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At Harrenhal, the Hall of a Hundred Hearths smelled of smoke, wet wool, and bad news.
Tywin Lannister had returned from Riverrun by way of the crossroads, bringing only the men he could gather in order. The rest had been scattered, captured, or left to find their own way east.
Gregor Clegane stood before him.
"Joffrey is missing. Jaime is missing. Lord Lefford vanished as well."
The Gold Cloak captain sent from King's Landing gave the rest of the report with his head bowed.
"More than ten days ago, Ser Mandon Moore led three hundred Gold Cloaks out after the Hound abducted King Joffrey. When no word returned, Queen Cersei ordered me to find them. We found hundreds of stripped corpses along the kingsroad near the Gods Eye. Ser Mandon was among them. So were Lannister cavalrymen who had once served Ser Jaime."
Tywin sat very still.
Why had Sandor Clegane abducted Joffrey?
Who had killed Lefford's five hundred cavalry and Mandon Moore's three hundred Gold Cloaks?
Gregor's voice rumbled. "My brother's wits were burned long ago. Could be rats from the Brotherhood."
"If it was the Brotherhood," Tywin said, "then they have grown from a nuisance of a hundred men into a force that can swallow a thousand."
"Let me search for them with the men who returned."
"No." Tywin's eyes moved to the map. "The Brotherhood is a splinter. Robb Stark is the dagger at our throat."
Jaime and Joffrey were not dead. If their captors had kept Jaime alive, they wanted something. King's Landing mattered more.
"Write to Cersei," Tywin ordered. "The realm will be told that King Joffrey, exhausted by the burdens of rule, fell ill and died. Tommen inherits. I ride for King's Landing tomorrow."
He looked at Gregor.
"You remain here. Build the defenses from Harrenhal to the Gods Eye and along the kingsroad. Abandon the rest. This will be our final line in the Riverlands."
The next day, the Westerlands army began raising defenses. Tywin took two thousand Lannister cavalry and rode for King's Landing and Tommen's coronation.
Robb left Riverrun with fifteen thousand northern soldiers and Westerlands prisoners who had chosen service over chains.
Before he departed, he held the promised reckoning.
Rewards were announced. Names were recorded. Marq Piper and nearly a hundred Westerlands soldiers condemned for betrayal and massacre were executed before the army.
Patrek Mallister took Marq's head himself.
Robb swung the sword for most of the others.
The executions gave Bloodwind more than two hundred blood pact points, but more important than that was the effect on morale. The men saw punishment, reward, and law all in the same morning.
Many of the surrendered Westerlands prisoners began to believe Robb's new order in earnest. Under the old order, a man's son might rise if he died well enough for his lord. Under Robb's new law, a living soldier could earn land, citizenship, and knighthood through merit.
That was a sharper weapon than any sword.
Robb also sent a raven to Theon at Crakehall. The ironborn were to occupy the southern Westerlands castles, but they were not to slaughter noble families. They were to give captured nobles horses and provisions, then send them toward King's Landing.
Robb had promised a way out for nobles who surrendered.
Every noble who reached King's Landing alive would carry that story along the Ocean Road and the Goldroad.
According to Crey's intelligence, the Westerlands had been stripped nearly bare. Lannisport and Casterly Rock together held only about three thousand defenders. Most other castles had a few hundred, perhaps a thousand at most.
After passing the Golden Tooth, Robb marched on Sarsfield.
Sarsfield refused to surrender.
Its lord had burned the surrounding timber, cleared the villages, and moved the smallfolk inside the walls. Siege engines would take too long to bring up. Building new ones would cost days.
Robb chose the faster answer.
He attacked personally.
On the wall, Lord Sarsfield watched the white direwolf charge with Robb Stark on his back.
Ice armor covered them both.
Arrows struck and bounced away.
"Scorpions!" Lord Sarsfield shouted.
Two giant bolts screamed from the walls.
Bloodwind stopped with impossible suddenness. The first bolt smashed into the ground ahead of him. The second should have struck his right foreleg.
Instead, the joint twisted inward at an angle that made no natural sense, and the bolt passed by harmlessly.
Lord Sarsfield's mouth went dry.
"Monster."
Robb's ice spear answered him.
It crossed the distance and drove through Lord Sarsfield's body, pinning him to the tower wall.
Bloodwind reached the gate.
'Freeze it.'
White mist poured from the direwolf's jaws. Frost spread across the gate, crawled into the hinges and bars, and hardened the wood until it shone like glass.
Then Bloodwind struck.
The frozen gate shattered.
Robb stood on Bloodwind's head, high above the men below. Control let the direwolf hold his head eerily steady beneath him, turning that height into a battlefield throne.
"I am Robb Stark!" he shouted into the yard. "Tywin Lannister was defeated at Riverrun. Surrender, and I will spare those who lay down their arms."
An arrow flew from the crowd.
It cracked against Robb's ice armor and fell away.
"Avenge our lord!" someone shouted.
The defenders surged forward.
Robb's face hardened.
Ice left his hand and skewered three men in a line. Twin ice swords formed in his grasp as he leapt down from Bloodwind's head.
"Since you will not submit," he said, "feed the pact."
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