The High Sparrow and Robert Strong walked to the statue of the Father, symbol of justice, where they knelt on one knee facing each other. Cersei stood between them, her hands hanging at her sides.
An old septon stepped forward, holding a multifaceted crystal in both hands. He raised it high, and as candlelight and sunlight from the dome struck the crystal, it refracted into a thin veil of rainbow-colored light.
The septon rotated the crystal, adjusting the angle so the prismatic light shone directly on Cersei's face.
Then, with a solemn and devout expression, he raised his voice in a tone that was lofty, dignified, almost like chanting, as he cried out to the statue of the Father:
"Father of Justice, Mother of Mercy, Maiden of Light, Smith of Toil, Warrior of Courage, Crone of Wisdom, Stranger of Mystery—
bear witness to Your lamb. Look deep into Cersei Lannister's soul, and reveal the truth within!
If she is innocent, grant her freedom. If she is guilty, grant her punishment."
"A bit low, using crystals for theatrics," Dany muttered under her breath, propping her chin up with one hand.
"Want to guess who'll win? I'll take bets. Ten to one the High Sparrow gets torn in two. How about it?" Tyrion raised his bandaged right hand, grinning.
"Who'd bet with you? The big one is bound to win. Everybody knows that," Jiqi pouted.
"Everybody knows that," Ellie nodded in agreement.
"He's so strong, and clad in iron from head to toe. Victory is certain," Jorah sighed, shaking his head.
"Your Grace, care to wager?" the dwarf leaned closer to Dany with a sly smile.
"How much capital do you have to bet against me? If I lose, so be it. But if the High Sparrow somehow gains the Seven's aid and turns the tables, can you afford to pay up?" Dany gave him a sidelong glance.
"There's no losing, only winning. Everybody knows that," Tyrion said, nodding smugly.
"Fine then, a small wager. One hundred thousand gold coins. Consider it payback for the bribe you once surrendered from Xaro."
Dany herself didn't truly believe the Seven would protect the High Sparrow. But she thought, if she won a fortune, perhaps the dwarf might finally move out of the Great Pyramid.
It was one thing for him to freeload food and lodging. But to sneak out at night to stir up trouble was another.
As the group exchanged idle chatter, the septon nodded toward the assembled lords and the representatives of the commons. Seeing no objections to bearing witness, he put away the crystal and departed quickly.
Queen Dowager Cersei was also led away by Ser Meryn and the Warrior's Sons.
Before leaving, Cersei cast the High Sparrow a meaningful, triumphant smile—just as she had the day she urged him to arrest Margaery.
Afterward, Lancel handed the High Sparrow a spiked warhammer. Its oak shaft was only thirty centimeters long, the head shaped like a corn cob.
Small and seemingly light.
Meanwhile, Ser Paurros, a white knight, handed his sworn brother a greatsword with a golden hilt.
Its blade was as wide as a maiden's palm, and when stood upright, it reached the High Sparrow's neck. Gleaming with a cold light, its edge bore many rice-grain-sized nicks, yet was sharpened to a deadly keenness, radiating a suffocating aura.
This was truly a weapon of death. Hundreds of King's Landing citizens who had jeered with lewd words during Cersei's walk of atonement had died beneath this very blade.
The High Sparrow turned, raised his hammer toward the statue of the Smith, and cried out, "For the Seven and for justice!"
There were no seats in the Great Sept. Cersei stood by the eastern stained-glass window, surrounded by great lords like Kevan, Euron, and Randyll Tarly.
Robert Strong said nothing. He only turned his massive frame and, with solemn courtesy, raised his sword in salute to the Queen Dowager.
As High Judge of the Seven Kingdoms, Randyll Tarly was granted partial authority over the trial.
"Before the Seven, let the trial by combat begin!"
Robert Strong stepped forward and, as if splitting a log, swung his sword single-handedly with tremendous force at the High Sparrow's skull.
A flash of white light streaked across the Sept.
"Boom!"
Shards of stone scattered as the marble floor caved in, leaving a hole the size of a wine cup. Cracks spidered out across seven or eight surrounding tiles.
"Ahh!" the crowd cried out in shock.
They marveled both at the white knight's terrifying strength and at the High Sparrow's nimble evasion.
Even Daenerys, watching the duel broadcast live, clenched her fists for her good friend the septon.
The white knight did not relent. After his downward strike, he swept the blade sideways, his thick, trunk-like arm swinging the massive sword nearly a meter and a half long. Its reach covered two and a half meters. The great blade stirred such a gale that the candles before the statues flickered all in the same direction.
What a High Sparrow indeed!
At that moment, the High Septon truly became like a sparrow. He bent low toward the oncoming sword, knees to the ground, head thrown back. The blade passed a hand's width from his nose.
Sliding on his knees, he narrowly avoided the strike.
"What… what did the High Sparrow used to be?" Tyrion's eyes bulged in astonishment.
"He must have been a soldier, a fighting man!" Jorah declared with certainty.
"Or maybe… a juggler," Dany said uncertainly.
In truth, the bear knight had guessed correctly.
The High Sparrow was no juggler. He was a battle-hardened veteran.
Much like Septon Meribald of the Riverlands, he had been a soldier in his youth, survived countless wars, become broken in body and spirit, and at last turned to the Seven. He had lived as a barefoot septon, dedicating the rest of his life to serving the people of the Seven Kingdoms.
In just a few exchanges, the High Sparrow had already evaded seven or eight of the white knight's attacks.
He was as small as a sparrow—and just as quick.
"Coward!" one of Cersei's lackeys shouted. "Seven above, High Sparrow, are you showing the world that the High Septon is a ridiculous craven?"
"Fight with honor, if you have any courage!" several nobles echoed.
"The High Sparrow is doing it on purpose. Even if it were the real Robert here, fully armed, swinging that greatsword with all his strength, he wouldn't last long before exhaustion set in," Jorah said hesitantly.
But even he sounded unconvinced. Robert Strong showed no sign of tiring. He moved like a perpetual machine, without the slightest hint of fatigue.
"A normal man, after ten mighty swings, would at least be gasping for air. Yet his motions don't falter at all. Very strange," Quentyn of Dorne muttered, frowning.
"Ser, look at the ground," Tyrion suddenly said.
Each time Robert struck the floor, chunks of stone flew, leaving pits and scars across the marble.
"The High Sparrow has miscalculated. Robert isn't tiring, but he himself is sweating. And worse, he's barefoot. Don't tell me stepping on sharp rocks won't hinder his movement," the dwarf sighed.
In theory, he wasn't wrong, but the High Sparrow also sensed his own predicament and quietly changed tactics.
The White Knight pressed forward step by step. The High Sparrow's expression was blank, his eyes fixed on his enemy's right shoulder as he retreated, carefully measuring the distance of their steps.
Robert swung his sword in a fierce assault, but the High Sparrow anticipated the strike. He sprang back lightly, landing just beyond a pit in the floor. After all, he prayed in the Sept every day and had personally scrubbed the marble tiles countless times; he remembered every crack and hollow perfectly.
Then Robert stepped forward. The back half of his iron boot sank into the pit, throwing his body off balance.
"Ah!" Cersei gasped.
"This is bad!" an experienced knight cried out from the noble crowd.
"Seven hells! Is the fight about to turn?" Tyrion was dumbfounded.
"Hssst!" Robert reacted swiftly. He instantly drove his sword into the ground, using it as a crutch to steady himself.
The massive figure managed to right itself once again.
But the High Sparrow did not stop his movements. In fact, this was the very situation he had carefully engineered.
He darted forward like lightning, leapt high into the air, and swung his corn-shaped hammer down at Robert's left shoulder, shouting, "Wrath of the Smith!"
To the astonishment of all watching, the silver-plated hammer, shaped like a corn cob, suddenly erupted with a blast of pure white holy fire the size of a melon.
A solemn, sacred aura radiated outward from the flame.
According to the High Sparrow's original plan, the hammer—powerful enough to shatter an iron shield—should have crippled Robert's left arm. He would then spin around and bring the hammer down on the back of the White Knight's head.
The reason he had not attacked Robert's skull directly was because his opponent could still block with his free left hand.
But something unexpected happened. Others were merely stunned that the Seven might have manifested through the holy fire. To Robert Strong, however, the flames were agony, as if boiling oil had been poured over him.
Even Saint Daenerys herself had overlooked one fact: dragonflame was already the strongest anti-magic fire. When imbued with the Smith's divine power, it carried the sacred order and justice of "lawful good," doubling its effectiveness against evil.
Indeed, the white fire burning on the High Sparrow's hammer was dragonflame driven by the Smith's divine power.
Dragonflame was still a form of magic.
Just as dark gods bestowed their sorceries on their followers—R'hllor granting resurrection and fire control—the Smith, a true craftsman deity, could grant divine arts to his believers.
From the moment of his appearance, Robert had not uttered a sound. Now, like a beast caught in a trap, he let out a soul-shaking howl.
He released the sword hilt with his right hand, and like a man embracing his lover, locked both arms tightly around the High Sparrow.
"This is bad!" Daenerys turned pale. She hurriedly called to the Smith, urging him to strengthen his divine blessing upon the High Sparrow—stop withholding that fifty percent profit share.
"Ah, the High Sparrow is doomed," Tyrion and the others cried out.
"Anvil and bellows, furnace ablaze!" the High Sparrow roared, shouting a line from The Book of the Smith.
"Boom!"
The holy fire on the hammer flared outward like a miniature sun, crashing down on Robert's left shoulder.
"Raaah—crack—!"
Locked in Robert's grasp, the High Sparrow seared his enemy's left cheek and smashed the hammer into his shoulder. Both men screamed in agony.
The High Sparrow's spine snapped under the crushing embrace, while Robert's left shoulder blazed with holy fire. Cracks split the armor, and his snow-white cloak burst into flames.
"Your Holiness!" monks and sparrows wailed in despair.
"Sorcery! The High Sparrow is using sorcery—he's an evil wizard!" Cersei shrieked hysterically.
"Two men down at once. But that flame… what is it? Could it really be the Smith's Wrath?" nobles and common representatives were both horrified and bewildered.
Had this been their first sight of the white fire, or had the battle not taken place within the Great Sept of Baelor, they might have agreed with Cersei that the High Sparrow was practicing fire-witchcraft.
But more than half a month earlier, word had spread that the High Septon had received the Mother's blessing and been granted the Smith's divine arts.
Though many questioned why the Smith's arts would come through the Mother instead of the Smith himself, they had also heard the rest of the tale: the High Sparrow, who had never forged in his life, had suddenly become a master craftsman, creating a steel sword greater even than the works of the vanished smithing grandmaster Bortomot.
All these thoughts flickered through their minds in an instant, only to vanish again as the battle took a new turn.
The High Sparrow's spine had been crushed, his ribs shattered, and blood gushed from his mouth, yet his hand did not falter. He lifted the hammer once more and brought it down squarely on the left side of Robert's iron helmet—roughly at the temple.
"Clang!"
The bolts fastening the visor to the helmet burst apart, and the bucket-like helm split into several pieces.
Half of Robert's long face was revealed to the High Sparrow and the onlookers behind him.
"What are you?" the High Sparrow whispered in shock, pupils narrowing as he swallowed blood.
(Author's note: For more on "the broken man," see Chapter 278. Brother Meribald was indeed such a man. I am very fond of this minor character—he is deeply Buddhist in nature. That's why I gave the High Sparrow a similar background. The Hound, too, would one day walk Meribald's path. His experiences mirror those of Meribald. From the moment he fled the defense of King's Landing, he became a broken man. Later, he was saved by a monk and took holy vows at the monastery on the Quiet Isle.)
(End of Chapter)
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