ASOIAF: The Rise of House Ashenblade.

Rodrick worked with the infirmary door shut and everyone else kept outside. He scrubbed his hands, boiled the small instruments he trusted, and washed the skin around Cade’s wound with strong liquor, and Cade bit down on folded leather while Rodrick widened the torn flesh just enough to reach the barbed head without dragging it backward through muscle.

The bolt had missed the lung by less than anyone in the room found comforting. Rodrick checked Cade’s breathing twice before committing to the cut, and the strong spirit cleaned skin and steel; it did not make the work painless and it did not make infection impossible. Clean linen, boiled water, and refusing to hurry mattered just as much.

Cade’s hands locked around the sides of the cot. ”You are allowed to make noise,” Rodrick told him.

Cade spat the leather out long enough to answer. ”Wouldn’t help.”

”It occasionally helps the healer feel appreciated.”

The metal finally came free with a wet pull and struck the bowl beside the bed, and Rodrick washed the wound again, packed it with the herbs he trusted for bleeding, and bound Cade’s chest tightly in clean linen. By the time he finished, Cade’s face had gone grey; Arlan entered after Rodrick allowed it and handed the wounded captain warm ale.

”You passed.”

Cade swallowed and tried to sit straighter, and Rodrick immediately pushed him back against the bedding. ”That why you saved me?” Cade asked. ”Because I can command?”

”I stopped Elton’s men because they were trying to kill a man before anyone could hear what he knew; your ability is useful. It is not the same question.”

Cade studied him for several breaths. Then he told one of his companions to bring the oilskin bundle they had guarded through the road fight. Inside it was a small wooden box.

The records were methodical, and Raymond Weil had not merely stolen coin from a single pay chest. Small shortages repeated over months, each one easy to excuse as waste, damaged equipment, or accounting error. Weapons disappeared in similarly modest numbers until the totals became impossible to dismiss, and several routes ended with intermediaries already connected to raider bands.

There were warehouse records, signed accounts, correspondence, and notes linking missing ordnance to men who later appeared among the mountain raiders. A handful of letters implied Elton had known his tax official was useful precisely because diverted grain, coin, and steel bought quiet arrangements beyond the roads.

Cade had kept the originals. ”Copies got people killed,” he said. ”These were the only things worth dying for.”

”Why not Renly in person?” Arlan asked.

”I tried, three times.”

The first messenger disappeared on the north road; the second was found dead before reaching Storm’s End; the third never left Rainwood. After that, every household Cade approached found a reason to refuse him shelter. ”Elton does not need every man loyal,” Cade said. ”He only needs enough men uncertain which innkeeper, groom, or road captain belongs to him.”

Arlan closed the box.

”Then the originals stay locked; Rodrick makes copies by separate hands. No single messenger carries everything.”

Cade looked at him. ”If you use it against Elton, I’m yours.”

”Your service is to FireStorm while you are here, not to a private revenge campaign. If those become different things, you tell me before acting.”

Cade considered that longer than Arlan expected, then nodded. ”Fair.”

”Heal first, swear dramatic loyalties later.”

A laugh turned into a wince.

Three days passed before Cade could cross the infirmary without Rodrick threatening to put him back in bed. By then his six surviving companions had received the same treatment and the same rule as any other armed refugees: food and medical care first, work and oaths only after they could stand without falling over. Four had served with Cade before his flight; two had joined him during the year on the road, and none entered FireStorm’s guard automatically.

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Three days later, Arlan gathered the household council.

Morton reported five hundred barrels of aged Red Sun Flame in storage, three hundred pieces of glassware ready or nearly ready, and food sufficient for roughly four months at current population. He separated what could be sold from what could not: grain reserves were not to be traded merely because merchants offered good coin, and at least one glass service intended for Robert would remain packed until Arlan personally approved its use. Herbs, cloth, and wrought iron were better stocked than when the blockade began, but none of that meant abundance. Four months of food could become three quickly if more refugees arrived, while the workshops consumed iron faster as the guard expanded. Gifts for Robert and Renly were prepared separately: two of the clearest glass services, twenty barrels from the best sealed spirit stock, and a glass map ornament made by the most skilled kiln hands.

The council itself looked different from the frightened gatherings of the first week. There were maps worth using, written inventories, men responsible for defined functions, and enough reserves that every problem did not begin with the same question of whether FireStorm could afford three silver stags.

Rodrick brought fresher news, and he had begun receiving messages by more than one path already: a tavern contact in Rainwood, a post-station worker, and a household servant connected indirectly to Storm’s End. None alone could be trusted completely; agreement between them made the reports useful.

”The royal progress has been postponed without a new date. Robert and Cersei remain in King’s Landing, but the household’s advance officers are already moving south. Renly still wants the regional accounts and witness rolls ready.”

Brienne rested her greatsword against the table. ”Then we ride soon.”

Wayne’s concern was FireStorm rather than the road. ”If Arlan leaves, the holding needs a commander who understands more than gate defense.” Arlan looked at Cade. The wounded captain straightened.

”You brought wounded men and prisoners through a threatened pass while half-bleeding to death. Your reputation says you know how infantry survives battles that knights call victories afterward.”

Cade said nothing, and the offer mattered to him precisely because Arlan was not pretending the man’s wanted status had disappeared, and FireStorm would use his skill while protecting itself from the possibility that Elton’s accusations contained some truth not yet uncovered.

”You will train FireStorm’s infantry; Wayne remains deputy commander and controls the existing watch. You work together, no independent levies. No private punishments, no turning my guards into followers loyal to you before the holding.”

Cade stared at him long enough that Wayne began smiling.

”You trust a wanted man with your infantry?”

”I trust the evidence I have seen, the orders you gave at the pass, and the fact that Wayne is standing beside you with authority to report if you become an idiot. Trust is not blindness.”

Cade went to one knee despite Rodrick’s audible disapproval.

”I understand.”

”Within three months I want a unit that can hold formation under arrows, meet a charge without scattering, and retreat without becoming a rout. I do not need men who look impressive in a yard.”

”You’ll have them.”

Wayne offered Cade his forearm when he rose. ”If you make them better, I do not care whose name is written first on the roster.”

Cade gripped it. ”If I make them worse, you should care enough to tell him.”

That was a workable beginning, and there was no resentment in it, and Wayne had spent enough time fighting beside frightened farmers to appreciate the arrival of someone who could teach them not to die.

The appointment did not give Cade a force of his own: rosters remained under Morton’s records, weapons under central stores, and discipline required Wayne or Arlan for punishments beyond routine drill. Cade accepted the limits without complaint; the next mornings changed immediately, and sleep became a more valuable commodity.

Cade began with shields and feet, because men who could not move together had no business learning clever attacks, and he made that point repeatedly and loudly. Men who had grown used to Arlan’s emphasis on lethal openings now learned the opposite lesson: an individual opening meant nothing if taking it broke the group. Cade made them repeat three steps forward and two back until the movement bored them, then repeated it until boredom stopped degrading the line. No heroics. Men learned distance before attack, how much space a spear needed behind a shield, how to replace a wounded front man without opening the line, and Arlan added his own lessons about exploiting angles, conserving movement, and attacking vulnerable points rather than hacking at armor.

The methods came from different worlds and fit because both cared more about survival than spectacle. On the second night, Arlan entered the small locked room where system deliveries could be handled without witnesses, and he intended to inspect what additional equipment the current permissions allowed.

The equipment question remained unresolved. Better formation could not make rotten spearheads sharp; the existing guard owned a mixture of system purchases, captured weapons, and locally repaired steel, while Arlan intended to standardize only what FireStorm could afford without emptying its reserves.

Before he could finish, someone knocked; Rodrick entered with a fresh message from Rainwood. ”Change of route,” he said. Arlan took the note and read that the royal advance officers would inspect Rainwood, scarcely thirty miles from FireStorm, as a possible first stop before Storm’s End whenever the progress resumed.