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"Let us in. Please, my lord soldier!"
"No, I do not want to go back out!"
"Jack, where are you? Come to Mother!"
"I do not want to die!"
Above the gates of the Red Keep, the crimson banner of the roaring lion snapped in the wind.
Below, the shouting of commoners, servants, guards, and noble households tangled together until the usually solemn gates of the Red Keep became a roaring crush of fear.
Lannister guards had divided the gate into two sides.
On one side, countless smallfolk in plain clothes crushed together, trying to force their way into the Red Keep for refuge.
On the other, nobles in fine clothes entered slowly with servants around them and valuables piled in carts.
Some commoners tried to slip into those noble processions. Others simply lost their senses and rushed the gate.
When Lannister guards caught them, they cut the tendons in their legs without a word and threw them back out.
The screams made the rest of the crowd shrink away.
Elsewhere in King's Landing, the old bustle had vanished. At street corners and alley mouths, only Gold Cloaks and Lannister soldiers hurried back and forth.
The atmosphere within King's Landing had grown tight as a drawn bowstring.
That tension was the work of the northern intelligence net.
Before Robb's army had even set out, northern agents had begun spreading word through the city. They said the King in the North was personally leading more than a hundred thousand men against King's Landing. They said the mouth of Blackwater Bay had already been taken by his fleet.
At the River Gate, thousands of Gold Cloaks gasped and shifted in fear.
Most had only recently been added to the city watch. In ordinary times, they knew how to bully commoners. They had never faced a battlefield like this.
Behind them, the great chain across the Blackwater had been raised.
Beyond the river mouth, the enemy fleet waited on the dark water.
And now, in front of the River Gate, a dark mass of enemies moved toward King's Landing like a tide.
Heavy clouds gathered over the distant sky, black as ink, rolling toward the city as if doomsday itself were approaching.
Outside the walls, nearly forty thousand Lannister soldiers had formed up beneath King's Landing.
Across from them, the northern army halted.
The new recruits at the front could not hide their fear.
They had followed Robb through easy victories and plunder, but many of them had once been refugees from King's Landing. They knew better than most how hard it was to assault the capital.
Then Bloodwind walked through the front ranks.
The white wolf's body swelled with every step. By the time he reached the open ground before the army, he was nearly twenty feet tall and almost forty feet long. White mist rolled from his fur, and the ground froze beneath his claws.
The frightened recruits fell silent at once.
Robb stood on Bloodwind's head and looked toward the River Gate.
The Lannister army outside the wall had not attacked. The Gold Cloaks on the wall had not opened fire. Tywin Lannister was waiting.
'A trap, then.'
The thought passed through Robb's mind without surprise.
If Tywin had no trap prepared, he would not have dared to defend King's Landing in this way.
"Is it the odorless wildfire from Deep Den?" Robb murmured. "Or something else?"
Robb raised his hand.
"Lord Mace," he said. "Have the infantry advance."
Mace Tyrell, standing near the Reach banners, immediately turned to pass the order.
Thirty thousand new recruits and more than ten thousand Reach infantry began to move forward.
They were not Robb's core strength. They were bait, shield, and pressure all at once.
The faces of the recruits were full of panic. Some even wanted to turn and run.
But they knew that if they fled now, the ten thousand Reach noble soldiers behind them would become more frightening than the enemy.
The morale gained from victory and plunder still held them together. Most shouted to drive away their fear and followed the line forward.
The Lannister soldiers beneath the wall waited until the front ranks entered the killing ground.
Several hundred special fire arrows rose from the Lannister lines.
Then green fire erupted in the killing ground.
A vast green plume of flame and smoke climbed into the sky. Screams vanished inside the blast. Men, shields, ladders, and broken bodies were swallowed together.
Three or four thousand recruits at the center of the blast were swallowed before they understood what had happened.
Behind them, thousands more were splashed with wildfire. They screamed and clawed at the green flames spreading over their bodies.
The rest of the recruits and the Reach infantry halted, staring at the shrieking men ahead of them.
Nearly a third of them were dead or wounded before the true battle had even begun.
Robb watched the burning ground with narrowed eyes.
This new wildfire was truly well hidden, and its power had improved.
Even so, compared with the explosion at Riverrun, this blast was much smaller.
It had not even swallowed the whole expendable front line.
Tywin had learned from the last disaster.
But this could not be his true reliance.
Bloodwind threw back his head and howled.
The howl that had once shocked all King's Landing rang out again after nearly a year. This time, its force and volume were no longer comparable.
Robb's voice rang across the battlefield.
"All forces, advance!"
Lord Mace, Prince Oberyn, Crey, and the other commanders drew their swords and pointed them toward King's Landing.
"Advance!"
The twenty thousand elite Tyrell cavalry passed Robb and Bloodwind first, led by Garlan and Loras. As they charged, they divided cleanly into left and right wings to bypass the green fire burning in the center.
Behind them came the twelve thousand mixed troops led by Oberyn and Randyll Tarly.
Randyll nodded to Robb with steady respect as he passed. Oberyn, face flushed from wine and battle excitement, winked at Robb with a smile.
Robb rolled his eyes and turned his attention to the Blackwater.
Robb kept his gaze on the river.
On Blackwater Bay, Theon's ironborn longships suddenly surged forward.
The small ironborn craft were faster than the great warships around them. They cut across the water, rushed the winch towers that controlled the chain, and threw hooks onto the stone.
At the same time, Paxter Redwyne's warships began hurling burning pitch toward the towers.
Smoke rose over the Blackwater.
Then the chain fell.
The ironborn roared as the way into the river opened.
Paxter Redwyne did not trust the towers simply because they had fallen so easily. As the Arbor Queen passed, he ordered burning pitch thrown onto both winch towers until smoke and flame rose from the riverbanks.
From high above the River Gate, Robb's army could be seen moving around the wildfire, more than eighty thousand men pressing toward fewer than forty thousand Lannisters.
On the Blackwater Rush, hundreds of longships and oared warships filled the river, and more than twenty thousand sailors stared at King's Landing like raiders staring at a city ripe for plunder.
For a moment, the city looked as if it were about to fall.
Then the bronze bell in the square of bells rang.
But almost at the same moment, the King's Gate opened.
An army without royal banners poured from the gate.
The Brotherhood Without Banners.
Their numbers were far greater than Robb had expected.
On Blackwater Bay, another fleet suddenly appeared from behind anchored wrecks and hidden coves. Baratheon, Lannister, and Royce banners rose above their decks.
Behind Robb's army, Daven Lannister led a fresh force out from the cover of woods and low ground.
More than ten thousand soldiers marched beneath roaring lion banners and the banners of Stormlands houses.
Shield-carts fitted with projecting blades rolled at the front like a moving wall. Behind them came special wagons loaded with sealed wine barrels.
Robb looked back and smiled faintly.
Tywin had prepared wildfire behind him as well.
On the River Gate tower, Tywin Lannister appeared with Cersei, Tommen, Tyrion, Andar Royce, Stannis Baratheon, Davos Seaworth, and a group of great lords.
Cersei looked down at the battlefield with satisfaction plain on her face.
"Robb Stark could never have imagined that all of us would join forces to set this trap," she said loudly. "Today is the day he dies."
Andar Royce turned toward Tywin.
"Lord Tywin, remember your promise."
Andar did not truly wish to be Robb's enemy. He knew his father had once stood with Robb early in the War of the Five Kings.
But Tywin's letter had been clear: if Andar did not help resist the demon servant, Bronze Yohn would be destroyed together with King's Landing.
"Bronze Yohn will be released tomorrow," Tywin said seriously. "House Lannister honors its promises."
Stannis Baratheon looked at Tywin with open contempt.
"You use a man's father as hostage and force him to fight for you. Tywin Lannister, your nature has not changed."
"I stand here to cleanse the demon servant Robb Stark," Tywin said. "The rest is politics."
"You understand this as well, Lord Stannis. Once we defeat him together, House Baratheon can reclaim the Stormlands, and our two houses may still contend fairly for the Iron Throne. If Robb takes King's Landing, you will have no chance at all."
Stannis's face hardened.
"I follow the Lord of Light. Do not mistake that for serving you."
Tywin did not answer. His eyes remained fixed on the white wolf below.
"Praise the Lord of Light," Tywin said perfunctorily.
Then, so quietly that only those nearest him might hear, he murmured, "A great net has been cast. Now the key is whether it can hold the fish."
The Lannister army outside the walls finally moved.
Twenty thousand cavalry struck out to intercept the Tyrell horse on both wings. Ten thousand infantry and ten thousand recruits shifted left, joining the Brotherhood pouring from the King's Gate to form a wider encirclement.
Near the gate, a hundred elite riders waited beside a covered wagon.
On the right, nearly sixty thousand Brotherhood soldiers pressed forward. Beric Dondarrion, Thoros of Myr, and Moqorro hid among them.
Unlike before, they had not covered the Brotherhood with flaming blades. They hid like ordinary men inside that vast crowd.
Robb could see Daven's force advancing behind him with the shield-carts and those dangerous barrels.
If Robb tried to retreat, the shield-carts would cut the road. If the carts failed, the wildfire in those barrels would be ignited with wood and corpses as fuel, severing the army's rear.
Tywin had not prepared a single trap.
He had turned the whole battlefield into one.
Robb laughed.
"If the board is set against me," he said, "then I will overturn the board."
His voice carried through the northern lines.
"Northmen! There is no road behind us. Tywin has placed enemies before us, behind us, and on the water. Good. That means every direction offers someone worth killing."
The northern soldiers roared.
"Forward!" Robb shouted. "Kill Tywin Lannister. Break House Lannister. Take King's Landing!"
"Kill Tywin! Break the Lannisters!"
"Break the Lannisters!"
The whole battlefield moved at once.
Tyrell cavalry slammed into Lannister cavalry on both wings. Warhorses screamed and fell in great numbers. Some riders died on impact, others were trampled by horses that no longer knew friend from foe.
Behind the cavalry, the Tyrell recruits, Reach noble infantry, Brotherhood vanguard, and Lannister recruits poured into the fight.
More than a hundred thousand men entered a single vast melee.
For many soldiers, the rule became brutally simple: if a man faced you, he was the enemy; if his back was turned, he was a friend.
No one could know how many died by their own side's hands.
Oberyn and Randyll did not charge straight into that mass of flesh and steel. Their twelve thousand men swung around the right of the battlefield, aiming at the Lannister infantry on the enemy left.
That was Oberyn's private choice. He wanted Lannister footmen more than the unbannered rabble.
The Martell spearmen struck with the same sharpness they had shown against Willas's force. Their spears slipped into gaps in Lannister armor like snakes.
The front ranks of Lannister infantry fell in swaths.
But after enduring two rounds of spear thrusts, the Lannister footmen forced their way into the Martell formation, where long spears became less deadly.
Randyll Tarly's men moved at once.
Half of his Tarly soldiers had been lost in the Highgarden war, but the two thousand he brought now were veterans from Horn Hill and the hard core of his remaining strength.
Longspears and longswords worked together. The Tarly veterans adapted quickly, killed the Lannisters who had broken in, and began pressing the enemy back.
The northern army collided with the Brotherhood.
The Brotherhood had fifteen thousand men who could be called their core troops. Against refugees and raw recruits, they had once seemed strong.
Against the northern army, with its terrifyingly disciplined formation and years of hard fighting, the gap appeared at once.
The front rank blocked with shields. The second rank struck with spears. The sword-and-shield men behind filled every opening.
The northern army advanced like a machine, cutting down the Brotherhood line in a steady, brutal rhythm.
Then the Fiery Hand drank their potion.
The red-armored fanatics threw themselves into the gap with wild speed and terrible strength. They tore open the northern line as if death meant nothing to them.
Robb raised one hand.
"Wyl. Take the Wolfguard and the explosive fruits. Close that gap."
Wyl and the Wolfguard rushed away.
At that moment, Beric, Thoros, Moqorro, the Fiery Hand, and the hundred Lannister elites near the wagon began to move.
Jaime Lannister rode among the elites.
Beside him, Ayla sat hidden beneath a dark cloak, her white mask turned toward Bloodwind.
Their target was Robb.
Robb saw them coming and laughed.
"A strike at the head before I try the same thing? Good."
Bloodwind lowered his body, and the white mist around him thickened.
"Come, then."
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