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Storm Kingdom - Kingdom of the Reach
Border Between Houses Caron and Peake
Summerfield
10 BAC
It was a cold and crisp morning when the Storm Kingdom's host saw the Reach host. The air had gotten colder as they approached the border. Whether by the grace of the gods or someone else, the winter had left them early, while the Reach host was marching through snow and mud.
Speaking of the Reach host, Argilac saw the storm over them; he just couldn't wrap his head around it. Everywhere else, the sun was shining through the clouds, but the sky over the enemy was covered in dark, foreboding clouds, wearing them down with rain and wind.
"Are you seeing this as well?" He asked his good-brother Robert Penrose, who looked as baffled as Argilac was.
"I am; I just can't believe it." Heir to Lucan Penrose said, wondering how this was related to his niece, Princess Argella.
"You see?! Even the gods are against the Reach fucks!" He shouted, turning back to face his army.
Internally, he knew it wasn't the gods; they never heard his voice before, and he stopped praying long ago.
The soldiers cheered, watching with glee and bloodlust as the storm battered their enemy.
"Your Grace, look." Robert pointed forward, watching as five men, with Garse at the front as the leader of the host, came halfway with a flag of truce.
"He wants to parley? Robert, you, Lords Caron, Selmy, and Dondarrion with me."
Argilac, with his four commanders, took a flag of truce and went to parley with Garse. As they rode, he noticed something that made him and his lords crack up.
A small storm cloud, with that same purple lightning that seemed to be haunting him every step of his life since his daughter's birth, was hanging over Garse and his group, low enough they could touch the cloud with their flagpole.
He began to laugh even harder, seeing the sour look on the Gardener King's face, mirrored by the lords and his son, Mern Gardener.
"I don't know what foul magic you cast, Argilac, but it won't stop us!" Garse declared, rain leaving trails of water on his face.
"I had nothing to do with the storm, but I'll admit it is funny seeing you look like a wet rat," Argilac shot back, enjoying the look of outrage on Garse's face. The Gardener King took a breath to calm down, remembering why he was here.
"We outnumber you four to one; surrender now or face us in battle." Garse puffed up, his belief in victory unshakable.
The Reach would defeat the barbarians of the Storm Kingdom.
"Each of my men is worth ten of yours." Argilac scoffed; he would not cede anything to a flowery bastard like Garse.
"My scouts told me you had fifteen thousand men; where did the half go? Did they desert knowing you were going to lose?" Garse shot back with just as much fire.
"I have all the men I need to defeat a wimpy farmer like you who goes around pretending to be a warrior." The Storm King leaned forward, face reddening with fury.
"Pretending? You are the one pretending his kingdom is still great when it is one breath away from coming down like a rotten house." The King of the Reach leaned forward as well, matching his enemy's color.
"Perhaps we should start parleying and stop throwing insults?" Prince Mern Gardener, heir to Highgarden and the Reach, interrupted the increasingly belligerent kings, worrying they might come to blows in a parley while the lords watched cluelessly.
"We want" Garse began to list his demands, but Argilac interrupted, having no intention of listening or accepting anything from the Gardener besides a surrender.
"I don't give a shit what you want, Garse; take your men, go back to your little garden, and stay away from my kingdom." Argilac spat with so much venom the Dornish would be jealous.
"You brute, if you wish to be humiliated on the battlefield, then that is what you shall receive." Garse spat out as he turned his horse around and rode back with his lords and son, the small storm cloud still following them.
"That went well," Robert muttered, turning back to follow his good-brother back to the host.
"Let us hope the other host makes it in time," Lord Berric Dondarrion grumbled. A tall, burly man with brown hair and eyes, his beard reached down his chest. He also had arms as thick as logs from using a bow for so long.
The move was a risky one, but if they pulled it off, the Reach would be crushed between 15,000 men.
"Your Grace, may I ask something? This storm, does it have anything to do with Princess Argella?" Lord Taryn Selmy, a balding man with grey eyes and a muscled body shaped from years of skirmishing in the Marches, asked. They might have been taught that sorcery was evil and the Seven did not tolerate it, but in this case he didn't care as long as it aided them against Reach.
"What are you saying, Lord Taryn?" Argilac didn't raise his voice, but his tone had a sense of danger in it, and anyone close to the Storm King knew it was a lot worse than shouting and raving.
This was the calm before the storm where heads rolled.
"I only meant if she was blessed as the rumors say, as I didn't have the opportunity to meet her yet," Taryn rephrased his sentence, treading on dangerous waters.
"Aye, that she is. Smart too, smarter than anyone I have seen." Argilac smiled fondly.
"Are the rumors that you will be taking a wife again true, Your Grace?" Lord Garrin Caron, with tan skin, sand-brown hair, and a handsome square face, was smaller than all four other men in both stature and frame but made up for it with cunning.
"Yes." The King's tone told Garrin he didn't want to speak of it right now. That day at Weeping Town with Argella was engraved on his mind.
Garrin wanted to ask what would happen to Princess Argella but kept his mouth shut.
—
"Those Reach bastards think they can defeat us, that they can take our lands, but they will learn better when we break them before our steel and send them scattering like the cowards they are. We are the sons of the storm, and they will be crushed beneath our fury!"
—
"Those arrogant brutes think themselves mighty enough to make the chivalrous knights and soldiers of the Reach taste defeat, especially when we outnumber them four to one. Well, I say, let Argilac the Arrogant try and fall before our swords!"
—
Two armies began to march. One weary, wet, cold, sick, and, most importantly, disturbed by the storm haunting them but assured in their numbers; the other warm and healthy but worried if the other host would hit the enemy in time.
Half a mile was left, and the hosts started picking up speed. Fear and anticipation filled their hearts, knowing death was at hand.
Three hundred yards and the archers of the Storm Kingdom started firing, centuries of conflict having perfected their skills and bow craftsmanship, giving them a considerable range advantage. Two hundred yards, and the Reach returned fire, having greater numbers than their enemy.
One hundred yards and the hosts were at full speed, screaming their hearts out to bury the fear they felt.
Argilac had sent more than half of his cavalry along with a sizable amount of infantry for the surprise attack, so his charge was aimed at the middle, where Garse was leading his army. If he could take Garse out, his host would rout, and the battle would be all but won.
Just as the cavalry of each side met in the middle, slamming into each other, the storm abruptly dispersed, though none had the time to care. Lances broke and riders were unhorsed, some dying on impact when the lances found their way to weak spots in armor, others when they fell off their horses and were trampled to death.
Argilac, riding a mighty black steed at the front, raised his lance and shield, charging at a Reach knight, a Hightower knight at that. His lance found its way to the enemy's throat, crushing it and launching him off. Argilac threw the broken lance away, pulled his mace, and struck the next knight in the head, caving in his helmet and skull.
The Storm King blocked a lance; the weapon scraped his shield but gave him the opportunity to nail the knight in his shoulder. At the edge of his vision he saw Garse Gardener dueling with a Dondarrion knight and charged, his retinue right behind.
Garse dispatched the knight and saw Argilac approaching. He turned to meet the Storm King with his own men.
"Die!" Argilac shouted, swinging his mace at Garse with all his strength, and he ducked, causing Argilac's strike to go wide. Garse slashed horizontally with his sword, but Argilac brought up his mace fast enough to block. Garse pulled back and went for a stab, but the Storm King raised his shield. Back and forth they danced, attacking and blocking to no avail.
Garse lost his concentration when shouts rose from his lines, as the other half of Argilac's host smashed them from behind, running the archers through and catching the thirty thousand strong host unaware.
Garse paid the price of getting distracted in the middle of a battle, and Argilac swung at his chest. The Gardener King tried to defend himself, raising his arm to avoid a fatal blow.
The plate armor he wore caved, and the padded armor saved him from a broken arm but not from falling off his horse. Argilac went for the killing blow before something knocked him off his horse, sending him rolling on the ground.
He leaped to his feet immediately, drawing his sword. A footman, carrying a pike, came rushing at him, screaming his lungs out, before Argilac dodged to the right and took the man's head off.
"Behind you!" His good-brother shouted, and Argilac turned just in time to block the sword of a Florent knight. The knight raised his sword again to strike, but his life ended when Argilac's sword found its way to his unprotected neck, stabbing him through.
Argilac clashed swords with another knight; his superior strength slammed the sword aside, and the next took the man's arm at the elbow. His screams were short as the Storm King stabbed him in the chest through a weak point on his right side.
He rushed to Garse, who himself was busy with Garrin Carron. The smaller man was using his size to his advantage, dancing around the Gardener King, who was frothing at the mouth.
Argilac ran, slamming a knight and another footman aside before bringing his sword down on Garse, who blocked it with his own sword. Garrin went to find another enemy, leaving the kings to their duel.
Garse rolled to the right, realizing he couldn't match the Storm King's strength, and got up, facing his enemy. They seized each other, and Argilac made the first move, aiming for Garse's neck, the only weak point in his armor, unlike the knights he killed so far.
Garse met the swing with his own, the swords clashing in a symphony of death, each king aiming at the other's unprotected points, the only way to kill someone wearing full plate with a sword.
They were evenly matched when it came to speed, though Argilac was stronger, but Garse was more agile, dodging Argilac's attacks.
"Die, you flowery fuck," Argilac spat, his swing missing by a hair's breadth when Garse jumped back, thrusting his sword towards Argilac's face in retaliation.
"Come and do it then, you brute," Garse replied, as his thrust was batted aside.
Argilac's fury reached its peak, a storm contained within a man, and he leaped at Garse, taking him off guard.
All the while the chaos and slaughter around them continued.
The Electro Archon watched, ready to smite the Reach forces, Garse specifically, should he get the upper hand against her father.