A cavalry charge against a city—
—was not a wise idea.
But with King's Landing only about 1.5 kilometers away, Kal could hardly lead them forward on foot.
On horseback, the distance vanished in moments.
Reaching the Dragon Gate, Kal yanked the reins, halting his horse, and looked up toward the gates.
At some point, the crowned stag of House Baratheon had been replaced.
Now, the roaring lion of House Lannister flew proudly above the walls.
And where the Gold Cloaks of the City Watch should have been, Lannister soldiers now stood in their place.
Clad in the red-and-gold armor unique to House Lannister, they raised longbows in unison, their arrowheads glinting as they leveled them toward Kal's host—though still just beyond the reach of their bows.
The red of their armor echoed the red of the Dragon Gate itself, as if they were the true masters of this place.
Beneath his antlered helmet, Kal shifted his gaze away from the arrows aimed down at them and fixed it on the iron portcullis that had already been lowered. As thick as a man's arm, its spikes were driven deep into the sockets in the stone, immovable.
That iron gate was like a chasm of heaven itself.
It split the inside from the outside, dividing them into two worlds.
Just then, a man appeared atop the battlements—he wore gilded plate armor, a red silk cloak slung loosely over one shoulder, its end tied at his waist by a belt.
His hair and beard were golden, his fleshy square jaw set as he gazed down at the host before the Dragon Gate. Yet among this mass of soldiers, he saw not a single banner that might reveal who led them.
"Identify yourselves!"
Kevan Lannister's eyes were fixed coldly on the hostile army outside the gate, but the words were not his.
Instead, a Lannister guard at his side stepped forward and shouted the challenge to the sea of enemies.
Hearing that dog-like tone, Hall—who had always been the one to announce Kal's name—was just about to step out. But Kal's hand shot out swiftly, pressing him back.
Lifting his head, Kal fixed his gaze on the man upon the battlements.
"Lannisters—every man of you deserves death!"
"When I take your head, Kevan Lannister, that will be the moment you learn my name!"
Kal had clearly recognized the man on the gatehouse, and he called Kevan's name outright.
And with those words, he wasted no more breath.
He gripped the warhammer tighter in his hands, squeezed his legs against his mount's flanks, and gave the horse a sharp jab.
The beast neighed shrilly in pain and bolted forward.
Like an arrow loosed from the bowstring, Kal charged straight toward the gate. Neither side had expected this. The exchange of insults that should have dragged on from afar had ended with barely a word.
So when Kal's horse had already thundered into the range of the Lannister archers, the arrows they held taut on the strings had not yet loosed.
Staring at this lone madman who dared to charge a city alone, the soldiers instinctively turned to their commander.
And seeing the familiar antlered greathelm barreling toward the gate, Kevan Lannister at last recognized the rider.
He remembered the reports of this helm's carnage across the Riverlands—and his eyes grew cold.
He raised his hand.
And let it fall.
The herald caught the signal, raising his small flag. He brought it down sharply as he shouted the order.
"Loose!"
The command to fire swept across the wall.
On the battlements, bowstrings thrummed like thunder.
Hundreds of arrows leapt skyward, blotting out the light as they fell in a black rain toward the lone warrior.
The shafts hissed as they cut through the air, shrieking past his ears.
In an instant, the man-made storm of death was upon Kal's head.
Still pressing forward, Kal lifted his gaze at the sound.
Through the narrow slit of the antlered helm, the specks of black grew ever larger.
A cold snort escaped from within the helm as Kal shifted his wrist on the reins.
The hiss of arrow-rain was followed by an unremarkable scrape of blade on scabbard.
[Shrring!]
[Ding—ding—dang—!]
[Crack—snap!]
At the instant the arrows reached him, the gilded longsword moved so fast that not even water could have slipped through.
In the sunlight, the sword traced a wash of silver shot with gold.
Every shaft that fell into that glittering veil either struck and burst into sparks, glancing away in a ricochet—
—or snapped at the wooden shank, shattering to splinters.
Not a single drop of that forged rain touched the lone rider. Even his horse did not have a single hair "dampened."
"Gods!"
Staring at the scene like a miracle, listening to the unending chime of steel on steel, the Highland clan barbarians—though they knew that man was impossibly strong, like a war god come to earth—
—still could not help their cries of awe when they truly saw it with their own eyes.
As for the Lannister soldiers facing him, they could only gape at the knight who ran full-tilt with a warhammer in his right hand and a sword in his left, hewing the arrows out of the air as if they were nothing.
"By the Seven!"
Even as enemies, everyone who witnessed it could not help but be astonished.
Kal wielded the sword in one hand and the hammer in the other.
Though both hands were occupied, leaving no room to hold the reins, he still sat straight-backed and steady in the saddle.
He lifted his hand; with the flat of the blade he flicked aside one last arrow dropping toward his shoulder, then raised his eyes for a heartbeat to Kevan Lannister on the gate before lowering his head and driving on.
Though no one could see the eyes within that helm—
—for some reason, in that flashing instant Kevan Lannister felt a chill stab between his shoulders, as if a spike of ice had been driven through his chest.
Seeing Robert's bastard, Kal Stone, charging on horseback without so much as a shield upon him,
Kevan's face sank all at once.
"Again—don't stop!"
Without a breath of hesitation, Kevan Lannister shouted—his first words since appearing on the wall.
With the renewed command, the Lannister troops atop the gate shook off their stupor.
...
As they moved, seeing their chief already out ahead and unscathed beneath the enemy's arrow-rain—seeing the foe dare continue to strike at their leader—
Hall could no longer stand frozen where he was.
"Shit!"
"Charge! With me!"
"Cut these dog-bastards down!"
Hall's barked roar snapped the dazed men awake.
Watching the antlered greathelm race farther and farther ahead, the clan barbarians—blood surging as if cockfighting tonic had been poured straight into their veins—snatched up their weapons and rushed not to be left behind.
Hearing the tumult behind and knowing he had drawn most of the enemy's eyes, Kal's mouth curled faintly under the helm.
He deliberately eased his horse's pace, lifting his head to meet the next wave of iron rain.
As expected, not a drop of it reached him.
Even one-handed, sword in his left, jolting in the saddle, it was the same.
And once he was sure he held the lion's share of their attention—and that his army was thundering up behind—
Kal, having batted aside one last spray of iron, lost patience with the straggling patter.
Even with the deliberate slackening, he had already reached the gate.
Just then, the blade of the gilded longsword kindled with a faint, near-imperceptible gleam in the sun.
After cleaving an arrowhead cleanly in midair, Kal drew the sword back, fixed his gaze on the iron gate, and his eyes hardened.
He looked at the Lannister soldiers standing behind the bars with spears and bows in hand.
Power gathered in his sword arm; he snapped his wrist and slashed crosswise.
The gilded longsword spun from his hand, turning into a ring whose head met its tail.
Trailing a thread of light, it slipped through the iron grating as if through a bubble.
No one inside had ever imagined such a sight. Eyes wide, they watched the shining ring fly toward them—
—pass the threshold—
—and swell before their faces.
Then—their field of view began to spin out of control, dropping lower and lower, and with it came the sight of broken spearheads, and of comrades' heads and limbs sheared to uneven ruin.
Where the sword-light passed, it was like a scythe through ripe straw, clearing a lane.
As Kal watched the enchanted blade shear through several iron bars, his legs suddenly braced on the war horse; he sprang up as light as a feather onto the saddle.
The galloping beast sensed nothing amiss—
—until a sudden weight slammed down upon its back
In the heartbeat that Kal landed from his leap, both feet stamped hard on the saddle.
Under that tremendous force, the wood-cored saddle could not bear it; at the instant of contact it burst into several pieces.
The horse, still charging headlong, felt the crushing weight and collapsed uncontrollably to the ground.
Kal spared no thought for the mount whose spine he had broken underfoot. With strength surging through him, he could not finely govern such power.
So he did all he could: using the rebound from the shattered saddle, he drove himself up, body soaring into the air.
The warhammer that had been in his right hand he now raised high overhead, both hands locking around the haft.
Kal's leap carried him toward the spot where his thrown sword had just severed four iron posts.
He saw the quick-cut lines the blade had left behind—thin red traces already beginning to "liquefy."
At that moment, the warhammer raised over his head gave off a faint light of its own.
Veins stood out along his forearms as Kal roared: "Open!"
The hammerhead slammed down, aimed at one of those red-slit lines.
In the dizzying blink that followed, a single, thunderous metal concussion tore across the battlefield.
As nearby Lannister soldiers still felt their eardrums buzzing, the struck iron post—like the arrows the sword-light had swept a moment ago—shivered into fragments and sprayed outward.
[Whss—whss—whss!]
[Thunk! Thunk!"]
In their disbelieving eyes, the very posts meant to protect them—meant to hold the gate—turned into the Stranger's daggers carrying off their lives.
Before the Lannisters could recover from the shock of seeing comrades' heads scythed away by that shining ring, the iron shards that had burst like chaff punched through breastplates and ribs.
The foremost rank toppled like straw, exposing the luckier men behind them who had not been struck.
They stared in terror at their fellows cut down for no reason they could name, their gazes dragged, helplessly, to the man who moved with the strength of a god.
He, too, paused for the briefest instant after shattering the post with a single blow—as if even he were a touch surprised.
But only for a heartbeat.
For the man in the antlered greathelm, his face unreadable, raised the hammer once more.
This time he did not bring it straight down. He turned the hammer crosswise—and turned his body with it.
With a sound like a mill's wind-vanes scything the air by a riverside, the impossible hammer traced a circle; a few small chimes rang out as it passed.
One after another, the iron posts driven into the stone paving cracked loose, spitting chips of stone, and broke, whirling away.
Just like that, the Dragon Gate that had seemed unassailable—those iron bars of unknown weight and depth, sunk who knew how far into the stone—
before the man in the antlered helm, they proved less stout than the hitching-post outside an inn.
The Lannister soldiers who had been spared by chance trembled as they gripped spear and sword.
Eyes wide, they watched the giant set down his foot, dip his head, and step through the hole he had smashed into the gate with two blows.
"First of all."
"I do not accept surrender."
The Stranger's whisper seemed to stir at their ears.
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