His declaration was cut off by a dull tearing sound through the air.
A black hand axe spun out of nowhere, slicing through the wind, and buried itself deep in the back of his raised head with a wet thud.
Damon's cold expression froze.
His eyes went wide. His arm dropped limp. He reached shakily toward the back of his skull, only to touch the cold iron of the blade and the hot wetness running over his skin.
Then he pitched forward into the mud.
Blood splashed.
The silence lasted only an instant.
Then the woods around them, the thick tree line, and the roaring riverbank all exploded at once with savage howls and harsh war cries.
"Ironborn! Ironborn!"
"Bloody hell, why are there Ironborn here?!"
The Lannister soldiers shouted in shock, their voices cracking.
Shapes burst out from under green camouflage and brush. Men in rough leather armor came charging in like demons out of a nightmare, swinging axes, longswords, and hammers as they rushed the Lannister line.
"Take their heads!"
"Offer them to the Drowned God!"
Bronn went completely still.
There was only one thought left in his head.
What in seven hells were Ironborn doing here?
Instinctively, he shrank back and reached for the dagger at his waist, then gave a bitter little smile. One kind of death had merely turned into another.
Then, in that instant of desperation, a wild idea flashed through his mind.
He remembered the dagger he'd stripped off some unlucky bastard earlier. On the guard was a faint lighthouse sigil.
Farwynd of Lonely Light.
With every bit of strength he had left, he threw his voice toward the chaos and roared, "I'm a sailor from Lonely Light! Hadrin! Don't kill me!"
As he shouted, he did the exact opposite of retreating.
He lunged at the nearest Lannister soldier. The man was just starting to turn in panic, sword half-raised, when Bronn's dagger punched into his throat. Hot blood sprayed across Bronn's face.
The Ironborn fought like mad dogs. No order, no clean lines, just sheer savage force. The melee erupted all at once, and the banks of the Blue Fork turned into a slaughterhouse. Blood and flesh flew. Screams, curses, and the clash of steel all mixed into one hideous noise.
Bronn fought harder than any of them.
He ducked under a sword, drove his dagger into another soldier's belly, then kicked the man down into the mud. He moved like a dying beast refusing to fall, clawing for life in the middle of madness.
He even hacked off the heads of two Lannister soldiers and flung them by the hair at the feet of a cluster of Ironborn.
"The Drowned God will like these!" he shouted in a hoarse voice.
The Lannister men were elite, well trained, disciplined. But they had come into the Riverlands in disguise to hunt Bronn, and they had not worn plate or mail. Under the Ironborn's frenzied assault, their formation broke almost at once.
Damon Lannister's corpse was hooked and dragged aside by one of the raiders, then hung from a tree.
The rest of his men were cut down one by one.
The Ironborn seemed puzzled that these plainly dressed soldiers fought so stubbornly, but they did not care. They were not taking prisoners.
The killing ended quickly.
The mud was dark red. The air reeked of blood and death.
Bronn stood among the bodies, gasping for breath, covered in blood that was not his own.
Then a group of Ironborn parted, and a young man came striding through them.
He was tall, with a mane of messy black hair hanging to his shoulders. His face wore a wild, defiant grin, and his eyes shone with brutality and excitement. He nudged Damon's upside-down corpse with the toe of his boot and gave a contemptuous snort.
Then his gaze settled on Bronn.
"I am Rodrik Greyjoy."
Bronn felt his gut tighten.
Balon Greyjoy's eldest son.
Rodrik spoke in a harsh voice, roughened by years of shouting over storm and sea.
"You."
He jabbed a finger toward Bronn.
"You fight well. But you don't look Ironborn. You look like some greenland bastard. What house are you from?"
Bronn's heart kicked hard in his chest.
His life now depended entirely on the next few sentences.
He didn't hesitate.
He pulled out the Lonely Light dagger and offered it with both hands.
"I'm Hadrin, captain. A sailor from Lonely Light."
His mind was moving at full speed, building the lie as he spoke.
"The greenlanders caught me. Me and a few others got loose. These Riverlands dogs were chasing me down."
Rodrik didn't take the dagger. One of the men beside him did.
It was a thick-bearded first mate named Vickon. He rubbed the sigil on the hilt with rough fingers and stared at Bronn with cold suspicion.
"What's the name of your longship?"
Bronn's heartbeat was pounding like a war drum.
He'd spent years in ports all across the Seven Kingdoms. He'd dealt with Ironborn before. So he forced himself to answer.
"My captain was Gyles Farwynd. The ship was called the Sea Maiden."
Vickon bared yellow teeth stained dark from dried fish.
"Farwynd men. Lonely Light paupers."
He tossed the dagger back to Bronn.
"You come from nowhere, and you look lean and weak, but you've got some use in you."
Rodrik Greyjoy stepped forward and slapped Bronn heavily on the shoulder, nearly driving him into the mud on the spot.
"You kill well, Hadrin. Stay with me and die at sea one day. Don't die like some soft land rat."
Bronn felt every bone in his body protest, but the rock hanging over his head had finally rolled away.
One moment heaven. The next hell.
Outwardly he kept up the hard-faced swagger.
"As long as there's drink and women at the end of it, I'll kill whoever you like."
Rodrik threw his head back and laughed.
"Good! Plenty of drink and women on the green lands!"
Two Ironborn shoved Bronn along toward the Blue Fork, and what he saw there wiped the relief clean out of him.
Dozens of black Ironborn longships lay not in the river, but on the muddy banks like stranded sea beasts. Hundreds of Ironborn were hauling them overland with giant rollers and pulley lines, bellowing rough work chants as they dragged the ships across the ground.
Bronn stared.
These mad bastards had bypassed the defenses by dragging their ships over land.
Rodrik Greyjoy stood at the prow of the largest longship, waving the same bloodied axe.
"Move, you gutless worms!"
"When Lord Captain Victarion strikes Seagard from the sea, we'll appear behind them and take Seagard from the rear! Then the whole Riverlands will belong to the Ironborn!"
The bearded first mate, Vickon, shouted too.
"Faster, you useless dogs!"
"We need to reach them as soon as the Lord Captain begins his assault! The greenland weaklings will line up like sheep for the knife!"
"Their women and wine will all be yours!"
Bronn clenched his jaw.
No. If they turned and linked up with the fleet now, his disguise would come apart at once. And once that happened, his fate would be no different from dying in Lannister hands.
No. Absolutely not.
He suddenly rushed forward, cutting through Rodrik and Vickon's shouting.
"Captain!"
The Ironborn all turned in surprise.
Rodrik's face darkened at once, like the sea before a storm.
He wheeled on Bronn and roared, "Hadrin! You interrupt me again and I'll kill you myself!"
Bronn instantly bowed his head and put on a look of urgent humility.
"My captain, I deserve death."
"But I have an idea that can win you great glory."
That caught him.
Rodrik was still visibly irritated, but the promise of glory hooked him fast enough. He waved one hand.
"Then speak. And if you're wasting my time, I'll tie you under the hull and drag you through the Trident for the fish."
Vickon narrowed his eyes and studied Bronn like a wolf eyeing meat.
Bronn took a slow breath.
He had ridden and fought with Solomon before. He had watched him trick stronger enemies, watched him use fear, rumor, and theater as weapons.
Now Bronn took all of that and started talking.
"Captain, if we rejoin the Lord Captain now, we'll only be helping him grind through a siege."
He pointed at the river.
"We're already in the Blue Fork. The waterways spread everywhere from here. Rich villages and market towns line both banks."
His voice gained strength as the plan took shape.
"If we move downriver like this, burning everything, killing everything, we can throw the whole Riverlands into chaos."
Rodrik frowned.
"I have only a little over six hundred men. Ten longships."
"That's already the limit of what we could move across land without being seen."
Vickon shook his head.
"Too few. The greenlanders won't fear us enough. It won't have the effect you're talking about."
Bronn almost smiled.
That was exactly what he wanted them to say.
He remembered the tricks Solomon had used before, the lies, the false signals, the sense of a force being bigger than it really was.
So he lowered his voice and spoke like a man sharing a secret.
"Then we create the illusion."
"Every village or town we strike, don't kill everyone. Leave some alive. At night, send some of our men out and back in through the gates again and again, passing in and out through the firelight. The survivors will think more and more men are arriving, and they'll spread those stories for us."
He was speaking more smoothly now, almost unconsciously slipping into the same rhythm Solomon used when laying out a plan.
"Then the Riverlands lords will believe a great Ironborn host is roaming behind their lines. They'll hold their men back to protect themselves. They'll start distrusting each other. None of them will dare send full support to Seagard."
Bronn kept going.
"If we leave enough slaughter and enough false stories behind us, those soft lords won't ride out to stop us. They'll sit in their halls and pray we burn their neighbor first. Fear and confusion in the rear will break the will of Seagard's defenders."
"Then the greenland levies around Seagard will start thinking of home. Their hearts will turn. They'll have only two choices. Either send troops to chase us and leave Seagard weakened, or stay where they are and watch the land behind them burn."
He stabbed a finger toward the river.
"Either way, when the Lord Captain's fleet strikes Seagard, those weak, frightened men will run. Some may even surrender to us."
The doubt in Rodrik's face slowly gave way to greed.
The bastard had a point.
If their raids filled the inland with panic, then when his uncle's fleet appeared off Seagard days later, the greenlanders might already be halfway broken. That was worth more than simply arriving from the rear and joining the assault.
Rodrik licked his cracked lips.
"If this wins me that glory, I'll reward you with a longship of your own."
Bronn let out a long breath in his heart.
What did the Riverlands matter to him? As long as he lived through the next few days, he could promise anything.
On the surface, he bowed deeper, wearing the face of a loyal man overwhelmed by reward.
Inside, he was already planning how to escape the next trap too.
"For your longship, captain."
Rodrik Greyjoy turned with satisfaction, raised his axe high, and roared like an animal.
"Move out!"
"Follow the Blue Fork! Kill until the Drowned God is satisfied!"
One by one, the longships slid through the mud across the land.
The Ironborn answered with deafening howls and swarmed aboard.
Then, at last, the ships slipped back into the rushing river.
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