ASOIAF: The Rise of House Ashenblade.

The first official batch of Red Sun Flame ran through the still during a cold autumn night.

By dawn, droplets of condensation covered the copper coil and the distillery smelled strongly enough of grain spirit that men walking toward the fields turned their heads before passing through the gate. Morton guarded the receiving barrel with the seriousness he once reserved for Ser Edwyn’s account chest.

”Change it,” Arlan said. Morton swapped the filled container for an empty one and carried the spirit toward the oil lamp. The liquid remained clear. No sediment floated in it, and the smell was stronger and cleaner than the trial run.

Arlan filled a small silver flask recovered during the bandit clearances and tasted the middle run.

The heat was immediate but controlled, followed by the grain beneath it. The batch was slightly stronger than the first, near forty-two percent by his estimate, and stable enough that he saw no reason to alter the process before producing at scale; Morton tried it with more caution this time.

”Still fire,” he said after swallowing. ”Only now it tastes as though the fire learned manners.” Wayne, the veteran now helping lead FireStorm’s guard, had been standing by the door with several men pretending not to wait for permission.

”My lord,” he said, ”a border guard ought to understand anything his men may one day carry.”

Morton snorted. ”A noble purpose.” Arlan nodded anyway.

The guards passed bowls among themselves. Men who had spent winters on exposed roads compared it to the sour ale issued or bought during patrols, and even a small taste brought warmth quickly enough that the practical value needed little explanation. Wayne took a mouthful and slapped one hand against his thigh.

”This would have been worth silver on winter patrol. Two fur cloaks never stopped the cold once the wind came down from the mountains. One drink of this would.”

Another guard pointed out the same value for caravans and sailors exposed to weather for days at a time. The villagers listening from the yard needed little convincing, and they had watched Nightsong try to choke FireStorm through trade. Twenty sealed oak barrels standing inside the distillery looked less like drink than a counterattack that could be sold by the bottle.

By midday, the first batch had been fully collected and sealed. Twenty oak barrels stood in a neat row, each bung checked twice and each marked with the red sun so a buyer could distinguish FireStorm’s product from ordinary ale before opening it. To the villagers, the row represented the first stock large enough to sell rather than merely prove that distillation worked.

Morton marked each of the twenty barrels with the date and the red sun device used for the new product. He was still finishing when the gate sentry arrived with three hooded men.

All three carried short swords and wore heavy traveling coats. They entered without giving their names to the crowd and stopped as soon as the smell from the distillery reached them; the eldest removed his hood.

Harlan was known around Rainwood’s black market as Old Fox, a liquor merchant who had spent enough years on illicit roads to know which lord’s guard could be bribed and which should be avoided entirely. He had buyers among mercenaries, caravan hands, and taverns that cared more about stock than whose banner approved the transaction. That network was precisely what FireStorm lacked; Morton had dealt with him before and stepped forward to make the introduction.

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”My lord,” Harlan said with a bow. ”Your sample caused an argument before the cup was empty. I came to prevent the argument from being settled without me.” Arlan gestured toward a barrel. Morton poured a bowl.

Harlan smelled the spirit first, then drank. His eyes closed while the heat settled. When he opened them, he began to calculate.

”Better than the sample.”

The two merchants behind him immediately demanded their own taste; Morton poured smaller measures while Harlan watched their faces with open irritation. Both men reacted the same way he had: first to the strength, then to the realization that a sealed bottle could be carried and resold far beyond FireStorm for more than the village could ever earn by selling the rye itself.

Harlan ignored them and placed a heavy purse on the table; silver stags showed when he opened it.

”A small bottle at one point two silver stags. I will take everything you can supply and handle the Rainwood black market myself. Fifty stags now as a deposit.” One of the merchants behind him swore.

”One point three.”

The third pushed forward. ”One and a half. I want the supply, not a few barrels.” Harlan turned with the expression of a man considering murder over arithmetic.

Border trade rewarded compact value. A merchant could not profit greatly by smuggling a cart of ordinary grain through a hostile checkpoint, but strong liquor concentrated the value of much more bulky produce into a load small enough to hide, split, or reroute. That fact mattered as much as the taste.

The bids spread through the yard faster than Arlan expected. One merchant raised Harlan by a tenth of a stag per bottle; the other offered one and a half, enough that several villagers visibly tried to calculate what twenty barrels might mean. A family could live frugally for weeks on coin that the merchants were now arguing over for a handful of bottles. Villagers who had once measured their household savings in copper stared at merchants raising a price for liquor made from rye and oak fuel already found around FireStorm.

Arlan did not accept the highest number immediately; price mattered, but so did access. A buyer who paid more for one load and then failed to move the next through House Caron’s blockade would be worth less than a merchant who could keep routes open and supply what FireStorm lacked.

”What can you bring back?” Arlan asked Harlan. The merchant understood the question at once. ”Iron. Salt. Grain. Cloth if you need it. Not openly, and not for free, but I can move them. I know which warehouses answer to coin before they answer to Nightsong.”

He named two storehouses that could divide a load, carters who changed wagon marks between checkpoints, and taverns that paid after novelty faded. The other merchants had offered louder prices. Harlan offered a road in both directions.

”And if Gareth threatens to seize your house?”

Harlan looked toward the twenty barrels. ”Then I make enough profit to hide a second house.”

That answer made Wayne laugh; Harlan’s humor did not hide the risk: House Caron could raid a warehouse, seize a cart, or make an example of a merchant. What the price proved was that the risk had become calculable rather than prohibitive; every extra stag of margin bought a little more willingness to ignore Gareth’s order.

Arlan let the laughter pass. Harlan had answered his real concern: the merchant could keep supplies moving both ways. House Caron could make trade dangerous, but it could not make the profit disappear. Harlan placed both hands on the table.

”Name the monthly amount.”

”Five hundred bottles at minimum.” The merchant’s eyebrows rose.

”At one point two silver stags each,” Arlan continued. ”You handle the Rainwood channel and help procure blocked supplies. Fail either side and the arrangement ends.” Harlan looked at the barrels again, then extended his hand.

”Done.” The other two merchants protested immediately, but their shouting no longer mattered. FireStorm had not merely found a buyer. It had found a route through the blockade.