ASOIAF: The Rise of House Ashenblade.

For three months, FireStorm enjoyed something close to peace, though no one trusted it enough to call it secure. The Black Armor Army trained before sunrise and again before dusk, while refugees continued arriving from the surrounding hills in twos and threes.

Fields lost to fire were turned again, and the distillery and glassworks kept selling through routes too small and irregular for Elton Caron to choke completely. Each ordinary day added another layer of weight to House Ashenblade, which was precisely why Elton never stopped pressing.

This time he used men without nightingales on their shields. Ur led more than a hundred survivors from bands Arlan and Cade had already broken, men who knew the western hills and had been promised fifty gold dragons, loot, and whatever panic they could leave behind.

Cloud covered the moon when they came down from the slopes. FireStorm’s western settlement held many of the newest families, with crude houses, shallow ditches, and a watchtower raised only weeks earlier, making it the weakest place to strike without meeting the main garrison immediately. The first warning was firelight moving between the trees; the second was the horn.

Three urgent blasts rolled over the settlement as torches struck dry thatch and families spilled into the lane, dragging children toward the stone shelters Arlan had ordered after the earlier raids. Some villagers froze until neighbors seized them by the arms and pulled them clear.

Cade was moving before the second blast ended. He took most of the Black Armor Army east to prevent a second group from circling behind the holding, while Arlan rode west with Brienne, Wayne, and ten household guards, reaching the settlement beneath a reddened sky.

One house had already lost its roof, and another burned along the eaves while villagers tried to form a bucket line from a shallow cistern. Bandits moved among them with blades and brands, striking at anyone who came too near the street or tried to save grain from the houses.

Arlan drew his hand-and-a-half sword. ”Households first. Keep the lane open and drive the civilians behind the stone shelters.” Wayne split the guards into two groups without argument. One shield line cleared families away from the flames, while the other secured Arlan’s flank and kept the bucket line from being cut apart by men who had expected frightened settlers rather than disciplined resistance.

Three bandits rushed the first shield group together. Spears stopped two at reach, and Arlan stepped outside the third man’s axe before driving his sword beneath the ribs, turning toward the next threat before the body finished falling.

Brienne was already farther forward. Her greatsword carried the force of a polearm without sacrificing control, and the first bandit who met it went down from the flat hard enough to stay there. A second tried to catch the blade on a short sword and lost his guard entirely. Ur saw her before he found Arlan through the smoke. ”The woman first! Kill her, then take the lord!”

A dozen men broke away from a burning house and converged on her. Brienne gave ground once, deliberately, planting beside a broken fence where only three attackers could reach her at a time before shortening her grip and making the narrow ground work in her favor.

Steel rang against steel. One blade glanced from her shoulder plate, while another found the outside of her left arm where the armor had shifted, darkening the sleeve with blood. Arlan killed the man trying to work behind her before he could exploit the opening.

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”Brienne.”

”I am holding.”

She was, though the odds were worsening. Wayne’s men could not abandon the civilians merely to thicken the guard around their lord, so Brienne became the hinge of the street: every man she stopped was one fewer reaching Arlan, the bucket line, or the families behind them.

A second cut opened at her waist. Another blade scraped down the back of her harness and bit near the left shoulder, making her stagger before she recovered and drove the point of her greatsword through the attacker’s chest.

Arlan stopped treating the fight as a series of duels. Ur was the point holding the raid together, and breaking that point would do more than killing another half-dozen men in the lane, so he began cutting toward the bandit chief through the smoke.

Ur understood a moment too late and tried to withdraw. He had wanted fire, scattered villagers, and frightened guards, not trained troops arriving before the settlement had finished burning, but Bor came through the haze with three Black Armor men before he found a path away.

The giant’s fist struck between Ur’s shoulders and drove him face-first into the dirt. Before the bandit chief could rise, two spearheads crossed above his neck, and Cade’s main force entered the settlement from the eastern road moments later.

The battle changed immediately. Shields locked in the lane, spears worked through the gaps, and men who had been attacking civilians now faced a formation that advanced without breaking ranks to chase. Some threw down their weapons; others ran toward the hills and found the eastern route already watched. Organized resistance ended before dawn. The fires took longer.

Arlan kept soldiers on the bucket lines after the last bandit was bound, pulling down roofs where flame threatened to jump between houses and driving livestock away from burning sheds. The settlement had been badly scarred, but the early horn and fast response kept it from becoming a graveyard.

Brienne remained in the lane until there was no enemy left who could reach Arlan. Only then did the point of her greatsword touch the ground, revealing how badly she was bleeding beneath soot-blackened armor and how low her left shoulder had begun to hang.

”You did well,” Arlan said as he reached her.

A tired smile touched her face. ”My lord is standing.”

”So are you. Barely.”

She tried to answer, failed, and folded before her knees struck the mud. Arlan caught her under the arms, then handed her to two guards who carried her back toward FireStorm while Cade began separating Ur from the surviving raiders.

Rodrick was waiting in the infirmary. He counted seven blade wounds across Brienne’s arm, waist, shoulder, and back; the deepest lay near the left shoulder, where steel had torn through leather and flesh without reaching the joint itself.

He cleaned the cuts with strong spirit, stitched what required closing, and wrapped her in fresh linen. Arlan waited outside until Rodrick finally emerged with blood on his hands and the expression of a man already annoyed by the patient he had saved.

”She lost a great deal of blood,” Rodrick said. ”She will live if she remains in bed and refrains from proving otherwise.”

”That sounds aimed at her.”

”It is aimed at both of you.”

When Brienne woke, her first attempt was to rise. The woman tending her forced her gently back and told her Arlan was alive, which ended the struggle more effectively than any threat Rodrick might have devised. Arlan entered shortly afterward with warm broth. Brienne looked past the bowl and inspected his face, arms, and gait as though the answer she had already received still required independent confirmation.

”I am fine,” he said.

Only then did she exhale; Arlan set the bowl near her. ”You are not.”

”I can still hold a sword.”

”That is not the standard for leaving an infirmary.”

Her mouth tightened, but she did not argue immediately. Outside, Cade had begun questioning Ur and the captured lieutenants; inside, Brienne looked down at the bandages crossing her body before lifting her eyes back to Arlan.

”I swore to guard you.”

”Guarding me does not require dying when another choice exists.”

For the first time since waking, she looked uncertain. Arlan pushed the bowl closer and told her they could argue about vows once Rodrick stopped threatening everyone who walked through the infirmary door. Brienne took the broth with both hands. Beyond the wall, Cade’s interrogation began tracing the night’s fire back to Elton Caron’s coin.