Bloody Fork
The Mountain stares across the open field at Lord Brandon Stel. An inexperienced welp who in the words of Greatjon Umber pisses grass because he is so green. His men shift anxiously before him wavering before the first blow is delivered. Lord Bolton has signaled the halt at the edge of the trees. Brandon looks behind his lines glaring at the hills that his men would be crushed again, and then to the right at the banks of the swollen Green Fork that denies a retreat that way. When it is called he will have to keep in close contact with the Hornwood levies beside him to keep from being cut off.
And pray that the Mountain doesn't have the heavy horse and numbers needed to push them against those hills and be cut to pieces.
"Damn you Bolton," he hisses beneath his breath and urges his horse down the line. Quiet words of warning are spread among his sergeants and captains, warning them of what they are to do if they are pushed back as he fears they will be. All of them nod and stare at the enemy grimly not letting the exhaustion dragging at their limbs affect them. They press tight together in a seamless shieldwall bristling with spears. The blue banners of Stel fly proudly above the Rivermen alongside the Direwolves of Stark and the moose of the Hornwoods.
It brings him no joy nor excitement as his first battle is likely to be his last. The Leech Lord has placed his forces on the worst ground he could for a delaying action and any retreat is likely to be a bloody and chaotic affair. Most of his men will probably not see the next sunrise no matter how neat they make it. Battle has a funny way of taking more men's lives than it strictly needs to he's been told.
"My Lord the Lannisters are moving," Ser Ronley rumbles from beneath his great helm. The young Lord's scowl deepens and he kicks his horse to the center of his line.
"We can't give an inch of ground to the Mountain if we want to keep our men intact. I want a score of our knights pulled back as a reaction force wherever that brute strikes us. No heroes...we're just going to stick him with a few lances. Fuck swords."
"Aye my Lord, I'll see to it." The older knight rides away in a flurry of dirt clods kicked up by his steed's hooves. Across the fields...death approaches. Not the solid wall of crimson and gold like the center and right flanks of the Lannister army no. Death comes in the form of murderous reavers, wild men in tattered animal hide carrying hammers and axes, and the most feared man on the field. The Mountain.
"Hold steady boys! Let these fucks stick themselves on your spears! The Mountain bleeds just like you and me...and he's a bigger target for the archers!" Brandon shouts to a few ragged cheers from his men. Fear grips them tightly. He can see it in their pale faces, and a few streams of urine trailing down scuffed boots. He can't blame them. Stories of what Gregor Clegane did to the former royal family play in his mind. The stories of the reaving and raping of his own homeland replace them swiftly.
"That's the bastard that has raped our country's sisters and daughters and butchered our sons and fathers! He'll do the same to ours," Brandon exclaims surprising himself with the hatred in his own voice.
"Will you bow down and let them destroy our lands? Or will you stand and keep yours oaths with steel!?" The Rivermen roar in response and beat their shields with their spears as the Mountain leads his men forward. A rolling mass of flesh and anger and steel barreling towards his line. The men sworn to House Stel stand strong, locking their shields together in a seamless wall and bracing their spears against the earth in preparation for receiving the charge.
"Archers, knock!" Ser Ronley bellows. Shafts rattle against the bodies of bows as they are pressed into place.
"Draw!" The bows groan and men grunt with the exertion of drawing their longbows.
"Loose!" Strings smack against leather bracers as the tension is released and the shafts are launched into the sky. Thousands of arrows, like a swarm of bees, arc through the air and rain down on the Lannister vanguard. Dozens die in the opening volley, dozens of men and hundreds of horses leaving their riders to be trampled beneath those that come behind. The Mountain roars his anger and kicks his massive horse to greater speed distancing himself from his men.
"Loose!" a second volley slams into the Lannisters and fell more of them like a scythe through wheat. But still they come as a wall of metal and horseflesh ready to overwhelm the Northmen and Rivermen.
'Not if I can help it.' The archers loose again and again before the Lannisters manage to close the distance and the foot make their presence felt. Screaming light horsemen and knights slam into the shield wall with all the force of a raging winter wind. Horses scream as they impale themselves on spears and men are thrown from their backs to be butchered. Blood sprays through the air and Brandon scowls. Those are his men being killed and doing his killing. They marched on his orders and under his banner to hold his oaths.
The line holds strong against the Mountain's reavers...mostly. The man himself roars in anger as his horse falls from under him with three spears piercing its belly. A great beast of steel plate with a greatsword clutched in a single massive fist he swings wildly around himself cutting men in half as if they were grass. Brandon tightens his grip on the reins of his horse as the Mountain drives a wedge through his men.
"We can't let the lines break...Ser Ronley take twenty riders and bolster that hole, I'll bring the rest in behind if you need it," he commands coldly. Ser Ronley grins and motions his men forward rushing for the gap. Brandon stands tall his stirrups and glares at the Lannister cavalry slowly pushing his men back. The leather reins groan in his hands as he watches his men shuffle back under the pressure.
"Archers bring those horses down!" he barks. Arrows fly through the air and slam into the lightly armored cavalry. Men topple from their horses or hide behind shields letting spears skewer them. The concentrated barrage manages to bring the pressure off of his men for a moment and dress their lines. Then the Lannister infantry slams home. Wild men and women in patched together armor and furs throw themselves at the shieldwall with a savage scream.
A massive man with two axes lays into the Stel bannermen splitting shields and skulls with every sweep. Another shatters the cohesion with a massive maul. A fierce overhead swing drives a man's skull down into his body with a sickening crunch.
"Damnit! All of you...follow me!" His visor slams closed and he lifts his lance high as if holding a banner. The man beside him does the same with the actual banner the early morning sun seeming to catch fire against the silver thread forming the crossed axes on blue. His heart hammers in his chest as he kicks his horse forward into a trot just as a gap opens in the infantry line before him. Eighty knights in full armor follow him setting their spurs to their mountains urging them to greater speed.
"Oaths and Steel! Stonekeep!" Brandon bellows and lowers his lance. The hammer wielding savage roars in challenge spraying spittle past his wild and tangled beard. A rusting hauberk is draped over his furs and a dog's jaw bone is the only protecting on his head. Brandon's lance pierces through the mail and out the other side as if it wasn't there. The force of the charge carries the man back and allows the lance to pierce another man before it shatters. Without pause Brandon rips his axe free of his belt.
"Stonekeep!" he shouts and swings down cleaving the skull of a screaming man with ears around his neck. Blood and bone sprays around him as his horse grinds forward kicking and biting as it was trained. Swords flash in the corner of his eye announcing help from his knights. A spear screeches across his breastplate before a sword drives through the owner's throat. The axe rises and falls like the hand of an avenging god felling a man with every swing. Blood sprays across his arms and chest. A man leaps for him locking a hand around his wrist. The hammer face of his axe crashes into the man's arm shattering the bones of the forearm. He disappears into the press of bodies with a scream.
The savages reel in shock from the charge and shrink back from the horses. Fear cutting through their murderous madness. Brandon loses count of the number of men he kills. They blur together in a feverish blur of murder and death and pain. A sharp pain piercing his upper arm is the first he knows of a spear piercing the muscle there through mail and leather backing. He snarls and caves in the spearman's skull with a blow of the hammer end of his axe.
"Men of Stonekeep push!" Brandon shouts, his normally quiet and even voice booming across the field if a little rough from the screaming. As one five hundred shields shove forward driving the Lannister back a step and allowing for the spears of Stonekeep to reap their toll. Tempered steel punches through leather, cloth, iron and flesh drawing fresh blood. The Lannister horsemen withdraw kicking their horses free of the press of bodies allowing the knights to do the same and the infantry flows together like water freed of its damn. Shields locking tight and their eyes studiously ignoring their dead comrades beneath their feet. Brandon wheels his horse about as his knights storm past him his eyes searching for his closest friend.
With a sinking heart he spots a pile of dead horses roughly where Ser Ronley had led twenty knights. And the Mountain is nowhere to be seen. Horns begin to blow along the Northmen lines. Crisp notes calling the withdraw before the Lannisters can begin to truly engage. The glittering lines of crimson steel are already advancing. Fury bubbles in his guts as he casts an eye over his recovering men, seeing how many of them are dead and wounded. The cost of battle so easily ignored by the nobility.
"Sound the withdraw! Collect the wounded."
"My Lord what of the dead?" a sergeant asks cautiously. Brandon swallows the lump of shame that suddenly appears in his throat.
"Leave them."
Tywin Lannister is not a man who takes failure very well. Victory is received as only his due. Watching the Northern army retreat from the field as his men withdraw back to their camp brings up a feeling of unease. There wasn't nearly enough cavalry for this to be the Northern force that his scouts reported. The Old Lion clenches his fists around the reins of his horse and scowls at his left flank. While the right was composed entirely of his Westerlands knights the left was a contingent of green riders and reavers under Gregor Clegane. They were meant to have tied up the Northern right so that their left would remain unsupported or the center would be weakened to reinforce the right.
None of that happened. The Stark boy kept his army in place as their opposing flanks butchered each other. Leaving them to the slaughter. Or so it would appear.
"What house is that? On our far left?" he asks aloud knowing that one of the toadies or his brother would answer eventually. The silence stretches. None of them answer. He turns in his saddle fixing his Lords with his stern, demanding glare and deepens his scowl.
"Are you telling me not a single one of you can recognize that banner?" the Old Lion growls.
"No...milord. They must be some lesser house of the North—"
"No they're from the Riverlands. I cannot remember their name but they have a keep north of the Twins," Kevin informs them as he arrives atop his huffing steed.
"Whoever they are, they managed to keep the Mountain at bay. I want to know them by tonight."
The cot set out in his tent reaches up with welcoming arms as he all but collapses into it. After the night march, a battle that lasted most of the morning, and then the march back to their camp followed by making sure that his men are properly cared for drained everything in his body. Still dressed in his bloodstained armor he lets his eyes slide shut...
"My Lord, Lord Bolton requests your presence." And then the Old Gods send their punishment for some past crime in the form of a young squire bearing a message from the Leech Lord. With a groan of exhaustion and a little soreness he pushes himself free of the cot. His steps seem to gain more weight with each one taken on the way to the tent. A hundred of his men lay dead beside the Green Fork and another hundred and fifty are too badly injured to fight for some time. The rest have almost all suffered injuries of some kind or another leaving him well below the strength he marched south with.
As he walks through his small part of camp his men give respectful, if tired, nods and call greetings to him. For their sake he walks tall and strong. Unbowed by what weighs his mind. He dons his stone mask to keep the emotions at bay. Lord Bolton's tent sits at the center of the encampment surrounded by banners bearing the Flayed Man. Stone faced guards just as grimy as himself stand at the entrance to the tent with long spears crossed over the entrance. Upon seeing him approach they uncross their weapons and gesture for him to enter.
The tent flap falls back into place behind him bathing the tent in ominous shadow. As his eyes adjust he takes in the meticulous order that is imposed on Lord Bolton's tent. Neat stacks of letters are set atop a simple table dominated by a well kept map of the Riverlands which is in turn held down by a dagger and a few mugs. The blankets atop his cot are neatly folded. The only thing that is out of order is Lord Bolton himself.
Sweat soaks through his surcoat along with a spattering of blood. A shallow cut along his cheek likely from an arrow is already scabbed over. His cold grey eyes are bloodshot and heavy bags hang under his eyes. But he still stands straight and tall dominating the tent with his sheer presence.
"You and your men fought well today Lord Stel," the Leech Lord complements in his usual unnerving, quiet voice. Brandon nods tiredly in appreciation. Inwardly he wonders what this is about. The almost blatant attempt to get him killed could only have been more obvious if he ordered a charge against the Lannister center. Alone. Lord Bolton is the craftiest of the Northern Houses when it comes to accumulating power, and what could concern him about a small house in the Riverlands?
'One made smaller now,' he reminds himself with a pang of regret.
"We march to rejoin Lord Robb at Riverrun hopefully with word of his victory over the Kingslayer. Mayhaps this war will be done before winter. But I doubt it." The Lord of Dreadfort paces around the table his steps as quiet and menacing as his voice. Brandon maintains his stone mask and rests his hand on the head of his axe where it is tucked through his belt. His stance relaxed suppressing his growing nerves.
"I agree Lord Bolton. The Lions are too proud to let us win without beating us bloody."
"My thoughts are the same. To that end we need to keep the Lannisters from burning the Riverlands. If only to spare the army the task of retaking every keep and chasing the reavers. No doubt he will send his favorite dog to do the burning. When we unite with Lord Robb I would...appreciate you helping me persuade him not to dismiss the Riverlords."
"I can agree with that. We need every sword we can get and an arm to swing them to beat the Old Lion. But why are you talking to me about this my Lord? And not one of the more powerful houses?" A minor River Lord is not going to change Lord Robb's mind about something, no matter how he has assisted the Starks. He is still viewed with suspicion for how he was seemingly so eager to draw swords on his neighbour.
"Because you are the one who secured House Frey's levies without having to suffer one of their bargains. Because you follow the Old Gods as we Northmen do. Because your men held against the Mountain without being forced back against the hills and cut to shreds like others might have. And because you are an unmarried Lord and he has an unmarried sister." At that Brandon chuckles and shakes his head.
"The day a Stark marries a Stel is the day a raven grows teeth and sings the Bear and the Maiden Fair. But...I see some of your points. I will support you in this. You have my word. Now if you'll excuse me we're both tired and my bed is singing a sweet song."
Beneath the walls of Riverrun, unaware of the fate of their Lord, the Lannister army sleeps. The night is silent and heavy with anticipation. Lupine amber eyes gaze down at the camps with the same hunger as their master burning brightly. The wolves circle the Lions in their beds. Horns sound bright and clear and as foreboding as winter winds. With a savage cry thousands of horses are kicked forward into a charge. The moonlight glints off the water of the rivers, the steel of the lances and swords, and the blood of the Lannisters staining the ground in the red of their house as they die.