Inside the second carriage, Lady Janyce heard the first impact before she understood it.
A crash. Screams.
The carriage jolted hard beneath her. Osric woke with a cry, his head lifting from her lap. Across from them, Godric pulled back from the window, startled, one hand still braced against the frame.
Outside, men were shouting.
Janyce reacted instinctively. "Down!" she said sharply. "Both of you, down!"
She grabbed Osric by the shoulders and pulled him from her lap, while her other hand reached toward Godric. "Godric, away from the window!"
The carriage rocked again, and a horse screamed nearby.
Then something heavy struck the side.
Wood cracked. Glass shattered inward, and the whole carriage tipped.
Janyce was thrown against the wall. Pain burst through her head as it struck the frame, and the world spun around her. The carriage rolled halfway onto its side with a groan of splitting wood and twisting iron.
For a moment, there was only a dull, endless ringing.
Then Osric screamed.
Janyce forced herself up. Blood ran warm down the side of her face, and her hands slipped against the tilted floor as she dragged herself forward.
"Osric?"
He was trapped near the seat, bleeding from cuts across his cheek and arm. His eyes were wide with terror.
"Mother!"
"I'm here," she said, though her voice sounded distant to her own ears. "I'm here."
She looked toward the crushed side of the carriage. "Godric?"
No answer.
Her breath caught.
"Godric?"
She crawled toward him, but the sight stopped her.
He had been nearest the window when the carriage was struck. The side had folded inward and down, leaving him pinned beneath broken wood, shattered glass, and the weight of the frame.
His upper body was crushed under the wreckage.
Janyce saw enough to understand.
A sound tore out of her.
"No… no, no… aaah!"
Only pain.
Osric turned his head and saw his brother. He screamed too, his voice rising high and broken before dying suddenly, as if something inside him had frozen. He stared at what remained of Godric with his mouth still open.
A wet stain formed on his pants.
Janyce reached toward the wreckage. Her hands touched splintered wood, glass, blood, and stillness.
There was nothing to move.
Nothing to save.
Outside, the battle grew louder.
A face appeared at the broken carriage window. It belonged to an Arryn retainer, blood running from his temple into one eye.
"My lady!" he called urgently.
Janyce turned toward him slowly.
"My lady, we have to get you out!"
She shook her head once, not understanding. Not wanting to understand.
"Godric," she whispered.
The retainer reached inside. "Now!"
He grabbed Osric first. The boy cried out as the man pulled him through the broken window, and Janyce reached after him, panic cutting through the fog in her head.
"Careful! Careful with him!"
The retainer set Osric down outside and reached back for her. "Your hand, my lady!"
Janyce looked once more toward Godric.
She could not move.
"My lady!"
At last, she crawled toward the window. Broken glass tore her palms, and splinters caught in her gown. The retainer caught her under the arms and dragged her through just as another stone crashed near the carriage, throwing dust and gravel across them.
Janyce fell onto the road, and cold air struck her face.
The High Road had become chaos.
The first carriage stood ahead with its door hanging open and one wheel broken. Its horses screamed in their traces, eyes rolling white as their bodies thrashed against the leather. Her husband was nowhere in sight.
Knights fought mountain men across the narrow road. Some attackers had come down from the cliffs, while others remained above, throwing stones and javelins. Men in mail tried to raise shields over their heads even as others fought at their feet. Horses slipped in blood and loose rock. Spears thrust, axes struck, and steel rang before scraping against armor or sinking into flesh.
The ambush had split the escort. The front riders were dead or scattered, while those at the rear struggled to push forward, blocked by fallen horses and the broken second carriage.
"Move!" someone shouted. "Clear the carriage!"
"Hold them!"
"Seven save us—"
Janyce clutched Osric to her. He was shaking too hard to stand, blood running down his cheek as his small hands gripped her sleeve with desperate strength.
The retainer pulled at her arm. "This way, my lady!"
He dragged them toward a knot of Arryn men still holding together near the cliffside.
They did not reach it.
Several mountain men rushed from behind broken rocks and fallen horses. They came low and fast, dressed in rags and carrying axes, spears, and knives. Their faces were filthy, their eyes hungry.
The retainer shoved Janyce and Osric behind him. "Back!"
Two more Arryn guards moved to his side.
The fight was short and brutal.
One guard drove his spear through a mountain man's chest. The man screamed and clutched the shaft, but another attacker came from the side and hooked an axe into the guard's ribs.
The second guard cut one attacker across the face and drove him back, only for another to come low from the side and hack into his leg. He fell hard, and before he could rise, two more were upon him.
The retainer who had pulled Janyce from the carriage parried one blow, then another. A knife slipped under his guard and drove into his side.
He staggered.
The mountain man ripped the blade free and struck again, sending the retainer sprawling at Janyce's feet.
Janyce tried to drag Osric backward, but a hand seized the boy.
"No!"
She clung to him with both arms. "No, please! He is a child!"
Osric screamed. "Mother!"
The mountain man wrenched him away. Janyce fell to her knees, reaching after him, her fingers clawing at cloth and empty air.
"Please!" she cried. "Please, no! He is highborn! His father will pay you! Whatever you want, we will pay!"
The mountain man did not even look at her.
Osric screamed and kicked in his grip. "Mother!"
Janyce crawled after them, her hands slipping in blood and dust. "Please! Please!"
The man shoved the boy down against the road.
He brought the axe down.
The crack seemed to split the world apart.
Osric went limp.
The mountain man let the body fall into the dust and moved on without a second glance.
Janyce stared. Her mind refused what her eyes were seeing, and her mouth opened without a sound.
At last, the scream tore free.
"Aaaaaah… aaah!"
She crawled toward her son, but a mountain man caught her by the hair and yanked her back.
Pain ripped through her scalp. She screamed again, this time from the pull, from the dust in her mouth, from the world splitting apart and refusing to end.
"Highborn woman," one of the mountain men said.
Another laughed. "Take her."
"Worth more alive."
"After the chief is done with her," a third said.
The others laughed.
Janyce barely heard them.
Godric was dead in the carriage.
Osric was dead on the road.
The world had narrowed to blood, dust, screams, and the hand dragging her backward by the hair. She could not fight or think, could not understand why she was still breathing.
Blood spilled across her face.
Warm.
Fresh.
The grip in her hair loosened, and the man behind her made a wet, choking sound.
Janyce looked up.
A sword had gone through his throat.
Behind him stood Lord Taron Arryn.
He was covered in dust and blood. His fine travelling clothes were torn, one sleeve hanging open. His face was pale with shock and rage, and his sword was red to the hilt.
He ripped the blade free, and the man collapsed beside her.
"Taron," Janyce whispered.
Or tried to. The name barely came.
Around him, the last of his retainers crashed into the other attackers. One mountain man took a spear through the belly. Another stumbled back with an axe buried in his shoulder. A third raised his knife, only for an Arryn guard to drive him down against the stones.
For a few breaths, the space around Janyce cleared.
Only a few breaths.
More men were already coming down from the slopes, slipping between rocks, shouting, laughing, and calling to one another.
Taron dropped beside her. "Janyce."
She looked at him, but his face moved in and out of focus. Her lips trembled, though no words came.
She lifted one shaking hand and pointed, first toward the broken carriage and then toward the road.
Toward Osric.
Taron followed her gaze.
He saw Godric's crushed body half-hidden inside the wreck, then Osric lying in the dust.
His face twisted, and his breath left him.
"No… " he breathed.
The battle raged around them. Men died close enough for their blood to splash the stones beside her. A horse screamed and kicked until an axe silenced it. An Arryn knight went down under three raiders at once, while more shapes moved along the slopes above.
Taron looked around and understood.
The escort was broken. The road was blocked, and the mountain men were closing from both sides.
They were not getting out.
Taron looked back at his wife. The mother of his sons. The woman he loved.
His eyes filled.
Janyce whispered something broken. Perhaps Godric, perhaps Osric, perhaps both.
Taron cupped her face with one bloodied hand. "I love you," he said.
She blinked at him.
For one tiny moment, through the pain and dust and ringing in her ears, she understood him.
Taron drew his dagger.
His hand shook.
He did not explain. There was no time.
He leaned close, still holding her face. "I am sorry," he whispered.
Grief twisted his face. Rage followed, and then something harder settled there.
He cut her throat.
Janyce gasped, her hands flying to her neck as blood spilled hot between her fingers. Taron held her for a heartbeat as she fell back, then lowered her gently onto the road.
Her vision blurred. She saw the sky above the cliffs, the grey stone and pale mist, and a flash of movement.
Taron rose, sword in hand, and turned from her to rush toward the mountain men.
A few Arryn men followed him.
Loyal to the end.
Then her eyes closed.
The Next Morning
Lord Taron Arryn's party should have reached the Bloody Gate before sunset the previous day.
They had not.
By morning, concern had become worry.
So the captain rode out with twenty men to search the High Road.
Faster.
The thought beat through the captain's mind with every strike of hooves against the road.
The riders from the Bloody Gate drove their horses hard through the pass. The captain rode at the front, cloak snapping behind him, eyes fixed on the road ahead.
Then the feared sight came into view.
He raised one hand, and the men behind him slowed, pulling their horses down from a hard ride to a careful walk. No one complained. Their eyes moved across the stones, searching.
The first sign was a broken spear lying across the road.
Then blood.
A dead horse sprawled on its side, one leg bent wrong beneath it.
No one spoke after that.
They rode forward carefully until the narrow road opened into ruin.
The first carriage stood crooked on a shattered wheel, its door hanging open. The second lay half-turned on its side, its frame crushed inward. Splintered wood, torn cloth, broken shields, and snapped spear shafts littered the road.
The ground was dark with dried blood. Dead horses lay tangled in their harnesses, while crows lined the rocks above, their black wings shifting as harsh cries echoed through the pass.
The captain dismounted slowly.
"Search," he said quietly.
The men obeyed.
They found Arryn knights first, followed by retainers, household guards, and carriage drivers.
All dead.
Some lay where they had fallen, while others had been dragged aside. Most had been stripped of coin, rings, boots, swords, and cloaks.
But that was not the worst of it.
The heads were gone.
All of them.
Knights. Guards. Drivers.
Even the ones crushed beneath stone had been taken.
One young rider turned away and vomited beside the road, while another made the sign of the Seven with shaking fingers.
The captain said nothing. He kept walking.
Near the center of the road, they found Lord Taron Arryn.
Or what remained of him.
He lay among several dead mountain men, proof enough that he had died fighting. His clothes were torn and soaked dark. One hand still curled as though it had held a sword, though the blade itself was gone.
His cloak was gone. His rings were gone.
His head was gone.
A man beside the captain swallowed. "Lord Taron."
No one answered.
A few paces away lay Lady Janyce. Her gown was torn and bloodied, and one hand rested near her throat. Like the others, her head had been taken.
The captain stood over her for a moment before removing his cloak and covering what he could.
The search continued.
They found the boys last.
Godric was still partly trapped inside the broken carriage, beneath crushed wood and glass.
There had been no need to take his head. The wreckage had already done worse.
Osric lay on the road not far away.
Small.
Still.
Headless.
The captain closed his eyes, his face almost breaking.
Around him, the men stood in silence. The older ones looked hard and hollow, while the younger ones were pale, sick, and afraid.
At last, the captain opened his eyes. "Gather the bodies," he said.
One rider looked toward the cliffs. "Should we pursue?"
The captain followed his gaze. The slopes were empty, and the killers were gone.
"No," he said.
He turned back to the road.
"Send riders back to the Bloody Gate. To the Eyrie. And send a raven to King's Landing."
The wind moved through the pass.
Above them, the crows cried.
***
📜 Milestones:
150 Power Stones → +1 Chapter ✅
***
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