The air was filled with smoke and blood, as Loren rode into the camp.

He had expected an ordered camp, with cookpots in front of tents, perhaps archers at the butts or knights practicing their tilts. Not this mess. DIsorder, disarray and the most active area of the camp were the medical tents, were hundreds of wounded soldiers were waiting to get treated for injuries.

He found Lord Florent at the front of the camp, looking out to the west. Loren had not expected to find the camp this far east, they should have been at the Mander already.

"Lord Florent," he demanded, dismounting heavily, his boots sinking slightly into the dirt. "What has happened here?"

To his credit, Lord Florent did not look embarrased or try to make excuses for himself. "My Lord Marshal, we were attacked by Stannis Baratheon's army two days ago. We were able to retreat in as good an order as I could manage, but he still took the field."

Loren ground his teeth. "Of course he did." Two days ago. Half of him wanted to moan that he should have been here, the other half knew that he couldn't have made it any faster than he did. They rode all day every day from the capital, eating only in the evenings, sleeping beside their horses in full riding gear. And still it had not been enough. "Gods fuck it all," he muttered. "And where is Ser Addam?"

"His camp is closer to the Mander, my lord," Lord Florent explained. "I have tried to reach him, but he is besieged by Stannis' army on a small hill. I get close enough to show my banners so that he knows we are close, and my riders tried harrassing Stannis' camp, last we saw he was still holding out. He has improvised defences with wagons and trenches, but as to his supplies, I do not know."

"When was this?"

"Three days ago, it was then that Stannis chose to attack us."

"Drive away the reinforcements," Loren nodded, it made sense, he would have done the same thing to try and force Addam's surrender. But that meant there was no time to rest. "Ready the men to march again, we cannot lose Ser Addam's detachment."

"My Lord, the men are exhausted."

"I will not march them to death, but we at least need to make a display of it if we're to have a chance of saving Addam's men." He had trained those men, fought with many of them. He would not allow them to be slaughtered by Stannis' host. On top of that, he needed them. With Matthis Rowan marching against the Baratheon landings north of King's Landing, Loren needed to save as much of this army as possible.

The march that followed was a crawl. Lord Florent was right, the army was tired, but they marched at least, and that was to their credit. The first day they hadn't made it far, looking back, he could still see the smoke from the old camp. But they had only marched for half a day. The next day would be better. They camped earlier that night, in marching formation, so that the next day they would be more rested and ready to march from the moment they awoke.

The next day they were marching when the sky was still glazed pale blue but had reached Addam's location before it turned orange. He was trapped atop a large hill, the Mander bending lazily a few miles beyond him.

Loren't expert outriders had screened their approach and allowed him to bring the army around until it swung up to the north, where a small ridge covered the approach. He rode up to the crest of the ridge with only a small band of retainers, flying the royal standard proudly. Unfortunately, as they had circled around the enemy, the wind had changed, instead of blowing west to east it was now going south to north, meaning the banner was streaming behind them, rather than out to the side. It wasn't nearly as effective, but it would have to serve.

Addam's men were defending the hill from all Florent was right, Addam's lines were held fast, wagons tied end to end, any gaps in the line defended by crude trenches lined with thick and spikey bushes. Corpses lay on the hill in many colours but the banners atop the hill still stood strong.

Turning his gaze to the army surrounding it, he frowned. It was large, to be sure, but not Stannis Baratheon's whole host, it couldn't be. That was good, the whole host would have been more likely to stand and fight it out against his reinforcements, that would have been a difficult ask of his men.

As it was, his plan had a chance of succeeding. "Do we advance Lord?" Gerold asked.

"Not yet, not until they've seen us," he waited, watching, observing the shifting flow of the Stannis' formations until, like a fish sensing a shark, their movement pattern shifted.

A small group of riders detached from the army and slowly began approaching the crest where Loren was waiting. He waited, waited until they were sufficiently separated from the main host then gave the order. "March, now."

Trumpets sounded and Loren's army advanced. They swelled over the crest in steady movements, not too fast, flanked on either side by heavy horse, and began marching down the hill towards the plain below.

Loren watched it all happen. He watched as Stannis' army first tried to redeploy so some units blocked Loren's advance, but as more and more of Loren't men appeared over the hill, they realised this would be no quick fight. He saw the halted movements, the disruption to the flow, and the moment in which King Stannis, or whoever commanded this detachment sounded a retreat.

"Do we give chase lord?"

"No, Lord Florent," Loren said. "We link up with Ser Addam, make his host secure. That is our priority, we can seek battle when our host is united and rested."

He would make no rash moves before it was necessary to do so.

The two armies moved like dancers, Stannis' host retreated, his advanced, they halted, he halted. They moved until Loren's men had folded Addam's into his host and taken the strongest positions. Then Stannis' retreat began in full, marching in a neat column away from the hill, west towards the Mander. Loren's only pursuit was to order his outriders to follow them and ensure they didn't double back.

He found ser Addam in the centre of his host as they were taking their wagons out of the defensive circle and rehitching the horses. Farriers were feeding the horses fresh hay from Loren's stocks, and they were eating like they hadn't in days.

"My Lord Marshal," Addam bowed his head. "I must offer you my thanks."

"It's not needed Ser Addam," Loren replied, gripping the man's shoulder tightly.

"I disagree my lord, another day or so and my men wouldn't have had the strength to continue resisting."

"And now they'll have a chance to rest. We'll rest for today and tomorrow, redistribute our supplies and rest, then we'll march."

"Do you not want to take advantage of this, my lord? Use speed and surprise."

Loren shook his head. "Tired men don't have speed, and Stannis won't be taken by surprise, Besides," he added, staring out to the west. "We'll need the army as fit as possible to face our next real test."

Loren knew that crossing the Mander would be difficult. He knew that Stannis would never have left such a strong position unfortified, and so it was. By the time he arrived on the banks of the Mander a few days later, a great host awaited him on the other bank. Infantry and archers lined the banks and a great phalanx of spearmen held the other end of the Bitterbridge, there would be no going back across that one. It seemed Stannis had claimed their last battlefield as his own now. A statement of intent if nothing else. And he had claimed it well. Behind the phalanxes and archer lines, more infantry waited and knights behind them. This was more than the army that had been attacking Ser Addam, though he recognised some of the banners from that battle. Caron's nightingales and Swann's swans chief among them. They had been reinforced by Stannis' main host. Judging by the great royal standards of black and gold, he assumed that Stannis himself was here.

He shuddered. It was strange, he'd somehow thought that he would encounter Stannis at the end of a campaign, fighting through subordinates and seizing key castles before the two of them closed in on each other. Yet here they were, face to face, with Stannis' host better positioned and ready for battle. "We can't fight them here, Lord," Lord Florent said.

"No, we can't," he muttered softly. All the same he reinforced the other side of the Bitterbridge with his own force of spearmen, led by the survivors of the ironmen recruits. And so the two hosts waited, just out of arrow shot of each other, staring and waiting.

"I've ridden up the line, my lord," Addam reported that evening, when Loren summoned a council of his commanders. "There are watchers at every crossing point for half a day's ride. We aren't forcing a way through here."

Loren clenched his fists against his arms tightly. "Suggestions?"

"Cross the Blueburn, my lord," Lord Florent replied. "Then march along the southern bank of the Mander until you reach Highgarden, cross under the shield of that castle and then come up behind Stannis."

"Not a plan without merit," Loren replied after some consideration. "But it would take far too long, and if Stannis chose to instead march on the capital without our army in the way, we would become the pursuer, and he would be able to turn and make a stand on ground of his choosing. Unless…" He turned and surveyed the ground, flat, apart from the hill on which Lord Caswell's castle stood, still flying the royal banner for now. Out to the west the Blueburn flowed lazily away. "What do you think of this?" He laid out his plan, they discussed it long into the night and the next day they began to implement it.

Three days later they were ready. Slowly he had pulled his forces away from the river, making scouting attempts to the north and south across the Blueburn, partly to scout, partly to mask. Then they had pulled back and he had ordered the construction of a temporary bridge to begin crossing the Blueburn. With the bridge complete, he formed up his army to cross, sent his best outriders across, then retreated.

Now he and his men were waiting, the bridge just at the edge of sight, hidden away. When Stannis came to oppose his crossing, they would move on him, trapped against the river, they had the chance to inflict a telling defeat on the Baratheon army. The outriders to the south were to ensure that Stannis never saw that no army had crossed the bridges, his retreat from the Bitterbridge had been to let Stannis' own scouts advance and see the construction of the bridge. An army crossing a bridge was a valuable target, and, seeing it, Stannis would cross the Bitterbridge and march to face him, only to find no army crossing and Loren ready to attack him, forcing a battle on much better, open terrain, rather than trying for force a crossing of the river against Stannis' entrenched army.

A rider, one of his scouts.

The scout rode up to him. "How far are they?" Loren asked.

The scout shook his head. "They aren't coming, my lord, Stannis' army is still across the river."

Loren closed his eyes. "So he hasn't taken the bait."

No one answered. It had been worth the attempt, but this would not be so easy. He was a fool to think that it was. Stannis would never just walk to the place Loren wanted him to be. This war would be more than that.

"What are your orders, my lord?" Ser Addam asked.

Loren turned back to the scout. "He's definitely not coming?"

"No my lord, they aren't making any preparations to cross the Bitterbridge. March back now and you'll see them exactly as they were three days ago."

"I see," Loren turned to his commanders. "Give the order, the army is to return to the Bitterbridge, reassume our positions as before. If we can't cross that river, then neither can he."

Lord Florent and Ser Addam led the army onwards, the battallions marching around Loren and his command.

It was Gerold, ever faithful, who dared approach. "Something troubles you, my lord," he said softly."

Loren shivered, the words freeing a chill he had been keeping hidden in his chest. "I do not know where, I do not know when," he said quietly, so that only Gerold could hear, "but we will meet Stannis Baratheon on the battlefield. That day the weight of spilled blood will tip the scales of this war, but the difference will be minor, and I fear both of us will be bled white before that day closes."