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Lord Tytos Blackwood, in the end, still chose not to tell Clay the truth.
But it did not matter. Even with the man's fumbling and evasive words, Clay had already understood his intentions clearly enough.
Clay resolved that once this battle was done, he would sit down with Lord Tytos Blackwood and have a proper talk.
As for the Tully family, that unruly hound which no longer heeded its master's leash, their time was already measured. Once he had wrung from them every last drop of value, Clay would see to it that they were never allowed to remain.
Strictly speaking, there was no blood feud between House Manderly and House Tully. Yet in the end, the golden merman banner and the three black dragon upon red would have to be joined together, and so Clay knew he must fully honor the opinion of the other side.
What was more, the Riverlands were a land pressed on every side by enemies. They served no great purpose in war, and so in Clay's mind, he had already begun sketching out his own plans for how their lands might be divided once all was done.
"Come," he said, his voice calm but edged with authority. "Let us not keep the old lion waiting too long. Some are already in their places. If we arrive too late, it would not reflect well on us."
The army thundered forward, the sound of countless hooves and wheels rolling like stormclouds across the earth. Harrenhal lay only a few hours' march ahead now.
These Riverland lords, when he was not watching, no doubt found ways to slack off, shirking their duties. Some, he suspected, even entertained the thought of letting Christen and his five hundred heavy cavalry be driven to their deaths. For in their eyes, Clay Manderly was not truly one of their own.
If one were to speak of anger, Clay did feel a trace of it, though only faintly. But at present, he had no intention of quarreling with them.
Still, since the Riverland lords were bent on guarding their own skins, this battle would require some adjustments to his plans.
For an army filled with men harboring private schemes and hidden thoughts could never be trusted to fight a desperate battle. Without the resolve to stake their lives and rise again from the brink of death, Clay would not dare place any crucial task in their hands.
But to him, it hardly mattered.
For already, he could feel it. From the south, a wave of searing heat was surging toward his position, growing stronger with every passing hour. By his calculation, it would arrive within a single day.
Clay did not bother asking why it refused to stay quietly in the south. What mattered was this: its arrival could not have been timed more perfectly.
The war in the North would, in truth, come to a halt once the battle at Harrenhal reached its conclusion.
The North and the Riverlands were already fractured, their hearts and loyalties pulling in different directions. That was a reality no one could deny.
And since that was so, the time had finally come for him to step fully onto the stage.
After all, one who forever lingered in the shadows had no right to speak of marching on that southern capital.
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Christen ultimately chose the second plan. With the four hundred riders under his command, he would hurl himself against the Lannister host that ringed the northern gate of Harrenhal, a force nearly ten thousand strong, unready for the blow yet overwhelming in sheer numbers.
He forced himself to suppress the tantalizing thought of striking for Tywin Lannister himself, of seizing the man in a single, audacious stroke.
For Clay had given him an unmistakably clear order for this battle.
The method was his to decide, but one way or another, the banners of House Manderly must be seen flying before the walls of Harrenhal, cutting through the western host, leaving their ranks scattered and broken, forcing them to halt their assault.
So long as Harrenhal held until the main host arrived, the first and greatest merit would belong to him.
The cavalry, given little time to rest, now raised their longswords in one hand while tucking their heavy lances beneath their arms. With a roar of hooves, they hurled themselves forward toward the Lannister army, which stood in neat ranks, every man facing south.
The sudden onslaught was something the western host had never anticipated.
They could not comprehend why enemies would charge them from the direction of their own rear encampment.
In the making of their war plans, not a single one of them had ever considered such a possibility.
At the rear of the host, the first to bear the brunt were the siege engines that had only just been withdrawn from the lines, along with the craftsmen and engineers responsible for maintaining and firing them.
These men were, in truth, utterly defenseless. Before the war began, almost all of them had been tradesmen and artisans of every kind, accustomed to hammer, chisel, and plane rather than sword or spear.
Now, conscripted by Tywin Lannister, they toiled day and night to build siege machines, some even worked to death beneath the lash of ceaseless labor, their suffering bitter beyond words.
To expect such men to feel any true loyalty toward the western host was nothing but a farce.
If not for the naked blades held in Tywin's grip, they would long ago have scattered to the winds.
The moment they caught sight of the Manderly cavalry, the craftsmen bolted like startled birds, fleeing in every direction.
Christen did not bother to hunt them down. Killing was a means, never the end.
Nor did his men have the luxury of stopping to dismantle those precious siege engines… after all, warhorses were no hammers.
They thundered straight past the neatly lined machines, Christen at their head, driving on toward the infantry phalanx that stood ahead.
This was a legion that had only just been pulled back from the bloody fighting at Harrenhal's northern gate, their losses heavy.
Since the battle was not yet finished, the men were permitted at most to sit and rest where they stood. To disband their formation, however, was not allowed.
Thus, when they caught sight of Christen's charging cavalry, they instinctively wanted to resist, only to realize at once that they could not even turn to face them.
They were not a handful of scattered soldiers, free to dart and weave across the field as instinct might guide them.
Infantry, in order to maintain their strength in battle, whether in the press of a siege or upon the open field, were bound to remain gathered in strict and ordered phalanxes.
And yet such rigidity carried within it a fatal weakness. Once they were struck from a direction left unguarded, there was no way for them to withstand the assault.
"Behind us! Behind us! Cavalry from the North!"
"Quick, tell the knight, tell the commander!"
"Damn it! The lord isn't here… what are we supposed to do?"
"Fight back! We must fight back! Don't let them break through!"
"I can't even turn around!"
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Chaos erupted. The commander of this infantry block, having withdrawn to the rear to rest, was of course not staying among the soldiers themselves. He had gone to hide away in comfort, leaving them to fend for themselves.
But in this age, when an army lost its commander, the damage done to the order and unity of the whole was nearly catastrophic.
The men in the rear tried to wheel about and face the enemy, while those in the front ranks had not yet even realized what was happening.
One need only think of how badly a message twists and warps as it passes from mouth to mouth. In the midst of this din, the confusion spread like wildfire, until the situation had become nothing short of a disaster.
By the time Christen thundered into their midst, barely a dozen soldiers managed to raise their weapons toward him.
And these were siege troops, men armed with short swords and other tools meant for close scuffles upon ladders and walls. Against charging heavy cavalry, such weapons left them with almost no strength to strike back at all.
Christen showed not the slightest mercy. With a single blast of his Aard sign, several unlucky men were hurled away, bodies broken. An instant later, his warhorse, encased from head to hoof in iron plate, slammed headlong into the infantry square.
At once, blood sprayed wildly in all directions.
For foot soldiers armed with nothing but their frail bodies to meet head-on the crushing weight of fully armored cavalry was a scene history had recorded countless times before. And through all those records, the ending had never once changed.
The infantry's blood flowed in rivers.
This regiment, at full strength, numbered more than eight hundred men. But after being pulled back from the assault on the walls, fewer than six hundred still stood.
Against so few, Christen had little difficulty. With his knights at his back, he drove straight through them, tearing open their line as if it were nothing more than cloth ripped apart at the seams.
Beneath the pounding hooves of the warhorses, no one could count how many western soldiers fell, trampled into mud and blood. The survivors, stricken with terror, could not hold formation. Panic spread like fire, and in the next heartbeat they scattered in every direction, fleeing for their lives.
Christen did not waste time chasing down the broken remnants. He knew he had to press forward while the momentum of the charge still carried his men. Only by keeping the pressure on could he bleed the western host even further.
Already, though, he felt his magic faltering, the flow beginning to break apart. He had pushed himself too hard, given no time to rest.
How long he could endure, he did not know. But as long as his body still had the strength to take even one more step forward, he swore he would never stop.
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At last, Clay's banner appeared upon the battlefield of Harrenhal.
He had taken his position directly west of the western host's northern encampment.
South of him, Brynden Tully had already arrived, and Edmure Tully's army had been in place for two hours before that.
When Clay's army finally settled into camp, he entered his command tent. There, after listening in silence to the full report of the battlefield, he sat unmoving for a long moment. Then, in a cold, steady voice, he gave his order:
"Send word. Summon the lords of the Riverlands to come to me at once for council."
"They have lingered here long enough. Their rest is over."
The messenger bowed, accepted the command, and departed swiftly.
Leaning back in his chair, Clay fixed his eyes on the sand-table model of Harrenhal before him. His brows drew together, deep in thought as he quietly weighed the shape of the war.
He was only waiting for them to arrive.
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[Chapter End's]
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