Chapter 15: The Bell, the Book, and the Serpent

Chapter 15: The Bell, the Book, and the Serpent

282 AC, Month of the Hunter's Moon

The summons came on the fifth day, carried by a knight whose Tully-trout surcoat was caked with the mud and grime of hard riding. It was not a flowery invitation from a lord in his castle, but a terse, military order. Lord Blackwood—the use of the title was a deliberate concession—was requested to move his forces inland to a rendezvous point near the village of Fairmarket and to attend a council of war. The message was signed not by Hoster Tully, but by a name that carried the cold, grim weight of the North: Eddard Stark.

Alaric had his entry point. The great lords, in their desperation, had taken his baited hook.

Leaving a hundred men from the Onyx Legion and a quarter of his supplies to guard the now heavily fortified beachhead at Serpent's Tooth Cove, Alaric began his first march onto Westerosi soil. It was an army unlike any seen in the Seven Kingdoms. At its head was the main cohort of the Legion, eighty men moving with a silent, rhythmic tread that ate up the miles. Their blackened plate absorbed the weak autumn light, and their serpentine helms gave them the appearance of a legion of demons. Behind them rumbled a train of fifty wagons, laden with grain, steel, and medicine, each one guarded by the disciplined sellswords Ser Damon had hired as auxiliaries.

The journey was a grim education. The vibrant, chaotic prosperity of Pentos was a world away. Here, the Riverlands were bleeding. They passed fallow fields and burned-out villages, their blackened timbers like skeletal fingers clawing at the grey sky. They saw smallfolk fleeing the fighting, their faces gaunt with hunger and fear, who stared at the black-clad army with wide, terrified eyes before scurrying into the woods. The Onyx Legionaries, men hardened by the casual cruelty of Essos, were themselves taken aback by the sheer, miserable devastation of this supposedly chivalrous war.

"This is what happens when honour is a substitute for logistics," Alaric remarked coolly to Ser Damon as they rode at the head of the column. "The lords call their banners, but they cannot feed their men. The men, in turn, feed on the populace. The war devours the very land it is fought over."

"They're amateurs," Ser Damon grunted, his gaze sweeping over a ruined sept. "Proud, brave, and utterly unprofessional. A rabble of knights who think a glorious charge can solve any problem." He looked back at his own disciplined ranks. "They won't know what to do with us."

"They will learn," Alaric said simply.

The rebel camp was a sprawling, muddy, chaotic mess spread across the hills near Fairmarket. Thousands of men were camped in a sea of dirty canvas tents, their banners—the Tully trout, the Piper maiden, the Mallister eagle—hanging limp in the damp air. The camp smelled of woodsmoke, unwashed bodies, and despair. Knights in dented armour tried to drill sullen, half-starved levies who looked more like bandits than soldiers. The contrast with Alaric's own orderly, silent force could not have been more profound.

Their arrival caused a sensation. A wave of silence followed the Onyx Legion as they marched into the camp, not as a scattered column, but in a tight, disciplined block, their shields locked, their steps perfectly timed. They did not mingle; they established their own perimeter on a small, defensible hill overlooking the main camp, setting up their tents and picket lines with a speed and efficiency that drew hundreds of weary rebel soldiers to watch in silent awe.

The council of war was held in the command tent of Lord Stark, a large, unadorned pavilion that smelled of wet wool and oiled leather. Alaric, flanked by Ser Damon, entered to find the collected lords of the rebellion's northern front. Jonos Bracken and Tytos Blackwood (a distant cousin, a man known for his dour pride), rival lords forced into an uneasy alliance. The proud, hawk-faced Jason Mallister, who gave Alaric a curt, respectful nod. And at the head of the table, studying a map, was Eddard Stark.

He was younger than Alaric remembered from the histories, perhaps nineteen, but his face was already set in grim, dutiful lines. He had long, dark hair and a neatly trimmed beard, but it was his eyes that held one's attention. They were grey, like Alaric's own, but where Alaric's held a cold, analytical light, Ned Stark's were filled with a deep, weary gravity. He looked up as Alaric entered, his gaze sharp and assessing.

"Lord Blackwood," Ned said, his voice a low, northern baritone. "You are welcome. Your intelligence regarding Lord Connington was accurate. My outriders confirm his host is converging on Stoney Sept."

"I am pleased to have been of service, Lord Stark," Alaric replied, taking the offered seat. He felt the weight of their stares, the suspicion and the hope warring in their eyes.

"You have brought an impressive force," Ned continued, his tone neutral. "And a great deal of food. The men of the Riverlands thank you for it. But my father taught me to look a gift horse in the mouth. You have come from nowhere, with an army of foreigners and a fortune in gold. You ask for a lordship as your price. You must understand why we need to know your purpose."

"My purpose is aligned with yours, my lord," Alaric said calmly. "To see the Mad King removed from the Iron Throne and a just ruler put in his place. My methods are simply... different. I spent my years in Essos studying history, economics, and the art of war. I learned that victory is not a matter of courage alone, but of preparation, discipline, and overwhelming logic. I have returned to apply those lessons in service to my homeland."

"Service for a price," Ned noted, his gaze unwavering.

"All service has a price, Lord Stark," Alaric countered smoothly. "Yours is honour, Lord Robert's is justice. Mine is the security and prosperity of my future House. I believe it is a price you will find worth paying."

The debate lasted an hour. Alaric fielded their questions with an unassailable calm. He explained the Onyx Legion's composition, their training, their capabilities. He spoke of his logistical network in Essos, framing it as a scholarly enterprise in applied economics. He never revealed the true source of his knowledge, Prometheus, instead cloaking his insights in the guise of unprecedented genius and scholarly analysis.

Finally, he directed the conversation back to the matter at hand. "Lord Connington's pride is your greatest weapon," he said, turning to the map. "He has already entered Stoney Sept with his vanguard and his knights, confident that he can capture Lord Robert before his main army arrives. He believes Robert is alone and cornered."

"He is," Lord Piper lamented. "We have men in the town, but they are few. Robert is hiding. The Hand's men are going house to house. The bells of the sept are ringing, a signal the townsfolk are using to warn him, but it is only a matter of time."

"Then we must turn the hunter's trap upon him," Alaric stated. "My lords, your plan is to assault the town and relieve Lord Robert. A frontal attack against an entrenched enemy. It will be costly."

"We have no choice," Mallister said, his jaw tight. "We cannot leave Robert to be taken."

"There is another way," Alaric said, his voice dropping, drawing them all in. "A scalpel, not a sledgehammer. While your main host engages Connington's army outside the walls, pinning them in place, you allow a smaller, elite force to infiltrate the town itself. This force will have three objectives: locate and secure Lord Robert, eliminate the royalist command structure within the town, and then, from the inside, punch a hole through their lines for Lord Robert to escape."

Ned Stark looked at him, his grey eyes narrowed in thought. "An infiltration into a town swarming with the enemy? What force could possibly accomplish such a task?"

Alaric met his gaze. "Mine."

The plan was audacious, high-risk, and brilliant. It would sow chaos among the enemy, achieve the primary objective of saving Robert with minimal casualties to the main rebel army, and serve as a spectacular demonstration of the Onyx Legion's unique capabilities. After a tense debate, Ned Stark, a commander who recognized a sound, if daring, strategy when he heard one, agreed.

Two nights later, under the cover of a miserable, drizzling rain, the Battle of the Bells began. The main rebel host, led by Stark and Tully, clashed with the arriving royalist army in the muddy fields south of Stoney Sept. It was a chaotic, brutal affair, a grinding match of shield and spear.

But the true battle was being fought within the town itself. Alaric commanded his forces from a small, wooded hill a mile away, a secure command post he had established with a ring of his most trusted men. He had a clear view of the town, a dark cluster of buildings from which the frantic, incessant ringing of bells now echoed, giving the battle its name. Runners, dispatched every ten minutes, kept him connected to Ser Damon's force.

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In the narrow, winding streets of Stoney Sept, Ser Damon Flowers was in his element. He and the eighty men of the Onyx Legion moved not like an army, but like a pack of wolves. They had slipped into the town through a series of unguarded sewer grates that Alaric's intelligence had identified, emerging into the heart of the chaos.

They ignored the scattered brawls between rebels and loyalists. They had a single, clear objective. "Find the Stag," Damon growled to his men, his voice muffled by his snarling helm. "The rest is just noise."

The ringing bells were their guide. They moved towards the area where the peals were most desperate, their disciplined silence a stark contrast to the chaos around them. They encountered a patrol of Targaryen knights, resplendent in their ornate armour, who were bullying a septon, trying to get him to reveal Robert's location. The knights saw the black-clad soldiers and charged, confident in their noble birth and superior steel.

The fight was over in thirty seconds. The knights' lances and longswords, designed for open-field charges, were clumsy and ineffective in the narrow alley. The Onyx Legionaries met their charge with their massive shields, a solid wall of iron-bound wood. The knights' momentum was broken, and before they could recover, the short, heavy stabbing swords of the legionaries went to work, thrusting into the gaps in their armour, at their throats, their groins. It was brutal, efficient, and utterly terrifying.

Leaving the dead knights in the mud, they pressed on. They found their prize holed up in the last place anyone would think to look: a bustling brothel called the Peach. Inside, surrounded by a handful of his most loyal men, was Robert Baratheon. He was a giant of a man, his black hair matted with sweat and blood, a gory bandage on his shoulder, but his blue eyes burned with a furious, indomitable energy. He held a massive, spiked warhammer in his hands, ready to sell his life dearly.

When Ser Damon and his men kicked in the door, Robert let out a great roar and charged, thinking them to be Connington's killers.

"My Lord Baratheon!" Damon bellowed, raising a hand. "We are sent by Lord Stark! We are your salvation!"

Robert skidded to a halt, his chest heaving, his warhammer held ready. He looked at the strange, black-clad soldiers, at their serpentine helms, and then at the grizzled, scarred face of their commander.

"Stark sent you?" he roared. "By the gods, it's about time! I was running out of wine and whores!"

The rescue had been accomplished. But now came the hard part: getting out. As they emerged from the Peach, they found the street blocked by a company of royalist spearmen under the command of Ser Myles Mooton, one of Connington's most senior knights.

"No further, traitors!" Mooton screamed, levelling his lance.

"Shield wall!" Damon commanded. The Onyx Legionaries instantly formed a solid, interlocking barrier, a testament to their relentless drilling. "Advance!"

They did not charge. They marched. A slow, inexorable, grinding advance. The royalist spearmen threw their javelins, which clattered harmlessly against the massive shields. They braced their spears, but the sheer, unified weight of the legion's push buckled their line. The narrow street became a meat grinder. The legion's short swords were a nightmare in the press, stabbing, thrusting, eviscerating the trapped spearmen. Robert Baratheon fought behind them, his great hammer crushing helmets and breastplates like eggshells, his laughter a booming, terrifying sound amidst the screams.

They broke through the line, leaving a carpet of dead and dying in their wake. They fought their way, street by bloody street, to the riverfront, a disciplined, black-clad island of death in a sea of chaos. They secured the main bridge just as Ned Stark's forces, seeing the turmoil, launched their main assault.

The battle turned into a rout. Lord Connington, his command structure shattered and his quarry escaped, lost his nerve and ordered a full retreat. The Battle of the Bells was a stunning, decisive victory for the rebellion.

In the aftermath, in a hastily cleared-out manse in the town, Alaric finally met the leaders of the rebellion face to face. Robert Baratheon, his arm in a sling but his spirits higher than the Hightower, clapped him on the back with enough force to stagger a lesser man.

"Blackwood!" he boomed, his voice filling the room. "They told me a boy-maester saved my hide! I didn't believe them! That legion of yours... they fight like demons! By the gods, I'd trade half the knights in the Stormlands for a company of them!"

Ned Stark stood beside him, his expression more reserved. The grim weariness in his eyes was now joined by a look of profound, unsettled respect. "You have done us a service beyond measure today, Lord Blackwood. You saved my friend, and you turned the tide of this war. The North will not forget it."

Alaric simply inclined his head. "I am pleased my counsel and the skills of my men were of use, my lords."

He had done it. He had arrived, demonstrated his power, and made himself indispensable. He was no longer an outsider. He was a commander, a strategist, a key pillar of the rebellion. He had his seat at the high table of war.

Later that night, back in the quiet of his own command tent, he stood before his map. He removed the onyx serpent from Stoney Sept and replaced it with a larger one, carved from dragonglass. A symbol of a decisive victory. His intervention had worked even better than he had planned.

He had received his 'payment'—a formal invitation from Hoster Tully himself to attend the main rebel war council at Riverrun. He was now in the inner circle.

He looked at the map, at the great river that gave the lands their name. The Trident. He knew that was where the final, apocalyptic battle would be fought. And he knew, with a cold, absolute certainty, that he would be the one to shape it. The game had been joined. Now, it was time to win it.