The Battle for the Riverlands (Part I)
"The Lannisters make enemies very easily but have a hard time keeping friends." Haldon Halfmaester 300AC.
"A Lannister pays his debts." Lord Tywin Lannister, 298AC.
If there is one subject almost every maester and student of history in Westeros agrees upon, it is who began the first military actions of the war of the Eight Kings. While the acts of Ser Gregor Clegane and his band of assassins and murderers could be passed as a minor knight going rogue, the invasion of the Riverlands by the whole Lannister army was an open act of aggression that Lord Tywin Lannister, Warden of the West and Lord Paramount of the Westerlands, did not even bother to justify. The troops of Lord Piper and Lord Vance, which had been charged by Edmure Tully to defend the approaches of the Golden Tooth, were caught completely by surprise and overwhelmed in a matter of hours. Evidently, Ser Jaime Lannister the Kingslayer, along with more than 40 000 men was not who they had expected to fight. Lord Vance was killed, most of the Riverlands force was destroyed and the survivors under Ser Marq Piper and the new Lord Karyl Vance were forced to retreat, leaving their lands wide open to attack.
What followed was terrible, even for a land where warfare was a custom such as Westeros. Edmure Tully, now aware of the danger he had authorised by dispersing his troops, gathered the majority of his available force under the walls of Riverrun. In turn, this left the Riverlands defenceless before the marauders of the Mountain, Ser Amory Lorch, and the rest of the Free cities' sellswords Tywin Lannister had hired. Entire villages were burnt, put to the sword or stripped of everything of value. The number of deaths among the common people reached the thousands, and the war had just begun. Having eliminated all resistance in the West, the Lannister forces divided in two armies. Jaime Lannister, with a force of nearly 15 000 men, advanced at full speed towards Riverrun, while Lord Tywin Lannister and an army of 20 000 men rushed in the core of the Riverlands, crushing the Tully bannersmen one by one. With his back to the wall, Edmure Tully chose to fight the Kingslayer's army in front of his fortress. It was a grave mistake. Not only the heir of Riverrun was a man having the bare notions of what commanding an army consisted on, a lot of his bannersmen were dispersed all over his lands, and many of his most important bannersmen had not fully mustered their forces at this instant . The Mallisters had not yet arrived, and only a Frey's vanguard of 200 men leaded by "Black" Walder Frey was present. On the other hand, Jaime Lannister was a very aggressive commander, whose tendency to attack and attack until something broke was well -known. As a consequence, the First Battle of Riverrun (as it then became known) was a clear and decisive victory for the Lannister army. Dozens of knights and lords, including Edmure Tully himself, were taken prisoners. Lord Tytos Blackwood, lord of Raventree Hall, managed to take command of the battered army and withdrew to Riverrun. Jaime Lannister took chase, and soon besieged the Tully's fortress.
With most of the strength of the Riverlands under siege , prisoner , or dispersed , the army of Lord Tywin Lannister smashed its way without encountering any force able to oppose them . Most of the towns and fortresses were assaulted and burn, including Raventree Hall, Stone Hedge and Pinkmaiden. Harrenhall, lacking the number of men to be defended, was surrendered by Lady Whent. After less than a few months , the Lannister army was already sitting at the Crossroad Inns , where they were soon joined by a large band of mountain clans leaded by the recently liberated Tyrion 'the Imp' Lannister . This was not to say the Lions had had it all their way. The brutality and the carnage the sellswords and the marauders (of which the Mountain was the standard) had turned everyone, from the lowest peasant to the highest lord, against the lord of Casterly Rock. The supply lines of the Lannister were constantly raided and dispersed. If in the west it was Ser Marq Piper and Karyl Vance who leaded the resistance, in the east "Black" Walder Frey, the remnants of the Riverlands bannersmen and the surviving royal troops of Beric Dondarrion made themselves feared by the Essossi sellswords. The situation was critical for the Riverlands, especially as the forces of the Freys, numbering nearly 3 000 men, stopped their march at Fairmarket, refusing to go further south when chances of victory were so minimal. Lord Stevron Frey, soon joined by Lord Jason Mallister of Seagard was not very enthusiastic to try to relieve Riverrun, his own forces being severely outnumbered by the army of Jaime Lannister. Outriders of the Freys and the Lannisters clashed but an open battle remained an impossibility given the rapport of force.
Fortunately for the Riverlords (and unfortunately for the Lannister), the arrival of the Northern forces changed the strategic situation. Numbering 18 800 men under the command of Lord Robb Stark, the Northern host was a force the Lions had to neutralise quickly before it could meet with reinforcements. Lord Tywin Lannister , with the main army of the Westerlands , marched northward in the direction of the Twins , convinced House Frey would try to stay uninvolved in the whole conflict and therefore leaving the Northern army on the right bank of the Green Fork . Perhaps it would have been the case with the late Lord Walder Frey, but the man was dead. Lord Stevron Frey had already taken the field (although avoided any major battle so far), and his heir, Ser Ryman Frey, was commanding the Twins in his absence. The turn of the negotiations between Ryman Frey and Lady Catelyn Stark was particularly one-sided in favour of the North. As Lothar "Lame" Frey remarked afterwards, it was happy the Frey House still owned their bridge after the passage of Eddard Stark's wife. Ser Ryman revealed himself a poor negotiator, leaving Lord Robb Stark cross in exchange of the squiring of Olyvar Frey and the fostering at Winterfell of two young Freys (Walder and Walder Frey). The majority of the Northern cavalry, around 4 500 men, immediately crossed the Green Fork, along with one hundred Frey men to try to relieve Riverrun. The rest, the whole Northern infantry plus two hundred cavalrymen under the command of Lord Roose Bolton, descended south to defy Tywin Lannister's army.
The battle between the two forces was anything but worthy of figuring in the songs. Roose Bolton had long been acknowledged as a careful and cautious commander. Being outnumbered 14 000 to 20 000 made him even more so. Bolton's idea to trade land for time functioned for most of the day, the "battle" limiting itself to a duel of bowmen and outriders by each side. Losses on each army remained extremely limited. Given the retreat of the Northern forces by the end of the day, the victory went to the Lannisters, even if it was in reality a draw. Having realised the Northern cavalry was nowhere to be seen, the Lannister army abandoned the pursuit against Roose Bolton and marched at full speed south to reach Riverrun before Robb Stark and his forces. It was, ultimately, a futile endeavour.
The ravens sent by the Lannister main army having been slaughtered, Jaime Lannister had absolutely no idea of the danger coming from the north. In the mean time, the Stark cavalry had been reinforced by the Mallister-Frey force, creating a powerful force of 9 000 men. Which is why , once Ser Brynden "Blackfish" Tully began to chase the Kingslayer's sentinels in Piper and Vance colours , Jaime Lannister took 2 000 men and left camp for the Whispering Wood , intending to put an end to the threat once for all . While Ser Marq Piper was luring the Kingslayer north, Brynden Tully was killing his outriders, making the Lannisters essentially blind to their enemies movements. At the entering of a valley, the trap was sprung. In one instant, Jaime Lannister's force was encircled. In front of them, the Karstark forces. On the left, the main Stark and Mallister force. On the right, the Umber, Mormont and Glover cavalry. And behind them, most of the Frey infantry to close any hope of retreat. The Lannister forces, caught outnumbered on open ground, were slaughtered. Seeing the situation was lost, Jaime Lannister tried to force his way to slay Robb Stark in an open fight. The Kingslayer failed, but not before killing Eddard Karstark and Walder Rivers. Jaime Lannister was captured, minus his right hand that an enraged Torrhen Karstark cut trying to avenge his elder brother. The prisoners were approximately about a hundred knights and a dozen lords including Lord Gawen Westerling, Lord Quenten Banefort, Lord Regenard Estren, Ser Tytos Brax, Willem Lannister, and the Lannister cousins Cleos Frey and Tion Frey. Worse (for the Lannisters that was), no men escaped the trap to carry the news to the large force besieging Riverrun.
The large Lannister army, still numbering 13 000 men, was thus caught as much by surprise by the sudden attack as their former commander had been. What was particularly disadvantaging was that the siege of Riverrun had forced Jaime Lannister to divide his army in three camps. The first, attacked by Brynden Tully in the middle of the night, never knew what happened before being assaulted and dying by the droves. The leaderless camp, already weakened by the departure of Jaime Lannister, was overrun. The Westerlands soldiers of the other camps, woken up by the noise, tried to go to the rescue of their comrades but to no avail. Lord Andros Brax, now in command of the army, tried to cross with the rafts the Tumblestone. The defenders of Riverrun, also alerted by the beginning of the battle, unleashed their ballistae's and sunk most of them, including the one where Lord Brax stood. The Lannister soldiers, already demoralised by the death of the noble commanding them, watched terrified as the majority of the Northern army arrived on their flanks. Lord Tytos Blackwood, realizing the golden opportunity that had just been offered, sallied with most of the Riverrun soldiers, setting the siege towers and Western ballista aflame. This was too much for the majority of the Lannister army. With no hope of escape, the majority of the men surviving in the two camps surrendered. Only the third camp under the command of Ser Forley Prester managed to avoid annihilation, being placed in a position the Starks and the Tullys could not reach initially. The 2 000 men of this camp withdrew, retreating in direction of the Golden Tooth fortress, but suffered the defection of their outriders when the Tyroshi sellsword commanding them realised the pay for the entire army had been in the camp which had been attacked first. The battle was overall a complete disaster for the Lannisters, who lost nearly 11 000 men, dead, wounded or prisoners. For the price of 300 men, the Northern-Riverlands force had just scored two crushing victories.
In less than a week, what had been until there a decisive campaign in favour of the Lannisters was now turning to have a less than pleasant outcome. With two decisive defeats, the armies of Lord Tywin Lannister were now cut from any supplies coming from Casterly Rock. The siege of Riverrun being lifted also allowed the majority of the Riverlands troops that had been dispersed to gather again. In this atmosphere, the execution of Lord Eddard Stark and the coronation of King Renly Baratheon were news that were welcomed by the two sides with stupefaction and anger (for the Northern lords). The Battle for the Riverlands, far from being over, was entering a new stage...