Capítulo 29: Valor or Survival
AN: A short chapter for you guys. There will be another one soon. For those who are wondering, here is a picture of Rody.
299 AC, Stoney Sept…
Rody's shock was short-lived. He pushed the gagging man back and pulled the wooden gate towards himself, closing it. The gate was closed but it was not locked.
It was a big gate which had no keyhole but only some iron holders attached onto it to hold a wooden plank.
Rody quickly looked around and saw a half-rotten plank on the ground. He grabbed it and tried to lift it but it was a bit heavy. Just as he was struggling to lift it, someone else grabbed it from the other end.
Rody turned his head and saw Dennet lifting the plank from the other end with a horrified and anxious face. None of them spoke a word as they placed the plank onto the iron holders. Both of them knew whoever was attacking the town, the gate was not going to hold them back.
"They are here again!!" Dennet asked with a cracked voice. "What are we going to do?"
The panicked and scared look on Dennet's face was eye opening for Rody. This was no ordinary bandit group, it was probably the same Lannister raiders who came here to sack the town once again for supplies.
Rody took a deep breath, trying to calm himself down. He knew that they were in a dire situation, but he couldn't let fear take control. He had to act quickly if he wanted to leave this town with his life intact.
"Does the town have another exit?" Rody asked but seeing that Dennet was not answering he grabbed him from his shoulders and shook him.
"No, there was a tunnel but..." Dennet took a deep breath and his hand let go of the plank. "It collapsed when they burnt down the inn."
"Perfect," Rody grunted and spoke firmly. "We need to gather as many people as we can and defend the town, or else none of us will see the first light."
"But, but… won't they leave us alone if we give everything we have?" Dennet stammered out.
"Isn't this the second time they raid this town?" Rody asked. "Me father always said that the first time they would come for supplies but the second time is always on someone's order. And they would not leave anything alive."
Rody knew everything he said was a lie but there was no chance he was going to let them take the boy from him.
Dennet looked at him skeptically, but he knew Rody was right. They didn't have many options, and they couldn't just sit around and wait for the raiders to come and pillage their town.
Rody thought for a moment before speaking. "We don't have much time, you stay here and I will run around the town, waking everyone up."
"I can't stay here all by myself!!" Dennet scrunched up his face. "You stay, I will go and call everyone."
The man did not give any chance to respond for Rody and ran away with a speed that could match a fox.
Rody gritted his teeth but did not shout to stop him as he knew it was no use. He looked around for things to pile up before the gates to strengthen it but there was nothing around.
It did not take long for him to hear running footsteps coming from behind the gates. He felt like a knot was tied around his heart as he did not have anywhere to run while being stuck here.
He took a deep breath and tried to gather himself up as he knew other than fighting back there was nothing he could do.
He stood at the gate, his heart beating fast in his chest as he heard the approaching footsteps grow louder. He knew that he had to be ready to fight, no matter what came through those gates.
As the footsteps grew closer, Rody could feel the shadows moving beyond the gate. He could hear the clanging of metal and the mud splashing around. He knew that the Lannister raiders were just behind the gate.
He tightened his grip on the wooden plank, his knuckles turning white. Even though he had no armor on himself, he was lucky to have his weapon beside him.
He braced himself to hear them slam the gates but no such thing happened, instead, only a yelling was heard.
"Gerold, open the gates!!" Rody was dumbfounded as the man continued yelling, "Open the gates you fuckin' ingrate. Do you not believe me when I say I won't dump your fuckin' child into the river, eh?!!"
Rody finally realized what was happening and yelled back, "Gerold is lying on the ground, just beside you, you fucker!"
There was a moment of silence before a fist slammed on the gates and a voice filled with anger reverberated around. "Take down the damn gate and you lot go and scale the walls!!"
Rody did not waste time holding the gate as from the sound coming, he could not hold it only by himself. With the first thud on the gate, Rody turned around and climbed the stairs leading to the wall.
He grabbed the long spear lying on the ground, which belonged to the deceased Gerold. His movement was quick enough to take him up the wall before the enemy.
The sight that greeted him as he gazed down the wall was not good. Even though the numbers of the enemy were not as much as he thought, it was still not something they could match in numbers.
While the war cries of the enemies who were trying to take down the gate with their axes were sounding in his ears, Rody tightened his grip on the spear and stabbed it downwards.
A shrill scream, followed by a thud was heard as Rody's spear was bloodied. He did not waste time and quickly moved towards his next target which also fell down the wall with a deep gash on his shoulder.
As he continued, he hoped the other lone guards around the wall would come when they heard the cries coming from there.
Alas, Rody's hope was extinguished while he continued to stab his spear and pick out the enemies. After all, he was one man while the other side was coming from multiple sides.
As he was ending another man's life, he saw several men reaching up the wall stepping their feet onto the stone ground.
Rody gritted his teeth and stabbed the spear one last time and let it fall down the wall with another enemy. He turned around to face the Lannister men on the wall.
He pulled out his sword from its sheath and grabbed it with both of his hands. His eyes wandered towards the running men. Their number was already three and he knew more was climbing each passing moment.
The closest of them looked like a young man around his age. He seemed to be happy to be the first one to make his way up the wall.
Rody did not bat an eye to the clumsy way the young man was running. The young man raised his sword high while running but that was a mistake Rody was prepared to exploit.
Without any hesitation, a sword pierced the young man's guts and his sword that was high in the air slowly fell to the ground.
Rody did not dally and quickly pulled his sword out of the young man's belly and kicked him back towards the running enemy. The other enemy who was running towards Rody behind the young man staggered back with the dead body falling upon him but he did not have any moment to gather himself up as Rody slashed his sword down and cut his face in half.
By the time Rody killed two Westermen, there were already more than a dozen men upon the wall. He knew he had no chance staying up there as there were even men climbing up the wall from behind him.
That is why he turned around to climb down the wall and run towards the town but already, a man who climbed up the wall was helping the others to reach up and join him.
They were blocking his road towards the stairs. Rody grunted and looked down the wall. It was not that high as it was apparent from the enemy scaling the wall so easily.
He threw his sword down and took a deep breath. He cursed his bad luck before jumping down and rolling on the ground. He considered himself lucky for the ground being muddy as apart from a slight pain on his back, he did not have any broken bone.
He quickly gathered himself up and grabbed his sword from the ground. He looked up the wall and saw the enemies running towards the stairs. His eyes wandered towards the gate and saw a big hole and several hands were stuck out of it, trying to lift the wooden plank.
He began running towards the town. He heard a banging sound coming from behind him and slightly turned his head to look and saw the gate wide open. There were already men who descended from the wall and were running towards him.
Rody suddenly tripped and fell to the ground. He cursed himself for not looking to his front. The enemies were already running towards him and he had no chance of outrunning them now.
He put his hands on the muddy ground and pushed himself up. He wiped his hands on the back of his pants and grabbed his sword from the ground.
He turned back towards the gate and saw the Westermen already a hundred meters away from him. He thought that at least he had the high ground.
Rody took a deep breath and readied himself as always for the inevitable clash. Just as he thought he was all alone against the enemy, he heard a loud commotion coming from the town. He could hear shouts and screams, the banging of the steel.
He did not have to look around as soon the men of the town, old and young, came running from behind him. By the time they reached him, the first of the Westermen was before him and falling to the ground with Rody's sword down his throat.
The second one did not fall to Rody's blade as a long pitchfork forced him to the ground. Rody's eyes turned to his left and saw an old man pulling out the pitchfork with a fierce face but before Rody could say anything, that face was pierced by an arrow.
It did not take long for Rody to comprehend the reality. However, by that time both sides were already upon each other and Rody was in the middle of it.
He saw a flash of steel as he stepped aside and dodged a sword blow before seeing a middle aged man donning some leather armor with a sword and a shield in his hands looking at him with anger. He did not care about the reason for this anger as he just wanted to get out of this mess. That is why he did not hesitate to cut the man's throat with his blade and pick up his shield from his hand.
As soon as he picked the shield, Rody turned to his left and blocked another sword and slashed out with his own.
Blood was all he saw for a few minutes until he looked to his left and saw enemies, he looked at his right saw and saw enemies. He was like a one-man army amongst the peasants who never trained their whole lives.
The men of Stoney Sept were slowly being pushed back and only he was left in the middle. He already saw some in the back running away to save their lives but that was a huge mistake in Rody's opinion as these men did not look like they were going to spare any one of them.
Rody's eyes caught Hunter swinging his sword left and right and holding the enemy at bay only with two others beside him. Rody knew they were going to lose and there was no chance of winning against these properly armed men. Their pitchforks and broken swords had no chance against these raiders.
All these men were going to be butchered here and then their wives, children and parents were going to follow them to the other side. This town was done for and Rody did not have it in him to share their fates. These were not his people and he was not willing to die for them. That is why he steeled his heart and made his way towards Hunter by cutting down whoever was before him.
By the time he arrived before Hunter, their numbers were halved and they were pushed back at least a hundred meters.
"We need to run, we can't hold 'em back!" Rody yelled.
"What about others?!" Hunter slashed with his sword downing another one and looked at Rody, "We can't leave 'em here."
"Die here if you want, I won't be staying here!" Rody said. "Think about your sister and wife, do you want them to get raped and killed?"
Rody knew he was playing dirty by the red he saw in Hunter's eyes but he did not have time to convince him.
The eyes marred by the anger quickly left their place to resignation. Hunter suddenly grabbed Rody and pulled him back and stabbed out with his sword, killing a man with leather armor.
They left behind a group of Riverlander desperately fighting against Westermen. They run for a few minutes before reaching Hunter's house. The door was tightly shut and no matter how many times they tried, they could not open it. There was probably something blocking the door from the other side.
They quickly went to the backyard of the house and broke the wooden shutter to get in. There was an eerie silence inside aside from the barking and the snarls of the dogs. However, the dogs were soon silenced when they realized it was their owner who came in.
Hunter ran up the stairs while Rody ran towards the room he stayed in last night.
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