Season I Episode III Part I

Adrian Hightower

As the column slowly lumbered north, Adrian again noticed that his father, the aging Lord Hightower, was once again deep in thought within his adorned chariot. The story of the chariot itself was interesting; it had initially belonged to the Tyrells, and the greenery - filled chariot had begun to represent the Lord Paramounts themselves. However, when House Tyrell went extinct, the Hightowers took the chariot. Now, the Hightowers kept the chariot, and the Tarlys had made no attempt to take it back, for they did not want any more conflict with House Hightower.

Adrian himself did not understand the need for conflict, nor did he understand why his father hated the Tarlys so much. So what if the Tarlys held Highgarden? The Hightowers still held Oldtown and the Hightower itself, and a good majority of the Reach's income went to them anyways. There was no need to go to get into any sort of conflict with the Tarlys.

Of course, this sentiment was shared by just about nobody within the Hightower court. To them, the Tarlys had usurped the lordship meant for the Hightowers. Adrian could care less. Greed led to disaster, his father had always told him. So why did his father have so much greed now?

Obviously, he wasn't stupid enough to go ask his father this question. The Lord of Thorns, they called him, after the late Queen of Thorns.

The column moved along over the cobblestone road, rows of crops stretching out to the horizon on either end. Ahead of them was a small forest that apparently still held some fair game despite most of it being poached, and much of the forest being cut down to make farmland.

Adrian was quite bored from just marching along on his horse, so at this point, hunting seemed like heaven. He turned, and moved towards the large wheelhouse. The heir to Hightower leaned inside through the curtain entrance, and found a game of cyvasse being played between the Lord of Thorns, and one of his servants, a young boy with a mane of reddish hair.

Lord Hightower was an old man, yet he still did not look very frail. He did not reveal his actual age to anyone, but Adrian might've guessed that he was in his early sixties. In reality, the Lord Hightower was well into his eighties, and he looked very good for his age.

"Come in, boy. How has the march been, Adrian?" The Lord of Thorns spoke without looking up from his cyvasse board, as the servant boy made his move, taking one of the older man's forward pieces. Lord Hightower retaliated by pulling back one of his attacking elephants, threatening the rear of the servant's now overextended front.

"Tiring and boring, Lord Father." Replied Adrian, sitting next to the boy, who instantly got up respectfully.

"Sit down, child. Unless what you have to say is confidential?" The Lord Hightower's spearmen moved forwards on the board, finishing the encirclement of the servant's forward line. "No, Father. I wanted to ask if we could go hunting. There's a forest up ahead, and the locals say there is good game in there."

The servant moved up his archers on the board, firing volleys at the elephant piece. Lord Hightower did not respond to Adrian, for he was deep in thought, clearly wondering how to save the elephants, or if they even needed saving. He decided that the elephants were merely another set of pawns, and charged them into the servant's archers. The servant moved up his spearmen, pulled back the archers just before the elephants' devastating charge hit them, and finished off the older man's elephants.

"Adrian, control your boredom." The Lord of Thorns said, irritation clear in his voice. "You can survive a few days of riding on horseback."

Adrian sighed. He hadn't entered here to admit defeat. "But father, we can show those Tarlys that we are better than them in more ways than one, in hunting, in riding, and in archery!"

The older man paused, as if to think of Adrian's suggestion. Any method of humiliating the Tarlys would not go unappreciated by the Lord Hightower.

Suddenly, however, the patriarch of Hightower exclaimed: "Aha!" Adrian moved closer, clearly excited; had the old man changed his mind?

But the older man was merely happy because he had found a hole in the young servant's cyvasse strategy. He moved his sword infantry forwards, pinning the spears that the boy had just brought out to kill the Patriarch's elephants. Then, while the servant made his move - the boy moved his archers forward in order to get off a few volleys at the new attackers - the Lord Hightower struck, sending his cavalry around the sides of the pinned spears, and slamming into the now unguarded archers, who swiftly lost against their mounted foes.

The servant boy pulled his spears back, trying to get them to attack the now pinned cavalry, and even Adrian leaned forward to see if the maneuver would succeed. But the Patriarch of House Hightower was a crafty one, and he sent in his peasants, forcing the boy's spearmen to either stand and fight off the two attackers, or turn tail and be flanked whilst trying to reinforce the archers with their losing battle.

Although the peasants would normally lose any battle they were sent into, this time, their role was purely to hold the spearmen in place, forcing the opponent to sit there and wait until his spears finally broke through the peasants and fought the swords, all the while his archers would be slaughtered by cavalry.

A smile appeared on the old man's face as the servant boy glumly accepted his defeat. "Don't be sad, boy, you've done much better than my own heir ever did. That maneuver against my elephants? It was fantastic."

Adrian nodded at the boy, who appeared very embarrassed. "And father, what of the hunting expedition?"

The Patriarch of House Hightower, a smile still on his face, clearly happy after having had such a good battle, waved his hand at Adrian. "Go ahead, son. Our men can defeat the Tarlys ten times out of ten."

The Tarly Wheelhouse

Samwell Tarly

As the Envoy left the room, Samwell was unsure of how to take the invitation for hunting. On one hand, it was possibly the nicest thing the Hightowers had done in about a decade. On the other hand, why would they do this? Why invite their sworn enemy to a hunting party?

Gilly had suggested that it might be an assasination attempt, but Samwell was sure that this was not the case. If the Hightowers wanted to assassinate him, they could do much better than a hunting accident. They could've poisoned his food supply, and place the blame on his cooks. They could've fed his horses alcohol so they went wild and dropped Sam hard enough to make him a cripple. Nobody could've blamed that on the Hightowers; that would've been the horses.

They could've planted poisonous plants at Highgarden so that when Samwell went out for his morning walks, he'd die. Nobody would be able to blame that on the Hightowers; they'd try the breakfast cooks in court and execute them all, and none would be any wiser.

No, the Hightowers could scheme much better than this, which was why Sam was starting to think that perhaps this wasn't a scheme. Perhaps this was merely an actual invitation to go hunting. Or perhaps the Hightowers wanted to show that they were better than the Tarlys at hunting.

That was probably the most accurate idea. They probably wanted to show that the Hightowers were superior to the Tarlys even in hunting.

Which was why Sam accepted the invitation, for Samwell knew that he was better than those damned Hightowers.

Little Sam, who most certainly wasn't little anymore, being well over forty, highly disagreed with his father. But even he relented against the One Handed Bear's wishes. Sam's granddaughter, Mancie, known for her looks despite her decidedly wildling name, however, wasn't one to take no for an answer, and she barged into his tent as he was getting ready for the hunting trip.

"Grandfather, you are not going hunting with those Hightowers. They're gonna kill you like they killed Robert Baratheon." His granddaughter's hair was undone, and she was wearing her bed - dress. She must've come right when she heard of his plans.

"Mancie, calm down. That was fifty, maybe sixty years ago. And you need to get yourself dressed. Did you run through the whole caravan like this?"His granddaughter only now seemed to realize that this probably wasn't the best for a lady of her stature.

"Stop changing the topic, Grandfather. Why are you going?"

Sam sighed, then switched into his official tone. "I am going because I am the Lord Paramount of the Reach, and it is my responsibility to make my subjects feel cared for. This includes accepting their invitations."

Mancie chuckled. "Grandfather, you sound horrendous when you try to sound official."

"I'm not trying to sound official, Little Lady. I am official."

Mancie burst out laughing. "We've all seen how official you are, Lord Paramount, when we have feasts", she choked out between bursts of laughter. "If you really want to go, I want you to take your whole army with you."

The smile in Samwell's eyes vanished when his granddaughter mentioned his army. He tried to cover it up with a joke. "If I bring my army of eighty thousand here for a hunt, there won't be a forest to hunt from anyways; we'd have to cut down all the trees in the forest to make the camp."

In reality though, the Tarly army was only eighty thousand strong on paper. The Hightowers boasted an army of twenty thousand, fielded around Oldtown, and if Samwell called his banners, they most certainly wouldn't arrive to fight for the Tarlys, and nor would the minor lords who owed their allegiance to them, depriving him of at least thirty thousand men.

Many more lords would likely switch their allegiance away from the Tarly banner, for Sam was Lord Paramount in name only.

The last time Sam called his banners, it'd been to help Aegon in putting down the Vale rebellion. Only thirty five thousand men answered his banners, and he'd found out later that that was only because the Hightowers permitted some of their men to fight for the Tarly army. In reality, Samwell could only call around thirty thousand to his banner.

Now, to be fair, thirty thousand was a huge number, especially compared to the other Kingdoms, but that also meant that fifty thousand of his men were refusing to fight. Sam could only imagine what the morale of his army would be after such a refusal to fight.

In the war against the Vale, they'd lost the first battle against the rebels because after they fought off the ambush in the Kingswood, and after Aegon commanded them to advance forwards, into the plains, the Knights of the Vale had run them down.

The Reach's men were more than skilled enough to fashion a spearwall in time before the cavalry charge would've hit, but they were unable to do so, leading to the most humiliating defeat in the Crown's history.

Had they been unable to make a spearwall due to their low morale?

Perhaps so. But that was twenty years ago. Perhaps things would be better now. Perhaps.

Even so, Samwell decided that it would be best for him to consult his spy, and see if he had something to say.

The Hunting Trip

Adrian Hightower

Adrian maneuvered his steed around the tree blocking his bow shot, as the Lord next to him - some minor Lord from the border with Dorne - missed his own shot, frightening the deer that they both had been aiming for. The deer bolted off forwards, and Adrian spurred his horse along, giving a scathing glare at the minor Lord, who froze in place.

Adrian's horse broke into a gallop, and now the deer was truly frightened, running along at a dizzying pace. Adrian tried to aim - he'd taken horse archery lessons from the Crown Dothraki, the Dothraki warriors who'd refused to go back across the seas and had pledged their allegiance to Aegon Tarstark - but the foliage was blocking his target.

Adrian steered his horse with his knees, as the deer finally came out into a small clearing, giving Adrian a clear shot. Adrian swiftly aimed, and let loose. The arrow hit the deer's hindquarters, slowing the animal down, but not downing his prey.

"Dammit," Adrian muttered as he spurred his horse along again, trying to land the killing blow. The deer exited the clearing, saw that Adrian was still after him, panicked, and ran right back into the clearing, giving the Heir to Hightower a clear shot at the deer once more.

This time, he did not miss. The arrow slammed into the deer's neck, downing him instantly. As Adrian slowed down his steed, and the deer fell on its side, Adrian suddenly realized that not one, but two arrows were sprouting from the neck of his prey.

Samwell Tarly, Lord Paramount of the Reach, rode into the clearing atop a sheer white destrier - likely the only breed of horse strong enough to run with the One Handed Bear on his back. His crossbow (specially built to be operated with just one hand) was held high in salute.

Adrian spoke. "A good shot, my Lord Paramount, but I do believe that this kill is mine."

The Lord Tarly nodded as he rode closer. "A good kill, lad. You'd make a fine archer on horse."

"Thank you, Lord Paramount," Adrian replied stiffly. His father had not told him how he should react to a conversation with Samwell Tarly, so Adrian was clueless as to how he should act. Friendly? Diplomatic? Arrogant? Proud?

"Come, Lad, let's go hunt more. Your father would be quite disappointed in you if you did not kill more animals than I did."

4 Hours Later

Samwell Tarly

Perhaps a dozen assorted animal carcasses were dragged along with the hunting party as they rode back towards the campsite. Adrian had shot eight animals, Sam had shot four. The younger man, still having both of his hands, clearly was better at hunting. But Sam himself was relieved. He'd been afraid that the hunting party would be an assassination attempt in secret, and he was quite glad that it wasn't.

Gilly, looking quite regal in her dress, walked towards the hunting party.

"Hello, my Lord Paramount." She said, her eyes teasing. The almost sixty year old woman carried herself like a much younger lady, as she moved towards Samwell, who got off his steed, one of his servants taking the crossbow from him.

Samwell moved forwards, and put his arms around Gilly right as the first crossbow bolt appeared in a gap in Samwell's armor. In the forest, a shadowy figure tossed aside his first crossbow, and picked up a second crossbow that he'd already loaded and primed. He fired, and a second crossbow bolt emerged in Sam's armor.

Sam grunted. This hurts less than I expected, he thought, stumbling backwards.

The shadowy figure threw aside his second crossbow, and picked up his third and final crossbow, for he was well aware that the previous hits would not slay the one handed bear.

Gilly screamed and lunged at Samwell, forcing his backwards fall into a slow sitting - down motion, right as the third and final crossbow bolt sprouted from her neck.