Chapter 15: The Tide Turns

POV: Robert Baratheon & Jon Arryn

The streets of Stoney Sept were a battlefield of blood and desperation.

Robert Baratheon stood atop a pile of broken bodies, his warhammer slick with gore. His breath came heavy, but his grin was wide. Even surrounded, even wounded, he was in his element. The clang of steel, the screams of the dying, the thunder of his own heartbeat—it was life, raw and unforgiving.

Ser Jonothor Darry and Ser Barristan Selmy pressed forward with relentless precision, their Kingsguard armor gleaming beneath the blood and grime. Robert fought like a storm, but these were men trained to stand against one.

Yet Robert laughed, even as his ribs ached from a glancing blow. "Come on, you white-cloaked bastards! Let's see if you can kill me before I bring this place down around your ears!"

But it was not just Kingsguard steel he faced. The town was swarming with royalist forces, soldiers of House Mooton, men loyal to the Mad King. They funneled into the narrow streets, pressing against the rebels like a rising tide.

Jon Arryn watched from a vantage point atop a half-ruined building, his face grim. The rebellion's leader was surrounded. If Robert fell here, everything they had fought for would be for nothing.

"Send word to the men outside the town," he commanded a squire at his side. "If we cannot break through, we are lost."

"Lord Arryn!" A breathless scout ran up the stairs, his face alight with urgency. "The Northern army is here!"

For a moment, Jon was certain he had misheard.

"The North?" he repeated.

The boy nodded fiercely. "Lord Stark's banners have been spotted at the western approach. They are cutting through the enemy lines!"

Jon turned back toward the battlefield, searching for a sign.

And then—he saw them.

A wave of steel and fury surged into the town from the western gate. The direwolf banners of House Stark rose above the chaos, their soldiers cutting a path through the royalist ranks.

And at the very front, cleaving through enemy formations like a force of nature, was a single man.

A knight in dark steel, wielding a round shield and a war axe, moving with inhuman speed. Every swing shattered bones. Every charge sent men flying. Soldiers scrambled to stop him, but none could stand against the relentless force.

A knight—but not just any knight.

Robert had never seen him before, yet in that moment, he knew a warrior when he saw one.

And this man was no ordinary warrior.

"Who in the Seven Hells is that?" Robert bellowed as he struck down another enemy.

Jon Arryn did not answer immediately. He, too, was watching the knight in black steel, the man who led the Northern charge, driving straight toward the heart of the battle.

"That," Jon said slowly, "must be the one they call the Captain."

The Captain of the North

His name, or at least the one given to him in Westeros, was Ser Cayle Rivers.

A commoner. A bastard born in the Riverlands, raised among mercenaries and soldiers, learning to fight before he could even read. A man who had once been nothing—until he entered the melee of the Tourney at the Red Keep years ago.

It was meant to be a spectacle, a contest of skill and brutality. Knights of noble houses had entered, their banners flying high. And then there was him.

A nameless warrior, his armor unadorned, his shield bearing no sigil.

He won.

He bested seasoned knights, shattered lances, and sent men twice his size sprawling into the dirt. By the time the melee ended, he stood alone, unbowed, victorious.

He should have been cast aside, ignored by the lords and their politics. But one man had seen him for what he was.

Rickard Stark, Warden of the North.

That very night, in a ceremony few recalled and even fewer attended, Rickard had placed a sword on his shoulder and knighted him.

"Ser Cayle Rivers," he had said, "you are no lord's son, nor a man of high birth. But you have honor, and you have strength. Wear your knighthood well, and if you ever seek a home, the North will have you."

And so he rode with the Starks when the war began.

Not as a noble.

Not as a lord.

But as a knight of the North.

A soldier's knight. A warrior's captain.

And now, at Stoney Sept, the Captain of the North led the charge.

And the battle was about to change forever.