As the chaos of the melee deepened, many of the Lannister knights chose to dismount. They soon discovered, however, that abandoning their saddles was a fatal mistake.
In the churned, waist-deep slurry of the road, the very plate armor that made them invincible became a leaden shroud. Every step required a Herculean effort to wrench a boot from the suction of the clay. On horseback, the beast had borne the burden; on foot, the knights were crushed by their own protection.
In contrast, Hugo's light infantry moved through the muck with predatory ease. Clad in thin homespun and boiled leather, they were nimble and quick, dancing around the heavy-armored lords who were literally sinking into the earth. It was a sight rarely seen outside the treacherous bogs of The Neck—high-born knights being methodically dismantled by "smallfolk."
"The flank! Pivot to the flank!"
Gerion Lannister's voice rose above the symphony of slaughter. He possessed the sort of commanding roar that every general envied.
Gerion had been at the very front of the charge, but the moment he sighted the trench, he had hauled back on the reins with a desperation that nearly threw him. It was a hair's breadth from disaster; a second's delay and he would have been trampled into the stakes by his own men.
But there was no time for relief. The flank looked clear—an innocent stretch of green that promised a way around the carnage. In his desperation, Gerion ordered his riders to wheel left. But as the heavy destriers thundered onto that "safe" ground, they didn't find solid earth. They found a vertical descent.
"A bog! It's a peat bog!"
The knights screamed as their horses vanished into the mire up to their chests. In the ensuing panic, men tumbled from their saddles only to be swallowed by the black mud. While they struggled, farmers in linen tunics walked across the treacherous surface as if it were a highroad, casually cracking open the visors of the lords with heavy clubs.
Gerion felt the icy grip of true panic. This wasn't supposed to happen. Bandits were supposed to scatter like chaff before a Lannister charge. Instead, his proud company was being butchered in a swamp.
To his horror, he saw knights—men of ancient lineage—dropping their swords and kneeling in the filth, begging for mercy from common thieves.
Gerion's shock didn't last long. The "thieves" were already upon him.
A man wearing a Seven-Pointed Star surcoat caved in the skull of a knight right beside Gerion. Before the Lannister could even draw his breath, two more zealots with stars carved into their foreheads lunged at him.
Gerion's first thought was: How did they find me so fast? The answer was as obvious as it was bitter—he was wearing a suit of master-crafted plate that shone like a beacon in the gloom.
They didn't hesitate. One swung a spear-butt into the side of Gerion's helmet with a sickening clang, while the other buried an axe-blade into his greave. Even the finest steel in the Westerlands couldn't stop the kinetic shock.
Gerion hit the mud, his vision spinning. He felt bodies pinning him down. His hand flew to his belt for his dagger, his mind screaming with the fear that they would drive a blade through his eye-slits.
Instead, his dirk was snatched away. Two more heavy blows rained down on his helmet, and the world dissolved into a swirling darkness. His last conscious thought was a flicker of grim relief: If they're hitting me with the blunt end, they want me alive.
"Dammit, Gerion!"
The news of his brother's capture hadn't reached him yet, but Tygett Lannister could feel the disaster in the air.
What do I do? What do I do? he asked himself, forcing his breathing to slow. He had to be Tywin. He had to be cold.
The cavalry was bogged down, yes, but he still had a thousand disciplined pikes. The bandits couldn't kill everyone at once. He still had the numbers to win.
Think. How did they move? Tygett realized the outlaws had fallen back in a specific pattern. They were using the road as a corridor.
"All units, advance along the Kingsroad! That is the only solid ground! Move!"
The Lannister infantry, despite the exhaustion of their forced march, surged forward. They were the elite of the West, fueled by Lannister gold and a legacy of victory. They didn't care about fatigue; they cared about the kill.
"Here they come," Hugo whispered.
He wasn't surprised. This was the centerpiece of his design.
Hugo stood at the edge of the road where his men were frantically lashing Great Carts together with iron chains and heavy nails. Beside them, the Sparrows and knights were still locked in a bloody struggle with the remaining Lannister horse. The pressure was immense, but under "Farmer Long" Snow's booming commands, the peasants held their nerve.
A group of Sparrows stood nearby, their eyes glassy with fervor. To these men, this wasn't a battle; it was a shortcut to the Seven Heavens.
"Snow, it's in your hands now," Hugo said. "I don't need you to stop them forever. Just give me time."
Snow nodded without a word, his face grim. Hugo briefly wondered if he should have sent the High Sparrow instead—Snow was loyal, but he lacked the priest's suicidal fearlessness. But the High Sparrow was the only thing keeping the other front from collapsing. He was the anchor.
Hugo could only pray his resources were enough.
The Lannister pikes hit the wagon-line with the force of a tidal wave. From behind the carts, the farmers thrust downward with longspears and fire-hardened poles. A cart isn't a castle wall, but to a man who has never fought a lord, it provides just enough courage to stand his ground.
The Lions, confident in their heavy mail, tried to vault the obstacles. Many were met with an axe to the cranium or a spear through the armpit as they climbed.
"Hold the rhythm, brothers!" Snow's voice thundered. "Show these Lions that the Riverlands have teeth!"
The peasants fought with a desperate, frantic energy, keeping the heavy infantry at bay. But morale cannot bridge the gap in equipment forever. Eventually, the superior steel of the Lannisters began to tell.
The Lions began to breach the line, their shortswords carving through homespun tunics as if they were paper. It was a slaughter. The Lannister men-at-arms moved with the cold efficiency of butchers, their faces set in grim masks of duty.
"Hold! Do not break! The God-Chosen is with us!"
Snow roared as he drove a short-spear through the gorget of a Lannister sergeant. Blood sprayed across his face, staining him crimson, but for every man he killed, three more took his place. The line was only held together by the Sparrows, who threw themselves onto the Lannister blades to buy a few more seconds of life.
Suddenly, a volley of arrows hissed out from the dense forest flanking the road. They found the gaps in the Lannister helmets and the joints of their armor.
These were Hugo's best marksmen. They had been waiting in the shadows since dawn. The sudden rain of death caused a momentary surge of panic in the Lannister ranks, giving Snow's men a brief reprieve. But fifty bowmen could only harass a thousand pikes. The effect was a needle-prick on a giant.
As the death toll mounted, Snow began a disciplined retreat, pulling the farmers back while the last of the Sparrows fought to the death to cover them.
The Lannister troops were flagging. The march, the mud, and the frantic bridge-fighting had drained their reserves. But Tygett saw the finish line.
"Push forward! One more strike and they break!"
Tygett drew his sword and stepped into the front rank. An arrow clattered off his helm, sending a jolt of shock through his neck, but he didn't falter. The second defensive line was weak—the bandits there were retreating after losing barely a dozen men. The Lannister banners were raised over the captured wagons.
Tygett allowed himself a smirk. They were out of tricks.
But as he looked at his men, his heart sank. They were spent. Many were leaning on their pikes, their chests heaving, their faces pale with exhaustion. Only the promise of Lannister gold kept them standing.
"We have them," Tygett shouted. "Send men into the woods to clear the archers! One more step and we—"
"Hey! Idiots! Over here!"
The shout cut through Tygett's speech like a knife.
At the head of a fresh wedge of armored men stood a knight with the Seven-Pointed Star on his shield. It was Hugo. Behind him were his armored elites—his "Old Guard"—and the remnants of the two forces the Lannisters thought they had already beaten.
Hugo didn't wait. He charged.
His first strike took the head of a startled Lannister sergeant. In a blur of motion, his blade sheared through a pike-shaft and claimed the life of a second man. Hugo fought with a wild, terrifying intensity, his heavy blade carving a path through the exhausted Lions.
Beside him, Karnathir moved like a shadow. His black blade flickered out, finding the gaps in armor with surgical precision. The sight of the black steel caused men to hesitate—and in a melee, hesitation is death.
Hugo's reserves were fresh, well-fed, and hand-picked. They fell upon the tired Lannisters like wolves upon sheep. The Lions began to buckle. The psychological weight of facing a "God-Chosen" who refused to die was finally breaking their spirit. Men began to drop their pikes and bolt.
Tygett panicked. He turned his horse, screaming at his men to hold the line. He knew if the rout started, it could never be stopped—Tywin had told him that a thousand times.
As he turned, Tygett felt a sudden, violent rush of air.
A heavy broadsword, thrown with the full strength of a desperate man, whistled through the air. It struck Tygett squarely in the shoulder, the force of the impact launching him from his saddle. He hit the ground with the force of a catapult stone.
The agony was absolute. Through a haze of red, the world faded to black.
Hugo stood panting, his hand empty. He watched the man go down. Thank the Gods that fool wouldn't stop shouting, Hugo thought. In that plain armor, I never would have picked him out.
Hugo drew a secondary blade from a nearby corpse. His own was notched and dull from the slaughter. Around him, the battle raged on, but the spirit of the Lion had been broken.
The day was far from over, but the hunters had become the prey.