Chapter 3: The Battle of Summerhall and the Rise of a Predator
The war camp at Storm's End was a living, breathing behemoth. It sprawled across the windswept plains before the great fortress, a chaotic city of canvas, mud, and steel. The air was thick with the cacophony of a thousand different sounds: the relentless clang of blacksmiths' hammers, the boisterous laughter of knights sharing a wineskin, the lowing of oxen, and the constant, murmuring hum of tens of thousands of men preparing for war. Banners of every conceivable color and sigil whipped in the salty wind, a vibrant, fluttering forest that proclaimed the might of the Stormlands. For most men, it was a sight of awe-inspiring power and camaraderie. For Kaelen Vyrwel, it was a marketplace.
He moved through the throng not as a participant, but as a connoisseur. His small company of eighty-eight men, bearing the black griffin of his House, was a tiny, insignificant drop in this vast ocean of martial might. They were assigned a sliver of land on the camp's periphery, squeezed between the boisterous men of House Swann and the grim, silent soldiers of House Selmy. This anonymity was a cloak, and Kaelen wore it with a predator's patience.
While other minor lords scurried to gain the attention of their powerful peers, currying favor with flattery and wine, Kaelen walked the muddy lanes of the camp alone. He was an observer, a ghost at the feast. His senses, sharpened by the lives he had consumed, drank in every detail. He watched the knights of the Tarth Evenstar drill with a fluid grace, their movements a testament to generations of refined swordsmanship. He listened to the grizzled quartermasters of House Connington argue over the logistics of supply, their minds a trove of practical, essential knowledge. He studied the faces of the lords themselves, cataloging their strengths, their weaknesses, their ambitions. He was creating a mental ledger of souls, a shopping list for the war to come.
His formal presentation to Robert Baratheon was as brief and insignificant as he had expected. He was herded into the Great Hall of Storm's End along with two dozen other minor lords, a procession of nervous, hopeful men. Robert stood before the massive weirwood throne, his famous warhammer resting against it. He was larger than life, a giant of a man radiating an aura of raw, untamed power. His black hair was a messy mane, his beard was thick and wild, and his laughter boomed through the hall, shaking the very stones. He greeted each lord with a clap on the back and a booming jest, his mind clearly on the grander sweep of the war, not on the petty allegiances of his lesser vassals.
When Kaelen's turn came, Robert's blue eyes, bright with energy, glanced at him for a fleeting moment. "Lord Vyrwel of Griffin's Roost," the herald announced.
Robert gave him a cursory nod. "Another griffin in the storm. Good. We'll need every claw we can muster. Stand with Lord Estermont's flank." He had already turned to the next lord before Kaelen could even offer a rehearsed pleasantry.
The dismissal was absolute. In the eyes of the rebellion's leader, he was nothing more than a name on a scroll, a warm body to throw at the Targaryen loyalists. A surge of cold, black fury, a feeling wholly his own and not an echo from a stolen life, coiled in Kaelen's gut. But on his face, there was nothing. He bowed his head in a perfect imitation of humble loyalty and stepped back into the crowd. He looked at Robert Baratheon, this laughing, careless giant, and he felt a profound contempt. Robert was a force of nature, a hurricane of charisma and martial fury, but he was a blunt instrument. Kaelen was a scalpel, and he knew that a scalpel, wielded with precision, could bring any giant to its knees.
He began to cultivate his persona with meticulous care. He was the quiet lord, the diligent commander. His camp was a model of order and discipline amidst the chaos. His sentries were always alert, his men's armor always polished, their weapons always sharp. He was seen poring over maps late into the night, the skills of strategy and tactics from the slain deserter captain now a seed in his mind, a seed he was carefully nurturing.
This quiet competence did not go entirely unnoticed. While Robert laughed and drank, his younger brother, Stannis, did not. Stannis Baratheon was Robert's polar opposite: a man of grim duty and unforgiving standards. He walked the camp with a perpetual frown, his eyes missing nothing. He noted the discipline of the Vyrwel men, the quiet intensity of their young lord. He did not speak to Kaelen, but Kaelen felt the weight of his gaze, a gaze of cold, appraising scrutiny. It was a challenge, a new and interesting variable in his calculations.
A week later, the army marched. It was a sight to behold, a river of steel that flowed out from Storm's End, stretching for miles across the green plains. They marched north, towards the Red Mountains, towards the lands of the Targaryen loyalists who had risen to defend their king. Their first target was the collection of forces gathering near the ruins of Summerhall, the fallen summer palace of the Targaryens, a place of tragedy and ghosts.
The march was long and arduous, but for Kaelen, it was an education. He used his absorbed scouting skills to his advantage, his preternaturally sharp eyes spotting things that others missed. He found a hidden stream that saved his men from drinking from the brackish water of a swamp. He identified a deer trail that led to a small, hidden meadow where his men could forage for fresh greens. These were small things, but they earned him the respect of his men and the quiet approval of Ser Gerold, who was beginning to look at his young lord with a mixture of pride and profound confusion.
During the march, Kaelen selected his next target. He was a hedge knight named Ser Damon Hill, though he called himself 'the Ox of the Wendwater'. He was a mountain of a man, with arms as thick as tree trunks and a neck like a bull's. He was famed for his skill with a great-axe, a weapon he wielded with savage, brutal force. He was also a braggart and a bully, with a loud, grating laugh and a cruel sense of humor. He was disliked by many, which made him the perfect target.
On the eve of the battle, the Baratheon army made camp in the shadow of the blackened, skeletal ruins of Summerhall. A palpable tension hung in the air, the nervous energy of thousands of men waiting for the dawn and the bloodshed it would bring. Kaelen decided that this was the night.
He found Ser Damon in a crowded mess tent, surrounded by a group of sycophantic squires, his booming voice recounting a tale of his own supposed prowess. Kaelen, holding a flagon of ale, walked past his table, seemingly stumbling on a loose floorboard. The ale sloshed from his flagon, drenching the front of the hedge knight's tunic.
Ser Damon roared, leaping to his feet. "You clumsy fool!" he bellowed, his face turning a shade of purple. "Do you know who I am?"
Kaelen turned, his face a perfect mask of apology and humility. "My deepest apologies, Ser Damon," he said, his voice soft and respectful. "It was an accident. The floor is uneven."
"Accident?" Ser Damon sneered, shoving Kaelen back. "I think you did it on purpose, you little griffin pup. You lords think you can do whatever you want."
Kaelen stumbled back, his eyes wide with feigned innocence. "I assure you, ser, I meant no offense."
His humility only enraged the hedge knight further. "I'll teach you some respect, you little lordling," he snarled, his hand going to the hilt of his dagger.
"This is not the place for this, ser," Kaelen said, his voice still calm and reasonable. "We are on the eve of a great battle. We should be united."
His words were like fuel on the fire. Ser Damon, egged on by his cronies, saw this as an insult to his honor. "Are you a coward as well as a fool?" he spat. "Or will you face me like a man?"
Kaelen let out a long, weary sigh, as if burdened by the hedge knight's foolishness. "If you insist, ser," he said, his voice now holding a note of cold resignation. "But not here. Not in front of everyone. Behind the ruins. At midnight. We will settle this with our fists, as men. No blades."
Ser Damon, too drunk and arrogant to see the trap, readily agreed.
An hour later, they met in the shadow of a broken dome, the moonlight casting long, skeletal shadows across the ground. Ser Damon had brought two of his squires as witnesses. Kaelen had brought Ser Gerold, who looked deeply troubled by the whole affair.
"You're a fool to have come here, boy," Ser Damon grunted, cracking his massive knuckles.
Kaelen said nothing. He simply shrugged off his tunic, his lean, wiry frame a stark contrast to the hedge knight's bulky mass.
The fight began with a savage rush from Ser Damon. He charged forward like a bull, his massive fists swinging in wide, powerful arcs. Kaelen did not try to meet his strength with strength. He danced away, his movements fluid and economical. He was a matador, and this was his bull.
He let Ser Damon exhaust himself, his wild swings hitting nothing but air. He studied the man's movements, his breathing, the way he shifted his weight. He saw the flaws in his technique, the openings that his rage created.
Then, when the hedge knight was beginning to pant, his face slick with sweat, Kaelen attacked. He moved in close, a blur of motion in the moonlight. He did not throw wild punches. He used his surgeon's knowledge, his strikes precise and targeted. A jab to the throat to disrupt his breathing. A sharp blow to the brachial plexus to numb his arm. A kick to the peroneal nerve to buckle his leg.
Ser Damon, who had expected a simple brawl, was completely bewildered. He was being dismantled, piece by piece, by a man half his size. He roared in frustration and lunged forward, trying to grab Kaelen in a bear hug.
Kaelen sidestepped him and, as the hedge knight stumbled past, he delivered a single, devastating blow to the back of his head, at the precise point where the skull met the spine. The fossa cranii posterior.
There was a sickening crack, and Ser Damon fell to the ground like a slaughtered ox, his massive body twitching for a moment before going still.
His squires stared in horror, their faces pale in the moonlight.
Kaelen stood over the body, his chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm. He felt the cold, silent infusion of power. He felt the raw, brutal strength of the hedge knight flow into him, a surge of pure physical might. And with it came the skill. A deep, instinctual understanding of the great-axe. He knew how to wield it, how to use its weight to his advantage, how to cleave through armor and bone with a single, devastating blow.
He turned to the terrified squires, his face a mask of cold fury. "Your master was a drunken fool who brought this upon himself," he said, his voice like the chipping of ice. "If I hear a single word of this, I will find you, and I will gut you like fish. Do you understand?"
The squires, their eyes wide with terror, nodded frantically and fled into the night.
Kaelen then turned to Ser Gerold, who was staring at him with a mixture of awe and profound horror. The old knight had seen a street brawl turn into a clinical, brutal execution.
"My lord…" he began, his voice a hoarse whisper.
"He was a liability," Kaelen said, his voice cold and final. "He would have been a danger to us all in the battle. Now, his strength will serve our cause."
He walked away, leaving the old knight to stare at the body of the dead hedge knight, a deep and terrible understanding dawning in his eyes.
The dawn came, painting the sky in shades of blood and fire. The trumpets of war sounded, a mournful, brazen call to arms. The Battle of Summerhall had begun.
The Baratheon army, with Robert at its head, charged across the field, a wave of righteous fury. They crashed into the loyalist lines with the force of a tidal wave.
Kaelen was in the heart of it, a small, insignificant griffin banner lost in a sea of stags and swans. But he was not insignificant. He was a predator unleashed.
He wielded a massive great-axe he had taken from the camp's armory, a weapon almost as tall as he was. The weight of it, which would have been cumbersome to him only a day before, now felt as natural as his own arm.
He moved through the chaos of the battle with a terrifying purpose. The screams of dying men, the clash of steel on steel, the smell of blood and viscera – it was not a scene of horror to him. It was a symphony.
He was not fighting for Robert Baratheon. He was not fighting for the Seven Kingdoms. He was hunting.
He ignored the common foot soldiers, the terrified levies who were little more than cannon fodder. He sought out the knights, the captains, the men of skill and experience.
He cleaved a knight of House Fell from his horse with a single, brutal swing of his axe, absorbing the man's skill with a lance. He shattered the shield of a captain of House Cafferen and crushed his skull, feeling a surge of tactical knowledge, a rudimentary understanding of how to command a company of men in the heat of battle. He killed a grizzled veteran with a scarred face and a long, flowing beard, and absorbed a lifetime of experience in the art of survival.
With each kill, he grew stronger, faster, more skilled. The chaotic influx of life force and martial knowledge was a heady, intoxicating drug. He was a whirlwind of death, his great-axe a blur of motion, his griffin banner a beacon of terror in the heart of the enemy lines.
He saw Lord Cafferen, one of the three loyalist commanders, trying to rally his men. He was a proud, handsome man in shining silver armor, his banner a golden lion-headed vulture. Kaelen saw him not as a man, but as a prize.
He cut a bloody path through the loyalist ranks, his men following in his wake, their fear of their lord now replaced by a fanatical, bloodthirsty loyalty.
He reached Lord Cafferen and engaged him in a brutal, desperate duel. The lord was a skilled swordsman, his movements quick and precise. But Kaelen was something more. He was a collection of a dozen different fighting styles, a monster of stolen skills. He fought with the brute force of an ox, the precision of a surgeon, and the savagery of a cornered animal.
He shattered Lord Cafferen's shield with a powerful blow from his axe, then brought the weapon down in a devastating arc, cleaving through the lord's helmet and skull.
The lord's men, seeing their commander fall, broke and fled. A cheer went up from the Baratheon ranks.
Kaelen stood over the body of the fallen lord, his chest heaving, his body drenched in blood and sweat. He felt the lord's life force flow into him, a powerful surge of vitality. And with it came the skills of a highborn lord: a knowledge of heraldry, a smattering of the high Valyrian tongue, and, most importantly, the ingrained instinct of command.
The battle was a rout. The loyalist army, deprived of its leaders, collapsed and fled. By midday, the field belonged to Robert Baratheon.
Kaelen stood on a small hill, leaning on his blood-soaked axe, surveying the carnage. The ground was littered with the bodies of the dead and dying, a gruesome carpet of steel and flesh. He was exhausted, his muscles screaming in protest. But he had never felt so alive.
He saw a group of riders approaching him. At their head was Robert Baratheon himself, his warhammer resting on his shoulder, his face flushed with victory.
"By the gods, you fight like a demon, Vyrwel!" Robert boomed, his laughter echoing across the battlefield. "I saw what you did to Cafferen. You cracked him open like a damn nut! A true storm lord!"
Kaelen inclined his head, his face a mask of humble gratitude. "I did my duty to my liege lord," he said, his voice calm and steady.
Robert clapped him on the shoulder, a blow that would have staggered a lesser man. "Your duty? You sent half their army running for the hills! You have a place in my vanguard from now on, boy. I need killers like you by my side."
Kaelen felt a surge of contempt for the man's simplistic praise, but he recognized its utility. He was no longer an insignificant lordling. He was a hero of the rebellion.
As Robert rode off to celebrate his victory, another man approached Kaelen. It was Lord Jon Arryn, the Lord of the Eyrie, Robert's mentor and the true architect of the rebellion. He was an old man, with wise, calculating eyes.
"You fought bravely today, Lord Vyrwel," he said, his voice quiet and measured.
"Thank you, my lord," Kaelen replied, meeting the old man's gaze.
Jon Arryn's eyes narrowed. He saw the coldness in Kaelen's eyes, the almost unnatural calm in the midst of all this carnage. He saw a man who was not celebrating a victory, but a successful hunt.
"You have a bright future ahead of you, young man," he said, his voice holding a note of caution. "See that you use your… talents… wisely."
He rode off, leaving Kaelen alone on the hill. Kaelen watched him go, a slow, cold smile spreading across his face. He understood Jon Arryn's suspicion. He saw it not as a threat, but as a new and interesting challenge. A game of wits to be played alongside the game of war.
He looked at the setting sun, its last rays painting the ruins of Summerhall in shades of gold and crimson. This place, once a symbol of Targaryen glory and tragedy, was now the site of his own ascension. He had built a new foundation for his ambition, a foundation of corpses. And he knew, with a certainty that chilled him to his very soul, that he was just getting started.