BLACK-OP1 – It's something that's been missing, I feel. Most of the good and healthy sibling relationships are split up in the canon, be that Robb and Jon or Tyrion and Jaime, so to have one on screen long term is great fun to write. Also they have a deeper connection than most siblings in that they are both affected by greyscale, so they have something that no-one else has which brings them closer still. Let's just hope it stays that way.
Shield and Nymeria padded like the beasts of war they were ahead of his column of seventeen thousand men, of whom all but five hundred were afoot, those five hundred being the retinues of the lords who came with him. The feet were slamming into the ground like a thousand different hammers, out of synch with each other and droning instead of beating a rhythm. He shook his head. Robb needed him to battle with these men at his command. At his right was Theon, his cocksure smirk plastered across his features, he had seemed surprisingly eager to come with him, Tristan had been sure that he'd object to having to march with the rabble, but he was taking it in his stride. Lord Bolton was at his left, his pale face and eyes not giving anything away. He had wanted Domeric too, and Daryn, but their fathers had sent them with Robb, to be part of his personal guard and build a rapport with their future lord.
Unfortunately, lords rarely kept outriders as their retinues, retinues were meant to look impressive and protect the lord. The few outriders he had were not enough to keep a careful watch over the entire southern approach. If Lord Tywin kept to the Kingsroad, he was more than three days away, if not, he could be less than half a day, Tristan had no way of knowing. He had wanted to march south fast, keep a wide net to locate Lord Tywin's force, and then focus in on that. But Lord Bolton had advised against that. He had instead advocated for a cautious approach, stopping every few days to allow the army a break from their march. He didn't like it, but this was why he had asked for Lord Bolton to come with him in the first place.
They came to camp not much further down the fork, and Tristan gave his arms and armour over to Elmar, the Frey who was to marry Arya, and whom he had taken as his squire, to prepare him for that if nothing else. "How are you doing, Elmar?" He asked the eleven year old, who was scrubbing away at his mail.
"Well, my Lord," he said, stopping scrubbing for a moment. "I look forward to seeing you in battle."
Tristan grinned. "You won't be disappointed, I can promise that much." He took up his bastard sword and gave it some practice swings, the metal simply an extension of his wrist as it hissed through the air, biting like a wolf's fangs, snapping for prey and thirsty for blood. "Those Lannister knights won't know what hit them."
Elmar giggled like the boy he was. Tristan sheathed his sword. "Now, undress me," he said. "I wish to sleep before the march tomorrow."
As he lay down, he absently wondered what Shield and Nymeria were doing. The wolves seemed to need far less sleep than men, for he often called them come the morning and they would slink into the tent, jaws bloody with some kill they had made in the night.
()()()
The darkness meant nothing to him or his sister, his littermate. Man relied too much on it's eyes, but the two of them could find their way through the sounds or smells that reached them. They bounded along the river, slaking their thirst when they needed to before lowering their noses to the ground and finding what his master could never find. Prey.
They found the three men resting by a tree. His master's men would have missed them, for they were in the dark, no fires lighting their way, but he could smell them.
He approached, with his sister, her anger and distress at being parted from her mistress clear. But they would find the way. He helped her, they slaked their thirst on the enemy and his litter mate stayed with them without him having to fight her down to submission. Two of the men were sleeping like the dead, a third keeping watch, his breathing fearful and fast, but nothing next to that of the horses, the beasts felt them, kicking about and snorting in their horrible voices of fear.
The man was shaking his friends. "Tom! Will!" He said in a voice of dark and quiet fear. "Somthing's spookin' the horses."
His low growl of humour would have alerted them if it wasn't for the horses, frightened at their scent. He slunk around, keeping low to the ground so that the man-things didn't see him. When he got close to one of the ropes imprisoning the beast, he opened his jaws. Splinters and toughness filled his mouth as he worked his fangs through the rope, tearing at it as he did so. Pulling with his jaw, he ripped though the chain of tasteless toughness and the snorting fearful beast bolted into the shadows. "Come back!" The men called stumbling around as one of them fumbled with a stick, trying to bring fire, the bane of forest and beast, to bear. He leapt at him, the taste of blood and sweet muscle greeting him as he ripped flesh from the man, who tried to call, but only spat up more of the red sauce for his pleasure. He bounded into the shadow before the other men could attack him, and heard the death cries of the second as his sister did their master's work.
He could tell that his sister wanted to stalk the last one, to make him feel fear and stain his legs with piss. But there was no need, so he started without her, sinking his fangs into his leg and, her fun denied, his sister leapt in as well.
They could have let the last horse go, but man things, though often succulent, only had a few good bites in them before you were left with tough muscle and bone. They killed their prey quickly and lowered their heads to the carcass, feasting on the bloody meat in victory before they returned to the camp.
()()()
He awoke to the taste of blood and hard meat in his mouth. Retching at the taste he stuck his fingers in his mouth, trying to see if he had bitten his tongue in his sleep, it didn't seem like it, but something tasted bloody. It must have been his imagination, when he pulled his fingers out they were covered in a clear sheen of saliva, but there was no blood. He wiped them off on his furs and drank some water to wash out his mouth, sloshing the first mouthful around before spitting it onto the floor and drinking the second and third deeply.
"My Lord," Elmar said, concerned, looking at him. "Are you... alright?"
Tristan shook his head to clear it. "What?" He asked. "Yes, fine, why?"
"You were... growling, in the night."
"Growling?"
Elmar nodded. "Like a dog... an angry dog."
A dog? Why would he growl in his sleep? He shook his head again, it didn't matter, dreams were dreams, the real world was what mattered. "It doesn't matter," he said to the young Frey. "I'm fine, more than fine. Now get my clothes and armour. We are marching again today.
Outside his tent, Shield was stirring, his eye blinking and looking up at him, golden and piercing. Shield nuzzled his litter-mate awake and Nymeria stubbornly snapped at the offending muzzle, before more nudges from her brother made her wake up properly.
"If only everyone could get up so quickly," he muttered.
They took another march that day, making it more than twenty miles. It had been his own idea to bring rafts and riverboats from the twins, keeping their supplies on the river to unburden the army. He knew from the march down from Winterfell that it was the supply train that kept armies slowed down. Lord Bolton had agreed that it would allow them a faster retreat without losing the baggage to the enemy. He would need that. There was no way he could engage Tywin in full battle with his depleted host and emerge the victor, not that he saw. He just had to be loud, boastful and the centre of attention. Just be myself then, he thought as the army set down to rest.
But Lord Bolton thought differently. "To simply sit back and act loud will not work, not against Tywin Lannister, not against anyone. A brash man will come to attack you, a cautious man will see that you are a cover for someone else."
"I agree with Lord Bolton," Lord Hornwood said, his bushy moustache and broad shoulders heavily set and brooding as they stood on the riverbank, under the shade of a large oak tree, watching their boats be pulled in. "We must keep moving towards Lord Tywin at the very least, do him the courtesy of battle, or he'll know to look for the fight elsewhere."
"The Ruby Ford would be ideal to hold him, but it's too far south, too close to Riverrun," Roose added, his soft spoken voice cutting like a dagger. "We must needs face him further north, that will likely be achieved by our march alone." Roose had explained that to him already. Tywin was in an uncertain position, with the Vale to the east and the northmen to the north. If he linked up with the knights of the Vale, he could destroy Tywin's host with greater numbers. Tywin would know this, and seek to destroy us individually. If he believed that both he and Robb were leading the whole Northern host to face him, he would move to destroy it in one swoop so he might face the possible Vale assault unhindered.
"But I can't beat him," it irked him that he had to admit it, but there's no use in calling himself something he wasn't.
Roose tutted. "You do not see the bigger picture my lord, our victory over Tywin Lannister will not come from destroying his host in glorious battle. That is how stories are told, but not wars fought. We defeat Tywin if we can make him face us rather than march on your brother. We need only hold him a little while."
"Robb will be descending on Riverrun as we speak," Tristan admitted. He was travelling by horse, so may even now be destroying Jaime's host. But Lord Bolton was right. This was going to come to battle. And he had to decide how to go about it. "We won't be able to keep the secret for long if we should engage Tywin directly," Tristan muttered. "Everyone in the army knows that Robb took the horse and went the other way. They won't spare the footmen, but the lordlings know, the Lannisters will know the truth if any of them get captured."
"Perhaps we should let them," Roose Bolton replied coolly.
"Let the Lannisters capture our fellows willingly, have you gone mad, Bolton?" Lord Halys demanded, his face expressing the indignity. Tristan felt uneasy. He had never had Robb's training, but he knew that lords looked after their men, letting them get captured seemed... wrong.
But Lord Bolton, as ever, was not perturbed by outbursts, he never had been at the Dreadfort, and he wasn't now. "Lord Tywin values Jaime. He was greatly angered when Aerys stole him as his heir, and in the place of Ser Jaime he's received an adventurous irresponsible boy and a dwarf. If Tywin learns that Jaime is in danger, in all likelihood, he"ll break off any assault and pursuit of us to move to save him."
"Or waver, and perhaps give us an opening," he finished, looking for acceptance in the pale, lineless face.
It was granted with a nod. "Indeed, if Tywin were to falter, or be driven into a sudden urge to break us swiftly, he may make a mistake, one we can exploit, or if we are already retreating, he'll give less thought to pursuit, more to his son."
"There are... certain merits to that," Lord Hornwood agreed reluctantly. "But if he's in the process of destroying our host, he won't break off. If we let Tywin know that Robb is riding for ser Jaime in the intent of making him break off his assault here, there can be no certainty to our defeat."
"There's another problem," Tristan said. "We are here to prevent Tywin marching to Jaime's aid, it rather defeats the purpose of our march if we let him know that Robb is moving that way."
"Which is why we pull Tywin north to fight us," Roose reminded him, and Tristan chided himself for not remembering that part already. Gods Robb has put me in entirely the wrong position. Being a swordsman was easy, failure was your own fault, nearly every time, but you were the only one affected. If he were to fight Jaime Lannister one on one, he would likely lose, but at least it wouldn't hurt Robb directly, but if he lost Robb his army, or give Tywin time to save Jaime, then he'd have utterly failed.
He paused to let a line of horsemen pass them up the bank. "So we draw Tywin north, meet him in battle and retreat, making sure he doesn't have the means to utterly destroy us," he said, just to confirm that was the general plan they were working from.
Both Hornwood and Bolton nodded.
"Right, well then," he said, slumping down. "It seems to me that the best way to do that is a disruption on Tywin's rear and camp. After all, an army marches on it's stomach, an attack on his camp could ravage him if we were able to torch his supplies."
"The camp would be behind his lines. You have a plan?" Roose asked, mildly curious.
He nodded. "Possibly. Bring me Theon, I'll need him if it's going to work."
