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GOT Chapter 119: The Reaper of the Eyrie
🕑 Added 2025-09-03 04:59:31 +0000 UTCJust as Jon and the others were preparing for the next wave of strikes, the door they leaned on suddenly gave way.
Unprepared, the two lost their balance and toppled backward—yet the fall spared them, for in that instant the enemy’s blades slashed only empty air.
Behind them, Kal had thrown the door wide open. At the same time, he yanked free the heavy square wooden bar that had been set across the door as a brace.
As weapons swept toward them, Kal swung the thick beam in a wide arc.
The heavy timber whistled through the air before smashing against steel. Two longswords snapped instantly, and another blade bent under the force of the blow.
With Jon and Jory’s danger momentarily relieved, Kal spared only the briefest glance downward to confirm they were unhurt. Then, lips pressed tight, eyes blazing with murderous intent, he charged wordlessly into the corridor.
Moments earlier, inside the chamber where he had been preparing to discuss strategy with Yohn Royce, Kal had been the first to catch the pounding of many heavy boots outside.
The faint clatter of armor told him a sizeable force of men in full plate was bearing down on them.
Confusion pricked at his chest—what in the world was happening?
But then Jon Snow and Jory Cassel’s cries rang from beyond the door, followed swiftly by the clash of battle and the screams of the dying. The sounds shocked him from his daze.
There was no time left for talk. Kal rose to his feet, and in just a few strides, faster than most eyes could follow, he reached the door.
He had no chance to draw the weapon at his waist. Instead, he seized the heavy wooden beam bracing the door, wrenched it up, and flung the door wide.
Arriving in the nick of time to save Jon and Jory, he found himself facing a corridor clogged with more than a dozen armored soldiers.
There was no need for words.
Kal hefted the massive timber—no less than 20 kilograms in weight—and charged straight at them.
With a single swing, he smashed through three weapons at once. As their blades and wrists failed under such inhuman force, the soldiers’ arms went slack, their weapons flying free.
Kal did not grant them the chance to recover.
Reversing his grip, he swept the beam in a brutal backhand. The strike scythed across the enemy line, slamming full force into a soldier’s helmeted skull.
Unlike Jon’s earlier elbow, which had scarcely rattled an iron helm, Kal’s blow landed with devastating power.
All strength, no mercy.
The iron casing of the man’s head offered no more resistance than the thin shell of a nut beneath that monstrous strike.
Two sharp cracks rang out—two skulls shattered beneath Kal’s swing, their insides spilling like broken nuts.
The first soldier to take the blow had his head, helm and all, ripped clean off by the sheer fury of Kal’s backhand strike.
The immense force tore through the neck, snapping the spine and ripping muscle apart.
The round skull was crushed flat, the iron helm clattering with it as it smashed against the stone wall, spraying chips of stone before bouncing back.
From the headless body, blood fountained two or three meters high, pressure forcing it upward, spattering the once-white ceiling with glaring crimson.
But Kal’s slaughter did not stop with that double kill.
What Lysa Tully had done had driven him past the point of fury.
He kicked aside the headless corpse still spraying blood. Facing the soldiers ahead, stunned into silence by his godlike ferocity, Kal raised the beam once more and hurled it down with crushing force, bowling over five or six more men at once.
At once, the narrow corridor was choked with chaos, more than ten men packed in confusion.
The ones at the rear, burdened with the barrels, could not see what had happened ahead and were still shouting to press forward.
But a third of their comrades had already been wiped away.
Casting the timber aside after scattering the men, Kal saw some of those ahead still struggling to rise.
Drawing the gilded longsword at his waist, he leapt forward across the cramped corridor.
In that bound, he covered at least three meters.
As he landed, one boot crashed down on a soldier’s chest, pinning him, while his other foot stamped another man’s skull into pulp.
There was no scream—only silence, as fear consumed the Eyrie soldiers who had come to murder him and the lords of the Vale.
Kal had no intention of reasoning with them.
His longsword glimmered faintly as he swung it in a casual cross-cut, sending yet another head rolling to the ground.
Then he strode forward, twisting his wrist to deliver a brutal punch that smashed a man pinned against the wall. Blood burst from the soldier’s mouth as his chest and organs gave way even through the armor.
When Kal let go, the man collapsed limply, falling atop the growing pile of corpses at his feet.
Kal did not spare him another glance. He stepped over the body and pressed onward.
The longsword in Kal’s hand, like a reaper’s scythe harvesting lives, swept arcs of cold light through the narrow corridor.
Some men were cleaved straight through, breastplate and all.
Some had a blade slip between the seams of their helmets, bursting an eye before piercing through their skulls.
Others were kicked in the groin, their bodies lifted from the floor to smash against the ceiling before crashing back down—after a few convulsions, they moved no more.
By the time the lords of the Vale inside the chamber had gathered their wits and drawn their weapons to rush out, Kal was already amidst a massacre.
They emerged only to see him pinning an Arryn soldier—his sword arm severed at the elbow—against the once-white stone wall, one hand crushing the man’s head flat against it.
Kal’s sword had already hacked away the man’s hand that held his weapon. Now his grip clamped down mercilessly, grinding the soldier’s head into the stone.
But Kal’s gaze was not fixed on the man he held.
His eyes were cold, locked instead upon the two soldiers sprawled on the floor before him. Their barrels had spilled across the ground, and from them seeped oil, carrying a faint woody fragrance.
They were the only two left alive after his rampage, and now they trembled like leaves in a storm.
Their armor brought them no comfort—it could not protect them here.
Kal’s eyes grew colder still as he stared at the barrels and the oil slick spreading across the stones. Inside him, fury burned hotter with every breath.
His fingers clenched. A sickening series of cracks rang out—then a wet, explosive pop.
He had crushed the man’s skull against the wall with his bare hand.
“Tell me who sent you, and what your purpose is—and you may live!”
Flicking blood and brain matter from his hand, Kal glared at the remaining pair, his voice like a winter gale scraping out of his throat.
Faced with this man who seemed more demon than mortal, one of the two instinctively nodded.
The other, however, after a brief pause, hardened his eyes and struggled to rise, as though to speak.
He had barely moved when Kal’s boot lashed out. The soldier’s head flew like a ball kicked across the corridor, leaving his body to collapse in a spray of blood.
Hot blood splattered over the survivor, who now nodded even more frantically, his throat working as he swallowed in terror, terrified that if he hesitated even a heartbeat, his own head would soon be rolling as well.
...
Kal’s anger did not cloud his judgment. As promised, he spared the soldier who was willing to tell him—and the assembled lords of the Vale—everything they wanted to know.
The man, stripped of all arms and armor and left only in a thin tunic, knelt trembling before them. His face was pale with fear, his hands bound tightly behind his back.
Elsewhere, hidden in her chambers and awaiting the outcome, Lysa Tully screamed in madness.
She overturned a goblet of red wine, sending the precious vintage cascading across the floor. She smashed fine ceramics imported from across the Narrow Sea and toppled tall bookshelves with frantic abandon.
Her eyes were bloodshot, her hair wild and tangled. She shrieked curses, railing against those present as if her tears were made of blood, damning them all for their disloyalty.
But faced with the undeniable proof laid bare before them, Lysa Tully’s final outburst could go no further.
The assembled lords of the Vale looked upon the widow of their once-liege lord, Jon Arryn, who had sunk so deep into madness that she had nearly dragged them all to ruin. Their eyes burned with fury but were cold as ice.
They ignored her frenzied attempts to shift blame and escape judgment.
Instead, they found themselves grateful that Kal Stone—like a dawn-forged sword reborn into the world—was among them.
Without him, they dared not imagine what fate would have awaited them in the hands of the deranged Lysa Tully.
The dragonflame of old, they thought, had been merciful compared to being shut in a sealed chamber and set ablaze.
Thus, with her crimes exposed beyond dispute, the lords agreed unanimously to imprison the true master of the Eyrie.
For the time being, they replaced House Arryn’s rule over the Vale with a council of allied lords.
This was the resolution they reached.
Lysa Tully’s former bedchamber was turned into her prison cell.
As for the Eyrie itself, from the High Hall to the Moon Door fortress below, every command of war and every retainer tied to Lysa Tully was stripped away.
Those men would remain displaced until they had been fully examined, and their loyalty and sanity assured.
