Eagle of the Valley of Ice and Fire.

Chapter 343 The Twilight of Dawn

"Why! Why are there no guards at the city gate? Why!" Harry Strickland cried out, his face streaked with tears. The dim candlelight in the cell clearly illuminated the beads of sweat dripping from his face, forehead, and nose, making him look as if he had crawled out of a vat of boiling oil. He cried out in a voice of vengeance.

Harold Hatton shook his hand dismissively. "Tie him up," he ordered, turning to leave.

“It must be those guards who betrayed us, damn it, I knew those Westeros people were unreliable, the Golden Company shouldn’t have, shouldn’t have gotten involved in this… Ugh! You! Ugh!” Harry Strykeran’s mouth was stuffed with a wet wipe by a soldier, and he was also spat on hard.

“Talkative enough. Keep an eye on him.” Harold Hatton gripped his sword, inwardly grumbling. The planned infiltration had gone too smoothly. He could understand the Golden Company being too careless in their victory celebrations to guard the gates of Storm's End, but what about Stannis's remnants? They numbered two or three hundred; were they also neglecting their defenses? With a formidable enemy at hand…

Watching Harry Strickland being quickly captured and dragged deeper into the prison by the soldiers, Harold Hatton composed himself, his expression solemn, and left the scene.

He walked to the outer corridor of the cell. Unlike the "Sky Prison" in the Eyrie, the cell was surprisingly dry despite Storm's End being adjacent to the Narrow Sea and often facing torrential rains. This was largely due to the unpredictable climate of the Stormlands.

But the nauseating stench was unanimous among the seven kingdoms; it seemed that the nobles had reached a consensus from the beginning to use the stench to determine the prisoners' identities, without exception.

Harold approached the window, looking down at the barracks in the distance—the very barracks where Barristan had told him the garrison often assembled.

The moonlight was bright, and the hundreds of elite troops he had brought from Harrenhal were quietly surrounding the barracks' exit and outer walls. The shield formation was clearly visible in the moonlight, but inside the barracks, at least on the open training ground, there was no trace of anyone in sight.

Harold sighed, feeling a bit pressured, and shrugged as he walked toward the barracks.

Inside the barracks, the squire Lawrence nervously watched out the window. He was crouching on his sleeping mat in his barracks, gripping his longsword tightly, not daring to move an inch for fear of making the slightest sound...

The clattering of pots and pans echoed behind me...

"Hey!" Lawrence lowered his voice but then turned his head abruptly, his face flushed with anger, but his expression immediately deflated.

That was "Steel Eyebrow" Sumner, who was smiling with his fangs showing, the faint moonlight coming through the window making him even more terrifying.

“Don’t be nervous, Lawrence,” Sumner drew his sword, his fangs bared against his lips, “Your brothers are all by your side, none of them are cowards.”

"Sir Barristan... he's entered the city, the Golden Company... the Golden Company caught them off guard..." Lawrence repeated the information that everyone already knew, trying to ease the tension in his heart.

Sumner snorted and patted Lawrence on the shoulder. "The reason we caught them off guard was because we held back. These mercenaries are still just mercenaries. Their nature is hard to change. They need to win every battle and get spoils to develop their mercenary group. That's why the Golden Company is what it is today. But look at their leader. Harry Strickland is born to be a butler. How can he lead an army?" Sumner concluded about the Golden Company, as if he had thought of this for a long time and just had to say it today.

"That dragon cub who just popped up thinks he can take Westeros with the Golden Company? He's got no ability. Mercenaries have no faith, and besides, this isn't their homeland. A single victory is possible, but a lasting one is impossible, unless he's Aegon the Conqueror. Otherwise, forget about restoring the Targaryen dynasty, not to mention he doesn't even have a real dragon!"

Sumner waved his hand, seemingly finding the moonlight too bright, and left the window.

"Stormbreak has fallen! Glory belongs to Prime Minister Arryn! Glory belongs to King Joffrey! The Golden Company has failed, and the garrison inside must surrender immediately!" The shouts from outside the walls echoed through the courtyard, sounding somewhat like a theatrical troupe from Stormbreak.

"Barristan hired a loud opera troupe to persuade us to surrender?" Sumner laughed wildly, and several of the garrison brothers around him laughed along with their hands on their swords. But Lawrence noticed that most of them were silent and quiet, either praying with their eyes closed or staring at the ceiling waiting for their fate.

Sumner's laughter also came to an abrupt end in this silence.

He looked around and threw down the dagger hanging from his waist—Gilbert Farin's dagger.

"Damn Gilbert!" Sumner spat and drew his sword. "Brothers, those who want to come with me, come on out. Those who don't, consider it as saving King Stannis from bleeding." Several garrison soldiers who had joined him in laughter stood up, and a few others from the silent majority also rose.

Lawrence knew that the garrison's morale had vanished after Gilbert surrendered to the dragon cubs, and most of them did not consider surrendering to Ser Barristan, the greatest knight in Westeros, a disgrace, especially since Artis Arryn was indeed invincible and renowned.

Dozens of people walked up to Sumner, and the whole room fell into a sad silence.

Lawrence tried to stand up, but Sumner held him down.

“Stay with the group, don’t get separated, brother,” Sumner said with a laugh. “King Stannis doesn’t need a martyr as young as you.”

Lawrence sat down again, bewildered; he was used to following orders.

"Let's go, brothers." Sumner kicked open the door, and dozens of men, each wielding a weapon, rushed out of the courtyard.

"Long live King Stannis!"

Long live Windbreak Castle!

A loud, impassioned voice came from outside, accompanied by the clamor of arrows piercing armor and longswords cutting through bones.

Silence and stillness filled the room, brewing a kind of grief.

The fighting ended after about ten minutes.

Lawrence looked up again and saw that the window was filled with crossbowmen. The darkness was also showing signs of wear and tear under the erosion of time, and the rising sun cast the dawn into the night.

“We surrender,” said the garrison soldier leaning against the door, looking at the Valley Knights who entered the house. “We surrender to King Joffrey.”

“No,” the Valley Knight sheathed his sword, “you are surrendering to Duke Arryn, to Sir Barristan.”

Lawrence recognized the voice; he and Lord Gilbert had seen this knight in King's Landing, I think his name was something like that…

“Harold Hatton,” the Valley Knight extended his hand and grasped the arm of the garrison leader, “I am Ser Barristan’s second-in-command. Come with me to see Ser Barristan.”

Lawrence looked blankly at the leader, who was still wearing the crowned stag emblem of House Baratheon, which was bathed in the light of dawn, making the antlers gleam and the hide look like gold paint. However, the wearer looked dejected, the complete opposite of the stag's demeanor.

More than a hundred people came out from the various compartments. Some other members of the garrison seemed to put up a little resistance inside the castle, but their fate was either to be captured or killed in battle.

They walked out of the house one by one in a line, and dawn was no longer dawn, but only felt like dusk.

This is King Stannis's twilight.

(End of this chapter)