GOT: The Great — Chapter 236 - Barristan Selmy — Steel and Blood

The wildfire on the Street of Steel was buried in the cellar of the blacksmiths' guild.

The entrance was blocked by a pile of scrap iron. Rusted ingots and broken plow blades, stacked higher than a man. Roy led Barristan around the side, lifted a loose floor tile, and revealed the pitch-black steps beneath.

Barristan descended and saw the wildfire jars immediately. At least fifty of them, lined up on wooden racks along the wall.

He was working through his options — bury them under sand at the deepest part of the cellar, or haul them to the Blackwater Rush and dump them in the river.

Then came the sound of iron boots on stone, from directly overhead.

Twelve Gold Cloaks stood at the cellar entrance, torches raised. The one in the lead was a big man, his helmet pulled low, his thick beard crusted with last night's dinner.

"Queen Mother Cersei means to blow everyone in King's Landing to pieces with wildfire," Barristan said. "Do you intend to help her do it?"

The big man knocked his torch against the wall. Sparks skittered across the stone.

"All of that is enemy propaganda. Why would anyone believe it — oh, right. Because you're the one spreading it. We've already heard. You've gone over to the whore queen from Essos."

"Mind your tongue, ser," Barristan said. "If this wildfire isn't meant to destroy King's Landing, then tell me why it's buried in the cellar of the blacksmiths' guild."

"We have no standing to question the king's orders," the big man said. His tone wavered on the last word.

"You'd rather be blown apart than help me clear this away? After the city falls, Queen Daenerys will need men to keep order in King's Landing. You would be the ones who saved the entire city."

The big man's lip curled. "You want us to turn our cloaks like you did?"

He drew his sword. All eleven Gold Cloaks drew theirs.

"I can cut down every man in this room," Barristan said.

The big man laughed. "You did kill two of ours the day you ran from King's Landing. But now we're twelve."

"I have six men," Barristan said. What he didn't say: they had slipped into the city dressed as refugees. Not a piece of armor between them.

Roy stood in the corner. He caught Barristan's eye at those words. The look said it plainly enough: you're counting me in that number?

The Gold Cloaks charged down the steps.

The cellar was cramped. Torchlight lurched and stuttered across the stone walls. Men and blades and shadows all tangled together.

Barristan drew his sword, caught the first slash on the flat of his blade, and ran his point through the first Gold Cloak's throat in the same motion.

Blood sprayed across the wildfire jars. The green wax seals darkened to red.

Two Unsullied locked in on Barristan's flanks, one to each side. Two more took the stairway entrance and held it.

The big man's sword came down hard. Barristan caught it.

In his youth he could have rolled his wrist and taken the man's head. But he was old now. The strength wasn't there anymore. He caught the blade and held, and that was all.

The big man kicked him square in the chest. Barristan staggered back two steps and his spine hit the wooden rack. A clay jar rocked to one side. He got a hand on it. His palm came away cold.

In the tangle of steel and shadow, one Unsullied went down. Throat opened. His short sword slipped from his fingers and rang off the stone floor.

Barristan heard it, that sharp CLANG, and then an iron boot kicked the sword spinning into the corner.

A second Unsullied took three blades at once. He drove his short sword into the back of the last man's knee before he fell, and then he lay still in his own blood.

Barristan cut down two men coming at him from the side. A blade caught his arm. Blood ran down his sleeve and soaked into the coarse wool, turning it dark brown.

"Go." The two remaining Unsullied said it at the same moment.

Barristan did not play the hero. He had lived past sixty years and the most important thing those years had taught him was to listen when someone told him to leave.

He fell back toward the exit.

The two Unsullied planted themselves shoulder to shoulder at the foot of the stairs, blocking the passage with their bodies.

Barristan looked back once. He saw the flash of an Unsullied's short sword in the torchlight. Then the shadows swallowed it.

He ran up the steps. The moment he cleared the scrap-iron pile and broke into open air, Roy's voice came from behind him.

The pyromancer was standing on the cellar steps, clutching a wildfire jar he had grabbed from the rack on his way out. The wax seal had already been pried from the mouth. Green liquid sloshed at the rim. In his other hand, a piece of flint.

"Ser Selmy." Roy's voice was steady. "Run. Don't look back."

Barristan opened his mouth.

Roy struck the flint against the jar.

Green fire erupted from the ventilation shaft like a dragon that had been buried underground for a thousand years and had finally decided to breathe.

Then the second wave hit. The 50-odd wildfire jars in the cellar went up one after another, each detonation hammering up through the earth like something enormous swinging against the underside of the world.

The road surface of the Street of Steel buckled and split. Gravel and iron ingots launched skyward, then came back down trailing green fire.

Half the blacksmiths' guild collapsed. The wooden roof beams crackled and roared. Green tongues of flame punched through the shattered walls.

Half the street was simply gone. In its place, an enormous pit, its floor blanketed in burning green, as if the ground had cracked open and something below was staring back up.

Debris and iron chunks rained onto the surrounding rooftops. A column of smoke climbed from the ruins and unraveled in the night wind into a gray-green haze.

Barristan pulled himself up from beside a cinder heap. His left ear was screaming. He could hear nothing past it.

His beard was singed short on one side. The edges of his wool cloak were still smoking. He beat out the sparks with his hand and stood in the back alley, looking at the green ruin.

Then he turned and walked toward Flea Bottom.

The streets beyond the ruins were packed. He pushed through the crowd.

Someone saw his face. Recognized him. Pointed and shouted something. He couldn't hear the words. His left ear was still ringing.

But he could read the shape of the man's mouth.

Barristan Selmy.

More people poured out of the alleys, crowding the street, staring at the ruins still burning. A fat woman from a bakery stood on the corner, clutching a crumpled leaflet. The edges of the paper were soaked through with sweat.

She looked at the paper. She looked at the green ruin where half the street had been. Her lips wouldn't stop shaking.

"What's written on this paper," she shouted, her voice cutting straight through the green-hazed night, "all of it is true! I can read! It says wildfire!"

She thrust the leaflet above her head and screamed at anyone who would listen. "The Queen Mother is going to blow us all to pieces! Look! Look at it!"

No one doubted anymore.

The people standing in front of the ruins turned and ran. They crashed into the people flooding out of the other alleys. And then everyone was running.

Voices in the dark: The Queen Mother is going to blow up King's Landing. Get out of the city. Children's names, called over and over.

Gold Cloak whistles shrieked twice somewhere in the distance and were swallowed by the roar.

Barristan Selmy stood at the edge of the tide, pressing his bleeding arm against his side.

Firelight moved across his face. He looked once more at the green ruin still burning in the dark. Then he turned down a back alley and walked toward Flea Bottom.

4 Unsullied lost. Roy lost. The wound was still seeping. He tore a strip from his cloak, bound it around his arm, and kept moving.

There was still wildfire in Flea Bottom. Still wildfire at the north wall of the Great Sept of Baelor.

His fight wasn't finished.

➤ Next: Cersei's Five Crimes