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They say that a man without shame is invincible in this world.
And if a man casts aside even his own life and death, then in a certain sense, he too becomes an existence that nothing can overcome.
Sword in hand, though reduced to skin and bone, Robb Stark stood tall upon the eastern gate of Harrenhal. In that moment, his presence alone became the unquestioned center of the fortress, a pillar around which all else seemed to revolve.
Some of the soldiers recognized him. They had seen this same king walking the ramparts earlier, tirelessly making his rounds along the walls. The sight of him still alive, sword raised despite his frailty, sent a surge of strength through their weary hearts.
For days now, rumors had spread within Harrenhal, whispering that His Grace had already perished inside the keep. Along with the whispers came wild and twisted theories, conspiracies that festered in the dark and unsettled the northern troops. Restlessness spread like a fever through the ranks.
Yet the lower a man stood in the order of things, the more firmly he clung to his king or emperor, placing in him all his faith, all his fragile hope.
Now, many soldiers gathered of their own accord around Robb Stark. They saw clearly the hollowness in his frame, the exhaustion etched into his body, and most of all, the sword gripped tightly in his left hand, the sign of his lingering weakness.
To protect their king; such was their only thought, simple and instinctive.
But Robb Stark needed no such protection. With a harsh command, he drove them back to their own positions, sending them to hold their ground along the defenses. Then, alone, he strode to the very center of the eastern gatehouse.
From that instant onward, he was no longer merely their king. He became the Lord Commander of Harrenhal's final stand, the unchallenged master of the eastern gate and of the brutal clash that would soon erupt there.
Through Tywin Lannister's unusual haste, Robb sensed something more beneath the surface. A subtle urgency was pressing at the edges of the old lion's carefully guarded resolve.
Surely, Tywin knew how hollow Harrenhal's defenses had become. Yet even so, to attack now, at this hour and in such weather, was far from a wise choice in Robb's eyes.
And still, Tywin Lannister struck. Which could only mean one thing: something else was forcing his hand, driving him to launch a full assault without delay.
Robb's gaze turned northward, toward the snow-swept wilderness. A thought stirred within him, clear and steady.
Most likely, their reinforcements were already on the way, ready to sink their teeth deep into the lion's exposed ass.
That alone explained why Tywin had chosen to move in the middle of a heavy snowfall, when the snow fell in thick, blinding veils and the world itself seemed frozen in place, as if holding its breath.
But so be it. The enemy had arrived, and there was no longer any room for hesitation or retreat. Let this battle be fought to its bitter end. Between the lion and the wolf, one must fall.
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"READY… LOOSE!"
The long-prepared siege engines of the Lannister host, labored over for months in expectation of this very moment, were finally brought to bear in this final struggle.
The range of the trebuchets far surpassed that of any bow and arrow. And because of the unique force of their mechanism, their reach extended even farther than the powerful wall-mounted crossbows used in defense.
For this reason, the Westerlands army positioned these towering engines behind the main ranks, shielding them within the safety of their formation.
At the command, soldiers hacked through the thick ropes. The weighted counterbalance dropped in an instant, dragging the great arm of the trebuchet in a sweeping arc. With a violent whip, it hurled massive stones smeared with grease and set ablaze, sending them hurtling through the snowy sky. Each rock trailed fire like a meteor, a ball of roaring flame aimed straight at Harrenhal's ancient walls.
Do not be deceived by the weather. Though the air was filled with snow, though the ground was white and wet, these flames could not be easily smothered.
The reason was simple. Flames fed with grease would not die until the fuel itself was fully consumed. Unless the air could be cut off entirely, the fire would rage on, devouring everything until the last trace of oil was gone.
And in this bitter cold, the soldiers were lacking proper winter garments issued by the army. Each had stuffed their clothing with whatever scraps they could scavenge to keep warm: bundles of straw, torn bits of cloth, dry rushes gathered from the roadside. Without exception, every one of those makeshift layers was tinder waiting to catch, a silent invitation to the flames.
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"TAKE COVER!"
Robb Stark's roar split the air, sharp and furious, dragging dazed soldiers back from their stupor. For a heartbeat, many had simply stared upward, transfixed by the sight of blazing boulders tearing through the sky, trailing long tails of smoke as they descended toward them like omens of death.
In the face of such weapons, flesh and bone were pitifully fragile. If struck directly, it mattered little how strong or seasoned a man was. The result would always be the same. Bones shattered, bodies crushed beyond recognition, reduced to a heap of broken meat that was anything but human.
All they could hope for now was that the surviving crenellations of the eastern gate might shield them long enough to cling to life, if only for a few more moments.
"BOOOOM—!"
A thunderous crash followed.
The stone slammed into the battlements. The sound was not shrill but heavy, a muffled boom that seemed to shake the marrow of one's bones and rattle the very foundation of the fortress.
Yet no matter how thick or solid the battlements were, they could not withstand such a crushing blow.
After all, the laws of nature held true here as they did anywhere. The weight of the stone, the acceleration of its fall, the immense energy carried in that mass; these forces combined to create a power so overwhelming that in an instant the battlements split and shattered. The soldiers hiding behind them were left with no escape. They either died where they stood or were maimed beyond saving, their bodies flung like broken dolls into the snow.
"AAAAAAAH! My leg!"
Only five paces away from where Robb himself had taken cover, a soldier of House Karstark was struck down. The incoming stone had hit directly, crushing into the wall and snapping his leg clean beneath the impact like kindling beneath an axe.
The break was ghastly. Pale white bone jutted through torn flesh, gleaming stark against the snow and the smoke. The wounded man clutched his ruined limb, writhing on the ground, his screams raw and terrible enough to chill the blood of every man within earshot and silence even the bravest among them.
Robb Stark did not move to help him. A wound like that, even in Winterfell, could not be healed with certainty. Here in Harrenhal, where medicinal care was scarce and rudimentary, it was nothing short of a death sentence.
If there had been even the barest hint of proper care in this cursed fortress, Robb himself would not now be standing with one foot already brushing against death's threshold, his breath fogging in the cold as he stared into the chaos that had become his battlefield.
"BOOM, BOOM, BOOM…"
The bombardment went on, relentless, for nearly twenty minutes. Stones continued to crash against Harrenhal's eastern gate until, at last, one of the trebuchets gave out. Its massive throwing arm snapped mid-swing, and the great stone it carried flew wild into the air before plunging straight down. It landed with a sickening crash on a knight below, horse and rider alike smashed into nothing more than pulp upon the frozen ground.
With that, the Lannister bombardment ended.
However, there was no respite for the defenders upon the walls. No time to breathe, no moment to gather strength.
The low, heavy drone of war horns rolled across the field. The front lines of the Westerlands army"s infantry surged forward as one, a tide of red and gold pressing toward the battered ruins of Harrenhal's eastern gate.
Robb Stark had seen this pattern before. He knew what came next. Shaking the dust and rubble from his cloak, his face streaked with ash and sweat, he stood tall once more upon the shattered stone and bellowed, voice carrying above the horns and the thunder of boots.
"The bloody Westerlanders are coming! To arms! Meet them head on!"
In any assault such as this, the main thrust would always fall upon the gate. The walls were too thick, too heavy to bring down in a single stroke, but the gate… even the sturdiest gate was always weaker than the stone around it.
Therefore, as long as the men with the ram succeeded in smashing it open, the flood of infantry behind them would pour through. By sheer weight of numbers, they would crush the defenders inside, seize the gate, and swing it wide to let the host surge into the keep.
If one did not consider the head-on fighting that might follow within the inner walls, then the fall of the gate alone was enough to decide the battle.
Yet although that was the usual course of things, the truth was never so simple. The gate, fixed in place and predictable, was always the heart of the defense. From above could come rolling logs and crashing stones. Worse still, jars filled with grease could be hurled down, and with a single flaming arrow, the confined space before the gate would transform into a blazing inferno, a vision of hell itself.
The attackers would bleed heavily at the gate, and even then, success was far from certain.
But this time, Tywin Lannister had committed himself fully. The old lion was prepared to gamble everything. He no longer cared about the cost.
A heavy ram was brought forth, a massive log bound with iron, mounted on a wheeled frame. Under the shelter of thick shields held high above it, the contraption rumbled forward across the churned mud, heading straight for Harrenhal's eastern gate.
The Westerlands soldiers had even taken the trouble to scatter snow across its surface. It looked like such a small precaution, almost laughable at first glance, yet it was enough to ensure that before the ram reached the walls, no fire arrow loosed from above could set it ablaze.
"Scorpions! Bring down that battering ram for me! Don't let it reach the gate!"
Robb Stark's voice rang out sharply across the wall. He had already seen that the ordinary arrows his men fired only thudded uselessly against the wooden shell, sticking there without piercing through.
So he turned at once to the crew manning the great scorpion, ordering them to aim at the lumbering machine below, the ram groaning as it pushed forward inch by inch through the mire, and let loose their heavy bolts.
The bolts were precious, but there was little choice left. The garrison's supply of oil was already on its last dregs.
They had been holding the walls for so long that their stores were nearly empty. At the last rationing, the eastern gate had received only fifteen jars in total. Of those, only seven had been kept here at the gate. The other eight had been split evenly, four to each side, to cover the long stretch of wall that also needed defending.
And if that ram reached the castle gates, it would take at least three jars or more poured down in fire to be certain of destroying it completely.
The oil, then, was their final resort. If it could be spared, it had to be spared.
The taut hum of bowstrings released. A single great quarrel screamed downward, the air splitting around it.
The scorpion crews were all hardened men, skilled in their craft, and the shot struck true. The heavy bolt ripped through the timbered side of the ram, shattering half its frame in a single blow. The supporting beam splintered apart, and the massive log that hung within fell loose, crashing uselessly into the mud.
From the battlements, Robb Stark finally allowed himself a breath. Relief washed over him. That ram, cobbled together by Lannister soldiers for this very assault, was finished.
But his smile lasted scarcely ten seconds. A cry rose up from the men around him, and Robb turned his head. From the red-and-gold tide below, two more rams were being rolled forward, each the same as the first.
It was clear now that Tywin Lannister had planned this strike long in advance.
Building even one such ram consumed time, labor, and costly materials. Yet here there were not one, but three. Tywin had emptied his coffers and stripped his camps bare to bring them forth. The old lion was determined to see this through, no matter what it cost him.
The battle quickly burned its way into its fiercest and most unforgiving stage.
On the walls, the defenders were far too few to sustain a steady assault. Every man was pressed into service wherever he was needed, without rest or reprieve. Some soldiers worked as stone throwers one moment, then snatched up spears to stand in the shield line the next. When they found a spare heartbeat of time, they bent to strip arrows from the corpses of fallen comrades and loosed a hurried shot or two into the chaos below. Their fingers were numb from cold and caked in blood.
It was the inevitable result of having too few men and too many places to defend. Altogether, fewer than three hundred guarded the eastern gate. Against the crushing weight of several thousand Lannister troops in red and gold, they were stretched unbearably thin, pulled apart in every direction, and still expected to hold without faltering.
Below the walls, three disciplined phalanxes of archers stepped into position. Their lines were straight and precise, their movements practiced and cold. Then they tilted their bows skyward and loosed a great storm of arrows at the eastern gate.
This was not like the scattered, halfhearted replies the Northmen had managed until now.
Thousands of fletched shafts lifted into the air at once, and to the eye it seemed as though a great dark cloud was sweeping across the sky.
Only this cloud did not bring rain. It was a cloud meant to take lives.
In an instant, arrows came pelting down like a storm, hissing through the air. The defenders on the wall, caught unprepared, were torn apart. Men dropped where they stood, while others staggered back bleeding, collapsing among the stone merlons. The survivors had no choice but to duck low, pressing themselves behind the jagged, broken remains of the battlements. The storm of arrows pinned them there, crushed beneath its weight.
This was the archers buying time for the foot soldiers of the assault, who were already surging forward with their ladders.
Once the vanguard reached the base of the wall and those long ladders were set firmly in place, the archers' role was finished. Any further shots risked striking their own men as they climbed upward toward the battlements.
If the garrison had been stronger in number, this was the moment when they should have risen and answered in kind. They should have loosed arrows freely at the lightly armored enemy archers who still lingered in the open fields below, exposed and vulnerable.
And had they done so, they could have trusted that their own losses would have been far lighter than the enemy's. The advantage would have been theirs, if only they had the numbers to seize it.
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Soon the first soldier of the Westerlands crested the wall. He had only just swung his leg over the battlement when a waiting spearman stepped forward and thrust his weapon clean through the man's chest. The soldier's scream echoed for an instant, sharp and ragged, before his body tumbled backward, crashing down into the press of men below.
That was the true beginning of the melee.
It was as if that moment was a signal. More and more soldiers of the Westerlands broke through the Northmen's desperate ring of death, clambering up the ladders and spilling onto the wall walk.
The clash of blades rang out, sharp and metallic, chiming again and again as steel struck steel. Beneath that music came the heavier sounds, the sickening thuds of iron driving into flesh, mingled with the ragged, raw-throated cries of the dying.
The eastern gate of Harrenhal roared with the sound of slaughter.
Yet it was not only here. Tywin Lannister's assault was everywhere at once. The northern gate too was drowning in the same blood-soaked struggle, no less brutal, no less merciless.
On a battlefield such as this, human life was stripped of all worth.
There was only one law left: grit your teeth, cut down the man before you, or else lose the chance to live another breath!
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[Chapter End's]
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