New chapter! Thanks for all the support!
x
Crack, crack.
Robb stood proudly atop Bloodwind's head and swept his gaze across the battlefield. Behind man and wolf, the crystalline pillars that had risen inside Cornfield like a stairway to the heavens began to collapse and fade.
'Good. We arrived in time. If the wall had fallen completely, even the Wolfguard and I could not have turned this back.'
Outside Cornfield, dense ranks of Reach soldiers were still surging forward.
Robb had seemed to drop from the sky because he and the Wolfguard had left Deep Den the same night the fighting there ended.
Thanks to the ice direwolves' excellent night vision and the endurance strengthened through the blood pact, a journey that would normally take seven or eight days had been cut nearly in half.
If it had been only Robb and the pack, they might have arrived even sooner. But Will and the other Wolfguard could not match Robb's inhuman body, and he had let the exhausted men rest several times along the road.
After quickly weighing the battlefield, Robb decided on his plan.
"Crey, have the brothers tie strips of cloth around their feet. Then continue commanding the defense according to your arrangements. If I have other orders, I will tell you.
"Leaf, Thorn and Vine are too heavy in mammoth shape and cannot move well on ice. Have them skinchange into ice direwolves and help us clear the enemies from the wall."
"As you command!"
"Good."
Once the orders were given, Robb sent a thought to Bloodwind and leapt down from his back.
The moment Robb stepped onto the ice-covered wall, white mist flowed beneath his boots and gripped the ice. When he stepped forward, the mist faded; when his foot came down again, it gathered once more.
In this way, Robb moved freely across the frozen battlements toward the left side of the wall.
Bloodwind drove the sharp claws on his paws into the ice like snow spikes and rushed toward the right.
Rip. Hiss.
Robb and Bloodwind began a merciless slaughter of the attackers still trying to smash the ice around their feet.
On the left, Ice and the twin crystal swords cut men down without pause. On the right, Bloodwind had to use all four limbs to steady himself, so he attacked with his huge body and jaws full of jagged teeth.
After hearing Leaf's order, Thorn and Vine changed into ice direwolves. One moved left and one right, steady on the frozen surface as they went to support Robb and Bloodwind.
They were wood dancers with precise control over their bodies. Before, they had only fallen because the mammoth forms were too heavy and Dickon's men had poured oil across the wall.
The defenders who had retreated to the stone stairs obeyed Crey's command. They cut strips from the lining of their clothes, tied them around their feet, and stepped onto the ice to kill the enemies on both sides of the wall.
Dickon looked at the enemy approaching him.
The man was switching between a greatsword and ice blades with practiced ease. Blood covered him so thickly that his features were impossible to make out, but his eyes shone like crystal.
Dickon quickened the blows against the ice around his feet.
Crack.
At last, he broke the ice and pulled his boots free. When he looked up, the terrifying enemy was already nearby, throwing an ice blade straight at him.
Randyll had trained Dickon carefully since childhood, and Dickon was no weakling. He gripped his sword in both hands and struck upward with a fierce cut, knocking the crystal blade aside.
'What kind of monster is this? Such strength.'
After deflecting the ice blade, Dickon felt both hands go numb. His wrists ached, and he could barely keep hold of his sword.
Robb, his face hidden beneath a coating of enemy blood, saw the young commander knock aside a blade thrown with his full strength and grew interested.
White mist rose under his feet. He strode forward, pulled Ice from the body it had pierced, and went straight toward Dickon.
Seeing the enemy raise a greatsword in both hands, Dickon did not hesitate. Knowing the man's strength was monstrous, he bent forward and threw himself onto the ice, avoiding the chop.
Rip.
Crash.
Dickon's reaction saved him. The Tarly soldier behind him was not so lucky. Robb's greatsword split the man in two.
The blow did not stop there. Ice broke through the frozen layer and smashed heavily into the thick stone of the wall.
Dickon rolled across the ice and barely steadied himself. When he looked back and saw the miserable end of the household soldier, he drew in a cold breath.
"I am Robb Stark. A hunter on your sigil. House Tarly, then?"
The tall young enemy had avoided him twice. Robb smiled through the blood on his face, showing white teeth as he tilted his head.
"Hmph."
Dickon had been proud of his house's iron will since childhood. He did not show fear before this overwhelming enemy. With a cold snort, he tightened his grip as feeling slowly returned to his hands and attacked.
"I can roughly guess who you are," Robb muttered, watching him come. "But you could at least answer."
He drove Ice into the ice beside him and stood still, waiting.
No guard?
'A trap? It does not matter.'
Dickon's thoughts churned. After the briefest hesitation, he raised his sword high and cut diagonally from Robb's upper right toward the left side of his neck.
Before the sword fell, mist rose from Robb's left shoulder, neck, and the left side of his head, condensing into shape.
The longsword struck the crystal armor that had formed over only that small area, and a clear metallic ring sounded.
As Bloodwind's Magic drew closer to one hundred points, and as Robb used it more often, he had learned how to use that power more efficiently.
There was no need to maintain crystal armor over the whole body at all times. He could form armor only where defense was needed.
The left side of Robb's face was covered in ice armor, while the right remained flesh and blood. He curled the right corner of his mouth at the stunned Dickon, then raised his right hand and slapped him across the left side of the face.
The crack of the slap rang across the wall.
Dickon, tall and powerfully built, was sent flying. He hit the ground, rolled twice, and lost consciousness.
Robb walked over, seized Dickon by the back of the neck, and lifted his whole body even as blood kept spilling from the young man's mouth. Then he jumped onto the battlements and held Dickon high for someone beyond the wall to see.
'Damn it.'
Randyll, a man of iron will, still showed anger and worry at the sight. He understood perfectly what the enemy on the wall meant.
But he could not abandon the assault for his son.
"Pass the order. Increase the pace of the attack. Then bring me my sword and bow."
Randyll bit hard into his lip and gave the order.
His servant passed it on, then brought him a greatsword in an ornate scabbard and a fine wooden bow with a quiver.
Randyll first took the bow. Then he drew a sharp arrow fletched with hawk feathers and set it to the string.
He pulled, exhaled heavily, and loosed.
The arrow struck Robb in the chest as he stood on Cornfield's battlements, but a small piece of crystal armor formed in advance and sent it flying aside.
Randyll's shot was never meant to kill Robb. It was his answer.
Seeing that the enemy below not only refused to retreat but attacked even faster, Robb threw the unconscious Dickon to the defenders who had begun counterattacking.
"This prisoner has value. Watch him carefully."
"Yes!"
Robb looked around. With him, Bloodwind, and the two wood dancers leading the counterattack, Cornfield's wall had largely been retaken.
But dense ranks of attackers were still climbing the ladders nailed to the wall, surging endlessly into the fight.
"Tsk. It seems Sam's little brother does not weigh enough. Then..."
Once Robb understood that Dickon alone would not make the enemy retreat, his gaze fell on Randyll, who was still commanding the battle below.
If possible, Robb would rather have aimed for the commander of the Reach host in the center. But there were thirty or forty thousand enemy soldiers standing ready there, and the sight made even him wary.
So he would settle for the next best target.
'Bloodwind.'
Bloodwind, who was slaughtering on the right side of the wall and occasionally taking a bite, sensed Robb's thought. He leapt across the wall with frightening agility and returned to Robb.
A few minutes later, Robb sat on Bloodwind's back. Man and wolf leapt from Cornfield's wall together.
Every eye on the field turned toward them.
Cornfield's wall was more than ten yards high. Even with Bloodwind's powerful body, such a fall should have hurt.
As Bloodwind's huge body dropped from its highest point, white mist shot from his forelimbs toward the ground. With a sharp sound of forming ice, a crystalline pillar more than a yard thick appeared in empty air.
Bloodwind's four paws slammed onto the pillar. His claws dug deep, and he launched himself forward.
One pillar after another appeared in descending height. Bloodwind stepped across them at terrifying speed toward Randyll, who commanded the vanguard.
"Protect Lord Randyll!"
Randyll's guards understood Bloodwind's target and gathered before their lord in layers.
The guards faced a terrifying giant wolf that could use magic, and fear filled their faces. Randyll himself remained calm. He drew the Valyrian steel greatsword Heartsbane.
Though Heartsbane was called a greatsword, it was nothing like Ice. It was a greatsword made for a man of normal size to wield. Protected at the center of his guards, Randyll gripped it with both hands and waited for Bloodwind to fall.
When Bloodwind leapt forward from the last ice pillar, only a little taller than a man, two ice longswords came faster than he did.
The guards were caught unprepared. Both blades pierced chests and drove men heavily to the ground. Bloodwind landed on their bodies.
The guards, who had waited for that instant, stepped forward together. More than a dozen swords cut at Bloodwind from every side.
But Robb had learned to use Magic efficiently. Bloodwind, the source of that Magic, had learned even more.
White mist had already covered the lower half of his body before he landed, hardening into crystal armor. Every sword was knocked away.
'So tightly packed. If we had enough Magic, Ice Spike Domain would solve this in a breath.'
Robb regretted the waste, then lifted Ice and jumped from Bloodwind's back.
The moment he landed, Ice swept out in both hands in a brutal horizontal cut.
With Robb's inhuman strength and the Valyrian steel greatsword, several enemies in front of him were cut in half at the waist.
Blood sprayed from the severed bodies, shocking the nearby guards into stillness.
Robb did not give them time. After the sweep, he turned with the force of the motion and hurled Ice forward. The greatsword pierced through two guards in an instant.
Two crystal longswords formed in his hands. He and Bloodwind pushed toward Randyll with unstoppable momentum.
The last four guards before Randyll roared and advanced. A flash of cold light cut two of them short, and two heads fell before their lord.
Ice, already thrown, pierced the other two.
The path before Randyll was cleared.
Robb had fought in close combat for a long time, but the red mist constantly entering his body kept his strength from flagging. Without pausing, he strode to Randyll, raised a crystal blade, and chopped down one-handed.
The crystal sword struck Heartsbane, which Randyll had lifted to block.
The crystal blade snapped like brittle glass and vanished in the air.
Both Robb and Randyll froze for an instant.
Neither had expected it.
In earlier fighting, the crystal blades had clashed repeatedly with ordinary swords without even a nick. Now Heartsbane had cut one apart with ease.
'Cut apart? No. It vanished as if its Magic had been broken.'
Robb's thoughts moved quickly.
'If I remember correctly, Randyll Tarly's weapon is Heartsbane, a Valyrian steel sword. Could Valyrian steel break magic?'
As Robb thought, Randyll recovered first and immediately counterattacked.
Robb had almost formed crystal armor by instinct, but he stopped himself in time and stepped sharply back, avoiding Heartsbane's cut. Then he retreated and pulled Ice from the bodies of the two impaled guards.
Randyll was a famous commander in Westeros, but his swordsmanship was only middling.
Once Robb recovered Ice, he needed only one blow to knock Heartsbane from Randyll's hands.
The second placed the cold edge of Ice against Randyll's throat.
"That is enough for today. Order them to retreat.
"If you refuse, I will kill you and go to the center to find a higher commander."
x
x
x
If you're enjoying the story so far, consider supporting me on Patreon ❤️
You'll get weekly early access to chapters, along with some exclusive content:
https://www.patreon.com/cw/TheDevotedReader