Author's Note: Hello guys and gals.
Sorry for the wait and how short the chapter is, but I need to get things moving again if I can. Once I get out of a groove I can have a hard time getting back into it, but I'm doing my best. Not my favorite chapter but it is necessary to set up a few future plotlines, and it gave me an excuse to plant a small and rather insignificant-to-the-main-story detail that will show up in the future in a minor way that I'm entirely too excited about.
Way in the future. If I ever get there. Someday.
Thanks for the support in any case! Let me knwo what you think. Y'all rock.
As always, I hope you enjoy and review this update.
He awoke to screams.
Damon was not of a forceful nature, either in personality or in his treatment of others, but he gripped an equally startled Bella by the waist and hurled her off of him and the cot with all his might, before he even realized what he was doing. With a surprised yelp his—lover, paramour?—landed on the worse-for-wear carpet over the packed dirt of the courtyard of Harroway's Tower in a tangle of naked flesh as the Prince leapt from where they had a second ago been sleeping, dressed only in breeches. His body acted as his mind tried to catch up, stepping and lacing his armored boots and grabbing his sword in record time even as a familiar, terrifying sound filled the dark of the night.
War horns. Northern war horns, singing their mournful song of death and accompanied by the low, otherworldly cries of the attackers. Damon was instantly back in the Whispering Woods, reliving the moment he had realized they were all going to die.
The same terror that had seized him then seized him now, making his knees buckle and his heart stop, his mind telling him to run again now as he had then, but his body shouted to Bella over the cacophony of war cries, screams and shouts to action outside despite his want to run. "Get into the Tower, Bella, now!" Damon saw only a glimpse of the growing terror on her face before he drew his sword from its scabbard and stepped out into the dark.
It was chaos, men flooding out of the canvas tents around him as others stumbled up from dotted campfires, confusion and fear on their face. Damon imagined it was worse outside the old curtain wall of Harroway's Tower, in the small town of the same name. It was from the western perimeter that the shouts and screams were coming, though Damon had assumed as much the second he recognized the horns. The Prince, torso as bare as the sword in his hand, rushed across the small enclosed space of the tower's courtyard, weaving through the maze of rushing men and in one case knocking a man-at-arms flat. He jumped atop the rampart—they were only two feet high, the outer wall only another four beyond that—and stared in that direction as archers came into position around him, shouted into action by men more veteran than the young Prince in charge of them all.
The city of tents outside the Harroway's Tower and its wall was burning, the fire on the outer ring and starting to grow.
Only the most veteran knights and a handful of archers had made their encampments around the old roundtower alongside the Prince, the rest of them either sleeping in the small inn or brothel or pitching their tents just outside of the scattering of buildings and homes that made up Harroway. Damon had decreed before their assault on the small town that there would be no forceful evictions of the smallfolk of the town, and had insisted those who slept in the inn pay for their rooms. Damon hadn't been able to tell how well that had gone over with the men under his command, as he could seemingly never tell what others were thinking, but he imagined it hadn't gone over well. Still, he had reasoned with himself that stricter demands had been made of soldiers in the past, and reminded himself of his grandfather's parting words when Damon rode from Harrenhal.
A lion doesn't concern itself with the opinions of sheep.
He'd told himself that repeatedly before had had stormed the town, only to find that even a sheep could have taken the place.
In his first command, Damon had taken his objective without taking a casualty. That would have been a great feat for certain, save that he hadn't inflicted any casualties either. Harroway had been devoid of any form of resistance, Damon and his knights riding through the streets unopposed. Expecting a trap once he'd realized they had met no opposition, Damon had ordered every inch of the town scoured even as a defensive encirclement was formed, unwilling to let his guard down as they had in the Whispering Wood.
There had been no trap, at least not up until now. House Roote, the Lords of Harroway, had taken their men and possession and fled both the town and the small roundtower that was their seat weeks ago, likely to join Robb Stark at Riverrun. It was a prudent move, what with Harroway's close proximity to Harrenhal and the massive army encamped there, and the Roote's had taken everything an army could use—steel, surplus grain, even stock animals save for a scattering of pigs and milk cows—with them.
Only one Roote had remained, to continue to govern the town and go about her House's business. Allison Vypren, the elderly mother of Lord Alman Roote, had been waiting for Damon under the opened gates of the Tower. Small and graying but unmistakably proud, she had merely cocked an eyebrow as a Baratheon in battle armor rode to her atop a brawny stallion, neither impressed nor intimidated. Within a few moments of her opening her mouth, Damon had found instead he was both of those things.
"I wondered how long it would take a Lannister army to take an undefended town. Weeks, apparently. Lions indeed, though I daresay you are a cub. Regardless, Harroway is yours. Try not to choke on your accomplishment, child."
It had been barbed responses and witty banter that left Damon half afraid of the old woman since. Damon had left her Tower to her, though she had been confined to her quarters within it. Though it was expected he would take some of the abandoned chambers within for his own as both a Prince and the commander of the 'victorious' side of the fight that never occurred, Damon had preferred his tent and cot outside in no small part to ensure he was far away from the woman's wit.
But all of that was unimportant, as the sound of the enemy spread like the flame to his men's tents outside.
"Prince Damon!" He turned to face the authoritative voice that had been barking commands since before Damon had exited his tent. Ser Philip Foote, big and brawny, strode towards him, the scrambling men around them parting like a wave. The Westerman knight was near forty, grizzled and experienced at war, as evidenced by the patch covering where his left eye had been before he lost it to a Saltcliffe spear during the Greyjoy Rebellion. He had, likely on Lord Tywin's orders, become Damon's prefect and aide, helping the green Prince command the seven hundred soldiers under his command. Damon had been thankful for his presence to this point, even if he found the man could be a touch overbearing at times.
"They're setting the tents ablaze, as you can see Your Grace." The big man stepped close, a good half a foot taller than Damon. "I've ordered the gate sealed and archers to the wall, and have a rider ready to ride for Harrenhal at your command."
Damon's mind raced through the situation in a moment. Sealing the gates of the roundtower was a prudent move, as they didn't know the numbers they were facing or if the Northerns meant to take the town back or merely raid it. It did, however, leave the confused men outside to fend for themselves, both against the attacking force and the fires that force was setting. Still, the Northmen had clearly killed the pickets and sentries and slipped amidst the tents before sounding their attack; they had the element of surprise on their side, and were charging from the darkness towards a surprised, sleeping enemy. It was the prudent move to leave his men outside to fend for themselves until they knew for certain the threat they faced.
Damon's mind returned to the Whispering Wood, to the men who had died or been captured to ensure that he the Prince escaped. For the first time since that morning Damon wondered what the others, the men who weren't Princes worth saving but had been instead left to die, had felt.
"Tyrek!" His cousin had appeared alongside Ser Philip, Damon somehow knowing that his friend was thinking the same thing he was. "You're with me. Ser Philip, you have command of the roundtower."
The big man turned to watch after them as both blonde boys, one shirtless and the other having only slipped on a loose tunic, shot past him towards the impromptu stables. "Where are you going Your Grace?"
Neither the Prince nor his companion answered.
Damon didn't know if he was doing it for the men out there, the men he had abandoned in the Whispering Wood, or if he thought it would make a good tale for the bards, but before he could think about how stupid he was being he was atop his bay and galloping out the gates.
Tyrek had joined him, as had a handful of knights without prompting. They rode down the streets, the warm night air buffering his bare torso as terrified smallfolk ran from the battle and stumbling soldiers ran towards it.
Men shouted and screamed up ahead, half of them fighting northerners, half of them fighting the fires. Damon and his contingent barreled into the middle of what well could be one of the Seven Hells, the Prince hacking a Northerner out of the saddle. He'd forsaken his shield in his rush to leave his tent, and found he was missing it desperately when another Northerner came at him from his left side. The Prince twisted in time to block the blow but barely, the heavily bearded man cast into a terrifying contrast of shadow and flame by the burning fire all around them.
Damon, at the disadvantage in that position, simply kicked his heels into his stallion's flanks, thankful for the hastily fastened saddle as he broke away and wheeled around amidst the burning tents and men. The Northerner got a lunging, parting blow in, the tip of his blade slicing a shallow cut across Damon's back, making the Prince gasp in pain even though he instantly knew the wound wasn't serious. By the time the Northerner recovered his seat Damon was facing his right side to him, and in a few hard struck blows from this new direction the man fell dead from his saddle.
And then, quick as the'yd arrived, there weren't any Northerners left to fight.
Damon dismounted in the middle of a living hell, no longer a Prince but instead another hand to man the fire lines pulling buckets from the nearby Trident.
It was morning before they'd finally extinguished the blaze.
Damon was soot stained and filthy, standing amidst the charred remains that had once been his men's tents and, in places, his men. It'd been a lightning raid, the Northerners only there to kill a few sentries, set a few tents ablaze, slaughter a few sleeping men, and leave. They had succeeded grandly, losing less than a dozen while Damon figured his losses for near forty.
The Prince realized it pissed him off royally.
I take a town and lose not a man. But when we go to sleep that night, we wake up to forty dead.
Damon knew this was war, but it certainly didn't feel like war. It felt like murder, like a cheap trick, though the Prince knew if the roles had been reversed he wouldn't have hesitated to do it himself. Or would I have? Is this honorable? Is killing a few dozen at night better than a few thousand in the middle of the day, or worse?
Damon didn't know. He didn't know much of anything these days.
His back was a red line of pain, his breeches having become soaked in blood due to the motion of tossing buckets of water on the fires not allowing the wound to clot properly for a long while. Damon wasn't concerned, for he could deal with pain, but staring at the lined up corpses of men—his men—was something he couldn't deal with at all. They'd followed him, willingly or no, and now they would follow no one ever again.
This too was war, but it tore him in two.
Damon, still shirtless, stared sightlessly at their half-burnt corpses before turning to face Ser Philip and Tyrek. One Northerner had been taken prisoner, falling from his own horse while trying to flee when a mule, its mane aflame and mad with pain, had sprinted into his horse. The man, middle aged and unremarkable in the white on purple of House Woolfield, had lost his seat and fallen into the furious hands of men who had been woken to their tents burning. He showed the effects of the experience, face as purple as his shirt, one eye swelled closed and lips a shredded, red mess. Damon had no doubts his men would have beaten the Northerner to death with fists and feet if a knight, a calmer, level-headed older man named Corliss in service to House Jast, had not intervened.
Damon knelt down in front of the Northerner's swollen eyes. "Are you alive?"
The Northerner grumbled something Damon could only assume was a curse about his mother, but looking at the man's mess of a face made Damon almost sympathetic. Almost.
"Good." The Prince reached out a hand, a piece of folded parchment in his hand, a hastily scribbled note it's unsealed contents. "You're going to give this to Robb Stark."
"Tell him Damon wants to talk."