Jon

That day Jon called the maester to him once again when the first light was breaking outside the castle of Stone Hedge. "Any word from the prince?"

The maester shook his head, afraid and forlorn. "None, My lord hand," he said. "My lord perhaps it is time we accept the truth. There's been too many..."

Jon stared at the platter of oakcakes, honey, and blood sausage they'd brought him to break his fast. Another sleepless night had left his nerves raw, and the very sight of food sickened him. "Quiet!" Jon said silencing him at once. "There has been no reply from Mooton or Darry or anyone east of this fucking river?"

"None," the maester said. "Neither from Lychester, nor from Goodbrook."

"Send more birds."

"It will not serve. Those will bring no response as well. By the time the birds reach-"

"Send them." Jon banged his fist on the oaken table that the platter of food cluttered with the strength of the blow. He looked back at the maester, angry. "Do you want to die? I know the truth as well as you do now. Some times it's better to treat it false."

The grey man was unconvinced. He is just afraid that they are alone here without Prince Aegon, Jon realised. "Who do you serve, maester?"

"You, my lord," the man said. "You and the realm. And to the King."

"Aye, you do," Jon told him. "So do it for the sake of the realm and the King."

The man looked like he wanted to say something more. But instead he swallowed the words he meant to use towards him and instead gave a small, weak nod. "As you wish then, my lord."

As he turned to leave, Jon stopped him. "Send Ser Gilbert in while you leave."

"My lord," Maester Haldon said and left.

Jon stooped to scoop up the goblet that had been knocked off the table when he had slammed his fist upon. The cold of autumn was getting more noticeable as he advanced further north. The fires in the chambers of Jonos Bracken had died out. He should have a fire but Jon didn't want to wake his squire just yet. It was even better if the boy didn't hear whatever that's being said by him and maester Haldon in private. One way or another someone always speaks and it would do a great harm to Rhaegar and the Targaryens should someone who's not supposed to hear it hears it.

Ser Gilbert entered the chambers as he was feeding the fire in the brazier. "My lord," he said.

Jon turned his head to look back at him. "A moment," he said, throwing in a couple of logs. He returned back to his table and sat down, bidding Ser Gilbert to sit. "Wine?"

"No, thank you," Ser Gilbert said.

"Any reports from your scouting?"

Ser Gilbert shook his head solemnly. "Nothing that we don't know before. Everyone speak the same sad tale and the bloody singers are at it as well. My men rode for many leagues to the east. There's only the talks of the presence of rebels, nothing else."

Jon signed. "I hoped so. We have no hope of holding here," he told Farring. "If there was anyone left we would have seen them by now. Or at the very least heard from some." It was that what concerned him the most. Prince Aegon had left with a large host around him on top of a menacing dragon. It had been so hard to believe that none survived when they met Stark that it had taken him months to believe that in the end.

"If there was any aid we were getting here, we would have gotten so by now. Prince Aegon is not coming. Stark has deceived us. He never was going to come against us. Bolton was sent only to mask his movement towards Prince Aegon. He was never here."

Ser Gilbert stayed silent. "It was the dragon that concerned him," Jon continued. "And now nothing stands in between him and King's Landing."

"That may be so," Ser Gilbert said. "But so long as we take Riverrun, we have a chance of taking his queen. And that might make him accepting for negotiations. Even if Riverrun doesn't fall we can still cut them off at the rear in the Crossroads and threaten to strike at his back. Stark cannot march south with an army at his back."

Jon shook his head. "We are too far away," he said. "And the rebels are too fast. They would be at King's Landing before we could get to the Crossroads with all those fat men and their endless entourage."

Jon pressed his fingers to his temple and looked at the map in front of him. "I am afraid there's nothing worth having in Riverrun. I have been having this bad feeling that we are only being misled. Dondarrion and Bolton cleverly lead us away from their King and far too deep into their friendly territory. And now our host is split with a river in between. This is not right."

Ser Gilbert moved towards the table in his chair and looked at the map he was showing. It was not that hard to see it. They were only a few days ride to Riverrun so far in the north separated from any allies and was surrounded on all sides by castles who had sworn to Andrew Stark. And Jon had been forced to spare some of his men to hold all those rebel castles he had taken on his way to Riverrun just to secure his rear and avoid being encircled himself. He didn't trust those Rivermen, even as they yielded so easily and swore fealty in the eyes of gods and men.

He had to admit that the Dragonslayer was good at what he did. As good as his father himself. If he thought that he could trick Jon he was sorely mistaken. He was not so innocent of warcraft as Stark thinks.

"What should we do, my lord?" Gilbert Farring asked. "Shall we start the attack on Riverrun."

"This war will not end in Riverrun," said Jon. "An assault might be bloody, especially with Dondarrion running around. A siege would drag for so long. The castle might have food enough to stand a year's siege. The battle for the Seven Kingdoms will be fought amidst King's Landing, not in Riverrun."

"But the Essosi are already starting the siege," Farring said. "They are already spending time in fashioning ladders and trebuchet and rams."

"Let them," said Jon. "That will keep them busy. Should they know that we are getting trapped here, those slavers would break first. Worse if they learn we are not having that dragon to protect us."

"But, my lord," Farring hesitated. "They will learn it sooner or later."

Jon nodded. "Aye, and I don't mean to be around here where I am hounded by Bolton and Dondarrion when that happens. I don't mean to stuck with a siege in Riverrun and split my army into three allowing Bolton to pick us off. Soon enough the wolves will come howling over our camps in a hundred places at once while we are with our guard down with a siege. Those who within the castle will join them when it happens and we will be done within the hour."

"Shall we ask the men to retreat then?"

"No," Jon said at once. "The slavers should not know. We have to make them keep their faith in us."

"I need those Unsullied," Jon reminded him. "I dance to their tunes only because of that. What choice have they left me?"

"What would you have me do, my lord?"

"Go and assemble your scouts," Jon told him. "Double the men so that they won't be overwhelmed if they come upon something. Send one party to the north, one to the east and one to the west further than the last time they went. I don't intend to be caught unawares. And have the garrison break camp and assembled in the yard."

Farring bowed stiffly. "As you command."

The assembly was made by the time Jon came out dressed in his mail and surcoat on. The yard of Stone Hedge was too small for his men, so most had made their camps in the fields around the castle. "We are ordered by the King to go and take part in the Siege of Riverrun with our eastern allies," he told them. "To help protect our rear I will be leaving some of you to hold Stone Hedge. Soon enough we will join together to defeat the rebels and restore peace to the realm. Now prepare for march."

No one said anything as he spoke. The men stood in their mail and fur and boiled leather listening, as still as if they were made of stone. They were waiting like that until his lords and knights shouted their commanders. "Get moving you lazy sons of bitches," Ser Sefton Staunton shouted. "You heard the Hand, we are marching."

That led to the men seeking out their weapons and wagons ready to leave the camp. Sefton Staunton stayed when the others had gone. He fell by his side as he was walking back to the castle. "How many men are we leaving in the castle, my lord?"

Jon made the quick steps up the stairs leading to the keep of Jonos Bracken. "A dozen," he said. "Not more."

"The wounded?" Sefton asked then, keeping up with him briskly. "We have some who will never be able to make the journey."

"Leave them at the castle, then," Jon told him. "Give them all that they need to sustain themselves."

"And the castlefolk?"

Jon turned to look at him. He knew what he meant by that. No, Jon told himself. At least he could spare these. The wretch from the east doesn't know about these. "They stay here," he said.

"The castle folk will turn on our men if the rebels thought to retake the castle."

"I know that," Jon said, impatient. "What would you have me do? We cannot take them with us. Tell those men to stay vigilant."

Staunton nodded once and moved off without a word.

His squire helped garb him for battle. Beneath his red surcoat and white mantle was a shirt of well-oiled ringmail, and under that a layer of stiff boiled leather. Once his lords brought word that the host was ready to leave, Jon led them away from the ancestral seat of the Brackens. Armed and armoured, Jon climbed upon the saddle of his warhorse and fell in at the head of the marching army.

He had sent Lucifer Hardy ahead with the vanguard to make sure no surprise was to befell them on their way or as they crossed the river. Jon held a swift pace wanting to link up with the slavers as soon as possible. They only stopped twice a day to rest and refresh and allow the horses to feed. The rest was spent entirely on horseback. By the third day they reached the eastern bank of the Red Fork. On the other bank the Essosi had encamped.

The slavers were spreading out to encircle the castle all the way from the eastern bank of the Tumbleton to the western bank of the Red Keep. It was hard to judge their numbers, a vast army made up of unsullied, slave soldiers, sellswords and free legions of the Ghiscari. They were building catapults and scorpions and battering rams. Some of the workers from Westeros were already working on two siege towers. And it looked like they were already cutting the trees from around for another one. There was enough timber in the lands around put up an effective siege but Jon knew it to be futile.

Jon studied their banners from a hill across the river. The banners of the eastern cities were as strange to him as it was to others, even though he had seen them many times before. He found the Harpy of Astapor more than the others. The one which had a woman's face, with the wings of a dragon and legs of an eagle, and the curled venomous tail of a scorpion.

The Harpy of Old Ghis. Old Ghis had fallen five thousand years ago, its legions shattered by the might of young Valyria, its brick walls pulled down, its streets and buildings turned to ash and cinder by dragonflame, its very fields sown with salt, sulfur, and skulls. The gods of Ghis were dead, and so too its people; all at the hands of the Dragonlords of Valyria. Their descendants these Astapori now fought with the Valyrians in the strange world they lived in.

Everywhere the standards of Astapor flew in heavy square cloth atop ebony staffs, the Harpy of Ghis clutching a chain in her talons, an open manacle at either end. He saw the harpy of Yunkai as well which had a whip and collar in her claws instead of the Astapori chain and manacles.

Soon enough Jon came upon to see the sprawling camp of the slavers. The camp was vast and large, spread over for leagues and infested with masters and soldiers and slaves and captives. The rivers on either side protected the flanks and apart from that there were no other defenses, no palisades, no lines of stakes, nothing else. Some of the unsullied stood guard around and within the camp was as organised as a fish market in Flea Bottom. Everyone was everywhere and the tents were thrown up all around. He saw some Stormcrows dicing with men from Second Sons. Only a few yards ahead there was a brawl between two men from the Brave Companions and three from Windblown.

The camp of the masters themselves was in the center of it all. He rode to that camp straight with Staunton and a dozen of his best knights following him. Some women was bringing water from the rivers to the tents, and the cooks were hard at work with fires and smell of meat roasting everywhere. They look as if they have encamped for some wedding feast, Jon thought as he entered. They must be glad they are so numerous and Dondarrions riders so less. Otherwise an orderly charge by an few hundred mounted knights would turn this encampment into a bloodbath, so long as they destroy it before the unsullied can form up.

The unsullied standing sentry at the entrance opened their spears to let him pass. He rode, through to the entrance into the slavers' encampment. As he emerged within, he watched some pikes buried within the ground and adorned with heads. He could sense the dead watching from the empty sockets where their eyes had been before the crows had picked them off. The heads had been long disfigured but Jon could still make out who they were.

Jon did not wait for them to come to him, instead marched in to the large tent of Kraznys. He trusted these masters not by much and so kept his army close by him. Though they were allies still and it was a poor show to bring an army into the tent of an ally for an audience. Instead he went in alone, accompanied only by his squire and standard bearer. They were alone in the tent, though Jon had left enough of his men surrounding the encampment, spearmen and archers, and a long line of mounted knights beneath the banners of the King himself.

"Good master." Jon reined to a halt before Kraznys. "It looks as if you are still preparing for a siege here." They had been preparing before Jon had left for Stone Hedge.

The good master was in the middle of devouring a bowl of berries. He had taken a liking to them from the feast in King's Landing the night before the day they had marched for war. "The good master says unsullied are not made to do this." The interpreter said as the slaver took a handful of berries and munched on it. "No need for worry still as the good master Kraznys shall win you this castle."

"That would not be needed," Jon told him. "There is a different order from the King. One that gives your unsullied what they were made up for. Battle."

Jon waited for the interpreter to pass his words to Kraznys. The tent was fully run by slaves and he even saw one Westerosi man amongst them.

"No offence to the Lord hand, but the good masters have invested a lot and already begun a siege."

Jon knew that Kraznys was far more crude and insulting than that. He was fortunate to have such a wise scribe. "I know what Master Kraznys and his fellow masters have started," Jon said to the master himself. "I saw it all on my way through the camp."

"What do you mean?" Kraznys mo Nakloz asked in his broken common tongue sat up from his large cushioned bed.

"You know what I mean," Jon said plainly. "I remember telling you to take the castle, not slaughter the people who were of no harm."

The slaver laughed. "How am I supposed to take the castle without killing some wretches?" Kraznys said. "I would have preferred them alive as well but those savages in the castle shot at us. We have to send a message."

"You will send no such message anymore," Jon said. "There is no need for one. We are leaving here?"

"To where?" Kraznys asked impatiently. "And where is the Prince of the Seven Kingdoms? We would be done here if he arrived here."

"Prince Aegon is fighting the war somewhere else," Jon lied. "We are to join him there."

Kraznys did not like that. "I was promised this castle and everything else in it," he complained.

"Then perhaps you should have taken it when you had the chance," Jon said, calmly. "Instead you wasted your time butchering unarmed men, women and children to your undying shame. Are you even trained in the arts of war to command men?"

Kraznys mo Nakloz shook in anger. "I command the unsullied," he said. "Not anyone but me, Kraznys mo Nakloz."

Jon nodded. "Aye, I came out only to ask, the good Kraznys mo Nakloz to command his armies against our foes. Just as he had promised. He shall have his prize then."

The man thought hard about it for a moment then looked at his interpreter. "The good master Kraznys says that he shall command his unsullied to do so," the interpreter said. "But he says that he shall take all the spoils."

"Not all," Jon said. "He will have to share it amongst his friends. There are some Yunkish and other troops as well. Some wise masters as well as good ones."

The slaver wanted to argue about that further but before he can do so the sudden sound of the warhorn split the world. Gilbert Farring, Jon knew at once. If he is sounding the horn then something was wrong.

Jon left the pavilion of Kraznys in haste. He did not have the time to settle the bickering of these eastern vultures on who gets the largest share of the carcass. He had better things to do.

Farring rode through the camp almost unopposed. His men following hard pressed behind him. In the yard he dismounted and handed his reins to the soldier behind him.

"Lord Connington!" Ser Gilbert came loping across the field. "My lord, you were right," he said as he came towards him. "There is an army- huge... huge army of westermen coming down from the West."

He felt a sudden sick sense of dread. "Where?" Jon asked. "Where did you see them?"

Farring spat out some blood. "Two days ride away from Golden Tooth," the knight. "We came across their scouts. We chased after them to deal with them and in hopes of catching one. But the bastards led us into a trap. We were too far deep into the West when I realised it and the vanguard was waiting for us. I lost half my men there. Half of the survivors were picked off as we escaped. Only a handful of us came back."

"Did you see the banners?" Jon asked. "Is it Lord Tywin?" Had the Old Lion come back to the field after he was served fire and blood by Prince Aegon in Stoney Sept?

Ser Gilbert gave a shake of his head. "I did not see Lord Tywin himself. But I saw the golden lion of Lannister everywhere. Along with the tree of Marbrand and boar of Crakehall and many others."

He could see it all clearly now. Lannister, Bolton, Dondarrion were all just parts of the trap that was seeking to shut it's mouth around him. If Lord Tywin is close then Roose Bolton must be circling nearby as well. Just like that Riverrun didn't seem to be safe anymore.

Kraznys mo Nakloz trailed after him as the warhorns started sounding everywhere. Chaos erupted in the camp and everyone got up to their feet restless. By the time Kraznys reached with his scribe in tow Jon turned to the slaver. "Do you see now why I said we ought to leave here?"

The good master gaped like an idiot.

Jon continued. "There's an army coming for us here," he said. "Might be two armies for all I know. One from there and there." He pointed out to the elevated Gold road to the West and the highlands across the eastern bank of the Red Fork. "While we are stuck here out in the open mounting a bloody siege."

Kraznys mo Nakloz gazed up at him in disbelief. Jon might have laughed at his fear if it were another time. "The prince," Kraznys babbled. "Aegon- Dragon- Where dragon?"

He wanted to give him a good swat across the ear. His hand was itching for it. "Prince Aegon is not here," Jon shouted out loud. "It's up to us now. Do you want to live?"

Kraznys nodded his head hastily.

"Then do as I say. Send two thousand unsullied to that road there and ask them to hold it. I will take some of my own men to support them while you get all those men you have here and leave this place. Go back to our allies."

"To Prince Aegon."

"Yes, to Prince Aegon," Jon said. "Now go get your men to leave quickly." He watched the slave master hopping off with the scribe.

If it had been Tywin Lannister alone he would have taken the battle to him. And he would have broken the back of the Lannisters once and for all. But with Roose Bolton nearby and Riverrun untaken at his back he was not eager to get caught in between two armies. Even with the Unsullied it would be a massacre.

With the Unsullied at least Jon could hold the Lannisters off at the Gold road as long as it takes for the army to leave. He would be damned if he is caught in between Lord Tywin and Roose Bolton. There would be no hope for the army then.

Jon called for Sefton Staunton. "You go with them," he said. "You have command of the army now."

"My lord, what about you?"

"I am staying back," Jon said. "The unsullied do not fear death. But that could not be said of these slaver captains. I do not trust them to hold the line."

By the time he reached the tip of the Gold road where it met with Riverrun, the unsullied were already waiting for him there. Kraznys had kept his word. Two thousand Unsullied had been marched out of their barracks; drawn up in ten ranks of one hundred at the road. They stood stiffly at attention, their stony eyes fixed straight ahead. They had already dressed up for battle, clad in leather breeches and quilted tunics, and bronze breastplate. Their helms were made of bronze as well, conical and topped with a sharpened spike a foot tall. In their hands were their spears and shields, and their short swords hung from the swordbelts around the waist.

The Tumbleton's banks were strangely tranquil. He found the slaver captain there, behind the ranks of his soldiers, hiding with his whip. Jon rode up to him. "The whip," he asked.

The captain thought hard about it but the sound of warhorns and wardrums booming broke his resolve. He handed the whip to Jon and fled on his horse without even looking behind.

The handle of the whip was black dragonbone, elaborately carved and inlaid with gold. Nine long thin leather lashes trailed from it, each one tipped by a gilded claw. The gold pommel was a woman's head, with pointed ivory teeth.

"Unsullied!" Jon galloped before them, whip in hand. "This doesn't command you anymore." He raised the harpy's fingers in the air . . . and then he flung the scourge aside. "You answer to me, not to the whip," he told them in the little Valyrian he knew.

The unsullied banged their spears against the shields all at once in the same time.

"Do you have an officer who leads you into battle?"

"This one is," came a voice from the middle of the first rank.

Jon moved his horse towards him. "And your name?"

"Grey Worm if it pleases your worship," he said.

"It does," Jon said. "Do you know the common tongue?"

"This one can hear and speak, your worship."

"Good," Jon said. "There is an army coming to meet us here. Our foes will be strong and far more numerous than anything you would have seen until now. I choose you to face against them because I know the Unsullied are the masters of spears and short swords. I have heard the tales of the Three Thousand of Qohor. You are made of the same fire and steel. It is my honour to lead men such as you into battle. Serve your king who has brought you here with greatest respect and every drop of blood you spill here shall be honoured threefold in Westeros."

"The unsullied relish a bit of fight," Grey Worm said. "These ones thirst for blood and they shall not shame you."

Jon nodded. "Good," he said. And turned back to his own men, a mix of hundreds of archers and mounted horsemen. "You hold the rear," Jon told Farring. "I want a hundred archers each along the treeline on either side. When you see any foe just feather them with all you have."

Jon sent Lucifer Hardy off to hold the river to their east to ward off any attack from Roose Bolton. They waited and waited for the battle as the rest of the men slowly broke the camp and started to leave.

Lord Tywin did not arrive, not until the last few units were finally disappearing from his gaze. Jon thanked the gods for that. If the battle had been joined before that and the Unsullied broke there would have been an bloody rout of his disorganised army.

The foes came in the blue dust, with the evening stars and a bloody red dusk. Everywhere he saw there was the lion of Lannister in heavy crimson silks flying proudly from tall golden staffs.

Farring had been true. This was no mere scouting party. The Lannister army had come from their rocks. "Battle formations," Jon ordered. Grey worm repeated his command and the Unsullied all gave a shout.

It was the archers who started it just like he had thought. "Shields up," Jon commanded and every man acted as one as the shields went up, protecting those in front of them and behind. The arrows all clattered off the large rounded shields. None made its way through.

"Hold," Jon shouted above the volleys. And the unsullied did against all the arrows that were loosed against them. Not a single man died and never had he seen such a disciplined unit before.

When the arrows of the archers didn't work the cavalry came. Jon was hoping for this. He held his archers back for a while until they had charged close enough and then gave his word.

"Loose!" The two hundred men let go at once and the sound of whisper was so sweet before they turned into screams of pain. Those who survived the arrows died against the pikes of the unsullied. The trebuchets his army had left behind swung its boulders intended to break the walls of Riverrun against the Lannister army left away and alone and untouched by his archers. That ought to spread some chaos amongst them.

Everyone worked as one, the archers, unsullied and the men working the trebuchet, casting a bloody ruin upon the foe. The gold road was soon filled win, dead men and dying horses. The knights of Lord Tywin charged and broke their lines against the unsullied, wheeled around and charged again. He saw no battle lines, only a swirling chaos of banners and blades as he trebuchets tearing the larger force to a bloody ruin with rocks and boulders. Shouts and screams rang through the cold autumn air. Each time the Lannisters came to them with increasing numbers, but the unsullied held still and firm. Jon watched them charge and wheel and charge again, breaking themselves to bloody pieces against the spears and shields of the Unsullied. He could hear the crash of lances and swords on iron shields over the terrified trumpeting of a maimed horse. Jon turned back and saw no fighting in the east and quickly muttered a thanks to the Seven.

They fought for hours or so it seemed. Hours as the Lannisters charged again and again to no avail until the warhorns sounded again and they turned away, at least those who could. The sun was low in the west, painting the fields and houses all a glowing red. A thin wavering cry of pain drifted over the fields, and a warhorn sounded off beyond the dead and dying men and horses amassed before the unsullied.

The Lannisters had left many dead that they choked the gold road. Jon counted more than a thousand dead at least and he had not lost a single man. The day ended with a great victory but they did not celebrate. There was no time to. When Tywin Lannister's army had left away from where his trebuchets could reach them, Jon ordered his men to clear the road of the dead. In front of Riverrun his men dug a ditch and buried all those who died in the battle all while the people from Riverrun watched.

"No raven should ever reach or leave Riverrun," Jon told the archers around. "I will not have Tywin Lannister knowing my strength through these Tullys."

That night he kept his army up, having no intentions to be taken unawares while they slept. The next day dawned up with the sounds of swords clashing as well. The Lannisters attacked at dawn and his men threw them back again. This time the Western archers blooded some of his men but not one unsullied fell.

The first one died the third day, a tall and broad Summer Islander, who called himself Black Roach who was cut down by a knight who managed to break the line for a mere second before being killed. But not before he slew the valiant Black Roach.

Jon let the unsullied to bury their fallen brother in their own manner and paid his own respects. The messenger he had sent after his army had not returned yet. He could hold off the road still, Jon thought, so long as the river behind them was uncrossed.

There were no end for their foes. Each day they would come creeping over their fallen soldiers until they were reduced to red ruin like those before them. Some days were hard on him as he was forced to bury his own men in their hundreds, even the Unsullied.

For nine days he stood with his men and for nine days and nine nights the unsullied didn't move an inch back from where he had positioned even when they died in hundreds. The road was held. On the ninth day the messenger arrived, from Acorn Hill bringing news that his army had reached there safely.

I am saved, Jon thought. He would not have survived another day of battle, not with his already battered army who had all earned their due. He gave the order of retreat as dusk settled, preferring to leave while everyone else slept.

But the Lannisters came for them again as they were leaving. The Lannister men had cut down Red Beetle and Grey Rat, his sentries. More were pouring through, a river of mail and sharp swords. And others were climbing out through the forest lines. Jon turned around and saw that there was fighting in the east as well on his side of the river.

"Back to the forest," Jon shouted above the chaos of the battle. "Retreat, Retr-"

An arrow caught him square on his unprotected face, and his cheekbone shattered with a sickening crunch beneath the steel and wood. The world vanished in a red roar of pain.

Sometime later, Jon found himself on the ground. He rolled onto his stomach and swallowed a mouthful of blood. Retreat! he tried to shout, but he could not.

The last thing Jon Connington saw was a dozen men in spiked helm with short swords in hand, pressing in all around him.