House Frey's decision to bar the gates of the Twins and refuse passage to the Northern army thoroughly enraged Eddard Stark and Euron Greyjoy. The coalition forces imdiately launched a fierce assault on the fortress guarding the vital crossing. At the height of the battle, Euron summoned the massive beast lurking in the Green Fork—the "Giant Pincer King Crab."
The behemoth crushed the stone bridge connecting the two castles and tore down sections of the walls with devastating force, allowing the coalition to storm the city.
After capturing the castle, the coalition discovered a truth far more heinous than the war itself during their search. They found the secret chamber hidden by Old Walder Frey, complete with its evil black bloodstone altar.
Evidence revealed that House Frey had been performing cruel rituals, sacrificing pregnant won and their unborn fetuses to an evil god nad "Life Debt" in exchange for the family's "prosperity."
This horrifying scandal, along with the news of the Twins' fall, took wing. Through rchants, ravens, and refugees, it spread rapidly across the Seven Kingdoms.
For a ti, nobles and smallfolk alike were shocked and outraged.
House Frey was not only militarily annihilated but also morally nailed to the pillar of sha. Every house that had ever married into or dealt with them rushed to draw a line. The shockwaves of this scandal reverberated across Westeros for a long ti.
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Others rely heard of it, as if listening to a legend or a dark tale, and couldn't match the fury of those who saw it with their own eyes.
The Northern warriors and Ironborn reavers, n who killed without blinking and were accustod to blood and death on the battlefield, felt a pure disgust that transcended factional lines when they clearly understood what Old Walder and his family had done. Especially the evil ritual in that secret chamber—blaspheming the gods and using mothers and unborn children as sacrifices.
Killing in war could perhaps be justified by honor, loyalty, or survival.
But this dark act, hidden in the shadows, trading the most fragile and innocent lives for selfish desire and family propagation, crossed a primal, fundantal line.
The stench it emitted was far more nauseating than the sll of blood on a battlefield.
Whether it was the Northn following ancient traditions or the Ironborn who believed in the Old Way of taking what was theirs, they reached a rare consensus in their hearts: The destruction of House Frey was exactly what they deserved.
Driven by towering rage and extre disgust, the Northern and Ironborn coalition wasn't satisfied with simply capturing the Twins.
Soldiers used every tool available—warhamrs, axes, even captured siege engines—to carry out a thorough, vengeful demolition of the twin castles that held six hundred years of Frey history and sin.
High stone walls were pushed over section by section, heavy stones rolling to the ground and kicking up dust that filled the sky. The twin towers, once symbols of absolute control over the Green Fork, groaned and collapsed under sustained battering, plunging into the muddy moat.
The soldiers worked like they were performing a sacred purification ritual, smashing every stone carved with the Frey sigil to powder, swearing to wipe every trace of filth from the earth.
Only when the once-magnificent castle was reduced to unrecognizable rubble did the stifled anger in the warriors' chests, born of the evil sacrifices, seem to vent and settle with the settling dust.
This ruin would beco the most silent and powerful tombstone for House Frey's cris.
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Robert Baratheon's warhorse trampled the morning mist as the drawbridge of Storm's End slowly rose behind him.
Robert tightened his reins and looked back at his ancestral fortress perched on the cliff. The dark walls were still soaked with water marks from last night's storm, looking like a giant beast bowing its head to drink from the sea. At this mont, the Stormlands army surged past him on both sides like a flood of steel. Spear tips broke the hazy light, and the golden crowned stags on the snapping banners seed ready to gallop into the humid air.
Stannis Baratheon stood on the gatehouse battlents, his figure as thin and sharp as a tempered sword. For a brief mont when their eyes t, Robert raised his warhamr and waved, his wide grin coated in salty mist by the sea breeze. Stannis rely nodded slightly, his right hand resting on the poml of his sword, as if nailing himself to this stone island.
As the last archer disappeared down the winding Kingsroad, Stannis turned and walked into the shadows. The booming sound of the gates closing startled the circling gulls.
Robert Baratheon's blood was already roaring in his veins. The long wait at Storm's End had nearly exhausted all his patience.
The gloomy high walls of Storm's End had confined him like a cage. Now, leading the Stormlands army along the Kingsroad, every hoofbeat, every clank of armor, sounded like a war drum beating for his racing heart.
News traveled like wildfire, faster than the army marched.
When Robert's army camped by the river, every soldier whispered the blood-pumping news: The Twins had fallen. House Frey, which spanned the Green Fork with twin towers and charged exorbitant tolls with a single drawbridge; Lord Walder, who swung like a hyena in every war without a shred of honor; and his countless offspring—all had been crushed by the combined forces of Euron's Ironborn and Ned's Northn.
But even more hair-raising was the terrible secret uncovered in the cellars of the Twins. It was said that to buy the family's false prosperity and endless line of heirs, Old Walder had sacrificed innocent pregnant won to a naless evil god.
On a cold stone altar, the wish for many sons and grandsons was watered with the lives of mothers and children.
Now, this monstrous sin had finally invited divine punishnt.
The mont the coalition broke through the gates, the accumulated resentnt burst like a dam. No one cared about the Freys lowering their banners, and no one heeded their belated pleas for rcy. Justice ca too late, but because of that, it was exceptionally thorough. The twin towers of the Twins groaned in the fire and tilted, finally crashing into the Green Fork they had spanned for generations, kicking up waves of mud as if the river itself were struggling to wash away the filthy blood on this land.
The oathbreaker died by betrayal, the bloodthirsty died in a pool of blood. The ambitious man who traded lives for prosperity was finally uprooted along with his nest. This was the most just retribution.
"Hahaha! Good! Beautiful work!" Robert's booming laughter startled the birds in the forest.
Robert slapped his palm heavily on the map-covered board, shaking the wine cups. He could almost imagine the sight of the Twins collapsing, and it gave him imnse satisfaction, like downing a keg of strong ale. However, this thrill was like an appetizer; instead of satisfying him, it completely ignited his long-suppressed desire for battle. After the applause ca a deeper hunger—a hunger for the clash of steel and the spilling of hot blood on a real battlefield.
Robert stroked the warhamr leaning beside him, "Robert's Judgnt." (Note: Previously called "Robert's Fury" / "Skullbreaker" in earlier chapters. I'll stick to the text here if it gives a specific na, but "Robert's Warhamr" is standard. If the author is giving it new nas like "Judgnt," I will translate as written).
Correction: The text says "Robert's Judgnt" here. I will use that.
The cold touch of the tal made his blood surge.
He craved a war! A bloody, head-on collision!
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