"Fall back!" said Lyn Corbray, obeying Brynden's order. The men began to saunter, climbing up the hillside. Soon Jaehaerys saw men lying on the ground where Brynden's men had been before. The fallen, wounded men withdrew, those who could, carrying other men with them.
Those were the rules; in real combat, those men would be dead or maimed. Although probably more than one had ended up seriously wounded.
Tully's men mounted their enemies' horses and stole them. Jaehaerys counted that they had gained about 60 more riders. Jon lost about 15 in his charge, leaving them with about 145 men on horseback against about 130 from the Tyrell-Conningtons. Some of the men who had rushed to attack managed to escape and rejoined them.
The difference was in the infantry; at that moment, House Tyrell had about three times as many men on foot. Jaehaerys waited to see how the battle would continue. Although he was not the protagonist, he found himself learning from it.
The Tyrells slowly began to climb the hillside, probably to conserve energy. Jaehaerys looked at the men, most of whom wore at least chain mail armor. They could not move as nimbly as they would have liked.
The men also seemed to have formed three blocks. They imitated the Tully formation, charging the cavalry in the side blocks and leaving mostly infantry in the center. Brynden's men continued to retreat. It was a matter of patience at that point. If the enemies rushed to attack, it would benefit the Tullys.
But it seemed that Jon was better than Jaehaerys had expected. Honestly, he had always taken him for a buffoon and underestimated him. He looked into the distance at the Tyrell brothers, advancing together as if to cover each other's backs. If Jaehaerys took them down, it would be all over.
He spurred his horse toward the Great Jon.
"Come back here!" Lyn shouted as she watched him leave. "I'll have you executed for disobeying orders!" he shouted again when the prince didn't respond.
'Maybe Lyn will die in the turmoil,' Jaehaerys said to himself. The man took the bloody event as if it were real.
"You can't break ranks just like that," said the GreatJon when he saw the prince approaching, though he didn't reprimand him too harshly. "One starts, the others follow."
"If I take down the Tyrells, the enemy army will fall," he told the man. "They're at the front, exposed and quite visible," he said. GreatJon didn't ask to take them down. Between Jaehaerys and GreatJon, they could take them down with relative ease. Even the prince could do it alone, but in a tumult, it was uncertain.
"If you fail..." said GreatJon.
The Tyrells were in the block that would face GreatJon, mainly cavalry.
"Still, we have the momentum, we'll pick up speed, our charge will wipe out theirs," said the prince.
"We need a distraction, red cloak," the man told him.
The Tyrell army continued to advance slowly. At that moment, they were still about 500 feet away. It would take a while before they arrived; they would probably stop at a distance and wait for Tully to attack. It was best to surprise them before that.
GreatJon called a young man, similar in build to himself, probably his son. He gave him instructions and sent him as a messenger to Brynden. Minutes later, he returned.
"Two horns," said the boy when he returned. Now the Tyrell-Connington men were about 200 feet away.
And soon, Jaehaerys heard it, one horn, then another. Then Brynden's men charged, first the infantry, leaving gaps between them. Then the cavalry advanced rapidly, passing through the gaps, so that both arrived at almost the same time.
Greatjon reared his horse, a beast to match his size, and charged at the Tyrells. Jaehaerys rode alongside him. His horse quickly picked up speed. The Tyrells' slow charge worked against them when the men collided. Brynden's charge struck first, breaking the ranks. Brynden fought at the front, alongside Edmund.
Jaehaerys looked at Loras and Garlan. They did not hide, but drew their weapons and charged at the prince and GreatJon. Jaehaerys knocked Garlan down with a single blow. Meanwhile, GreatJon collided with Loras, and both were quickly knocked down.
In a battle on foot, both men might have had a better chance, but on horseback, with the charge against them and against men of brutal strength, they fell from their horses.
Jaehaerys sheathed his sword, picked up Garlan and Loras, and carried them off the battlefield. If anything happened to them, the Tyrells would be pissed.
His horse managed to move with the weight of the three men, leaving both brothers on the sidelines of the battle, in a safe place. There he watched as Tully's men achieved an initial victory, but when the initial charge passed, Connington managed to rally his men and defend himself. He would be the next one Jaehaerys had to attack.
"It seems that the rumors of his injury are exaggerated," said Garlan, his armor was bent.
"Should I defeat you both?" asked the prince, who really wanted to move as quickly as possible against Connington.
"No, my prince," said Garlan, much to the confusion of Loras, who looked at Jaehaerys with the same desire he had always had since Jaehaerys saved him from the Mountain at the tournament in King's Landing.
"Good," said the prince, moving to return to the battlefield. Some of Tyrell's men had scattered, while others had joined Connington.
"Now you move?" the prince cursed as he watched Lyn descend, seemingly heading straight for Brynden and Edmund.
'Did he betray them?'
---------------
"Charge!" Lyn shouted, his voice booming across the battlefield.
He had teamed up with the Tullys, trusting Brynden's ability to lead the battle. But he had not planned to stay with him too long. After all, he did not want to share the prize.
"Attack all the men! Tyrell! Connington! Tully!" he told the men who followed him. Some of them looked at him apprehensively. "I'll give you a thousand gold dragons each!" he lied. He had no intention of giving them anything.
"I've already been offered a thousand," he heard the Hound say, who looked at him bored.
"I'll give you ten thousand," he said.
He would find a way to kill him on the battlefield. Sandor accepted with a shrug. Lyn drew his sword. Lady Forlon, it was forbidden to bring a bladed weapon, but who was going to check him?
He looked at the battlefield, and the Tully and Connington men were at a stalemate. The Tyrells were nowhere to be seen. He had watched the guy in the red cloak drag them away from the battlefield. An honorable action. Something only a fool would do.
"Men, follow me!" he shouted as he began to spur his horse on.
--------------------
Sandor's sword struck Corbray's head, a disgusting crack telling him he had broken a bone in his skull. He was probably dead. He shrugged. The men following him stopped their charge.
"What the hell are you waiting for? Support Tully. I'll fuck the asses of those who stand still!" he added at the end when none of the men seemed to want to move.
He watched a man pick up Corbray's sword and let him be; he was one of the prince's men.
Sandor rode toward Connington, the man barking orders from behind, not daring to engage in direct combat. The Hound growled when he crashed into a wall of men. He couldn't reach the general, so he threw himself at the men to knock them down.
All those men were fucking little pussies. One blow from his sword was enough, not to defeat them, no. The bastards could take more, but when they felt the strength, they shit themselves in fear.
After making more than one man shit himself, he watched a bastard throw a man through the air—a bastard in a red cloak. 'The knight with the red cloak,' he sneered inwardly.
The man who was thrown into the air hit Connington, knocking the Griff from his horse. The Tully men were filled with adrenaline; they felt victory there and charged with more force.
"Fucking cunts!" shouted the dog when he saw the enemy retreat, only their leader had fallen, and they could no longer continue.
"Keep formation!" he heard a stupid, brave man shout.
Sandor lunged in his direction. The man stopped his sword with his spear and returned a dangerous blow. He almost lost the battle at that moment. Sandor looked at the enemy men; they had gained a little hope from the man he was fighting. He had to fuck him up again.
But he was too good.
Sandor and the man continued fighting for minutes, the chaos around them not interfering with their battle, as if they had been given space on purpose. Well, they learned how to do it, a small knight tried to sneak attack the Hound. Now he had a good injury. Sandor didn't know where he had been hit, but he didn't hear the crunch of bones breaking, so it wasn't serious.
"Enough!" he heard someone shout.
When the dog looked around, he noticed that only a few were still standing, mostly the Tullys. Some were watching their duel, others were resting on their backs.
"After the Red Cloak Knight knocked Connington down, many fled," Brynden said as they approached.
"There are about 200 men left," said a young man with platinum blond hair. Sandor recognized the heir, Aegon, and Arthur riding along with him. "You can fight among yourselves until there are 100 left. Or you can select 100, Ser Brynden, as long as everyone agrees," said the prince.
"I'll pick them," replied the veteran. "You've already gotten your pay!" shouted Blackfish. "Unless you win the tournament, you won't get anything more than that. Those who agree, leave, the gold will come later," he told them.
Sandor noticed the men retreating, more than one of them looking in the same direction. At the man in the red cape. In the end, only about 60 men remained. Sandor looked at the man he was fighting. It seemed that, as a tacit agreement, they would let him participate even though his side had lost.
The Hound snorted as he walked toward one of Prince Jaehaerys' men. He would fight the next day.