Vorian Wyl watched the village from the trees.
Smoke curled lazily from a dozen thatched roofs, thin as thread, carrying the scent of baking bread and boiled grain. Lambdale sat in a shallow hollow beside a narrow stream, its fields yellow and heavy with harvest. Fat with it, Vorian thought. Soft.
He crouched low among the scrub oaks and thorn, still as a hunting cat. Around him the forest held its breath. Men waited behind him—hundreds of them—Dornish exiles, criminals, cutthroats, and worse. The refuse of the Boneway, given to him by a father too old and broken to wield them himself.
"They've done well this year," Vorian murmured.
Beside him, Borys shifted his weight. The man was tall, broad-shouldered, with black hair tied back in a rough knot and eyes the deep blue of storms. A Baratheon once. A traitor now.
"Stormlanders always do," Borys said. "When no one comes to burn it from them."
Vorian smiled.
"Borys," he said softly, never taking his eyes from the village, "what do they call this place again?"
Borys squinted toward the fields. "Lambdale. That's what the farmers said the last time I passed through."
"Lambdale," Vorian repeated, tasting the word. He imagined lambs in a pen, stupid and trusting. His smile widened, slow and cruel.
Behind them, the men waited. Some clutched spears and axes, others swords nicked from a dozen battles. Many wore scraps of armor scavenged from corpses. They were not an army. They were a swarm.
Vorian rose.
He drew Adder's Fang.
The blade whispered as it left the scabbard, dark and rippling, its Valyrian steel surface catching the light in waves. It curved like a serpent's body, cruel and elegant. His father had carried it once—Lord Wyl, a great warrior in his youth—before age bent his spine and weakness crept into his hands. Better the sword rest with a viper than rot with a dying man.
Vorian lifted the blade so all could see it.
"Men," he said, his voice carrying easily through the trees, "before us lies Stormlander land. Their fields are full. Their cellars are stocked. Their women sleep warm in their beds."
A low murmur rippled through the ranks.
"Kill the men," Vorian continued. "Take the food. Take the gold. Take the women if you wish. Leave nothing that can feed a marcher knight."
He grinned, teeth bared.
"Attack."
They burst from the trees like unleashed hounds.
The first guards died without ever knowing they were under attack. A spear took one through the back, the iron head bursting from his chest in a spray of red. Another turned, shouting, and Borys split his skull open with a downward chop, helm and head alike.
Vorian was already among them.
Adder's Fang slid through flesh as if it were silk. A farmer rushed him with a pitchfork, eyes wide with terror. Vorian stepped aside and opened the man from groin to throat. The scream died halfway out of his mouth.
The village erupted into chaos.
Women shrieked. Children ran. Dogs barked until boots crushed them into the dirt. Dornishmen kicked in doors, dragged men from beds, slaughtered them in their doorways. Blood soaked into the packed earth, dark and steaming.
A man tried to flee across the fields. Vorian hurled a dagger into his back. He fell face-first into the grain, hands clawing uselessly at the stalks as his blood fed the harvest.
"Burn it," Vorian shouted.
Torches flew.
Thatched roofs caught quickly. Flames licked upward, smoke thickening into choking black clouds. A woman tried to shield her child as fire spread along the beams above them. A Dornishman tore the child from her arms and smashed its head against the wall. Vorian did not look away.
This is how the Stormlands will learn, he thought. This is how fear takes root.
He kicked open another door.
Inside, a man stood shaking with a knife clutched in both hands. His wife sobbed behind him, clutching a babe to her chest.
"Please," the man whispered.
Vorian cut him down with a single stroke.
The woman screamed. Vorian backhanded her hard enough to knock her to the floor. The child wailed. He stepped over them, already bored, and left them to the men behind him.
Borys reappeared at his side, his axe wet and red. "The village is ours."
"Good," Vorian said. "Strip it."
They did.
Sacks of grain were dragged into the open. Coins were pried from hidden chests. Jewelry was torn from necks and fingers. The women who resisted were beaten. Those who didn't were taken anyway.
By the time the sun dipped low, Lambdale was a charred ruin.
Bodies lay everywhere—men sprawled in the streets, throats opened, skulls crushed. Smoke hung heavy in the air, stinging Vorian's eyes. He stood at the edge of the village and looked back at the destruction, Adder's Fang resting against his shoulder.
"This will bring them," Borys said. "Stormlords don't ignore this."
Vorian nodded. "Good."
"Rogar Baratheon will come," Borys added. There was something like bitterness in his voice.
"Let him," Vorian replied. "Let the King come too, if he likes. I'll hang their bodies from the Boneway."
He turned away, already thinking of the next village. The next lesson.
Behind him, Lambdale burned.