Solomon's coalition host had been moving through the thickets of this valley for several days.
Had the dense foliage not muffled the heavy crunch of thousands of boots, leaving nothing but the rustle of leaves and the occasional call of birds, the ironborn longships would have marked their presence long ago.
The scout-riders continued to sweep out like bees from a hive, returning with caked dust and absolute exhaustion.
They delivered a continuous ledger of total chaos, reports of raiding parties burning the river villages to ash, yet they carried no clear word of Lord Balon Deddington, Lord Raymun Darry, or Lord Tytos Blackwood. The high seats of the west seemed to have vanished completely into the mud.
No specific news of their capture had reached the camps, though some refugees claimed to have seen the plowman's banner of House Darry encircled within a minor hold, with Raymun himself directing the shields from the walls.
Lymond Lychester stood alongside Solomon's stirrup, his eyes tracing the markers on the map. Having watched the column pass up multiple opportunities to ambush small, isolated bands of raiders, a quiet understanding finally settled in the old man's thoughts.
He understood Solomon's strategy perfectly. The young lord was waiting for the supreme lineages of the west to bleed their last lances against the iron fleet. Only when those grand structures collapsed entirely would the board clear enough to grant House Lychester a grand stage in the river valleys.
Yet, Lymond's voice dropped into a low register, carrying a distinct weight of urgency. "We have lingered in these thickets too long, boy."
"The arithmetic demands a return to the eastern valley. Our own lances are completely whole, and when the snow clears over a ruined west, our strength will dictate the terms."
He paused, reviewing the hard realities of the field.
"Furthermore, the loss of Raymun Darry and Balon Deddington is no true disaster for our name."
"Their heirs are nothing but children. A keep ruled by a minor is far easier to influence, and far easier to manage when the partition begins."
Solomon listened to the old lord's cold reasoning in silence. He knew the calculations were legally sound, yet a separate memory occupied his thoughts. When he had first arrived in the Riverlands as a penniless second son, Raymun Darry had been the single noble who offered him clean leather and a proper blade without demanding a fee. A debt like that required an accounting.
The Blackwoods could be left to the crows, but if an opening appeared to pull Raymun Darry from the fire, his own hand would not check the horses.
Before his thoughts could settle, a scout broke through the brush, his mount blowing hard.
The rider threw himself from the saddle, his knee hitting the clay. "My Lord!"
"Clean word from the keep at Muddybridge!"
"The main raiding party stripped the stores yesterday, carrying the bulk of the gold and the smallfolk captives south toward the deep water!"
"They left barely fifty axes behind to guard the gates!"
Solomon lifted his chin, his dark eyes flaring with a sudden, freezing intensity. The opening has arrived, he thought. Let the fire trace the road.
He turned his torso in the saddle, his voice clear. "Bring Ser Robin to the center!"
The old knight, whose lances had just cleared the Payle line from the ledger, hurried to the stirrup, his ringmail polished to a bright sheen.
Solomon drove his gauntlet hard against the map marker for Muddybridge, his voice entirely devoid of warmth. "Ser Robin, I command you to assemble the full strength of the Deddington levies at once."
"Tonight, you shall take the gates of Muddybridge and clear the valley for the Vyprens."
Lymond Lychester's brow furrowed deep, his face full of complete confusion. The move ran counter to Solomon's cautious geometry. To spend their lances against a despoiled, secondary keep yielded no profit and risked exposing their presence to the main fleet.
Ser Robin received the command but did not immediately turn his horse. He stepped his mount half a pace closer, pressing his gauntlet to his breastplate.
The old knight held his spine straight, his voice booming with a soldier's candor. "My Lord!"
"The sword belongs to your seal, and the oath is absolute."
"But I must report the reality of the line. The Deddington column is a volatile mix of secondary keeps and pressed farmers. Their hearts are not in this valley."
"If I order the ladders forward on all four curtains, my own lances will climb, but the bannermen will likely sit in the ditch or use the confusion to scatter into the brush."
He lifted his chin, his gaze boring into Solomon's mask.
"Therefore, I request that your own cloak lead the vanguard for this assault."
A slow, pleasant smile finally showed on Solomon's features, the precise reaction his strategy had waited to receive. He stepped down from his saddle, lifting the old knight by the elbows and pressing his hand firmly against the man's shoulder casing.
"Your eye is sharp, Ser Robin. The calculation is correct."
Solomon turned his bulk, his dark stare marking the secondary captains who had gathered near the camp fires, their faces loose with anxiety.
"My own Willowdale squads and the lances of House Lychester will not join the first wave."
"Our shields will form the rear guard, arrayed in solid lines behind all four assault columns to secure the paths."
Solomon's eyes narrowed like an eagle marking a ditch, his gaze moving slowly over the captains.
"If any sergeant shows a soft back to the wall, or if any banner attempts to turn its horse toward the east."
"My own hand will execute the King's law before the noon turn."
The color left the features of every secondary captain within earshot in an instant. Robin has delivered our necks to the butcher, their eyes whispered.
Muddybridge was a modest limestone keep built along a sharp bend in the creek. By midnight, heavy storm clouds had swallowed the moon entirely.
Following the layout Solomon had designed, twelve hundred Deddington levies were split into four separate columns of three hundred shields each, carrying crude timber ladders through the dark to close with the four curtains simultaneously.
The garrison inside counted barely fifty axes. Divided across the battlements, each ironborn was forced to defend his stone against thirty times his number.
Yet, the moment the warhorns blew, Solomon scowled from his hill. The pressed farmers, illuminated by the pitch torches along the wall, went completely still when the first ironborn war cries ripped through the dark. Their boots seemed rooted to the mud.
They pushed and shoved in the ruts, delaying the ladders and refusing to close with the ditch. A handful of levies who were forced forward at the point of a knight's sword managed to raise a single timber against the mortar, only to be crushed flat by a massive river stone dropped from the lip.
Seeing the blood splatter the grass, the surrounding farmers halted entirely, huddling together along the slope like a flock of terrified sheep. The captains shouted until their throats were dry, striking the men with the flats of their blades, yet the line would not move an inch closer to the wall.
The entire assault was a chaotic, low-yield exercise that spent lives without touching the stone. Had the rear paths been open, the host would have dissolved into a total rout within the hour.
But Solomon's nine hundred infantrymen and Lymond's lances stood arrayed in perfect, unmoving blocks behind their backs.
The straight rows of long spears and the dark mass of the Willowdale crossbowmen watched the slope like silent huntsmen, their iron tips reflecting the torchlight.
Faced with a wall of professional steel that barred any retreat, the pressed farmers had no choice but to turn their faces back to the stone.
Solomon stood atop the low clay rise, watching the farce unfold with a long, slow sigh.
He understood now why the maesters' chronicles were full of sieges that lasted a winter.
In the custom of Westeros, a keep guarded by two hundred shields could easily break a host of thousands if the commander relied on common levies. A hundred men who refused to die were more than enough to hold a sheer wall against an army of pressed farmers.
He gave a quiet sign to his squire. A courier immediately spurred his mount toward the western curtain.
At that sector, Brynden Vance was guiding the two hundred veteran infantrymen from Atranta, keeping them behind the Deddington lines in a loose, casual demonstration of support. Their arrows were loose, their shouts soft, their movements a complete performance of empty effort.
This was the precise instruction Solomon had signed, designed to blind the ironborn on the battlements and force them to spend their fifty axes defending the other three curtains.
The moment the courier's flag dropped, Brynden let out a sharp roar. The professional soldiers who had been sliding through the mud instantly transformed into a single, lethal machine.
They formed a tight shield-wall, their heavy iron targets locked together to form a moving roof that deflected the scattered arrows from the lip. They closed with the ditch in three quick strides, planting several ladders firmly against the mortar before the defenders could shift their lances.
The rear rows climbed without a heartbeat of hesitation, one hand on the rungs and one holding a short iron billhook, moving with a disciplined speed the farmers could never match.
This was the true difference between a soldier who lived by the blade and a peasant dragged from the plow. They possessed the discipline to mount a wall that would freeze a commoner's blood, tracking their sergeants' signs through the smoke.
At the cost of some twelve dead, Brynden was the first to clear the stones, his broadsword cutting clean through an ironborn captain's gorget.
The Atranta infantry swarmed the battlements behind his shield like a pack of hounds, their castle-forged steel ripping through the fragile line of the defense within minutes.
Yet, the reduction of the hold required the entire night. Once the curtain was lost, the remaining ironborn fought their way back through the lanes, barricading themselves inside the thick limestone inner keep.
他们 blocked the massive oak doors with iron bars, preparing to spend their lives behind the mortar.
When the pale morning light finally touched the ruts, Solomon's host held the outer yards, though Lymond Lychester scowled as he looked upon the square inner keep.
He stepped his horse beside Solomon's cloak. "The outer walls are down, but the bone is hard, boy. What is the value of this stone?"
"Do we spend more lines to clear a kitchen?"
Solomon kept his eyes fixed on the thick oak doors, his dark stare unmoving. "No."
He turned his destrier, his voice flat as he delivered the directive to Ludo.
"Gather every scrap of seasoned timber, every broken cart, every barrel of oil, and every flagon of strong spirits within the yards. Stack the mass high against the foundation of the keep."
He offered no explanation to the old lord regarding the omens he had traced in his previous calculations, nor did he speak of his intent to use the fire to clear a path to Raymun Darry. The ironborn had simply committed the tactical error of locking themselves inside a stone oven.
Had they offered a surrender, binding them for a public execution would have left a complicated mark on his ledger, appearing poorly to the septons of the high houses.
The air in the yard grew thick with the greasy, sharp stench of pitch and spirits. Under the frantic curses of the raiders inside, the Willowdale squads piled the wood high against the walls, soaking the timber in oil.
Solomon took a pitch torch from his sergeant's hand, watching the bright flame dance against the iron tip before throwing it straight into the base of the stack.
The fire rose in a sudden, roaring wall of orange light, swallowing the limestone keep within minutes. The stones grew red and split with a sharp pop, the screams of the fifty ironborn inside entirely lost beneath the roar of the flames.
Cleaned by the fire, the ledger was balanced.
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