Part 5: A Lion's Claws Are Sharp - Lords Jonthor & Garrett
Lord Jonothor
He had put the men to forced march for almost a week, so much so that the whole army appeared to sleep on the move. Even the horses dreamed of drums beating out the time. But it had been required of him, and Lord Jonthor Serrett would not disappoint his king. He was no turncloak, he had answered the call at the Tourney at Highgarden, and for it had been rewarded with battle command for the southern half of the Westerlands' forces and some of the northmost Reach.
He knew time was of the essence. The Iron Throne and the Stormlands marched on the east of the Reach, while Lord Lefford, after defeating Prince Vaeron at Leygood Keep, had marched south to relieve Highgarden itself. His forces marched ahead of Lefford's, and then push east along the Rose Road to staunch the Rhaegar II Targaryen's forces as they marched east.
He had heard the Wythers Lord had killed Ser Steffon of the Kingsguard in single combat, though Lord Jonthor scare believed a word of it. Each telling was different. The last he had heard was that Wythers had met Steffon blow for blow for one hundred crosses of their swords, until each blade was notched and toothed like a saw and they'd had to call their squires for new ones. Lord Jonothor recalled that Wythers had been disqualified at Highgarden when he'd thrown sand in the face of his opponent, a hedge knight of no renown, after the hedge knight had knocked him about. And yet men now spoke of him as some great warrior.
In the east, House Meadows had a sizable force arrayed to defend Grassy Vale from the Iron Throne forces moving south to the Blueburn River, but it was doubtful they would hold without help. They were surrounded on all sides, according to the last raven to make it out of Grassy Vale. Serrett needed to move quickly.
A rider had come up to him that afternoon and he had had to summon his generals, the Lord Benfrey Falwell and Lord Owain Redding.
"My Lord Serrett," said Owain as he rode up. "What trouble ails you?" Lord Owain chafed at his inferior position to Lord Jonthor. The Redding lord was both older than him and a Reachman to boot. But he was loyal, nonetheless. Jonthor offered some thanks to the gods for Reachmen and their sense of chivalry and honor. Some commanders might have expected a knife in their back with such slights laid on one of their commanders.
"It would appear that an army from the Vale and Crownlands managed to land an army and join forces with Caswell," said Jonthor. Redding spit at the mention of the traitor Bitterbridge lord's name. "He has intercepted Lord Lefford to our rear."
"How large a force?" asked Lord Benfrey.
"The scouts estimate Caswell's forces to almost equal Lord Lefford's."
"We should turn and face them down," said Lord Owain. He must have desired greatly to take the traitor Lord prisoner.
"It is not in our orders," said Lord Benfrey.
Lord Jonthor nodded. "Our orders are to push east. We must link with the Reachmen in the east and defend the Rose Road from attack. Lord Lefford will have to win this battle himself."
And so they'd marched east, leaving Lord Lefford to his own devices. They encountered a few outriders, but other than that, they met little resistance. Until Appleton.
Lord Beren Caron must have been extremely mad, extremely brave, or both at once, Jonthor reflected later. The Stormlanders had held their ground when the men of the West had come marching along the road. They were outnumbered five to one, and any man with sense would have struck his banners and quit the field immediately. Lord Serrett knew there were Targaryen forces to the immediate south, not enough to challenge his army, but still more than the six thousand odd soldiers that Lord Caron had thrown together to cut Lord Meadows off from the rest of the Reach.
And yet, it had not gone as well as he'd thought it would initially. Jonthor had commanded the center while Falwell had led the left and Redding the right, with ten thousand men to each of their commands. Jonthor had planned to strike as a single mailed fist, and bring the entire force to bear at once. But Redding's knightly instincts had taken over instead. The man had charged before the signal had been given.
Instead, he'd been forced to watch in horror as Lord Caron had ordered his pikemen to the front. The Stormlander line suddenly bristled with spear points, seconds before the first of the Reachmen cavalry had gotten to them. Lord Serrett was sure he'd seen Lord Normund Oakheart thrown clear from his horse, and had fancied he could even hear the snap of the man's back breaking apart when he'd landed. The screams, half of them horses, half of them men, had begun almost instantly.
He'd drawn his sworn, thrusting it into the air in front of him as he'd spurred his horse forward. "For the Rock!" he shouted. Then his own home, "For Silverhill!" A roar went up along the line behind him, and he knew he need not look back to see if his men were pursuing--he could heard his army lurch into motion.
The Stormlander pikes were too busy with the knights of the Reach to react to this new threat in time. Jonthor rode down the first man to oppose him, the man's doublet emblazoned with the Caron nightingales. The next man was felled with a slash of his sworn, blood streaming across his chest. Jonthor wheeled his horse about to rally his men. He could see his Serrett peacock banner streaming behind him, his squire struggling to keep up.
"Come on, then!" he roared, his voice carrying across the field. "Strike! Strike! Strike at their hearts!"
And again without looking to see if they followed, he charged back into the fray. His knights had finally caught up with him, and together they formed into a lance point, wheeling out of the combat, then wheeling back around to take the enemy in the rear. It was Lord Jonthor's first true battle, his first experience with combat and he marveled at the thrill of it, especially the moment when he almost died at the end of some foeman's spear until one of his men had hacked the man's head half off and saved him.
It seemed to have ended as soon as it had started. The Lords Falwell and Redding were at his side again.
"An excellent victory, my Lord Serrett," cried Benfrey Falwell. "We have killed or captured the lot of them. Lord Caron was last seen fleeing along the road, pursued by some of our knights."
"And what of our loses in that disastrous charge of yours, Lord Redding?"
"My lord," said Owain Redding. "It was no charge of mine. Lord Normund Oakheart, may the Father have mercy on him, called the charge, and save for his and some of his men's deaths, we lost not a man, thanks to your most timely intervention."
Jonthor gave the man a hard stare, but with the dead Lord Oakheart unable to speak in his defense, it was hard to contradict Redding.
"Then no matter," he said. "For now, the way is clear."
Lord Garrett
"Move quickly, move silently. Yours is the task that most needs doing. I will join you when possible," the new King had instructed Lord Garrett by way of a raven before they had left Oldtown. King Bryce had never seen war, but he had constructed what Garrett felt to be a daring plan, and one that exploited the concentrated naval power that his lands now possessed.
There had been some grumbling from Lord Hightower to learn that Garrett Redwyne had been named battle commander for their army of thirty-five thousand, but he had acquiesced to Garrett's superior experience with sailing. Garrett doubted that Denys Hightower would have thought to paint the ships' hulls black or use black sail.
And it would have killed them, here in the tight confines of the Blackwater, had he not. "Douse the lamps," Lord Garrett had commanded when they'd grown near enough to see the light from King's Landing. It had taken them weeks to reach this position, slipping carefully up the Narrow Sea, avoiding detection by the Stormlander ships.
His first mate, Benjen, had protested, but the command had gone through anyway, and then they were sailing towards those distant lights, the men falling deathly silent.
They all jumped when there was a sudden creak of wood behind them.
"What was that?" Lord Garrett asked.
"Two of our ships collided in the dark. I believe out of Lannisport," answered Benjen. Lord Garrett shook his head. The Westermen captains were ill-suited for this sort of thing. They were trained to fight Ironmen, not lead landings against port cities. But Lord Garrett spent many a day thinking about how to hold the Arbor against assault. If he could plan to defend against a landing, he could plan one just as well.
When he judged them close enough, but not too far, he ordered all the men save the archers into the longboats. "Light infantry first," he ordered, slipping into the first boat. All the men in the first wave would be wearing boiled leather and carrying wooden shields and axes. It was not Lord Garrett's favored method of fighting, he preferred horses and plate and swords, but tonight those were just as liable to get him killed as not.
As the men rowed him closer, he could see that there were campfires along the beach. Some of the fires illuminated the banners gathered there, and he saw that it was the men of the Vale arrayed before him.
"How many do you make, Ben?" he asked. Even in the dark he could see his mate's mouth moving as the fellow counted fires and estimated. The man had a head for numbers, but he had to do it out in the open and could not conceal it to any degree.
"Ten thousand, my lord," answered Benjen. "Or near as makes no difference."
"Milord," called a sailor in the front of the longboat in a hushed whisper. "The depth is right, milord."
Lord Garrett nodded. He tapped the man in front of him, and was surprised to see it was no more than a boy. "Into the drink, lad," he said. "As we planned."
The oarsmen lifted their burdens, and Garrett turned to look at Benjen, holding the rudder.
"Return to the ships and bring the knights back," he said.
"I don't care for this none, my lord," said Benjen. "We ought not leave you."
"If you don't leave me, you can't bring help back," said Lord Garrett.
"I can guarantee you Lord Denys and Lord Meribald aren't goin' swimming," said Benjen.
"That's the difference between a Redwyne and a Hightower or a Florent," answered Lord Garrett. "Redwynes aren't afraid of getting wet." He shot Benjen a grin and slipped over the side.
Blackwater Bay had a long shallow shelf before it fell off, and it was on this shelf that Lord Garrett had deployed the first of his infantry. He stood up in the water, and saw it was barely up to his shoulder. He had timed it perfectly, so that the tide was just coming in, pushing the men forward as they muddled through the water. If a force had tried to move on land in such fashion, their weapons and armor would have produced an awful racket, alerting the enemy to their presence. But though it was thunderous below the surface, above and the water muffled it better than if he'd had each man wrap himself in wool.
As he made his way to the shore, he could see his men moving up it ahead of him, toward the camp fires. The alarm had still not been raised when the first of them fell on the unsuspecting Valemen. He saw the axes rise and fall, chopping men like wood as they slept.
As he put a foot on dry land, a cry went up from the camp. "The enemy!" he heard a Valeman cry. "They're in the camp!"
"Reachmen, to me!" cried Lord Garrett. "The Arbor! The Arbor!" He pulled one of his men out of the water, pushing the fellow forward so that he broke into a run. Lord Garrett followed after, surrounded by his soldiers. "Kill them, now, my lads," he called to them. "And the finest Arbor Red shall be yours!"
Light infantry and archers had comprised almost half the Vale forces put against them, no doubt expecting to light his ships on fire within the narrow confines of the Blackwater Bay. But in the dark and with his men already in among the campfires, it was impossible to tell friend from foe, and the archers had only their long knives to defend themselves. Garrett killed one man with an axe blow that cleaved right through the fellow's wrist and into his chest. As he was wrenching his axe free, he was shouldered roughly aside, and looked up to see a man with the Arbor grapes on his doublet catch a Vale knight's longsword with his face. He had no idea who the man was, but he had saved Lord Garrett's life.
Only for a moment, though. The knight kicked the Arbor man off his sword, and turned on Lord Garrett, still on the ground. Garrett swung the axe with all his might, and was rewarded with a jolt as it struck the man in the knee. He could hear the knight's shouts of pain muffled inside the full helm he wore. Garrett leapt to his feet, and kicked at the knight's sword hand, knocking the longsword free. Then he was grappling with the helm, forcing the visor open, looking into a bearded face in agony. The knight raised his fists to grab at the Lord of the Arbor, but Lord Garrett jammed his elbow into the knight's exposed nose. There was another shout from the man, and when Garrett pulled away his arm, he could see blood running freely. He pulled his knife free and jabbed it into the bloody face. The screaming stopped, but the knife was lost when the knight collapsed backwards.
"Milord!" cried one of the men-at-arms. He was pulling at Lord Garrett, helping him to his feet. Garrett saw that somehow the knights of the Vale had managed to array themselves into one organized force, and was pushing his lightly armored troops up along the beach.
"Back! Back!" he called. "Back or we are lost!" What few men were able broke off their attack, retreating to his position. Garrett gritted his teeth. The Valemen were preparing for a charge, hoping to drive his forces back into the water.
"On my command!" he called. If they were to die, they'd at least do it meeting the knights of the Vale charge for charge. No man could say a Reachman lacked in valor.
"Redwyne! Redwyne!" he heard, and turned to see Benjen running up the beach, the knights of the Arbor churning the sand up behind them. He could hear "Hightower!" and "Brightwater!" echo in the distance. Denys Hightower and Meribald Florent had landed.
Too late, the Valemen tried to turn and react, but the Reachmen were upon them, and Garrett saw the blue swallowed up by the green of the Reach.
"Charge!" he commanded, and his men ran to help their reinforcements.
"Benjen," he called, when he reached his mate. "Find Lord Hightower and Lord Florent. Tell them I want four thousand men posted at every gate into King's Landing. We may have won the battle, but we've yet to win the siege. I want to be feasting in the Red Keep by the time King Bryce reaches us!"