Chapter 38. Too light.
Arthur dragged Catelyn behind the overturned table, pulling Ena's body with them because leaving her there was not a thought he could survive. Catelyn seemed half-mad with shock, whispering Robb's name, then Bran's, then words that were not words. Arthur forced her down as another volley struck the table and bodies around them.
"Stay low," he said.
She did not answer. He did not know if she heard.
Robb Stark was still standing near the high table, surrounded by chaos. Several Freys and Bolton men closed on him. He had taken wounds already, but he fought with the desperate force of a young king who had realized the war had entered the feast hall wearing a smile. Queen Jeyne screamed somewhere behind him. Men died trying to reach him. Men died trying to flee him.
Arthur looked for a path and found only death.
Then the doors shook. Outside, horns sounded. Not Frey horns. Battanian horns. Beland had heard something after all, which meant Arthur might forgive the world one small incompetence among its many crimes.
The doors had been barred from within, but the hall was not the only part of the castle, and Arthur had not brought men who only knew how to enter through polite openings. From somewhere beyond the side passage came shouting, then the clash of steel. A servant door burst inward, and two Frey men stumbled back with arrows in their throats.
Beland entered first with blood on his face and a sickle blade in each hand. Behind him came Tandon Wayn and several Noble Warriors, followed by Old Wolf Warriors firing into the gallery. They had not brought an army inside, not yet, but they had brought enough violence to disturb the script.
"Chief!" Beland shouted.
Arthur rose. "Gallery first! Crossbows!"
The Old Wolf Warriors moved under cover, shooting upward. One crossbowman fell over the railing and crashed onto a table below. Another dropped behind the stonework with an arrow in his neck. The pressure lessened for a breath, and that breath saved lives.
Arthur pointed toward Catelyn and Ena. "Get them out."
Beland saw Ena, and his face changed.
"Move!" Arthur snapped.
The order saved him from asking questions. Beland and two men grabbed Catelyn, who struggled weakly, refusing to release Ena. Tandon lifted Ena carefully. Blood ran down his arms. He looked at Arthur only once, and whatever he saw made him say nothing.
More Rangers forced their way through the side passage. Not many. Enough to form a wedge. Across the hall, Robb was struck again and fell to one knee. Grey Wind's howls rose outside, wild and furious, followed by screams from the courtyard. The wolf had either broken free or was dying trying. Arthur could not tell.
He wanted to reach Robb. He wanted to kill every Frey in the hall. He wanted Ena to breathe. Wanting was useless.
"Retreat through the side passage!" Arthur ordered. "Take who you can. Kill anyone in the way."
A few northern men heard and stumbled toward the opening. Some made it. Most did not. Frey and Bolton men surged to close the breach. The Rangers fought in the doorway, shields locked, axes and sickles working in tight arcs. Arthur took position at the rear, cutting down any man who pushed too close.
Roose Bolton reached Robb at the high table.
Arthur saw the pale lord through shifting bodies and smoke. Saw him lean close. Saw the dagger move. Robb Stark jerked. Arthur could not hear the words over the slaughter, but he did not need to. The young king fell, and Catelyn's scream tore through the noise so sharply that even murder seemed to pause around it. Then the fighting swallowed it again.
Arthur backed into the passage with the last Rangers. A spearpoint cut across his shoulder. He caught the shaft, pulled the man forward, and Beland opened the Frey's throat. The door behind them slammed shut. A wooden bar fell into place from their side.
They ran.
The passage twisted through the servants' ways behind the hall. Tandon carried Ena. Beland half-dragged Catelyn. The Rangers killed two servants, three guards, and a man in Frey colors who had been too slow drawing his sword. Somewhere outside, the camp had erupted. Screams, horses, horns, and the distant crash of steel filled the night.
When they reached a storage yard, Arthur found the truth waiting. The northern camp was burning. Frey and Bolton men had fallen on the tents. Some were slaughtering drunk soldiers. Others were cutting horse lines, firing wagons, closing exits. It was not a battle. It was butchery with logistics.
Kator's five hundred recruits were not at the castle gates yet. They were camped outside the Twins, farther than Arthur liked, waiting for orders that had not come soon enough. But they had heard something. A Battanian horn answered from the darkness beyond the outer yards.
A path existed. A terrible one, naturally, because the world had no interest in offering clean exits.
Arthur took Ena from Tandon. She was too light in his arms. Wrongly light. Her blood soaked into his sleeve and chest.
"Chief," Tandon said, voice tight, "she—"
"Do not say it."
Tandon closed his mouth.
They moved through smoke and confusion, using alleys between storehouses and kitchens. Twice they hid beneath carts while Frey men ran past. Once Arthur killed a guard silently and took his cloak to cover Ena's body. Catelyn moved like a ghost, no longer fighting, no longer speaking, only staring ahead with eyes that had watched too much break.
At the outer yard, Beland found three horses still saddled, likely left by men who had joined the slaughter. Not enough for everyone. Enough for the wounded and the dead. Arthur refused the second word before it formed properly in his mind.
"Get Lady Catelyn mounted," he said. "Tandon, take Ena. Beland, with me. The rest on foot. We cut out."
The gate ahead was guarded by Frey men. Beyond it, the night flashed with fire and moving steel. Arthur could hear Battanian horns now, closer. He lifted his stolen sword, felt the cold inside him return, and gave the only order left.
"Forward."