When Lord Cafferen and Lord Grandison force-marched their armies to the outskirts of Summerhall, the sight that greeted them turned their blood to ice.
The distance didn't hold the raging battle they expected. Instead, it was a silent slaughterhouse. House Fell's banners—the grey stone castle on a blue field—lay trampled in the mud and gore.
As far as the eye could see, there were only corpses, scattered weapons, and riderless horses. And standing over the wreckage was Robert Baratheon's army—disciplined, murderous, and victorious. Like a wolf pack after a kill, they stared coldly at the new prey.
The two lords realized instantly: they were too late. Lord Gerard Fell and his army had been wiped out.
Fear and pragmatism crushed their initial will to fight. Cafferen and Grandison barely needed to speak to reach a consensus: merge their forces, abandon any thought of fighting Robert's high-morale army in the open, and immediately retreat into the ancient, sprawling ruins of Summerhall behind them.
They hoped to use the weathered walls, collapsed towers, and maze-like courtyards to build a temporary defense line and make a desperate, stubborn stand.
The armies scrambled into the ruins of Summerhall. Their eyes were glued to the front, watching Robert Baratheon's forces slowly encircle them and begin suppressive fire with crossbows and bows.
Seeing no other banners but the Stag, they optimistically assumed Robert was the only enemy commander present. Perhaps, they thought, the ruins offered enough cover to hold out for reinforcements.
But while Robert's army drew all the attention to the front, Euron's true killing blow was already in position.
His Ironborn hadn't joined the frontal siege. Using their superior infiltration skills, they had moved like a dark undercurrent, silently bypassing the main battlefield to flank the ruins from the rear—up a steep cliff face that was thought to be unclimbable.
While the defenders were fixated on Robert, the rear of the ruins suddenly erupted with a very different kind of shouting and screaming!
The defenders turned in horror to see countless fierce figures rappelling down the sheer cliffs like ghosts. Some were even free-climbing the rock face as if walking on flat ground!
Leading them was Euron Greyjoy.
He was the first to leap onto the ruined walls, moving with the agility of a panther. In his hands, the twin blades "Cherry Ten" and "Kogarashi" were already wreathed in roaring demon fire, dancing in lethal arcs through the dim light. The moment his boots touched stone, his blades flashed left and right like viper strikes. Two guards stationed at the cliff edge collapsed, clutching spurting throats, dead before they hit the ground.
In the chaos that followed, Euron displayed combat skills that seemed inhuman.
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Euron weaved through the chaos of flashing steel effortlessly. Enemy blades missed him by a hair's breadth, yet not a drop of blood stained his clothes. He combined the fluid steps of a Water Dancer with deadly killing techniques, becoming a precise and efficient murder machine.
Euron's art of killing was brutally simple. Against any enemy, he never needed a second strike. With every step, his blades hummed, and a defender fell, adding another warm corpse to his path. He left behind a trail paved with shock and death.
These Ironborn warriors were nothing like the knights of Westeros who cared for honor and formation. They were rabid pirates who had broken free of the ocean to ravage the land, screaming terrifying war cries rooted in the ancient faith of the Drowned God. They swung heavy axes and wicked curved blades, their eyes holding no fear of death, only a pure hunger for slaughter and plunder.
Their tactics followed no traditional rulebook. They didn't hold lines, and they didn't seek knightly duels.
They fought in packs of three or five, chaotic yet maintaining a weird synergy, targeting weak points and hacking madly.
This unconventional, fearless, and efficient style of butchery was like a cold dagger thrust into the heart of the defense. It created massive confusion and woke the primal fear of unknown violence in the hearts of the defenders.
When the corpse of Lord Gerard Fell—his breastplate caved in by a warhammer, his body stiff and cold—was tossed in front of the lines by Robert's soldiers like a sack of grain, time seemed to freeze.
The body that once represented the dignity of a high lord now lay limp in the dirt and muck, the shattered sigil on his armor reflecting the bleak sky. This gruesome sight was the final straw that broke the psychological defense of the royalist coalition.
Attacked from front and rear, witnessing the miserable end of their steadfast ally, the remaining morale deflated instantly. Fear, like a cold tide, drowned the heart of every royalist soldier.
Robert Baratheon sat high on his warhorse, his massive frame casting a long shadow in the dying sun. Like a lion surveying its prey, his cold gaze swept over the pale, trembling royalist soldiers, finally settling on Lords Cafferen and Grandison.
His voice boomed like rolling thunder over the silent ruins, carrying undeniable authority.
"Will you die here like warriors, or drop your weapons and kneel! Death or life! You—choose!"
This ultimatum was a heavy hammer, shattering the last bit of luck Lord Cafferen and Lord Grandison hoped for. They looked around in despair. All they saw was naked fear in the eyes of their own men and the wall of cold steel pointing at them from Robert's army.
Just as the dust was settling, smoke rose again on the distant horizon. A distinct banner became clear—the "Sun and Spear" of Dorne! Prince Oberyn Martell, leading his Dornish spears like a hot desert wind, had finally arrived at Summerhall.
The arrival of the Dornish army, though they hadn't fired a single arrow, was the indisputable final weight that broke the camel's back.
Defeat was now absolute. Any resistance would be meaningless suicide.
The two lords looked at each other and saw the same grey defeat in each other's faces. They sighed heavily, seemingly aging ten years in an instant, and threw their swords onto the rocks at their feet with a clatter. That crisp sound announced the end of resistance.
Seeing their lords surrender, the tension in the remaining soldiers snapped.
Like dominoes falling, the sound of weapons dropping—clang, clang, clang—rang across the battlefield. Everyone gave up the futile fight, choosing the humiliating path of survival.
Robert chose not to execute them. After his rage passed, he adhered to the knightly code of accepting surrender, showing the mercy of a victor and the magnanimity of a lord. However, the Lord of the Stormlands was no fool. He wouldn't naively release these lords to give them a chance to rise against him again.
So, Lord Cafferen, Lord Grandison, the captured "Silveraxe" Edric Fell, and every other identified high-ranking officer were bound and strung together in a long, dejected line of prisoners.
Under the strict guard of Robert and Euron's armies, they began the long, shameful march to the dungeons of Storm's End. Their fates would be sealed in the dark depths of that seaside fortress for now.