[The Westerlands, Oxcross, 5th moon, 299AC]
"Forward march, let us end this final patch of resistance."
The words had barely left Alaric's mouth before the Winter Guard began to move.
They advanced without haste. The westermen before them were already beaten in all but name. Their camp was broken, their horses scattered, wagons burned or blocked. Their lord commander shouted from somewhere behind other men's shields, and the only reason any line still stood at all was because Lord Roland Crakehall had dragged one together from the wreckage.
Alaric would not waste men on a beaten foe.
He had seen enough commanders do that. Men winning a battle would suddenly grow hungry for glory, as if dead enemies counted more if killed in a prettier fashion. They charged when they should have closed. They chased when they should have held. They turned victories into butcher's bills.
Not today.
Not here.
Ser Harald Stark walked half a step behind and to Alaric's right, shield high, sword bare, dark cloak torn at the hem and mail dark with soot. His shoulder had stiffened in the cold morning, Alaric could see it in the way the older knight moved, but Harald had not complained once.
He rarely did.
"This is a clean trap," Harald said as the line advanced. "Cleaner than most."
"Most traps don't have wolves disrupting the horse lines for them."
"I was going to praise your plan, Your Grace, not your pets."
Alaric glanced down at Cinder, who walked ahead of them with her muzzle still red.
"I would not call her that where she can hear."
"She understands too much already. I'd rather not flatter her."
Tempest moved on Alaric's left, pale eyes fixed on the western line. The great wolf was calm now, ready for more slaughter.
Ahead, Roland's remnant stood around a low rise, broken wagons dragged into a rough barrier before them. The Crakehall boar flew beside Brax purple, Jast colors, Vikary banners, and a few battered lions. Their line had shape. Not strong enough to win, but strong enough to bleed men if Alaric allowed it.
So he would not.
The Winter Guard formed the front. Shields and spears. Three sides closing in, steady and slow. Desmond Manderly held the center, his men locked tight with shields overlapping and spears angled forward. Ellard Karstark's men took the left, pushing toward a gap between wagons and a low stone wall. Jorah Mormont and the Umber men, led by Smalljon, held the right, grim and broad behind round shields and axes.
Behind the western line, Robb and the northern horsemen kept moving.
Hammer and anvil.
The shields and spears corralled the westermen in. The cavalry hammered anything that tried to pull away.
A cluster of Brax men tried first. Perhaps fifty of them broke from Roland's right and made for the smoke-veiled stream road. They had shields, some order, even a knight with a banner trying to urge them on.
Robb hit them before they had gone thirty yards.
Grey Wind ran with the horses, snapping at the flanks, sending men stumbling into each other. Robb did not overcharge. Alaric saw that and approved. The boy swept in, struck, pulled out, let archers and spears do their work, then struck again from the side. Within moments the Brax cluster had folded back toward Roland's line with half their number missing.
"Good," Harald said.
Alaric looked at him. "You sound surprised."
"I am relieved. Robb has a brave heart. Brave hearts often need reins."
"He is learning."
"Aye. From you, which is why I still worry."
Alaric laughed once. "That was almost a jest."
"It was wholly a jest. You are simply slow from lack of sleep."
"Keep talking like that, and I'll make you Lord Commander of the royal guard before I even have one."
Harald's face went dry. "A cruel threat, Your Grace. I ask mercy, responsibility such as that isn't quite in my nature."
"You ask too late."
They soon reached bowshot range.
A ragged volley came from the western line. The bolts were few and badly aimed. Men loosed them too early, hands shaking, breath ruined by fear. A shaft struck a Winter Guard shield. Another glanced off a helm. One man cried out when a bolt found the meat of his upper arm, but he kept walking until the man behind him took his place.
Alaric raised Ice slightly.
"Shields high and keep pace. Do not rush because frightened men are shooting at you. Frightened men shoot worse when you let them watch you coming."
The order passed down the line.
Roland's men watched them come.
That was a cruelty in all honesty.
The westermen could see the bringers of their death. Shields and spearpoints in front. Stark horsemen behind. Wolves moving at the edges. Smoke drifting low across a field littered with tents, bodies, and broken wagons.
Some threw down their weapons before the lines met.
Alaric let them.
"Take those men," he called. "Bind them and move them behind the left. Any man yielding keeps his life unless he tries some surprise."
A few more westermen heard that and dropped shields.
Roland did not stop them.
That made Alaric respect him more. A lesser man would have struck down surrendering soldiers to stiffen the rest. Roland knew the battle was lost. He meant to preserve what honor he could, not spend it all buying Stafford another hour.
Then the lines met.
No thunder. No great crash worthy of a song.
Just wood against wood, iron biting, men grunting, boots sliding in mud, spears punching into shields, axes hooking rims and dragging men forward to die.
Alaric struck the first man who came within reach with the flat of Ice, not the edge. The blow broke the man's shield arm and sent him down screaming, alive. Harald stepped past him and killed another who was trying to crawl under the spear line with a dagger.
"Yield!" Harald barked at the wounded man. "Or bleed faster."
The man yielded.
Alaric moved on.
The Winter Guard worked as they had been trained. Spearpoints pushed. Shields held. Axemen struck at exposed legs and shoulders. When a western knight swung too wide, he was stabbed twice before he could recover. When a Crakehall man tried to leap onto a wagon for height, three spears drove him back down.
The western line bent.
Roland straightened it.
Alaric saw him through the press, helm on, sword raised, shouting hoarse orders that cut through the panic.
"Shields together! Do not chase! Hold the rise! Brax men, close that gap! Jast, to me! To me, damn you!"
A group of Crakehall household men surged forward under Roland's own banner. They were better than the rest. Proper men-at-arms. Tired, shaken, many without full helms, but still trained. They struck Desmond's center hard enough to force the Winter Guard back three steps.
Only three.
Roland drove into the gap with them, sword flashing, shield dented, voice raw. For a brief span, the westermen looked like soldiers again.
Harald moved closer. "He's making his play."
"Aye."
"Do we answer with horse?"
"No. Not yet."
"Your Grace—"
"If we send the horse now, they bunch against the wagons and we lose men for nothing. Let Roland spend himself against shields."
Harald looked toward the hard press in the center, then nodded. "Cold."
"We're Starks after all." Alaric replied
The Crakehall push died slowly. Not because they lacked courage, but because courage did not make tired arms fresh. It did not replace lost horses, burned wagons, scattered captains, or the men who had fled into the hills before dawn. The Winter Guard absorbed the blow, locked shields again, and began pushing forward.
One yard.
Then another.
And another.
Alaric entered the press when a gap opened near Desmond.
A westerman thrust at him. Harald caught the spear on his shield and chopped down on the shaft. Alaric stepped through and struck the man's helm with Ice. The steel folded. The man dropped.
Another came at Harald from the side with an axe.
Harald turned too late.
Alaric did not.
He drove Ice through the man's breastplate with both hands and kicked him free.
Harald glanced at him. "I had that."
"You had nothing but a shocked expression."
Harald snorted despite himself. "I see how this royal guard service will be. Endless slander while saving your life."
"You may resign after the battle."
"I did not say I disliked it, you wearing a crown now changes very little compared to when I was simply the sworn shield of the Lord of Winterfell."
They pushed on.
A horn sounded from the right.
Alaric looked that way and saw the Mormonts and Umbers driving Roland's flank inward. Smalljon was laughing as he fought, which was usually a sign that someone else was having a very bad morning. Derrick fought beside him with a dented helm and a bloodied axe, the two of them forcing a knot of Vikary men back against an overturned wagon.
Jorah was not laughing, rather, he killed like a man chopping wood.
Efficient. Hard. With no wasted motion.
On the left, Ellard Karstark's line had reached the stone wall. Karstark spears pinned the men behind it while Dustin men dragged the stones loose enough for Winter Guard axes to get in among them. The westermen there started surrendering in clumps.
The ring tightened.
Roland saw it.
Alaric watched his shoulders change. Just slightly. A man seeing the end and refusing to look away.
Then Stafford appeared.
Not at the front. Never the front.
He rode behind the line on a nervous horse, cloak half-fastened, golden beard wild, shouting at men already beyond hearing.
"Hold! Hold, you cravens! Lord Tywin will return! Hold the line!"
His horse reared as a northern arrow struck near its feet. Stafford yanked the reins too hard. The beast spun. Two guards tried to steady him.
Alaric stared.
"That man commanded twelve thousand?" Harald asked.
"In theory."
"Aye."
Stafford looked around as if searching for an army that no longer existed. He saw Roland holding the center, Crakehall men dying, and northern shields closing from three sides, and cavalry cutting down every attempted withdrawal. Whatever courage had carried him through his speeches finally left him.
He turned his horse toward the rear.
Toward the stream road.
Toward escape.
"Of course," Lucion said from somewhere behind Alaric.
Alaric had not heard him approach.
Lucion sat mounted with blood along one sleeve, watching Stafford flee with a face that looked more tired than angry.
"Do you want him taken?" Lucion asked.
Alaric considered.
For a heartbeat, no more.
Keeping Stafford alive was a burden. Killing him would rid the world of another one of Tywin's ill-begotten blood, trimming the line further, but then again, if they could take him, he would fetch a fine ransom.
"Alive if possible, if not, oh well."
Lucion gave a humorless laugh. "That is more mercy than he deserves."
Before Alaric could answer, Lord Rickard Karstark's men struck the stream road.
Stafford almost made it.
Almost.
His guards collided with Karstark's spearmen at the crossing. The horse reared again. Stafford shouted something lost in the noise. Then Lord Rickard himself rode through the gap, longaxe in hand, grey hair loose beneath his helm. He did not make a speech. He did not call Stafford by name. He simply swung.
The axe took Stafford Lannister beneath the arm and drove deep.
Stafford slid from the saddle like a sack of grain.
One of his guards screamed.
Rickard Karstark rode over him and kept fighting.
Alaric watched Stafford disappear beneath boots, mud, and smoke.
No horn sounded for him.
No man rallied to avenge him.
Most of the westermen did not even see him die.
Fitting.
Lucion looked away first.
"That was unceremonious," Harald said.
"Was it supposed to be otherwise?" Alaric asked.
"No, I suppose not."
The death of Stafford changed almost nothing.
The men had not been looking at Stafford.
They had been looking to Roland.
And Roland still stood.
He had fallen back to the Crakehall banner now, bleeding from the cheek, shield split, surrounded by perhaps two hundred men who had chosen death or had not yet found the courage to choose surrender. Around them, the rest of the line was giving way. Brax men threw down swords. Jast men knelt behind broken wagons. Vikary shields lay in mud. Lannister levies ran until cavalry drove them back into the spear wall and forced them to yield.
The hammer struck again.
Robb's riders hit from behind, not in a grand charge but in short brutal blows against men already pinned by spears. Horses slammed into gaps, swords rose and fell, then the riders pulled away before the westermen could close around them.
Again.
And again.
And again, even more.
Every time Roland shifted men to face the cavalry, Desmond's shields advanced.
Every time he turned back to the Winter Guard, Robb or Jorah struck.
Spears on three sides.
Horse on the fourth.
There was nowhere left for the boar to charge.
Alaric raised Ice.
"Enough killing men who want to live," he called. "Offer surrender again. Any man who drops his weapon lives."
The order spread.
"Yield and live!"
"Drop steel!"
"Down arms!"
More westermen broke.
They lowered swords, cast aside shields, sank to their knees. Some wept, some stared blankly, while a smaller number looked ashamed. Alaric had seen all of it before.
Roland remained standing.
Alaric walked toward him with Harald, Tempest, and Cinder close beside him. The fighting around the Crakehall banner shrank with every step. A Crakehall man lunged at Alaric, and Harald struck him down with a shield blow before finishing him through the throat.
"I could have taken him," Alaric said.
"You were thinking."
"About the battle."
"Exactly. Poor time to let men stab you."
Alaric almost smiled.
Roland saw him coming.
The older lord lifted his broken shield one last time. "Back! To me! Hold!"
Only a dozen men answered now.
Then eight.
Then five.
A Mormont spear took one in the thigh. A Karstark axe dropped another. Cinder snarled, and two more threw down their weapons rather than face her.
Roland stood alone under the boar banner.
His sword was nicked.
His helm gone.
Blood ran down one side of his face into his beard.
He looked at Alaric and gave a tired nod.
"So," Roland said. "Here we are."
"Here we are."
"Stafford?"
"Dead."
Roland closed his eyes for a moment.
Relief, most likely.
"Who killed him?"
"Lord Rickard Karstark."
"No speech?"
"No."
"Good. Stafford gave enough speeches for one lifetime."
Alaric huffed a laugh despite the field around them.
Roland lifted his sword.
Harald stepped forward.
Alaric raised a hand. "No."
Harald stopped, though not happily.
Roland looked between them. "If you mean to take me alive, Your Grace, I should warn you that I am old, tired, bleeding, and in a foul temper. I may prove disappointing."
"You have disappointed me already. You refused to surrender when I was being reasonable."
"Aye. I heard you. I considered it."
"And?"
"And then Stafford opened his mouth."
"That would ruin many decisions."
This time, Roland laughed properly, though it became a cough halfway through.
Alaric took one step closer.
"Yield, Lord Roland. Your army is gone. Stafford is dead. Tywin is not coming. Your men have surrendered or fled. If you force me to kill you now, the only thing you accomplish is making the West poorer by one man with sense."
Roland's eyes sharpened at that.
"You speak as if the West will still need such men."
"It will."
"After you are done with it?"
"Especially then."
Roland studied him for a long moment.
Behind Alaric, Lucion had ridden closer. Roland's gaze flicked to him.
The older lord understood too much, or perhaps enough.
"Is that so?" Roland said quietly.
Alaric did not answer the question beneath the question, instead, he said, "I would rather rebuild with men who know what was broken."
Roland glanced toward Stafford's fallen banners, then toward the surrendered westermen kneeling in the dirt.
"And if what was broken has a lion on it?"
"Then we decide whether the lion is diseased, or merely badly led."
Lucion's face went still.
Harald looked at Alaric, but said nothing.
Roland gave a slow, tired smile. "Careful, Your Grace. Men have died for saying less in the Westerlands."
"Men have died for saying nothing at all. I prefer the risk with words."
Roland lowered his sword a fraction.
Then another.
Finally, he turned it and offered the hilt.
"I yield, King Alaric Stark."
Alaric accepted the sword.
No cheer rose.
He had not wanted one.
"Bind his wounds," Alaric said. "Not his hands unless he makes that necessary."
Two Winter Guard men moved to support him. He allowed it, though the way his jaw tightened said he hated needing help.
Alaric turned back to the field.
Oxcross was over.
The western host was broken.
Stafford Lannister was dead.
Roland Crakehall was taken.
The last army the West had raised in haste lay shattered before it had ever truly marched.
Alaric stood with Ice in one hand and Roland's sword in the other, looking west through the smoke.
Casterly Rock waited beyond hills, roads, mines, towns, and frightened lords. The old lion was chained in the east. The lesser lion lay dead in the mud. Yet the West remained. It would not vanish because Stafford had died or Tywin had lost. Mine's still needed men. Roads still needed guards. Lords still needed someone to follow. Smallfolk still needed someone to fear less than hunger.
A kingdom could be conquered by fire.
It could not be held by fire alone.
His eyes moved to Lucion.
The Lannister sat silent on his horse, staring at the field as if seeing two futures and liking neither of them.
A western voice.
A lion without Tywin's rot.
A man who knew the Rock, knew its roads, knew its pride, and had learned enough among wolves to understand fear was not the same as loyalty.
'Not yet,' Alaric thought.
But soon.
Tempest leaned against his leg, and Cinder lifted her bloody muzzle toward the west.
Alaric looked back at the battlefield.
"See to the prisoners," he said. "Separate knights from common men. Feed the wounded first. Gather the horses that can still be gathered. Put out fires near the stores and let the useless wagons burn."
Desmond bowed his head. "Aye, Your Grace."
"Send riders to Robb and Jon. No pursuit beyond three miles. Any man still running after that is someone else's problem until morning."
Then he turned toward the west once more.
"Oxcross is ours," he said.
No one cheered at first.
Then someone did.
A Mormont man, he thought.
Another voice joined. Then another. Soon the cheer rolled across the field, rough and exhausted and alive.
Alaric let them have it.
They had earned that much.