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Willas Tyrell Galad was the first one to snap out of it.

"Up! Bar the windows and the door!" As if commanded by the king himself, Ben and Lorne jerked into motion. Ben rushed past Willas toward Lorne, his jaw set with resolve. Uncaring of the half-full cups on top, the two guards picked up the thick wooden table and overturned it in front of the back door. The chairs and trunks followed. Willas stood stock-still, frozen with indecision.

"How many of them are there?" Garlan asked, voice shaken. Beside him, Loras and Margaery hugged each other for comfort, his little brother trying to soothe his sister despite the fear evident in his face. It was the very definition of love, and the men outside wanted to destroy it. Butcher it. That's what broke through his own fears, imagining what would happen to his siblings if he didn't act. If he didn't step up as the future Lord of Highgarden.

Steeling himself, Willas rushed to the windows, pulling the wooden shutters together and latching them closed. It wouldn't hold against even a single blow of an Ironborn's axe, but sometimes the mere illusion of cover could serve as a deterrent.

"I counted eleven, milord," Ben said as he stacked furniture by the back door.

"House's solid enough. We can hold 'em off at the front door till someone comes to help."

"No," Galad said, heading into his bedroom.

"They'll just torch the place with us inside. It comes down to a fight."

"Fuck," Ben muttered.

"Not great odds." Willas would've admonished the curses in front of his younger siblings if the situation wasn't as desperate as it was. Lorne seemed to agree with Galad. With all the available furniture pushed against the backdoor, the often silent guard simply pulled his sword out of its scabbard and turned to him.

"Orders, milord?" Ben too turned to him, as did Garlan and his siblings. They all looked to him as if he had all the answers in the world. Willas opened his mouth to speak, but found he couldn't form the words. His mouth felt dry as dust. All the training in the world hadn't prepared him for this. As if summoned by his need, Galad appeared from his bedroom, a sheathed longsword in his hands.

"We'll do as the lord said." He nodded toward Ben.

"Hold them at the door for a moment. They'll try to set the house alight when they get frustrated, but it shall not come to that." Before anyone could answer, there was a loud bang at the back door. Loras and Margaery jumped at the sound. Another crack followed, a similar noise to when Galad was chopping wood. The Ironborn had arrived. Ben and Lorne needed no other incentive. They rushed to the front door, the older and more experienced man-at-arms, Lorne, taking the lead.

His weathered face held a look of grim determination. He was ready to die for his charges, Willas knew.

"What will you do?" Garlan asked, looking toward Galad. Pounding footsteps crossed the outside of the house. Loud, coarse voices could be heard through the windows too, yelling at each other, hurling insults at those inside, taunting and teasing. Margaery let out a whimper when the head of an axe bit through a shutter. The sword in Galad's hands came singing out of its sheath.

"I'll end this," he said, then turned to leave. His words held a tone of finality to it. A certainty Willas always thought reserved for veteran knights or experienced artisans, both confident in the mastery of their craft. Not a young man like Galad. The kind of words that inspired him to be better. Swallowing down the knot in his throat, Willas stepped up.

"Then I will help you."

"No!" Willas froze at the sudden bark. Or was it that a smallfolk had talked to the son of a high lord in such a manner? Galad turned to regard him, a troubled look on his face.

"That… that is not a good idea, my lord." His violet eyes were dark under furrowed brows.

"Please, stay here and protect your siblings if the worst comes." Then he was swiftly gone, slipping past a small side door hidden behind a curtain in the eastern wall of the house. And for the second time in the day, Willas stood stumped in the middle of a tiny, smallfolk house. Behind him, Garlan knelt while whispering comforting words to Margaery and Loras. The sounds of battle started a moment later. Steel batting against steel, ringmail chinking as men moved in their armor.

The Ironborn's screams met Ben's own war cry, echoing inside the house, though they couldn't see the front door from the main room. Margaery started to cry, sobbing against Loras' shoulder. Willas could barely look at them. He didn't know what to say—again. They all looked up to him, and he'd failed them. He sought comfort on the sword at his side, and his hand held firm to the hilt. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

He didn't know what to say, but he'd die fighting for his siblings. That, at least, he could do. xxx Galad By the time the hidden door closed behind him, Galad had achieved the oneness. All his doubts and insecurities, all his fears that had fountained inside him when he spotted those men, were fed into the flames in the void of his mind. He wouldn't be able to fight at his best if he let himself be consumed by the ghosts of his past. Of his failures.

If he wanted to save those children—those who depended on him, then he couldn't think of them in the middle of combat. In the oneness, none of that mattered. He was one with the sword in his hand, one with the sparrows in flight above his house, one with the Ironborn man a few feet in front of him, who had turned at the sound of the door. He could perfectly hear the man's breathing, the clink of his mail armor.

If he focused, he would hear the man's heart beating inside his chest, the blood pumping furiously as the Ironborn prepared himself for a fight. Galad wouldn't need such a focus against this foe. Beneath his half-helm, the man's grizzled face contorted into an ugly scowl before he rushed at him in a mad dash, axe and shield propped in each hand, and Galad knew him to be a fool. A man who fought in a rage died in a rage. Galad didn't move.

Not until the Ironborn was upon him, axe raised high for a powerful downward swing. Then he stepped to the side, feet sliding gracefully across the grass. The axe cleaved only air, but Galad's sword didn't miss. It flashed up and across, a single movement, and the head of the Ironman fell to the ground. Beyond a flick of the wrist to clean his blade of blood, he didn't stop to admire his handiwork.

He could hear the fighting going on the other side of the house by the front door as if it was happening right in front of him. Curses flying as sure as swords, castle-forged steel ringing against reavers' blades, heavy grunts of exertion. There was no time for consideration. Galad moved across the lawn as quickly and silently as he could, face devoid of emotion. He took the corner and came upon the north side of the house just in time to watch one of the Tyrell guards being cut in the leg and bashed in the chest.

The young man-at-arms fell backward into the house, and the Ironborn surrounding the entrance roared in cheer. The last Tyrell guard stepped up to cover the bottle neck of the front door by himself. Brave as it was, Galad knew he wouldn't last long against so many of them. Two of the Ironmen already lay dead on the ground, but in their minds, there was only one guard left before they could get to the children inside. Despite their roar, Galad did not give a cry of his own.

He approached them from the side, silent as a ghost, and the first two Ironborn fell before they knew death was upon them. A third one turned in time to lift his shield up, but Galad twisted his sword at the last moment and slashed him across the thigh. The blade bit deep into flesh, and the reaver let out a cry as he fell to his knees, wound gushing with blood.

The other Ironborn finally turned toward him, and in the stunned moment it took for them to realize they'd been flanked, Galad could finally take the time to look at them. There were five left, though two fought against the Tyrell guard blocking the doorway, and the three men in front of him weren't green boys by any means. Gray peppered beards and hair; their arms and armor looked used but of good quality, and they all had the leathery, weather-worn face of life-long sailors. Galad frowned.

Living a simple life in the backwaters of the kingdom, he did not have all the historical and political knowledge to fully understand what such a raid meant. Here, he hadn't grown up in palaces with tutors and teachers of history and warfare and every subject men had taken to write books on, like he once had. But he did not need to be a lord or a maester of the Citadel to know what this meant either.

By the looks of the reavers, this was no hotheaded young captain so eager for plunder that he'd gotten carried away and had sailed his crew up the Mander into the rich lands of the Reach. This was a serious raid, conducted by an experienced crew. His resolve firmed. Galad would not let those children be used as hostages, or worse, by these barbarians.

"Leave now," he warned, "or die far from the halls of your drowned god." Even to himself, Galad's voice sounded cold in the oneness. One of the Ironborn, a tall man with arms like trunks standing farthest to the right, hawked a glob of phlegm and spat on the grass.

"I'll gut ye like a trout, pretty boy." He had a large, double-headed axe in both hands, and he pointed it menacingly at Galad as he spoke. The other two Ironborn, these holding longswords and shields, gained heart at that, roaring their assent, and the three men advanced on him.

"So be it," Galad whispered, holding his own blade out in front of him. Despite their bravado, however, they had seen the trail of bodies Galad had left in his wake, and they were no fools when it came to combat. They spread out in a half-moon around him, and when they struck, they struck together. One of the swordsmen stabbed high while the other sliced at Galad's legs. At the same time, the tall axe-wielder tried to hack him in two as if he were a tree to be felled. It didn't matter.

Galad hadn't fought in a real battle since his death in his previous world, and hadn't done much beyond practicing the forms by himself since his caretaker died; but his instincts had not dulled. To Galad, they might as well be moving underwater. Feigning a thrust to force a defensive reaction from the tall Ironborn, he pivoted the other way at the last moment, dancing around the stab and parrying the slice.

The stabber's eyes went wide as he overextended, and Galad took his arm off at the elbow just below where his ringmail shirt ended. The man hadn't begun screaming yet before Galad moved again. Putting the swordsman in between himself and the taller Ironborn, he pressed the attack, blade a whirlwind of thrusts and slices. The swords rang keenly as they met in the middle, once, twice, then Galad was past the man's guard.

In the time it took for the taller one to flank him, he scored three deep cuts along the swordsman's thighs and forearms. The man's grip on his sword slackened as thick arterial blood flooded the sleeve of his gambeson. He was done for, Galad knew. He turned to meet the tall reaver, but the man had stopped as he watched his last companion fall. A flicker of uncertainty marred his coarse features. Ironborn were said to be fearless in battle, but Galad's promise must have weighed heavily on the man.

Were he to die here on land, he would not go on to meet his god.

"Who the fuck are ye?" he asked, fingers opening and closing nervously around the heft of his large axe. The question gave him pause. Galad didn't know the answer himself. Once, he was the Lord Captain Commander of the Children of Light. The First Prince of the Sword of Caemlyn. Brother to a queen and husband to another. Now, he wasn't so sure. In the end, Galad simply answered with the truth.

"To you, death."