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Cornfield lay in the southern Westerlands, between the Sunset Sea and the Cornfield woods. It sat on the Ocean Road and served as a gateway castle guarding the south of the Westerlands.
Judging from the surrounding terrain, aside from the broad Cornfield woods, which could be used for ambushes, Cornfield had none of the defensive advantages of the Golden Tooth or Deep Den.
Many Reach cavalry in new, splendid armor carved with the sigil of House Tyrell rode through the Cornfield woods, constantly searching the area.
The fresh equipment worn by so many Reach riders showed the wealth House Tyrell had built over nearly three hundred years ruling the wealthy Reach.
But the cavalry of the Reach were light cavalry. Taken together, all that fine equipment was only roughly comparable to the four thousand heavy cavalry of House Lannister.
And though their new gear was as bright as flowers, that did not prove their fighting ability.
After the Reach scouts thoroughly searched the Cornfield woods, they returned to the main host marching along the Ocean Road and delivered their report.
"Lord Randyll, you heard that. The enemy has only six or seven thousand men. They must be hiding inside the castle. How could they possibly set an ambush in the Cornfield woods?
"I said it before. Unless the enemy commander is a fool, he would not throw his men away like that.
"You worried too much."
Randyll had repeatedly advised Lord Mace to send cavalry to scout the woods. Now that the scouts had returned, Mace spoke to him with a look that said everything was under control.
"Mm. No ambush is best," Randyll answered without being moved. "Lord Hand, no foe should be taken lightly, not even a weak one, and this is a cruel war of life and death.
"We cannot allow ourselves the slightest carelessness."
Mace heard the meaning in Randyll's words. His face stiffened.
"Very well. As you say, this battle is important. Lord Randyll, you will lead the Tarly soldiers in the rear to supervise the army. At the critical moment, you will act as our trump card."
House Tarly had always served in the vanguard or the center. Mace's order sent them to the very rear.
"What? Lord Hand, House Tarly's motto is First in Battle. We have never hidden at the rear in war.
"Please withdraw this order."
Randyll had long grown used to Mace targeting him, but he still protested.
Mace had been Hand of the Reach for more than half a year, and his mind was no longer what it had once been. Besides, in his mind, this unequal war was already a victory waiting to be claimed. How could he let Randyll take a share?
His tone hardened.
"Randyll Tarly, you were just saying that no one can afford carelessness in a cruel war. Now you mean to defy my military order?"
"I... obey."
Randyll was left speechless by his own words being used against him. He looked around at the other nobles watching them. To avoid damaging morale, he could only accept.
"Good. Pass the order. The whole army will quicken its march. We reach Cornfield tonight and begin preparing the siege tomorrow morning."
Mace's order quickly passed down the line. The march from Old Oak to Cornfield, which should have taken two days, was shortened to a day and a half.
After resting through the night, the Reach soldiers began felling the abundant timber of the Cornfield woods the next morning and building siege engines.
Only after seeing his own soldiers begin preparations did Randyll, who had silently patrolled through the night with the Tarly men, return to his camp to rest.
Mace had not ordered him to patrol at night. Randyll had done it himself because he feared the enemy would take advantage of the Reach army's exhaustion after the forced march and launch a night attack.
On the third morning, low horns sounded.
The siege of Cornfield officially began.
The commander of the Reach vanguard was Lord Mace's second son, Garlan Tyrell.
Compared with Loras, the Knight of Flowers, Garlan had little taste for chasing glory and was not as widely known. Few knew him well. He was taller and broader than Loras, as well as stronger and braver.
Ten thousand Reach infantry advanced toward Cornfield with shields, siege ladders, and battering rams. There were so many of them that the assault formation spread wider than Cornfield's wall.
The tide of Reach soldiers placed great pressure on the defenders.
Crey, who commanded Cornfield's defense, took everything in and shouted, "Shoot!"
More than a thousand sharp arrows fell like rain into the Reach assault formation, producing a series of dull thuds.
Most arrows were blocked by shields. A smaller number passed through the wider gaps in the formation and struck their targets.
Seeing that the volley had caused more damage than expected, Crey nodded with satisfaction.
After that first arrow storm, he could already tell that these well-equipped Reach assault soldiers lacked both combat experience and smooth coordination in formation.
"Archers, keep firing. Everyone else, ready stones, boiling oil, and night soil. When these whores in new clothes come closer, we hit them hard."
Careful, cautious, and orderly by nature, Crey had fully adapted to the role of battlefield commander.
Under his orders, the defending army of northern soldiers and ironborn on Cornfield's walls began moving smoothly, like a machine newly oiled.
Ramsay stood behind Crey with a smile on his face. On the surface, he seemed to be quietly waiting for Crey to give him orders. In his mind, however, he was constantly thinking of other things.
Crey and Patrick had come to Cornfield under Robb's orders to replace part of the garrison command. Ramsay had not been replaced. They had replaced Gendry.
That chilled Ramsay's heart. He urgently wanted to return to the Iron Fleet. His prestige there was rising, but if Robb kept him away for too long, the ironborn under him would surely begin to think for themselves.
And now was wartime. Whatever excuse he used to leave his post without permission, Crey would have reason enough to execute him.
Fortunately, Ramsay had laid his arrangements in the Iron Fleet for a long time. A short absence would not ruin them.
So he had time to think about how he could return to the fleet with proper justification.
'This time, Robb Stark sent his trusted men to Cornfield. At least we are not bait... probably.'
After thinking for a long while and finding no good answer, Ramsay glanced at Crey in front of him and Patrick nearby, comforting himself silently.
"Set the ladders and take the wall. Push the ram and open the gate. One hundred silver stags for every enemy killed. The first man up will be raised three places in command and receive one hundred gold dragons!"
After advancing under Cornfield's arrows and nearing the wall, Garlan stepped out from behind a shield in ornate armor. He raised his sword and used coin to raise morale on the spot.
The effect was immediate.
Knowing that their side held an absolute advantage in numbers, the Reach soldiers heard the heavy reward and their spirits rose at once.
Rows of siege ladders covered the front wall of Cornfield. Some soldiers eager for merit began climbing without hesitation.
Stones the size of heads, steaming boiling oil, and foul night soil fell from above, cutting down those greedy first climbers.
As the brutal siege truly began, the smells of blood, cooked meat, and filth spread beneath Cornfield's wall.
The iron-bound oak gate shook under repeated blows from a long battering ram. The bars behind it groaned under the heavy force.
"Patrick, the ram at the gate. Five explosive fruits."
Crey's eyes kept scanning the battlefield. When he heard the ram striking below, he turned his head calmly and gave the order.
"Yes."
'Explosive fruits? What are those?'
Ramsay watched Patrick leave with a team of men wearing strange belts and frowned in confusion.
Within a few minutes, a rapid chain of explosions sounded. The battering ram before Cornfield's gate was torn apart by five explosive fruits.
'Wildfire? No. The color is wrong. Something new he developed?'
Looking at the fragments of the ram thrown into the air, Ramsay fell silent, thinking.
He had believed he was doing well in the Iron Fleet and had narrowed the distance between himself and Robb. Now he discovered that he had missed many things while he was in the Iron Islands.
"They only use wildfire against the ram. That means they do not have much. Bring up the other rams. Whoever opens the gate wins first merit.
"Archers, cover them!"
Seeing his ram and nearby soldiers blasted to pieces, Garlan shouted toward the men pushing the reserve rams in the rear.
Encouraged by his promise, those soldiers put all their strength into pushing another ram quickly toward the gate.
Crey did not care when he saw the ram approach again.
Robb had given him a limited supply of explosive fruits. They could not be used to slaughter many assault soldiers, but even ten more rams would not break Cornfield's gate.
The true problem was the enemy's numbers.
Crey looked at the dense ladders along the battlements, and a faint worry crossed his face.
Cornfield had more than six thousand defenders, but they could not all crowd onto the wall.
Cornfield was not a fortress built for vast numbers. More than two thousand defenders already filled the walls. There was no room for more.
Against the endless assault soldiers climbing up, however, they were still stretched thin and exhausted.
The siege had continued for only a short while, and the defenders had already killed nearly a thousand attackers. But for a vanguard of ten thousand, the casualty rate had only just approached one in ten.
For the entire Reach army of fifty thousand, it was barely a scratch.
With overwhelming numbers and gold urging them onward, the Reach assault soldiers still maintained high morale and attacked bravely.
A soldier in new armor jumped onto the battlements. He managed only one roar before several defenders around him hacked him to death.
Even so, that marked the beginning of the brutal battle on Cornfield's wall.
At the first point where the wall was breached, two more assault soldiers took advantage of the defenders cutting down the first attacker and jumped onto the wall. Back to back, they engaged the defenders at close quarters.
Once one hole opened in the tight wall defense, a second and a third would follow.
When Reach assault soldiers died, more men flowed up the ladders behind them. When defenders died, other soldiers waiting in formation on the stone stairs climbed up to replace them.
As time passed, corpses piled high on Cornfield's wall, which had become a grinder of flesh. Thick blood spread across the stone in a heavy layer.
Explosive fruits sounded again at the gate, while defenders running along the wall stepped through muddy blood and used their lives to fill the gaps in the defense.
'Damn it. The Tyrell soldiers are harder to handle than expected.'
'No choice.'
Seeing the wall defense shake on the edge of collapse, Crey turned toward the three broad-robed figures who had been leaning against the wall.
"Lady Leaf, please help me hold the wall."
When Crey turned to speak, Ramsay stared closely at the three figures whose faces he had never seen.
He had always been curious about them, but he did not believe three people alone could hold a wall that was about to collapse.
"Have your men fall back."
The figure in the middle pulled down her hood. It was Leaf, who had been absent since suffering magical backlash.
"Yes."
Crey nodded and immediately passed the order to the defenders.
The men who had been locked in brutal melee heard the command and retreated together toward the stone stairs behind them, voluntarily giving the wall to the Reach attackers.
Two low roars sounded in the ears of the assault soldiers, who were still dazed by having taken the wall so easily.
From the gate tower, two huge long-haired mammoths with thick curved tusks suddenly appeared.
Like heavy war machines, they charged from the gate tower, one to the left and one to the right.
Everything in their path, whether assault soldiers or piles of corpses, was smashed from the wall or impaled on their long tusks.
At the same time, a clear, beautiful song in an unknown language rang across the battlefield.
The ground below the wall trembled slightly. A narrow crack appeared along Cornfield's wall. It was only a few feet deep and did not harm the wall at all.
But for the soldiers holding the siege ladders, it was deadly.
Countless ladders fell. Countless men climbing them crashed heavily to the ground.
With only Leaf and the two wood dancers, the wall defense that had been on the verge of collapse steadied at once. The assault soldiers lucky enough not to be knocked from the wall by the mammoths were surrounded again by defenders and hacked into meat.
Ramsay stared at Leaf and the other two, dumbfounded. He could hardly believe what had just happened.
Crey, however, did not show the joy of holding the wall. His expression remained grim as he muttered inwardly:
'Bad. The Tyrell army is stronger than expected. This is only their third day here and the first day of the siege, yet we have already used every trump card.'
'It worked so well because the enemy did not understand our methods.'
'Once they find ways to counter them, how do we defend next?'
'Even if His Grace ends the fighting quickly and hurries to Cornfield, he will need seven or eight days at the earliest.'
'Four more days. Cornfield probably cannot hold.'
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