[The Riverlands, North of Mummer's Ford, 4th moon, 299AC]
The first man through the breach died before he took three steps.
A northern axe split his helm from crown to brow. The westerman collapsed backward into the men behind him, blood spraying across shields and faces. Another immediately stepped over the body.
Then he died too.
Tywin watched from horseback as the fighting churned around the broken barricade.
The gap existed, that much was undeniable.
The third barricade had fallen. The road beyond lay visible through smoke, torchlight, and the crush of struggling men. For the first time all night, the western road was within reach.
Yet the North refused to break.
The old lion had seen armies shatter before.
He had seen men abandon shields, banners, and commanders the instant fear overcame discipline.
These damned northmen did neither.
Every time one fell another stepped forward.
Every time a gap opened somebody filled it.
The road remained blocked.
"Push them!" Tywin shouted.
His voice carried surprisingly well through the chaos.
"Forward!" Ser Tybolt Crakehall roared from the vanguard, his sword finding the neck of some northern infantrymen.
Trumpets soon sounded, and the men surged into the fight.
The pass was little more than a narrow road squeezed between two dark ridges, but tonight it had become a slaughterhouse. The dead lay so thickly across portions of the road that soldiers climbed over bodies to reach the enemy.
Tywin's horse shifted uneasily beneath him.
The animal smelled blood.
Everything smelled of blood.
The mountain air had long since vanished beneath smoke, sweat, mud, and death.
A rider approached, he could barely make out who it was until he was upon him, revealing Ser Addam Marbrand.
The heir to Ashmark's armor bore fresh dents. Blood streaked one side of his face.
"My lord."
Tywin turned.
"How fares the center?"
"Holding."
"I do not need them to hold, I need them to advance, so, have they?"
"Slowly."
Tywin's jaw tightened.
Slowly.
Everything tonight was slow.
The old lion looked back toward the breach.
A knot of westermen fought desperately to widen it.
The northern defenders swarmed them immediately.
The fighting became impossible to follow.
Just men hacking at one another beneath flickering torchlight.
Addam followed his gaze.
"They should have broken already."
"Aye."
"They've been fighting all day."
"Aye, my lord, that they have."
The younger man hesitated.
Then finally said what both were thinking.
"I've heard reports that Ser Raymun Snow, Captain of the 1st Company of Greycloaks, personally leads this desperate defense."
Tywin grunted.
The bastard again.
Reports of him had become impossible to ignore.
First following the disaster that was the Battle on the Green Fork, then all of the skirmishes that followed, leading into the failed feint at Sherrer Village, and then Mummer's Ford, and now, the bastard was everywhere.
Tywin had finally seen him himself.
A broad man, strong of build and experienced as well.
Not particularly noble-looking.
That almost made him more dangerous.
The best commanders rarely looked impressive.
"He's holding them together," Addam said.
Tywin nodded once.
A lesser commander would have missed it.
The defenders weren't holding because of terrain.
They weren't holding because of numbers.
They were holding because somebody kept restoring order whenever things threatened to collapse.
Somebody kept appearing exactly where he was needed.
Raymun Snow.
A bastard from nowhere.
Tywin found that mildly irritating.
His attention was soon torn away from the bastard as a horn blast echoed through the pass.
Then another.
The westermen surged once more.
Tybolt Crakehall led them.
The heir to Crakehall fought on foot all this time.
His horse had died nearly an hour earlier.
Tywin watched the young knight climb over a pile of corpses and crash into the northern line with enough force to stagger the men behind him.
The Crakehall heir fought well.
A shield shattered beneath his sword.
A northman fell.
Another followed.
The breach widened slightly.
For the first time all night, genuine hope rippled through the western ranks.
The reaction was immediate.
Men cheered.
They pushed harder.
Fought harder.
The promise of escape hung just beyond the barricades.
Men would endure almost anything if they believed survival waited on the other side.
Addam rode closer.
"If he lives through this, he'll be remembered."
Tywin studied Tybolt.
The young knight stood atop a mound of dead men, shouting commands while blood dripped from his sword.
Tybolt Crakehall had every reason to abandon this fight.
His brother was dead.
His family's lands remained threatened.
The war was all but lost.
Yet here he stood.
Still fighting.
Tywin respected that.
Far ahead, movement caught his eye.
A mounted figure.
The rider smashed into the western flank of the breach like a thrown spear.
Men scattered.
A horse screamed.
The rider's sword rose and fell repeatedly.
Everywhere he went, the defenders rallied.
Tywin recognized him instantly.
Raymun Snow, the northern bastard, was back at it, repairing any damned breach they gained.
The bastard's horse was bleeding.
And the horse's rider himself appeared scarcely better.
Blood covered his armor.
His shield looked ready to fall apart.
Yet he kept fighting.
Kept shouting.
Kept dragging exhausted men back into formation.
A group of westermen finally surrounded him.
For a brief moment Tywin thought they might actually kill the man.
Five against one.
Then northern soldiers crashed into the melee from both sides.
The opportunity vanished.
Raymun emerged still alive.
Addam let out a frustrated breath.
"The bastard refuses to die," he groaned in annoyance, having crossed swords with him during the carnage at Mummer's Ford himself, before being swept away by a shift in the lines.
Tywin said nothing.
Privately, he agreed.
The battle continued to drag onward.
Minutes became an hour.
That single hour felt like three.
The moon climbed higher.
The dead multiplied.
The western host grew smaller.
There were fewer banners than before.
Fewer officers riding their mounts and leading charges.
Fewer voices shouting commands.
Each assault consumed more men.
The realization sat heavily in his mind.
He had escaped Mummer's Ford.
But perhaps only barely.
The survivors marching with him represented the last field army of the Westerlands east of the mountains. Sure, there was the host being raised by his cousin Stafford, but should he fall here, that group of unblooded greenboys and frail greybeards wouldn't survive a single engagement.
Lose their main force here, and everything changed.
The war changed.
The kingdom changed.
His family's future changed.
That thought angered him more than it frightened him.
Tywin Lannister did not fear defeat.
He despised it.
Another rider approached.
This one looked more terrified than the last.
The man's horse stumbled twice before reaching them.
"My lord."
"What is it, boy?"
"The northmen are reinforcing the left."
Tywin frowned.
"How many?"
"I-I… I can't tell, my lord."
Helpful.
The scout swallowed nervously.
"More than before, no doubt. I haven't a clue where they find more men, but they have."
Addam exchanged a look with him.
Plain as day, concern marred the knight's face.
The kind of concern experienced soldiers developed when something felt wrong.
Tywin studied the ridges.
The road.
The darkness beyond.
For a moment, something tugged at him.
An instinct.
Something small nagging him at the back of his mind.
Then the fighting drew his attention away.
The fourth barricade finally cracked.
The western cheer shook the pass.
Men who had been exhausted moments before suddenly found new strength.
Tybolt's banner appeared through the smoke.
The young knight had reached the far side.
The road beyond was visible now.
Addam actually smiled.
A rare thing.
"We've done it, we're almost there."
Tywin looked ahead.
Perhaps for the first time since Mummer's Ford, the possibility seemed real.
The pass was opening.
The trap was failing.
And Raymun Snow's exhausted defenders looked close to collapse.
Tywin saw men stumbling.
Officers were dragging soldiers back into line.
Tired men let their shields drop from pure exhaustion.
The northmen had finally reached their limit.
The old lion felt something he had not allowed himself in days.
Hope.
Then the horns sounded.
Like the very horns signaling the coming of death itself, as if the Stranger descended onto this very pass
Not from ahead.
From behind.
Tywin's expression froze.
The cheering stopped almost immediately.
Every man in the pass heard them.
Every man turned, and they listened.
The horns sounded again.
Closer this time.
Much closer.
Too damn close.
Addam Marbrand's face lost all color.
"My lord..."
Tywin turned his horse and looked back down the road they had fought so desperately to reclaim.
Torchlight flickered in the darkness.
At first there were dozens.
Then hundreds.
Then thousands.
He felt as dread, and even, for the first time… fear, washed over him.
Because he knew who led that host, their banner flying high and proud.
Ser Jory bloody Cassel, leading the survivors of Mummer's Ford.
They had arrived.
The cheering died completely.
For a moment, the entire pass seemed to hold its breath.
The horns sounded again.
This time there could be no mistaking them.
Northern horns, followed by their Riverlands allies.
Too many to belong to a small detachment.
The army from Mummer's Ford had caught them.
For several breaths, Tywin sat perfectly still atop his horse and watched the torchlight spread across the road behind his men. It came slowly at first, scattered and uncertain through the darkness, then gathered into something larger and steadier. Lines of men. Banners. Riders. Shields catching firelight. Spears rising like a black thicket beneath the night sky.
His own men saw it too.
The nearest westermen had stopped cheering. Men who had just been shouting that the road was open now turned back over their shoulders, their faces dirty and blood-spattered and blank with the beginning of fear.
Addam Marbrand rode close, his horse breathing hard beneath him.
"My lord," he said, low enough that only Tywin could hear. "We have to move now. If we can force the pass before they fully come up behind us, some of the men might still make it west."
Tywin did not answer at once.
Ahead, Raymun Snow's Greycloaks still held the upper road. Barely, but they held. Tybolt Crakehall's last assault had driven them back almost to the final bend, and the fourth barricade lay smashed in the mud behind the westermen, its splintered stakes and broken wheels ground beneath boots. The path beyond was visible.
And yet, behind them, Jory Cassel had arrived.
The wolf had caught the lion's tail.
Tywin looked from one end of the pass to the other and understood the truth of the ground in a single glance. The ridges made maneuver impossible. His cavalry was nearly useless. His numbers had been reduced to maybe a thousand and a half exhausted survivors, many wounded, many half-mad from the long slaughter at the ford. The men in front could not easily hear the men behind. The men behind could not push forward without crushing the men ahead.
They were trapped in a road between two jaws.
Addam was right.
There was only one answer left.
Forward.
"Send every man still fit to fight against the northmen ahead," Tywin said.
Addam stared at him for a moment. "Every man?"
"Every man."
"If we strip the rear, Cassel will fall on us."
"If we do not break the lines in front now, Cassel will fall on us anyway." Tywin's voice did not rise, but the words cut through the noise around them. "The road ahead is the only road that matters. Tell Brax to hold the rear as long as he can. Tell the wounded to take up shields if they can stand. Tell the knights to dismount if their horses cannot move. I want that line broken."
Addam nodded once.
He did not like the order.
That was obvious enough.
But he obeyed.
Good man.
Kevan would have understood.
The thought came suddenly and was gone just as quickly. Tywin allowed it no place to sit. Kevan was dead. Leo was dead. Lyle Crakehall was dead. Hundreds of knights were dead. Thousands of men were dead.
The dead were beyond command.
The living remained.
Addam wheeled his horse and began shouting orders. Men moved sluggishly at first, then faster as officers struck them with flats of swords and forced them back into formation. Riders pushed through the crush. Banners shifted. A Brax unicorn moved toward the rear with what remained of several household companies, while Tybolt's boar standard lurched forward through the press toward the front.
Tywin rode after it.
A captain grabbed his bridle as he passed. "My lord, you should stay back."
Tywin looked down at him.
The man released the bridle.
Tywin continued forward.
The pass narrowed farther ahead, where the road bent between two ridges thick with scrub trees and broken stone. The Greycloaks had turned the place into a killing yard. Bodies lay across the road in heaps, and what remained of their barricades had been dragged into rough new lines as soon as the old ones fell. Shields locked behind broken wagons. Archers stood higher up among rocks, shooting down into the westermen whenever torchlight gave them a target.
Raymun Snow stood near the center.
Tywin saw him clearly now.
The bastard had lost his horse at some point. His shield was gone as well, or else broken beyond use. He fought with a sword in one hand and a short axe in the other, his grey cloak torn nearly in half and hanging black with blood. His strawberry blonde hair, wet with sweat and gore, looked dark red beneath torchlight.
Redsnow.
Tywin had heard some of the northmen use the name at Mummer's Ford.
It seemed the sort of name soldiers would invent.
Simple and bloody, but useful.
"Again!" Tybolt Crakehall shouted ahead. "With me! Through them!"
The heir to Crakehall crashed into the Greycloak line with perhaps two hundred men at his back. The attack struck hard enough to drive the northmen several steps uphill. Spears bent. Shields cracked. One Greycloak vanished beneath three westermen and did not rise.
For a moment, the line wavered.
Tywin leaned forward in the saddle.
There.
There it was.
The edge of collapse.
Raymun saw it too.
The bastard stepped into the gap himself.
Tybolt came at him.
They met in the middle of the road amid dead men and broken wood.
Tywin could not hear what either said, if they said anything at all. He saw only steel moving in torchlight. Tybolt struck first, a heavy cut that forced Raymun sideways. The bastard answered with the axe, not trying to kill, only hooking the knight's shield and pulling him off balance. Tybolt recovered quickly and slammed forward with his shoulder, nearly knocking Raymun from his feet.
Good.
Very good.
Tybolt was strong and desperate.
Desperate men could do remarkable things.
The Crakehall heir drove Raymun back three steps. Then four. Around them the westermen roared and pushed harder, sensing the same thing Tywin did. The Greycloaks were tired. Too tired. Even their discipline had limits. Men could only fight so long before muscle failed where courage did not.
A horn sounded behind.
Closer now.
The rear had met Jory Cassel's host.
The sound of fighting rose from back down the pass, different from the struggle ahead. Fresh men hitting exhausted ones. Shields breaking. Horses screaming in panic as they were trapped in the road and cut down from both sides.
Addam rode back into sight, face grim.
"Cassel's on us."
"I hear him."
"Brax is holding, but he won't hold long. They have Tully men with them too, and Cerwyn banners behind. More are coming every moment."
"Then we break through now."
Addam followed his gaze toward Tybolt and Raymun.
For a moment, neither man spoke.
Then Addam said, "If we don't?"
Tywin did not look at him.
"Then this is where the army dies."
Addam looked momentarily shocked at his words, before his gaze fell into that of a man resigned to his fate.
He was a good man, Addam Marbrand.
Tywin had known that for years. Capable. Loyal. Brave without being stupid. The sort of man who should have been commanding a wing of a victorious army, not helping shepherd the last remnants of one through a slaughtered road in the dark.
"The army may already be dead, my lord," Addam said quietly.
Tywin turned his head.
Addam met his eyes.
There was no insolence there. No accusation. Only exhaustion and truth.
For half a heartbeat Tywin almost answered him harshly.
Then he did not.
"Armies die when commanders accept it," Tywin said.
Addam nodded once, though Tywin could not tell whether he agreed.
Ahead, Tybolt shouted again. The large knight struck Raymun across the side of the helm hard enough to stagger him. Blood sprayed from the bastard's mouth. For one breath it looked as if Raymun would fall.
He did not.
Instead he came in low, inside Tybolt's reach, and drove his axe into the knight's thigh above the knee. Tybolt roared and tried to bring his sword down, but Raymun slammed his shoulder into him and sent both men crashing into the mud.
The men around them surged.
For a moment they disappeared beneath the fighting.
Tywin lost sight of them.
Then a shout went up from the northmen.
A battle cry.
"Redsnow!"
The name rolled along the Greycloak line.
"Redsnow! Redsnow!"
Tywin saw Raymun rise again.
Tybolt rose too, slower, one leg nearly buckling beneath him. The heir to Crakehall still had his sword. Still had enough strength to swing it. He struck a Greycloak across the face and killed another who came too close. Then Raymun was on him again.
This time the bastard did not fight cleanly.
He kicked Tybolt's wounded leg.
The knight dropped to one knee.
Raymun's axe came down on his sword arm.
Tybolt lost the blade.
Then came the killing blow, Raymun Snow stabbed his sword through the gap of Tybolt's armor, plunging the blade into neck, blood gushing out from his mouth and wound, sputtering as he began to breathe his last.
Tybolt Crakehall fell backward into the mud, still trying to reach for a weapon that was no longer there, blood pooling around him as he violently thrashed, then his movements stopped..
Tywin watched the boar banner dip.
Then vanish.
Around him, several westermen groaned as if struck.
The front faltered.
That was all it took.
The attack at the head of the pass lost its force. Men who had been pushing forward now hesitated. Some turned back toward the rear. Others tried to keep going and found no one following. The line became confused, crowded, then afraid.
Behind them, Jory Cassel's force hit harder.
The rear began collapsing.
The men were still fighting, but they were no longer fighting as an army. Small knots formed around surviving banners. Household guards tried to shield their lords. Wounded men crawled between boots. Horses reared and fell because there was nowhere left for them to move.
The pass had become a trap in truth now.
No road ahead.
No road behind.
Only ridges and dead men.
Tywin heard Addam curse softly.
"My lord," Addam said, "we are out of time."
Tywin looked toward the front once more.
Raymun's line had re-formed.
Battered.
Bloody.
Yet despite all of that, there they were, still standing, shields locked and ready.
Behind, the northern banners pushed closer.
Jory Cassel was coming through the rear methodically, not wildly. A reckless commander might have allowed panic to create openings. Jory did not. His men advanced in controlled steps, killing what stood before them, tightening the space, forcing the westermen inward.
Brynden Tully's trout banners appeared beside them. Cerwyn banners farther off. Marq Piper's men too, though fewer than before, their colors ragged from the day's fighting.
All of them.
Every piece of the trap.
Closing upon them.
For a moment Tywin saw the whole thing as if from above. His crossing had almost worked. His breakout had nearly worked. Every move had been sound. Every decision had followed reason. He had outmaneuvered them more than once and still ended here, hemmed in by lesser men who should have broken days ago.
No.
Not lesser.
That was the mistake others made before defeat.
Jory Cassel was not lesser.
Raymun Snow was not lesser.
Brynden Tully never had been.
The North had changed.
That thought angered him.
"Form around my banner," Tywin ordered.
Addam looked at him. "My lord?"
"Form around my banner."
Addam understood then.
The last defense.
Victory was far from attainable, now all there was left for them was to survive.
Survival with dignity, if such a thing remained.
The order went out.
What remained of the Westerlands command gathered around Tywin's standard. Lannister household guards. Marbrand men. A few Brax knights. Some Crakehall survivors who had not seen Tybolt fall, or had seen and refused to accept it. They formed a rough ring in the middle of the pass while the army died around them.
The first northern charge struck the outer edge and was beaten back.
The second came harder.
The third broke through.
Addam fought beside Tywin then, sword in hand, helm gone, hair dark with sweat. He cut down one man, then another. A Greycloak struck at him from the left, and Addam turned the blade aside before driving his sword through the man's throat.
"Stay behind me," Addam snapped.
Tywin almost laughed at that.
Almost.
"I am not a child."
"No," Addam said, parrying another blow, "but you are worth more alive than dead."
That was true enough.
Tywin drew his own sword.
The blade felt familiar in his hand. Not comforting. Nothing about this night was comforting. But familiar.
A northman came at him with an axe. Tywin caught the blow on his sword and turned it aside. The man was young, too eager, and Tywin killed him with a thrust beneath the ribs.
Another came.
Tywin killed him too.
He was not Jaime. He never had been. But he was still a knight of the Rock, still trained since boyhood, still a man who knew steel and blood even if command had long ago become his sharper weapon.
The ring tightened.
Men fell around him.
One of his guards took a spear through the belly and died screaming.
A Brax knight lost his arm.
A Marbrand man fell under three Greycloaks.
Addam was struck across the face and dropped to one knee. Tywin moved forward without thinking and cut the attacker down before the man could finish him.
Addam looked up, surprised.
"Get up," Tywin said.
Addam did.
The next rush came from the front and rear at once.
That was when the last ring broke.
Men were dragged down. Swords vanished in the press. Someone seized Tywin's horse by the bridle and the animal screamed, reared, and slipped on bloody mud. Tywin tried to free his boot from the stirrup before the horse fell.
Too late.
The horse went down.
Pain shot through his leg as he struck the ground.
For a moment the world became noise and darkness.
He tasted blood.
Someone shouted his name.
Another man screamed, "It's the Old Lion! Take Tywin Lannister alive!"
Hands grabbed him.
Tywin struck one away with the pommel of his sword.
Another hand seized his shoulder.
He turned and slashed, cutting deep into someone's arm.
Then a weight hit him from the side and drove him to one knee.
Addam was there again, dragging a man off him.
"Up, my lord!"
Tywin tried.
His leg nearly failed beneath him.
Not broken, but twisted to the point of agony, yet still usable, barely.
The fighting around him thinned suddenly.
Not because there were fewer enemies.
Because there were fewer Westermen left standing.
It was over.
The pass had grown quieter in the way battlefields only did when one side had ceased to exist as a fighting force. Men still died. Wounded still screamed. Steel still rang in brief ugly bursts. But the great roar had faded.
The army was gone.
What remained were prisoners, corpses, and isolated men being forced to their knees.
Addam stood beside him, breathing hard, sword still raised.
A circle of northmen formed around them.
Greycloaks first.
Then riverlanders.
Then more men pushing through behind.
Jory Cassel stepped into view.
His armor was dark with blood and mud. His face looked older than it had any right to, and the runed sword in his hand still dripped red. Beside him came Brynden Tully, hard-eyed and grim, and Raymun Snow, limping badly but still standing with his axe in hand.
Raymun looked like he should have died hours ago.
Perhaps he had simply refused.
Jory stopped several yards away.
"Lord Lannister."
Tywin straightened as much as his leg allowed.
"Ser Jory."
"Your army is destroyed."
Tywin looked around once, slowly.
The dead had piled high, with the survivers now prisoners and the banners long having fallen in the mud.
Addam still held his sword beside him, though three Greycloaks had spears aimed at his chest.
Brynden Tully spoke then.
"It's done, Tywin. Don't make the last few die for your pride."
Tywin looked at him.
The Blackfish had aged since last they met, though not softened. There was no triumph in his face. No joy. Only exhaustion and something like contempt.
"You presume this was pride," Tywin said.
"What else would you call it?"
"Duty."
Brynden snorted. "Aye. Men always find clean words for getting other men killed."
Raymun shifted his weight slightly, grimacing as he did. "So, are we taking him alive or are we gonna stand here talking until morning?"
Several men laughed, rough and tired.
Jory did not.
"Alive," Jory said.
Tywin glanced at him. "On whose order?"
"Mine."
"That is not what I asked."
Jory met his eyes. "King Alaric Stark, second of his name, will decide what becomes of you."
There it was.
King Alaric II.
The bloody king in the north.
The boy who had taken the Golden Tooth, stolen the Riverlands from beneath Lannister control, destroyed the Freys, invaded the west, and now, captured Tywin's army through captains and bastards.
Tywin held Jory's gaze for a long moment.
Then he looked to Addam.
"Yield your sword."
Addam's jaw tightened.
"My lord—"
"Yield it."
For a moment, Addam Marbrand looked like he might refuse.
Then he lowered his blade.
A Greycloak stepped forward and took it.
Tywin turned his own sword in his hand.
He could have forced them to take it.
He could have died in the mud like some fool knight chasing the last line of a song.
Instead, he offered it hilt-first.
Not to Raymun Snow.
Not to Jory Cassel.
To Brynden Tully.
The Blackfish looked at the sword for a heartbeat before taking it.
No smile or elaborate speech about the liberation of the Riverlands.
Good.
Tywin would have despised a speech.
Jory nodded to his men.
"Bind them."
A younger Greycloak stepped forward with rope, then hesitated when he reached Tywin.
Tywin looked at him.
The boy swallowed.
Raymun barked, "Gods be good, lad, it's rope, not wildfire. Bind his hands before he decides to conquer another river crossing."
That got another tired laugh.
The boy obeyed.
The rope was rough around Tywin's wrists.
He said nothing.
Around them, the last fighting faded into groans and shouted orders. Men began gathering prisoners. Others dragged wounded from the road. Somewhere farther down the pass, someone was calling for a maester. Someone else was crying for his brother.
Tywin stood in the middle of it all and looked west.
The road was there.
Still there.
A thin black line running between ridges toward the hills and, beyond them, the Westerlands.
Home had been close enough to taste.
Too close.
Jory followed his gaze.
"You nearly made it."
Tywin looked back at him.
"Nearly is a word for defeated men, Ser Jory."
Jory's expression did not change.
"Aye. It is."
For the first time all night, Tywin had no answer.
Dawn had not yet come, but the eastern sky was beginning to pale behind the ridges. The torches burned lower. Smoke drifted over the pass. The dead lay thick on both sides of the road, northman and westerman and riverman all made equal in the mud.
Raymun Snow leaned heavily on his axe, watching the prisoners with the flat-eyed look of a man too tired to hate anyone properly.
Brynden Tully held Tywin's sword.
Jory Cassel gave orders in a calm voice, already reverting back to his more logistical tendencies.
And Tywin Lannister, the Old Lion, Lord of Casterly Rock, Shield of Lannisport, Warden of the West, and grand-sire of the King of the Iron Throne, stood bound in the road while the remnants of his army were disarmed around him.
The lion had not bent.
The lion had not begged.
But the lion had been caged.