ASOIAF: King of Winter

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Chapter 8

Tytos Blackwood

He knelt before Riverrun's Heart tree, unlike Raventree hall's colossal weirwood, Riverrun's heart Tree is a slender one, almost cheerful even in the midst of night.

He was there, praying.

When the boy Tully called the banners, Tytos knew it to be a foolish move, that horsefucker Bracken did too. Yet unlike that selfish, scheming man, Tytos was a man of honor, of loyalty.

He swore oath to the Tully's, to King Robert, not to those blonde haired fuckwits with more pride than sense, it is why he retreated to Riverrun instead of coming back to his own castle, holing up behind familiar walls like a coward.

And it is with heavy heart that the gods put such a heavy burden on his shoulders in return, with Lord Hoster sick, his son captured, and his brother stuck in the Vale, it is up to him as the most senior Riverlander lord inside the castle to lead the men into battle.

Not that there was much of it, his own archers, being the greatest in the realm, fared very well atop the walls of the castle, and after opening the sluice gates and filling a wide moat around the castle, it has turned into an island and has therefore become practically unassailable.

All the Lannisters can do now is simply besieging the castle on all sides, separating their army into three, and starving them out. Fortunately, the Riverlands are fertile and the realm had enjoyed twenty years of summer, so the granaries were overflowing before the war, and it is a testament to the Tully boy's skills in logistics that not much of it was wasted in his folly.

'He should have let other people strategize.' Tytos muses to himself. 'Yet bold youth and a kind heart often make for an unfortunate combination.'

And so, their only recourse was to wait, wait for any ally to come and relieve them.

Hence the praying.

"My Lord, my Lord!" His squire came in rushing. "We're hearing fighting from the northern camp!"

His focus sharpened instantly, his experienced mind already digesting the information, all the while thanking the Old Gods for their intervention.

He swiftly stands up, pulling his sheathed sword from the dirt with a thump sound.

"Rouse all the men and prepare to defend the castle." He orders. "Have the knights arrayed before the main gate; if we heard this, then the other two camps definitely did, too." He explains. "With the Kingslayer's absence, this shall be the perfect opportunity to rescue the hostages."

*-*-*

"Make yourselves useful and start pelting those rafts with rocks!" Tytos screams at the men garrisoning the walls as he puts his helmet on, already ahorse. "If a single raft makes it to the northern camp I'll pelt your godsdamned hides!"

Satisfied with the terrified response, Tytos signals to the gate guards to lower the bridge.

"We keep close and search for the hostages!" He orders. "This may be the only chance to give payback to those Lannisters, so you better fucking behave!"

The other knights let out a scream of affirmation just as the bridge lowers completely, and in one single moment, they all urge their horses to gallop across it.

By the time Tytos manages to sight the camp he has already heard the deafening howl of a wolf, and he notices two columns of armored horses bearing banners of Stark, Umber, and Mallister among many others cutting through the camp like a knife over butter, heading straight toward a shield wall surrounding the middle of it.

Being at the head of the charge, Tytos easily changes the course of his own men to target the rear of the shield bearing soldiers. Lannister men are well equipped and professionally trained, and while entrenched like so, it'd be a hard endeavor indeed to cut through them.

The northern cavalry manage to reach the enemy footmen before his men could flank them, and despite his expectation of their failure, the Blackwood Lord's and his knights get shocked at the sight of a sparsely armored man with barely visible auburn hair urging his horse to jump over the first pikemen.

Somehow, the horse feels compelled to land with his front hooves straight on the first shieldmen's skulls; then a frightfully fast swing decapitates the next one. And before the others could fill him with holes an incredibly large wolf follows suit, mauling their faces with his fangs.

This action cascades incredibly well as the strange spectacles allows the other northmen to pierce through the shield wall, sowing chaos through their lines.

And so it was with great satisfaction that Tytos decapitated one of the fleeing levies as he urged his steed to gallop even faster toward the main camp.

When he barged through the main tent, passing next to a riderless horse, he found the auburn haired man with a bloodied sword at his hand and three downed guards, standing over the dirtied face of the shackled Lord Paramount to be.

"Hello, uncle." The man's voice was cold as ice, yet had a tinge of joy in it. "Smile, my mother would be crass to see you pouting."

'Asking someone to smile while your face is as hard as stone has a certain irony to it.' That was the first thought that came to Tytos' mind.

Tyrion Lannister

They were camped around the Crossroads Inn when they received the news.

"He has my son." Tywin says.

Tyrion held the letter after it was passed down around the command chamber, it read:

{Old Lion,

I know you have my sister left in your den of vipers, with the mad creature you deem to call grandson and king, the one who had the gall to murder my father.

I have your son.

Your golden boy is safe and sound, for now.

So send a raven to your whore of a daughter, tell her to discipline her own, that if he were to inflict even the slightest bit of pain on my sister again, I shall send back Jaime to Kingslanding, parcel by parcel.

And tell your brother fucker of a daughter to never even think of trying to hurt her, or I shall send her brother's cock in a box instead.

Those are my demands, those are my terms.

I offer you no leniency in exchange, I will continue to attack you, I will attempt to kill you as you stand.

You will enforce them, or I'll make sure to tear down your legacy brick by brick as you're alive to watch.

I'd make the Laughing Lion be seen as a saint in comparison to the Arrogant one, test me if you dare.

Robb Stark}

"Well, not an Ice Lord, I'll say that at least." Tyrion qips, as he does when he feels stress. "He sure appears less green than we'd hoped."

"I've heard he killed dozens of men and his wolf as many horses."

"Is it true about Stannis and Renly?"

"Both Baratheon brothers have taken up against us." Kevan responds. "Jaime captured, his armies scattered whilst ours are weakened… It's a catastrophe. Perhaps we should sue for peace."

Tyrion pushes his glass cup to the floor, shattering it.

"There goes your peace." He says. "There's your peace, Joffrey saw to that when he decided to remove Ned Stark's head, did no one else read the letter? You'll have an easier time drinking from that cup, than you will bringing Robb Stark to the table now." He puts a hand over the table. "He's winning, in case you hadn't noticed."

"I'm told we still have his sisters."

"The first order of business is ransoming Ser Jaime."

"No truces, we can't afford to look weak, we should march on them at once!"

"First we must return to Casterly Rock to raise--"

"They have my son!" Tywin raises his voice. "Get out, all of you."

Tyrion attempts to follow them out, but is interrupted. "Not you."

He lets out a sigh, before turning back, filling himself another cup.

"You were right about Eddard Stark." Tywin says. "If he were alive we could have used him to broker a peace with Winterfell and Riverrun, which would have given us more time to deal with Robert's brothers, but now…" He fidgets with the letter. "Madness—Madness and stupidity."

"I always thought you were a stunted fool." He talks to Tyrion. "Perhaps I was wrong."

"Half wrong." Tyrion japes, the lack of retaliation seemed strange at this point. "I'm new to strategy, but… Unless you want to be surrounded by three armies, we can't stay here."

"No one will stay here." Tywin says. "Ser Gregor will head out with five hundred riders and set the Riverlands on fire form Gods Eye to the red fork. The rest of us will regroup at Harrenhall." He looks at Tyrion. "And you will go to Kingslanding."

"And do what?" Tyrion asks.

"Rule." He says. "You will serve as hand of the king in my stead." He explains. "You will bring that boy king to heel and his mother too, the whelp's letter makes mention of one sister, to think that Cersei may have lost the other..." His father shakes his head, letting that thought go. "If you get so much as a whiff of treason from any of the rest, Baelish, Varys, Pycelle—"

"Heads, Spikes, Walls." Tyrion finishes. "Why not my uncle? Why not anyone? Why me?"

"You are my son." Tywin says.

Tywin leaves at that.

Tyrion looks back at his back, for a moment he feels joy for words he had never heard his whole life, yet surely enough he remembers that he'd tried to kill him not a sennight since.

'I am a son only when convenient.' He thinks. 'Then I better prove myself invaluable then, I wonder what he'd call me then.'