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"Cletus!"
"What is it? Did you piss on your trousers?"
Cletus saw that Quentyn had not even properly arranged his trousers and that faint damp marks remained, so he teased him.
"I just heard two people beneath the tower plotting to kill Lord Anders... and me."
Quentyn ignored Cletus's joke. His already righteous-looking face was now extremely serious.
"Are you telling the truth?"
Looking at his expression, Cletus gradually put away his wicked smile and asked again.
"Mm. I did not hear all of it, but I absolutely heard the key parts correctly."
"Quentyn, I believe you. But why would they just happen to be at the tower where you could hear them?"
Cletus nodded and chose to believe him, though he was puzzled as to why the conspiracy had happened to be heard by Quentyn.
"Leave that aside for now. We should go down and look, then hurry to inform Lord Anders."
Anxiety was clear on Quentyn's face. He grabbed Cletus and pulled him toward the stairs.
The two of them quickly ran down the tower and reached the side where Quentyn had been pissing to inspect the area.
On the ground was a row of footprints left by adults. From the marks, it was clear that there had been more than one or two people.
"It seems this was not two people plotting. These men were passing through, and you happened to hear part of their conversation."
Cletus looked at the footprints and made a fairly reasonable analysis. As his gaze followed the direction from which the footprints had come, he suddenly understood.
"I know why they came to this abandoned tower. There used to be an abandoned path into Yronwood here. They wanted to avoid the guards ahead and go straight to the inner castle."
"Damn it. Then they have already gone to the inner castle. We have to hurry..."
Rustle, rustle!
The weeds along the abandoned path beside the tower shook constantly. Someone was clearly moving through them.
Cletus and Quentyn looked at each other, immediately closed their mouths, and nervously drew their blunted training swords.
"Hey, you walk quickly. I just received Lord Yorick's letter..."
A soldier wearing Dornish-style cloth armor and a turban on his head came out of the weeds.
He held a steel spear in one hand and gripped a letter in the other. He began speaking as soon as he emerged from the weeds, but when he saw Cletus and Quentyn, he immediately shut his mouth.
For a moment, the three of them stared at one another in silence.
Cletus and Quentyn were still boys, after all, and did not know whether they should strike first. The soldier, however, had already recognized them and was thinking.
Without warning, the soldier threw down the letter, gripped his spear in both hands, and thrust at Cletus.
Cletus reacted extremely quickly. He held the training sword in both hands and swung fiercely from right to left. The blunted sword struck the steel spear, successfully blocking the soldier's sudden attack.
Quentyn reacted a little more slowly, but the soldier was attacking Cletus and had no guard against him. Quentyn's training sword struck heavily against the soldier's left shoulder, making him grunt.
As the soldier took Quentyn's blow, he immediately avoided Cletus's sword and swept the steel spear toward the boys' lower legs.
This half-moon sweep caught both Cletus and Quentyn within its arc.
"Ah!"
Cletus retreated at once, but Quentyn was closer to the soldier and did not withdraw quickly enough. The sharp spearhead cut open his lower leg. He cried out and fell backward to the ground.
This showed that the two boys had little experience in life-and-death combat. When facing a long weapon like a steel spear, they should have rushed forward as much as possible instead of retreating.
This time, Cletus judged correctly. After avoiding the spear sweep, he rushed forward immediately.
Before the soldier could recover his strength and draw back the spear, Cletus struck the right side of his head heavily with the training sword. The soldier fell at once.
Bang, bang, bang!
Seeing the fallen soldier still trying to struggle up, and angry because his close friend Quentyn had been wounded, Cletus gripped the sword hilt with both hands like a hammer and stabbed down again and again with the blunted point at the soldier's head.
The sharp point of the training sword had been ground down to avoid killing people in practice, but it could still do harm.
Under Cletus's repeated stabbing, the soldier was soon lying on the ground covered in blood, his face destroyed, unmoving.
"Cletus, stop. He is dead!"
Quentyn, sitting nearby, saw Cletus looking almost mad and shouted to stop him.
Cletus heard him, and his movements paused. He looked at the mangled head before him, then suddenly ran to the side and vomited wildly.
Quentyn struggled to his feet, went to pick up the letter the soldier had thrown down, opened it, and quickly read it.
"Cletus, this is a letter from Yorick Yronwood. It tells the soldiers going inside to leave me alive."
After reading it, Quentyn immediately spoke to Cletus.
Yorick Yronwood was the son of the younger brother of Lord Anders's father, Ormond Yronwood.
In terms of kinship, he was Lord Anders's cousin, and he served as commander of Yronwood's guards.
"Uncle Yorick? Pah. We have to go. We need to tell my father about this bastard Yorick's plan."
Cletus wiped the corner of his mouth and went to support Quentyn, heading toward the inner part of Yronwood Castle.
Because Quentyn slowed them down, the two took quite a while to reach the gate of the inner castle.
Cletus was about to shout directly to the four guards at the gate and have them notify his father, but Quentyn's hand, resting on his shoulder, gripped him tightly.
"Cletus, something is wrong. Those are not the guards who were here when we left, and there is blood on the ground."
Careful Quentyn leaned close to his ear and told him what he had noticed.
While the two were thinking about how to enter the inner castle, two thrown spears pierced two of the inner castle guards from behind.
A bald, heavily built man, six and a half feet tall, with a broad body, thick limbs, and a round belly, rushed out from within the inner castle.
He pulled a spear from one guard's corpse and dealt with the other two guards in only a few moves.
"Hey, Archibald!"
Seeing the bald man, Quentyn immediately greeted him happily.
This was Lord Anders's nephew, Ser Archibald Yronwood. Archibald had accompanied him and Cletus for a long time, and Quentyn trusted him greatly.
"Where did you go? I was just about to look for you. Hurry. We must leave Yronwood immediately."
Seeing Quentyn and Cletus, Archibald immediately came to them and spoke.
"Leave Yronwood? No. I need to see my father."
Cletus frowned and shook his head at once.
"Lord Anders... is dead."
"What?"
"Impossible!"
Seeing Cletus's and Quentyn's shocked expressions, Archibald quickly spoke in the shortest terms. "Most members of House Yronwood have betrayed Lord Anders and gone over to Yorick.
"The guards of the inner castle were quietly replaced.
"I saw it with my own eyes. Lord Anders was stabbed several times in the back with spears by his own guards."
"Father... is dead."
Hearing Archibald confirm it again, Cletus muttered in a daze.
"We go now. The stables are nearby. Each of us takes two horses, and we ride for Sunspear immediately."
Quentyn pulled Cletus and followed Archibald. They took six warhorses from the stables and prepared to ride for Sunspear.
But the road southeast toward Sunspear had already been heavily guarded by men arranged by Yorick. Slipping through was impossible.
Seeing this, Quentyn immediately suggested that they head north first, find a port city, and take ship to Sunspear.
Cletus remained silent. Archibald had no better idea, so the three of them rode hard to the north.
The next day, Yorick Yronwood proclaimed himself by House Yronwood's ancient title, High King of Dorne.
He issued letters declaring Joffrey a false king and House Martell traitors to Dorne for helping that false king rule.
He declared that the Dornish should rule themselves, not submit to King's Landing, reeking of piss and shit.
Under these circumstances, Prince Doran of Sunspear did not immediately send troops. Instead, he sent a letter denouncing Yorick Yronwood.
Seeing Prince Doran appear so weak, several ancient Dornish houses that had been silent began answering Yorick Yronwood.
However, they also believed their own houses should rule Dorne.
For a time, the nobles of Dorne sharpened blades and readied horses. War was on the verge of breaking out.
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