The Stag and The Frog - (GendryxMeera GOT fanfic) Part 1: Alone

4: Ours is the fury

The rain poured down heavily. It always rained in the Neck it seemed like. In this godforsaken swamp where no one could possibly want to live.

Ser Balon Swann was making his evening round of the Baratheon camps. He was the commander of the army and he needed everyone to be prepared for the attacks that were to come. Because the attacks always came at night. Those damn swamp dwellers just wouldn't leave them alone. They didn't attack with power, but with stealth. They sneaked up on them, and suddenly men lay dead with arrows through their necks or spears through their stomachs.

That damn girl was the worst of them. The daughter of Lord Reed. He could see her watch them sometimes from the trees outside the camp.

Ser Swann hated this place, and he hated the queen on whose orders he had come here. She who had doomed house Baratheon.

They still proudly flew the Baratheon banners. Bright yellow with a black stag. Even though there was no Baratheon left to serve. These were the men left over from King Robert's army. Many of them had, just like Ser Balon himself, stood beside Robert on the battlefield when he won the crown. Or they were the sons of men who had. Ser Balon had served on Robert's King's guard until the day Robert died. Then he became the commander of the Baratheon armies under first King Joffrey and then King Tommen. Of course, they had all heard the rumors that those boys were not Robert's children, but they had still proudly served them because their name was Baratheon.

But Joffrey and Tommen were gone, along with every other Baratheon. The only one that was left to serve was Queen Cersei. They served her not because they wanted to but because there was no one else left to serve. At least she kept them fed and clothed. But they hated her for what she had done to the house they were loyal to.

All these men knew was fighting and they would fight to the end. For a house that was already gone. Ser Swann knew that the end would probably come soon. He knew the queen had sent them to the Neck because it was a mission they were unlikely to come back from. Even if they survived the constant attacks by the people of the swamp and the diseases that came along with camping out in the swamp surely the Dragon Queen would annihilate them on her march south. They were only there to stall her, to give Queen Cersei a bit longer to prepare for the attack on the capital. They were the ones she had chosen to sacrifice. They were the ones who were expendable.

They would go down, but they would go down under the yellow Baratheon banner. Just like Ser Swann had always known he would.

As he walked up to the north gate to secure it for the night he saw someone approaching. A man on a horse. They always let commoners through the barricades but people usually didn't arrive from the North. And people certainly didn't arrive at this time of night. Ser Balon decided he needed to greet this man himself.

He walked up to the gate as the man got off his horse and walked up to the gate from the other side. There was a small hatch on the gate through which they could talk and see each other.

"Who are you?" Ser Balon asked. "What are you doing here?"

The man's face was covered by a hood to protect him from the rain. This made it hard to hear what he was saying. Or maybe Ser Balon just couldn't believe the name he thought he heard. So he asked the man to repeat himself.

The man took his hood off and Ser Balon let out an audible gasp. The face... it was Robert's face. Like he had looked when he took the throne. The blue eyes, with such a fire in them. Such a fury. The man was shorter than Robert and he didn't seem to possess the magnetic presence of the former king. But the ghost of Robert was definitely in him.

"I'm Lord Gendry Baratheon," the man said. "And I'm here to save you."

Maybe this wasn't the end after all.