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Stone Hedge had become a furnace of dust, blood, and falling stone.
Under the walls, Westerlands assault troops advanced with shields lifted over their heads. Ladders swayed above them. Arrows struck wood and leather in a constant rain. Men screamed, stumbled, and were trampled by the next wave pushing forward from behind.
This was not a probing attack. Jaime had pushed men forward in waves since morning, forcing the defenders to spend arrows, stones, boiling water, and strength without pause. Whenever one ladder was thrown down, two more were raised. Whenever the front ranks wavered, officers behind them drove the men back into the killing ground.
The earth beneath the wall had turned slick. Shields slid in mud made from dust, blood, and spilled oil. A man who fell there rarely stood again.
On the walls, Harrion Karstark's northern recruits fought like men with everything to gain and nowhere to retreat.
Most of them had not been soldiers a few months earlier. Some had been landless hunters. Some had been miners, herdsmen, fishermen, or poor sons from winter town households. Robb's new law had given them a path upward through service, and each man knew that killing an enemy beneath the wall might one day mean citizenship, land, pay, and food for his family.
That promise burned especially bright among the youngest. They counted kills aloud when fear grew too strong. They shouted names of dead friends. They reminded one another that the King in the North rewarded merit, not birth alone.
That hope made them brave.
It did not make them veterans.
By noon, nearly seven hundred of the four thousand defenders had fallen, while the Westermen had lost fewer than fifteen hundred. For men defending a castle wall, that exchange was poor.
Harrion Karstark understood that better than anyone. Stone Hedge was not Winterfell, not Riverrun, not the Golden Tooth. The castle could bleed an enemy, but it could not swallow a great army forever. Its men had to make every death costly.
Outside the castle, Jaime Lannister sat his horse and watched the assault with narrowed eyes. His white cloak hung over gilded armor, though dust had dulled its shine.
Beside him, Lord Lymond Lydden of Deep Den looked as if he had swallowed something bitter.
"Ser Jaime," Lymond said at last, "my men have led every assault since morning. House Lydden is loyal to Casterly Rock, but loyalty should not mean being spent like copper pennies."
Lord Leo Lefford, sitting his horse on Jaime's other side, glanced at him. "Do you suspect Lord Lymond has forgotten where his oaths lie?"
Jaime did not look away from the walls. "My father ordered House Lydden to be used hard."
Lymond's face went pale.
"Deep Den has many ties in the Riverlands," Jaime continued. "Marriages, cousins, old friendships. My father dislikes loose threads."
Lord Lymond almost answered, then thought better of it.
Jaime finally turned to him. "You asked for an answer. There it is."
The horns sounded again.
Nine catapults behind the Lannister lines loosed almost as one. Great stones climbed into the sky and came down toward Stone Hedge with terrible weight.
On the wall, Thormad saw one of them too late.
"Down!"
Mael, who had been grinning only moments before because he had killed his fifth enemy and could already imagine applying for northern citizenship, turned at the shout.
"Five," Mael had told Thormad not long before, his face bright under soot and sweat. "Five Westermen. When we get back, I can apply. I can be more than a commoner."
Thormad had called him a fool and told him to keep his head low.
The stone struck the parapet beside him.
The impact blew men, shields, and broken masonry across the wall walk. Thormad was thrown flat. When he forced himself up, his ears rang and his mouth tasted of dust.
"Mael!"
He found his friend beneath a pile of stone.
Only one arm showed.
Thormad dug with both hands until his nails split. Blood seeped from under the rubble. By the time he uncovered Mael's face, the young man's eyes stared open and empty.
The dream of citizenship, land, pay, and a better future for his family ended under a broken parapet before the boy could even spend it.
The wall shook again.
"Fire!" someone screamed below.
A covered wagon, pushed forward under heavy shields, had reached the gate.
For one heartbeat, Harrion Karstark did not understand what he was seeing. Then the wagon burst.
Green fire roared outward.
It did not behave like ordinary flame. It crawled over wood and stone alike, clinging to whatever it touched. Men caught in it did not simply burn. They became green torches, staggering, clawing at armor straps, and spreading the fire to anyone who tried to help them.
The gate, the men around it, and the air itself seemed to vanish in a bloom of unnatural flame. Screams rose from the gatehouse as wildfire licked through timber and flesh alike.
The Westerlands soldiers surged into the breach.
Harrion gathered what men he could in the yard. Barely a thousand remained around him, faces blackened with soot, spears shaking in their hands.
The first wave of Westermen crashed into them. The fight in the yard was short and vicious. By the time Jaime rode through the ruined gate, more than three thousand northern prisoners had been forced to their knees.
Some were wounded. Some had thrown down their weapons because the wildfire had broken their nerve. Others had been dragged down by numbers after the gate fell. They knelt in uneven rows, soot-black and shaking, while Lannister men moved among them taking knives, belts, and helmets.
Harrion Karstark stood before him with blood running down one side of his face.
"Submit," Jaime said. "Swear to King Joffrey and fight for House Lannister. You may yet live."
Harrion looked past him, toward the burned gate and the dead northern recruits. "I am a man of the North."
Jaime studied him for a moment. The answer was foolish, brave, and exactly the sort of thing that made northern men difficult to break cleanly.
Lord Jonos Bracken did not share that courage.
The Lord of Stone Hedge came forward with his family and household guards, head bowed. "House Bracken submits."
Others followed him. Some of the Westerlands recruits who had been captured and forced into northern service threw down their weapons and begged to return to the Lannisters. Men who had only recently taken Robb's pay now swore whatever oath kept a sword from their throats.
The yard split into two kinds of prisoners: those looking for a new oath, and those who stared at Harrion as if his refusal were the only thing keeping their own spines straight.
Jaime's mouth twisted, but he accepted it.
Harrion remained silent.
"You are stubborn for a doomed man," Lord Leo Lefford said.
Harrion looked at him. "I have something of value. Something that may buy my life."
Jaime raised a brow. "In Stone Hedge?"
"In my room. Let me bring it."
Lord Leo laughed. "You expect us to let you stroll away?"
"Escort me, then," Harrion said. "If I lie, kill me there."
Jaime considered him for a moment, then nodded. "Go with Lord Leo."
When Harrion returned, he carried a black fruit in both hands.
Jaime recognized the shape a breath too late.
Robb Stark had given Harrion that object as a last resort, a thing to be used only when ordinary defenses had failed and no better choice remained.
Harrion scraped the markings across its surface and hurled it with all his strength.
"Down!" Jaime shouted.
He threw himself behind his horse as the world split open.
The explosion tore the animal apart. Heat and force rolled over Jaime. Fire seared across the right side of his face, and the sound vanished from the world.
He fell, half buried under the ruined horse, and did not rise.
For several heartbeats, even the Westermen forgot to shout. Their golden lion of the Kingsguard lay motionless under blood, horseflesh, and smoke.
Lord Leo Lefford stared at Jaime's burned, unconscious body. Then his face twisted in fury. He drove his sword through Harrion Karstark's heart before the northern lord could speak another word.
"Kill them," Leo snarled. "Kill every northern dog who still breathes. Strip the castle. Burn what we cannot carry."
Stone Hedge, already broken, descended into slaughter.
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