Chapter 42: Closing the Trap
The news of Lannisport's fall did not reach Tywin Lannister by raven. It came on the back of a half-mad, mud-spattered guardsman who had ridden three horses to death to escape the inexplicable doom that had befallen his city. He was dragged into the Old Lion's command tent in the heart of the Riverlands, and his babbling, terrified account of a sky-borne army and a storm that devoured a fleet was the death knell of a dynasty.
The great lords and knights gathered in Tywin's tent—men like Addam Marbrand, Flement Brax, and his own brother Kevan—listened in stony, disbelieving silence. A man who commanded lightning had appeared from nowhere and taken the second greatest city in the realm in a single morning. It was a ghost story, a drunkard's tale. But the sheer, abject terror in the survivor's eyes was no fantasy.
Tywin Lannister, a man who had built his life on the unshakeable foundations of logic, fear, and gold, felt the ground crumble beneath him. He did not rage. He did not scream. A cold, terrifying stillness settled over him. He walked to his campaign map, the map that showed his brilliant, brutal conquest of the Riverlands, and saw it for what it now was: a meaningless relic of a forgotten war.
His army was a hammer poised to strike a fatal blow against Robb Stark and the Riverlords. But now, Eddard Stark and his demon were in his rear, sitting in his home, controlling his port, his ships, his very connection to the world. His supply lines were severed. His path of retreat was threatened. He was the most powerful commander in Westeros, at the head of the most disciplined army, and he had been rendered impotent by a fairy tale.
"We are trapped," Kevan Lannister whispered, the simple, terrible truth hanging in the air.
"No," Tywin said, his voice a sliver of ice. "We are not trapped. We have been… outmaneuvered." He turned from the map, his pale green eyes burning with a cold fire. His pride had been wounded beyond measure, but his tactical genius was already adapting, recalculating. "The scorched-earth campaign is over. We are no longer burning their lands. We are preserving our own strength."
He issued a series of crisp, precise commands that stunned his commanders with their brutal pragmatism. "We are abandoning the siege of Riverrun. All forces will execute a fighting retreat west, towards the Golden Tooth. We will move fast. We will cede the Riverlands to the Stark boy for now. Our war is no longer with him. Our war is with his father. And we will fight it on our own terms, on our own ground."
The great Lannister host, the terror of the Riverlands, began its humiliating retreat. It was a decision born of absolute necessity, a desperate gambit to save his army, his last remaining piece of power, from the impossible foe that now sat in his home. The Old Lion was wounded, and he was running for his den.
Lannisport
In the conquered city, Lord Eddard Stark was learning the hard lessons of being a conqueror. He had won a swift and total victory, but now he had to rule a city of resentful merchants and sullen nobles who had been Lannister subjects for centuries. He did so with the same grim fairness he had shown in King's Landing, establishing order, distributing food, and promising justice. But his mind was on the larger war.
He stood with Thor on the battlements of the captured Lannister keep, looking out over the vast, shimmering expanse of the Sunset Sea.
"Tywin is retreating," Ned said, reading the latest scout report. "He is pulling his entire force back towards the Golden Tooth. Robb and the Riverlords will harry his flanks, but Tywin's army is too disciplined. He will make it back to the westerlands."
"And he will hide behind his high walls and his mountain passes," Thor finished, his gaze distant. "He will wait for us to come to him. He thinks to force us into a siege, a battle of attrition he believes he can still win."
"Can he?" Ned asked.
"If we fight his way? Perhaps," Thor admitted. "An army of a hundred thousand men still needs to be fed. A long siege would drain your resources, strain the loyalties of your new alliance. We have him trapped, but a trapped lion is still a lion. We must not give him time to lick his wounds and rally his remaining forces."
Ned looked at the map his men had laid out on the parapet. "The westerlands are a fortress. The Crakehalls, the Marbrands, the Leffords… their castles are strong, their loyalty to House Lannister is absolute. To march on the Golden Tooth would be to walk into a land of enemies."
"Then we must make it a land of friends," Thor said. "Or, at least, a land of cowards." A new, audacious strategy began to form. They would not march on the western lords. They would visit them.
The plan was simple, and utterly terrifying. While the Grand Alliance's main host, now under the command of Lord Yohn Royce, began a slow, deliberate march from the Riverlands to bottle Tywin up at the Golden Tooth, a small, elite force would conduct a "tour of power" through the heart of the westerlands.
Thor would be the envoy. His escort would be Prince Oberyn Martell and a hundred of his best Dornish spearmen—men who were swift, silent, and harbored a special hatred for all things Lannister. Their mission was not to fight, but to demand submission. They would ride to each of the great castles of the west, and they would offer the lords a choice: bend the knee to the Lord Protector, or face a personal demonstration of the power that had broken Casterly Rock.
"It is a campaign of fear," Ned said, a familiar unease in his voice. "We will be no better than Tywin."
"There is a difference between the fear a butcher inspires and the fear a judge inspires," Oberyn Martell purred, having joined them on the battlements. He was practically vibrating with excitement at the prospect of the mission. "Tywin inspires fear of what he will do to you. Our god here… he inspires fear of what he can do. It is a far more potent and, dare I say, elegant tool."
Thor looked at the Red Viper, at the joyful cruelty in his eyes, and felt a profound sense of weariness. He hated this role. He was a warrior, not a boogeyman sent to frighten lords in their castles. But he looked at Ned, at the weight of the world on the man's shoulders, and he knew it was necessary. "I will not harm them," Thor stated, his voice a low command aimed at Oberyn. "No one is to be killed unless we are attacked first. We are delivering a message, not sacking castles. Is that understood, Prince of Dorne?"
Oberyn gave a flourishing, mocking bow. "But of course, Lord Thunder. Your message, not mine. Though I confess, mine would be far more… pointed."
And so, the "Thunderer's Tour" began. It became a legend whispered in every tavern and holdfast from the Searoad to the Crag. They moved with unnatural speed, their horses seeming to devour the leagues. They would arrive before a castle's gates unannounced, a hundred silent Dornishmen and a giant in strange, dark armor.
The first stop was Castle Lefford, a formidable fortress known as the Golden Tooth's little sister. Lord Lefford, a proud and stubborn man, laughed from his battlements when Oberyn delivered the demand for his surrender.
"You think a hundred Dornishmen can take my castle, snake?" he had bellowed. "Ride away before I have my archers feather you!"
Thor had simply stepped forward. He looked up at the castle's main gate, a portcullis of thick iron bars. He raised his hand, and Stormbreaker flew from his back into his grasp. He did not call the lightning. He simply held the axe, and the portcullis began to glow cherry-red. In seconds, the great iron bars warped, twisted, and then melted, dripping into a useless puddle of slag on the stone below.
Lord Lefford's laughter died in his throat. He stared at the molten ruin of his gate, then at the silent, implacable figure below. He had surrendered before the slag had cooled.
The story of the melted gate traveled faster than they did. At the next castle, Ashemark, Lord Marbrand surrendered the moment he saw them, his keys delivered on a silk pillow before they had even made their demand.
But they all knew the true test would be Crakehall. Lord Roland Crakehall was a boar of a man, famed for his stubbornness, his strength, and his unshakeable loyalty to Tywin Lannister. His castle was strong, his men were loyal, and his pride was immense.
They found Crakehall's gates barred, its walls manned with crossbowmen. Lord Crakehall himself stood on the battlements, a great, bearded man in a surcoat bearing the sigil of his house, a black-and-white brindled boar.
"I have heard your fairy tales, viper," Crakehall roared down at Oberyn. "I am not Lord Lefford. My gates are not so easily melted. I will not bend the knee to a northern traitor and his pet illusionist. Be gone from my lands!"
"My lord has a temper," Oberyn mused to Thor, a smile on his face. "And he called you an illusionist. A rather charming insult, I think."
Thor ignored him. He stepped forward and looked up at the proud Lord Crakehall. "You are a brave man, my lord," Thor said, his voice carrying easily to the walls. "Your loyalty to your liege is admirable. But your liege has failed you. His cause is lost. I am offering you and your people a chance at a peaceful future. I urge you to take it."
"I would sooner die!" Crakehall bellowed.
"Death is not what is being offered," Thor replied, his voice turning cold. He looked at the massive, stone curtain wall of the castle, a wall thirty feet thick. He placed his hand on it. He did not summon fire or lightning. He simply closed his eyes and listened to the stone. He found its resonant frequency, its deep, geologic song. And then he began to hum, a low, powerful note that matched it perfectly.
At first, nothing happened. Lord Crakehall laughed. "What now, demon? Will you sing my castle to sleep?"
But then, the guardsmen on the wall beside Crakehall began to look uneasy. They could feel a strange vibration under their feet. The vibration grew stronger, the low hum turning into a deep, grinding groan. The wall, the massive, solid wall of Crakehall, began to move. It did not crack or crumble. It flowed. The stones seemed to lose their solidity, rippling like water, the mortar between them turning to dust. A great, thirty-foot section of the wall sagged, warped, and then flowed downwards, creating a smooth, glassy ramp that led directly into the castle's main courtyard.
The soldiers on that section of the wall slid down the newly formed ramp, landing in a heap, their weapons scattered, their faces masks of utter, mind-breaking terror.
Lord Crakehall stared, his mouth agape, at the impossible architecture. The wall of his ancestral home had been turned to liquid and then back to solid before his very eyes. His fortress was breached. His men were defeated. And not a single drop of blood had been spilled.
He looked at Thor, who had lowered his hand and now stood watching him with those strange, sad eyes. The pride of House Crakehall, the stubbornness of the boar, it all broke. He was not facing a man, or an army, or even a demon. He was facing a god who could reshape the very earth he stood on.
Slowly, shakily, Lord Roland Crakehall, the Boar of Crakehall, sank to his knees on the battlements of his own ruined castle. He had been defeated by a hum.
The surrender of Crakehall was the key that unlocked the westerlands. With their strongest and most stubborn bannerman having bent the knee, the other lesser lords folded immediately. Banners were switched. Oaths were sworn. In less than a fortnight, the entire westerlands, with the sole exception of Tywin's retreating army, now belonged to Eddard Stark.
The news reached Tywin Lannister as he was trying to shepherd his weary, demoralized army through the hills near the Golden Tooth. A rider from Crakehall brought the tale. Tywin listened, his face impassive, but his brother Kevan saw the small muscle twitching in his jaw, the only sign of the seismic rage within.
His home was taken. His port was captured. His gold was buried. And now, his own bannermen, the very foundation of his power, had abandoned him. He was a king with no kingdom, a general with no home to retreat to. All he had left was his army and his pride.
He looked east, towards the Riverlands, where Robb Stark's host was now shadowing him. He looked west, towards Lannisport, where Eddard Stark and his monster now held his lands. He was caught in a trap of continental size.
The Old Lion looked at his commanders, at their frightened, uncertain faces. And for the first time, they saw not a predator, but a cornered beast. The roar of House Lannister had fallen silent, replaced by the low, ominous rumble of an approaching, and final, storm.