Chapter 202

The Riverlands. Harrenhal, 300 AC.

Axel Arryn.

Harrenhal was, without question, one of the greatest castles on the continent. Well situated, vast, spacious, and the land around it lent itself easily to camping an army tens of thousands strong. From the top of the castle's highest tower, one could take in a splendid view of the whole force. With every passing day, more tents sprang up around the fortress's base, and the treasury's haul of spoils had grown beyond counting. Such abundance was proof enough that the Riverlands campaign could be called a success.

"...Ser Tymon's, Ser Kryston's, and Lord Waymond's companies are running three to four days behind. Lord Breakstone has learned that a portion of the gold from Stone Hedge was moved to some minor keep, and he requests leave to make a short detour to plunder it." Jasper, in his capacity as my deputy, was reporting on the usual snags tied to moving so many men.

"Give the stragglers five days. If they can't manage it, that's on them. Tell Lord Breakstone to leave that keep be; there's unlikely to be anything worth the trouble in it, scraps at best. Is that everything?" Even planning a full scale withdrawal well in advance, there was no avoiding these little hiccups that kept stretching out my return home. It was maddening, and delaying the whole process over some minor lord's greed struck me as pure foolishness. A single day's halt for the entire Vale army would cost more than that whole keep's treasury was worth.

"That covers the required matters, yes. There's still a personal question of mine." Once I gave him a nod to go on, Jasper continued, "I can follow the reasoning behind pulling out of the Riverlands, we've already skimmed off the best of it, but why are we handing Harrenhal over to the Lannisters?"

"Balance." The lions were badly on the back foot right now, and I needed some way to offset that. "Losing King's Landing cost the Lannisters the Crownlands. That's a serious blow to their whole cause. Ser Kevan has done fine work rebuilding the West, but he's no miracle worker, and without some opportunity handed to them, they'd have little hope of getting back into the fight for the Iron Throne. Harrenhal is that opportunity. We've already thinned out most of the region's resistance; what's left is cowards and traitors. With the castle in hand, the lions can bring the river lords to heel in short order and rebuild their strength off their backs. Three, four thousand men at most, that's the ceiling for the rivermen, but it would be enough to breathe life back into the lions' cause."

"They're not worried about an attack from the Reach?" A sensible question, one I had spent some time turning over myself, though my scouts had already brought back the answer.

"Not anymore." The news was fresh, and it had genuinely surprised even me. "That little fool Joffrey turned out not to be a complete idiot after all; he somehow struck an alliance with Lord Tarly. The Bloody Hunter commands considerable forces, and they sit right in the heart of the Reach. A civil war will be breaking out in that region before long."

"And what could they had possibly offered him... ah, of course. A royal marriage, a lordship, titles, privileges, concessions, and so on." Not hard to guess; the higher a man's station, the fewer, and more predictable, the ways left to buy him. "The Dothraki turned toward the Reach, though."

That, too, had caught me off guard, but Khal Drogo, for reasons of his own, had chosen not to give battle to Renly's army and had turned his horde toward the Reach instead. Even more surprising was the matter of the plundered food handed over to Viserys. Most people, myself included, had assumed the Mad King's children were operating separately, keeping some rough form of neutrality between them. But Khaleesi Daenerys had, quite literally, saved her hapless brother from a bread riot brewing in the capital. In one stroke, Viserys became "the savior of the common folk" and won over the smallfolk of King's Landing. That did wonders for the Targaryen's standing, and the still undecided lords of the Crownlands began falling in behind him. Calculation or sheer luck, it made no difference; what mattered was the result, and the result was tipping the scales decisively towards Targaryens.

"Fighting the Dothraki in open field is madness. In Tarly's place, I'd have dug in along the Mander. It's the widest river around, riddled with treacherous shoals, which would badly hamper any attempt by the savages to push into the western part of the region, and competent leadership could thin out the horse thieves considerably." I had run through the situation as best I could, and only one solution ever presented itself to me.

"And this Aegon of yours, then?" Jasper held my former squire in something close to contempt, as did I, though to a far lesser degree. No one enjoys being played the fool for years on end.

"What of him? His business isn't mine to worry over." I could already see the next question forming in Jasper's eyes. "I'll keep my word. It was mainly the western half of the region that saw fighting in the Riverlands. If Aegon manages to take the castles, we'll need to mobilize the eastern half and ferry the army down to the Crownlands by fleet."

"Fair enough." My answers seemed to settle Jasper somewhat; men always find it easier to follow someone with a clear plan. "Since we're gathering the whole fist together anyway, what about taking Riverrun quickly while we're at it?"

Given the sheer number of successful sieges, Jasper had apparently started thinking of taking castles as simple work. I couldn't fault him for it; we truly had conquered a great deal, but it had come together through a particular mix of factors: garrisons that were poor and half empty, excellent scouting, total superiority of numbers, well trained soldiers, unconventional tactics, and siege equipment to match. Put simply, we had been far too strong, and our enemies far too weak, and that was why the castles had fallen so quickly.

Riverrun would be nothing like that. Seasoned soldiers held that castle, it was ringed by a moat, and it was a relatively new build. That last point was the most dangerous of all; House Tully's seat could fairly be called the crowning achievement of Westerosi castle building, drawing together the best solutions found across many other fields. And the potential haul was no cause for celebration either. Edmure Tully had handed over half the treasury, gold looted from the Lannisters, to Robb Stark, and there was no telling how much of the rest had been spent down since. The one certain, guaranteed reward would be Lysa Tully's head. But changing my plans over the Rotten Fish... Had this come up a couple of months back, fine, no need to talk me into it. But now, having already let off steam (a couple thousand men put to the sword will do that), killing her myself no longer carried any real weight for me.

"No. The potential haul isn't worth the risk." My words plainly surprised Jasper, but he let the matter drop. "You may go."

The whole business with the Dragon house amused me to no end. At the very start, the dragons had been the underdogs, and now, in one turn, they had become the war's clear favorites: Dorne behind Rhaenys, the Dothraki behind Daenerys, and the lords of the Crownlands behind Viserys. In a Westeros this weakened, any one of them alone counted as a real power, but united, they could bring at least half the continent to heel. Why not all of it? I wasn't giving up the Vale. The Westerlands would fight to the last man. The North would tell them all to go hang. The Iron Islands had ambitions of their own. The Reach was the wildcard, and its fate now hinged entirely on one question: could Randyll Tarly hold back the Dothraki horde?

I ought to have Elena pay close attention to that particular matter.