In the pale light of dawn, the battle had finally come to an end.
Gendry and Anguy went among the jubilant Gold Cloaks, checking on the wounded and recording the names and deeds of the fallen. Losses were inevitable in war, even after a perfectly prepared ambush. This was about the honor of the dead and wounded, and the compensation owed to them, just like the White Book of the Kingsguard.
Bronze Yohn, Lord Jason, Lord Jack, and Ser Boggs led their men in tallying the Lannister prisoners, spoils, and dead. By any measure, it was a splendid victory.
Anguy wrote down the soldiers' names one by one, while Gendry went to see the wounded himself. A commander could afford to be cold and ruthless, but men were not wheat growing in a field. Losses were unavoidable, but he wanted victories that meant something, victories won at a lesser cost.
Reducing casualties, caring well for the soldiers, and winning clean, beautiful battles. Those things could all be done together.
Ser Barristan approved of his way of handling things. Those cruel knights were not true knights at all. The true path of knighthood included compassion and care for the weak.
"Wrap it up."
Gendry took off his golden cloak. It had drunk so much blood that it had turned a dark red. He told Anguy to use it to wrap Amory's head. Amory's head was smeared with mud, and panic still lingered on his face.
Amory Lorch was a short, fat man with a pale piggish face and tiny pig like eyes.
He was a cruel, petty man, one of Tywin's two mad dogs. The Mountain and Amory. A murderer of children, and now a butcher loose upon the manors of the Riverlands. When King's Landing fell, Amory had personally murdered Princess Rhaenys, Rhaegar's three year old daughter. In front of more than a dozen Lannister soldiers, he had dragged the screaming girl out from beneath her father's bed and stabbed her dozens of times before she died.
"Such a cruel man met a cruel end," Lord Jason said with a sigh.
"Tywin keeps so many mad dogs because he is a cruel man himself," Ser Barristan said.
The other lords of Westeros, at least, still had a little humanity in them. Tywin alone despised the common people and showed no mercy at all. It was a kind of rational evil.
"It is a pity the Kingslayer got away," Gendry said after a moment.
First The Mountain had fallen. Then Ser Jaime, then Amory. The future really was like the branches of a tree, always growing, always changing.
Gendry suddenly thought of the Kingslayer's proud face, and that hair bright as gold. Perhaps, in the end, it would still be the Kingslayer who fulfilled the prophecy of killing his sister.
"It is already a great victory, a glorious one," Lord Yohn said.
"Indeed. A very fine one," Lord Jason agreed with a nod. The cavalry led by the Kingslayer had been almost wiped out, and even the cavalry Amory brought in as reinforcements had suffered terrible losses.
Gendry had already sent out a group of knights to follow the fleeing Lannister cavalry. Even if they failed to catch the unconscious Kingslayer, they could still make sure those men would never return to the camp beneath Riverrun, and would have to retreat elsewhere instead.
"I swear, for every ten Lannisters who died, we lost only one," Anguy said excitedly. "We captured nearly a hundred knights, more than a dozen lords, including Lord Westerling, Lord Banefort, Ser Gyles Greenfield, Lord Estren, Ser Tytos Brax, and the Dornishman Mallor. Aside from Jaime getting away with one hand gone, we also captured three Lannisters. All of them are Lord Tywin's nephews. Two are from his sister's line, and one is from his dead younger brother's..."
"That is enough, Anguy." Gendry looked at him. "Our hunt was not perfect. One lion still got away. Send word to the army. We attack the Lannister camp at once."
"Yes!"
"And gather up all the red cloaks and banners from the Lannister cavalry." Gendry looked at those bright red banners, and another idea took shape in his mind.
After taking the first victory, the entire army pressed south without pause to lift the siege of Riverrun.
The first night of the war had belonged to the forest valley. The second night would belong beneath Riverrun.
The Kingslayer had led the elite cavalry of the besieging army, and now that force had been completely destroyed. The troops camped in three positions around Riverrun were now facing disaster.
In the war as a whole, the Lannisters held the advantage in numbers. But in each local fight, Gendry had made sure he held the advantage instead.
The army under Gendry reached Riverrun without slowing at all. The soldiers were tired, perhaps, but victory gave him all the authority he needed, and every man kept going with patience and fire in his heart.
Especially after seeing their commander. Tall, handsome, still in the flower of youth, fighting on the front line, unstoppable, as if he carried endless strength and passion within him.
Gendry put on his helmet. It was forged from fine steel, and from the crown rose a crimson gold dragon with spread wings and a leaping black stag answering one another. Above the black stag's head sat a crown and a warhammer. The dragon and the stag looked like two great horns thrusting upward.
He donned his armor and a fresh golden cloak, then tightened his grip on his warhammer. Standing six feet six inches tall, he looked like a towering bastion, like a giant from some ancient battlefield.
The forces left behind by the Kingslayer were split into three camps. To besiege the castle, the attackers had to station troops on the north bank of the Tumblestone River, the south bank of the Red Fork, and the west bank of the moat, with one force posted in each space between the rivers. Riverrun was not especially grand or magnificent, but with its water defenses, it was solid as iron.
Gendry saw the bright red lion banners, the dense sharpened palisades around the northern Lannister camp, and the watchtowers they had built. It was nowhere near enough. The river cut the three camps off from one another, and the Lannister soldiers were not nearly as skilled in the water as the men of the Riverlands.
The men in the camp still had no idea what had happened to Jaime. He had already led cavalry sweeps on his own three or four times before, so the commanders in camp could never have imagined the disaster that had befallen the Kingslayer. As for the shattered remnants of Amory's force, they did not return to Riverrun at all, but fled toward Golden Tooth with the badly wounded, unconscious Kingslayer.
"I will lead the vanguard against the North Camp!" Lord Jason volunteered before the battle.
The soldiers of Seagard were eager for the fight. Seagard and the Twins lay farther north, and had not yet suffered the worst ravages of war, so their morale remained strong.
Gendry accepted Lord Jason's proposal. Lord Jason and Ser Boggs led the soldiers of Seagard and part of the Crackclaws in an assault on the North Camp. Gendry, Bronze Yohn, Ser Barristan, and the others led another force against the West Camp.
The mournful sound of horns suddenly rose through the night, followed by the call of warhorns.
"Kill!"
Lord Jason Mallister and Ser Boggs struck first. Jason led the men of Seagard, while Ser Boggs led the forces from Crackclaw Point in the charge toward the North Camp. Lord Jason wore indigo armor chased with silver, and his helm was adorned with eagle wings. Though he was older now, he was a veteran warrior with a wealth of experience.
The purple cloaked soldiers of Seagard and the Crackclaws surged into the Lannister North Camp with wild cries. They emerged out of the darkness, cutting down Lannister soldiers and clearing away the barricades that stood in the way, opening the path for the main force behind them. The howling cavalry had already crossed the ditch, roaring as they advanced with swords and torches in hand.
"Long live the Storm!"
"Long live the Storm!"
The soldiers shouted their battle cry for the night and followed Lord Jason's thundering hooves into the Lannister North Camp.
The still groggy Lannister soldiers finally realized the enemy had come for them. Most striking of all was that golden banner. The quartered device on it startled them. They had been expecting the Starks, and never imagined Baratheon reinforcements would burst out at them instead.
But there was no time left for thought. One by one, the tents in the North Camp were set ablaze by torches. The sounds of fighting and screaming rose without end, and the firelight only grew brighter.
Amid the chaos and exhaustion, the Lannister soldiers seemed to see the blade of death itself. The enemy before them was every horror rolled into one.
The Crackclaws fought with savage howls, like men who drank blood raw, while the purple cloaked soldiers of Seagard killed and burned through the camp without restraint.
The tents of the North Camp caught fire one after another, and the red glow of the flames lit the whole sky. Chaos and slaughter shattered everyone's rhythm.
The soldiers in the West Camp immediately realized this was a night attack.
"What is happening?" Lord Andros Brax, commander of the Lannister forces in the West Camp, shouted anxiously. The North Camp was not far away, but the great river was impossible to cross. "Is it that Stark brat?"
"Get on the rafts! Go save the North Camp!"
"Onto the rafts!" Lord Andros Brax shouted.
He had already put on his full plate and mail, the armor gleaming brightly. Even he did not know what he was thinking at that moment. Perhaps he simply wanted to rescue the Lannister soldiers in the North Camp.
At their commander's order, large numbers of red cloaked Lannister soldiers hurried to push rafts into the river, hoping to cross to the far bank and support the North Camp first. In the darkness of night, it proved a foolish decision.
The soldiers of the West Camp quickly discovered what a pathetic joke their rafts were. The current was swift, and instead of carrying them across, it dragged them downstream.
Flames leapt into the sky, and battle cries rolled in waves. No matter how slow the soldiers of Riverrun might have been, even they noticed the turn in the war.
The catapults atop Riverrun's walls began to move. Stones the size of a man's head screamed through the air and smashed into the river. One raft was blasted to splinters outright. Several others overturned when the stones struck the water nearby, throwing everyone aboard into the river to feed the fish.
"Be careful, my lord!" Lord Andros Brax's squire cried out in alarm.
In the confusion, the crude raft carrying the commander of the West Camp had not even gone far before it capsized and dumped him into the water.
The commander of the West Camp struggled desperately, but his heavy armor robbed him of his last chance at survival, until at last he was dragged beneath the black river water. His beautiful banner, a purple unicorn on a silver field, fell into the river with him, and barely made a sound.
War drums began to thunder again from the west.
The channel beside the West Camp was the narrowest stretch of water there, more moat than natural river. The knights roared as they crossed the makeshift river works, their target the Lannister West Camp stationed between the Red Fork and the Tumblestone.
"Long live the Storm!"
"Long live the Storm!"
With Gendry at their head, the most elite part of the cavalry smashed into the Lannister West Camp as well. At last, the Lannister soldiers there, who had been close to breaking, forced themselves to rally. Even though their commander had already fallen into the river and drowned, they still fought with everything they had.
"Surrender and live!" Gendry roared as he fought from horseback. The bewildered soldiers of the West Camp were so shaken and fragile that very few could stand against him.
The Lannister soldiers could barely take in what was before them. They saw banner after banner. The eagle of House Mallister, the pebble runes of House Royce, and above all, that most dazzling golden war banner.
Gendry swung his warhammer, and his golden cloak leapt with him. In the darkness, he looked like a horned god descending in a dance of death. Wherever the warhammer struck, no one could stand in his way. Ser Barristan and Bronze Yohn stayed close behind him, like farmers reaping wheat, their sickles wiping away blood. Anguy stood farther off, drawing his dragonbone longbow and shooting down the soldier who was about to release a raven.
"Is that King Robert?"
"There are Vale riders too!"
"That golden banner..."
What the Lannisters saw was terror in its fullest form. Those cold, merciless Gold Cloak riders mounted on tall Dothraki steeds. And those elite orange red cloaked soldiers from Runestone and elsewhere in the Vale.
The blazing fires of war flared around Gendry, burning away the lives of everyone near him. He saw the panic on the faces of the Lannister soldiers.
Gendry tightened his grip on the warhammer. Wherever it passed, it crushed the flesh beneath armor, whether chest, lungs, or skull. Their armor was sturdy enough, but it could not withstand force concentrated into a single point. After all, the spiked warhammer had been made precisely to break through plate armor.
Bang.
Gendry's warhammer seemed to brush lightly across a Lannister soldier's armor, swift as a gale. It looked as soft as a feather, but the instant it landed, the man crashed heavily to the ground. The heart and lungs beneath the armor could not survive such a blow.
"Longspear formation!"
"Longspear formation!"
The surviving Lannister soldiers shouted in panic. All they could see was a surge of golden wind, like a raging blaze, a golden fire. No one dared step forward to meet it, and the surviving spearmen hurried to form a shielded wall.
But Ser Barristan had already broken that plan. The old knight shouted and wheeled around again, striking from the flank of the longspear formation.
Gendry charged through the middle of ten thousand men, and everyone saw that mass of golden fire burning fiercely in the night, the warrior on horseback like a giant.
And inside Riverrun, the Tully forces saw that the battle had fallen into a tense deadlock. The gates of Riverrun opened, and Lord Blackwood led his men across the drawbridge. The Tully army began striking at the enemy from the rear.
The aged Great Lord Hoster was carried up to the gatehouse. Looking down from the battlements, the old fish saw firelight rolling in like a tide and heard the screams of the Lannisters. What a sweet sound it was.
He saw that golden blaze, that tall and towering giant, and it reminded him of the battlefields of old. Was that the son of an old friend?
"Whose troops are those?" Hoster could not help but ask. He wanted to hear the answer for himself.
"Judging by the war banners, it seems to be the bastard Gendry's force. There is also Lord Melisent's banner, House Royce's banner, and some others. They look like banners from Crackclaw Point."
"What?" Hoster was shocked, but then his expression dimmed again. "So it is not the Stark army from the North. Nor does it seem to be the Arryn army?"
"No. It seems to be the quartered banner from across the Narrow Sea, belonging to the legitimized bastard."
The moment Hoster heard that, his expression turned strange.
"Baratheon. The king's troublesome bastard?" Hoster said. "The Lannisters call him bastard, Black Heart Gendry, an ambitious schemer. But now, to my eyes, he fights like a king."
"But why is it his relief force?" Hoster's face went pale again. Pain gripped him in waves, as if crabs were pinching and tearing inside his belly.
"Robert is not dead after all. His son can still lift a warhammer. Look at my son. Born to serve others, like some witless clown," Great Lord Hoster said bleakly. "Carry me out. I am going to meet a king, and I should go in a manner fit to receive a king."
"My lord, but your health..." the servant could not help saying.
"My health," Great Lord Hoster said with a sigh. "When the Lannisters took Edmure, I was terrified. Their camps were everywhere. But now, I need a little courage. Carry me down. I want to hold on a little longer, to see my daughter and my son. Then I will die without regret."