Chapter 226 - 226: The Bells of Seagard

The salty wind of the Sunset Sea bit through the narrow slits of the solar windows, tossing the silver-streaked brown hair of Lord Jason Mallister.

The long-awaited ravens from the interior had finally arrived, and the parchment in his hand felt like a block of ice, freezing the last remnants of hope. The relief force from Riverrun had marched into a void. Rodrik Greyjoy's raiders had already vanished from the Greenfork, leaving Ser Desmond Grell to chase ghosts through the muddy river valleys while the real threat loomed elsewhere.

Jason ceased his restless pacing, his palm striking the heavy stone table with enough force to rattle the painted wooden markers on the map of the Riverlands.

"Drowned rats, the lot of them," he muttered, his voice thick with a lord's heavy fury.

The air in the great hall grew dense enough to suffocate. The messenger's accounts were stark and unyielding. According to the fleeing smallfolk, the ironborn had broken two separate hosts beneath the walls of Deddington Castle. In every telling, the enemy numbers swelled, painted as an unstoppable horde of three thousand axes sweeping through the heart of the realm.

Gathered around the hearth, the northern Riverlands lords looked at one another with pale, hollow faces. The grand speeches of loyalty, duty, and the ancient honor of the Trident had vanished, replaced by the sharp, silent calculations of men realizing their own homes were bare.

Lord Vance of Wayfarer's Rest was the first to rise, his throat dry as he addressed the high seat. "My Lord Mallister."

"My own smallholdings along the Red Fork sit less than two days' ride from where these raiders were last seen. If those longships turn south, they will burn my grain before my levies can even don their boiled leather."

He left the thought hanging, but every man in the room understood the unspoken truth. The waters beneath Seagard's cliffs remained calm, not a single longship visible on the gray horizon. Yet, somewhere in the misty interior of the Riverlands, a massive ironborn host was actively putting castles to the torch.

Old Lord Lychester had already departed, taking his personal knights back to secure his own keep, and Riverrun had done nothing to stop him.

Another minor lord stood, his voice cracked with a desperate, bleeding panic. "My own small keep has fewer than forty men left in the garrison. If the ironborn reach my gates, my daughters..."

Jason Mallister's voice cut through the rising murmur like a cracked whip. "Silence!"

"We stand here at Seagard for the very purpose of protecting your blood and your lands. This fortress is the first shield of the Cape of Eagles. It is the strongest wall the ironborn will ever face."

His words carried the weight of centuries of Mallister pride, but they could not patch the fraying resolve of men who smelled smoke in the wind.

A sharp, mocking voice rose from the rear of the hall, belonging to a minor landed knight from the Blue Fork. "A wall, my Lord? A wall only works when the enemy chooses to knock on the front door."

"Look out your windows. The sea is empty."

"Meanwhile, three thousand ironborn are rampaging through our fields, striking wherever the guard is thin. We are sitting on our hands while our smallfolk are butchered. We must ride back. If the squids truly target Seagard, you can blow your bronze horn and we will return."

Jason's gaze narrowed, his gray eyes fixing on the speaker with the intensity of an eagle marking its prey. "Return? And let them tear us apart piecemeal? A scattered host is nothing but meat for an ironborn axe."

The rebuke brought a temporary, fragile hush to the room. But panic was a rot that lived in the dark, and once it took root, words could not cleanse it.

An elder knight, Ser Quincy Cox of Saltpans, rose and gave a deep, formal bow. His posture was perfectly deferential, but his words were as hard as iron. "The situation has shifted, my Lord."

"Seagard is safe behind its stone, but our duty is to our own soil and our own smallfolk. If the raiders turn toward Saltpans, they can destroy every pier and warehouse I own before the tide changes."

"Therefore, I must formally request your leave to withdraw my lances and return to my domain."

With a seasoned knight leading the retreat, the remaining lords found their courage. A chorus of voices rose, drowning out the crackle of the hearth.

"I ask the same, Lord Jason!"

"Permit us to defend our own, my Lord!"

"We can always march back once the ships appear!"

The grand coalition was revealed for what it truly was, not a unified army, but a fragile tapestry of private interests and local fears. The threat on the distant horizon meant nothing compared to the phantom fires burning in their minds.

Jason Mallister felt a profound, exhausting emptiness hollow out his chest. Did these fools truly believe that if Seagard fell, their small wooden keeps would survive the slaughter? He wanted to draw his sword, to use the ancient authority of his house to force them into compliance, but he knew the truth. Once a man's heart had fled the field, his body was useless in a siege.

By the time the candles had burned down to stubs, a desperate compromise had been struck. Four thousand men from the garrison would be detached, placed under the command of the regional lords, and sent into the interior to join the search for Rodrik Greyjoy's shadow army.

When the sun went down, Jason stood alone on the high ramparts, watching the dark, rolling waves. The chill wind tangled his graying hair, and for the first time in his life, the weight of his lord's chain felt too heavy for his shoulders.

The following morning, the departing columns began their march. There was no solemnity in their step, no shame for abandoning the coast. Instead, the smallfolk levies laughed and sang old river songs, their faces bright with the relief of men leaving the shadow of execution. They packed their gear and called out cheerful farewells to the guards left behind, as if they were returning from a autumn fair rather than marching into a war zone.

Jason watched them go until the dust cleared, a cold, persistent dread tightening in his belly.

Out on the open water, the world was gray.

Victarion Greyjoy stood at the prow of the Iron Victory, his massive frame steady against the heavy rolling of the sea. Behind him, the great sails of the Iron Fleet caught the damp wind, over a hundred longships moving through the swell like silent sea monsters, the rhythmic dip of their oars muffled perfectly by the crash of the surf.

A dense sea fog hung low over the water, cutting visibility down to less than three spears' length. It was a perfect shroud, a gift from the cold depths. To Victarion, it felt as though the Drowned God himself had reached down to blind the mallisters for this very hour.

"The boy actually managed something useful," Victarion rumbled, his voice deep and rough as he spoke to his helmsman.

There was a rare trace of begrudging respect in his tone. He had always viewed his nephew Rodrik as a loud, thick-headed drunkard who relied on nothing but brutish strength and ale.

Yet, Rodrik's distraction had worked flawlessly. By taking a few hundred secondary fighters and making a bloody nuisance of himself in the river valleys, he had gathered the eyes of the entire realm. The river lords had panicked, convinced the main blow was landing in their fields.

And while they scrambled in the mud, Victarion Greyjoy, Lord Captain of the Iron Fleet, was bringing the true steel of the Iron Islands directly to the undefended throat of the coast.

"Lord Captain, when do we strike?" A younger man stepped forward from the shadow of the mast. It was Maron Greyjoy, Rodrik's younger brother, serving as an oarsman on the flagship. "The scouts said the castle sent away thousands of spears yesterday to hunt for my brother."

"Soon," Victarion said, his eyes fixed on the blank wall of gray fog ahead.

The minutes stretched into hours, measured only by the cold spray against his iron kraken helm.

The fleet dropped anchor in the shallow waters just off the coastal flats, every man keeping absolute silence as they checked the bindings on their shields and the edge of their axes.

Then, through the gray shroud, it came.

A single, deep chime tore through the fog, followed instantly by another, faster and more frantic. The great bronze bell of Seagard was ringing, its desperate wail echoing across the water.

They had been spotted.

A savage, terrible smile broke across Victarion's bearded face. He drew his heavy broadsword, the steel singing as he pointed it toward the hidden shore. "What is dead may never die!"

The warhorns of the Iron Fleet answered the call, their low, bellowing notes shattering the morning quiet. A thousand oars hit the water at once, and the longships leaped forward through the surf toward the flickering beacons of the harbor.

"My Lord! My Lord, wake!"

A frantic squire stumbled through the threshold of Jason Mallister's bedchamber, his boots skidding on the cold stone, his voice cracked with terror.

"Speak," Jason said, already on his feet. He had slept in his mail, his hand automatically finding the grip of his sword before his eyes were fully open. The rhythmic, terrifying tolling of the high bell had already broken his light slumber.

The boy fell to his knees, his hands trembling violently. "The ships... the sea is black with them, my Lord!"

"They are coming out of the fog! They are already on the sand!"

The last remnants of sleep vanished from Jason's mind. He threw open the heavy oak doors, taking the spiral stairs three at a time until he reached the highest platform of the Booming Tower. When he leaned over the cold stone parapet, the sight below froze the breath in his throat.

The beach was alive with ironborn.

They were leaping from the prows of their longships, splashing through the waist-deep water with axes held high, their war cries rising in a single, deafening roar that shook the foundations of the keep. The harbor was choked with hulls, their torches bleeding through the dense fog, turning the gray mist into a sickening, fiery orange.

On the lower curtains, the garrison was a scene of utter confusion. Men were running without their helmets, some still struggling to strap their doublets as the first ladders hit the wood.

"To the walls!" a captain roared from below, his voice nearly drowned out by the din. "Archers, to the bays! Bring up the oil!"

Jason Mallister looked down at the ruin of his defense, his hand tightening on the hilt of his sword until his knuckles turned white. The ancient duty of his house was clear, and he would see it done, even if the stones fell around him.

He turned to his captain of the guard, who had just reached the platform. "Send the last ravens. Tell Riverrun the sea has opened up."

He paused, looking toward the interior where his vassals had marched only the day before.

"And take my sons," Jason said softly. "Get them past the rear gate before the circle closes."

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