Ned stared across the fallow farmland outside Brindlewood at the Loyalist army, the last obstacle before King's Landing. Specifically, at Prince Rhaegar standing ahead of the army under a flag of parley, comfortably out of bowshot from either side, Ser Barristan and Ser Darry of the Kingsguard standing beside him, the latter holding the flag.
"He can't possibly think that we will turn aside now," Jon said incredulously, "We've come too far and spilled too much blood to just turn around."
"Aye," Robert agreed, "This war won't end until we have his father's and his heads on a spike, and if he thinks otherwise he's an idiot."
"Given we're still waiting for the Freys to catch up with us we lose nothing talking with him," Ned pointed out.
Robert grunted.
"They were supposed to be back two days ago." He scowled, "If he's late because he decided to keep looting I'm going to be pissed at him."
"I don't like how we're outnumbered by half again," Lord Tully said.
It was a valid worry. Between casualties and having to dispatch forces to secure their flanks the Rebel army had been reduced to about four-and-forty thousand, less if you didn't count the currently absent five-and-ten hundred Frey men that were supposed to be with the army.
Robert scoffed.
"We were outnumbered two-to-one at Stony Sept too," he dismissed, "And we won that handily."
"We won't be able to repeat that here," Jon countered, "It's all flat farmland. There's no cover."
"Their levies will route like the last time."
"Rhaegar is not Tyrell," Ned responded, "He's spent the last several months training and equipping his levies, and has made them into a decent pike phalanx. No one wants to charge into a pike wall, no matter if the pikes are held by peasants or not."
Robert gave a grudging nod at that.
After a long moment of silence, Jon sighed.
"Well, let's see what the Prince wants."
"Lord Stark, Lord Baratheon, Lord Arryn, Lord Tully," Prince Rhaegar greeted with tired solemnity as they dismounted their horses and Grey Frost and approached on foot.
"Prince Rhaegar," Ned responded with the rest.
The prince sighed.
"Let's… not mince words. My father is insane, and deserves to die in a manner every bit as horrible as the deaths he has inflicted. He… must die. For his crimes and the good of the realm. I would like to hear your terms."
"After all we have done," Robert growled, "All we have been through, you seriously think we would surrender toyou?"
"No! No, my apologies, I phrased that poorly. I meant your terms to support me against my Father. House Targaryen has wronged you severely, and upon taking the throne I will see you restituted for those wrongs. Lord Arryn, Lord Baratheon, I offer wergild, favorable and exclusive trading rights, greater autonomy, even Royal marriages, all details negotiable.
"Lord Stark, House Targaryen has dealt you an unforgivable wrong with the murder of your father and brother. Name your price. I will accept anything, up to… and including complete independence from the Iron Throne."
Rhaegar looked pained as he finished speaking. Silence hung heavily over the group. Ned struggled to keep his shock to raised eyebrows, because this… Prince Rhaegar was willingly crippling not only his own authority should he become king, but that of any king that would succeed him. And he knew it.
The urge to ask why was almost overwhelming, but Ned couldn't get the words out, couldn't muster the will to break the silence.
"…You… have a way with words," Robert slowly said, "And you must be truly desperate to offer such. But there's just one problem."
Rhaegar motioned for Robert to continue.
"How can we trust you to uphold your word?" The Stormlord demanded, "You forsook your wedding vows to kidnap Ned's sister and force her into a sham marriage, starting this whole mess!"
"I did no such thing!" Rhaegar angrily retorted, "Elia cannot survive another pregnancy! Yes, legally I could keep impregnating her until she died from a miscarriage and then take another wife, but I do not want that! The entire meeting between me, Elia, Lord Martell, Lyanna, and Lord Stark at Harrenhall was about this, and I had everyone's approval to set her aside and take Lyanna as my wife. Elia would be given the position of Royal Mother and placed in charge of childrearing for all royal children."
"So you claim," Robert said skeptical derisiveness, "Yet there are none who can verify that. Rickard Stark is dead by your father's hand and Lord Martell's sister is being held hostage in the Red Keep. He'll say whatever you want him to."
When the prince turned hopeful eyes to him Ned said "All Father told me was that it was a trade deal. Nothing more."
Life seemed to leave Rhaegar at that.
"Do you have any proof?" Jon asked.
"None with me. All the documents are with Lyanna."
"How convenient," Robert snorted.
"Where is Lyanna?" Ned demanded, "Where is my sister?"
"Safe," Rhaegar replied, "She has my kingsguard with her. Few know where she is and obscurity is her best defense. Ser Hightower may be more loyal to my father than me but between him, Ser Whent, and Ser Dayne no harm will come to her or…" He trailed off before visibly deciding to not finish whatever he'd been about to say, "She'll be safe."
Ned had a sinking suspicion about what the prince had been about to say, and judging by the ugly look on Robert's face so did he.
"Where is she?"
"Safe. Is there nothing I can do to convince you to help me take the throne?"
"No," Jon and Robert answered.
Rhaegar sighed and turned to leave before pausing.
"Lord Stark, find me after the battle and I'll send you to her, win or lose. And please stay alive, I don't want to tell Lyanna that her brother died fighting me."
Ned nodded, and everyone turned to head back to their armies.
…The battle opened up with an artillery duel. Despite the wargs providing perfect range and distance, the ballista were not accurate enough to reliably score hits at range, and often a single hit wasn't enough to destroy a ballista. It took three hours for the Loyalist artillery to be satisfactorily silenced and the Rebels began to close.
Prince Rhaegar placed his pike levies in the center of the army, keeping his crossbowmen and archers behind them in an attempt to turn them into a deadly combination where the pikemen pinned the rebels in place even as they got pounded by the skirmishers behind them. It would also prevent a repeat of when the North's giants smashed the levy lines at the Stony Sept, as any attempt would see the giants downed by a withering barrage of arrowfire and skewered on the pikes. With the Rebel infantry pinned in place by the pikes, he would then leverage his superior numbers to wrap around the Rebel flanks with his men-at-arms while his few cavalry remained in reserve with ten-thousand men-at-arms to plug any holes that would open in the lines.
It was a good plan. It would have worked too, had the levies been better equipped. Their arms were paid for by Prince Rhaegar, but while the Prince's coffers were deep, they were not bottomless. With King Aerys denying him access to the Royal Treasury, the Prince had to choose between providing good quality arms or good quality armor for almost forty thousand men. He chose the former, under the almost certainly correct belief that better armor would not be able to bridge the gulf of experience between the loyalist levies and rebel men-at-arms like a pike-and-shot wall would.
As such, while the officers had metal breastplates in addition to the metal nasal helms that were issued to all of the levies, most only had gambeson to protect themselves….
-Robert's Rebellion, by Historian Rickard Mullen, 288AC
…Morris Coke did not rise when I entered his home, understandable given the twisted ruin of his legs, apparent even through his trousers.
"I heard you wanted to hear of my role in the Battle of Brindlewood," he said without preamble, scowling.
I nodded and explained that I was collecting tales of what happened during the Rebellion, not from the great lords, who I admittedly did not have access to, but from the men who marched through the mud and stood in the lines.
Morris was still reluctant to speak to me, but relented after I offered him a silver stag for his time.
"Fine," he grumbled, "I'll tell you what I did.
"I wasn't part of the first round of drafts, so I wasn't at the Battle of the Bells, and thank the Seven for that. It was four months after that when the Prince's men came here and conscripted me. I don't think anyone would be surprised to know that my initial thoughts were that I was going to be killed the moment we encountered Rebels.
"I remain so thankful that the Prince didn't throw us away like chaff like so many other lords would have. None of us would have lived if he did that. Still, it was quite the surprise to be handed a pike, gambeson, and a nasal helm before being drilled by knights. It wasn't anything complex, just how to march, how to hold the pike, how to remain in formation, maintain your equipment, things like that. We didn't have time to learn anything truly advanced.
"When we weren't drilling on in the yards or fields, we were having hammered into our heads that if we broke and ran, we were dead men. Not because the Loyalists would kill us, but because the Rebels would. They pointed out, with practical demonstrations, how keeping the pike wall up and intact was our best hope to survive. No one wanted to charge into a hedge of pikes if there was any other option. So when we marched onto the fields outside Brindlewood, we knew that the line had to hold, or we'd all die…
"…I was on the left flank in the rearmost line. Didn't have much to do at the start of the battle other than watch, though I couldn't see the rebels over the heads of everyone in front of me. When the Rebel artillery finished shooting up ours, they switched targets to the cavalry reserve where the Prince was, forcing him to scatter his forces so they wouldn't be shredded. When our crossbowmen, stationed about, oh, fifty feet or so behind our center began to fire I remember hearing someone from the front ranks say that our bolts were bouncing off the rebel's armor plates. 'Course several sergeants promptly yelled at him to shut up so he would stop hurting morale.
"Then the rebel archers fired back. Their accuracy…" he shook his head, "There was no fucking way they had line of sight. No way they could have known exactly where our crossbowmen were. Yet not one arrow landed more than five-and-twenty feet in front or behind our menon their first volleyregardless."
"Wargs," I supplied, gesturing vaguely towards the sky, "one was watching you from a bird in the sky and relaying distance and direction."
"Fucking magic," Morris spat, "were their fucking bows bespelled as well to be so accurate?"
"No, that was high quality equipment combined with sheer skill."
He sighed.
"Our men didn't last long regardless. I'd say… six in ten arrows found their mark in that first volley. Seven or eight in the second volley that came half a minute later. They broke after the fourth." He shook his head. "I can't blame them. They left a quarter of their men dead or dying on the ground, and I'd say three-fifths of those who fled were too wounded to fight. Standard thickness gambesons, like the ones we had, could turn a fatal hit to a wounding one, but there's no way you're going to fight with an arrow imbedded in your chest, even if it hasn't pierced your lung or heart. If we had double or triple-thickness…" He shook his head again, "Wasn't to be. The Prince nearly bankrupted himself getting us what we had.
"Unfortunately, seeing how quickly they routed, and how many casualties they took, gave the rebels an idea, and all of their skirmishers let loose on our center. I remember seeing a part of the sky turn dark from the arrows as they hammered our pike line with rapid fire volleys. Not one man fled in the face of that," Morris said proudly, with a hint of a smile, "Not one. They held the line." Melancholy filled him. "They died holding the line. None survived. Within the span of a few minutes our center wasgone, and now-King Baratheon immediately exploited it, leading his surviving Stormlanders into the gap, and the Prince committed our reserves in a counter charge that met him head-on.
He sighed. "We know how that ended."
I nodded. The Stag and the Dragon sought each other out, and Prince Rhaegar fell with his helm caved in from King Baratheon's warhammer.
"And then came the flanking charge," I prompted.
"And then came the flanking charge," he agreed, sighing, "I still don't know how the direwolves managed to get behind us, the men-at-arms were deployed at the ends of the pike line precisely to prevent that."
"They were occupied dealing with the giants and the Umbers," I supplied, "Inflicted heavy casualties on them too." Mainly thanks to their local numerical superiority.
"Ah. I'd wondered where those were. Anyways, I'd been watching the fighting in the center so the only warning I had was when the damned wolves howled as they began their charge. As I said, I wasn't expecting it, but we had drilled on what to do if this happened. I, and the rest of the back row, turned and presented our pikes. The rows behind us were supposed to do the same, but I don't think they had the time.
"And yeah, I was terrified, but all I could think was 'get the pike in position to receive cavalry' as a fuckingwallof gleaming steel and fur came barreling down on me. In those last few seconds I noticed that the direwolf heading at me was wearing mail, not plate like all of the rest. John and Harry, who were standing on either side of me – they didn't survive by the way – noticed as well, I could see their pikes angling towards that wolf like I was.
"We had no idea if our pikes would pierce plate barding, especially since the wolves were angling themselves so that the pikes would impact on the large and heavily angled plates protecting their shoulders and the back of the neck rather than rearing away like we were told cavalry would do when faced with a pike wall, but mail? We knew we could pierce mail. We'd been taught to aim for it.
"I remember my pike's haft shattering in my hands as the head punched into the direwolf's shoulder, and then its body slammed into me, trapping me beneath it and shattering my legs. I don't know if it was the pain or the impact with the ground that knocked me out, but when I woke up the battle was over, and we had lost. If some Northerners hadn't come to collect the direwolf's body, I probably would have died there."
"I'm surprised they let you live."
"They did ask if I killed the wolf, but I lied. Said it was Harry. I was just unlucky enough to have the beast land on me."
"Did any other direwolves die in the charge?"
"Some. Not a lot. By the look of things most of the pikes had their shafts splinter like mine on contact with the armor, but some got through, either hitting a small gap between the plates or more often managing to hit a leg and bringing the wolf down that way.…"
…As I was preparing to leave I had one last question that had been burning in my head ever since I heard the description of the direwolf Morris had taken down.
"Do you know who it was you… unhorsed is obviously the wrong term. Unwolfed? Dismounted is probably the best."
Morris shook his head.
"He was wearing the Stark direwolf but other than that? No. Figured he was from one of the cadet branches, or was a mounted man-at-arms directly sworn to the house."
"I'm pretty sure that was Lord Stark himself," I replied.
"…Huh."
Seeing that I would not get anything else from him, I left.
-Tales from the Rebellion, by Samuel Puckett, 292AC
Brindlewood surrendered after the Loyalist army broke and fled. Unsurprisingly, given that the Rebel army outnumbered their total population by an order of magnitude even with the heavy casualties they had taken. While the army had their victory feast where they were camped around the palisade walls, Ned was with the other high nobles in Brindlewood's market square, where large tables had been set up for their own feast.
Ned sat at the table reserved for the Lord Paramounts, listlessly staring at nothing and ignoring the festive atmosphere of the other nobles.
Grey Frost was dead. His soul-bonded companion, the symbol of his house, dead because Ned hadn't bothered to get him proper armor.
And with Prince Rhaegar dead, he had no leads as to where his sister was. Ser Barristan, the sole surviving Kingsguard, hadn't been with Rhaegar when he absconded with her, and had no idea where she could be.
He grunted as Robert greeted him by clapping on the shoulder.
"Cheer up Ned," he said jovially, a goblet of wine already in hand, "The war's all but won, the Targs are finished!"
Ned just gave a morose grunt in response, causing Robert to peer at him, slightly flushed.
"Don't tell me you're still moping about that oversized dog of yours. You can easily get another."
By the time the words penetrated Ned's brooding Robert was moving on, which meant he didn't see the incredulous look Ned gave his back. Did he not know just how callous – no, no he obviously didn't. To suggest that a warg justreplacea soul-bonded companion like a cheap mule was an incredible insult,especiallyif the companion had just died. It wasn't on the level of telling a widower to remarry before their spouse was cremated or buried, but it was close.
It was also something that southerners were chronically unaware of, given they didn't have wargs.
Jon sat next to him a few minutes later.
"How are you doing Ned?"
"…We took a lot of casualties," he replied.
"We did. I just got the most recent count."
Ned looked at his foster father and gestured for him to continue.
"Six thousand dead or expected to die, eight thousand too injured to fight again. Two-and-ten injured but expected to recover, with another seven thousand with minor injuries that won't prevent them from fighting."
"If they throw another army at us we won't be able to do anything other than a fighting retreat until spring," Ned said.
Jon nodded.
"Aye. Thankfully they don't have another army, and the one we just fought is well and truly shattered. A few thousand are making their way back to King's Landing, but the rest have dispersed and won't rally. We have, effectively, won the war. Though that reminds me, we need to ask those druids of yours what Rhaegar did with his levies. The men-at-arms broke before they did."
Ned nodded at that.
"Aye. And many tried to retreat in good order even as the rest of the army broke and ran." A lot of those had chosen to surrender rather than run when it became clear they couldn't escape too. "Unfortunately the area he did most of his training is very sparse on weirwoods, so they can't give us more than they have. We'll have to figure it out from interrogating prisoners."
"Aye…. I'm sorry about Grey Frost."
"…Thank you," Ned said quietly, "I heard about Elbert and Denys."
"Aye. Even two on one they couldn't take Ser Barristan…"
"ATTENTION!" Robert bellowed from the middle of the square, waiting for everyone to quiet down and turn to him before continuing, "Before we begin our well-deserved feast, I have something to say. For almost three hundred years we have bent the knee to the Targaryens. Aye, they conquered us all through fire, blood, and the might of their dragons. But dragons have been dead for over a hundred years, and since then we have had bad king after bad king after bad king!
"I say enough! Enough of these foreign kings from a dead land! Enough of these horrid Targaryen kings! I say it is time for a new dynasty to rule from the Iron Throne! Here and now, I submit that I, Robert Baratheon, should be our next king! What say you?"
Almost as one, the lords turned to face Ned and Jon, waiting for their response. Ned realized that with Hoster already abed with a broken clavicle, he and Jon were the only other Lords Paramount present. If they both supported Robert's claim, then his ascension would be all but assured. Likewise, they were the only ones with the clout to possibly put forward a rival claim or claimant with any chance of success.
As Ned looked at Jon, he realized that his foster father would never have the support to make his own claim to the Iron Throne as he was too old and had no heirs with the death of Elbert and Denys. Hoster meanwhile straight up did not have the political clout to put forward a successful candidacy – he was barely able to keep his own kingdom in line as it was!
As for Ned himself… he just wanted to go home. Back to Winterfell with Benjen and Lyanna. To grieve in peace. Let someone else rule the realm, he did not want it.
With Jon nn-verbally signaling for Ned to go first the Lord of the North slowly stood.
He took a deep breath, and spoke.
"Hail, King Robert Baratheon."
"Aye," Jon said, "Hail King Baratheon, first of his dynasty."
"HAIL, KING BARATHEON!" The nobles collectively cheered, "LONG MAY HE REIGN!"
As Ned sat back down, absently listening to the chatter starting back up and signaling a servant to bring him a glass of wine, he failed to notice that not a single noble of the North had joined in.
Notes:
AN: The reason for Rhaegar's generous terms? He didn't think he was going to win if he fought. And he was right. This was his last, desperate gambit, especially since he knew from studying the Conqueror's journals that the Second Long Night would arrive in his reign, and Westeros could not afford to be divided. Also Lywen Martell was in King's Landing because the remnants of the Stark guards Rickon and Brandon brought with them were causing problems.
Aerys denied Rhaegar access to the Royal treasury because he believed that Rhaegar would overthrow him if he had the opportunity, such as having a well trained and equipped army. To be fair, he was right. For once.
And once again I have completely underestimated the word count. FFS. I can't believe that I thought that I could wrap up the rebellion with a single chapter at one point…
However, the next chapter is absolutely going to be the last of this arc, and I hope I wasn't too subtle about the foreshadowing I've sprinkled throughout the previous chapters…