Chapter 3
Dawn of the Battle
Lord Cregan Stark
"They are coming."
The voice of Lord Wallis Mooton was tired and had hints of despair in it. At five and forty name days, the new Lord of Maidenpool had never been a robust knight, and now he looked like he had lost a score of stones recently. Loss of a brother devoured by a dragon and being forced to change sides twice tended to do that. His blue eyes however, were much more expressive and reflected a pure feeling of sheer fear.
"How many?" Asked Lord Cregan Stark, finishing his cup of wine in a grim expression. The Warden of the North had been having dinner in the private quarters of his host, when a messenger in Tully colours had regretfully interrupted their eating of the few eggs in their plates, saying his liege lord had sent him with dire news.
And dire they were. Perhaps as indigestible as the meal they were having. In the weak light of this rainy day, the wine drunk took a nearly black light.
It almost looks like blood. It has the taste too.
Mooton lands and the Riverlands in general had never been renowned to produce good wine, but the days where a Black leader could sip good Dornish or Arbor bottles were over. Too many wine-makers had been in the Reach, which meant either it had been burnt or was in the hands of Hightower bannersmen. Dorne was too far away, and the sea lanes were too dangerous this year. In peace time, the best barrels were worth their weight in gold at the table of Kings, Archons, Magisters and Lords Paramounts. How much they were costing now that war raged everywhere?
"Ser Gustav told me there couldn't be more than two hundred of them." Lord Wallis laughed bitterly. "What a fool! Lord Kermit has sent his own men, and they're all singing a different tale. Eight and twenty thousand men, they counted! And not the green levies of King's Landing! All the banners of the Stormlands are here, and the Hightower have sent their own men too!"
The Lord of Winterfell narrowed his eyes. Every lord and knight worth the name had known a new Green army was assembling at King's Landing. That they had chosen to march northwards was not a surprise. But their numbers were quite larger than any of his spies had reported. Eight and twenty thousand was a massive army by any standard, and if they had the Baratheon and Hightower heavy cavalry with them...
"How much time do we have?" The Warden of the North demanded.
"I don't know." Sighed Wallis. "With good weather, the cavalry could be here within five or six days. But with the rains we have and the infantry...I don't know. Ten days at least. Maybe longer."
The Northern and the River lord exchanged silent glances, more valuable than any discussion. Finally, it was Wallis who spoke again.
"My Lord Hand, Maidenpool is not a castle easy to defend..."
"I know what you're going to say, Lord Wallis." Cut the Master of Winterfell. "Rest assured I have no wish to fight a battle in the streets of your city."
If a city is the correct name, reflected ironically Cregan. There were many reasons the Targaryens kings didn't give it a chart.
Truth to tell, Maidenpool had never been that big a settlement, and it was only the flow of refugees coming from every part of the Riverlands that had allowed the Mooton holdfast to have their small village grown larger in the last couple of years.
But seen another way, these sudden arrivals had not been followed by the construction of walls, towers, gates and others defences against soldiers turned marauders. The forces of House Mooton had been considered enough to discourage the odd sellsword or two and the starved bandits plaguing the region. Maidenpool was a collection of small houses in the mud where smallfolk were crowded in their haste to escape the huge rains plaguing the Riverlands in the last moons. Narrow streets where men killed for a piece of bread. Leaking roofs the inhabitants desperately tried to repair. A situation no doubt repeated endlessly around the Riverlands. Only the small castle was a reliable construction in stone.
No, a battle inside Maidenpool would end in our defeat. We will have to choose another place to fight them. But where?
"I heard three other Vale transports arrived today." The new Hand of the Queen deliberately changed the subject of the conversation.
"Yes." The answer of Wallis was curt, forcing Lord Cregan to raise an eyebrow in a simple request to say more. "Three hundred men of House Melcolm, with Ser Allyn Melcolm in command."
"Ser Allyn? Not Lord Harlan?"
"Lord Harlan stayed at home." Cregan noticed Wallis did his best not to spit on the ground. "He was always scarred to enter his own tourneys, he's not going to leave Old Anchor and play the knight!"
"Hmm...this gives us...four hundred and six thousand men of the Vale?
"Six hundred and five thousand." Corrected the Mooton lord. "There are two hundred men of House Tollett who arrived when you were gone meeting Lord Vance yesterday."
"Ah, those. The Dark Omen has decided to regale us of his presence and his grim prophecies?"
"You know how Lord Eon Tollett is." Puffed Wallis, with the tone of a man who had indeed heard too much death predictions and other nasty demises waiting for him at the corner of a dark corridor.
"I know."
The reputation of House Tollett as doomsayers, pessimistic rumourmongers and bringers of bad luck had been firmly rooted well before the Targaryens had decided to settle on Dragonstone. Centuries later, this tradition had continued and the current lord of the Grey Glen was no exception. 'When All is Darkest' was the motto of this Vale House, and the Tolletts lived and died by it. Ironically, their joining with their Gods often happened at extremely advanced ages and in their beds, not by the dagger of an assassin, a sword on the battlefield or a poison in their ale.
"I don't see Lady Arryn sending a lot more, my lord Hand." Said the black-haired River lord with unease showing in the manner he rubbed his own hands. "With Tessarion's survival, the Vale coast is vulnerable to dragons' attacks."
"You have a point." Whispered the Lord Paramount of the North. "But I can't rejoice at the idea of being outnumbered at the eve of what will be perhaps the greatest battle of this war."
Spared by the war, the Vale could have easily mustered fourteen thousand men and transported them to Maidenpool with the help of the young Velaryon's Black fleet. Six thousand was a good number, but it was much, much less than the reinforcements Cregan had hoped receiving. And to make matters worse, a lot of it was infantry, not cavalry. Cregan didn't share the certainty of the Reach horse-masters who believed a good knight could smash and kill any living enemy, but a mounted man provided the best armour and the greatest mobility on the battlefield, even in the current horrible weather conditions. Save for the symbols of House Targaryen.
The appearance of the dragon nicknamed the Blue Queen over King's Landing had been widely reported, and Cregan would not be dishonest in saying he had not shouted a long series of curses when he had received this information. Some Blacks soldiers, in overwhelming majority green Vale levies, had tried to desert and a few examples had had to be made. The only warriors to be happy were the Northerners and Riverlanders survivors of the two Tumbleton battles. For them, killing Tessarion was one more chance to pay back the Greens for their treachery in the first battle of the Reach city when the Two Betrayers attacked and burnt them in the back.
Lord Wallis Mooton emitted a small smile, before watching the lone egg in his plate with a disgusted expression.
"Do you want me to send messengers to all commanders for a new war council?"
The Lord of Winterfell thoughtfully nodded, but his own attention was fixed on the weather outside the dungeon of Maidenpool. The sky was a black-purple colour, and the rain which had started five days ago showed no intention to stop any time soon.
"Definitely. The Queen has to be informed, and all the lords prepared for the march. Can I count on you to free your Hall for all the captains before nightfall?"
"It will be my pleasure."
There were other reasons to summon everyone, and by Wallis's pinched smile, the Lord of Maidenpool was aware of them. Cregan could have limited the war council to the Queen, one or two commanders and himself. To discuss tactics and strategy, it would have been perfect. There quite a few Vale lords that in his mind had not their place at the great table. Lord Corbray or Lord Lynderly, to quote names and point fingers. But he could not afford to ignore their voices. Or rather he could, but the shadow of what had happened to Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, forced to sell her crown because she had cruelly driven each of her bannersmen away, was too fresh in the spirits and the mind.
The North had the biggest army left of all the Blacks lords present with twelve thousand men, but the Stark and Northern numbers were largely below the storm of Southern steel coming for them. The North was going to need every sword and spear of the Rivers and the Vale to win. There were five thousand swords of the Riverlords here in Maidenpool, plus the remnants of the loyal Black Lords in the Crownlands who had escaped north. It had to count for something. No matter how idiotic and treacherous some loud-mouthed knights were.
This why you took a Bolton to the South, no Cregan? Thought the Lord of Winterfell to himself. So stop complaining and get to work. You have a battle to win, a Queen to test and a realm to govern.
"I will also have a task for all the outriders we have in the field." Added almost absently Cregan.
"And whose task will it be?" The voice of Lord Wallis could not have been described as very reassured.
Cregan made a smile, which, by the way it made the other lord shiver, had managed very well to give the predatory allure of the direwolf running freely on the banners of his troops.
"Why, finding a place where we can bleed and kill the Green Army, of course."
Queen Baela Targaryen
The crown, a simple diadem of dragon-shaped gold encircling a large ruby, weighted heavily on her head. At the moment of her coronation, it had seemed so light and beautiful. Now, the young Black Queen honestly started to loath the royal object posed on her head.
When she had been seven, Baela remembered to have asked with her sweet sister Rhaena to be princesses to their father. Or Queens. The memory was so long ago, it was difficult to remember. Their father had made them mount Caraxes and fly over Dragonstone, in a sky shiny and blue. After that both Rhaena and she had wanted to be dragonriders.
It looks like a dream now.
The last time she had seen Dragonstone, the garrison of the fortress was killing each other, giving a bloody funeral to the King Baela had just sent into its last dive. Sunfyre had crushed the usurper Aegon, avenging the deaths of Meleys and her grandmother Rhaenys. Baela remembered the joy she had felt, how she had been persuaded to have won the war by her skill at archery.
Now she was the Queen. And the war was far from over.
How the Gods must laugh at me.
From the moment she woke up to the moment she went to bed, Baela had not a moment to her anymore.
I have barely the time to visit my Moondancer. I don't have any time to do anything what I want!
Hearing her advisors discuss about the state of the food granaries, the merchants how depleted the stock of arrows were, dispensing justice, punishing traitors. An army of maidens from the Vale had come with her, and passed hours to dress her in richly expensive dresses. Baela had not wanted this. The eldest daughter of Laena Velaryon wanted to ride in the sky, pass time with her little sister, invent stories where they were great dragonriders.
Instead of that, she was stuck here, at the head of a long table in the Great Hall of Maidenpool, listening scores of lords bickering and babbling about non-sense which had nothing to do with the war. Lord Elesham was shouting something to Lord Pryor about fishing rights! Fishing rights! There were thousands of Greens traitors marching for Maidenpool at this very moment and these idiots were concerned about fishing rights! At least Rhaena was safe. Her little sister was in security at Gulltown with her newborn dragon Morning, in order for the Blacks to have a secure succession in case she died at war.
I didn't want to be Queen. I didn't want all my family to die.
When she had arrived to Harrenhal on Moondancer, Baela had hoped against all hopes her father had survived. These hopes had perished. None of the knights and sworn swords having assisted to the aerial fight had seen a man emerge out of the waters where the two great dragons Caraxes and Vhagar had crashed. The dragon of Prince Daemon, her beloved father, had come out of the God's Eye, but it had been only to die on the shore.
No, her father was dead. Like her mother. Like her cousins. Like her aunt. King's Landing, Rook's Rest, the Gullet, Storm's End were as many dreadful tales of defeat and bloodshed. Even brave Addam Velaryon, freshly legitimised when Lord Corlys asked for this favour of Queen Rhaenyra, was gone forever on his Seasmoke. Of Baela cousins, only Addam's brother Alyn was left. And none of the rare survivors carried the Targaryen name.
Rhaena and I are alone now.
Looking around her, this impression of loneliness didn't go away. The great lords assembled ignored her, arguing, debating, screaming, laughing, and grumbling. The huge mass named Lord Tomard Umber was emptying cups after cups of ale like it was water, drinking songs of debauchery with a voice able to wake up the dead. Lord Benedict Piper was busy putting large quantities of chicken and sweets in his mouth while everyone else had finished eating several turns of hourglasses ago, a behaviour against most common manners. Lord Allard Donniger had forced a servant girl to sit on his lap and was touching her chest and her bosom, under the encouragement acclamation of his friends. Repugnant. Did they think it was an action the Seven took solace on or were they simply too drunk?
In fact, Baela realised, there were only two persons in the entire Hall who looked directly at her. Namely, Lord Cregan Stark and Lord Robard Bolton. The young Queen was not sure who she had the most to be afraid of. The Dreadfort master had an empty look in his eyes and gaunt face, the man did not manifest any violent emotions, but there was...something, a lack of light in his eye which was present in every man or woman in Westeros. But not with him. Not Lord Bolton. And Cregan Stark, the man she had named her Hand after the lords proposed their preferred candidate, was also searching for weaknesses. In public, the Starks were the very appearance of courtesy, so flattering a Tyrell would not have found anything to naysay. But under these grey eyes, there was something dangerous. The direwolf was sleeping, but for how long? Then there was the little matter of this Pact of Ice and Fire Jacaerys had concluded at Winterfell and the conduct of the Northern troops so far...
Baela had heard the stories thorough the camps. How the men of 'Septon Luceon' had been murdered, after they surrendered. Traitors and assassins, she would not have shed a tear for these fanatics, but how they had been slain... Mutilated, dismembered, their entrails spread on trees as offerings for the Old Gods. How villages after villages which had helped the Greens were razed or stormed, their smallfolk massacred or pursued thorough the night.
And the Starks forbid them to flay their victims centuries ago. How much savage were the Boltons before bending the knee to Winterfell?
This what not a question Baela was sure she wanted the answer for. Maybe in a decade, but not now. Riding Moondancer to the Vale and then to Harrenhal, she had seen how much devastation the war had caused. The Seven Kingdoms were burning, piles of corpses so high in some places, others impaled on pikes and the terrible scars left by dragonfire. There was no need to think more on the Boltons and their atrocities.
Looking back to the great table, the tone started to mount. On one side a minor Vale knight had thrown an insult, and the River knight in Bracken colours who had just been to told to...do heinous things to goats was reddening and looked ready to draw his sword.
It's time to stop this mummery and plan for war. But how can I command them?
Except Lady Mooton sitting with her husband on the left, there was only woman of noble birth gracing the hall of its presence. Alysanne Blackwood, the commander of the archers coming from the Riverlands. But she was the only one. Otherwise, just men of all sizes, some in light armour, other in leather, the majority in fine tunics. No women except the smallfolk servants. None but Baela.
Her voice would not be enough to be heard in all this rumble. Half of the captains and lords present were drunk and the other half brayed so loudly it was a miracle the hall was still standing. As for Lord Stark and Bolton on her right, they would be of no help. The two Northerners looked at her with the piercing stares a predator regards the sheep he's going to make his dinner. Which left only one option. To scare them.
I am not a sheep. I am a dragon.
Exhaling a loud breath, Baela closed her eyes and searched for the connection inside herself linking her to her bonded. Warmth. Fury. Love. Anger. One ray of light guided her to the depths of heart, and suddenly the presence was here. The bond was complete.
I am here my Dancer.
A storm of powerful emotions rushed in her. Suddenly, Moondancer was here in her head and she was in the she-dragon. Both felt the other emotions. Baela had the blood of the cow her dragon had eaten in the morning. The young Queen felt the playfulness, heard the rain falling on the great tent where Moondancer was kept.
Come, my Dancer. Come to me.
Moondancer felt her amusement and rose from her position on the ground, before getting out of the tent in the rain and flying in the rain, making the soldiers guarding it gasp and shout, muffled acclamations her bonded ignored.
If Moondancer had been bigger, what Baela ordered her magnificent she-dragon to wouldn't have been possible. The same if Maidenpool had been a bigger castle or the corridors arranged directly. But the Great Hall was directly at the entrance, and the great doors allowing access to it were fully open.
One in four or five of the lords present noticed the new arrival. The others not so much. The ceiling was high and dark. The crowd of lords and knights was drunken or not taking great attention to their surroundings. Until Moondancer landed swiftly behind her, her sinuous body curling behind her seat while her head was close enough for Baela to pet her.
Now, roar my Dancer.
And Moondancer roared, a shout so full of threat and power, a primal cry repeated during centuries, dominating and pressing. The Black Queen felt her ears tingle and her heart beat incredibly faster.
Silence fell instantly in the hall.
"Enough." Baela used her best queenly voice. "You have enough debated. It's time we march against the traitors' army."
"They have more men than us!" Protested a man with a black fish on his chest, his face red of all the ale he had drunk.
"And?" Shouted Lord Tomard Umber, rousing from his seat, and dropping the last cup he had been about to drink. "These Southrons will always have more men than us! Their knights are so bad and their weapons so weak they NEED the numbers!"
A loud acclamation mounted from half the room to support this affirmation. The other half did not look convinced at all.
"What worries me," said a bearded knight in Corbray colours coughing and taking a second before speaking again. "There's no castle or good defensive position between Maidenpool and Duskendale."
"Ser Malcolm is right." Grumbled Lord Lynderly. "By now, the Darklyns should have bent the knee and surrendered their city. We will need to ambush them on the road, and the Fish Road is no terrain for that."
"And the Greens have Tessarion." Added a young man with a winged silver chalice on a pink field. "We will not be able to ambush them. Dragons see everything from the sky."
None of the three Vale men, Baela noticed had taken more than a look in her direction. They talked to the other lords, not to her. It was like she didn't exist. Baela felt her fists tightening and forced herself to smile.
"That's not true, I think." Remarked a Northerner with the grey eyes and the brown hair of the Starks, but the colours of a white sun on a black field. "The rains have been terrible these last days. A dragon may be able to see far in the distance when it flies, but with the weather we have it will be searching a needle in a haystack."
"Good Gods, Karstark!" Told Lord Lynderly. "A dragon is not blind! Do you really believe we can hide the march of twenty thousand men in the mud? I know we can't!"
"Then we offer battle!" Shouted Lord Umber, the ale and all the alcohol drunk having evidently warmed him up. Plenty of Riverlords and his fellow Northerners bayed in agreement.
"And how do you intend to slay Tessarion, Lord Umber? With your big sword?"
"I will deal with Tessarion." Affirmed Baela, cutting the fruitless discussion before it started to go back to insults and quarrels. "Distract her and point her with arrows until the course of battle is decided."
Or one of us has fallen.
"Your Grace, I do not think this is a good idea..." Said an auburn-haired middle-aged knight with a green tree for emblem.
"Why, Ser?" Baela asked. "If you have some miraculous weapon to strike down a dragon, please explain."
"The River warriors managed to slay one at Tumbleton." It was a weak answer, and every warrior listening was well aware of it.
"No." Intervened Lord Benjicot Blackwood, a young boy who was the only commander younger than Baela herself in the Maidenpool gathering. "We ended a dying dragon, on the ground, when it was already bleeding with broken wings. To do it to a mobile, healthy one...in the sky...I do not like our chances."
"That remains a risky adventure, your Grace. Tessarion and the Usurper Daeron will be formidable enemies." The man who had spoken had done it so fast and remained safely out of her vision, due to that Baela had no idea who had spoken.
Thank you, Ser. I had never realised a dragon battle was dangerous.
"It's a battle Moondancer and I are willing to fight." Affirmed the young Queen, trying to show assurance and calm while she was not sure she felt either. Fortunately Moondancer roared to agree with her, heartening her resolve by her shout and the bond.
"It solves the problem of Tessarion, but not the battlefield itself." Reminded Lord Kermit Tully. The Lord of Riverrun was really recognisable with his brilliant red hair and his blue eyes. An attractive young man until you looked in the depth of his eyes and learnt what he did on the battlefield. Baela knew Lord Kermit loathed the Greens, and had put the heads of several Westerlands commanders on stakes over the gates of his home. "I want to kill the traitors, not be killed by them."
"I have a proposition."
Everyone turned to contemplate Lord Cregan Stark. Until then, the Lord of Winterfell had not spoken a single word in the conversation, but evidently from the manner a third of the assembly fell silent, it had been a ploy carefully prepared.
The Lord of Winterfell unrolled a map in front of Baela, one which described a lot the Crownlands area between the Antlers and Rook's Rest.
"Our scouts affirm there is a bridge three days south on the Fish Road, shortly after the intersection of the path leading to the Antlers." Explained the Warden of the North, pointing his finger at a sort of mark which could have been anything.
"I know the place you're speaking about." Lord Wallis Mooton, their host and perhaps the most knowledgeable lord on the terrain conditions, said. "There is a small hill and a sizeable grove nearby."
"How many horses can pass on that bridge at the same time?" Asked a Riverlander whose name escaped Baela.
"No more than four on the march. In battle, two or three depending on the conditions." Replied the Lord of Maidenpool, biting his lower lip in reflexion.
"Can this bridge be bypassed?" The question came from a man with a lot of runes on his decorated armour.
To Baela's surprise, it was one of her own Kingsguard, solemn in their pale white armour and lined up against the wall behind her who answered.
"Not really. There's a small riverbed on two or three leagues there, isn't it?"
"Yes, in summer there isn't much water, enough to wet the feet of the horses, but not much more I think. With all these rains however, the river must be flooding." Approved Lord Mooton.
"The Greens will be forced to take the bridge." Grumbled a Northerner so fat it was a minor miracle if a single horse in Westeros and Essos could bear his weight. Maybe an elephant would be his mount of choice? Her father had described her once the large grey beasts. "Any villages, nearby? We will need supplies if the traitors don't come to us."
"No, they were all razed by Vhagar." The bitter admission had come from one of the rare Crownlands having survived the fighting of the year 130. Baela sighed. One more sin to add to the endless list of crimes of the kinslayer Aemond.
In spite of this logistic issue, the plan of Lord Cregan seemed to have the favour of the most powerful lords and knights.
Or perhaps he explained them his plan behind closed doors.
Baela had no knowledge of military tactics, but all the Riverlords and half of the Vale captains really rallied fast to the plan of her Hand. Suspiciously fast. Too fast. Perhaps the plan was that good and the Northerners of course would support their liege lord. But seeing the sour face of Lord Lynderly, it was likely Lord Stark was weakening his Vale rivals. For exactly what grand plan remained to be discovered, not that it mattered much to Baela.
If only I trusted one of them. But I don't. I can't.
Moondancer and she had learnt this lesson painfully. A lot of men on Dragonstone had been servants of her family during years...and they had betrayed the Black cause. They had betrayed her, for wealth and honour. They had broken their oaths, decades of service to bend the knee to the Usurper Aegon.
The men currently seating and preparing for battle inside Maidenpool, with the exception of the Riverlords and the last Crownlords, had arrived after three years of war. Three years during which each sword could have made a difference, but they only arrived when the majority of the Targaryen dragons were dead.
Until they have proved their loyalty, I see no reason to trust them.
The discussion continued, long and very boring. Moondancer had to roar twice to restore order in the hall until finally the general plan was approved by every participant of high rank.
"Is it to your satisfaction, your Grace?" The voice of the Lord of Winterfell was cheerful; Baela thought it might as well be, even if the smile of the Northerner was indecent and remembered her too much one of the Dragonstone cats eating one of those big, fat Summer Islands birds. The ones which had yellow feathers.
"Yes, it is, my Lord Hand." Baela was relieved this meeting was very much over. "By the way what is the name of the place?"
"Bosworth Bridge, you Grace." Lord Mooton was not looking cheerful at all at the idea of going to battle at that location.
"Bosworth Bridge." Repeated Baela in a low tone.
"MILORDS!" Screamed Lord Umber. The massive Lord of Last Hearth's patience had come to an end. "I RISE MY CUP TO VICTORY...AND TO THE DAMNATION OF THE GREENS!"
One by one the men who had still a cup on the table and were sober enough to raise it imitated him, shouting and causing sufficient chaos to be heard from King's Landing itself.
Baela raised her golden cup and for the first time of the evening, drank the wine. The young Queen had to make a large effort not to spit it out immediately.
God the taste is awful.