The Hand
"Are you an idiot, or have you turned traitor?!"
"Traitor," Loras Tyrell screamed in his face, bits of the young man's spit splashing against his nose. "They killed my brother, they executed him in cold blood after the battle was won, you want to accuse me of treason, Tarly? Maybe you should rethink who you're speaking to!"
"I'm speaking to my good son," Randyll snarled back, though he'd instantly regretted letting his temper flare and insulting the young man, exactly the wrong tact he could have parried him with. "I am speaking to my subject, as Hand of the King!"
"What king? A fucking cripple and a hostage?"
"Your King," Randyll reminded the boy. His mind must be really clouded with rage to call Rhaegar a cripple, while forgetting his own brother's state.
"Fuck you," Loras challenged him, spitting on the ground. "Face it, Tarly, there's no King, we're a headless chicken, all seven kingdoms...actually," the man coughed out with a bitter laugh, "much less than seven kingdoms, isn't it? Your Handship has never ruled properly Dorne, have you? Or the Iron Islands, or the Vale...or even the North really, just a stalemate through hostages. And how quickly did you lose the Westerlands, how quickly did you lose half the Stormlands?"
"That's what we're trying to fix now," Randyll replied, cooling his temper to try and speak calmly, not failing to notice the hundreds of knights standing within earshot, looking awkwardly at the ground whilst their leaders squabbled like children...one of them did, anyhow.
"It's beyond fixing," Loras said, whipping his infernal letter through the air. "With the state of things under your leadership, my good Lord Hand, my father might as well declare himself King of the fucking Reach!"
"Careful boy," he warned. The temper tantrum would cease, and he was disposed to forgive the young man his trespasses, not just because Loras Tyrell was now family. But a loyal Hand could only do so much in the face of outright treason spoken before so many.
The young knight narrowed his eyes at Randyll. He did not know what to expect next from his son by law, who then whirled around, still waving the piece of parchment in the air.
"Soldier," he walked up to an archer. "Who is your liege lord?"
"Uhhh," the man said, looking unsteadily between Randyll and Loras, "Lord Mace Tyrell, my Lord."
"That's right," Ser Loras snapped with angry satisfaction. He then walked up to the lone Hightower boy accompanying them at the moment. "Ser Gunthor, who is your liege lord?"
"Your father, my lord," the freckled face boy answered. "But, Lord Randyll is Hand to the King..."
"And who is Lord Randyll's liege lord," he continued pressing, "whom he is sworn fealty to?"
"Enough," Randyll barked out. "I will have no more of this foolishness, do you hear me? We're wasting time, I don't care family or not, I'll have you hanged if you continue this nonsense further."
To his dismay, the man broke out in laughter. "Nonsense," he asked elbowing the Hightower boy in the chest, feigning levity. "Do you hear that, he calls the orders of your liege lord, all our liege lord, nonsense. Orders to relieve the siege of Highgarden, to protect oh, I don't know, the most important fucking castle this side of the Red Keep, he calls it nonsense, this man...on behalf of a King who's probably appointed some cockroach in the cells of Starfall his new Hand by now."
"Listen..." His bluff had been called, and Randyll knew he held the losing hand.
"Think you'll have me hanged still," Loras continued challenging him, armed reached out in either direction, his breastplate open, as if inviting Randyll to swing Heartsbane and cut him open. "Lord Gunthor, your liege lord commands you to march south and relieve Highgarden. Will you obey him?"
"I," the young man said uneasily, wavering green eyes begging Randyll silently, "it's a good military strategy, my Lord. Let Highgarden fall, and it will be an embarrassment we can't recover from. And what next, Horn Hill, Oldtown falling, all while we chase a royal princess through the mountains?"
Gunthor Hightower wasn't challenging him directly, but the subtext remained the same. The only son of Oldtown was inclined to obey the panicked commands of the idiot Mace, and pull his host south. The Tyrell men would undoubtedly follow Loras, and he'd bet by the end of the day he would've lost much more than half his army. It was foolishness, but it was a foolishness that he was powerless to fight, not with the state of the kingdoms so fragile. Loras Tyrell was right, whether by intent or luck, the authority of a Hand to a mad and captive king was not strong. For not the last time this march, Randyll bemoaned how much simpler his life would've been had Rhaegar actually died at the tower, and his own authority then firmly re entrenched as Hand and head of the regency for a boy who would be Baelor II Targaryen.
"You're right, Ser Gunthor," Randyll relented, trying his best not to snarl and break with one closed fist the smug smile off his goodson's face. "We can't afford to lose Highgarden. Men, we march south at once to relieve the siege!"
"Send orders to every fucking fighting man in the Reach," he grumbled to Dickon half a day into their retreat, for that was what it was, a retreat without having even engaged an enemy he'd been confident of destroying, "down to the last fucking hedge knight, they're to meet with us at Highgarden."
If he couldn't ensure that the Queen and the Princess remained separated, he needed to increase his numbers as much as he could. Chasing girls around in war, he muttered crossly in his mind, running from them, by the Gods. What had his life come to?
Sansa
"...an' I swar, if I go back an' see me wife in bed with the donkey, I'd grab an survivin' Sparrow an' have 'em marry each oth'r instead!"
They all laughed, the spearman at his own joke, or was it a joke? Sansa laughed because of the ale, and the absurdity of it all, and Edric well...because he was very good with these conversations, she'd realized, that he could fake it, yet not be faking it at the same time.
"Imagine him waking up tomorrow," Arya giggled, "and thinking to himself...fuck, I just told the Queen herself, to her face, that my wife likes to fuck sheep!"
"I know I've heard the jokes all me life," Sansa said, mocking lightly the man's accent as they walked back to their tent, "but I swear I'd always thought when they say the marchers fuck their own sheep...it...it wasn't the sheeps with the...the pricks they were speaking of."
Brienne chortled. Though the older lady rarely drank, it seemed even the Maid of Tarth had her limits in terms of the company she could withstand soberly.
"Donkey, remember," Edric chided, the ale still upon his breath. Sansa would complain, but her own breath probably smelled worse. "I think they go both ways...I may have seen it myself even."
"You have," she asked, feigning shock. "Don't tell me you...you may have participated?"
"I don't think so," her young lover replied jovially, pretending to stumble as Sansa caught him in her arms, the two of the laughing by the time they reached their tent alone. "Not while I wasn't drunk anyway."
If their demeanors seemed too jovial for war, at least their mood matched that of their men, who were happy, for the most part, the campaign in the Reach leaving them amply fed and drunk each night. After all, sieges were a dull affair, so they may as well hand the men all the wine and ale their scouts and raiding parties could muster and, if anything, spread whispers further north to Randyll Tarly that the stupid young Queen and her younger lover were treating the campaign more like some grand tourney than an actual war.
Their siege was against Horn Hill now, more heavily guarded than Highgarden considering the value of the prisoners inside, so a decent part of their army did need to be prepared for the occasional sortie from the castle walls. Still, it was mostly a waiting game, and she and Edric had made a habit of inviting a common soldier to their meals every night, like Sansa remembered of her father, whether it was a smith from Flea Bottom King Eddard supped with in the Red Keep, or any supplicant from distant kingdoms who made the effort to travel far leagues to plead their cases in court. She and Edric made the best of it, tedious as most of their company was, but only to themselves, because while she asked the men the same questions every night, their name, their family, their stories, children, wives, hopes, dreams, fears...it was new to each man every night, occasions where Sansa could truly witness the effect her title had on these men, who could barely hope to see with their own eyes the bastard cousin of a liege lord all their lives, much less a living and breathing Queen.
It was an excuse to drink more ale, not that she enjoyed the vile liquid more these days, but it did make the long marches and the longer waits pass quicker. It bothered Sansa, meeting these men, looking them in the eye, understanding that they had their own families, whole livelihoods, which they'd abandoned to give their lives thoughtlessly for her cause, because she'd been born the daughter of King Eddard the Just, and they born a son or bastard of Ned the butcher, it gave her pause, because what right did they have, during Rhaegar's Rebellion, when grandpapa and Lord Arryn spoke of only thousands dead in the battle, when each of the thousand was...well, was their own person, each as alive and spirited as any man in her Small Council, or girl who waited upon her? And soon she'd send more to their deaths, her men, Tarly's men, than perhaps all the ones her father and grandfather had wreaked in their day.
"Would you fuck me Edric," Sansa asked, half falling into their cot and pulling him down with her, "if some witch turned me into a goat, would you fuck me like one of your marcher knights?"
"More likely," he replied, imitating, along with her, the marcher accent, hands tearing at her dress and pulling her undergarments by her ankles, then lunging his face in between her legs, "I'd have yer well roasted and I'd feast on yer fer days."
Grabbing and tugging at his hair, Sansa chided herself for enjoying this war so much. No, it wasn't that she was enjoying the actual war, but somehow she had found herself enjoying herself, despite the war. But then, how did that make her or Edric any different from nearly each and every one of their soldiers, save Brienne, whom they could not compel to drink more than half a glass of ale most nights? They lived their lives to the fullest because it may end any day, and that was the one aspect Sansa shared with them that, though she would not risk her life in the fighting, her life still depended on its toils.
And things were bound to get serious soon. They had word that the Tarly's were marching south, that they'd even reached the burnt outer walls of Highgarden they'd left behind. Which meant the time was coming to depart Horn Hill soon, along with all the ales and wines and meats of the fertile Mander River valley, and fly into the hills, tempting their enemies into pursuit. If Tarly didn't give chase, by Edric's calculations they were bound to have given Daenerys and the Lannister armies time enough to cross the Mander by then. Either way, the great battle was coming, one whose odds and results they were far less sure of than the Battle of Joy, which they'd almost lost badly, Sansa reminded herself. So better to grip with her own hands and enjoy as much of of her fragile life as she could, while she still could.
Edric
"What do you mean, the Lannister host is lost to us?"
The Queen appeared the perfect resolve of calm to all observers inside that tent that morning, but Edric could read the fear in her voice. Brienne's face looked stern, but he could sense uneasiness from the Maid of Tarth as well. From Caron and Donnel Swann and men like Andrey Dalt, with whom he'd invited less often to their morning meetings, planning the marches for the next days to come, there came less apprehension, these lords and heirs possessing all the confidence of the blind. The Queen's confidence he may possess at the moment, not all of them would remain happy following the orders of boy not yet seven and ten, and Edric knew that, as smooth as their campaign had been thus far, the first signs of adversity might threaten the fragile alliance they'd built through the earliest stages of this war.
"We'd expected Tarly to chase us south to Horn Hill," he explained, "to give Lord Lancel and the Princess breathing room to cross the Mander further upriver. It was my hope that Lord Lancel and his men would read the map same as us, and cross the river downstream by its mouth, so that we may meet and lure the enemy into the mountains. But it's the northern route they've chosen instead, towards Cider Hall."
"Randyll Tarly is no fool," Brienne added, pointing to Highgarden on the map and keeping her rough worn nail in place as she spoke. "Retreating to Highgarden...he may not have had a choice. But that's as far as he would've let us pull him, he knows the siege on Horn Hill is a bluff. So he'll stay, and tempt either our army or the Princess's to try and pass by the castle, and defeat us in turn."
"I'm assuming," Bryce Caron asked nonchalantly, "that we can't just arrange to meet with the Lannister host all at once at Highgarden and overwhelm Tarly?"
Edric liked the young heir to Nightsong. The marcher lord was far from a stranger to himself or Beric, and they'd taken a habit of sparring in the early mornings, while the slightly older man threw out vague jests as to his previous night spent with the Queen. Their skills were matched on the field by now, a flip of the coin as to who won their sessions, and while he liked to play the dumb swordsman, Edric could tell that he had a better mind for strategy than what he would prefer to reveal to others.
"It'd be a miracle and a longshot," Edric explained. "The timing would have to be absolutely perfect, and that's not assuming Tarly doesn't march north the moment he hears they're crossing the Mander, reach them days before we even arrive back at Highgarden"
He would have liked to take Horn Hill while they were besieging it as well, and truly Edric knew the castle better than most, including the secret entrance at its backside. But the problem was that Talla knew that he knew as well as anyone, didn't she? He'd made two rides secretly at night by the back gate without telling Sansa, if only not to give her any false hope, and saw that the walls above were as well guarded as anywhere in the castle.
Or are you exaggerating its difficulties, because you fear what's to come, after Horn Hill is stormed and won?
"We can try to engage them to stop them from attacking Daenerys's host," Arya said, eyes wandering the map, the diminutive girl standing next to the gigantic Lady of Tarth, an unlikely yet also predictable friendship having formed between the two, "but that leaves us fighting a battle against Randyll Tarly without the help of the Westerlands army."
"That's the problem, isn't it," Brienne summarized. "Any move we make to join up will more than likely give Tarly the chance to engage us separated, which is what he wants."
Nodding, both of them looked nervously towards their Queen. That she remained ignorant of this possibility was their fault. Both of them told her well of their plans, of how they could out trick and outmaneuver Randyll Tarly so as to outnumber and eventually encircle him. But neither of them deliberated too much to her on what could happen if the experienced commander failed to meet their bait. In hindsight, though they never communicated in words to each other the chance that the worst would be realized, both he and Brienne should have done better in appraising their Queen of the direst possibility.
"Where do we think Daenerys's men are," Sansa asked calmly. There was something to be admired in her fortitude, having realized their failures, then moving on without any accusations or bemoaning of their plight.
"The last words from scouts are she's marched west from Old Oak," Donnel Swann said. "That would place her probably somewhere south of Goldengrove, aiming for the Rose Road."
"The opposite of where we wanted her to go," Edric explained apologetically to the Queen.
"So chances are we can't combine without one of our armies battling Tarly?"
"Let Tarly wipe out the Lannisters and rid the realm of one more dragon," Bennett Cafferen said, an older, bearded lord who counted as one of their newest arrivals, hearkened by the news of their defeat and capture of Rhaegar at Joy. "The enemy will be weakened and wearied, then we can move in on them."
It was a crude idea, but it wasn't the worst idea. However Edric saw immediately Sansa's revulsion towards it.
"You're right, Lord Bennett," she nevertheless said diplomatically to the lord of Fawnton. "We have far more men than the Princess. It is we, then, who should give battle to the enemy, for we stand a better chance at winning than our faithful allies."
Her blue eyes fell back upon Edric, as if seeking his approval, and he nodded, though they hadn't talked yet between themselves about the plans, this was the course he was leaning towards as well.
"Then we do it," the Queen boldly made her decision, "we march against Tarly, and either win this war, or lose it, no sense in dragging it further out."
All of them looked solemnly to the map, then back at their Queen, the men and occasional lady respecting the her fortitude, even Lord Cafferen, whose suggestion had just been refused. There was something eminently noble to the way she spoke, her willingness to sacrifice even her own well being for the sake of her allies, her tone perhaps mimicking some of the great knights of old. Certainly Edric knew that, if their cause was to uphold this right, this idea, that a woman could sit solely upon the Iron Throne, no one knew more than he that Sansa I Stark was as worthy as any man who came before her. Seeing her now, standing proudly before a table of seasoned lords and soldiers, wearing a fresh thin piece of silver armor cut out for her from one of the nearby village forges, though the Queen was no swordswoman like Brienne or her sister, at her best Sansa held the same kind of aura as the great ones, such as Jaehaerys the Conciliator, or more recently, men like her father King Eddard or the fallen Stag, Robert the Strong.
But Edric also knew the true truth, more than anyone else at this table, save the Princess Arya, that at her worst, Sansa could be...well, certainly not anything resembling the madness of an Aerys or Maegor, everything about her was contemplation and calculation...but the steel within her soul could easily be forged into a ruthlessness matching the likes of the Bloodraven of old, or the former Lord of Casterly Rock Tywin Lannister, both men who had been banished to Castle Black because they were too dangerous to keep roaming the realm.
"The trick is to outwit the enemy," Edric said, thinking out loud, unable to help from basking in the approval of his Queen, "while letting him think he's outwitting us. To trap him, even as he thinks he's entrapping us."
"Easier said than done," Brienne said, "Lord Randyll's not an idiot, he won't bite for feints or false retreats like Jon Connington, he won't think he has any advantage, until he actually does."
"So then," Andrey Dalt said, yet another subordinate older than he whose voice rose lightly towards a challenge, if still within the boundaries of respect, "how do we accomplish the impossible?"
Forcing his voice from wavering, the Lord of Starfall and the apparent Lord Commander or Master of War or some official title of all Seven Kingdoms, in name at least, took their piece on the map and moved it up. "We leave Horn Hill and march straight towards the Mander."
"Cross here," Donnel Swann pointed at the map, near the river's mouth. "That's where the river's widest, isn't it?"
"It would be a difficult crossing which leaves us vulnerable," Brienne agreed, a twinkle in her eye to indicate that she understood what Edric was hinting at. "Which would lure Randyll Tarly into attacking us amidst a difficult crossing..."
"Precisely," Edric agreed. "And if he doesn't take the bait and remains at Highgarden, we do cross, then send riders northeast as fast as we can to tell the Princess to refrain from crossing the Mander, and to march back meet us along the northern banks of the river."
"Aye," Bennett Cafferen agreed, bits and pieces of his morning's breakfast spewing out of his mouth and catching in his dark beard as he spoke, "an' if Tarly tries to cross to counter us, we attack him while he's weak."
"That's the truth of it," Edric agreed with a smile. "We'll be marching dangerously within sight of Highgarden in the coming days. But that's the point, isn't it, Your Grace? To bring the danger our way?"
"Aye, my Lord," Sansa answered him, a curious mix of formality and informality. "We can't win this war sitting on our asses and eating lemoncakes, can we?"
They all chuckled, not out of politeness, but gratitude for a soldier Queen who was fast becoming one of their own, expressing a levity well accustomed to the gallows humor of men were well versed in the idea that every morning could be their last. But who better understood this than Sansa, who'd faced constant doom every night even within the gilded chambers of the Red Keep?
Outside, the sun had crept past the horizon, and he could almost hear the droplets of dew melting off the grass, collecting and dissipating in the direction of the very river where their destiny beckoned. These small streams and rivulets would find blood once they met the Mander, Edric thought. The question was, would it be the blood of their enemies, or their Queen?
The Queen shook her head in frustration, drinking what appeared to be half a glass of ale without flinching. Their camp remained festive in the first days marching northwest from Horn Hill, prospects for an easy victory over an outwitted Tarly host fresh in the minds of everyone, from Queen to common soldier. Then they'd waited by the banks of the Mander. Waiting was bad for soldiers, Edric knew despite his limited experience in commanding men. Whispers grumbled, complaints grew, and worries voiced that they'd all been betrayed. They were still a long ways from mutiny, Edric knew that, he'd have to order a lot more whippings and hangings before that threat grew closer, but he did not like the way things paced.
"They've got us outnumbered, don't they," Sansa complained unhappily with a burp out of her throat. They took their meals privately in their tents now, gone were the days of dining with their men, not when the truth was known by those up high, and suspected by those down below, that they'd been outmaneuvered.
"By some," Edric replied, sitting next to his Queen, placing his hand sympathetically on her upper leg, squeezing it to try and give her some of the resolve that he did not have. "Not by much though, perhaps five thousand, seven thousand at the most. But we'll be almost close to even once the Unsullied arrive."
He'd convinced Sansa to call for the mercenaries stationed several days away in the Red Mountains before leaving Horn Hill. Fortunately the foreigners, led by Dagos Manwoody, had the good sense of pursuing a southerly march to avoid being intercepted by the Tarly army, though their route meant a delayed arrival by the banks of the Mander.
"What if we wait here," Sansa asked, the ale heavy upon her breath. "We force Tarly to wait, long enough for Daenerys's men to get them from the rear."
Edric feared that he was the reason this habit had become a vice for the Queen now, his bad decisions. It was good for the men, to see their Queen sharing the same common ales they drank each night, and certainly Sansa's regular dining with the men had done wonders for morale, things would be much worse by now, if the men thought they were fighting for some spoiled Queen who played with dolls and dined on lemoncakes and Dornish Reds whilst they died, rather than a woman who knew and understood their lives, their desires, their fears, or so they'd think.
"Tarly wouldn't allow that. He'd make his attack many days before he'd find himself outnumbered."
They'd discussed the same conundrum that morning during the war council. None of this was new to Sansa, she was far too clever to have forgotten or not understood their dilemma in the first place, but Edric feared that it was fear driving her now, that she needed to hear the truth again from someone that she trusted, as way of some perverse assurance.
"Damn the man," Sansa muttered, finishing the ale in her glass, as Edric rose and obligingly poured her another, and for himself half a glass as well. "Randyll Tarly's no fool, isn't he?"
"No, I'm afraid he's not." Again, assurance, even if it was assurance of their doom.
Each move he'd made had required a subsequent response on Tarly's part, and each time the old seasoned veteran refused to oblige them. Word was that he'd marched south from Highgarden within days of their departure from Horn Hill, so that by the time they reached the banks of the Mander, they could see the smoke billowing above their enemy camps in the distance. The first morning he'd sent several hundred men on boats crossing the Mander, the entire army ready and geared to meet and outflank the enemy charge. But Randyll Tarly did not move, and Edric was forced to call the men back, because an actual honest crossing would actually make give the enemy a most ripe target for destruction.
And there the stalemate continued. Obviously Tarly was not going to cross and leave himself vulnerable, so any move by either army in any direction would invite attack by the other. A retreat back towards Horn Hill and the Red Mountains were possible, but with falling morale, even a few skirmishes in their rearguard could threaten to deteriorate into a rout and the scattering of their fragile alliance between disparate kingdoms. They had help coming, with the Unsullied expected by the following morning. But with each blessing came a curse, with word that the Hightowers were sending more men north from Oldtown, possibly more reinforcements in number than what the Unsullied would offer them.
"We need to give battle now, don't we," Sansa asked, acceptance finally choking through her throat.
"Once the Unsullied arrive," Edric agreed, "we face them and meet them, on our terms, before things get worse."
"Can we win?"
The way she looked at him when she asked the questions, pitiful eyes begging for an affirmative answer, because not just her life but her very soul depended on it, it was easy for Edric to forget what happened to the Martells, what she'd have him do further on in this war, should they continue to emerge victorious. Yet in his eyes now she was not a Queen, not an brutal executioner, not the Stranger in pretty red hair, but a helpless girl, who needed him to protect and defend her, and he could not help but feel the urgent need to fulfill her needs with every fiber of his soul.
"I'd hope so," Edric said, trying to sound more sure than he was. "But it'd be a flip of a coin."
"But that's how war is, isn't it?" A mirthful smile, as if she was the one trying to comfort him now, to cast away all the blame he'd placed upon his own shoulders.
"Only when we've failed to make it more favorable to our side."
They drank the rest of their ale in a solemn silence, gazing towards the table which held their maps with a wishful longing, as if some enchantment could solve for them all their problems. Then, almost in a trance, they lay down into their cot in unison, Edric lying on the outside facing the doorway to their tent, Sansa taking his body into her arms, as if he were her child, despite the fact that his frame was taller and wider than hers.
The problem was that Edric could honestly not think of another strategy they could've pursued, anywhere they could've done better. He'd tried every trick known to him and his men and women, they'd done everything they should have done, but except for one rearwards move to Highgarden, Randyll Tarly, always anticipating his next march, never obliged in cooperating with his grand plans. Perhaps they should have remained in Dorne, but the result would've been the same, Edric rationed. Knowing Randyll Tarly now, he would never risk an invasion through the mountains, which meant a free hand for the Hand to take for himself a fresh hostage in Daenerys Targaryen, then eliminate one by another any army which may march to their cause from the Riverlands or Dorne.
Gradually, it came to rest in his mind the idea that there had never been any other choice all along except war, as it was always conducted, a flip of a coin even against the most incompetent of opponents. He should know, having almost been outwitted by a King who was practically as mad as his mad father.
The Hand
"I don't like it."
"Why not?"
There was a difference between what he was willing to admit during a war council, to the likes of idiots like Loras Tyrell, as opposed to what he could say to his own son. Certainly he worried that Dickon could lose, if not faith, then confidence, where even the subtlest of hesitations could turn the tide during a battle. But at some time or another, he had to trust his eldest son.
No, not eldest, Randyll had to remind himself, almost forgetting. Eldest who's worthy to inherit my mantle, that is.
"It's too much a flip of a coin."
"You're not sure then," Dickon asked, playing with his food with a fork, neither one of them possessing much appetite the eve before a battle. And battle was all but guaranteed, by the way the enemy had maneuvered that afternoon, advancing and positioning themselves at the edge of the field west of them along the southern banks of the Mander. He'd arranged his formations in turn, despite the arrival of the Queen's mercenaries earlier that morning. Randyll had let them be, because sending any small amount of men or cavalry to intercept them meant losing them, if the enemy had prepared some kind of ambush to protect their reinforcements.
"The numbers are too close to being even," Randyll said, moving the pieces fruitlessly back and forth on the map. "There's no advantage to the terrain, we've both got the river on one flank, open fields on the other. Only thing we can hope for is foolishness on their end, that they make a mistake."
"She's got a boy commanding them," Dickon said, though his tone was careful and respectful enough not to be dismissive of their enemy no matter the personage, mindful of all that Randyll had taught him. "From what I hear happened at the Tower of Joy, it wasn't Lord Edric's brilliance as much as the Swann betrayal that won the battle for her."
"No," Randyll answered, grabbing a Hightower and Redwyne piece with three fingers and moving it fruitlessly towards them from Oldtown, mind knowing that their reinforcements would never arrive in time, damn that wedding. "But we must assume the best out of our enemies, that they've learned from their mistakes." Grudgingly, he placed the tower and the grapes back south. "The boy's got one trick, the feint retreat. Remind your men tomorrow morning not to fall for it, not to overpursue. We maintain our discipline, we follow our plan."
"Understood, my lord," his son answered formally.
The plan was simple, really, as most plans ought be when one held the advantage of numbers. The expectation was that both armies would try to outflank the other on their respective southern flanks, the open ones facing the fields, in order to drive and trap their enemy against the Mander. And that would be what Randyll would try to communicate with his opening maneuvers, sending Loras Tyrell to commit all his left against the enemy's right, to give them the impression that he was committing to this tried and true tactic. But truly, a flanking maneuver was a tactic meant for those who sought glory, most battles were won at the center, so that's where Randyll planned to send the bulk of all his reserves, thinning the enemy's center by pinning their right flank, and then breaking through for the final rout.
"Discipline," he stressed, pounding his fist against the table hard enough that pieces fell on both sides of the map, "stick to the plan, that's how we win."
Dickon knew the whole plan. Loras Tyrell didn't, he'd lead the vainglorious charge that would, with any luck, result in their victory on the opposite of the battlefield. And if the youngest son of Highgarden died upon the morrow, Randyll could only hope that he'd left a child in his daughter's belly already.
Sansa
Dawn. War. Blood. Life, or death. She'd lived through several battles already, but this seemed something entirely different than the war she'd experienced before, that tens of thousands of men, on both sides of the field, stood arrayed and fully prepared for what was to follow, falling into a restless sleep knowing that the next day promised either glory or doom, nothing in between.
She thought of Jon, toiling somewhere on the frozen Wall in the middle of winter, for her sake, and for Rhaegar's. She'd free her cousin from his vows, so long as she could win this war. She thought of the armor he'd had made for her, a gift along with Arya's Needle, except Arya still had hers, while the metal he'd had so painstakingly crafted for her was lying somewhere haphazardly in the Red Keep, if they hadn't thrown it all out at all. At least Arya's Needle still fit her sister, Jon's armor probably too small for her by now. She'd grown since then, in height, in width, and in girth, especially after all the ale she'd been drinking of late. Her newest pieces of armor, forged by the very villagers they were invading, felt light, felt comfortable, giving her the illusion that she, like Brienne or Arya, was a woman who could inflict death and pain upon her enemies, when the very opposite was true. Yet, riding back and forth at the head of tens of thousands of men, their enemies and all their spears and swords and banners in sight on the opposite end of the field, the Queen felt as vulnerable as ever, knowing that any stray arrow, or sword, or shield, would be the end of her, fancy armor or not, though the cold of the cloudy, gloomy morning seemed beyond permeating her skin under its cover.
"Men of Dorne," she began, "men of the Stormlands, men of the Reach, men of all Seven Kingdoms, of Westeros, or beyond," Sansa said carefully, recalling the Unsullied soldiers forming their right flank, though the former slaves could likely not understand her. "I ask you today to fight this battle, to kill our enemies...and to die for me, Your Queen."
Spears pounded against the ground, echoing the sentiments of men blind and dumb enough to give their lives for no good reasons at all.
"But more importantly," Sansa cried, raising her voice as she reared her horse again and again, trying to project her words far across to as many of the gathered men as possible, "I ask you to fight for yourselves. I've come to know many of you in this war, I've dined with you, broken bread with you, drank with you." She paused, purposefully. "Burped and farted and shit with you."
Waves of genuine laughter broke out from the men. Good. She needed them to both not see her as a girl, and also see her as a girl, who'd yet made every effort to be one of them, despite her girlness.
"I've come to know the people we're fighting for too," Sansa continued, growing more comfortable with every word she spoke, especially given the response she'd received so far into her speech. "I've dined and drank with the villagers and townsfolk in the lands we march through, same as you, I've spoken to the butchers and the bakers and the millers, I've spoken to their wives and their daughters, their fathers, their old and infirm. Some of us come from the ranks of their lords, whom we fight today. But most of you come from the same ilk of those you fight, you all know this, you've met them in their villages, you've drank with them too, you've handed bread and grain to them, because all of you know, that these people...they're you. They're us. They're no different from us, whether Dornishmen or Andal, or a Queen who shares the blood of the Andals and the First Men.
The only difference between us, and our enemies...is that our enemies were betrayed, they were led astray, by their lords, whom they trusted with their bonds of fealty. They were led astray by men, by lords who sought to follow false Gods, who became sworn to, through deception and betrayal, weaving their falsest and basest of heresies through the fabric of our societies, our villages, our families, our shared and common bonds. You've spoken to the villagers and townsfolk of the Reach, you've dined and drank with them, you know that they are faithful and good people, who only wish to be true to the Gods, and to the Seven Pointed Star which guides all of us. Most of the men you're about to fight today are the same. That they have to die for a lie, for the treachery of their liege lords, that you'd have to kill them for crimes not of their own volition...it is the greatest tragedy, I cry for their souls, I mourn for them, and I pray for them...and I beg you all to do the same, to wage battle against our enemies today, but pray for their souls afterwards, for they are not so different as us, except that they don't have a choice, that they don't know any better.
But should they die, their deaths must serve a purpose! To free the realms of heresies and the tyrannies of the false gods, to preserve the cultures and ways of our ancestors, from Dorne to the Vale, from the Marches to Casterly Rock to Riverrun, for the souls and prayers of our own families, who remain at home, waiting for us, seeking to welcome us at our hearths at the war's end."
There felt a pride in having written and memorized a speech herself, rather than reciting words composed by others. It was far cry from the speeches her grandfather and Lord Arryn would've had her say, so chocked with knowing lies and manipulations. Perhaps it'd be closer to something the Littlefinger would write, though he'd never confessed to her even as he burned, of his sickness and deceptions.
The cheers grew louder and louder with every breath she took, so easy were these men to manipulate, same as the drunks in the tavern villages. Nearby, Edric and Arya watched wordlessly, knowing the entirety of her bullshit. She watched Thoros of Myr down a swig of wine, not caring for any dogma, his drink blinding him to anything but fire and blood. And the likes of Brienne and Caron and Andrey Dalt and all whom she needed to believe her bullshit, same as the fighting men, same as the smallfolk, Sansa felt guilty for having to still pull the wool over their eyes, though she felt less guilt by the day.
"So I ask you today not to fight for your Queen, though you fight for her! I ask you to fight for yourselves, your families, your villages, your religion, your Gods, your way of life! I ask you to shed the blood of our enemies, so that their families may receive the blessings of the peace to follow! And I ask you to exercise your vengeance on the lords and knights who chose their treason, who chose their heresy, who chose to betray the Faith and follow false Gods, and I ask you to bath gleefully in their blood when the sun meets its eve tonight!"
If the screaming she received in response was any indication, they would win this battle...or die to the very last man and woman.
The Hand
"Their archers," Dickon cried in a panic, "they're cutting through our men by the hundreds!"
"Let them," Randyll said, watching from a small rise, a rare piece of topography which sat perhaps half a foot higher than the battleground beyond them. It was his only vantage point, but he'd take it, because it was his best vantage. "No storm of arrows has ever stopped a charge, not any resolute one anyhow."
The Tyrell boy would survive anyhow, Randyll thought. He'd positioned his goodson at the front of the charge, and the arrows were mostly hitting their rear of their cavalry and the foot soldiers that followed. It had taken him some time to decide in his mind whether he wanted the bother of a living Loras Tyrell after the battle, but Randyll had finally decided that he'd rather his goodson survive, not for his daughter's sake, he suspected that Talla knew of his true inclinations, but because the trouble of having to explain to Mace Tyrell the deaths of two of his sons would be too much of a hassle. Either the young knight's vaunted skills with the sword would keep him through the battle...or it wouldn't, but a heroic and honorable death would be less questionable than one which could ultimately be traced to his own negligence.
"They're charging their infantry," Dickon observed of their enemy right. "Dornishmen, by the looks of their garbs, they'll outflank us if we don't do something."
So the game had begun. He'd made the first move, sending his right to bait the Queen's men in turn, and gauge their reaction. It was as he'd predicted. Despite the move, the enemy was committed to their original strategy of outflanking his left, to pin him against the river. Now each would try to continue outflanking the other on the open side of the battlefield in turn, or so he'd have them believe.
"Good," Randyll almost whispered. He turned to Dickon's page, a Florent boy. "Tell the Rowans to send their cavalry, but only the Rowan cavalry, none else, you hear!"
The boy rode off the relay his commands. Dickon rode closer to him, the boy was clearly itching for battle, but Randyll needed his son beside him, to watch, to observe, to learn how to command. Fortunately his son did not fight him, Dickon rarely did, whatever his personal wants.
"We only commit them enough to make them think we're determined on breaking their flank?"
Randyll nodded. The core of his army was in his reserves, Hightower, Blackbar, and Fossoway banners, fresh and rested. Once the enemy committed more and more of his men towards securing their right flank, one central charge through the middle ought be enough to break the enemy center. His right, situated along the Mander, were composed of men from Horn Hill along with some Tyrell men, many of whom had been manning the walls of the enemy sieges fortnights ago. They would charge, but carefully of course, because the river bent away from them towards the middle of the battlefield, same as enemy left, Goatshorn Bend, they called it, and any advance by either army would risk opening up their flank facing the water.
"We send our right at the very last," Randyll echoed, gearing his horse for when he and Dickon would lead the main charge to crush their enemy. "They'll sweep up the enemy after we've crushed their center."
Edric
"Are you serious," Andrey Dalt questioned. With the dwindling of the Martells down to a seven year old boy, and the absence of Cletus Yronwood herding slaves somewhere out in Essos, the young knight of Lemonwood would be perhaps the premier soldier in Dorne if it weren't for Edric, and the Queen's favor for him.
"I meant what I said," Edric screamed, as loudly and authoritatively as he could. "Swing your men to the left, towards the Mander, move them, ready them and await my orders for an advance."
"With all respect my lord," Andrey protested, his long dark hair swaying in the wind as he shook his head defiantly, "our right will break, if we don't support them!"
"The order stands," Edric said, standing his ground, resisting the urge to emphasize his point by unsheathing the ungainly sword of Sansa's father from his left hip. On his right he carried the sword he was actually used to fighting with, for if and when the time came to ride into battle himself, the Queen's worry for his life be damned.
"Aye," Andrey said begrudgingly, but nevertheless prepared to carry out his orders.
"And bring the Unsullied with you!"
"Are you gaining towards suicide, my lord, or is it treason you've decided upon?"
"Do you not trust Lady Brienne? Just fucking do it!"
Without another word Dalt marched away, barking orders to his own men as well as Dagos Manwoody, who beckoned with hand motions the mercenaries to begin their movement towards the river. Together with some of the Dornish squadrons who had suffered the most during the Battle of Joy, the Unsullied capped off the reserves on the right of his battlefield, heavily loaded on the side away from the Mander, seemingly more than prepared for the initial enemy attack. By weakening his right, he was depending on the ability of Brienne and her men to hold off the brunt of the enemy's outflanking maneuver, along with the newly arrived Cafferens and Errols, fresh in their first action in battle.
His center was comprised mostly of Dornishmen, his own from Starfall, High Hermitage, along with the Yronwood banners, and many of his other countrymen. They formed much of his the reserve in the middle too, including Fowler men along with Wyls and Tolands who'd arrived late, missing the last battle at Joy. Seeing Stevron Wyl, an older, grey bearded lord who commanded his portion of the reserve, Edric rode in his direction and ordered him to support their right flank.
"Sending your right left and yer center reserves right," the grizzled man snarled at him. "Are you mad, boy?"
"Just do it," Edric screamed, projecting his voice as deeply as he could, "in the name of the Queen! Just your men and the Fowler banners, tell the Tolands to hold!"
The old man rode off to follow his orders, Edric's eyes never straying too far behind his back, to ensure that his orders were being carried out to the letter. Perhaps the older lord was right, he was going mad, it was a risky strategy he was pursuing, but for now, he needed Randyll Tarly to think him a fool.
The Hand
At first, he'd thought the Queen's boy foolish. The advantage of such a scattered army gathered by the Queen meant that each unit was easily recognizable and distinguishable from the other, and he'd just seen with his own eyes the withdrawal of the entirety of the Unsullied men, with their distinctive dark armor and facemasks, marching away from the enemy right. Then Randyll thought him clever, that the young Lord of Starfall had anticipated his move against his center, choosing to use his Unsullied to buffer his lines. Then, as his own men were gaining ground on the small rise where the enemy flank was positioned, he saw banners riding furiously to counter his attack.
"Horses," Dickon remarked, both of them seeing the Dornish banners waved high in the air. "They're committing their cavalry to their right."
"Some of it, at least," Randyll muttered. "Switching their horses with infantry, not a bad move." The time was nigh.
"They'll cut through us."
"As they shall." He was ready. Heartsbane was ready. His son looked him in the eyes, Dickon was ready, the Gods help them all. "They've moved the sellswords to buffer their center. It'll help. And it'll hurt. But it won't be enough."
Understanding his signal, Dickon rode forth into the fray, his sword held high in the air.
"Men! Ready yourselves! We charge, we fight..."
For a second, Randyll wondered whether he should have bequeathed his son Heartsbane for the battle. It was too late now, perhaps the valyrian sword would be a fitting reward for a battle well fought and won. But for now, he needed the weapon too, by the Gods. Pulling at the reins of his horse, bracing his shield ready for the oncoming wave of arrows, Randyll rode up through the ranks to join his son at the head of their looming assault.
Edric
"Loose," he screamed again and again, riding past the archers, seeing the enemy charge commence, knowing that he needed to thin their numbers however much with their archers before they became fully engaged with the Dornish spearmen.
Two riders strode furiously back towards his post by the reserves. The smaller one he could barely tell through the blood and the grime on her face that it was the royal Princess, fighting as skillfully and valiantly as any of their men. The other rider next to her was Arys Oakheart, the once and future whitecloak, his golden armor so heavily coated with blood that it looked like the metal had been painted red since the beginning.
"They're hitting our center hard," the older knight screamed. Behind him, he saw that the Queen had rode up to their ranks, possibly concerned after seeing her sister's retreat.
"Good," Edric said, holding his fingers above his eyes to try to get a better look at the field. "They're sending all their reserves at us, concentrating all their horses against our center, what cavalry that's not already committed against our right."
"Our right won't hold for much longer," Andrey Dalt said, and indeed, Edric could see that slowly but surely, the enemy was pushing their lines back, inch by inch, foot by foot. "I give our center a few minutes before it breaks too, we barely have any horsemen to back them up, by the Gods man, send us over to help!" Dalt's eyes were desperate, an indication that he might pursue his own movements sooner than not, orders be damed.
Edric had positioned nearly all his reserves heavily weighted to their right initially, including most of their mounted knights, before ordering Dalt to order them to the center after the first assault on his flank. To their left by the river, Edric watched as the marcher banners brace for the impact of the coming charge. But Tarly's assault was much deeper in his center than on his enemy's right, deep enough where his archers were still shooting volleys of arrows at the enemy rearguard, mostly footmen now that the vanguard cavalry, let by the Tarly's themselves, if Edric could tell from the banners, was already cutting through the spearmen at their middle.
"If you're going to do something, now's the time," the Princess muttered impatiently, and Edric agreed.
"Now," he screamed, drawing Ice and pointing it in the air. First he looked at Manwoody. "Split the Unsullied, send half of them back to support our right, the other half against the Tarly charge! Dalt!"
"My Lord."
The young man seemed on the verge of intransigence, and justified, Edric figured, given their dire situation, but having the Queen beside him at this moment, who was doing a very good job of hiding her inner terror, helped buffer his authority.
"Commit all our remaining reserves against the enemy right! Swing the horses furthest left, take advantage of the ground on Goatshorn Bend, I'll the charge myself, I want every man's horse practically treading water!"
"Aye," Dalt agreed, recognizing the tactic, the ire in his blood ready to be directed against their enemies now, rather than himself. With a scream and a last looked back at his Queen, unspoken words silently exchanged and quickly understood with a quick blink and gaze of the eyes, Edric rode forward towards the river, in the direction of the Dondarrion and Caron and Swann banners, swinging his progress around them through a thin gap between the edges of his lines and the Mander.
The battleground was even, the numbers were somewhat even, and Edric had initially expected from Randyll the same tactic he'd expected the old Lord of Horn Hill would expect out of him, a young and inexperienced commander...the tried and true tactic of swarming the enemy's weaker, undefended flank, then pinning and destroying them against the river. But the moment he'd seen Tarly move first against his flank, Edric would have bet all he had that it was a feint, and the bulk of the Tarly assault would come against his center or left. Against his left, he hadn't anticipated a strong chance, but he'd been prepared at the time to send his reserves against a weakened enemy center. It would be a much riskier stratagem than he would've preferred, because any successful headway through the enemy's middle still left them vulnerable to an envelopment on either side should one of Tarly's charges against his flanks gain traction and overwhelm his peripheries.
But the concentrated charge in the center was exactly what he'd been hoping for from the beginning. It left the enemy right weakened, and though that flank was defended by the Mander, the small bend in the river away from them, along with the enemy's charge in its direction, gave him just enough breathing room to mount an outflanking assault with all the reserves he had. Even successful, it would prove the least damaging to the enemy, giving Tarly a good chance of escaping with a much of his army whole were they to act early enough, the rest of the Queen's army not committed to the attack by the Mander too distracted or decimated to contain or pursue. But better a smaller victory that he could be better sure of, than a riskier approach that held an equal chance of seeing their army destroyed as the enemy's.
He saw the Princess keeping up with his mount with every stride to his right, and screaming, both his arms holding up one sword each in the air, he plunged them down at the necks of the nearest knights he saw.
The Hand
The fighting was thickest where he and Dickon were. Most of their enemies were Dornish, their spears proving more difficult than swords, Randyll thought, too many of their horses killed and maimed from a far distance, reducing their advantage beast by beast, man by man. But the numbers were on their side, as was time, all they had to do was push on, and soon enough the enemy would break. Easier said than done, of course, he heard his chest heaving, his breathing heavy and ragged, a terrifying reminder that unlike his son, he was no longer a young man, far removed from his prime as a warrior. Ahead, he heard strange shouts and chants, and saw the almost inhuman masks worn by the Unsullied sellswords.
"Prepare yourselves," Tarly shouted, cutting Heartsbane through the neck of one masked Dornishman, swinging his sword through the side of another, barely dodging leftwards and away from the trust of a spear. The boy lord was good, he'd recognized immediately that the initial charge was a feint, sending his reserves to guard against the attack he'd anticipated on his center. That they would encounter the Unsullied reserves now though seemed a good sign of the progress they'd already made through the enemy lines, but rearing his horse, Randyll rode back through the waves of his advancing rearguard, his mind thinking even as he waved them on.
If the enemy center was stronger than he'd anticipated, then it would mean they'd be fast losing ground on their right. Was it too late to shift away the attack, and break their flank, as his initial feint had threatened. But his thoughts were interrupted by the blare of trumpets, screams bellowed out in both triumph and panic, and a shout in his direction from his son.
"Father!"
Randyll turned his head to his right, seeing his son fending off the enemy spears closer to the river, and a mass of enemy horses bearing marcher banners somehow having formed a perimeter against the edges of their lines, slowly pressing down on his direction, cutting through and compacting his position with every distant clang of metal.
"Protect our right," Randyll screamed. From his position closer to the rear now, he pointed his sword at the river, yelling furiously for the advancing reserves to face this unexpectedly deadly assault. The more his men were pushed back, the more room it gave the enemy, swarming with what seemed to be endless waves of riders and footmen.
I've been tricked, he realized. I've been goaded, by a boy no less.
Though his footmen by the thousands now answered the call and ran towards the river, they were helpless to sway the tide of the battle for the moment, positioned still too far back to be able to engage the marcher counterattack. And the beats of the battle continued unrelentingly, the chants of the Unsullied growing nearer, by the Gods, advancing in their direction now. Randyll watched Dickon fend off several thrusts from one of the foreign spearmen. Their center was actually giving, panicking, as his right was being rolled up, massacred by the hundreds at the hands of the superior enemy cavalry.
A decision had to be made, and now. There was no point in turning the tide of the battle, because it had already turned, long before he'd realized it.
"Dickon," he bellowed as loudly as he could, hoping that the distraction would not be fatal for his son.
"Father," came the cry back. "What...which way..."
"Retreat," he screamed. It seemed the men around him heard and reacted to that dreadful word first, and instantly panic set in from the sound of their commander sounding the alarm. "Retreat," he screamed again, when he saw Dickon's eyes hesitate even as he continued swinging his sword against the oncoming enemy charge, his own son nearly surrounded now in his position further towards the front and by the river. "Retreat now, before it's all lost."
Dickon nodded, and began issuing orders of his own towards the men around him. More panic set in, as Randyll felt the weight of the pushing and the shoving threatening to knock down his horse. But for once panic was good, because panic would save the lives of his men, and preserve his army as well as he could help it.
Swiveling his head towards his left flank, where the battle had initially commenced, he saw Loras Tyrell furiously dashing his sword in every which direction, each swing and parry coming impossibly fast.
"Ser Loras," he screamed, riding in his direction. The young man did not respond, caught up in the heavy fighting as he was, but Randyll could only assume he could hear him through the thunderous din. "Hold the flank, protect the retreat!"
Sansa
The Queen had no urge to wade personally through an ocean of mud and blood. She'd seen enough gaping wounds and horrible broken flesh and organs and all the most disgusting faces of a man's body as she never could have feared to imagine as a child, even in her worst nightmares. Yet the Queen did her part, accompanying the silent sisters and healers as wounded men by the tens, the dozens, the hundreds and thousands, were brought back into camp, touching with her fingers against what parts of their skin remained unblemished, pretending to pray for their well-being and their souls.
Soon enough, the Queen retreated back by her tent, sitting quietly by a small fire, and stared her barren eyes into its flames, seeing nothing, thinking nothing. Some interminable time afterwards, after the sun had set, the slumped bodies of Edric, Brienne, and her sister found their way beside her, collapsing onto small wooden benches without an excessive word from any. If she were so exhausted, Sansa thought, from a day of doing nothing, just how weary could they, her closest and most loyal soldiers and companions be, having stared death in its eyes again, for the second time in about as many moons? From the darkness, a bloodied former red priest stumbled into the fray, carrying two jugs of ale, one in each hand, even as he sipped his own container of wine. Minutes later someone brought a bucket of chicken legs, and they sat, and ate, and drank, and commiserated, all of them knowing the pain and the suffering of the day better than their Queen, whose armor remained clean and unbloodied.
Some time afterwards, one chicken leg and two glasses of ale, the only way Sansa could tell time, several knights came carrying the body of a familiar face, a man whom she supposed had been her first love.
"Ser Loras Tyrell," Brienne asked, recognizing the name which accompanied the body through the sigils on his armor. Arya looked at her knowingly, perhaps expecting Sansa to cry at the sight. Loras's formerly fair hair was dark and bloodied, one side of his face heavily bruised, cheekbone caving in horribly inward into a dark recess, and she could tell from his broken armor that his body had been pierced by swords in many places.
"Send the body to King's Landing," Sansa ordered coldly. "Let the traitors in the Red Keep know truly the price of their treason."
Then she started drinking her third glass of ale, chewing against her lips when she did not drink, ruminating upon the price of her great victory, a battle as fierce and furious as any in the history of the Seven Kingdoms, since the Trident, or the Dance of Dragons, or even Aegon's conquering.
If this was how victory felt, worse than she ever could have imagined, the so called Warrior Queen wondered whether the sting of defeat and a painful death such as the kind Loras Tyrell had suffered might actually be the more tender mercy.
