Bronn and his sellsword companions squeezed into the crowd, neither at the front nor the rear, neither too near nor too far.
Perhaps knowing war was close, on the night they paused at Rosby to rest and resupply, each of them had prepared an oak shield faced with iron.
Now those shields were in their hands, held high above their heads to ward off the arrows falling from the sky.
Only, their attention wasn't on the iron rain overhead. Their eyes were fixed instead on the commotion at the Dragon Gate not far away.
"Seven above, tell me I'm not dreaming."
Bronn's left hand clamped tight through the leather grip behind his shield, his right hand wrapped around his iron sword.
But his gaze was locked on Kal Stone not far off—the man who, with nothing but a warhammer, had single-handedly pounded apart the ironbound gate and forced his way through.
Bronn gaped, managing only a breathless invocation to the gods.
Even as he stared in stunned amazement at Kal Stone rampaging through King's Landing's gate with no one able to stop him, Chiggen—who had been pressed at his side from the start—was staring wide-eyed at that godlike man as well.
"He's a warrior come down from the heavens. If I were one of those septons, I'd be on my knees praying to him, not to those gilded statues."
Hearing the awe at his ear, Bronn almost nodded without thinking.
Then an arrow shaved past his cheek, jolting him back to the fact that he was still in a battle.
Seeing how close he'd come to losing his looks, Bronn ducked lower, tucking himself tighter behind his shield.
Still, what he'd been about to say in agreement came out differently after that brush with death.
"Damn it—what bastard shoots that straight?! And if you really were a septa, I reckon you'd be itching to have something extra in your mouth."
"Shame you're not," he added, "but that doesn't change the fact you'd still be on your knees before him."
Bronn let the customary filth roll off his tongue to bleed off his nerves.
Yet at his jibes—and at the sight of Kal Stone not far away, who with a single swing could smash a Lannister in full plate to pieces—Chiggen showed no annoyance.
On the contrary, he nodded along.
"Bronn, you've got the right of it. And if he didn't mind, I wouldn't mind taking his cock in my mouth, either."
At that, Bronn's expression froze; gooseflesh prickled his skin and he edged a little farther from Chiggen.
Even so, it didn't stop him from sparring with his fellow sellsword.
"I'm sure he'd bloody well mind—same as every whore and highborn lady in this city. Kal Stone's cock isn't your property. If you ask me, you're fit only to sniff his farts!"
The sellswords' mouths bubbled on with curses; and just then, the two of them, heads down and shields up, made it to the base of the gate.
Here, the stray shafts from the battlements couldn't reach them, so both flung aside their shields—each bristling with at least three to five arrows.
As the ones who had moved the fastest, they'd drawn plenty of the fire.
They flung aside the shields that were of no use for the moment, with no time even to catch their breath.
Bronn pressed himself tight against the wall, turning to glance at the wild men in the distance—some being ordered to hoist ladders and scale the walls, others, once they'd drawn close, taking up bows to trade shots with the men above the gate.
After a quick look, Bronn drew his head back and shot Chiggen a look.
The two met eyes and, in tacit understanding, both gave a nod.
At once, they jogged along the base of the wall, heading toward the gate.
On the other side, stepping through the breach he had battered open, Kal dragged the heavy warhammer in his hand.
The hard, weighty hammerhead scraped across the stone floor, scoring a pale scar.
But no sooner had the scar appeared than it was drowned in the blood spreading over the ground.
Crimson ran along the gouge, as if blood welled wherever the hammer passed.
"Let me be clear: I do not accept surrender."
The Stranger who harvests lives lowered his gaze; through the slit of his antlered greathelm, his cold eyes fell upon the terrified Lannister soldiers before him.
His look was like the chill wind of the Long Night, cutting into a man's marrow.
Having made his declaration, Kal raised his warhammer high and let his eyes settle on the nearest man at hand.
The hammer came down.
It fell with a howling rush of air and crashed onto the unlucky soul, eyes wide and mouth agape.
At the instant of impact, the living man became a handful of blood and shattered bone—flesh mingled with armor and cloth—blown apart in an unspeakable burst.
The bang snapped the Lannister soldiers out of their rigid stupor.
"Monster! Demon!"
"Help! Spare me—spare me!"
"No… no!"
Trembling cries rose one after another. They had watched a giant smash through an iron gate into their midst, declare a single sentence, and then obliterate a living man with a hammer.
Born of fathers and mothers, made of flesh and blood like themselves, the Lannister soldiers now looked upon Kal Stone—no longer seeming human—and felt nothing but endless fear.
No sooner had the shouts and pleas begun than terror spread like a plague.
The clatter of weapons hitting the floor rang out in a sheet.
Ordered to hold the inner gate with spears and other arms, the Lannister soldiers now regretted most that their parents hadn't given them two more legs.
They stared at the giant before them, antlered greathelm on his head, his body spattered with fresh blood, bone shards, and viscera from the blast.
All they could do was turn and run.
But hundreds of men were jammed into the narrow throat of the gate.
Those at the front turned to flee this horror before their eyes, while those behind had no notion of what had happened ahead.
All they saw was a ring whirling in, slicing apart the bodies of the comrades beside them.
Then, before they could even react to what was happening, a string of explosive booms followed.
They didn't even know what it was.
And from the fore of the crowd came a terrified uproar and desperate cries for help.
The unknown and fear filled the soldiers who had turned to flee—so much so that they jammed the not-so-wide throat of the gate.
The bodies that had inexplicably fallen earlier now became stumbling stones, tripping comrades who were scrambling for a way out, tangling them into a heaving ball of flesh.
Staring at the stampede sparked by a single sentence and a single man smashed to paste, Kal was content not to chase them down one by one.
He shifted his foot—one sweep, one kick—and a fallen iron sword sprang up for him to catch in one hand.
At once, sword and hammer worked as one, becoming a howling gale of blood and gore that scythed into the crowd.
Splintered bone, torn tissue, viscera, blood—every so often the wind burst it all apart in wet detonations.
When the gale died, Kal glanced at the long sword in his hand, its edge notched and buckled—and slashed.
The blade skewered two at once like meat on a spit. With one hand he hoisted them high and flung them upward; the pair, laced together on steel, wailed as they slammed into the vault of the gateway with a dull thud, then toppled like rolling stones, knocking three more of their fellows flat.
So it went: Kal killed while plugging the passage, single-handedly shoving the Lannister line back toward the city's heart.
By then, the wildlings and sellswords a step behind him were already squeezing through the battered, buckled breach.
"Lord Kal, we're here to help!"
"Kill—cut them down! Everything they have is ours!"
A clatter and din went up; a string of fighters surged in right behind Kal.
His reinforcements had come.
The moment they got inside and saw the Lannister host bottled and butchered by the lone giant in the doorway, the sellswords and wildlings—who had spent their lives fighting best with the wind at their backs—were suddenly like bears starved for half a year and just roused from hibernation.
With twisted grins, they rushed the feast laid out before them.
Hungry for merit and a name, the wildlings and sellswords drove their weapons without a heartbeat's hesitation at their enemies' vital points.
Bronn was the most exhilarated of the lot.
At his first glimpse of Kal, he ignored the enemies within arm's reach—men not yet dead and with no hope of escape.
Instead, shouting, he snatched up his longsword and lunged to Kal's side, as determined as a man desperate to be taken into his ranks.
Right before Kal, Bronn moved with the easy skill of a seasoned reaper at harvest: a backhand stroke opened one man's throat; in the same motion he drew the dagger at his waist and drove it clean through another's neck.
The moves were showy and sure—clearly well practiced.
"Lord Kal, drive on! With us here, you'll never need to worry about your back!"
Having put on a display of clean killing for Kal, and seeing no danger at his flanks for the moment, Bronn stole a glance back to pour flattery on the terrifying giant.
Watching his own men flood into the passage he had fought so hard to open, seeing them kill in a fever…
Kal let his hand fall still.
There was no need to snatch credit—and he had more important work to do.
Merely cutting down soldiers would change nothing.
So only after a sweeping glance confirmed the Lannisters would not rally, and that his own men had truly broken the Dragon Gate, did Kal straighten up. He shook the blood and flesh from his hands, then gave the warhammer a snap.
The gore clinging to the head—thick as sticky batter—spattered to the floor.
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