screaming.
The second. Attacked from the side, the shortsword driven beneath his ribs.
The third. Leon ducked beneath a slash and severed the man's ankle with a backhand cut.
He lost count.
His mind held nothing but those lights: orange, red, dark gold.
They flickered, collided, and went out before his eyes.
Robert fought like a beast, the rusty sword seeming to come alive in his hands.
He cut down a knight, turned to parry a thrusting spear, then split the soldier holding it in two with a backhand stroke.
Blood splashed across his face. He laughed aloud, roaring words no one could make out.
"Robert Baratheon!" someone shouted. "He's over there!"
More men surged toward him.
Rather than retreat, Robert charged into the oncoming wave.
Leon saw a knight in ornate armor charge in from the flank.
Three black circles were engraved on his shield.
The emblem of House Mooton.
Myles Mooton, Prince Rhaegar's squire.
His swordsmanship was far beyond that of an ordinary soldier.
He parried Robert's slash and thrust back at his chest.
Robert twisted aside. The sword point scraped across his breastplate, throwing off a trail of sparks.
Leon darted in from the side, thrusting his shortsword at the back of Myles Mooton's knee.
Sensing the danger, the knight spun around and swept Leon's shortsword aside.
The force sent Leon staggering backward into a wall.
"You little bastard!" Myles Mooton roared. "You're asking to die!"
He charged at Leon.
Then he stopped moving.
Robert's sword pierced his back and emerged from his chest.
Myles Mooton looked down at the sword point protruding from his chest. His lips moved, but no sound came out.
Robert kicked him away and pulled his sword free. Blood sprayed across the ground.
"The sixth." Robert panted and grinned. "The sixth."
Leon leaned against the wall, gasping for breath.
In the distance, the bells still thundered.
The fighting did not stop because one man had fallen.
More men surged forward. Robert was pinned down.
Leon was swept away from him. By the time he got his bearings, he found himself near the old sept in the west of town.
The fighting there was even more brutal.
A remnant of the royal army held the stone steps before the old sept to the death. They knew it was their last position.
Wave after wave of rebels charged up, only to be cut down, wave after wave.
Corpses piled into small hills, and blood flowed down the stone steps.
Leon saw a knight wearing the Vale's white moon on a blue field charging at the very front.
His sword's edge had rolled, and half his shield was shattered, but he was still advancing.
It was Denys Arryn.
Jon Arryn's heir.
Three royal knights surrounded him.
The first sword pierced his arm.
The second cut into his leg.
The third...
Leon closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, Denys Arryn lay in a pool of blood.
The three knights turned and plunged back into the fighting without giving him another glance.
Leon wanted to charge forward, but Thea appeared from somewhere and grabbed him.
"Don't go!" she roared. "That's the main battlefield!"
Her scabbed wound had long since split open again, blood staining half her arm crimson, but she was still fighting.
Sandor charged in from the flank, hacking wildly with his greatsword and cutting down several soldiers attempting a surprise attack.
Just then, Leon saw Robert facing a middle-aged man with graying red hair on the old sept's steps.
Jon Connington.
Hand of the King, Earl of Griffin's Roost.
He was drenched in blood, and blood still dripped from his sword.
It belonged to Lord Hoster Tully, who had just fought him.
Tully had fallen with serious wounds, and his guards had dragged him away.
The two swords clashed.
Connington's swordsmanship was as polished as a textbook example.
Robert's strength was as ferocious as a bear's.
They fought back and forth across the steps, every exchange fraught with danger.
The soldiers around them dared not approach and could only watch from a distance.
Connington thrust at Robert's throat.
Robert tilted his head aside. The blade skimmed his cheek, leaving a bloody line.
He swung back at Connington's head.
Connington raised his sword to block, and the tremendous force drove him to one knee.
"It's no use. Yield," Robert said.
Connington raised his head and looked at the younger man.
"Yield?" He laughed.
His smile was full of bitterness, confusion, and unwillingness to accept defeat. "I could have burned this town. Tywin would have."
Robert's sword stopped in midair.
"Why didn't you?"
Connington did not answer.
He merely rose, took a step back, and roared at his guards, "Everyone, retreat!"
The guards closed in, holding Robert back at the cost of their lives.
Connington turned and ran, as fast as the griffin on his arms.
Robert tried to pursue him, but the guards kept him occupied.
By the time he cut down the last one, Connington had vanished into an alley.
"Fuck!" Robert swore, but his mouth spread into a grin.
In the distance, the bells still thundered.
The fighting did not end until dusk.
Connington retreated with the remnants of his army.
Corpses filled the streets of Stoney Sept, and blood stained every paving stone red.
At last, the townspeople dared open their doors and windows and peer out at the town that had been baptized in bells and blades.
Leon sat on the old sept's stone steps, his hands still trembling.
Thea lay beside him while Sandor silently bandaged her wound.
Tyrion had arrived at some point too. He plopped down beside Leon, his face deathly pale, clutching his bloodstained hand axe.
"How many did you kill?" Leon asked.
Tyrion thought for a moment. "One. Trampled to death."
Leon gave him a puzzled look.
"He really was trampled to death!" Tyrion glared at him. "He was chasing me, and I fell. He stepped on me, tripped himself, and hit his head on a rock and died. Does that count as my kill?"
Leon was silent for a few seconds.
"It counts."
Tyrion grinned. The smile looked particularly grotesque on his blood-smeared face.
In the distance, a crowd surrounded Robert.
Eddard Stark stood beside him, relief written across his face.
Hoster Tully had been carried away. He was badly wounded, but word was he would live.
Jon Arryn knelt motionless before Denys Arryn's body.
Leon watched those victors.
They had won. But only one thing was on his mind...
Connington had said he could have burned the town.
He could have. But he had not.
Leon thought of Tywin.
Of The Rains of Castamere.
Of the houses that had been wiped out.
Had he been here, this town would already have burned to ashes.
But Connington had not done it.
Because what he wanted was "honor."
Honor.
Leon turned the word over in his mind. It could make you win, and it could make you lose.
"What are you thinking about?" Tyrion asked.
Leon shook his head.
"Nothing."
He merely gazed at the silent townspeople, at the tightly shut doors and windows, at the squires moving among the corpses.
Twenty days. They had hidden Robert for twenty days.
Not one of them had betrayed him.
This was the price of power, he thought.
Not Tywin's kind of price, which made people afraid, but the price that made people willing to die for you.
Connington would never understand.
Robert did not understand either, but he had it.
In the distance, the bells rang one last time.
They were the bells for evening prayers, calm and lingering, no different from that morning.
But Leon knew this town would never be the same again.
From that day onward, it was called "Bell Town."
By the time the news reached King's Landing, it was late at night.
Aerys II sat on the Iron Throne and listened to the news brought by the mud-covered knight.
Stoney Sept had fallen. Connington had retreated in defeat.
Robert Baratheon was still alive.
When the knight finished, he knelt on the floor and waited for the king's response.
Silence.
Only the crackling of torches filled the throne room.
Aerys tapped his fingers lightly on the throne's armrest. A rusty iron spike sliced his fingertip, and blood seeped out, but he did not notice.
"Leave," he said.
As though granted a pardon, the knight hurried away.
Aerys sat alone on the Iron Throne.
The seat, forged from over a thousand swords of defeated armies, cast a hideous shadow.
He lowered his head and looked at his fingernails. He had not cut them in a long time. They had grown into claws, curled and packed with filth.
He remembered the War of the Ninepenny Kings, remembered the days when he had fought alongside Tywin Lannister and Steffon Baratheon.
They had all been young then, and all believed they would stay young forever.
Back then, he had not yet been the "Mad King," only a spirited prince, an heir in whom great hopes had been placed.
Then Rhaegar had been born.
Then came the miscarriages, the stillbirths, the curses.
Then Duskendale, those damned six months!
Locked in a dungeon, listening to water, to the squealing of rats, to his own heartbeat growing slower with each passing day.
After that, he had never trusted anyone again.
Not Tywin, the friend who coveted his throne.
Not Rhaegar, the son who stole the people's love.
Not Rhaella, the wife who could not bear him an heir.
Not anyone.
But now, he had no choice but to believe one thing...
Stoney Sept.
The young earl he had personally raised up, Rhaegar's friend, the man he had always thought loyal enough and capable enough, had lost.
Lost to that brute from the Stormlands, that rebel who had raised his banners against him, that... what was his name again?
Robert Baratheon.
Steffon's son.
Aerys suddenly laughed.
His laughter echoed through the empty throne room.
His childhood friend's son now sought to overthrow him.
He rose and descended from the Iron Throne, walking step by step to the window.
Outside lay King's Landing at night, a stretch of darkness dotted with the occasional light.
In the distance, the waters of Blackwater Bay gleamed dimly beneath the moon.
Beneath those lights, how many people are waiting for me to die?
He wondered.
How many are hoping Robert enters the city?
His hand tightened around the window frame, his nails scraping across the stone with a piercing sound.
This is no ordinary rebellion.
Not that... that Greyjoy farce.
Daemon Blackfyre.
He remembered that name.
Two hundred years ago, that bastard who had nearly overthrown the Targaryen Dynasty.
That war had lasted a full five generations, killing thousands upon thousands before House Blackfyre was wiped out completely.
Now, it is worse.
Blackfyre at least had Targaryen blood.
What is Robert? A brute from the Stormlands, a boar who knows nothing but swinging a warhammer, a...
Aerys stopped his train of thought. He had suddenly remembered something.
Robert's grandmother had been a Targaryen.
Though not of the direct line, she had indeed carried the blood of the dragon.
So that is it.
He finally understood.
This is not rebellion. This is usurpation.
Another family with dragon blood wants to take the Iron Throne.
He turned and walked back to the Iron Throne.
"Tywin," he said softly.
The name spread across his tongue like poison.
Tywin Lannister.
His childhood friend, his Hand of the King, the man he had once trusted most. Now he hid in Casterly Rock, holding his forces back and waiting to see who won.
He is waiting too... waiting for me to die.
His hand clenched again.
The next day, the wisdoms of the Alchemists' Guild were summoned to the Red Keep.
Earl Rossart and his pyromancers knelt trembling before the Iron Throne.
Aerys looked down at them and slowly spoke:
"I need fire. A great deal of fire."
He spoke with a strange smile at the corner of his mouth.
"Robert Baratheon wants my throne? Then let him come. I will leave him a city of ashes."
A mad conspiracy was taking shape in this mad king's mind.
Wildfire.
All of King's Landing would be buried with him.
Three days later, the remnants of Connington's army vanished completely into the hills of the Riverlands.
When the news arrived, Leon was helping Thea change her dressings.
A messenger rushed into camp, disbelief on his face.
"Aerys has stripped Connington of his titles and lands!" he said. "He's exiled him!"
Robert was drinking and froze at the news.
"What?"
"The king said his failure to crush the rebels was due to his incompetence. He drove Connington out of Westeros!"
Robert fell silent.
He set down his cup and looked south.
"That man," he said, "could have burned Stoney Sept. But he didn't."
No one spoke.
Leon looked down at Thea's wound.
Robert rose and went to Stoney Sept's square, looking at the silent townsfolk.
"I ought to thank you," he said.
None of the townsfolk spoke.
Robert scratched his head, then suddenly turned and roared at the knights behind him, "Give them money! Every household, by the head! Compensate them for everything they lost!"
The knights exchanged glances.
"What are you standing around for?" Robert glared. "Take it out of the military funds!"
That evening, Leon saw Bella counting gold coins, a complicated expression on her face.
She looked as though she wanted to laugh, yet also wanted to cry.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
Bella looked at him and was silent for a few seconds.
"You know," she said, "Connington's soldiers gave us money too. When they searched the rooms, they paid for them."
Leon froze.
"He paid for the rooms?"
"Every soldier paid," Bella said. "He said they weren't to trouble the townsfolk."
Leon was silent for a long time.
He remembered the look in Connington's eyes as he retreated.
There had been defeat in that man's eyes, unwillingness to accept it, and... confusion. He did not understand why he had lost.
He had paid for the rooms. He had not burned the town. He had fought the most "honorable" battle.
And then he had lost.
Yet Robert, that boisterous brute who drank, whored, and cared about nothing, had won.
What the fuck kind of sense does that make?
Five days later, the rebel army broke camp and marched north.
Mounted on his horse, Leon glanced back at Stoney Sept.
The town lay quietly in the morning light, cooking smoke curling upward, as peaceful as though nothing had happened.
Bella stood in the doorway of the Peach and waved to him.
Leon waved back.
Beside him, Tyrion said, "You know, Tong'er said I was the most interesting dwarf she'd ever met."
"Tong'er?"
"The girl at the Peach." Tyrion grinned. "Black hair, bright eyes. She said her surname was... I've forgotten. But she'll remember me."
Leon looked at him.
Tyrion shrugged. "She said her mother remembered too."
...Leon asked no more.
The column traveled farther and farther away, and Stoney Sept's outline grew ever fainter. At last, it vanished into the morning mist.
Ahead lay the north. Riverrun. The Trident.
The next war in his memories.
Leon touched the gold coin from the year 276 tucked against his chest.
Rhaegar's face surfaced in his mind.
Soon, he said inwardly. Very soon.
Hoofbeats shattered the morning mist as they headed north.