AN :
Next goal for another extra chapter is 750 power stones.
In the Game of Stones, you either win or you wait. The more Power Stones you offer, the faster the chapters come.
...
( Tygett Lannister POV )
Tygett's plate sat heavily on his shoulders as he lifted his visor, eyes scanning the distant flow of the Running River, some three miles down the sloping highlands from where he was standing. This part of the Northern Coast was a rocky turf of bracken, peat bogs, and thistles. What few settlements made their way in this harsh region were hardscrabble sorts, rough small-time miners and prospectors, shepherds, and cattle herders. It was little wonder that the Ironborn had fallen upon this region so greedily. Livestock and precious metals were the main products, and both were easy to transport and valuable, at least compared to other goods.
But the Ironborn, driven by their wanton lusts and greed, were also stupid.
Down below on the open ground, a great lot of them had beached one of their ships, a classic Ironborn vessel, it had the rough appearance of one of their fishing boats, but this longship was slightly to narrow and slightly too long, with more ports for oars then any fisher had crew. Oh, no doubt some fishing was done from the vessel below him, but if you knew the Ironborn, and studied their methods, you could spot it as a raider from two miles away.
Coincidentally, that was just what Tygett was doing. It was early evening, and the men down below were blatantly at rest. They had a number of roaring bonfires going, and from the distant shapes of men below, he would bet that they were already half drunk on the pilfered wines of the Westerlands.
His lands.
Tygett turned to look behind him. Altogether he had managed to assemble about 150 men and the horses to carry them. It left a Garrison of a good forty men at Reddinghall but emptied the stables dry. Near every trained riding horse west of Anlan's Hill was on the field behind him, and many of his best men.
Looking across his gathered force, their lances ready at attention, the Lannister Coat of arms blazoned on their shields, Tygett smiled.
They may not be proper knights, most of them, but these men were good enough on the charge to shatter those Ironborn cowards. He'd prove that and more today.
"I will not waste words on insults or idle chatter," Tygett said darkly. "Kill them all, free the captives, and end one more threat to our land." Tygett raised his lance, bringing his horse to turn around towards the enemy, and shouting. "On my Lance, Charge!"
Tygett brought his horse to a low gallop. She could have gone faster, even despite the armor, but he needed the rest of the horses to keep up, and most weren't proper warhorses like his. Still, as they came up over the ridge they had been watching from, they poured down the highland turf like thunder. If the Ironborn spotted them immediately, riding in a giant Chevron, they might have at most 4 minutes to respond before the charging westerlanders had crashed into their camp. Perhaps enough time to find weapons and form a shield wall, but not enough to put on armor, or, crucially, to get their longship moving once again.
That was what Tygett counted on, staring down at the damnable raiders as the wind on the heights set his pennon thrashing on his lance. He grit his teeth and felt the battle fury wash over him as time slowed down ahead of him. Each passing second seemed to take hours as he narrowed the gap with his quarry, the Ironborn reacting in disarray, trying desperately to set a shield wall ahead of their impending deaths.
Tygett sighted one man, bellowing orders from the right side of the shield wall, and at once the Lannister knew that was the man he was going to kill. His lance lowered, and he slammed his visor down over his face, but his eyes never left that man's head. He spurred his horse onward and roared from his lungs as he made his strike.
Like a stone thrown from a catapult, he smashed into the line, his lance piercing straight into the head of the Ironborn leader. Blood splattered as the tip crushed through the raider's spine and the sharpened point pushed out the back of his neck. His cheeks and jawbones tore and shattered as the top of his head, helmet, and all was ripped off of his body by the force of Tygett's strike, and that was before his horse hit the lines. Her armored bulk crushed through two more men, staring gaping at the corpse of their leader, and knocked them to the ground, where they were promptly trampled as the men behind him made contact with the rest of the line.
It was a massacre. The Ironborn, unarmored and barely called to line out of their revelry, were lanced through with the gleaming spears of the Westerlanders, their bodies knocked aside and then trampled under the hooves of the horses as the charge hit home with all the force of the Warrior's sword. Where some fifty ragged men had stood against them, not one was left standing in the wake of their first pass. Most were dead, or dying, and what few still had a chance at life lay bleeding, wounded, trampled, and smashed by the weight of their horses.
Tygett turned his horse before he reached Riverside, turned, and raised his lance high so that the men could see his lion pennon high so that the men could see him. He raised his visor and shouted over the din. "Half of you, dismount and seize the ship! The other half kill the rest of these rabble. We'll take no prisoners today."
His men cheered in approval as he nodded towards them.
It didn't take too long for things to resolve after that. A few of the Ironborn were still on their ship, but they were in no condition to fight and certainly not against such numbers of borders. Most had been asleep, or having their way with their captives. They were all dead now, hauled off the ship and stripped naked to be burned with the rest of the corpses. There would be no drowned God waiting for these squids when they were cast down to the seven hells. Tygett took some satisfaction in that.
Once the initial tasks had been taken care of, and the dead were smoldering some half-mile away, Tygett set about the task of questioning the captives. While he took care not to make them uncomfortable, given what they'd been through, the information they had on the movements of the Ironborn fleet was critical to stopping the raiders for good.
Twelve young women and six men were ultimately found on the fishing boat. While most of them had been kidnapped recently, many of them had managed to hear conversations amongst the Ironborn during their captivity, and from their combined testimony, Tygett was able to build out a clearer picture of just what sort of force they were facing. The Ironborn had come at the call of one Gorman Bloodtooth, an apparently notorious raider whose son Tygett had killed during one of the previous raids he'd stopped. That much was obvious from what the captives were able to share. The man had a fleet of at least six ships with him, though two of that number had spun off to raid the Running Country, while the others held to the coast. That was the important part. He had one more group of Ironborn to butcher before the Running River was safe, and then it seemed the rest of his foes were on the coast.
Once he's learned what he could, he had a group of his men, some six riders, break off to ensure that whatever stolen loot had been recovered, along with the captives he had freed, be sent back to the villages and hamlet's that still lived in these lands, and then he set off with the rest of his forces, a group of them taking the longship as he road up the river with all the rest of his men.
It was two days of travel before they found their prey, there at the confluence of the running river, where all of its many twists and branches turned northwest and joined to flow out to the sea. It was there that they caught the bastards sailing out of the northern branch, their ship fat and loathsome. The one he had captured sailed about and rammed her, forcing the Ironborn onto the shore.
The fighting was much bloodier than the first battle had been. The Ironborn were not drunk, and they had their armor on. Moreover, they fought on their ship instead of on the open ground where the cavalry could butcher them. By the time the whole of the crew had been slain and the ship seized, ten of Tygett's men were dead, and another dozen injured. It was nowhere near as clean as their earlier victory, but a victory it was nonetheless.
As before the captives were freed, and as before the loot was sent out to go and be distributed across the running country so that the people might rebuild from the raiding and be able to survive the harsh winter.
He spent another day and a half on the running river. Hasty repairs were made on the two small longships he'd been able to capture. He was also able to replenish his own forces somewhat, as men returned from the field and brought with them more riders and horsemen, as well as volunteers from Mallon's Stone and other fishing settlements that had burned. Those men he set to work crewing the new ships. His losses were managed and he retained his strength for the ride back west, just in time as it happened.
A letter arrived by courier midday on this fourth day of campaigning in the Running Country. Troutpoint had been burned to the ground, and the Ironborn main fleet was moving west. They had taken the opportunity with Tygett tied up in the running country to assail the coastline of his heartland, approaching even the Gold Gap.
Tygett had to leave his new volunteer footmen behind and ride west with all the speed he could muster.
He would arrive too late for many of his subjects.
...
Chronicle of the Targaryen Dynasty in the Seven Kingdoms
Maester Willem
279 AC - Twenty-Second Day of Ninth Moon
Queen Rhaella's funeral is held at the Great Sept of Baelor. King Aerys arrives at the funeral in mourner's robes, looking wearied but strong as his son Rhaegar and Princess Valia accompany him to the casket. The King weeps openly into Princess Valia's arms and tears at his hair as he sees the casket opened.
King Aerys retreats once again to his quarters and declares an end to all sessions of the Small Council for a two-month period in mourning. The King refuses to hold court, and the King's hand Lord Tywin Lannister is forced to hold it in his stead, despite the lack of support from the Small Council given the halt to sessions.
May the Stranger guide our queen's soul to the Mother's Heaven safely.
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