Dacey Mormont fell from her horse, landing in a bloodied jumble on the unmoving leg's of her betrothed, Eddard Karstark.
The Dothraki sellsword shuddered and flailed his fat arms about like a crazed marionette; his mouth agape, desperately trying to suck in air, all the while his lifeblood splattered out in rhythmic jets from the sides of the short, curved sword transfixing his neck. The nomad from Essos soon also plummeted to the sandy soil, offering up his essence to feed one of the scraggily stands of now heavily trodden tussock grass populating the gently rising bank of the now crimson stained Ruby Ford.
The din of the melee threatened to burst ear drums. Lohgun felt, more than heard or saw a destrier bear down at him and his little garron. He spurred his mount and ducked low to avoid both the charge of the warhorse and the sword blow of its rider. He slashed backhandedly and felt his katana bit lightly into something.
A pair of horns soared above the clash of arms and screams of death. Down the long parapet manned by Northerners against the Westerlanders more and more bugles, trumpets, and pipes joined the battle cry. Ta-ta-ta-deeeee! Ta-ta-ta-deeee! A few giant kettle drums picked up the call, and deep, reverberating booms echoed the call of the brass, wood, and curved animal horn instruments.
The three thousand men in the front row of the fighting platform built into Lord Bolton's palisade screamed epithets and promised death as they surged over the top the parapet and dropped down like a hammer on the foemen. The pikes and polearms in the rear rows of the fleshly Lannister wall stabbed remorselessly into the exposed chests, necks, and throats of Boltons and Cerwyns, Hornwoods and Glovers, Freys and Mallisters. So too did the bodkin tipped arrows lash out at near point blank range, like Lion's claws, at hundreds of now exposed Winterfell bannermen. Many of the Northern dead, killed atop the low wall fell backwards into the arms of their brothers, but many more pitched forward to land on the raised shields, swords, and axes of the enemies first two rows, rending ragged gaps into their formations.
And like wolves picking on the weakest member of the herd, the rampaging northmen stormed into the breaks, stabbing and slashing, widening the holes. Soon another three thousand men poured over the wall to join the fray, and then another three thousand after that. The Lannister shield wall staggered, falling back step by step under the irresistible pressure. Their lines started to merge and congeal, losing order. Sergeants screamed and lay about with their swords to try and maintain shield discipline, but the drums continued pounding out for the attack and the steel of the North kept hammering away to the beat. For every blow a Lannister or a Brax or a Marbrand banner might stop with shield, deflect off armor, or catch with sword, a second or a third lashed out scaring or wounding or killing him. The cracks turned into ruptures.
The fifteen hundred Umber banners led in a charge by the Greatjon swamped the seven hundred men refused at the left end of the Lannister lines. Berserk men in leather jerkins with axes swarmed around the end slaying men-at-arms to their left and the mounted Red Cloaks to their right, dancing about the edges of the scrum with the Young Wolf's cavalry. For every northerner trampled or cut down, another Unchained Giant grappled with a knight or freerider and yanked his knightly adversary from saddle to stab him dead through weakly armored groin, thinly mailed armpit, or great helm's narrow eye slit.
But not all went the North's way. The mighty armored column led by the Greatboar and Adam Marbrand had broken through the pikes captained by Rickard Karstark and then gotten enough momentum back to meet Lord Edmure's slow to develop countercharge on even footing. Despite the losses to the valiant men of the Karhold, more than three thousand knights and squires remained from the cream of Tywan Lannister's army to exchange blows with three hundred riders under the Trout banner, a hundred Tyroshi freeriders, three hundred mounted Mallister Eagles, three hundred riders from the Twins, two hundred cavaliers of the Dead Weirwood, a hundred mounted Flayed Men, a hundred Mailed Fists of the Deepwood upon war horses, and smatterings of Whent Bats, Darry Plowmen, Mooten Salmons, and assorted other minor houses. With near twice their number, the Red Cloaks and their allies pushed Lord Edmure's forces to the west and away from the support of the foot fighting from behind the wall. Soon Westerland squadrons started slipping behind the wall to charge at the North's rear, baggage trains, and encampment.
"OOOOF!"
Two feet struck Lohgun hard in the chest, sending him flying out of the saddle and crashing brutally hard to the ground, pitching his katana and helm Gods knew where. He came to a rest feeling stunned and sore.
A tall man in tattered, smelly furs crouched near the Badger's sturdy little horse, a foot long knife in one hand and a vicious light twinkling in his one unburned eye. "Feel my kiss," he cried. In a flash the Burned Man from the Mountains of the Moon leapt at his fallen victim.
The wildling desperately lifted his hands and luckily grabbed both incoming forearms. He kinked his head and the knife took a hunk of skin and hair out of his flesh, but the point buried itself into the damp loam and not the Badger's head. An elbow also hit him hard across the mouth. The man hissed with putrid breath and bared his teeth, pressing down with all his weight and sinewy muscles, trying to place an arm across Lohgun's throat.
"Not today, bub," the Badger grunted and exerted himself.
(masque)
Both men's arms quivered from the strain, physiques rippling from the effort. Slowly the wildling's strength started to prove the superior, and Lohgun began forcing the clansman's arms apart.
"OOOOF," Lohgun grunted again, taking a knee to the groin.
Smack! The Burned Man let go his dagger and struck the wildling in the face. Smack again and again.
The Badger heaved with his hips and they turned over together. The Burned Man threw himself into the roll and the pair kept turning round and round, in the process rolling over a dead or wounded man and then clipping a foreleg, causing a horse to skitter. A powerful hand grabbed onto Lohgun's face; palm pressing painfully into his nose and ragged nailed fingers gouging at his eyes.
A rolling thunder of hooves filled the air.
Snickt!
"OOOF!" the Burned Man grunted. The Badger turned his wrist ninety degrees, brutally shredding the barbarian's abdomen and intestines. Blood and wet fecal matter coated his claws and hand. He threw the body off and hip rolled to get his feet under him.
"Timettttt!" a voice shrieked. An ugly, small, middle-aged appearing woman kicked her mount hard and racing at the wildling with an outstretched spear.
(callisto)
Lohgun pivoted his body. A hand jerked up, snatching the haft right behind the spear head. The other hand, claws already extended buried itself in the neck of the charging mountain pony. The little horse fell to its front knees. Lohgun levered the spear. The vile hag catapulted into the air and came down with a bone snapping crunch on a shoulder.
The Badger whipped around to face the sound of an oncoming cavalry charge. A line of Northern wolves rode in at a full gallop, led by Halys Hornwood and the banner of the bull moose. The rear third of Robb's initial charge had turned away from the disorganized scrum of Lions and Direwolfs, gained sufficient distance, reorganized, and charged back into the fray as a deadly wedge. Ponies, palfreys, and chargers from both sides shied away from the solid mass of five hundred thundering upon them.
Lohgun wove and dodged his way through the wave and then finding a riderless destrier leapt up into the saddle holding nothing more than a plundered spear and a wish for more vengeance. He yanked the reins sharply and kicked the beast hard to get it moving in the wake of his comrades.
At some point the spear must have shattered, or maybe simply gotten lodged, he couldn't quite remember, nor much care. Lohgun still held a weapon. An axe now dulled by repetitive strikes off plate and brutal chops that clove through mail or leather to the tender, pliable flesh hiding beneath it. It was admittedly easier, but not nearly as satisfying to strike someone down from behind than to meet them face to face; though just as hard on the blade. A battle turned to a rout was a victory.
The bowman had fled first. The sight of half crazed northerners breaking through the ranks of the shield wall in front of them had been enough for the Lannister archers to call it a day. And the shield wall hadn't last much longer after that before it too began flowing away in drips and drabs. Apparently a charge by the reserves under Lord Blackwood and the threat of the Northerner foot cutting them off from the ford had at last blunted Lyle Crakehall and Addam Marbrand's enthusiasm for ravaging the rearward areas and they too had begun to pull out. The Riverland knights had rallied at the sight and dug back into the Westerlanders, making the withdrawal more difficult and costly. Slowly but surely rich appearing lords, lordlings, and knights started being paraded back toward the Northerner wall, mostly captured by common levies who would hopefully one day fully enjoy the bounty of the ransom for their prisoners.
Ghost bounded past and pulled down a destrier. Jon followed behind and dispatched the fallen rider.
Daryn Hornwood and Barth Umber, no small man himself, both fell with frightening wounds from a double axe wielding Giant who with every blow swore to feed his opponent's cock to his goats. Edrick Winter, one of Robb's other companions lopped off the crazy man's arm only to almost immediately meet the same fate himself from another crazy Mountain of the Moon clansman.
The Greatjon effortlessly swung a dead man-at-arms in Lydden colors to dismount a knight wearing the livery of House Lefford.
Guarded faithfully by his companions and Grey Wind, the Lord of Winterfell though bloody, appeared unscathed, his plate and armor appearing whole and only a tad dented. "Ho, Badger!" his liege called out. "Sounds as if someone is still offering a sturdy defense here on our right. If we break it, we can stop off even more of those being driven back by my Uncle Edmure from reaching the ford." Without bothering to look if he was followed, Robb rode toward the sound of fiercest fighting. Only ten or so of his companions seemed to be around to follow him, but a good two hundred men a foot or on horse accompanied the Young Wolf.
A mixed bag of three hundred men stood behind a veritable barricade of bodies. Robb charged right at them. Pike toter, dismounted knight, and mountain clansman stepped up to the wall of Northern bodies and hewed away at the attackers. Stopped by the barrier of dead, the Lord of Winterfell leaned out and dropped a man by slicing the tip of his face away, while to Robb's left Jonnel Whitehill took a chest wound from a pole arm meant for his lord.
Lohgun brained someone then found the point of sword sticking into the flesh beneath his collar bone. The pain caused the Badger to involuntarily raise his arm, forcing the blade in a bone grating, painful path out of his body. For an instant he stared down the length of the gory sword into the dead calm face of Tyrion Lannister's grim body guard, then the man's steel whipped about again with impossible speed. The wildling kicked out a leg still set in a stirrup. The blade tip bit through strap leather, some of the Badger's calf muscle, and the side of the horse; causing the beast to rear and Lohgun to slide.
Thunk!
He landed atop the somewhat yielding mound of bodies. Then an axe leapt out for the wildling's groin and he skipped back a step to avoid the blow. The hand axe was clutched by a small hand that attached to the end of a ridiculously short arm. A head wearing a helmet too big for it popped into view from behind the wall of dead.
"Hello Badger," the halfman said cheerily, almost every inch of him covered in crimson.