GoT: From Mud To Iron

Reading to this point, Ser Adam stopped. He raised his head, his clouded eyes wide with absolute shock.

He looked over at Jero Lege, finding that the young lord was staring back at him with a similar expression, though one rooted more in twisted fascination than horror.

The knights gathered around the excavated grave were dead silent. The only sound was the harsh, rhythmic crack of the burning torches in the night wind.

A young knight stammered, taking a step back. "We... we cannot read any more of this!"

"This... this is the blasphemous heresy of a madman!"

Ser Adam's fingers trembled slightly against the brittle paper. Part of him profoundly regretted ever opening the journal, but a morbid, inescapable curiosity forced him to turn to the next page.

The handwriting on this page began to warp. It became frantic, scribbled, and wild, as if the writer had been possessed by an extreme, feverish mania when he penned it. Drops of ink bled heavily through the parchment.

Ser Adam's dry lips parted, and he continued reading the mad ravings of the dead man.

"I have seen the lowest hell. Flea Bottom. I watched children digging through rotting piles of garbage for scraps of food. There was no light in their eyes, only the hollow stare of the dying."

"I saw mothers selling their bodies in the mud, just to earn a single crust of black bread so their children might survive one more night."

"Yet, only a few streets away in the manses of the highborn, the food the nobles use merely to decorate their platters would be enough to feed a hundred of those families through the dead of winter."

Jero Lege let out a sudden, dismissive snort of laughter, drawing the gaze of the stunned knights. "A sentimental fool. That is simply the way the world works."

He waved a hand carelessly. "We are the nobility! It is our divine right, granted by the Seven!"

Ser Adam ignored him, his eyes locked on the page. As he read, his voice seemed to carry the profound confusion and agony of the diary's author across a century of time.

"I asked myself over and over: Is this the world I swore to protect with my life? Is this the true meaning of a knight's vow? Is this the will of the Seven?"

"No. It is all a lie."

"I went to my fellow squires. They told me I was thinking too much. They said this was simply the rule of the world—the weak are meant to be crushed beneath the boots of the strong."

"My eldest brother reprimanded me violently. He said the duty of House Solomon was absolute obedience, not questioning our betters."

"But I could no longer lie to myself. My eyes had seen it. My heart had felt it. They had all forgotten."

"They had forgotten that before we were gifted a tower, our father and our bloodline were just as lowborn and wretched as the people bleeding in the streets."

"My brothers rejected me. I wandered aimlessly through the stench of Flea Bottom, my soul completely hollowed out."

"Until I saw a crowd. They were gathered around a man in ragged clothes. He was as thin as dry kindling, but his eyes... his eyes held a roaring fire."

"The people called him the Shepherd."

Jero's mocking smile faltered for a second. The Shepherd. The name tugged at the corner of his memory, a footnote from an ancient history text.

Ser Adam's voice dropped even lower, as if reciting a forbidden incantation.

"The Shepherd spoke softly, yet his words beat against the chest of every man present like a war drum."

"He said that dragons were demons born of godless Valyria! They did not belong in this world! He said that the nobles were parasites attached to the flesh of the smallfolk! They suck our blood dry, and when there is no blood left, they gnaw on our bones!"

"Who starves our children? Who defiles our wives? It is the dragons! It is the Targaryens! It is the high lords in their castles! We do not need dragons! We do not need lords! We only need to take back what is ours!"

"I was wearing the fine clothes of a noble squire. My presence should have sent those starving people scattering in terror. But they only looked at me. And I stood there, my feet nailed to the mud. Because every single word the man spoke was the absolute, undeniable truth I had seen with my own eyes."

The graveyard fell into a suffocating silence, save for the crackling of the torches. The knights were horrified by the increasingly treasonous, world-breaking words pouring from the dead man's pen.

Jero Lege, however, suddenly found the story incredibly entertaining. He remembered exactly who the Shepherd was, and he wanted to hear the end of the tale. He urged the old knight on. "Keep reading."

"I made my choice."

"I would become a guard for the Shepherd. I would use the steel in my hand to protect the truly innocent—the smallfolk beloved by the Seven."

"I stripped off my squire's livery—the fabric of lies. I dressed myself in the coarsest hemp."

"I found the Shepherd in a filthy, cramped cellar, surrounded by his followers."

"There were blacksmiths, bakers, whores, and beggars... and when they looked at me, there was no longer fear in their eyes. They looked at me, and they saw a brother."

"The Shepherd was no madman. He told me he had walked the length of Westeros, and all he saw was oppression and deceit."

"He told me that the world of the nobility was built entirely on a foundation of lies. And to build something new, those lies first had to be burned to the ground."

"The smallfolk marched to the Red Keep. They had no weapons. They only went to beg the Queen for mercy—to beg her to lower the crippling taxes, to beg her to stop sending their sons into the meat grinder of her war."

"They offered only humble prayers for peace."

"And then... the dragon came."

"The Queen unleashed her golden beast, Syrax. It descended from the sky like a burning sun. The dragonflame washed over the front of the crowd. Men, women, children... they were instantly turned to black ash. They did not even have time to scream."

"I looked at those charred, smoking corpses. Among them was an old woman who had given me a bowl of water when I was thirsty. Beside her was a little girl who always smiled at me."

"In that moment, Falo of the Reekfort died. The naive, idiotic boy who believed in the honor of knighthood was burned to ash alongside those innocents."

Hearing this, Jero's face lit up with a twisted, highly amused grin. "Ah, so this is it. The fool decides to play traitor."

The graveyard was dead quiet. A cold wind howled across the marsh, causing one of the knights to shiver and pull his cloak tighter. Ser Adam slowly turned the page.

"I told my brother of my decision. He punched me in the face in a blinding rage. He demanded to know if I intended to betray our House, our name, and our vows."

"I told him: No. I am following my conscience."

"I left my squire's sword and my family's sigil on my bed. I took nothing but my peasant clothes and a heart turned entirely to iron. From that day forth, I became a follower of the Shepherd. I became the 'traitor' the nobles speak of."

"I began to teach the smallfolk how to fight. I taught them how to drive a pitchfork through the gaps in boiled leather. I taught them how to cave in a man's skull through his helmet using a blacksmith's hammer. I took every martial secret the nobles had taught me and gave it to the mob."

"The Shepherd told me: 'Patience, Falo. Let the anger build. Let the hatred ferment. The day will come when all of King's Landing will be judged by fire. We only need to wait for the spark.'"

"And then, the spark came. Queen Helaena died. And the entire city of King's Landing was swallowed by fire."

Ser Adam's voice began to shake violently. He knew exactly what was coming next. Through the dead man's words, he could almost see the blood-soaked, apocalyptic night of the King's Landing riot rising from the pages.

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