GOT: The Great — Chapter 163 - Cracks in the Gate

Selwyn Tarth didn't leave. He sat on his horse, head tilted, and looked Sansa over from head to toe.

"So you're Sansa Stark?"

Sansa didn't answer. She didn't look away either.

"Brienne stayed on Tarth," Selwyn said. "She's going to marry and have children there. She won't be your sworn sword anymore."

"She came to me," Sansa said. "She asked to be my sworn sword. Then she went back to Tarth, and your army came to attack Storm's End. The person she swore to protect is inside this castle." She paused. "I want to know — was that her idea, or wasn't it?"

Selwyn's gaze went cold.

"You have no right to question me. Your father, Ned Stark, was a good man. He and my liege lord Robert were like brothers. But they're both dead."

He let out a short, cold laugh.

"House Stark is finished. The Warden of the North is Roose Bolton now. And you —"

The corner of his mouth pulled into a sneer. "You're just a little whore the horse lord rides. He's using you. He wants your name so the northern lords who still bleed for House Stark will kneel to him instead."

Sansa's chin came up slightly.

"Using me? I spent two years as a hostage of the Lannisters. Joffrey humiliated me in front of the whole court. Tywin married me off to Tyrion like a piece on a cyvasse board. Everyone wants to put their boot on a Stark. Everyone wants their slice of the North."

"You say Khal Drogo is using me? At least he didn't take my father's head. He didn't drink to celebrate my mother's and brother's deaths. He said he would avenge me —" She had the names ready on her tongue. She kept them there.

"You called me 'a little whore the horse lord rides.'" Sansa's voice dropped, quiet and cold as a Winterfell wind off the ice.

"What about your daughter, then? Brienne is the heir of Tarth. You're forcing her to marry and bear children. How is that any different from breeding her? The words you just used on me, they fit her just as well. Don't they."

Selwyn's face went red.

"Why don't you just die?" Spittle flew from his lips and landed on his horse's neck. "Go reunite with your family! Then the whole North can unite against these savage foreigners!"

Barristan Selmy stepped forward.

"Watch your tongue, my lord. You brought 5 men. I can kill all of them, and you with them."

The 5 guards behind Selwyn gripped their weapons. None of them drew. The name Barristan Selmy, in Westeros, was its own kind of blade.

Selwyn stared at him. A few breaths passed.

"Barristan Selmy. You were Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. You swore an oath to protect the king. And now you guard a gate for an invader?"

"Daenerys is no invader. She is the daughter of Aerys. The throne of Westeros was her family's to begin with."

"Aerys was a madman. The throne belongs to House Baratheon."

"House Baratheon? Robert took the throne by force. And what of his heirs? Joffrey wasn't his blood. Stannis burned his own daughter alive. House Baratheon is a name without a house."

"You should listen to your daughter," Barristan said. "Swear fealty to House Targaryen. Brienne has been here at Storm's End these past days. She has met Queen Daenerys. She knows what kind of woman Daenerys is. If you won't trust her, who will you trust?"

Selwyn said nothing.

He wheeled his horse around. "Tell your queen I'll be back to take this city."

Then he rode off, his 5 guards at his heels.

Sansa watched him go.

"I won't die," she said quietly. "I'll live long enough to watch you lose."

The third assault began.

This time Selwyn sent the battering ram. It was a ship's mast, stripped from the hull and fitted with an iron cap at the head. It hung from chains slung beneath 3 flatbed carts rolled side by side, with more than 20 men pushing from behind. Shield-bearers packed in tight on both flanks, a wall of wood and iron sheltering the ram and the men driving it forward.

It kept coming.

"Loose." Grey Worm's voice didn't rise or fall.

The archers on the wall loosed in volleys. Arrows came down like rain. Shields bristled with white fletching. Several of the men pushing the carts were shot through and dropped, but the ram didn't stop.

It hit the gate.

BOOM!

Dust sifted down from the doorframe. The door panel buckled inward.

When Drogo had taken Storm's End, dragonfire had destroyed the original gate. The replacement was oak, thrown together fast, half the thickness of what it replaced, the iron nails too sparse. 2 crossbars held it shut instead of the original 4. Behind the panels, the Unsullied had braced everything they could: planks, crossbeams, 3 of them, each one as thick as a grown man's thigh, wedged into iron brackets.

BOOM. BOOM.

Second strike. Third. Stone chips crumbled from the doorframe and pattered down onto the Unsullied's helmets.

Daenerys came down from the gatehouse and stood behind the gate. Barristan was beside her, his white cloak grey with dust.

"Your Grace, you shouldn't be here."

"I know." She stared at the door panels shuddering in their frame. "We can't let them keep doing this."

"Then we go out and kill them."

"If we open the gate, their men rush in." The worry was plain in her voice.

"We kill everyone outside fast enough, then close it again." Grey Worm said it like it was simple. Like it was already done.

BOOM!

A crack split down the left panel.

The ram drew back. Through the gap, she could see the men on the other side, bent over and heaving for breath, hauling the ram head back for another run.

Grey Worm raised his short sword and looked at Daenerys.

She nodded.

"Open the gate." His voice rang out in Valyrian.

The crossbars came up and dropped into their stone slots. Both panels swung open at once, the hinges screaming.

The battering ram was already swinging forward.

Barristan went out first. His longsword came in from the side and carved into the men pushing the ram. The soldier at the front never had time to turn, his throat opened and he went down. The Unsullied poured out through both sides of the gate passage.

Barristan was already deep in the press.

His sword took a spear shaft and snapped it. The backswing sheared off half the spearman's face. Another soldier came at him with an axe. He stepped inside the swing and drove his blade up through the man's armpit to the hilt. When he pulled it free, blood sheeted down the steel.

Grey Worm ran a separate squad, their only job to drag the battering ram back through the gate. 8 Unsullied pushed from the rear. 14 more looped ropes around the crossbeam and hauled, backs bent, boots scraping stone.

From Selwyn's lines, 500 cavalry broke and charged. The ground shook with it. The lead riders were already at the gate.

A squad of Unsullied turned and set their spears. The volley punched through the front rank of horses and bought the gate a few more seconds.

They didn't make it back inside.

The gate closed.

The panels slammed shut. The crossbars dropped back into place.

Inside the gate hall, the battering ram filled half the chamber.

Barristan leaned against the wall and breathed. His sword was notched along the edge. His white cloak was red.

Grey Worm counted. 100 Unsullied had gone out. 82 came back. 18 were still outside.

They weren't coming back.

Daenerys stood behind the gate, looking at the captured ram, looking at the door that had been beaten half to pieces.

"Grey Worm."

"Khaleesi."

"How much longer can the gate hold?"

Grey Worm looked at the cracked panels, the doorframe sitting crooked in the wall.

"Next time? It won't."