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Chapter Twenty-Six: The Quickening

Sleet and snow took it in turns to demoralise the vast host of marching men. If they showed any sign of getting used to it, the wind would chime in with gale-force gusts to try and blow them off-course. In the mornings, the ground crunched beneath their feet. By afternoon, it was sucking slush-mud that easily slipped through the barriers of poorer soldier's boots. Illness was rife, hunger and exhaustion leaving many weakened for the battle ahead. All the same, they pressed on and followed the White Knife and headed north again.

Soldiers from the Reach had been worst hit. The cold and harsh conditions claimed more and more of them with each passing day, while ten thousand of them had been left behind at Barrowton and Moat Cailin, reinforcing the garrisons there in case of any surprise southern attacks from their enemies. Every night, they camped wherever they were at the moment the sunset and made it through the hours of darkness as best they could.

Robb did what he could to keep the camp together, but retired to his own tent as exhausted as any of them and slept in the furs he'd worn during the day. But, almost a month after leaving Barrowton, he lay sleepless in his bunk and dug into his pocket in search of the scroll of parchment he found secreted away inside his saddle pack. He'd rolled and unrolled it so many times now that the paper's edges were wearing thin and the green silk ribbon starting to fray. It was only a missive from Margaery, who had been left behind at Barrow Hall. She'd drawn the good likeness of a tiny baby growing from a stem with the words 'growing strong' written beneath. Every night, he kissed it before rolling over to fall asleep.

He wondered what she looked like now. It had been a month since he saw her last. Was she letting out her bodices yet? If they left it much longer to take back Winterfell, she might not be fit to travel until the pregnancy was over – a thought that made him uneasy.

"Have you thought of any names yet?" Garlan asked him as he entered the tent and saw him gazing wistfully at the picture.

Still slouched on his bunk, Robb lowered one corner of the parchment to get his brother by law in view. "Cregan for a boy. Lyarra for a girl."

"Not Eddard, for your father?" Garlan sounded genuinely surprised.

"I think not. The last time, I wanted to name the child that and now I think it might be jinxed." Silently, in the confines of his own mind, Robb added: and because the other was the liar of a lifetime.

"I fear I might have made you maudlin now," said Garlan. He shoved Robb's legs aside so he could sit on the bunk. As he did so, he pulled two bottles from inside his cloak and handed one to Robb. "Well, here's to Cregan Stark and may he be very swiftly followed by little Lyarra."

Uncorking the bottles with their teeth, they drank their toast to the future Stark. The honey mead tasted like the nectar of the gods.

"You know Jaime Lannister's still loitering around the camp, don't you?"

"Aye," replied Robb. "I can't decide if he's genuinely lost or whether he just doesn't want to go home."

"Would you want to go home to Cersei? Seriously, though, I don't know how useful he'll be without his sword hand and the Bolton's are supposed to be Lannister allies."

"He has a certain knack for survival, I have to give him that. I'm sure he'll pick the right side," said Robb. "Speaking of which, we're drawing in on the Boltons and I want to ford the White Knife before we meet them in battle."

"We could follow the Kingsroad, which leads right to a bridge over the White Knife," said Garlan. "But…"

"Roose Bolton will be expecting us to go that way," Robb finished the sentence for him. "But, Roose Bolton also knows me well enough to second guess that I won't do as he expects. And under no circumstances will that bridge be left undefended."

Robb considered his position for a minute. If they pressed on, they could reach the bridge and find that the Boltons haven't yet made it that far south. But, realistically, it was wishful thinking. It would be up to him and his forces to fight for control of it. If they tried to cross, which they'd be forced to do so one at a time, Bolton archers would pick them off one by one. All the same, he couldn't leave them unchecked.

"I won't do as Roose expects," he confirmed. "I'll lead the bulk of our forces on the White Harbour side of the river, bypassing the bridge and attacking from the east. Let's just hope he hasn't second guessed me."

"I could send for reinforcements from Barrowton if you do wish to attack the bridge as well," Garlan suggested.

Robb was hesitant. Loras and the men who'd been left behind were the party that would rush Margaery back south again should he, Robb, fall in battle. It was imperative that she, and the heir to Winterfell, make it to safety in the event of defeat. In the end, he agreed.

"And I must ford the White Knife to join my forces to Lord Manderly's," Robb reminded the other man. "He's bringing one thousand foot and five hundred cavalry to my side. Meanwhile, I have heard nothing from the other Houses once sworn to my father."

"And how many is Lady Dustin bringing to House Bolton?" he asked. "Hers is the most southerly of the Northern Houses."

"Between her House and her father's, close to five thousand," Robb replied. "She sent barely any men to my aid when I first marched south, so her forces are in tact despite the red wedding. Then there's House Hornwood, who have another one thousand foot and five hundred cavalry."

"And they'll definitely fight for the Boltons?" Garlan asked, frowning.

"If we gain an early advantage, the Hornwoods will be the first to switch sides and come to us," he explained. "Ramsay abducted Lady Hornwood after both of her sons were killed at the Whispering Wood. He forced her to marry him so he would get her lands and left her to starve to death in a dungeon. Now those lands have been annexed to the Dreadfort. They'll be wary of breaking ranks, unless it's clear we're going to win."

Garlan grimaced at the fate of Lady Hornwood and Robb had spared him the goriest of details. Of how she had been discovered dead, having tried to eat her own flesh. "Any others?"

Robb weighed it up in his head. "Karstarks, Cerwyns, Tallharts and a spare one thousand Freys who fled the Riverlands after we took the Twins. We're facing an army of roughly twenty-three thousand at most."

Garlan sipped his honey mead, quietly mulling things over. "We have a force of thirty thousand with us. Weak from a long march, unused to the terrain. We don't outnumber them as much as I'd like. But we do have another fifteen thousand in reserve, to replace the weak and injured. They don't have that."

"The undeclared Houses could give us a decisive victory," said Robb. "The Mountain Clans, House Glover… if the Hornwoods or Cerwyns switch sides."

"Any chance with the Dustins or Ryswells?"

"None," said Robb, truthfully. "Barbey is a Ryswell by birth and a Dustin by marriage, both Houses answer to her. She's Roose Bolton's ex-sister by law and she's always hated the Starks. Bad blood from the rebellion."

"That's a shame," Garlan remarked. "I heard that Ramsay killed her nephew, thinking to make himself heir to the Dreadfort. If we get to Roose and Ramsay, she might switch sides thinking to make Fat Walda's child Lord of the Dreadfort."

Robb was doubtful. "Or, she could fight on in hope of pushing us back down the Neck and making Fat Walda's child Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North. I would not rely on anything Barbrey Dustin might do, especially now that we've taken her lands."

"What about a parley with Roose Bolton?"

It was considered polite before any battle, but again Robb was hesitant. There could be no compromise. There could be no question of either Roose or Ramsay walking away from the battle with some compromise, some sop to their ravenous ambition. The Red Wedding had forced his hand and the final showdown was inevitable. "I cannot imagine what Roose Bolton and I would possibly have to say to each other."

That night, he kissed his parchment good night and dreamed of an old tenant farmer his father once knew. He had a dog he'd trained to herd sheep, Robb had once seen him doing it.

"You can't wear your bodices now, my lady." Jeyne smiled as she delivered the bad fashion news. Standing behind Margaery in front of a full-length mirror, she could see it now. A fast growing swelling that was definitely a baby and not someone who'd over-indulged at the previous night's dinner table. She ran her hands over her shift, flattening the fabric over her belly.

"Five months," she said, crying. These days, everything made her cry. "And I wish I knew why I'm constantly crying."

"It happens, just ignore it. Everyone else will, don't worry about that."

"Are you speaking from personal experience, Grandmama?" As lovely as it was to have her grandmother back, her terse advice wasn't having its usual effect.

"Oh yes," the old lady replied from her seat by the fire. "Crying constantly. And vomiting. Just wait until the pissing every two minutes and the indigestion starts, and you're doing all of the above simultaneously. Then you'll have something to cry about."

"It's a wonder the human race hasn't gone extinct," she grumbled, letting Jeyne drop a loose gown over her head. Although already beginning to look like she'd been draped in tent material, she didn't much mind. And even with bodices, the cloak over the top would have made her look as she did, anyway. This far North, the cloak was needed. Every layer of clothing was needed.

Beyond the windows, dawn was breaking over Barrowton. High up on the hill, they could look downwards and see a great sea of low-lying mist with other hill peaks piercing the top. It was a strange and beautiful sight. Even at that early hour, she could hear people in the yards below. Loras was down there, with Arya and Robert Arryn. They were still teaching the Lord of the Vale to fight, but he was proving as useless with a bow and arrow as he was a sword. Margaery watched as his arrow jerked off the bowstring and dropped to his feet.

It wasn't necessary to be skilled at arms, she thought to herself. Willas sprung into her mind. The future Lord of Highgarden had been crushed beneath the weight of a destrier, leaving his leg permanently damaged. He walked with a leg brace and stick, his days of leading armies over before they even began. But while his martial prowess had been nipped in the bud, he still had a fine strategic mind and planned operations, rather than took part in them. He read voraciously, learned languages and diplomacy. That was where they were going wrong with Sweet Robin, she thought as she watched the sorry scene unfold.

"He's not getting any better," she said, turning to Jeyne. "Go down there and have him brought to me."

"Lord Robert?"

"Yes, tell the others to stop wasting their time," she added. "He's not a fighter, so we must make him a politician."

The sound of Olenna's laughter was dry and brittle. "Good luck with that. The boy's a lackwit."

He was small, sickly and skinny, with runny grey-green eyes. Every time she saw him, he looked a little more like Petyr Baelish. It was a similarity that had been playing on her mind more and more.

"It's funny, isn't it, how none of Jon Arryn's other wives gave him children," she said, turning back to Sweet Robin. "How many times was he married before Lysa?"

"Twice," Olenna replied. "They had children, but they all died either in the womb or straight after birth. Lysa had a number of miscarriages, too. Anyway, what are you implying?"

Perhaps she was mistaken after all. "Oh, nothing. It's probably nothing."

All the same, the suspicion wouldn't shift.

"I can't believe this actually worked." Garlan was looking through the Myrish lens as he spoke. "Look at them all, your grace. They're all crammed into the fork of the river."

Robb could see without the lens, although in no great detail. They forded the White Knife under the cover of darkness, using hastily constructed bridges that they destroyed after use. In the meantime, he sent out raiding parties to ward off Bolton outriders, making his presence felt in several different places. All the while, his main army headed north-east, swinging wide around the river to the place where it forked toward the north-east and in the opposite way to the north-west.

"If they try to retreat south, they're cut off by the river," he said. "They can't advance north without running into us. They can try to get around the sides, but the forks and flows in both directions. They'll drown in their armour or be cut down where they stand."

Like sheep being rounded up by wolves, the Bolton forces had been penned in on almost all sides. Now the sun was rising and they could surely be seen.

"They're forming the cavalry up now," said Garlan.

"We should do the same."

The command went up almost immediately, met with a flurry of activity and stamping horses. Robb was uneasy. They'd been marching uphill all night, many hadn't had a chance to eat yet. Now they were about to be engaged without a chance to sit down for a moment's rest.

"We have the higher ground," he pointed out, more to reassure himself than anyone else. "And I think that's Bolton's full force down there."

Garlan handed him the far-eye, letting him see for himself. It was so strong he could pick out the banners. All the ones he suspected were there. Bolton, Karstark, Ryswell, Dustin, Hornwood, Tallhart and Ceryn. No sign of the Glovers, or the mountain clans. The Mormonts had sent reinforcements, but they had not arrived in time. But, at least, Lady Lyanna had readily sworn fealty to him.

As he mulled it over, they began their advance as the Bolton forces came up to meet them. As both sides drew closer, he wondered whether Roose would try to parley after all. But he saw no white flags among the multitude of banners flapping in the strengthening winds.

"We have the higher ground, but the wind is against us," said Garlan.

Robb was trying not to notice that. They had plenty of spearmen to compensate for any disadvantage the archers might face. But, ideally, he would have both units at full capability.

"We must push them back towards the White Knife," he repeated like a mantra.

"This is always the worst part, isn't it?" Jaime Lannister appeared at Robb's side, to his amazement. "This bit, where we're all just waiting for the carnage to begin."

He couldn't help but glance down at Jaime's missing hand. "Are you sure you want to be here?"

"Oh, quite sure. I told you, Ser Ilyn taught me to fight left-handed. Now's a good a time as any to see if the lesson's paid off."

By mid-morning, the two armies were barely miles apart and facing each other across a vast empty space. Robb had managed to manoeuvre his troops around so they were approaching from the north and backtracking south, the way they came. Still he waited to see if a white banner unfurled. While peace banners remained elusive, Robb's eye was caught by a Bolton commander clad in garish pink armour, veined in red. He realised Ramsay was trying to resemble their sigil's flayed man, but he though the Bastard of the Dreadfort looked nothing more than ridiculous.

Leading from the front with Garlan, Greatjon, Ser Jaime and Wyman Manderly's Captain of the Guard, Robb looked back at his serried ranks of men. A great stream of them, Cavalry and Foot alike, swarming down the hillside in a sea of banners and steel. But, from where he was looking, the Bolton forces looked just as vast.

"Should we wait for them?" Garlan asked.

"Fuck it," said Robb. "Sound the horns and prepare for the cavalry charge. Let's get this over and done with."

The silence felt smothering until the war horns shattered it. A low, wailing note that carried in the air between the two sides. Without further ado, the commanders bellowed the order to charge, spurs dug into the flanks of destriers and they were off… charging across open ground, all Robb could hear was the remorseless pounding of horse's hooves. Banners whipped and snapped in the fierce slipstream of wind, spears falling all around them as they willingly crashed bodily into the Bolton's frontlines.

Shield up, sword draw, Robb steered his horse into the press of people rushing up to greet with his with weapons drawn. In the periphery of his vision, he noticed a large formation of soldiers standing stock still, the banners of House Glover fluttering in the wind. As the snow began to swirl and the wind picked up, Robb didn't blame Lord Glover for hedging his bets.

The raven came in the early afternoon. A faint black speck on the horizon, rapidly growing larger. Margaery already knew who it was from, but tried to remain calm all the same. But, no matter how coolly she tried to play it, her stitches grew more crooked the harder she tried to channel her nervous energy into stitching baby gowns. She left it to the Maester to break the good news.

"His Grace, the King in the North, has engaged the enemy at the White Knife," he said, stepping cautiously into the room. He didn't like having the Tyrells there, that much was obvious. "You must make ready to travel north."

Margaery's heart palpitated, her mouth ran dry. All the same, she put away her needlework and got to her feet. Jeyne did the same, but Sweet Robin carried on playing with his toy soldier. He looked up, meeting the Maester's gaze. "Is anyone dead yet?"

"Shut up," Arya warned him.

"It's all right," said Margaery, smiling brightly. "I'm sure lots of people have died. Lots of Boltons."

Arya gave her an approving smile before moving to help her to the door. Despite the front she put up, her nerves were bad. The Twins had been a test run for their army, Winterfell was the real thing. Despite the numbers, she felt like they had everything balanced on a fine hair.

"I will not rest until I hear word of victory," she sighed, feeling light headed. "I don't think I can bear the wait."

She had got up and was walking around, but she didn't even know where she was supposed to be walking to. These days, as the pregnancy progressed, she started doing something and promptly forgot what it was supposed to be, even when she was actually doing it. Meanwhile, Arya directed her to a window seat, where they could look out over the snow-battered landscape. So beautiful, but utterly deadly. The wind blew so hard it made the mullions rattle in their frames.

The infant inside her moved for the first time. A small, fluttering shift of stance. She fell against the wall with a sharp gasp, Arya trying to catch her before she properly fell. Lowered into the window seat, she slowly got her breath back.

She answered Arya's questioning look. "It quickened, that's all. It was just the quickening."

It felt like the violent beginnings of something new.

Arrows fell short as the blew into the archer's faces. Snow fell thick underfoot, stained red from the blood of the slain. Even fighting downhill, the going was rough and The Reach took heavy losses, as Robb had predicted they would. He broke free of a protective knot of knights of the Vale, only to have a Bolton bannerman cut the legs of his horse from under him. Sandor Clegane repaid the man by hacking his head off in one smooth stroke, before lunging into a press of enemy fighters.

Rather than mourn his horse, Robb managed to fall back into the ranks of his own men in an effort to reach and redirect the archers still raining useless arrows down on their own side. All the while House Glover still waited, watching to see which way the battle went. He heard Ser Garlan give the order to advance, a shield wall formed up in the blink of an eye and they pushed forwards as one. It was then that House Hornwood turned on the Boltons. Robb heard the declaration over the shouts and the clashing of swords and spear.

He managed to reach the archers, ordering them to cease fire and focus on picking off the enemy forces that tried to retreat past their right flank. Finally, the archers fell back and ceased firing into the blizzard like winds. The snow had blinded them, anyway and rendered them as good as useless.

As they moved, Robb momentarily found himself on open ground and several feet away from the press of the fighting. He hadn't realised it at first, but when his horse fell from under him and he'd jumped clear, he'd been hit with a arrow that caught him in the shoulder. Now, in the open and raw winds, it was stinging like a bitch. From some distance, he saw the Glover men in box formation, biding their time.

'Enjoying the entertainments, my lord?" Robb wondered to himself.

For just a second, he sensed he and Lord Glover were looking directly at each other. A flicker of movement, the sound of a war horn blaring and they charged as one as across the snowbound earth. The Boltons buckled under House Glover's second cavalry charge. Almost faint with relief, Robb threw himself back into the press of the fighting. He knew he shouldn't have underestimated the Glovers.

We're winning, he realised. It was almost a secondary realisation. But he knew they had to be winning now. He hunkered behind the shield wall, his armour weighing him down in the snow and the wet, sucking mud that lay beneath. But he grabbed a spear from a dead Vale Knight and used it to skewer a few Boltons through the spaces between the shields. Inching forwards all the time, he found himself trying to do several things at once.

"Get the Cunt Lord!" Sandor roared in Robb's ear. The smell of blood, wine and dirt clung to the Hound like lady's perfume.

"What?" Robb gasped, still trying to shoulder up the shield wall.

"Go get the Cunt Lord," he repeated.

"I think our mutual friend is making discreet reference to Lord Bolton."

Seeing Jaime Lannister, and realising he was still alive, brought with it a perverse sense of relief to Robb. He was a strange one, but he had stood firm with his one good fighting arm. Meanwhile, Sandor had pulled him out of the way and put the sword, Oathkeeper, back in his hands. The blade was already dripping with blood. Go get the Cunt Lord, he thought to himself. It was good advice.

They'd smashed Bolton defences and now it was open season, wiping out the remnants of their forces and bringing them to their knees. But Sandor was right, he needed to be the one to hunt down Roose Bolton. He had to be the one to finish this properly. But the only one he could identify was Ramsay, in the ludicrous pink armour now smeared with blood and shit.

"Ramsay!" he called out.

The pink armour swayed as the man inside spun on his heels, lifting the visor of the helm to see who called out to him. Robb stood, caked in dirt and blood, no longer feeling the pain in his injured shoulder. The snow fell all around them, swirling and scattering on the breeze.

"I can't believe we've never met until now," Robb added, grinning like the village idiot. "It's been too long."

Quick as a viper, he slashed at the other man's open visor and opened his fat dumb mouth. Blood gushed from the rapidly closed visor, muffling a stream of curses. But Robb should have known a man who preferred torturing people to death wouldn't be able to fight his way out from under a wet sheet. He disarmed the bastard in seconds and kicked him into the dirt before thrusting the blade of his sword down through the gorget and through his throat. A spurt of blood splattered through the wound, before falling flat as his heart stopped beating.

All around him, small skirmishes carried on. The Cerwyns had long since abandoned the Boltons, just as House Hornwood had. The Mountain Clans had put in an appearance after all but had been waylaid on the terrible roads. They arrived in time to mop up the dregs.

No battle ever just stopped. It just slowly wound down as men were slain, or collapsed in exhaustion. One side overcame the other, then casually strolled around thrusting spears though the bodies on the ground, making sure they were really dead. That was happening now, but the battle felt far from over as far as Robb was concerned.

"You killed him."

It was a statement, not a question. Robb turned to find Roose Bolton, spotlessly clean, standing over his bastard son's body. If he felt any form of grief, he did not show it. Nor anger, nor any other emotion. That had always been the most disconcerting thing about Roose Bolton: his complete and utter lack of human emotion. It was something fundamental thing that had been omitted at the moment of his conception.

"I'm going to kill you too, in just a second."

"Why wait?"

"Good question."

Roose could kill him now and still win the battle, keep Winterfell and install his wife's child as the heir to the North. But, from the outset, Robb knew it would come to this. Single combat. Just the two of them. Him exhausted from the battle, up against Roose who'd sat the whole thing out and commanded from the rear. And, unlike his son, he knew how to fight.

Their swords met and locked, until Robb aimed a sharp kick in Bolton's gut and sent him staggering backwards. Quick to seize the advantage, he aimed another blow at the Lord of the Dreadfort but he rolled and it glanced off his breastplate. Recovering swiftly, he counterattacked and Robb almost missed it. Breathless and aching from exhaustion, he fell back to recover himself. Only, Bolton wasn't so generous and lunged at him again.

This could go on for hours, he realised. He didn't want that. He just wanted to go home. Something inside him snapped and the rules of single combat flew out on the wind as he smashed in Bolton's face with the pommel of his sword, kicked the legs out from under him. A much older, lighter man than him, he crashed onto his back in the snow and dirt.

"Just finish the cunt," griped Sandor.

He remembered Talisa, his mother, his unborn child and all the others who perished at the Twins. Just for a second. Since that was all it took to drive the point of his sword through Bolton's throat and out through the back of his neck.

In the blink of an eye, in the final beating of a heart, it was over. It was all over. He stood in the wreckage of the battlefield, ankle deep in snow stained vivid red with blood and entrails and looked all around him. The river had become blocked with corpses, fighting men fled over these bridges of dead flesh in an effort to escape his wrath. The waters of the White Knife, like the snow on the ground, were now running red with spilled blood.

"Let them go," he said, when the Glover men made to route the remnants of Roose's army. It was some sort of compensation for their late arrival. "That's enough for one day, let them go."

It was early afternoon, but felt like it should have been much later. All the same, he knew what was left of their forces would not advance much further north that day. Let them rest. Let them recover. He had time back on his side, now that he was Lord of Winterfell again.

Thanks again for reading, reviews would be lovely if you have a minute.

I'll be back next week, catching up with Dany and the others as well as returning Robb to Winterfell. Again, there's a time jump of a month or so, just to account for travel times. As well as that, I'm using the show's magical teleportation device to speed up Jon and Sansa's voyage to Mereen.