ASOIAF: The Rise of House Ashenblade.

Rainwood traded around FireStorm as though the two empty wagons carried plague. Shops remained open for ordinary customers, smiths worked beneath raised shutters, and carts crossed the market square. Whenever Arlan’s red-marked wheels approached, merchants stepped inside and doors found reasons to close.

By the time the empty wagons reached the market square, a clerk had nailed Harlan’s detention notice across the merchant’s door. No charge appeared beneath the name. Wayne counted another pair watching the lane from a cooper’s yard. ”He frightened them all.”

”He frightened each of them differently,” Arlan said.

A cloth dealer feared his debts would be called. Tavern keepers had been warned that licenses might be reviewed after a fire or sickness involving strong spirits. Coastal factors heard that undeclared FireStorm glass would be held at the port. One cooper had already received a demand for three years of disputed stall fees after repairing FireStorm barrels, and a carter’s brother had been dismissed from a Caron stable the morning after carrying one load. Men who had paid deposits worried that admitting ownership would give clerks a reason to search every warehouse they used.

The demand remained. The buyers wanted the goods behind the joint seals, and their deposits were already trapped with them. What they lacked was a way to collect either without standing alone beneath Elton’s attention.

Bennard met Arlan behind the Drunken Stag and refused to enter the tavern. ”The association will honor the contracts if the warehouse opens.”

”How many names remain?”

”Nine. Three withdrew this morning. Two others want their deposits returned before sunset.” He looked toward the Caron watcher at the end of the lane. ”They were told their sons might be questioned about smuggling. Another was shown a list of every cart that entered his yard this month. Nobody threatened him; the clerk only asked whether all his taxes were in order.”

Arlan ordered the deposits returned. Coin held by fear bought no loyalty and gave Elton an easy example of Ashenblade dishonesty. Bennard stared at him, then promised to carry the answer to the other buyers.

A stable boy ran into the lane before he finished. Hoofbeats followed from the western road, too many for a patrol. The boy gasped that Elton had entered Rainwood with three hundred household men and twenty knights; moments later the western portcullis struck stone, and bells carried the closing of the other gates.

Wayne brought the twenty FireStorm guards around Arlan and the empty wagons. Their shields faced outward, but no man drew until ordered. Retreat through the market would abandon the sealed cargo, confirm every accusation of smuggling, and place the party inside alleys prepared by men who controlled the town.

Caron soldiers appeared at both ends of the street. Archers occupied side lanes, mounted messengers moved behind the formations, and officers left enough space for knights to pass between infantry blocks. This had been arranged before Elton reached the square.

A woman’s basket overturned as she pulled a child indoors. Apples rolled across the cobbles between the two forces; nobody stepped out to retrieve them.

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Elton rode a white horse beneath the black nightingales. Gareth and Auston flanked him, one in plate and the other carrying the same decorated shortsword he wore at the customs table. Elton stopped beyond FireStorm’s spear reach. ”Arlan Ashenblade. You enter Rainwood under disputed levy, conceal contraband, arm men beyond your station, and disturb the southern marches.”

”If this were a customs hearing, you would not need three hundred men.”

”It is no longer a customs hearing.”

A knight threw a packet of parchment onto the street. Pages spread beneath the horses. One described an alliance between House Ashenblade and Bloodhand leaders; another listed FireStorm’s weapons and guards as a private army. A third claimed Arlan had offered Dornish riders access through the mountain passes.

The lies had been written for different fears. Marcher lords would remember Dorne. Merchants would see smuggling and unsafe goods. Storm’s End would see troops raised beneath a temporary warrant. Elton did not need one story to survive every examination if each audience repeated the part shaped for it.

Arlan dismounted far enough to lift the nearest page without leaving Wayne’s line. The weapons inventory was close and wrong in a useful way. It counted the spears issued before the last muster but omitted the heavy crossbows bought after Graeme’s arrest; it also listed two men killed before the newest guard roll and none of the refugees accepted afterward. The figures could have come from records stolen before Graeme’s arrest, not from a witness inside FireStorm now.

The supposed Dornish letter named three passes, one by an old title no local rider had used in years. Its seal copied the Ashenblade sun but reversed two flames around the sword. Detailed forgery remained forgery, though the crowd behind shutters could not inspect either error from a distance.

Elton let Arlan read before speaking again. ”You have ten days to explain those papers to Lord Renly. Until then, the goods in my warehouse and the armed men in my streets remain under lawful control.”

”Then why close the gates?”

”Because traitors flee when evidence arrives.”

Auston raised a second parchment. Unlike the scattered accusations, this one carried the crowned stag seal of Storm’s End. He read its command aloud: Arlan Ashenblade was to be secured and delivered for examination; his armed retainers were to surrender until Renly judged the danger.

Wayne’s shield edge touched Arlan’s arm. ”My lord.”

The seal looked genuine. From several paces away, Arlan could not test the wax, compare the hand, or determine whether a narrower summons had been stretched into authority for Caron custody. The old warrant against raiders did not answer a document that appeared to carry the same superior power.

”Place the decree beneath the warehouse’s three seals,” Arlan said. ”Let a Storm’s End officer examine it with the rest.”

Elton’s expression barely changed. ”You do not set the terms of your arrest.”

”If the command is Renly’s, joint custody preserves it. If you refuse, every merchant here learns you need the paper used before it can be read.”

The argument reached the watching windows. It did not stop the soldiers. Elton signaled, and thirty spearmen advanced with manacles carried behind them.

Arlan could cut through the first men. Wayne might open a side lane, and most of the twenty guards would die beneath arrows while Elton reported armed resistance to a Baratheon decree. Surrender carried a different danger: prisoners vanished easily on roads controlled by the men writing the account.

”Hold,” Arlan told Wayne. He left his sword sheathed and stepped to the front of the shields. ”Bring the decree close enough for me to obey the words you claim are there.”

Auston hesitated. Elton ordered him forward.

Before he completed the first step, hoofbeats sounded from the eastern street. White cloaks appeared beneath crowned stag banners, and the voice that carried ahead of them belonged to a man accustomed to tournaments falling silent when his name was announced.

”Nobody touches that parchment.”

Ser Loras Tyrell rode into the square with twenty Storm’s End men behind him. His silver-white armor caught the afternoon light, but his attention remained on the sealed decree in Auston’s hand.

He had not come to admire Rainwood’s market.