Ser Barristan I; The Winds of Winter 'A red dawn' Barristan the Bold speech before the attack!

Ser Barristan Selmy on queen Daenerys Targaryen silver horse

From The Winds of Winter preview chapter here’s ser Barristan Selmy on Dany’s silver horse, giving an awesome and inspiring speech at his men, just moments before sounding the attack on the Yunkaii and sellsword forces assembled outside the Meereen city walls.

Reference excerpt from the book: Se Barristan I; The Winds of Winter

He wheeled his silver mare about.

“Gather round me, men.”

When they edged their horses closer, he said, “I know what you are feeling. I have felt the same myself, a hundred times.
Your breath is coming faster than it should.
In your belly a knot of fear coils like a cold black worm.
You feel as though you need to empty your bladder, maybe move your bowels.
Your mouth is dry as the sands of Dorne.
What if you shame yourself out there, you wonder?
What if you forget all your training?
You yearn to be a hero, but deep down inside you fear you might be craven.”

“Every boy feels the same way on the eve of battle.
Aye, and grown men as well. Those Stormcrows over there are feeling the same thing.
So are the Dothraki. There is no shame in fear, unless you let it master you.
We all taste terror in our time.”

“I am not afraid.”
The Red Lamb’s voice was loud, almost to the point of shouting. “Should I die, I will go before the Great Shepherd of Lhazar, break his crook across my knee, and say to him, ‘Why did you make your people lambs, when the world is full of wolves?’ Then I will spit into his eye.”

Ser Barristan smiled.

“Well said … but take care that you do not seek death out there, or you will surely find it.
The Stranger comes for all of us, but we need not rush into his arms.”

“Whatever might befall us on the battlefield, remember, it has happened before, and to better men than you.

I am an old man, an old knight, and I have seen more battles than most of you have years.

Nothing is more terrible upon this earth, nothing more glorious, nothing more absurd.

You may retch. You will not be the first.

You may drop your sword, your shield, your lance.
Others have done the same.

Pick it up and go on fighting.

You may foul your breeches. I did, in my first battle.
No one will care.

All battlefields smell of shit.

You may cry out for your mother, pray to gods you thought you had forgotten, howl obscenities that you never dreamed could pass your lips.
All this has happened too.

“Some men die in every battle.
More survive.
East or west, in every inn and wine sink, you will find greybeards endlessly refighting the wars of their youth.
They survived their battles.
So may you.

This you can be certain of: the foe you see before you is just another man, and like as not he is as frightened as you.

Hate him if you must, love him if you can, but lift your sword and bring it down, then ride on.

Above all else, keep moving.
We are too few to win the battle.

We ride to make chaos, to buy the Unsullied time enough to make their spear wall, we—”

“Ser?” Larraq pointed with the Kingsguard banner, even as a wordless murmur went up from a thousand pairs of lips.

Far across the city, where the shadowed steps of Meereen’s Great Pyramid shouldered eight hundred feet into a starless sky, a fire had awoken where once the harpy stood.
A yellow spark at the apex of the pyramid, it glimmered and was gone again, and for half a heartbeat Ser Barristan was afraid the wind had blown it out. Then it returned, brighter, fiercer, the flames swirling, now yellow, now red, now orange, reaching up, clawing at the dark.

Away to the east, dawn was breaking behind the hills. Another thousand voices were exclaiming now. Another thousand men were looking, pointing, donning their helms, reaching for their swords and axes. Ser Barristan heard the rattle of chains. That was the portcullis coming up. Next would come the groan of the gate’s huge iron hinges.

It was time.

The Red Lamb handed him his winged helm. Barristan Selmy slipped it down over his head, fastened it to his gorget, pulled up his shield, slipped his arm inside the straps. The air tasted strangely sweet. There was nothing like the prospect of death to make a man feel alive. “May the Warrior protect us all,” he told his lads. “Sound the attack.”

“May the Warrior protect us all… Sound the attack.”

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