New chapter! Thanks for all the support!
x
A crescent moon hung in the black night sky. Not far from Cornfield, the Reach camp had long since sunk into sleep.
"Hah."
A tired guard on the night watch at the gate yawned despite himself. He complained to the other three guards beside him, "We fight for our lives in the siege by day, and they still make us stand watch at night. They truly do not see us as men."
"Careful," another guard whispered, glancing left and right. "If the Tyrell soldiers hear that, you are finished."
"Hmph. The Tyrell lords do not treat us fairly at all. The dangerous work and the thankless work always fall to men from little houses like ours. Lord Tarly was far more just.
"Ah, forget it. Let us talk about something else.
"When I saw the Stark wolves from far away, I did not think much of them. Today, when I truly faced that pack, I nearly died of fright."
"Who didn't? My legs went soft. And those two long-haired monsters were terrifying too."
"I think Cornfield cannot be taken. When Lord Tarly commanded two days ago, that northern king with magic fought in person. These last two days, with Lord Garlan commanding, he just stood on the wall and watched. He did not even bother acting."
Once the tired guard began talking, the four of them loosened up and began chatting about the siege.
Under cover of night, shadows moved through the rotting corpses, abandoned weapons, and wreckage of siege engines below Cornfield's wall. They slipped toward the nearby Reach camp.
Pairs of cold green eyes appeared now and then, staring at their prey like death in the dark.
"...You're right. We still have more than forty thousand men. With only a few thousand, how would they dare attack our camp?
"Eh? Did you hear something?"
The drowsy guard had just agreed with his companion and was about to add more when his ears twitched. He seemed to hear something unusual in the night.
"Hear what? I warn you, do not make jokes like that. It is frightening."
The timid guard immediately stared into the darkness, his face tense.
Crash.
A dark shape whistled over the four guards' heads and slammed into the camp gate behind them.
They turned by instinct and saw a two-handed greatsword nearly as tall as a man buried in the gate. Its blade looked like black smoke.
Just as the four guards prepared to raise the alarm, low growls sounded behind them.
When they turned back, the last sight in their lives was a row of savage wolf jaws dripping thick saliva.
After Will and the Wolfguard killed the gate guards, Will immediately checked whether the noise had alerted other Reach sentries.
Seeing no movement in the camp, he led the Wolfguard and seized the gate.
It was called a camp gate, but it was only a crude door set into a wooden fence no taller than a man.
Because the camp had been built quickly, and because Lord Mace believed Robb would never dare leave Cornfield to fight, he had never bothered to build proper defenses.
He had put even less care into the Reach camp's defenses than Tywin had put into the false works in front of Deep Den.
Robb rode Bloodwind to the gate, pulled Ice free from the wood, and ordered Will and the others, "Will, all of you saw the portrait today. Our target is Mace Tyrell. Unless something has changed, he should be near the center of the camp.
"Split into two teams. If you are exposed or find the target, send the signal.
"Remember, the target must be taken alive. Move."
"Yes!"
At Robb's order, the fourteen of them split into two groups of seven and slipped toward the center of the Reach camp from left and right.
After several days of siege, the Reach had lost roughly six or seven thousand men. Randyll had also taken away nearly two thousand Tarly soldiers. Even so, more than forty thousand remained.
For Robb's fourteen men to find Lord Mace's tent in a camp stretching for miles would not be easy.
Fire basins burned at intervals throughout the camp. Patrols moved with torches. The defenses could not be called weak.
But before ice direwolves, with their natural stealth and excellent night vision, the threat was nearly negligible.
A drowsy Reach soldier rose in the night and went behind a tent to relieve himself in the shadows. Suddenly, he sensed a movement behind him.
Before he could turn, something rushed in with a faint sound of wind. The soldier died before he could make a sound.
After killing the man who had almost discovered them by accident, Will led the other six Wolfguard onward.
A while later, another soldier came out of the same tent to relieve himself. Half asleep, he stumbled and nearly tripped over the corpse in the shadows.
When he saw it clearly, sleep vanished from him. He shouted, "Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"
Horns sounded behind Robb.
He immediately understood that Will's side had been exposed. Since he was already close to the center of the camp, he sent Bloodwind a thought and stopped hiding.
They charged straight ahead.
Hundreds of Reach soldiers rushed out of the surrounding tents in confusion, carrying weapons and armor. When Robb saw the golden rose on their bodies, he became even more certain that he had found the target's area.
Robb and the six Wolfguard burst from the tent shadows. The Tyrell soldiers reacted too slowly, and men fell in swaths.
Explosive fruits burst around them. Orange flames quickly set bedding, clothes, and tents alight.
"Kill Mace Tyrell!"
Riding Bloodwind, Robb constantly adjusted their direction through the pact while shouting at the top of his lungs and cutting down enemies with Ice.
The six Wolfguard behind him imitated him as they charged and killed, shouting the same words.
Near the right side of the camp's center, Lord Mace crawled from a spacious tent in half-fastened clothes, his face full of fear. The moment he emerged, he saw his two sons approaching with a large body of guards.
"Father," Loras called as soon as he came close, "an unknown number of enemies have attacked from the direction of Cornfield. To be safe, take men and withdraw toward Old Oak for now."
"Withdraw? But you..."
Mace clearly wanted to accept, but his two sons showed no sign of leaving.
"We cannot go," Garlan said. "We must stay and command. A northern night raid can be only a few thousand at most. If all the Tyrells leave, they may truly use a smaller force to break a larger one."
Looking at his brave sons, Mace thought of the biting mockery his mother often aimed at him. Blood rushed to his head.
"Then I will not go either. Gather our soldiers. The three of us will crush the enemy together!"
"Yes!"
Loras and Garlan were surprised by their father's rare courage, but both answered at once. Then they turned to gather the soldiers thrown into confusion by the attack.
Many Tyrell household soldiers began responding to the brothers and gathering on the right side of the camp.
Robb, still some distance away, noticed the movement keenly.
He had deliberately stirred the camp into panic so he could follow the Tyrell soldiers back to Mace.
Robb stood on Bloodwind's head and looked ahead. A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Found you."
'Bloodwind.'
White mist hissed as Bloodwind opened his jaws and breathed forward. A barrel-thick tornado of ice swept over everything in its path, freezing men and objects alike.
Bloodwind's limbs gathered strength, and he leapt forward, using the frozen shapes as stepping stones.
White mist shot from his forelimbs, and the crystalline stairway to the sky appeared beneath his paws once more.
Robb had not fought personally these last two days for two reasons. First, the pressure on Cornfield had been reduced enough that he did not need to act. Second, he had been waiting for Bloodwind's Magic to recover for this night raid and capture plan.
Against the Reach's overwhelming numbers, even if the northern cavalry from Deep Den arrived, Robb was not confident he could defeat them in a direct battle.
So he chose to strike at the head.
Without Robb leading them, the six Wolfguard were quickly surrounded by Reach soldiers. They drove their ice direwolves again and again in attempts to break through.
Explosive fruits and ice-crystal fruits flew in turn, preventing the Reach soldiers from closing for a time.
But deep inside the enemy camp, the Wolfguard could not break the layers of encirclement.
Elsewhere in the camp, Will and his team met the same stalemate. Their ring-shaped fruit pouches held only eight fruits. Once those were used, the truly brutal fighting would begin.
Still, they had done their part. They tied down many Tyrell soldiers in the center of the camp, making Robb's charge toward Mace far smoother.
"Attack! Shoot that monster!"
As Bloodwind carried Robb across ice pillars toward the Tyrell formation on the right side of the camp, Garlan and Loras shielded their father while ordering archers to fire.
Arrows struck and rang against crystal armor. They could do nothing but consume Magic.
Man and wolf, wrapped in ice armor, endured the Tyrell archers' volleys and reached the air above the tightly packed enemy formation.
Bloodwind sprang high from the last pillar, seven or eight yards above the ground, and crashed into the Tyrell soldiers like a falling mountain of white ice.
Several unlucky men were crushed into pulp beneath him.
The moment Bloodwind landed, Robb, standing steadily on his head, saw the distinctive Lord Mace and his two handsome sons.
The brave and impulsive Garlan started forward with his sword, intending to attack Robb with the household soldiers. Loras seized his arm at once and shook his head.
'Instinct for danger?'
Robb's crystal eyes noticed Loras's movement.
He pointed toward Mace and his sons and said softly, "Bloodwind, Ice Spike Domain. Do not kill those three."
White ice spread rapidly outward from Bloodwind, forming a great circular surface beneath him. Before the hundreds of Tyrell soldiers could react, it had already swallowed them all.
When the ice reached Garlan and Loras, it stopped just in front of them.
Then countless crystal spikes, long and short, erupted from the frozen ground.
The jagged spikes pierced hundreds of Tyrell soldiers in an instant. Most died where they stood, and red mist rose from their bodies.
A smaller number had not been struck in vital places. They beat their hands against the hard ice spikes and screamed.
Garlan and Loras swallowed as they stared at the spikes that had stopped only inches away. At the speed those spikes had erupted, neither believed he could have dodged.
Robb immediately put the many newly gained blood pact points into Magic. Then he had Bloodwind leap before Mace and his sons.
His blood-stained face smiled.
"Lord Mace, I hear the Reach is wealthy enough to rival House Lannister. I would like to ask you to aid the poor and barren North."
In Highgarden's inner keep, Olenna stood in the royal bedchamber with the twin guards, her face iron-dark. Margaery's lovely face was streaked with tears.
Before them, the pale corpse of young Renly II lay on the feather bed.
"There, child. Stop crying." Olenna's voice softened as she looked at her poor granddaughter. "Did he show any strange symptoms before he died?"
"He seemed to have eaten something foul," Margaery said through tears. "He kept suffering from loose bowels. At first I did not think much of it. I never imagined my poor little king would die like this."
Olenna stepped forward and stroked Margaery's smooth hair.
"Renly II died of a sickness of the bowels? No. I have heard of these symptoms. The poison should be called the Tears of Lys.
"Margaery, your second royal husband was poisoned."
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