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Christen flicked the blood from his lance, crimson drops scattering into the cold air. Behind him, two hundred cavalry from the Westerlands lay broken on the field. More than seventy corpses stained the wild grass before the walls of Harrenhal, their armored bodies twisted where they had fallen. The rest, seeing the ruin of their comrades, had abandoned the fight and fled in disorder.
It had taken only a single charge. With one thunderous sweep of his five hundred heavy horse, Christen had smashed through this hastily mustered patrol from the Westerlands, shattering them head-on as though they were made of straw.
His own lance, forged of strong, unyielding steel, had borne the weight of two men impaled upon its shaft. Only when the first charge ended did those unfortunate souls finally slide free, tumbling lifeless into the trampled mud.
A company that suffers the loss of a third of its strength in an instant is, in theory, already on the verge of collapse. Yet what made this group disintegrate outright, skipping even that threshold and dissolving into chaos the moment the charge ended, was something simpler still.
The truth was plain. The northern cavalry had cut down a third of their number in a single strike, and in return had scarcely lost a man. Those who fell from the saddles of the North were so few they could be counted on the fingers of one hand.
This was not an ordinary host. This was a band of iron riders, a force of terrifying strength, against whom mere outlying patrols and watchmen could never hope to stand. The surviving Westerlands knights knew this well enough. And once their commander, the knight of House Sarwyck, lay dead upon the field, their courage failed. Bereft of leadership, they scattered like leaves before a storm.
Christen watched their retreating backs but gave no order to pursue. Instead, he raised his hand and signaled his men to rein in their steeds and let them rest, to recover the strength of their mounts. Chasing down a hundred fleeing riders across the plain and cutting them one by one from their saddles might slake the thirst for slaughter, but it would do nothing to alter the greater war.
They had not come merely to kill. Their true purpose was to give heart to the garrison within Harrenhal, to show them that the North still rode with strength, and at the same time to spread panic and disorder throughout the Lannister host encamped beyond the walls. These were their highest aims, the compass by which every action must be measured.
Now, with the patrol routed, the vast camp of the Westerlands host near the northern gate of Harrenhal already lay within reach of his lances.
This time would not be like the others. In earlier battles he had always been forced to waste precious time on skirmishes, first striking at the scouts, silencing the eyes that the enemy had set beyond their lines, and only then launching a thunderous assault while they remained blind and unprepared. Now there was no such need. The field lay open before him, and he could strike in full view, without concealment.
The purpose of this battle was not to annihilate, but to demonstrate. It was meant to send a message, to proclaim to the old lion himself that a northern army still stood in his path. With that show of force, Cressen intended to ease the suffocating weight that Tywin Lannister pressed upon Harrenhal's weary defenders on the walls.
So he would advance openly, with head held high, driving straight into the heart of the enemy camp, determined to carve a bloody road through them. That was the goal he set for himself in this fight.
And it was for this reason that he deliberately spared the fugitives, letting them carry word of his arrival straight to Tywin's ears. His position here was precarious, far from support, yet it was precisely such a situation that demanded boldness. Let them run, let them exaggerate, let their fear speak louder than the truth.
For that was the way of armies. When soldiers won a victory, they would always downplay their own numbers, eager to claim glory by showing they had triumphed with fewer men. After all, tales of the few overcoming the many always won admiration.
But when soldiers suffered defeat and staggered back in disgrace to their commanders, it was different. Then they would inflate the size of the enemy, insisting they had been overwhelmed by forces many times greater than their own. Often the number was magnified fivefold or more, for only in that way could they cloak their own failure.
Simple tricks of psychology, obvious enough to an onlooker. Yet for those caught in the midst of war and siege, such distortions could blur judgment, and from them could spring orders that were disastrous and entirely misguided.
Christen had once known nothing of such stratagems. Only after long years at Clay's side, marching south and north in campaign after campaign with the young heir of House Manderly, had he begun to grasp these subtler arts of the battlefield.
And now he stood in command alone, with no trusted lord at his back. This fight before him, this clash beneath the looming walls of Harrenhal, was his proving ground, the moment that would reveal whether he was worthy of all he had learned.
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Robb Stark, meanwhile, already knew that the eastern gate was on the verge of breaking. It was no longer a matter of his will or determination; the truth was plain before his eyes. The feint to the southeast, whatever form it had taken, had never been its own objective. It had always been part of a greater design, a stratagem to lure them away so that the main assault could fall upon the eastern gate.
Two hundred men of the garrison had held until now, and that survival was owed only to their desperate courage, to every soldier throwing his life into the fight without hesitation.
The ground below was carpeted with the bodies of Westerlands soldiers, crushed beneath rolling logs, smashed by stones, pierced by storms of arrows, thrusting spears, and flashing daggers. By Robb's rough reckoning, the slain already numbered five times more than the garrison that still clung to the wall.
Yet even with such slaughter, even with losses so lopsided, the men of the Westerlands pressed on, surging forward like a ceaseless tide, wave after crimson wave crashing against the walls.
On the parapets above the eastern gate, only a few dozen defenders still held their ground. Robb's eyes, however, told him the grim truth. Along the rest of that stretch of wall, only scattered handfuls of northern soldiers remained, fighting like lone wolves swallowed in a sea of red banners and crimson-clad foes.
No matter how strong a man may be, two fists cannot stand against four hands. It was not long before the last defenders fell, one by one, their bodies sinking into dark and spreading pools of blood.
Cold flakes of snow drifted down, settling upon their faces that had not yet grown cold. The white melted into tiny droplets, like tears, as though nature itself had begun a funeral that could never be completed.
Their fall meant the wall was lost. Through the breach, the Westerlands soldiers could reach the nearby stairs, descend into the heart of the fortress, and from there circle around to the rear of the eastern gate. If they forced the gate open from within, then the host waiting outside would pour in like a flood. Harrenhal would be doomed beyond saving.
The thought struck Robb Stark with the weight of doom. His body, already wracked with pain beyond bearing, seemed to find one last spark of strength, as if the fire of desperation burned away the weakness. His left arm, blood-soaked and trembling, gripped a sword slick with gore. Turning toward the western flank where no defenders yet stood, he raised his blade and bellowed with all the breath in his lungs,
"For the North! Kill them!"
The cry tore from him like the furious howl of a lone wolf trapped in the jaws of death. That roar, raw with defiance, drew the eyes of every northern soldier still alive upon the wall.
In that moment, many of them realized for the first time that the man who had been fighting beside them all along was none other than their king.
"Your Grace!"
"Your Grace, it's too dangerous here!"
"Your Grace, withdraw!"
Though it was true that their misery today, in the strictest sense, stemmed from Robb Stark's choices, not a single man cursed him. Their first instinct was not blame, but to shield him, to protect this young king who had shed blood at their side in the thick of battle.
Then, from somewhere in the chaos, a voice rang out, hoarse and defiant:
"Protect the king! Northerners, fight to the death!"
This was the spirit of the North. Most men from these hard lands bore this stubborn streak, this fire that cared for little but loyalty and pride. What they feared most was not the swords of the Westerlands, but being abandoned… abandoned by their liege lords, by the Stark of Winterfell, by the king who was meant to stand among them.
But here he was, their king, hemmed in by enemies the same as they were, bleeding the same blood, fighting the same fight. And if the king himself would not retreat, then there was nothing more to be said.
Since the earliest days of their history, the North had endured. The harsh snows, the unyielding cold, and the land that took more than it gave had tempered their spirit into iron. Hardship had forged their will to fight, a will that would not bend or break, even now.
The few dozen survivors still standing raised their voices in a single thunderous roar. Without need of command, without pause or doubt, they followed the sweep of Robb Stark's bloodied sword, and with that they hurled themselves into a countercharge, crashing straight into the Westerland soldiers who had just scaled the wall and were still struggling to find their footing.
The truth was that the struggle with the northern remnants had already drained most of those Westerland men of their strength. Their arms hung heavy, their lungs burned, and all around them the stone was carpeted with corpses. The sight of so much blood and death pressed down on their courage like a suffocating weight.
And now, from the east, they saw a pack of blood-drenched figures charging at them, howling like demons torn out of the pit of hell itself.
They knew, rationally, these were men of flesh and bone. Yet the sight struck terror deeper than any logic. Their courage faltered, three parts gone before a single blow was struck.
Then came the clash… another round of savage, desperate close combat, bloodier than the last.
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"My lord, my riders have finished resting. Please give your order."
This time, it was Christen who held command, and so the title of lord was offered to him without question. No man disputed it.
He gave the briefest nod, enough to dismiss the messenger.
More than four hundred men stood with him, their boots planted atop the sprawled corpses of several dozen Westerland horsemen. In silence they gathered their breath, their presence alone pressing down on the enemy with a weight that was more than steel.
Christen could feel it keenly. In these brief moments, the enemy lines had begun shifting. Troops moved before his eyes, small ripples of command flowing through the Westerland ranks.
From the main camp of the Westerlands host, he saw a company march out in gold and crimson armor: the Lannister infantry. They formed up just beyond the gates of their encampment, their bright armor glinting against the smoke and snow, arranging themselves into a line that looked thin, even flimsy, against the threat before them.
And because they arrayed themselves openly, directly under his gaze, Christen saw every detail of their formation as clearly as if it had been drawn on parchment.
The front rank was a wall of sword-and-shield men, their red teardrop-shaped shields fitted tightly edge to edge, each one engraved with the golden lion of Lannister.
Behind them stood a horizontal line of spearmen. Their armor was lighter, built so they could swing and thrust their long spears quickly and without hindrance.
And in the rear, two ranks of longbowmen, their armor the lightest of all. Each carried only a right arm guard, built to loose arrow after arrow without their draw slowed by heavy gear.
Christen understood immediately that this was the standard Lannister infantry formation. In theory, against heavy cavalry, they needed at least three layers of defense in front: rows of sword-and-shield men interlocked with lines of spearmen. Only with such depth could they hope to blunt a mounted charge with any certainty.
But everything here had been hurried. The patrol of two hundred horsemen he had shattered had been scattered so quickly, so utterly, that the Lannisters had no time to build the layered defense they needed.
If they tried, here and now, to piece together some elaborate textbook formation before his eyes, they would only expose themselves, revealing a hundred weaknesses at once.
All he required was the smallest gap, a single opening before the enemy ranks were properly set. As long as he kept his wits, as long as he led these armored knights, men who in the eyes of the Lannister soldiers already looked like demons in steel, into that soft point, the outcome would be inevitable.
The charge would cut through them like a hot knife through butter, and the entire infantry formation would collapse into chaos.
The Lannister commander, of course, was no green boy. He clearly had seen too many fields like this to gamble on such recklessness. That was why, under Christen's very gaze, he dared only to pull together this thin, fragile-looking defensive line.
"My lord, we've spotted Lannister cavalry moving along both flanks. Looks like they mean to cut off our retreat."
The same scout who had reported before now spurred his horse up beside Christen, delivering the news with his voice tight from urgency.
Christen understood at once. That line of infantry in front was meant to sap his momentum, to entangle his knights in a grinding melee. And if his men stalled there, if they failed to break through at once, those Lannister horsemen waiting on both wings would sweep in and close the trap.
A vast enclosure, with his men confined at the very heart of it.
He gave a sharp, derisive snort. "This…? This is all they have?"
The sneer curled across his lips. He had thought there might be some brilliant maneuver waiting for him. But this? Did they really misunderstand what kind of cavalry he was leading?
If you mean to trap an enemy, then you must first make the walls strong enough to hold. Otherwise, before the battle even begins, the men will smash through and scatter the trap to pieces.
"Tell the men not to waste a thought on those fools to either side. If the Lannisters believe they can outflank us, then they are dreaming in their sleep."
"Remember this… charge forward, with everything you've got. Look at that scattered, flimsy infantry line. Do you think it can withstand the full charge of the Manderly heavy cavalry?"
Christen had already made up his mind. This time, he would call on the strength that belonged to a Witcher. As for where such power came from… well, that could be shoved onto Lord Clay's shoulders later. The man would handle the aftermath.
Victory made all things righteous!
And if even that power could not punch through in one stroke, if he failed and was dragged to the pyre as a heretic, Christen would not call it unjust.
"Orders to the host: form into a wedge. I will take the point of the spearhead myself."
Normally, heavy cavalry had one task only: to smash into the enemy line, tear open the breach, and then pull aside while other troops poured in to widen the wound until the foe broke completely.
But this time, Christen asked for no such follow-up. He had no interest in supporting maneuvers or slow grinding tactics.
He had a single, ruthless objective:
Break their line!
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[Chapter End's]
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