ASOIAF/Game Of Thrones: Ruler of Batannia

The Twins looked different under morning light. Not cleaner. Morning had no such power. Corpses filled halls, yards, stairways, and chambers. Frey banners and the flayed man of the Dreadfort lay trampled into blood and mud, while unfamiliar standards rose above the walls: the oak with deep roots, golden ears of grain, and the strange guardian beast of Arthur’s house. The sight would have confused any maester. That was fine. Maesters were too fond of being comfortable.

The main hall had been cleared enough for men to stand without stepping directly on bodies, though the smell remained thick in the air. Blood had entered the grain of the tables and the cracks between stones. No amount of scrubbing would make that hall innocent again. Perhaps that was fitting. Some places deserved to remember what they had allowed.

Arthur had changed into clean clothes taken from a Frey storehouse, but the smell of blood seemed to cling to him anyway. He stood on the steps of the high seat and looked down at the survivors. A handful of northern and river nobles remained alive, pale and hollow-eyed after a night that had turned marriage into a grave. Captured members of House Frey knelt under guard, some weeping, some silent, some looking offended that consequences had found their address.

Edmure Tully stood among the survivors. He was pale and wounded, but alive. Jeyne Westerling stood a little apart from him, unhurt and entirely silent, having been pulled from the high table into a storeroom by two of Kator’s recruits before the second crossbow volley; a queen for a season, a widow before the candles guttered, and now a Westerling of the Crag again, which was to say a piece belonging to whoever held the west. His new wife, Roslin Frey, trembled behind him, caught between the blood of her birth and the man she had married. Arthur had no time to hate her. There were too many proper targets.

Arthur’s voice was hoarse when he spoke.

”I am going to take revenge on the Lannisters. Total war. Edmure, I need your name.”

Edmure looked up sharply. ”Revenge? Ser Arthur, after this night at the Twins, the Riverlands have been bled near dry. What do we have left to fight the Westerlands with?”

”You do not have to fight,” Arthur said. ”You need to stabilize the Riverlands. Kneel to the Iron Throne, sue for peace, surrender, lie, delay, I do not care. The war with the Westerlands will be carried by me and mine.”

”Your kin?” Edmure looked at the strange warriors standing around the hall, their armor still stained from the night. ”The Battanians? I have never heard of such a people.”

”You do not need to know where we come from. You need to answer whether you can hold the Riverlands together while I bring fire west. When I take the war to the foot of Casterly Rock, can you keep the Riverlands from collapsing behind me?”

Edmure looked into Arthur’s eyes and found no madness there. That seemed to disturb him more. Madness could be pitied, opposed, or dismissed. Arthur’s gaze held only cold purpose, the sort that had already counted the cost and decided someone else would pay more.

The heir of Riverrun took a breath. His shoulders straightened, not proudly, but because duty sometimes used pride as a cane.

”If it is only stabilizing the Riverlands,” Edmure said, his voice rough, ”I can do it. I will gather what remains, hold Riverrun, and make certain the Lannisters cannot threaten the North from the east again.”

”Good,” Arthur said. ”Then the Riverlands are yours.”

He turned away before Edmure could answer. There was no crown to give, no council to summon, no careful ceremony. Edmure had a name, blood, and enough legitimacy to hold frightened lords together. That was all Arthur needed from him. Men made politics complicated because it gave them something to do between disasters.

By the time Arthur left the hall, his force had swollen to nearly four thousand men. The original Rangers, the new recruits brought by Kator, survivors who rallied under the Battanian banner, and the soldiers recruited through the system during the night had become a real army in the most inconvenient way possible. He had soldiers, yes. He had also nearly exhausted the wealth accumulated by Newroot, the brewery, the caravans, and months of careful planning. Worse, the monthly pay and maintenance for such a force approached a million dinars.

Arthur stared at the number in the system panel and felt the pressure of it like a hand closing around his throat.

War sustains war.

There was no other way now.

His gaze turned west, across the Green Fork, toward the rich and arrogant land that had paid for this betrayal. Golden Tooth. Lannisport. Casterly Rock. The Westerlands did not merely have enemies. It had mines, storehouses, ports, roads, and gold enough to make murder look orderly.

Kator followed him closely, waiting for orders.

”Pass the word,” Arthur said. ”The whole army rests for one day. Tomorrow we break camp. Our target is Golden Tooth.”

Kator’s face hardened. ”Yes, my lord.”

Arthur looked back once toward the hall, where the smell of blood still clung to the stones. The Twins had answered treachery with treachery’s own reward. It was not enough. It would never be enough. The flames of vengeance needed gold, food, steel, men, and roads. Conveniently, House Lannister owned all of those.

The army left the Twins the next day like a wound moving west.

A surrendered Frey soldier served as guide. He knew the eastern Westerlands better than most, having ridden routes used by hunters, smugglers, raiders, and cowards who preferred paths without witnesses. Arthur’s army avoided the main roads when possible and moved through rugged mountain trails, narrow valleys, and forested slopes. Five thousand Battanian warriors and reorganized men from the Twins slipped into the mountains like a thing that should not have been there.

In a hidden valley, Arthur spread a parchment map across a flat stone. Candlelight flickered against his face as Kator, Beland, Horgos, and the guide stood nearby.

”My lord,” Kator said, pointing to the western route, ”we could follow the path King Robb took. Oxcross, Branding Castle, then the Crag. The defenses there were weakened before. The route is familiar.”

”Those places have already been raided,” Arthur said. ”They will be poor. We do not want castles for their names. We want gold. Coin to sustain the army and capital for revenge.”

His finger moved eastward on the map, stopping at the fortress guarding the pass into the Westerlands.

”Golden Tooth.”

The castle sat at one of the most important eastern gates of the Westerlands. It was a fortress, a mining center, and a transshipment point for wealth moving deeper into Lannister lands. Tywin had entrusted its defense to Ser Forley Prester, a cautious commander, though not one famous enough to make Arthur hesitate.

”There should still be gold there that has not been moved to Casterly Rock,” Arthur said. ”If we take it, we breathe. If we fail, the army begins eating itself within a moon.”

Beland frowned. ”Golden Tooth is strong. A frontal assault will cost too much.”

”Then we do not take it from the front.”

Arthur looked at the shivering guide.

”Oxcross. Tell me what remains there.”