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Game of Thrones: Rune Bastard
Game of Thrones Wizard Dothraki
Game of Thrones: Knights Life
The Blue Fork, the Green Fork, and the Red Fork all met in the Trident.
The great river flowed slow and heavy from west to east, its banks buried under fresh snow. A vast army marched north along the southern shore, men and river moving together like some strange living painting.
Two days earlier Petyr Baelish had issued orders in Queen Selyse's name. The army still camped at the God's Eye was to pull back north at once.
From the height of his litter Petyr watched tens of thousands of soldiers crossing the broad Trident. A strange, heady feeling stirred in his chest, as if the limbs he had lost were somehow growing back.
The Vale, the Crownlands, and the Stormlands together fielded nearly seventy thousand men. When Aegon the Conqueror had come, the combined strength of the Gardeners and the Lannisters had been only forty thousand. When Mace Tyrell had marched the Reach's seventy thousand, the whole realm had gone pale. Victory had seemed certain then. It seemed certain now.
If you left Jon Snow out of the equation.
All Petyr needed was time to take firm control of this host and he would hold the power to reshape the Seven Kingdoms. Was this what it felt like to be a conqueror? He allowed himself a small, private smile.
Then he glanced at the stump of his right hand and the smile died.
All because of that fat fool Mace Tyrell. Tywin Lannister's western army and the Reach host together had come to nearly a hundred thousand men and still couldn't take King's Landing. Petyr had paid for their failure with a hand and a leg. He had taken his revenge in Stannis's final moments, but some things could never be restored.
Jon Snow. Young Aegon. The game was becoming interesting again.
He watched the endless columns a little longer, then turned his gaze to the ships working the river.
His plan with Varys had been simple enough. Crown Shireen queen with Selyse as regent. They both knew King's Landing and the Crownlands could never hold against Jon, so they would make their stand in the Vale. Once Young Aegon landed, these sixty or seventy thousand men would become his army and Petyr would collect a handsome share of the credit.
Selyse's weakness was obvious. She understood she had to move the army to the Vale. She had given no thought at all to how she would actually command it once it got there.
Without the secret line to Young Aegon, Petyr would never have risked the coup. The moment Jon looked certain to win, Petyr would have bent the knee instead. But instinct told him Jon would be difficult to manage. When the time came he would need to disappear for a long while. He was already past thirty and closing on forty. In this world most nobles never saw fifty. He could not outlive Jon.
This life already had its ending in sight.
Still, the situation had shifted. He would crown Shireen first, then have her submit to Young Aegon. It would lend the boy extra legitimacy and let Petyr claim even greater rewards.
Sitting in the litter, Petyr allowed himself to savor the thought. When all was done he would demand at least the title of Duke of the Vale. The Eyrie itself would do nicely. The Vale's real opposition had already been purged. He could build in peace.
The history of House Baelish would begin today.
He was still enjoying the vision when noise erupted at the rear of the army. Dust rose in thick clouds.
"My lord! Attack! We're under attack!"
Petyr snatched up his far-eye. A vast brown wall of dust rolled toward them, swallowing the horizon. From the sheer volume of it the enemy had to number in the tens of thousands.
"Wasn't the Reach army still sitting in place? How is this possible?"
He had no answer. The nearest hostile force should have been the battered remnant at the God's Eye—three thousand men at most after the fighting. Before he could think further, black banners began to appear through the dust.
After Jon's string of brutal victories, black had become the most feared color in the Seven Kingdoms. The last time banners that color had carried this kind of dread, they had flown beneath Balerion the Black Dread.
"It's Jon Snow!"
The army stretched for miles. Some men saw the threat before Petyr did. Only the Vale troops had finished crossing the bridge. The Crownlands and Stormlands contingents were still waiting on the southern bank.
Panic spread like fire in dry grass. Soldiers bolted. The collapse moved faster than any order could contain.
Petyr felt his scalp prickle, but he forced his mind to stay cold.
Jon had four thousand men at best—probably fewer after the hard fighting with Stannis. Petyr still held sixty or seventy thousand. He could drive the bastard off.
Drive Jon Snow off?
The thought startled even him, but he seized it. These men were Young Aegon's future army. If they scattered now they would never be gathered again. They had only come together because Petyr had used Selyse's name to trick and coax them. Once broken, that army was finished.
"Form ranks!" he shouted at the nearest lords. "Prepare to meet the enemy!"
The lords were already in chaos. Petyr's voice rose to a roar.
"Are you deaf? Form ranks!"
Scouts and officers ran in every direction. After frantic effort fewer than a thousand men had gathered around Petyr's litter. The army's collapse was moving far faster than any attempt to organize it.
"My lord, we have to run. Look at that dust. There are thirty or forty thousand men behind those banners!"
One of his guards was right. The black banners looked like the gods themselves were stirring the sky. In seconds Petyr abandoned any thought of standing and began calculating escape routes instead.
"Get me across the river. Now."
His guards closed in. They fought their way toward the bridge through a river of fleeing men. Some soldiers, blind with terror, jumped straight into the Trident. Stormlanders mostly—men who had never seen a real river in winter. The cold hit them like a hammer. Those who tried to climb out were shoved back in by the press behind them. Bodies began to drift downstream.
Most of the killing on the bank came from men fighting each other for a place on the bridge. It was as if black dragons were breathing down their necks instead of banners.
Petyr's litter rocked violently. One of the bearers slipped on the frozen mud. The litter pitched and Petyr tumbled out into the filth. His fine armor vanished under a layer of mud and snow. The guards hauled him up and half-carried, half-dragged him the rest of the way.
When they finally reached the northern bank he was gasping and filthy.
"Cut the bridge! Break it! Now!"
On his orders the engineers went to work. The bridge that had carried so many hopes came apart section by section until the whole structure collapsed into the dark water.
Petyr had thought he could bring Stannis's entire army north intact. Now it looked like he would be lucky to keep the Vale troops together.
He stared back across the river, furious and baffled. Where had Jon found so many men? Petyr had watchers on the Reach army. He should have known the moment they moved.
On the southern bank Jon Snow watched the rout with cold satisfaction.
He had brought barely a thousand men. Most of them carried no proper banners at all—just strips of black-dyed cloth tied to spears. The massive dust cloud had been raised by soldiers dragging tree branches behind them as they advanced. With his divine sight guiding every move, Jon had struck the most disordered part of the enemy line first, then let the panic do the rest.
Over thirty thousand Crownlands and Stormlands troops were now under his control. The pointless slaughter had stopped.
Among the captured men Jon spotted a familiar face—Wag, the old sellsword captain who had once led the Brotherhood Without Banners. Wag's company had been among the first to make contact with the chaos. Under his direction they had taken Harrenhal with almost no fighting.
After Wag finished his account Jon understood exactly how the army had come apart.
"Why didn't you go north with Petyr?" Jon asked.
Wag gave a short, hard laugh. "Because I've got eyes, Your Grace. Petyr's just another climber. Ambition's cheap. Ruling takes more than that. I've watched what you've done. There's no one left in the Seven Kingdoms who can stop you. The Vale's already picked clean. Following Petyr there would have been a fast way to die poor. Following you still leaves room for land and a title."
Jon studied the man for a moment, then nodded once.
"Harrenhal's yours to hold for now. Keep the river crossing secure. I'll send more men when I can."
Wag dropped to one knee without hesitation.
"Yes, Your Grace."
Jon turned his horse and rode toward the bridge, or what was left of it. The Trident ran dark and cold beneath the broken spans. On the far bank the last of Petyr's litter guards were still trying to form some kind of rear guard.
Jon did not need to chase them. The army that had marched north in such proud order was already gone. What remained were frightened men looking for someone to follow.
He intended to give them exactly that.