[Chapter Size: 4000 Words.]
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Third Person POV
Reach, 300 AC.
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A horse rode swiftly across the lush green hills, passing men tending their flocks while children ran and played through the fields. The rider continued galloping along the road until he finally caught sight of the enormous castle, surrounded by the great city built along one of its sides.
That castle was Highgarden.
The man on horseback quickly rode through the city, drawing the attention of the townsfolk, who watched him in surprise at the speed with which he rode. Shortly afterward, he passed through the gates.
"I am Ser Justan of Vyrwel. I am here to deliver a message to Lord Tyrell, directly from my lady."
The guards merely exchanged a glance before nodding, allowing him to enter. The rider continued to the stables, handed his horse over to one of the stable hands, and walked toward the castle's interior.
"Ser Justan, it is an honor. Messages from the North?" asked the steward, Garth Tyrell, approaching as soon as he heard of his arrival.
Lord Willas Tyrell had instructed him to immediately receive any information coming from the North and bring it directly to him.
"Exactly. I have just returned from there. My lady is coming south, seeking refuge," the rider replied.
"Then the news is terrible. Have they reached Vyrwel?" Garth asked, surprised and fearful.
"They're coming..." the rider said.
"Please, follow me."
The two quickly entered the castle, climbing the stairs.
Willas was seated on one of the balconies. A cane rested beneath both of his hands as he seemed lost in thought. On the table sat tea and fruit, though he had barely touched the food. He merely gazed over the view of Highgarden, as he had often done in recent days whenever he was not dealing with matters brought by the nobles who never seemed to stop arriving.
"Lord Tyrell, Ser Justan has just arrived. He has brought news from the North," the steward announced.
Willas turned his gaze toward the man entering the chamber. "Hello, Ser Justan. It's good to see you here." They knew him well, as he was a rather old man, nearly retired.
The rider simply bowed. "Lord Willas."
"You may leave us." Willas dismissed Garth, who merely nodded before closing the door behind him.
"How are our enemies progressing?" Willas asked in a serious tone.
"They continue marching south, my lord," Ser Justan replied, his concern evident. "A battle was fought at Oakheart, just as had been predicted about a week ago."
The Wythers had quickly sent messengers to report everything that had happened in the northern lands of the neighboring territory. At the same time, Lowther had also dispatched ships, considering that the safest way to deliver the information, despite the rumors that Arctican vessels constantly patrolled the coast.
"It is already known that they entered the lands of the Wythers and the Lowthers. We have completely lost contact with the seats of those Houses. However, we know they then moved into the territories of the Inchfields and the Kewels, advancing directly toward Vyrwel, where I have come from." Willas listened to it all in silence, already knowing that this would happen...
"Have any villages been sacked?" he asked, fearing that the common folk were suffering, although no messages about it had yet been reported, with no trace of fire in the sky since no one had been able to get close enough to where the army was. But the absence of fires could be a positive sign that they were not plundering the smaller towns and villages.
"My Lady Vyrwel, whom I serve, has already abandoned the House's seat at Darkdell. She chose to retreat and is coming here. I rode ahead only to warn you," the knight explained, swallowing hard.
"Then, before long, they'll be here..." Willas fell silent for a few moments.
Willas feared they were coming straight here, without bothering to conquer any of the strongholds.
Reinforcements from Rowan, Shermer, and other territories north of the Reach had already been summoned. The region's lords, concerned by the enemy's advance, had begun sending small contingents of knights and soldiers as support. Many had already arrived from the Florents, Fossoways, Tarlys, and more territories to the south.
It was not a great army they were assembling, only a few thousand men hastily recruited in an attempt to halt Arctic's advance.
Willas spoke with the knight for some time, asking whether he had managed to learn anything else. However, everything he had heard was practically the same.
Fifteen thousand men were marching south. Giants, dwarves, and men of that kingdom, all clad in full armor. Wagons carried strange dismantlable war machines, according to the reports of those who had seen them.
The most troubling detail, however, was something else. According to the rumors, those same fifteen thousand men had completely destroyed a Lannister army of thirty thousand.
The Reach had tried to intercept them at various points around the region ever since news of them had ceased, as everyone knew the battle would take place north of Oakheart. But since then, there had been nothing...
The complete absence of information pointed to only one possibility. They had been defeated.
Perhaps the enemy was far larger than they had imagined. Perhaps they had prepared an ambush. Although an army of that size could hardly be caught by surprise, it also seemed impossible that thirty thousand men could simply vanish.
What Willas did not yet know was that several scouts from House Crane and House Wythers had already reached the battlefield. A few days earlier, they had witnessed all the destruction caused by the Arcticans. There had not yet been enough time for them to send the news, whether by ship or by riding around the enemy army.
That information was about to reach them by ship before the end of the day.
Meanwhile, the number of men being recruited to form a force against the Arcticans continued to grow at Highgarden, which was also filled with noblewomen and children abandoning their lands because of the invasion from the north. The fear of seeing their castles destroyed had driven countless nobles to seek refuge in the capital of the Reach.
Even the common folk were behaving the same way, fleeing their villages and towns. Even without any proof or actions suggesting such behavior from the Arcticans, no one wanted to stay and gamble with their lives.
After some time, Willas was left alone. The knight had already departed north, where Lady Vyrwel was arriving, leaving him alone with his thoughts.
Once again, his land was being invaded by a foreign enemy. It was not enough that the Ironborn had caused so many problems throughout the year, terrorizing coastal towns and raiding settlements. Now the Reach also had to deal with the Arcticans. The only good thing was that the Ironborn ships had begun fleeing as soon as the Arcticans arrived, but they had merely been replaced by another enemy.
The relationship between the two kingdoms had always been complicated.
It had all begun through trade. Arctic had shown great interest in purchasing horses from the Reach, and not just a few. They arrived with goods that could not be found anywhere else in the world. The purchase of those horses had become one of the greatest commercial deals in the history of the Reach.
Then came the men sent beyond the Wall.
There were those who claimed that those northern warriors possessed enough gold to rival even the Lannisters.
Then everything changed. The attack on Oldtown happened. To the nobles of the kingdom, the Arcticans had sacked an entire city out of pure greed, taking advantage of the moment when nearly all the lords were gathered at Highgarden.
Even so, it would be foolish to claim they could not have done far worse. They could have even conquered Highgarden, as they had threatened during the negotiations. Even his grandmother had heard those words from Jon Arctic after numerous provocations between both sides.
It would not be accurate to say that attack had been planned from the very beginning.
They had been provoked in Oldtown, and Lord Hightower knew it... his invitation to the city had been somewhat suspicious. His grandmother had reached that conclusion after investigating what had happened.
Even so, the Reach had to respond. That was why they sent their men to fulfill it, all sixteen thousand of them venturing beyond the Wall.
Not one of them returned alive. And to that day, the renowned Lord Hightower had remained their prisoner for years, and no one knew what had happened to him... Many believed he was dead.
They knew that, as Arctic gained renown through its voyages to Essos, that kingdom had become far too powerful an enemy to confront. Even his grandmother had begun to fear them, no longer wishing to enter into conflict with them again.
That was why Willas had gone north alongside his brother, Garlan, to negotiate and repay the debt for failing to deliver all the horses that had been agreed upon and already paid for, even though they had to keep it hidden from the rest of the kingdom. After all, the Reach would never accept that they were reimbursing the enemy that had caused them so much harm. At least, as Tyrells, they would no longer owe Arctic anything.
Now, however, they had aligned themselves with the Lannisters in an alliance to place Margaery upon the throne.
And after an entire year without any news, they had finally returned. And they had returned with a force that even Willas had to admit everyone had underestimated until recently...
He knew that, in the North, the Greyjoys had been completely wiped out in the span of a single moon. It did not take long for word to spread that, shortly afterward, the Arcticans had sailed to the Iron Islands and launched an invasion.
In a way, it was even good that the two sides were killing each other. After all, both were potential enemies of the Reach. But discovering that they had stationed themselves at Seagard only a week after attacking the Iron Islands was shocking.
After that, all communications began to grow strange. No one received any more news from Arctic, and no one knew whether they were conducting a military campaign in the Riverlands.
An entire moon passed before they realized the Arcticans had made their move in the Westerlands, invading, attacking, and once again completely destroying communications between the kingdoms.
The next news arrived only twenty-two days later. They were attacking the Westerlands.
Rumors spoke of the complete destruction of Casterly Rock and several other castles. They also claimed that noblewomen and children were being massacred as an act of vengeance.
Willas found it difficult to believe that, if he were honest. But he did not doubt they were destroying castles.
And, to many lords, that could be even worse than losing their entire family. After all, no one could inherit a stronghold if it no longer existed, could they?
All that remained was to wait and discover what would truly happen.
The times, however, were not favorable. Before long, the invasion reached the Reach, finally entering the lands of House Durwell.
A messenger on horseback galloped toward Highgarden while, once again, all communication through ravens vanished.
There was not a single raven left in the sky. None of the birds sent from Highgarden ever reached their destination. Willas himself had already tested it.
Well... what else could he expect? He had seen Arya Stark control an eagle and slash the queen's face in broad daylight.
If they were capable of that, he could not imagine what else their king was capable of. So it was not difficult to believe that one of his abilities was controlling every bird in Westeros.
Lady Durwell had requested that all information be passed along. She spoke of the number of soldiers, the giants, the wagons loaded with equipment, and also of the various cloths covering part of the cargo, preventing anyone from seeing what was beneath.
But there was one piece of information that was even more alarming.
They possessed a total of one thousand giants.
One thousand giants.
Those thousand giants alone were easily the equivalent of more than ten thousand men in battle. The true strength of that army could not be measured solely by the fifteen thousand soldiers marching south. The tales of the Dothraki Sea proved they were far too dangerous...
Willas hoped that number had been reduced after the conflict against the Lannisters.
Now, however, he was beginning to feel that perhaps the men of the Westerlands had never stood a chance. According to the reports arriving aboard ships from the lands of Yi Ti, the Arcticans knew exactly how to fight larger armies. They used the terrain to their advantage, carefully chose where to strike, and always seemed to know the enemy's position before the battle even began.
And discovering that nearly their entire army remained intact after leaving Oakheart, where there should have been a fierce battle between thirty thousand men and fifteen thousand Arcticans, was certainly alarming.
At the very least, Willas hoped that settling their old debts would make Jon somewhat more willing to negotiate. He knew that the conflict had now become inevitable, ever since the Reach had chosen to support the Lannisters.
Even so, he hoped to achieve some form of cooperation. Up to that point, not a single castle in the Reach had been destroyed.
Perhaps that meant it was not yet the king's intention, even though marching directly toward Highgarden was the more advantageous option, giving the Reach little opportunity to raise a large army.
Over the following days, numerous lords arrived from every corner of the Reach to learn what his decisions would be. With no communication from King's Landing or the army stationed there, it was Willas who commanded the entire kingdom at that moment.
Very quickly, he had no choice but to order the raising of as many men as possible to form a force capable of confronting the invaders.
At the same time, fear spread. Knowing that entire castles had been unable to withstand Arctic's advance was deeply unsettling to all the nobility.
Some lords had already begun advocating surrender. Others claimed they never should have allied themselves with the Lannisters. There were even those who said that making Willas's sister queen had brought nothing but misfortune upon the Reach.
The curious part was that those very same people had spent years openly insulting Arctic after the incident at Oldtown and the destruction of the entire Redwyne Fleet.
In any case, by the end of that same day, another message finally arrived. A knight approached bearing information about what had been found north of Oakheart by ship.
The news was disturbing.
Willas struggled to believe it when he met the man and read the letters... They had found nothing but the charred remains of men. Tens of thousands of them.
When he entered the great hall that night, where more than thirty lords had already gathered, along with representatives from five other noble houses who had abandoned their castles to seek refuge at Highgarden, the atmosphere was filled with fear.
Most of those present were women and children too young to fight.
All of them were terrified by what was happening in the north, and Willas could not blame them.
Their fathers, husbands, and sons remained in King's Landing, while they could neither ask for help nor even know exactly what was happening in the Reach.
He understood the fear those people felt. Even so, he had to announce what he had just learned.
"Everyone..." Willas began.
His words caused the entire hall to fall silent. Conversations ceased immediately as every eye turned toward him.
"I have received news from the north." The tension was immediate.
Lady Oakheart went pale at once. She had abandoned her castle to board a ship bound for Highgarden, bringing along her four-year-old son.
"The Lannisters arrived with thirty thousand men at the place where the Arcticans were waiting for them. And, my lords... I must tell you, it was a massacre." His words immediately cast a heavy mood over the hall before Willas continued.
"The Arcticans used the terrain to their advantage, preparing a trap. From what I have heard about the traces found on the battlefield, part of the Arctican force managed to outflank them, attacking the men of the Westerlands from behind... most likely landing from their ships and striking the Lannisters in the rear."
"What our scouts found was nothing but a battlefield completely devastated by the fighting, with around thirty thousand men of the Westerlands burned to the bone."
"They defeated thirty thousand Lannister men?" one of the knights exclaimed, clearly shaken.
The forces they had managed to gather at Highgarden still did not even number fifteen thousand men. It had already been two weeks since the invasion of the Reach had begun, and, given enough time, they might be able to gather another ten thousand soldiers.
Even so, most of them were merely farmers who had never held a sword.
They were being conscripted by force. Otherwise, there would be no way to defend the Reach.
"We will have to fight with what we have, my lords. But I have made a decision." Willas paused briefly. "I am going north."
"What do you mean, Lord Tyrell?" one of the women asked, completely astonished.
She had a twelve-year-old daughter and, over the past few days, had been trying to bring her closer to Willas, hoping to make her his betrothed, although he had never liked the idea of such a young girl being pushed into that kind of situation. The girl herself did not seem particularly enthusiastic about having a cripple as her husband, her attention seeming far more focused on the knights at Highgarden.
"My lord, you cannot be serious," the steward said as he approached the table. Garth was the uncle of Willas's father.
But Willas had already made his decision from the moment he learned of the Lannisters' fate. "I believe I can speak with him. It will be dangerous, I know. But if Jon Arctic is commanding that army, there is still a chance to negotiate. I traveled to Winterfell and negotiated personally with Lady Arya Stark. I have some familiarity with them from that time."
The entire hall began to murmur. Soon afterward, several voices rose in opposition.
Willas, however, simply ignored them. "It is decided. During my absence, Highgarden will remain under Garlan's command. I will take only loyal men with me."
"Allow me to accompany you, Lord Tyrell. I cannot allow you to face our enemies alone," said one of the knights of the region, rising to his feet.
Another knight also rose to his feet. "I wish to go as well, my lord. I want to face them. I will not remain protected behind these walls while you stand before the enemy."
The displays of support quickly multiplied, and Willas simply nodded.
The following morning, everything was prepared quickly. Since he could not ride because of his legs, he would travel in a wagon.
There was no other choice. Shortly afterward, the group set out north, consisting of around sixty men-at-arms and more than twenty knights.
Willas knew he could no longer enter Vyrwel. The fief had already been lost.
On the very same day he had left Highgarden, Lady Vyrwel arrived at the castle accompanied by her young son and her fifteen-year-old daughter after abandoning her seat. Another young woman whom Willas knew people would try to push into a marriage with him.
In any case, he pushed the thought from his mind.
He chose to wait at a small inn north of the territory. The reports indicated that the Arcticans continued to avoid towns and villages. That seemed to confirm they had no intention of devastating the Reach, as so many claimed. It also gave him some hope that negotiation might still be possible.
For some time now, however, Willas had felt that he was being watched.
Even there.
As he stood near the inn's open window, his eyes settled upon a small songbird perched on the highest branch of a tree in the center of the village.
The bird remained perfectly still, watching him.
'He is watching you the entire time...' A voice echoed in his mind.
Willas tried to convince himself it was only an ordinary bird. But after everything he had heard about Jon Arctic, he could no longer completely dismiss that possibility.
He did not like the idea that someone could be spying on him in such a way. Especially when that someone was marching toward him at the head of an army.
Even so, what other choice did he have?
Two days later, the Arctican army finally entered the lands of House Tyrell.
"Let's go." Willas mounted a horse fitted with a saddle specially adapted for his condition. He could not ride properly, but at least he could meet the enemy with some dignity.
His men helped him mount, carefully fastened the straps that kept his legs firmly secured to the saddle, and soon afterward, the small party departed.
It did not take long before they encountered a scout. As soon as the man spotted them, other soldiers quickly emerged, as though they had already been expecting their arrival.
"You are Lord Tyrell, correct?" one of them asked.
The armor he wore was heavier than that of the others. Moreover, the entirely Valyrian steel armor revealed that he held a position of high rank.
Willas immediately recognized that design. It was exactly the same type of armor worn by Arctic's Royal Guards in Winterfell, who remained at Arya's side at all times.
That alone was enough to reveal his importance within the Arctican army.
"We wish to speak with your king," Willas replied.
Although he noticed some of his men discreetly considering the possibility of capturing him, he made every effort not to show any concern. Without his order, however, he did not believe they would do anything so reckless.
He had no doubt that the moment they attempted any move against them, a large number of their men would immediately charge forward to attack.
His men were only somewhat confident because they numbered sixty against twenty Arcticans, but it was clear from their bearing alone that they would not be easy prey.
"Yes. The king has already spoken about you. You may come with us accompanied by twenty men, no more than that. We swear by our gods that no harm will come to you unless you commit a grave offense or provocation. If you wish to speak with our king, he has said he is willing to receive you." The armored man spoke calmly while Willas's men showed obvious unease.
There was still no sign of the army. Looking across the surrounding fields, it was clear that the main force remained far behind the scouts, keeping any curious eyes as far away as possible.
"Very well. We will do that," Willas replied. He decided to trust the man's word.
Despite the disapproving looks from some of his knights, Willas simply ignored them and called over his most trusted men.
"Twenty of you will come with me." He then turned back to the scout. "Please, lead the way."
The knight merely nodded before turning his horse. Before long, everyone followed behind him.
What other choice did Willas truly have? If he could negotiate, there was still a chance to avoid a devastating war for the Reach.
And if he ended up being captured and used as a hostage, as many of his men feared, it would only hasten a fate that might already be inevitable.
Deep down, Willas had no confidence that Highgarden could withstand that army for very long.
And so, they continued riding north.
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