Solomon stood atop the high battlements of Willowbrook, looking down at his soldiers assembling in the courtyard below, fully equipped and ready to march.
Now, the blood was truly going to flow until the land ran dry.
Solomon turned his back to the wind, his gaze falling upon Olivier.
"Olivier, organize the supply wagons immediately."
"Everything of value in this castle—everything that can be carried—is to be packed up and transported back to the Lion's Den."
"Grain! Weapons! Horses! Cloth! I want you to strip this place down to the floorboards. If you can pry loose a paving stone, pack it!"
Olivier froze, his eyes widening. He swallowed hard before speaking. "Lord Solomon... surely that is not appropriate."
Solomon did not offer an explanation. He simply repeated the exact same phrase he had used earlier, his tone flat. "There will be a dignified conclusion."
Across the vast territories of House Lege, the raging fires of war had already been lit.
Hector and his two hundred veterans, clad in the bloodstained, standard-issue armor of the Willowbrook garrison, descended upon the defenseless villages like a pack of starving wolves.
"By order of Lord Lege! The castle requisitions your supplies for the war!"
Hector violently kicked open the wooden door of a peasant's hovel, dragging out a shivering, terrified family. His men swarmed inside, snatching up any meager valuables and sacks of grain they could find. As they left, a torch was tossed onto the thatched roof.
Flames shot into the sky, accompanied by thick, choking columns of black smoke.
Similar scenes were playing out across the entirety of the Lege domain. Panic spread faster than a plague.
Hector's men split into smaller bands. Pretending to be routed, desperate deserters from the Lege army, they burned, pillaged, and sowed seeds of absolute chaos in every corner of the land. They enthusiastically spread the rumor that the Lege army had been annihilated, and that every male of the Lege bloodline had been captured or slaughtered.
Countless smallfolk abandoned the homes their families had lived in for generations. Dragging their wives and children, pulling their emaciated livestock, they merged into a massive, desperate river of refugees. The dirt roads leading toward neighboring territories were instantly clogged with terrified, weeping humanity.
And it was then that the vassals of House Lege—the lords and anointed knights who had sworn sacred oaths to protect the realm—bared their fangs.
Rather than organizing their militias to stabilize the region or marching to relieve their besieged liege lord, they seized the opportunity to scavenge the corpse.
Some lords marched out under the righteous banner of "purging the Lege deserters who have turned to banditry," only to use their armed forces to ruthlessly plunder the wealthiest towns in the region.
Others didn't even bother with an excuse; they simply dressed their own men as Lege deserters and joined in the pillaging.
Still others set up blockades on the main roads, forcibly corralling the fleeing refugees at spearpoint and dragging them back to their own lands to serve as newly acquired serf labor. Finding no safe passage and stripped of all hope, many desperate peasants fled into the deep woods, forced to become bandits simply to survive.
Even the neighboring lords, such as House Deddings—who had been furious with Solomon for sparking the conflict—smelled the blood in the water. They marched their forces across the border, effortlessly reclaiming disputed lands that House Lege had previously annexed.
The entire direct domain of House Lege had completely collapsed, descending into a horrific, lawless carnival of fire, blood, and unrestrained greed.
At a major crossing on the Green Fork leading toward Lord Harroway's Town, thousands of refugees had ground to a halt. The sheer volume of people attempting to cross the ferries had caused a massive bottleneck. They were trapped.
And then, a fully armed noble host appeared on the horizon.
A wave of absolute despair washed over the smallfolk. Their recent, agonizing experiences had taught them a brutal lesson: the arrival of a noble army was never good news. The highborn lords were far worse than the bandits.
The refugees froze in terror, assuming another pack of "noble wolves" had arrived to enslave or slaughter them.
However, this army did not charge. They formed a silent, disciplined shield wall, making no aggressive moves toward the crowd.
A murmur rippled through the terrified masses. "It's the Black Lion's army."
At that moment, a detachment of Solomon's soldiers marched forward, heavily escorting a group of bound prisoners.
The prisoners were dressed in the armor of House Lege, and their pockets were bulging with stolen, bloody silver and trinkets.
Some were genuinely corrupt Lege soldiers; others were men belonging to the scavenging vassals. Regardless, they were the perfect props for the theatrical display of justice Solomon was about to orchestrate.
Solomon rode forward on his warhorse, looking down from his high saddle at the bound looters kneeling in the dirt.
He pointed his riding crop at the prisoners, his voice booming out so every terrified refugee could hear. "Look at these men!"
"They used the chaos of war to steal your meager wealth! To burn the roofs over your heads!"
The refugees shrank back, too terrified to make a sound.
Solomon raised his voice, letting it echo across the riverbank. "My war is directed solely at the lords of House Lege, who brought this fire upon the land!"
"But for the jackals who use this war as an excuse to prey upon the innocent people of the Riverlands—no matter whose banner they fly—I have only one punishment!"
He drew his longsword, the steel flashing in the afternoon sun, and pointed it at the kneeling men.
"In the name of Lord Solomon! I sentence them to death! Execute them immediately!"
The command fell like a thunderbolt. The executioners standing behind the prisoners raised their heavy blades and brought them down in unison.
Several severed heads rolled into the dirt. Bright red blood sprayed across the grass, violently shocking the hearts of everyone watching.
The eyes of the refugees slowly shifted from paralyzing terror to profound astonishment, and finally, to a tiny, fragile spark of disbelief and hope.
This lord was completely different from the monsters they had encountered. Not only did he refuse to rob them, he had actually delivered swift, bloody justice to the men who had tormented them.
Solomon sheathed his sword, his expression as calm as if he had just swatted a fly.
Behind him, his soldiers immediately sprang into action.
They hauled massive iron cauldrons to the front lines, lit heavy fires, and began boiling thick oat porridge. They systematically distributed black bread and clean water to the starving refugees. The medics moved through the crowd, washing and binding the wounds of the injured.
Within hours, a massive, highly organized temporary camp had been erected on the riverbank, providing a safe haven for the displaced masses.
As night fell, massive bonfires illuminated the sprawling refugee camp.
Solomon stood atop a hastily constructed wooden platform. Below him, tens of thousands of eyes stared up at him, reflecting the dancing flames.
His opening words were blunt, cruel, and cut straight to the bone. A low, collective sob rippled through the crowd. "Your homes are gone."
"The men who burned them, the men who robbed you—some were soldiers of House Lege, others were men of the neighboring lords."
"But at the root of it all, it is the absolute incompetence and boundless greed of Lord Roger Lege that has forced you to endure this agony!"
"But his reign is over! Willowbrook has fallen to my army! The entire bloodline of House Lege is currently rotting in my chains!"
Solomon's voice rang out like an iron bell in the night sky.
"My war was against House Lege! Not against you! The war is over! But your lives must continue!"
He paused, his piercing gaze sweeping over the sea of fire-lit, soot-stained faces.
"You have no homes! You have no land to sow! But tonight... I offer you a choice!"
"Follow me to my lands!"
A massive, breathless wave of murmurs swept through the crowd.
"You may have heard the rumors. They say I am a merciful lord, but a lord without deep roots in this land. And because of that, I need you more than any other lord in Westeros needs you."
"To every man and woman willing to follow me, to every single family—I will grant you a plot of public land to farm!"
"And your harvest... after a fair, reasonable tax is collected... the rest will belong entirely to you!!"
"Furthermore, knowing that you have lost everything to the fires of this war, I hereby decree: I will collect absolutely zero taxes or rents from you for your first year!"
A man in the front row collapsed to his knees, his body trembling violently, tears streaming down his face. "My Lord... is this true?"
"Will you truly waive the taxes for a year?"
Solomon's voice cut through the night, clear and absolute. "I swear it upon my name!"
"Not only will I waive your taxes, I will provide you with the grain, the seeds, and the livestock you need to begin again!!"
The next morning, Solomon's subsequent order swept through the refugee camp, leaving the tens of thousands of smallfolk in a state of absolute, profound shock.
They finally realized exactly how this generous lord intended to provide for them.
"Everyone! Pick up your tools!"
"Every single stalk of mature grain remaining on the lands of House Lege now belongs to you! Go and harvest it!"
The refugees were completely dumbfounded.
Under the strict organization and armed protection of Solomon's veterans, tens of thousands of refugees swarmed into the remaining, unburnt fields of House Lege.
Wielding iron sickles, scythes, or simply their bare hands, they frantically tore through the fields, harvesting the massive bounty of grain that Solomon had promised would soon be theirs.
Cows, sheep, pigs, and chickens—every piece of livestock that had been abandoned in the panic was systematically rounded up into massive, bleating herds.
A colossal, unprecedented supply train began to form on the roads.
Lushen rode his horse back and forth along the ridges of the fields, shouting his commands over the din of the harvest.
"Every sack of grain!! Every head of livestock!! Pack it all up!!"
"We are transporting it all back to the lands of Lord Solomon!! That is your new home!!"
"When we arrive, Lord Solomon will distribute it all to you!!"
Hearing those words, the refugees swung their sickles with a fanatical, zealous energy.