The ironborn messenger scrambled down the scree, disappearing toward the trees while a rough, bitter laugh passed along the broken battlements.
Tytos Blackwood did not join the laughter. He merely pressed his palm against his belly, holding his leather jerkin tight over a deep, jagged axe wound he had taken beneath Seagard.
He kept the injury hidden from the ranks, having stitched the torn flesh himself behind a closed tent door. Beneath his plate and heavy linen, the tear throbbed with a dull, burning ache that reached straight into his bones.
"Lord Tytos, does your footing hold?" Raymun Darry asked, stepping closer. He had caught the brief flash of ash-gray on the old lord's face.
Tytos dropped his hand instantly, straightening his spine as if he were simply adjusting his sword belt.
"The footing is fine."
The short phrase cut off any further inquiry from the wall.
Raymun did not press the matter, turning his gaze back to the fields below. A dark, dense ring of ironborn tents encircled the ancient ruins like a disease, choking off every lane to the river.
His voice was quiet, reading the final ledger. "Counting the wounded who can still hold an iron rod, we have fewer than six hundred men left."
"The sergeants distributed the last handful of grain this morning. The quivers were empty by sunset yesterday."
"This seat at Oldstones has been a pile of rubble for thousands of years. The southern curtain collapsed long ago, leaving us with nothing but loose river stones and broken oak to block the gap."
"If those two thousand axes make a proper push against the ruts..."
He left the phrase unfinished, though every man on the ramparts understood the math. There was no way out. A quiet, heavy despair hung over the stones.
Tytos Blackwood listened without a single muscle shifting on his face, his dark eyes fixed on the squid banner fluttering above the enemy camp.
After a long quiet, he turned his head, asking an unexpected question. "Lord Raymun, I have wondered about your choice."
"When the Usurper's War ended, your house lost nearly half its manors for staying loyal to the dragon. The Baratheons and the Tullys stripped your treasury bare."
"Why did you turn your horses back to join my vanguard?"
"This was not your war to finish. When word reached us that Seagard was down, you could have taken your three hundred lances straight back to Darry keep like the other prudent lords."
Down in the camp, the ironborn began a rhythmic, booming shout, beating the flats of their axes against their wooden targets to signal the coming charge. The sound fell across the ruins like a death knell, making the same levies who had mocked the messenger shiver with sudden terror.
Raymun Darry listened to the thrumming shields with a serene, unmoving face, meeting Tytos's gaze without hesitation.
"I did not turn my horse for Robert Baratheon," Raymun said softly.
"Nor did I ride for Hoster Tully at Riverrun."
He paused, looking past the old lord toward the huddle of weeping smallfolk who had fled into the ruins behind their shields.
"I turned back for the Trident."
Tytos Blackwood stared at the young lord, his weathered eyes widening slightly before a genuine, rare smile broke through his gray beard. He reached out his rough gauntlet, pressing it firmly against Raymun's shoulder.
"You are a good man, Raymun," Tytos said, each word deliberate. "A true man of the valley."
"My friend."
With a sharp click of steel, Tytos drew his broadsword, an ancient blade that had been carried by Blackwood lords for three hundred years. The carved weirwood patterns along the fuller caught the dim, gray light of the sky.
His voice was quiet, yet it carried over the roar of the ironborn camp. "Then let us hold the gap together."
"And leave a clean mark in the dirt."
Raymun smiled, drawing his own blade. The steel reflected his youthful features, free of terror or doubt now that the outcome was set.
Ser Ronald Darry came running up the stone steps, his mail clinking in a frantic rush. His face was pale. "Lord Raymun!"
"The levies are panicking near the inner ditch. Some of the common foot are discussing terms of surrender."
Tytos turned his head, his voice level. "Return to the lines and deliver the reality."
"If a lord surrenders to an ironborn, he might trade a chest of silver for his life."
"If a common farmer surrenders, he merely grants them a fresh captive to skin for sport."
"Tell them to keep their spears high. Dying on the stone allows a man to leave as a man."
Ser Ronald's mouth parted, but he merely offered a quiet bow and turned back to the stairs. Tytos walked slowly to the inner ledge, looking down at the smallfolk and wounded levies huddled together in the dirt, weeping as they offered their final prayers to the Seven and the Old Gods.
A small shape suddenly broke from the crowd, running up the steps. It was a boy of no more than twelve winters, though his eyes carried a fierce, burning light.
He stopped before Tytos, throwing himself onto one knee, his young voice ringing with absolute certainty. "Lord Tytos! I am Patrek Mallister, son of Jason Mallister! I request a place at your stirrup as a squire!"
He lifted his chin, a flame in his chest that belonged to a grown warrior.
"Give me an iron blade! I will defend the gap as my father did! I want to fight for my mother and my sister!"
His small chest heaved as he delivered his final shout with all his breath.
"And die like a knight!"
Tytos looked down at the boy, catching the sharp likeness of Lord Jason Mallister in his features. The old lord's heart, hardened by forty years of blood feuds, softened for a brief second.
He shook his head, his voice turning surprisingly gentle. "Child, this is not your burden to carry."
"Give him the steel!" a cold, female voice commanded from the shadows.
The soldiers turned. A woman in a dark, simple wool gown stepped from the crowd of women and children. It was Lady Mallister, the widow of Seagard.
Her cheeks were sunken and pale from grief, but her eyes held the exact same fierce light as her son's. She walked up to Tytos without a single tear, her posture straight as an iron lance.
"Give my son a blade," she repeated, her voice unyielding.
She looked down at her boy, speaking each word with a hard clarity.
"Let him fight beside the Blackwoods."
"Let him die like a true Mallister of Seagard. Do not strip his father's name from his shoulders."
The words landed like an iron hammer against the chests of every man on the wall. The levies who had been muttering about surrender went dead quiet, their faces flushing red with a sudden wave of shame and rising fury.
A woman and a child were standing before total annihilation without flinching, leaving the battle-tested men no excuse to cower in the mud.
Tytos Blackwood watched Lady Mallister for a long moment, seeing no madness in her eyes, only an unshakeable, ancient pride.
He offered a single, quiet nod.
A bearded house guard from Seagard was the first to react, drawing a notched, rusted broadsword and letting out a roaring shout that shook the stone.
"For the Trident!"
The cry acted like a spark in a dry barn. Across the ruined ramparts, every wounded soldier and common farmer drew his steel, fear giving way to a desperate, tragic fury. Their combined shouting rose into a single wave that drowned out the ironborn drums.
"Hold the gap!"
"Curse the sea-rats!"
"For the Trident!"
No man spoke of surrender now. The smallfolk began hauling heavy river stones to plug the breach in the timber wall, sharpening their broken knives against the masonry. Oldstones had transformed in an instant from a helpless slaughterhouse into a wounded lion preparing to take its toll.
Down in the fields, Dagmer Cleftjaw lost his patience. Euron had vanished into the woods, leaving behind a cold warning that made the old captain's jaw ache. He had no more time to spend on a broken castle. If they would not open the gates for ransom, he would take his captives from the mud.
He lifted his hand, his roar booming across the camp. "Take the wall!"
A dark tide of ironborn surged forward, carrying crude ladders and timber rams, their wild shrieks filling the valley.
With no arrows left to loose, the defenders threw whatever heavy debris remained along the ramparts, dropping heavy masonry, broken timbers, and pots of boiling pitch onto the climbing raiders.
Tytos Blackwood and Raymun Darry stood shoulder to shoulder at the widest gap in the masonry, acting as the anchor for the entire line. Little Patrek Mallister stood directly behind Tytos, his hands gripping a broadsword that was far too heavy for his young arms.
The ironborn pushed up the slopes with savage fury, stepping over their own fallen to reach the stone, throwing axes flashing through the gray air. A Darry sergeant took a flying blade to the shoulder, his leather jerkin turning red, yet he kept his spear thrusting into the gap.
As fast as one raider was smashed from a ladder by a river stone, another stepped onto his shoulders to reach the lip.
The crumbling masonry of Oldstones could not check a force of that size. The ironborn breached the gap like a bursting dam, pouring through the timber barricades and onto the grass of the inner yard.
The defense dissolved into a brutal, hand-to-hand slaughter.
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