"Now!" Solomon roared, pointing his Myrish blade at the chest of silver. "Make your choice!"
"Those who are willing to bleed with me! Those who trust my vow! Step forward! One man, one stag!"
He scanned the crowd, his eyes fierce.
"But know this: The moment you take that coin, you accept my terms. You become my soldier. You follow my orders. There is no turning back."
Silence hung over the camp for a heartbeat.
Then, a shuffle of feet.
One man stepped forward. Then another. Then a steady stream.
Hands—calloused from plowing, scarred from labor—reached into the box. Some trembled. Some snatched the coin greedily. Some wept as they clutched the silver, knowing they had just sold their lives, but also knowing they had just bought a year of security for their starving families.
Three silver stags was a fortune to a peasant. It was the difference between a winter of hunger and a winter of full bellies.
Lushen and Lauchlan watched, wincing as the silver disappeared. To them, it looked like Solomon was throwing a fortune into a fire.
Solomon felt the sting too—that money could have bought warhorses or armor. But he knew the truth: Gold is useless if the men holding the swords run away.
When the last man had taken his coin, Solomon raised his hand.
"From this moment, you are soldiers of House Bligh!"
He waited for them to settle back into ranks. The fear was still there, but now it was mixed with something else—gratitude.
But gratitude wasn't enough. He needed killers.
"Lady Roslin has granted me the Right of Salvage!" Solomon announced, his voice cutting through the night air. "Everything we take from the enemy belongs to me!"
The men looked at each other, confused. So? That's how war works. Lords keep the loot. Peasants keep their lives.
Solomon smiled, a wolfish grin that showed too many teeth.
"But I make you a new promise!"
"I will take only half!"
"The other half... will be divided among you! According to merit! According to kills!"
Boom.
The silence that followed was absolute. It was the silence of brains trying to process a miracle.
In Westeros, a peasant might steal a dead man's boots or a hidden purse, but the real loot—the weapons, the armor, the ransoms—always went up the chain.
Solomon was offering a 50/50 split.
He saw the change happen in their eyes. The dull, bovine look of conscripts vanished. In its place appeared a sharp, hungry glint.
Greed.
Ambition.
In a world where hard work only earned you a sore back and a tax bill, violence was the only shortcut. The Ironborn knew it. The bandits knew it. And now, these farmers knew it.
One raid could earn them more than a lifetime of plowing. One dead wildling could mean a new roof, a cow, a dowry for a daughter.
"Is... is that true, my lord?" a voice shouted from the back.
"By the Seven!" Solomon swore. "Half for the House! Half for the Company!"
The camp exploded.
"Lord Solomon!"
"Long live the Lord!"
"We'll kill them all! We'll strip them naked!"
The fear was gone. It had been strangled by avarice. They weren't seeing terrifying barbarians anymore; they were seeing walking pinatas filled with loot.
They saw a different life. A life where they weren't mud-splattered nobodies, but men with silver in their pockets and stories in their mouths.
Solomon watched them from the platform. He felt a dark satisfaction.
He had broken them. He had taken terrified sheep and turned them into starving wolves.
I didn't need to inspire them with honor, he realized. I just needed to show them the menu.
"Good!" Solomon shouted, raising his sword. "Remember this feeling! We are in the same boat now!"
"If the boat sinks, we all meet the Stranger! But if we row... if we fight... we dock in a harbor of gold!"
"To arms! For the silver! For the loot!"
"FOR LORD SOLOMON!"
The roar shook the trees. Men waved their swords, their faces twisted in a frenzy of anticipation.
In the crowd, Tommen clutched his silver stag so hard it bit into his palm. He thought of his sisters, married off to old men for bread. He thought of his mother's weeping.
He looked up at Solomon, his eyes burning with a fanatic light.
I won't run, Tommen vowed. I'm going to kill. I'm going to get rich. And I'm going to save them.