Chapter Text
Gerald wasn't used to this. He was a farmhand on Lord Umber's lands; he'd worked the fields his whole life, as had his father, and his father before him. Gerald was a little taller than most and slim besides, with not much to offer the North. Yet when Robb Stark called the banners, a spear was thrust into his hands and he was told he had to fight.
Only yesterday had been his twenty fourth nameday. Today he was expected to stand in his lord's colors in a lord's hall, drink Frey ale, and pretend he belonged among real fighting men.
Truth be told, Gerald had always wanted to see a feast. He'd never been invited to one. His job was simple: bring in the crops before winter hit and try not to freeze to death in the meantime. Lord Umber never spared him a thought, nor anyone else he knew. Why would he? Umber rubbed shoulders with the Starks; Gerald and his kin shoveled shit, worked the fields, and scraped by on a meager wage.
Gerald was a peasant, of a wholly different class. The lords might as well have lived in another world, one where men like him weren't even meant to be seen.
And yet here he was, under the shadow of the Twins, close enough to hear the music pounding through the stone. A soft breeze pressed against him, carrying the sound of men laughing and drinking. He looked around and noticed something peculiar. Riverlords and rivermen were drinking, laughing, and having a good time. Starks and Stark men such as himself took their toasts outside the keep. Laughter filled the yard.
But when he looked at the Frey men, he had to search hard to see one with a cup in hand. Even Gerald had had a couple of mugs of ale before he noticed it. A few Freys drank here and there, but most of them were stone sober and tight faced, with only the occasional soft joke between them. Nothing about them said feast.
Gerald tried to shake the thought, took a long swig of ale, and pushed ahead.
"Gerald! Get your beady eyed self over here and help me with this barrel!" a man shouted.
Mikken was another spearman, a few years younger than Gerald. Twenty one namedays had passed him; he was still shaking off the last of his awkward youth. Mikken had worked the fields with Gerald, and though he was boastful, he'd always seemed a solid sort. He'd fought beside Gerald with a spear in hand against Jaime Lannister's host at Oxcross.
He was shorter than Gerald, with black hair and brown eyes much like Gerald's own. Where Gerald was lean, with a short stubble that never seemed to grow into a proper beard, Mikken was already sprouting a thick one. His face was rounder, his frame sturdier and solid, broad shouldered man built for shoving barrels and bracing a shield in a shieldwall.
Gerald helped Mikken carry the barrel. They set it down, knocked the cork out, and men were already crowding in with cups. Rivermen, Stark men, all laughing. A Frey came over to fill his own, the only one Gerald had seen drink all night. As the man tipped his cup, his sleeve slid back. Torchlight caught a band of steel around his wrist, half hidden under the cloth.
Why in the blue hells would he be wearing chainmail? Gerald stared. You did not wear armor to a feast unless you thought you might need it.
His stomach dropped.
Mikken was already walking away, laughing, ale slopping over the rim of his cup. Gerald grabbed him by the arm and yanked him back around.
"You need to leave," he whispered. "Now. Grab as many Rivermen and Stark men as you can and get out of here."
"What in bloody hell are you talking about?" Mikken pulled his arm back, face scrunched in confusion.
"Just go," Gerald said. He kept his voice low and tried not to look at any of the Freys. Then he crossed back to the barrel, snatched up a spear that had been leaning against it, and started toward the keep.
Gerald tried to relax, and act like he was part of the feast. Just a man that was carrying his weapon with him to not lose it. Yet, his intentions were entirely different. Something was going down today and Robb Stark gave people that he cared about something they haven't had in a long time. Hope. He was going to see him leave. Gerald still hoped to himself that it was all just a conspiracy formulated in his head. That none of what he was thinking about would come to happen. At the end he was hoping that Robb would look at him and laugh, and he would essentially be the Lord's laughingstock. That was what he hoped for at least.
Entering the hall he could hear the wooden doors creak as he slipped by in, noticed two guards guarding the doorway, they gave him a small glance but paid no mind to him. Gearld started to think perhaps it was because he was a peasant, what danger could he possibly be? As he approached the king's table, that was when the world changed.
Crossbow bolts screamed across the hall and punched into Stark men. Gerald acted on instinct. He grabbed the edge of the table and heaved, flipping it over just as more bolts thudded into the wood.
An older man with hair cut so short he was near bald, the flayed man of Bolton on his chest, was already moving toward Robb Stark. In his hand, half-hidden by the chaos, Gerald saw the flash of a dagger. The man wasn't looking at the Freys or the guards. His eyes were fixed on Robb.
Gerald threw himself at the king, knocking him to the ground as another volley of bolts slammed into the upturned table. He rolled, saw the Bolton man looming over them, dagger coming down, and did the only thing he could think of.
He drove his fist up as hard as he could into the man's jaw.
Bone crunched. The Bolton staggered, eyes rolling, and toppled backwards out of sight.
Lucky punch, Gerald thought wildly.
"We need to go, ye Grace!" he shouted, grabbing Robb by the collar and dragging him toward the doors.
Shouts and screams filled the hall. Men dropped left and right, cut down by bolts and knives. Above it all, the musicians sawed out the same cold, thin tune. The Rains of Castamere.
The two guards from the doorway rushed at them. Gerald snatched up his spear, braced, and hurled it. The point took the first man in the face under his helm and dropped him where he stood. The second came on with a roar. Gerald heard Robb's answering scream of rage at his side and flinched as the king's sword hacked the man down.
"Talisa!" Robb screamed, looking back at his wife, now laid out on the floor, eyes closed, covered in her own blood. He barely had time to move before Gerald grabbed him and dragged him toward the door.
"We need to go, ye Grace, now!"
Robb had tears streaming down his face. He moved on instinct. Another Frey rushed them and Robb swung, his sword biting into the man's neck. The Frey dropped, blood spraying across the rushes. Gerald snatched up another spear, drove it into the throat of a second Frey who charged them.
"My wife… my child," Robb said, still in disbelief.
"Sire, don't grieve them now," Gerald snapped. "They'd want you living. Grieve them when we're out of this shithole."
They rounded a corner and saw two Freys hacking at a lone Riverman, the man already stumbling under their blows. Their backs were turned. Robb buried his sword in one man's back. Gerald thrust his spear clean through the other, dropping them both.
He looked at the bewildered Riverman.
"Follow and protect your king!" Gerald barked.
For the first time in his life he was giving orders to the sort of man who usually shouted at him and dumped the worst work on his head. Any other day Gerald might have laughed at the thought, and the swordsman might have beaten him bloody for it. Now, with bodies all around and the hall screaming, the man just nodded, tightened his grip on his sword, and moved to Robb's flank.
Stark and Rivermen were dying all around. It wasn't a battle but a slaughter. Some of the lucky Stark and Rivermen were able to grab their swords and weapons and at least make a fight of it, many of them were cut down anyways. The three men met up with a Stark swordsmen, holding a sword clearly bloodied however wasn't facing anyone at the moment. He instantly joined the group.
"What in the seven hells is going on!" A man screamed, he was down to just his brown wool pants, was wearing no shirt. A Bolton man approached him and the shirtless man cut him down with ease, showing years of training.
"Edmure, they are trying to kill us. Lets get out of here!" Robb shouted, Edmure just nodded and waved his arm as a pretty girl followed him. A few more stragglers joined up, all surrounding Rob and Edmure trying to protect them. Gerald was desperately trying to rally anyone he saw that was a Stark or Rivermen to join them, at the same token held onto his spear so tight that his hands hurt. He looked ahead.
"They are blocking the way out!" Gerald screamed, stating the obvious, as about 10 Freys were guarding the gates at the south tower.
"Then cut them down!" Robb Ordered, the straggling men just nodded and engaged the Freys, as did Gerald. He held the spear and quickly stabbed a men in the chest with all he could muster, the spear going through the mans mail into his chest. Withdrawing it, he stabbed another man that went to stab Robb from behind, a third Frey tackled into him against the wall. Pressing his spear down and closing the distance rendering it useless. Lifting up a short sword the man was going to stab him. Gerald knew he had to do something else he would be disemboweled on this forsaken ground.
With all of his might he grabbed his arm and held the sword down to the Freys side then bit the man in the cheek as hard as he can tearing the flesh from his face. The man let out a blood curling scream that sent shivers down to his spine, dropping the sword. In a quick moment Gerald picked up the sword and rammed it through his neck. Going back down he picked back up his spear and looked around. The Frey's guarding the door was dead, a few of the Starks and Rivermen dead. Robb, Edmure, Gerald and the motley crew assembled in haste ran out of the keep.
Outside the Twins was no better than inside. Out here the hosts of men were fighting, but the Starks and Rivermen were badly outnumbered and out-equipped. A few put up a valiant fight, but it was clear this wasn't a battle. If it ever had been, it was long since lost.
Gerald ran at the front of their little knot, a farmhand with a spear in his hands sprinting through a field of dead and dying. For a heartbeat he slowed. At his feet lay a familiar face.
"Mikken…" Gerald said aloud.
"He's lost. We need to move," Edmure answered. Robb, trying to grieve while fighting through the madness, had gone quiet. So far he'd let Edmure take charge of getting them out.
"He was my friend," Gerald said.
"Everyone lost someone dear to them today. Remember him, but move on. We will get our vengeance," Robb snapped back, his voice enough to jolt Gerald out of his frozen stare.
Gerald nodded and forced his legs to keep moving.
Ahead he saw an older man with a greatsword cleaving through Freys. Blades had already found him; Gerald could see the blood soaking his mail. He was going to die here in the field, but the look on his face said plain he'd die with a sword in his hand.
"Lord Forrester!" Robb shouted, charging the Freys swarming the old man. He and a few Stark swordsmen cut them down.
Gregor let out a long breath. "I'm done for, your Grace," he said, looking up at Robb, barely holding himself upright on his knees.
"You served your house and your king with honor, Gregor," Robb replied, standing over him.
"If you will, your Grace… get my squire out. He's served me well. He'll need another knight to squire for." Gregor's voice shook, but his eyes were steady.
"I promise," Robb said. He had known Gregor since he was a boy—one of the few small houses sworn directly to Stark, not through a greater lord.
"Go, then, your Grace. I'll buy you time," Gregor said. He pushed himself back to his feet and met another Frey, sword swinging, as Robb Stark, Edmure Tully, Gerald and the rest of the stragglers broke away.
"We get through these trees here and follow the riverbank," Edmure called a little later, breathless but thinking. "It'll take us straight to Riverrun."
Robb agreed at once. Gerald was shaking and felt sick. He tried not to vomit in the grass and failed, dropping to a knee and retching.
"What is your name, ser?" Robb asked him when he was done.
Gerald wiped his mouth and looked up. "Gerald, your Grace."
"Gerald," Robb said, meeting his eyes. "The king is in your debt, but I've one more favor to ask of you."
Gerald still felt numb. "What is it?"
"Come with us to Riverrun," Robb said. "Help me see that the bastards who did this meet the end they deserve."
Something in that snapped him back together. Gerald straightened, fingers tightening around his spear.
"Of course," he said.
The screams behind them grew softer as they pushed on. For the moment, they were safe.
As the hours passed, more men stumbled out of the dark to join them—Stark men, Rivermen, all with the same hollow look. Most of them had been running for their lives with one thought in mind: get to the nearest friendly holdfast. For the Rivermen, that meant one place above all.
"Riverrun," they were saying to each other when they first saw Gerald's band by the riverbank. "We'll go to Riverrun. Lord Brynden will know what to do now that Stark and Tully are gone."
Then someone in the growing grey light recognized a face. Word rippled through the stragglers like fire through dry grass.
"That's Edmure."
"And Stark—Robb Stark's alive."
Men who had been walking with their heads down straightened. A few even laughed, sharp and disbelieving, or wiped at their eyes with dirty hands. By the time they set off again along the riverbank, they weren't just a collection of broken survivors running for a wall.
They were following their lord and their king.
By the next night they reached Riverrun.
Gerald tried to keep his face steady. He'd never spent time inside Riverrun before—only ever waited outside its walls as a spear levy, told where to stand and when to march. For the first time in his life he walked through its gates, across its yard, into its stone belly. He only wished it were under better circumstances.
A large, older man with a sword at his hip was waiting for them, grey hair, hard eyes, every man around him holding himself a little straighter. Brynden Tully, the Blackfish. His face was like carved stone, but the fury in his eyes was plain.
Robb spoke with him only briefly. Then, for the first time since the slaughter began, he turned away from his men, shut himself in a chamber, and did not come out.
Word of what Gerald had done at the Twins spread fast. He was given bread and salt, a real bed, and the kind of respect usually reserved for minor lords. It sat strangely on his shoulders. Instead of lying down, he followed his king.
He knocked on the door. After a moment it opened. Robb stood there, hair a mess, face red and streaked with tears.
"Talisa…" he choked.
"Your grace," Gerald said softly.
He had a wife of his own back on Umber lands, a woman who was his whole world. He could not begin to imagine what Robb had just seen done to his. He wasn't sure what sort of man would come out the other side of that. He shuddered to think what he would have become, if it had been Jonelle.
"My wife and my child… they butchered them like cattle!" Robb screamed.
Gerald couldn't relate to the loss itself, only to the thought of it. He just knew his king needed someone standing there who wasn't a lord or a banner or a duty, just a man.
He crossed to the table and poured wine into a cup.
"I don't want no bloody drink!" Robb snapped at him.
Gerald only nodded. "No," he said quietly, "but you need it."
Robb stared at him for a long heartbeat, breathing hard. Then he snatched the cup from Gerald's hand and drank it down in great gulps.