[ July 1, 298 AC | Dusk to the Following Dawn | Westeros > Riverlands > Lannister Left Flank Temporary Camp by the Green Fork ] The temporary camp for the left flank was pitched right on the edge of the muddy mudflats.
It was far from Lord Tywin’s grand pavilion, far from the crimson-and-gold banners of the Westerlands nobility.
So far that when orders from the center army blew over, half the words were carried off by the river wind, leaving only faint drumbeats and the distant whinnying of horses.
Lord Tywin’s “generosity” arrived just before sunset.
A few supply wagons ground to a halt on the muddy clearing.
The drivers dumped a heap of old shields, boiled leather, short spears, notched swords, and rusted helmets onto the ground like so much trash.
Hundreds of half-moon shields, pitted and green with rust.
Ancient leather jacks with half their iron rings falling away.
And dozens of standard-issue longswords with dull, nicked, or notched blades.
If tossed into the main vanguard of the Westerlands host, even the grooms wouldn’t have bothered stooping to pick them up.
To the mountain clans, however, it was a grand bounty.
“Such heavy iron shells!” Shagga grabbed a shirt of mail missing half its rings, shoved it over his furs, and beat his chest in delight.
Chella snatched a pair of bracers, sniffed them first, then wrinkled her nose in disgust.
“Dead men wore these.” “All iron has killed a man,” Bronn drawled, crouching nearby as he whetted his blade.
“Iron that hasn’t killed anyone is usually still in the mine.” Timett stared at a rough cast-iron battleaxe, greed glinting in his single eye.
He held the axehead over the fire to warm it, then pressed his thumb against the edge, as if testing whether the steel was worthy of tasting blood.
The Moon Brothers and Stone Crows nearly came to blows over a few pauldrons.
A Black Ears woman jammed an iron helm missing half its noseguard onto her head.
It was far too big, slipping down past the bridge of her nose and drawing belly laughs from the wildlings around her.
Laughter quickly turned to shoving.
Shoving threatened to turn into drawn steel.
“By the laws of the Mountains of the Moon, form three lines!” Soren rasped his sword from its sheath, using the flat of the blade to pry apart two Moon Brothers rank-and-file trying to grab the same breastplate.
“Whichever clan grabs first sleeps out on the riverbank tonight.
And when battle comes tomorrow, they’ll be the last to get iron.” “The Stone Crows saw it first!” a young clan warrior shouted.
“Then the Stone Crows line up first.” Soren gave him a cool look.
“Or would you prefer Shagga explain what lining up means?” Shagga bared his yellow teeth, finding the idea immensely amusing.
The young warrior shut his mouth instantly.
Soren’s firm rules pressed down heavily on the unruly mountain clans.
Shagga and Timett exchanged a glare, but ultimately pulled their respective people apart.
Tyrion stood atop a half-collapsed supply wagon, holding a cup of sour wine like a monarch reviewing a parade of rubbish.
“Stone Crows take the shields first, since they’ll be standing in the front row tomorrow.
Black Ears get the crossbows and daggers; Chella’s people have good eyes, and it would be a shame to waste them behind shields.
Moon Brothers get the spears—that ought to keep them from scrambling into rock crevices the moment they panic.
The Burned Men…” Tyrion paused, glancing over at Timett.
“The Burned Men take the axes and pitch.
Gods above, let’s hope they can tell friend from foe.” The clansmen didn’t grasp all the irony, but they understood the word “divide.” And miraculously, the chaos subsided.
Watching these clansmen treat cast-off scrap as priceless treasure, Soren gripped his sword hilt so hard his knuckles turned white.
Against genuine Northern heavy horse and pike walls, this useless junk of armor would at best buy them a few extra moments of breath.
This was the exact gear Lord Tywin provided for bait meant for the wolves.
Enough to hold out for a bit.
And only a bit.
—————————— At dusk, Tyrion was summoned to Lord Tywin’s dinner tent.
The long table was set atop a low hill, draped in crimson-and-gold cloth.
Fat dripped sizzling from roasted suckling pigs onto silver platters.
Tyrion had spent all day in the saddle, and his legs throbbed terribly.
As he waddled up the incline, several muted titters broke out among the Westerlands lords.
He feigned deafness, sat down beside Ser Kevan, and poured himself a cup of wine.
“I expected you sooner,” Lord Tywin said flatly.
“If you are as slow to the battlefield as you are to dinner, the fighting will be over before you arrive.” “What a pity that would be,” Tyrion countered, raising his cup.
“I was hoping my lord father might leave me a small farmer or two, so I wouldn’t return empty-handed.” Lord Tywin did not smile.
No one else at the table dared laugh now, either.
Lord Lefford, who was in charge of supplies, soon voiced his grievance about the mountain clans.
“They’re like a pack of starving dogs let loose in a smithy!
Shagga demanded three axes, and Chella’s lot nearly emptied a crate of crossbow bolts.
I issued arms, not junk for wildlings to winter over with!” “Rest easy, Lord Lefford,” Tyrion said, carving off a piece of pork.
“They will return every scrap of iron to the Northerners with great enthusiasm—straight into their bellies.” Lord Tywin’s hands remained steady as he sliced his meat, seemingly deaf to the exchange.
He merely raised his eyes to gaze at the son who brought him shame: “Since you are so confident, tomorrow when battle is joined, you and your clansmen shall take the front line of the left flank.
That post requires men who can absorb an assault.” Suddenly, the roast pig on Tyrion’s plate lost all its flavor.
The Old Lion was declaring to everyone present that the dwarf and his wildlings were tomorrow’s spear-fodder.
He naturally caught the sinister implication behind “the left flank.” In Tywin Lannister’s army, a post of honor was never casually handed to a dwarf and a few hundred wildlings freshly crawled out of the mountains.
“I am deeply moved,” Tyrion said.
“I had no idea my lord father held my friends and me in such high esteem.” “Whether a soldier is useful can only be proven on the field,” Lord Tywin replied, his words falling like ice.
Tyrion drained his cup and set down his knife.
“Then let us hope the Northerners appreciate me properly tomorrow.” As he left the table, another round of hushed laughter rippled behind him.
Once again, he did not turn back.
…
Once night fell, the Lannister camp transformed into something else entirely.
Men gambled, flirted with camp followers, or sharpened their blades over and over again.
By the time Tyrion walked back to the left flank’s camp, his mood was too foul for wine to soothe.
In the end, he only found his way back by following Shagga’s thunderous, rumbling laughter.
The Stone Crows had acquired a steer from somewhere and were roasting it over a bonfire, fat and blood dripping into the flames with a hiss.
“Halfman!
Come eat meat by the Stone Crow fire!” Conn called out, raising a tankard of ale.
Tyrion eyed the beef, which was nowhere near cooked.
“My thanks, Conn.
At this rate, it should be done just about in time for my funeral feast.” Shagga guffawed.
Though the clans kept their distance from one another, at least none were reaching for their blades tonight.
Tyrion suddenly realized that after the humiliation dealt by his father, he felt a strange sense of belonging among these crude monsters.
When Tyrion pushed into his tent, Soren was sitting beside the brazier, poking at the embers with a dry twig.
“How was dinner?” Soren asked without looking up.
“He formally bestowed the honor of being ‘the bait’ upon me once more, in front of all the lords of the West.” Tyrion threw himself into a chair, wrestling his short legs into leather greaves that stank of horse manure.
His voice was as gravelly as if he were chewing sand.
“He wants us trampled to death in the mud of the Green Fork.
So even if he sent us paper shields, I would still have to carry them.” “The left flank is indeed meant to break.” Soren tossed the twig aside and stood up.
His eyes—made unnaturally deep and piercing by an Intelligence stat that had surged to 23—turned to Tyrion in the firelight.
“But if we break according to Lord Tywin’s script, there won’t even be bones left of us tomorrow.
My lord, since he treats us as bait, we had best hide a few poisoned hooks in the meat.” Tyrion froze, his mismatched eyes contracting sharply.
“What do you plan to do?
With those savages outside who don’t even know what a battle line is?” “Precisely because they don’t know battle lines.” Soren stepped over to a crude sand table and used his scabbard to carve a deep trench across the area representing the riverbank.
“The left flank sits low, hugging the Green Fork, choked with mud.
For a regular army that relies on ranks and steady momentum, this ground will bog them down, tear open their lines, and tangle their shields and pikes.
But for mountain clansmen used to brawling among loose rock and animal tracks in the Mountains of the Moon, it’s hardly unfamiliar ground.” Soren turned back to him and held up three fingers.
“First: have Timett take his men and break apart all the unusable scrap metal Lefford dumped on us today.
Under cover of dark, plant those sharp jagged bits, broken spearheads, and wooden stakes point-up in the mud along the shallows.
Don’t make it too neat—the more it resembles natural rubble, the better.” “Second: don’t make Shagga and his men try to hold a shield wall.
They can’t, and they won’t.
Tell the clan chiefs that when the Northerners charge, the front ranks should give ground toward the slopes on the flanks.
Not fleeing, but letting them bite deep.
Lowlanders insist on a uniform battle line; once they charge into river flats that we’ve doctored, their formation will fracture.” “Third: once they’re stuck in the mud, don’t chop at their front armor.
The clansmen are agile and low to the ground, built for close-quarters chaos.
Have them hack horse legs, stab kneepits, strike under armpits, and slit wrists.
Have the Black Ears target officers, the Burned Men light damp brush to smoke and spook the horses, and the Moon Brothers flank around through the rough rocks along the riverbank.” As Tyrion listened to this vicious, thoroughly unknightly tactic, his breath grew heavy.
This wasn’t how a real army fought.
It was an unadulterated meat grinder.
“You’re turning this dead ground to our advantage,” Tyrion said, staring at the sand table.
He could already picture the Northerners screaming in the mire tomorrow.
“You’re using wildling chaos to negate a disciplined army’s formation.” “If we want to live, we have to be braver—and crueler—than Lord Tywin,” Soren said coldly.
“So long as we hold out on the left long enough and kill enough Northerners, after tomorrow’s battle, you will possess a true force of your own that can stand firm within the Lannister ranks.” Tyrion stared at Soren.
He suddenly realized he couldn’t fathom this young man at all.
Such ruthless tactical cunning was far beyond what any ordinary mercenary should possess.
“Where in the Seven Hells did you learn all this, Soren?” Tyrion asked, his voice somewhat hoarse.
“Live long enough, and you naturally learn to think a few steps ahead.” Soren offered no further explanation.
A chorus of raucous shouting suddenly echoed outside the tent.
When the two pushed back the flap and stepped out, they caught Shagga standing with one foot planted on a splintered shield, bellowing at a few reluctant Moon Brothers.
“The Halfman says whoever buries the most iron tonight gets first pick of Northern iron tomorrow!” Shagga roared.
“Soren said that,” Chella corrected coldly.
Shagga thought about it for a second, then nodded.
“Same thing!” Timett squatted by the fire, snapping damaged, notched blades in two one by one.
Those useless scraps of iron would be buried in tomorrow’s river mud, turned into hidden spikes meant to cut boots and trip horses.
With every strike, his grin widened a fraction more.
“Bury iron in the mud,” he chuckled under his breath.
“Let the Northerners bring their own feet to it.
This lowlander has some wits.” Bronn stood nearby supervising, a blade of grass dangling from his mouth, looking thoroughly impatient.
“Don’t snap the good ones, One-Eye.
That sword can still kill a man.” Timett raised his single eye to glare at him.
Bronn glared right back.
After a brief standoff, Timett actually cast the serviceable sword aside.
Bronn spread his hands toward Soren.
“See that?
I know how to command men too.” “You just know how not to get chopped down by lunatic wildlings,” Soren said.
“Which puts me ahead of most lords.” …
The mountain clansmen set to work across the mudflats.
The Black Ears moved with surprising nimbleness, hiding jagged metal and wooden stakes deep in the mire.
The Stone Crows handled heavy stones and broken timber.
The Moon Brothers cursed as they dug shallow pits.
The Burned Men excitedly prepared pitched cloth and damp grass, as though this were the real feast.
Tyrion stood outside his tent, watching the spectacle.
His color was still pale, but no longer quite as deathly as before.
“If we survive tomorrow,” he murmured, “I’ll seriously consider giving you a raise.” “I’m not doing this for wages, my lord,” Soren said.
“Now that’s terrifying.” Tyrion glanced at him.
“Men who don’t want wages usually crave something far more expensive.” Just as they finalized their trap in the mud, the tent flap was pulled back abruptly.
A heavy wave of cloying perfume and sour cheap ale rushed in.
Bronn strolled into the tent with a swagger, a suspicious flush on his cheeks.
“Are you two still sitting here trying to figure out a cleverer way to die?” He looked at Tyrion, then at Soren.
“Everyone outside is drinking, gambling, or taking a woman.
Only you two are huddled here like septons keeping accounts on a gravestone.” Tyrion rubbed his temples.
“If you’ve brought bad news, it had better smell like wine.” “Better than wine.” Bronn stepped aside.
A slender young woman walked in.
She had a thick mane of dark hair and large, bright eyes, with a smile that hovered between shyness and provocation.
She didn’t look at Tyrion with pity or revulsion as others did.
She simply looked at him.
As if studying a fascinating man.
“My lord,” she said with a small curtsy.
“I’m Shae.”