…The Northern Army's arrival in the Riverlands spelled doom for the Loyalist forces in the kingdom, especially after the Twins and Seagard, which had remained neutral up to this point, joined the Rebels in exchange for a sizeable share of the loot seized in any action their forces take part in for the Freys and several trade agreements for the Mallisters. Over the course of the next several months, as Lord Baratheon rampaged in the south after the battles at Summerhall, every loyalist force and keep west of Darry and east of the Westerlands fell to the combined might of the North and Riverlands.

Extensive use of wargs to scout and infiltrate allowed the North's forces to defeat the Loyalists in detail with ruthless efficiency, often with ambushes at night with the wargs' bonded animals slaughtering guards, and opening gates, allowing the army to take their foes while they slept, and due to the scattered nature of the Loyalists in the Riverlands those that fell were unable to warn their fellows. While effective in keeping the North's casualties down – crucial given that they could only get small numbers of reinforcements intermittently from the supply chain stretching from Seagard to Dragon Harbor – it greatly disquieted the Riverlanders fighting with them, both the "dishonorable" tactics and, for those that held to the Seven, the extensive use of magic…

…Contrary to the fears of the North's Admiralty, the fleets of Dorne and the Westerlands remained firmly in port, allowing the North uncontested dominance over the sea north of the Feastfires in the west and Crackclaw Point in the east. Having lost his arm in the Battle of Claw Isle Lord Velaryon had no interest in engaging the Northern fleet in another decisive action, even after the remnants of the Stormland's fleet joined the Royal Fleet, which would lead to him being stripped of his titles and exiled with John Connington by King Aerys.

This was a boon for the North, as it allowed them to get enough ships that had been damaged in battle back into service that when Lord Bywater, whose abilities lay in political intrigue not military matters, took the Royal Fleet out he was pincered in the Battle of Crackclaw Bay, destroying the Loyalist fleet as a fighting force. Had Lord Velaryon decided to attack with the Royal and Stormland fleets he likely would have sighted White Harbor before both fleets were ground to nothing, due to his greater numbers and the latest generation of warships to leave the Royal slipways proving themselves equal to older Northern built ships as the Southern shipwrights had finally discovered the techniques that had allowed the North unquestioned superiority on the seas for a hundred and fifty years.

And yet the North's victory was pyrrhic. After Crackclaw Point only one in four ships were listed as combat capable compared to their pre-war numbers, all damaged, and three in five were either sunk or constructive losses. In truth, the number was likely closer to one in eight and two in three, something that kept many a captain and admiral up at night as many believed that King Aerys would be able to force the Martells to join him due to Elia Martell being a hostage in the Red Keep. And the ravaged fleet would not survive that.

A crash building program was authorized, but it would be a year before the first light galleons hit the water, five for full galleons, and any not yet laid down would be cancelled with the end of the Rebellion. Considering most drydocks were occupied repairing damaged ships the total number of new ships produced wasn't that many all told. By the time of this writing, 288AC, the eastern fleet is only at two-thirds its pre-rebellion strength…

…After the Battles of Summerhall Robert Baratheon solidified his control over the Stormlands, the remaining Loyalists joining the remnants of the Stormlands fleet in fleeing to the Crownlands. He then gambled that Lord Tyrell would be sending most of his men north towards the Riverlands, an understandable assumption given the long enmity between the devout Reach and the Old Gods.

Unfortunately, this assumption was in error, for Mace Tyrell had decided to secure his flank first, and the full might of the Reach bore down on the Stormlands. Lord Baratheon discovered this at the Battle of Ashford, and while he was able to retreat in good order when he received word of the impending arrival, and size of, the Reach's main force, he did so in the knowledge that the Stormlands were effectively lost.

In light of that, Lord Baratheon split his force in two. Half headed back to the Stormlands with orders to make the Reach's inevitable conquest as long and painful as possible. The other half accompanied the Lord of the Stormlands as he hurried north, desperate to link up with Lords Stark and Tully. That this involved crossing through the entirety of the Crownlands, which was staunchly Loyalist, reportedly didn't even faze him.

By any reasonable metric, the decision was madness. While not as densely populated as the Reach, the Crownlands was still one of the most populated regions in Westeros. This meant that there were countless castles, holdfasts, towns, and other settlements and fortifications that Lord Baratheon would have to bypass or conquer in the roughly four-hundred miles separating him from friendly lines, and that was ignoring the very real possibility of interception by the Royal Army.

And yet, impossibly, Lord Baratheon managed to do just that, reaching Stony Sept with six-thousand exhausted and half-starved men, a mere quarter of the number he had taken into battle at Ashford. The only reason he succeeded was that the Royal Army, under Lord Jon Connington, had thought that Lord Baratheon was trying to steal a march on King's Landing and deployed to intercept him at Raven's Rest, a small town on the Rose Road south of Tumbletown. Lord Connington realized Lord Baratheon's real destination quickly, but by that point the Royal Army was out of position to intercept him.

Lord Tyrell also decided to split his army. Thirty thousand under Lord Tarly proceeded into the Stormlands, eventually putting Storm's End under siege though lacking the manpower to storm it after pacifying all of the other castles on the way and dealing with the constant skirmishing from the remnants of the Stormland's army. The other fifty-thousand joined up with the Royal Army's forty-thousand at Bitterbridge, and then the entire ninety-thousand strong force ponderously marched north, Lord Tyrell pulling rank as a Lord Paramount to be placed in overall command.

At the same time the North and Riverland armies were regrouping at High Heart, initially in preparation for a push against Darry, but upon receiving a raven from Lord Baratheon the force made its way to the Stony Sept…

-Robert's Rebellion, by Historian Rickard Mullen, 288AC

…The Battle of the Bells they called it. The largest battle since… well, before Valeria's fall. Neither the Conquest nor the Dance had so many men involved in a single battle.

Fifty-thousand Reachers and forty-thousand Crownlanders met eight-and-twenty-thousand Northmen, Six-thousand Stormlanders, and eight-and-ten-thousand Riverlanders.

Ninety-thousand against two-and-fifty-thousand sounds like a foregone conclusion, doesn't it?

Thing was, of that ninety-thousand about fifty-thousand were unblooded levies, most equipped with just a short spear and large shield, though I saw some with farming tools instead of spears and some of the shields looked like someone had repurposed the side of a wagon.

In comparison we only had ten-thousand levies, all from the Riverlands, and they were well blooded. Many had looted so many arms and armor from previous battles that it could be difficult to tell the difference between one of our veteran levies and a poor man-at-arms.

They outnumbered us heavily in cavalry too, two-and-ten thousand to our seven, but no one was particularly concerned about that.

We had direwolves after all. Just writing that makes me grin in schadenfreude all over again. Anyone who had ever witnessed a horse meeting a direwolf for the first time could predict what was going to happen….

…The Loyalists reached the Stony Sept first, only a few days ahead of us, and put it under siege. I, and the other wargs and skinchangers with bird familiars, had them under constant surveillance ever since we got within three day's march of the town.

That gave us plenty of time to come up with a plan. See, we had a bunch of Seven worshipers in the Riverlands contingent, and they knew what the Reach's Septons like to portray the North as: a land of heathens, barbarians, and monsters, and guess what we had with us? Giants, direwolves, shadowcats, even a few Singers, and more. A lot of planning was put into figuring out how to maximize that psychological shock, only possible thanks to extensive reconnaissance by my flock and several greenseers investigating the past and parsing future possibilities.

Supposedly there's countermeasures to block them from looking through time to see what you're doing, but either the Seven don't know them or can't cast them without mage-priests of their own, though those with magic in our blood can definitely feel when a bunch of them are observing us from the past or future.

They also aren't omniscient in spite of their temporal abilities, as when I brought word that Loyalist sympathizers or infiltrators managed to open the Stony Septs' west gate so that the Loyalist army could storm in when we were just a few hours away they were caught completely off guard.

I am still baffled as to why they did that. They had to know we were coming. Mace Tyrell is no great thinker, to put it politely, but he isn't that stupid. The only rationalization that makes sense to me is that they thought we were farther away than we were, and could eliminate then-Lord Baratheon and his remaining Stormlanders before we could arrive.

Whatever their reasoning, their actions surprised us, and we had to quickly adjust our plans.

There was concern that Lord Baratheon would be overwhelmed before we could arrive, but thankfully there was only so many men that could be shoved through a gatehouse at a time. The Stormlanders were slowing being pushed back towards the small holdfast at the center of the town, but when one of my fellow wargs sent her eagle to Lord Baratheon with a message he confirmed that they would hold long enough for us to arrive.

Still, we had to rethink our plan. Them being up against the Stony Sept's walls left them with limited ability to maneuver, and it would be easy for us to pin them against it.

Which was the one thing we absolutely could not afford to do. If we cornered them, they'd fight to the death like cornered rats. And there was ninety-thousand of them.

Our plan hinged on shock causing a significant portion of the army to break and run. If they didn't… well, the war would have gone on for a lot longer.

When we arrived Lord Tyrell had gotten fed up with trickling men in for Lord Baratheon to smash with his hammer and sent his cavalry under Lord Connington to circle around and take the Sept's northern gatehouse.

A word about the terrain around the Stony Sept for those who have never been there. The town is located in a valley with large hills to the north and west and one of the Blackwater Rush's tributaries to the south. The tributary was a ways from the town with a fair amount of farmland between it and the Sept's walls, and would play no part in the battle other than historians using it to mark the southern edge of the battlefield, but the hills were rather close, just a few hundred yards from the walls and completely blocked line of sight for anyone who wasn't in one of the Sept's corner towers, and that was the direction we came from.

Now, the Loyalists weren't incompetent. They had posted scouts in the hills to warn of anyone approaching from that way, but one of our druids temporally "sat in" on that meeting, so we knew where they were. And our outriders had gottenverygood at eliminating enemy pickets when we mopped up the Riverlands. None got a warning out.

So the Loyalists had no idea we were there until we effectively ambushed them. And, thanks to a hell of a lot of stressful work, we got our timings near perfect.

First the direwolves under the command of Lord Stark crested the northern hill and immediately charged at the Loyalist cavalry, howling the whole way in terrifying synchronicity. The result was predictable.

Horses are herd animals. If part of the herd panics and bolts, the rest will follow. And that's exactly what happened, undoubtedly with several shinchangers and greenseers helping the panic propagate through the cavalry.

We later estimated about a third of the enemy knights were unhorsed and trampled to death in the stampede, though a few hundred managed to maintain control of their mounts and not join in. Unfortunately, their reward for such an impressive display of horsemanship was to be flattened by the charging direwolf cavalry as they pursued the fleeing Loyalist cavalry.

The thing about direwolves is that like mundane wolves they are endurance focused pursuit hunters, meaning they pursue their prey until it drops from exhaustion.

And horses are natural prey for direwolves.

This had been intellectually known for over a century by this point, but this was the first time that fact would be applied at scale. By the time the sun set and the pursuit was called off, less than a third of the loyalist cavalry managed to escape, and many lost their mounts to exhaustion or laming during the night.

Only one in ten would make their way back to friendly line with their mounts still combat capable, though a great many more would join the ranks of the infantry.

We later discovered that Jon Connington was in command of the cavalry, and though he lost his horse he managed to escape and make his way back to King's Landing, much to his regret.

The main army had just enough time to witness their prized heavy cavalry be effortlessly routed by howling men riding giant armored howling wolves when our main force crested the western hills behind them, with giants and the Umbers leading the charge.

Now, Lord Tyrell was sending his men-at-arms into the Sept, correctly reasoning that his peasant levies, while expendable, would be unable to make or maintain a beachhead against the Stormlanders. But this meant that all of his professional soldiers were clustered against the walls, so when our army slammed into his rear we were met with nothing but peasant levies.

The giants hit the line first. With steel protecting their lower halves and hands, and triple thickness gambesons elsewhere for arrow protection, they were functionally immune to the short spears and mid-power crossbows the levies used, and their war clubs sent men flying with each hit. And I do meanflying, as they went over the heads of those behind them before crashing into those in the rear ranks.

Greatjon Umber led the North's elite heavy infantry into the chaos the giants had opened, and while they didn't send men flying the Umbers, and those descended from them, were more than large and strong enough to reliably kill foes in even the heaviest armor with a single hit from their beak-hammers. Against the levies each swing downed multiple men, the one hit with the hammer and several men behind him who his body crashed into.

The few officers in the levies' ranks tried to organize a coherent defense, mainly by organizing the levy archers and crossbowmen into a single unit to fire on the giants, but that just made them sitting targets for our longbowmen and long-draw crossbowmen, thanks to my Silverwing providing accurate direction and range to them.

The first volley fell a bit short, but the next three were on target. The poor sods didn't even have gambesons to protect them. They broke after the fourth volley, leaving a third of their number dead or dying.

The archers opened up on the rear ranks of the levy infantry at the same time our artillery began to fire at the men-at-arms by the wall, and those of us bonded to larger birds began to drop incendiary grenades – little clay pots filled with pitch, tar, or oil and a lit slow-burning wick – on anyone who tried to rally the wavering lines.

Our horse cavalry, under Lord Tully, slamming into their northern flank was the final blow, and the Loyalists shattered. The levies broke and ran almost as one, and they took a sizeable number of the men-at-arms with them.

In the space of about half-an-hour, a ninety-thousand strong army was reduced to under twenty-thousand, and most of the remainder was desperately trying to get the Stony Sept's walls between us and them.

'Course, we didn't exactly have our full strength either. Lord Baratheon was down to about four-thousand men by this point, and all of our cavalry and a sizable portion of our infantry was occupied with ensuring the routing Loyalists continued to route and didn't rally to hitusin the rear.

But thirty-thousand was more than enough to deal with the remainder, and we had control of the Sept's three other gates.

It took four hours before the last of the Loyalists surrendered. There weren't any fancy tactics here, just a long, brutal, grinding, slog of a city fight. The Loyalists weren't able to hide from us in the sky, but that didn't make running them down any easier, and the septons continued to ring those damned bells the whole time…

…We captured a lot of nobles from the Crownlands and the Reach, but the prize was undoubtedly Mace Tyrell himself…

…If only the Battle of Brindlewood went as well. But Prince Rhegar proved more than capable of learning from this disastrous defeat, and had developed counters…

-By Raven's Sight, A Chronicle of Robert's Rebellion, by Skinchanger Vallerie Blackbird, 284AC

…The Battle of the Bells was an unmitigated disaster for the Loyalists. It took Prince Rhegar three months to rally the scattered survivors of the host to Tumbletown, and he had barely thirty-thousand men by the end of it.

But the consequences were far more severe than mere casualties. Darry, which had been put under siege by the Vale army, decided to negotiate a surrender when word of the battle reached them, along with all the remaining loyalist holdouts in the Vale and Riverlands.

In addition, Lord Lannister began to quietly sound out the Rebels, and Lord Martell also sent a raven stating that if the Rebels could get Elia Martell and her children out of the Red Keep and safely to Sunspear Dorne would side with them, though these only came out after the rebellion was over.

Jon Connington, as the sole surviving commander of the force, was brought before the Mad King in chains, and while he was able to deflect enough blame onto Lord Tyrell to walk out with his head still attached, it wasn't enough to save his titles and he was attainted and banished.

That said, not everything went the Rebels' way. They lost eight-thousand men to death or permanent injury, and those losses could not be replaced. In addition Lord Arryn was only able to contribute two-and-ten thousand, having taken heavy casualties reunifying his kingdom, which did not have a particularly large population to call upon in the first place…

…With the Loyalist threat temporally neutralized it was decided that now was the best time for the marriages of the Tully daughters to Lords Stark and Arryn to go ahead, as there were still many loyalist castles between the rebel lines and King's Landing that needed to be sieged down, and that would take months even without the rebels choosing to starve them out. They also needed to spend several weeks integrating the Valemen into their order of battle, their horse in particular needed to be acclimatized to the presence of direwolves….

…Four months after the Battle of the Bells, Prince Rhegar had formed a new army from the remnants of the Reach and Crownlands, ten-thousand men from Dorne – consisting of those Lord Martell believed would side with the Targaryens no matter what and those who were a regular thorn in his side – the garrisons of every castle in the Crownlands that wasn't in the path of the Rebel advance, the Royal Marines from the remnants of the fleet, and tens of thousands of more levies. All told, about nine-and-sixty thousand men, of which seven-and-thirty were levies and three were cavalry.

Prince Rhegar also sacrificed numerous castles and land to the rebels in exchange for time, constantly drilling and training his men in the hope that he could avoid the fate of the Loyalists at the Stony Sept, though it has to be said that the Prince was not optimistic about his chances in the upcoming battle, as he had little faith that the levies would hold and he could find no more men-at-arms or knights.

Eventually the rebels began to get too close to the capital for his comfort and he faced them just outside of Brindlewood…

-Robert's Rebellion, by Historian Rickard Mullen, 288AC

Notes:

AN: The main limitation of greenseers is that they still have to know where AND when to look, and looking through time isn't a free action. A minute spent in the past or future is also a minute spent in the present, and it's also draining to anyone without the raw power of Bloodraven or Brandon Stark, so there's a limit to how long they can look too.

So, I originally thought that I could cover the Rebellion in a single chapter, which quickly ballooned to two, and is now stretching to three.

Also Connington isn't the Hand in this timeline... due to author screw up. I'll have to think about who is.