The Westerlanders hardly stirred from their camp the day after the duel between the Badger and the Mountain, not even at noon when Robb sent the maimed Jaime Lannister on horseback, leashed like a pathetic pet to the Greatjon, along with the Blackfish, who carried the Mountain's unpleasant head stuck to the end of a lance, out into the middle of the ford. Neither did the enemy do much the next day, nor the day after that, though the first companies of the Old Lion's foot did at last begin to march into their makeshift camp. On the fourth day over five thousand weary, dusty Westerland bannermen raggedly trod in under the campaign worn standards of the Golden Lion, the Black and White Boar of the Crakehalls, the Silver Helm of the Brooms, the Purple Unicorn of the Braxs, the Golden Sunbeam of the Leffords, the Burning Tree of the Marbrands, the Orange and Black Sunbursts of the Kennings, the Peacock of the Serretts, and the White Badger of the Lyddens.
"That's no fucking badger," Lohgun growled on having the Lydden banner pointed out to him by some smirking wag among Robb's thirty personal companions.
The best of the limited number of river fighting galleys Lord Edmure and Lord Roose had brought as part of their flotillas down the Red and Blue Forks were now manned and patrolling the Trident night and day above the Ruby Ford to secure the westerly flank against any wily, desperate Lannister maneuver. And the thousand lightest armored horsemen of the combined Stark-Tully host rode along the southern bank to the east, with squadrons ranging out as far as twenty miles away. But Tywin Lannister merely continued to sit for a fifth, sixth, and seventh day, until his total numbers swelled to well over fifteen thousand. Yet there was no sign of the thousand Barrowlands, Rills, and Twins captives supposedly taken during the defeat of Willam and Robett Glover far to the north along the Green Fork.
Many lords, lordlings, sers, and clan chiefs started to become anxious from the lengthening wait, eager for the crossing of arms they knew to be inevitable, and began to prod Robb to attack the Lion. Some pointed out to that their lord had the greater weight of numbers. Many boasted of the superiority of the northern warrior to the weak, spiritless, womanly knights of the south; all Riverlanders present excluded of course. A few worried loudly about how soon the army would run out of supplies, surprisingly never mentioning how that might affect the Lannisters as well. The only argument that actually stuck in Robb's craw were those who wondered, with barely veiled sinister implications, what dishonor Tywin Lannister had actually suffered upon his prisoners from the North and the Riverlands.
The Young Wolf, as many of his followers had now started to call Robb, kept his cool at both the blatant and sly comments his noble banners used to tray and bait him into action. Each night inside his pavilion, which the Lord of Winterfell now shared with the blinded Lord Dustin, Lohgun, the Blackfish, Willam, and occasionally even Roose Bolton allowed him to vent his frustrations in private and counseled patience; underscoring that whatever problems Robb faced, the Old Lion must be experiencing tenfold. And each dawn, noon, and dusk Robb had the Greatjon and the Blackfish trot out the Kingslayer and the 'Mountain Peak' for the edification of the foe.
Eight days, nine days, ten days; and on the morning of the eleventh day the Old Lion sprang. The clamor had started before dawn. That many men and horses in armor preparing for battle, moving about, and forming lines generated such a noise that even the Trident in flood could not drown out. An hour past sunrise six thousand men, standing four deep, formed a shield wall on the north bank. Directly behind them, grouped in three separate blocks of a thousand men each, were the archers. And behind the bowmen were two solid massive columns of knights.
"Casterly Rock is sending his foot first," Lord Roose said calmly, barely loud enough for Robb to hear him. "He wishes to reprise the Battle of the Trident, with himself in King Robert's role and you, my lord, as Rhaegar Targaryen." Bolton's pale face suddenly smiled whimsically, "How delightful."
The Young Wolf nodded in agreement, and then raised his voice so all the lords and commanders gathered around him on the raised wooden platform built a hundred feet behind the middle of the four foot tall earthen wall facing the ford. "We stay in place, no one, NO ONE, takes the fight over the wall until I order the 'charge' call blown. The Lannister strength is its horse, they can't leap over the wall or through those sharpened stakes atop it. If any lord chooses to break ranks and seek glory, I'll chop off his head myself once we've slain the Lion. Does everyone understand!?"
The lords belted out a refrain of "Yes!"
"I will command half the horse on the far right," the Young Wolf proclaimed. "Lord Tully, would you accept the honor of leading the horse on the far left?"
Edmure Tully nodded eagerly and shouted, "Aye!"
Lohgun glanced over at Brynden, standing close to his nephew. The Blackfish caught the look and smiled ever so slightly to show he understood the Badger's concern. Rob, with the advice of his not quite secret cabal of veteran advisors, had decided on battle tactics and command assignments ten days earlier. And while Lohgun understood the political expedience of giving the Tully heir a significant honor, the Badger had still expressed his worries several times to the Blackfish about Edmure's steadiness. The man simply lacked the steel his sister Cat or uncle Brynden had in their spines.
"Lord Karstark," Robb continued, "will the men of the Karhold keep the shield wall in front of Lord Tully?"
"Yes, my lord," Rickard answered with a violence loving grin.
"Lord Umber, will the men of Last Hearth hold the shield wall in front of my horse?"
"Others blast my soul if we don't!" the Greatjon roared lustily, causing most of the gathering to smile heartily at his enthusiasm.
"Lord Bolton, will you command the left half of the wall and flay all who seek to cross?"
"Our blades are sharp; it shall be as my lord desires," the Lord of the Dreadfort replied softly.
"Lord Glover, the right half of the wall is yours. Will you lead it?"
"'Vengeance for Ned!" Galbart bellowed at the top of his lungs.
Screams of "Ned!" filled the air. Taken by the moment, the Young Wolf howled his father's name into the sky as well. Soon two direwolves joined the chorus. Robb never got the chance of 'asking' Lord Blackwood to lead the reserve force made up of a thousand Riverland foot Lord Edmure had brought by foot and half the light horse that had patrolled to the east.
Arrows whizzed through the air. The Lannister shieldwall had advanced slowly into the ford, stopping every hundred or so feet to dress the line, keeping the symmetry of overlapping shields in the front row; and also checking to see whether the northmen were about to step over the mile long earthen berm to meet them in the waters of the Tridents. Then, when the archers reached midstream, they began to let shafts fly in massed volleys. The blocks of Westerland bowmen on either end of their line first tried aiming for Robb and Edmure's mounted forces. But the palisade Lord Bolton's men had built two weeks earlier was longer than the Ruby Ford was wide, so the cavalry located at the wall's far ends were at such a distance that most arrows, at least initially, were only a minor menace.
Thrump! Thrump! Thrump! Thrump!
Four of Riverrun's galleys had drifted towards the shallows of the ford, only enough oars sculling to keep the ships in place against the river's current. Each mounted a ballista on its prow fighting platform. Man length darts, launched from beyond bow range, hummed deeply as they passed through the air and started to enfilade the length of the Lannister line from the flank.
Calls of "Pull! Set nine! Release!" rose behind the embankment. Now the northern archers joined the fray, firing blind, but in groups, over the top of the barricade."
Twangtwangtwangtwangtwangtwangtwangtwangtwangtwangtwangtwangtwang!
Horns blew and the voices of sergeants could be heard in the water yelling "Doubletime!" The Westerlanders surged forward, splashing through the last hundred yards of water. The first line, then the second, then third, and fourth, and fifth came dripping and somewhat disorganized out of the river. With the burst of speed, the bows of the north were slow to adjust and many arrows started falling long. Now only another hundred yard dash awaited them before they could reach the squat fortification and come to blows.
A new horn blew. The well-disciplined warriors halted at the sound, the archers behind them still peppering away though with less cohesion to their volleys. Sergeants cried out again, the lines took precious seconds for each man to re-space himself properly and for the five rows to tighten together into a compact, gauntleted fist. The shields of the front line again correctly touched each other, overlapping. And the pole arms carried by the back two rows dropped into position, long shafts tipped with deadly blades now hung over the top of the shield wall. "Forward!" screamed voices.
And when the foot started its deliberate march, finally the mounts of the Lannisters and all their banners started to jingle as they began to march down the gently sloping bank into the ford.
Lohgun whistled.
"What is it?" Jon asked nervously, sitting a horse beside the Badger near the front of Robb's horse.
"They're good. Damned good!" the wildling said with appreciation. Then a vicious smile split his lips and he snickered, "They're still going to die. They're just gonna do it with style."
At fifty yards, the eighth of the Westerlanders nearest the Direwolf banner slowed its march and started to refuse itself, creating an angle to protect the flank from a cavalry charge. But not so the far end of the lines nearest the Leaping Trout banner.
Robb pointed out to the river and nodded. The thicker, stronger, more knight laden of the two columns crossing the ford was the one further way. There could be no doubt, the main weight of the Lion's blow would try to maul Edmure Tully's command.
The crack and chink of blade on blade, blade on shield, blade on mail, and blade on flesh filled the air, drowning out the hum of bow strings and the shrieks of those pierced by arrows. Lions and badgers, unicorns and boars, peacocks and sunbursts tried to climb the low wall and stab at the flayed men of the Dreadfort, the blue towers of the Twins, the bull mooses of Hornwood, the silver eagles of Seagard, the black axes of Cerwyn, and the mermen of White Harbor. Men fell, some with split heads or stabbed hearts; others with lacerated hands or pierced arms. Archers on both sides fired point blank at any exposed foe. Blood stained the packed earth. The dead were trodden upon. The lucky wounded were pulled back by their comrades.
Robb swore and yelled an order at the two buglers next to him. The high pitched call for massed volley fire cut through the din. Up and down the line more buglers took up the cry. The ballistae of the galleys hadn't ignored the horse soldiers in the ford, but in the flare of engagement the northern bowmen had failed to target the strength of Tywin Lannister's army, its knights.
In pairs and small groups the bowmen stepped back and tried to return to plunging fire. The bow sergeants screamed out directions and height calls all the while pushing and prodding the archers into larger, semi-cohesive packs. Steel pointed bodkins drilled through a few helms and breast plates, or dropped mail covered horses. But the first hooves hit the muddy, churned up sand of the south bank having only met with a weak, desultory flurry of shafts.
"Piss," the Badger muttered, clenching his fists so hard in anger around the reins of his garron that it threatened to involuntarily pop out his claws.
The Greatjon, standing in the front rank of pikes crouched in front of Robb's armored column, turned around and yelled, "Now!?"
Coolly the Young Wolf shook his head no.
Adamm Marbrand and the Greatboar, leading the strike at the Tully lead horse, spurred their mounts from a trot into a canter and veered off to their far right, straight at the Tully banner. In seconds, they passed from Lohgun's vision. Only to have a full throated chant of the Karstark motto "The Sun of Winter!" fill his ears right before the thunder of lances shattering on shields and mail and the cacophony of pikes striking on shields and plate detonated and drowned every other sound at the Ruby Ford.
The Lord of Winterfell showed two fingers to his buglers until they nodded their understanding, then the Young Wolf started walking his horse forward. Instantly his companions followed, causing the rest of the column, all two thousand of them, to begin advancing. The Umber banners, guarding the gap from the end of the fortification down toward the river, soon felt the oncoming pressure and started shuffling aside to try and make a passage for their liege. The Greatjon at last noticed the wiggling of his line and turned back again.
Lohgun couldn't hear the shout, but he saw his huge friend's lips mouth the question, "Now?"
Robb nodded yes, pointed his left hand straight down the angle of Roose Bolton's wall, and then quickly raised it high before viciously chopping it down.
A look of pure delight lit up the Greatjon's face. The fight loving lummox tilted his head back and cried with every ounce of his breath, "Unnnnchainnnnnnnnnnnnnned!" And he burst out in a sprint, immediately followed by his sworn men, right at the elbow join where the Lannister foot engaged the wall and seven hundred warriors stood refused awaiting a charge they knew would be bound to happen.
The Lord of Last Hearth was already hewing with his tree stump thick arms at the bitter enemy when the last of his bannermen cleared out from in front of Robb's mounted column. Again the young lord looked at his buglers and held up two fingers. The second they acknowledged his order he dug his spurs in hard and took off at the smaller of the two Lannister cavalry regiments which had commenced its own charge when it realized the Umber shield wall had peeled away.
The nearest block of Westerland archers fired in near unison at the cantering northerners. An arrow rattled off Robb's gorget. One plunged through the mail covering Lohgun's left forearm, causing him to drop his reins. Another pierced the lower edge of a companion's hauberk, causing young Clyff Hawthorne to pitch from his horse and be trampled to death by his comrades.
The lines met in a titanic crash. The greater number of lances and superior momentum of the Lannister knights shredding the front ranks of the northerners, killing and maiming the Badger's friends and comrades. The wildling slashed out again and again, all the while his slight mount pitched between and bounced off of bigger, heavier warhorses yet miraculously staying up right. He used his unnaturally fast reactions to dodge or deflect strikes that might have shattered his katana if he had met them full on; and then with a turn of the wrist he'd find an open faced helm, a thinly mailed crotch or armpit, a horse's bare neck. The alluring, sweet song of death filled his ears and nose. Men, Lannister men, burners of villages, rapists of women, killers of children fell and fell and fell before his wrath, his lust for vengeance and blood.
At last the Westerland surge petered out. The front ranks of both sides hopelessly intermingled. Already the rear troopers pulled back to circle around for enough room to launch another charge. Lohgun grinned evilly, Roose Bolton had laid the ground well when he built his modest wall, the Lannisters lacked the proper space to maneuver effectively. A man sporting an impossibly long goatee and armor jingling with coins stabbed at him from behind, causing the wildling to arch his back; the sellsword's blade drawing sparks as it slide along the mail of the Badger's hauberk. Lohgun back slashed low with the katana. Thunk. The goat shrieked shrilly, the lower half of his boot fell off, taking his foot with it.
The Badger nudged his horse, circling to kill again, and a space opened up before him. Eddard Karstark lay on the turf, a broken spear sticking out of his chest. On a horse above him sat his fiancée, Dacey Mormont, swinging a morning star to beat back any coming too close to her betrothed. A thin fool dressed in motley whirled a three headed flail about, aiming for her head. The spiked mace rose up and caught the chain, wrapping the balls around her weapon. She jerked hard, almost pulling the fool from his saddle and then her hard swung shield clouted his jut out helm.
"Noooooooo!" the Badger screamed. A fat man buried a curved Dothraki sword in Dacey's back.
Without thinking the wildling yanked out his wakizashi and flung it with his injured left arm at the woman's killer. The blade skewered the lightly armored nomad right through the neck, unleashing a fountain of blood.
Dacey slid noiselessly from the saddle, landing crumpled up atop Eddard's legs.