Lymond Lychester's thick brow twitched, his fingers twitching toward his reins as he prepared to tell Solomon to pause the march to receive the new arrivals.
Solomon, however, acted as though he had not noticed the old man's movement. He lifted his hand, pointing his leather glove straight ahead as he gestured to his scout-riders, his voice carrying an unyielding authority.
"Keep the pace steady. Bring them to the center of the column to see me."
The command was passed back through the dust, forcing the handful of newly arrived couriers to dig their spurs into their mounts. Under the collective, unblinking stare of thousands of marching soldiers, they struggled to close the distance with the moving host.
A few minutes later, their horses drew alongside Solomon and Lymond's stirrups, the riders breathing heavily, their features tight with a clear, shifting panic.
Most of them were the same household captains who had been sent to Deddington Castle during the initial ironborn threat. Facing Solomon once more in the open tracks, their composure dissolved into absolute embarrassment. Several turned noticeably pale, fearing they would be held personally to account for the quiet defiance of their respective keeps.
They raised their voices to offer their bows, their phrasing sounding distinctly weak against the thud of the infantry's boots.
"Lord Solomon, Lord Lymond."
"We ask your indulgence for our delay along the track."
Solomon's dark eyes were like a winter ice-ditch, flat, quiet, and entirely devoid of human warmth. He did not look at them, nor did he alter the steady rhythm of his destrier.
He spoke with a regular, conversational tone that carried clearly to every rider, each word sharp as a winter frost. "The summons from the high seat was explicit, and its wax was red."
"Why did your masters send nothing but three horsemen to represent their names?"
"Furthermore, where is the iron they promised to the line?"
The captains exchanged look after look, launching into a fresh series of explanations that differed little from the excuses they had presented in the great hall. This time, however, they carried a phrase they believed to be legally unassailable.
"My Lord, the true strength of our levies marched beneath Lord Balon's banner to the coast, and the ravens offer no mark of their names."
"Our own keeps are bare, my Lord. The smallfolk left behind are barely numerous enough to guard the granary gates. We possess no lances to spare for the track."
One household captain from the rear gathered his courage, raising his voice to a sharp shout.
"Our tax to the high seat was paid in full when the vanguard crossed the ford. Our primary contract is to guard our own hearths."
Solomon listened to the familiar circle of arguments without a word, his face an unreadable mask. He slowly shifted his dark stare, marking each captain's features one by one until the silence turned heavy. Behind his cloak, Rosso Bren, the giant Ludo, and the disciplined row of veteran scout-riders fixed their eyes on the couriers with a quiet, menacing focus.
The air along the track went cold, the suffocating stillness broken only by the iron thud of the spears and the regular snap of the banners against the wood. Trapped beneath that pressure, the captains found it difficult to draw a full breath. Finally, Solomon's gaze settled upon the representative of House Payle.
He spoke with a soft, level tone, as if reviewing a simple ledger entry. "The other keeps may claim their borders are hot."
"But by my accounting, Lord Monte Payle led his personal lances back to his own hall for a turn of rest after the Seagard rotation ended three weeks ago."
The voice carried no anger, yet the Payle captain's features turned instantly the color of fresh lime. His hands shook against his bits. He had spent the march trying to lose himself in the dust of the rear guard, yet the young second son had marked his banner anyway.
"When the lady called for shields last month, House Payle contributed exactly eight common farmers to the vanguard."
Solomon paused, his dark eyes turning remarkably sharp.
"Now, with the high seat facing extinction, you deliver no iron to the line. Explain the mathematics of this ledger."
The captain shuddered in his saddle, his mind flashing back to the raw terror of Ser Curt, who had been strapped inside a sealed timber crate until his screams stopped. A cold dread took hold of his spine.
He had been forced into this duty by his lord's command. The keep had sent eight plowmen during the initial call, but this time they had given him nothing but two boys to hold his stirrups. It was no different from an execution. The young lord of Willowdale did not honor the quiet understandings of the nobility, he was a monster who collected every debt in blood.
Yet, the vanishing pride of his name and a desperate hope for survival forced a final, high-pitched shout from his throat.
"Our contract is whole!" he screamed, his voice cracking against the wind. "The house has no legal obligation to bleed twice for the same seat!"
The shout carried across the thoroughfare, causing the marching infantry to turn their iron caps to watch the ruts.
"Loose tongue," Ludo grunted, spurring his massive mount forward. His two-meter frame closed the space before the captain could check his reins, his destination absolute. He delivered a heavy, iron-plated fist straight through the space, striking the man square across the cheek with the force of an oak beam.
With a dull crack, the captain let out a short shriek, tumbling clear of his saddle to strike the dirt track with a heavy thud. He rolled through the dust in absolute horror, his hands clamped over a broken nose that bled freely through his fingers. He looked up at the towering giant, his spirit completely broken, crawling through the ruts without daring to offer another sound.
Solomon did not bother to cast a glance at the dirt. He lifted his leather glove, his voice reaching Rosso Bren. "Sound the horn. Assemble the lances."
"Gather every landless knight, every hireling, and every free lance who follows the Deddington banner without holding a manor of his own. Bring them to the center."
Rosso uncorked his horn, its long, clear blast echoing across the valley flats. The directive was passed down the line within three minutes.
Before the dust could settle, some thirty horsemen wearing mismatched iron and bearing a dozen different crests gathered before Solomon's destrier. They dismounted with a quiet clink of mail, offering formal bows to Lymond and the young lord.
Some were green boys, others carried the gray hair of a dozen campaigns, but their eyes held the same uneasy tension. They could not fathom why this rising second son had isolated their names from the host.
These were the men Solomon had marked as his true leverage, the outcasts of the feudal system who possessed the title of a gentleman but lacked a single foot of soil to call their own.
Solomon's voice rose, turning loud and powerful enough to carry to the very rear wagons of the central line. "I, Solomon, acting as the explicit hand of House Deddington, do hereby declare a judgment!"
He drew his broadsword with a sharp ring of steel, the tip pointing straight down at the groaning Payle captain in the dirt.
"Monte Payle has hoarded his steel while his overlord bled, breaking his holy oath to the high seat in the hour of peril! The ledger brands him a traitor to the realm! His crime shall be answered by the total forfeiture of every acre, every stone, and every title his ancestors received from the house of Deddington!"
The words fell across the track like a sudden stroke of lightning, breaking the composure of every man present.
The captains from the other keeps and the landless lances felt their pulses quicken. The boy is playing for the absolute limit, their eyes said.
The couriers turned their caps to look at old Lord Lymond, but the master of Lychester keep remained perfectly quiet, his gaze fixed on the horizon as he left the Deddington ledger to the hand that held the mandate.
Solomon ignored the panic of the captains, turning his blade toward the thirty landless knights whose eyes had grown remarkably wide. He dropped the ultimate bait into their quiet.
His voice reached them with a strange, compelling magic that shook their compliance. "You."
"I issue the command now. You shall take the vanguard of the Deddington levies, march straight to the gates of the Payle keep, and reduce the stone. Deliver Monte Payle and his kin to my pickets before the moon turns."
He paused, letting the scope of the slaughter settle into their thoughts.
Then, he delivered the final stroke, each word level and cold. "When the gate is broken."
"My own hand will sign the recommendation to the high seat. The entire estate of House Payle shall be quartered and divided among your names as legal manors for your sons."
Astonishment, madness, and a sudden, burning greed broke through the ranks of the landless lances. In the custom of Westeros, securing a patch of soil was the singular dream that occupied their nights, the distant prize their lords used to keep their swords sharp for a generation.
Now, that impossible prize had been laid flat upon the table before their very eyes. They exchanged look after look, the wild fire of ambition lighting their faces as the reality took hold.
After a long, dead quiet, the lane erupted.
"The steel is yours, my Lord!"
An elder hedge knight was the first to find his knees, ripping his iron cap from his head as he pressed his palm to his breastplate, his rasped voice booming through the dust as he accepted the contract.
Like a signal fire clearing a ridge, the remaining thirty lances did not hesitate a single heartbeat, throwing their caps into the ruts as their knees hit the clay.
"The steel is yours, my Lord!"
"Command us, Lord Solomon!"
"To the walls!"
The fanatical shouting rose in a single, powerful wave that shook the air. Amid the roaring resolution of the outcasts, a sudden, discordant rasp broke through the noise from below.
The broken Payle captain, who had been left bleeding in the dirt, struggled to his knees. He did not bother to wipe the gray grime or the blood from his lips, crawling forward through the ruts until he reached the stirrup.
He looked up at the young lord who stood surrounded by a wall of shouting knights, a thin, desperate smile breaking through his ruined features as he delivered a phrase that left the captains mute.
"Lord Solomon... by the Smiths... is there room for my name in the partition?"
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