[ July 2, 298 AC | Morning to Dusk | Westeros > Riverlands > Lannister Left Flank & Main Command Tent by the Green Fork ] Before the morning mist had fully dispersed, the Green Fork lay across the muddy tidal flats like a thick, pale gray blood vessel.
Soren stepped into the freezing, foul mud, his bare left foot sinking deep with every stride.
He casually pulled a stench-soaked, hard leather boot off the corpse of a baggage train soldier—unclear whether the man had died of disease or frozen to death—and jammed his foot inside with brute force.
The boot fit poorly, leaving empty space at the toe, but on this mudflat about to turn into a meat grinder, nobody was picky.
In front of the left flank line: Over three hundred high clansmen stood assembled as the front rank, resembling a patch of messy weeds bristling with rusted iron and spikes.
In their hands, they held the cracked half-moon shields handed out the night before, their bodies clad in hole-ridden leather armor.
“Halfman!” Gunthor son of Gurn hoisted a notched broadsword, using his thick, muscular arm to shield Tyrion behind him while grinning to reveal yellow teeth.
“Your skinny limbs can’t even hold a shield steady.
When the fighting starts, hide behind my sword!
I promised I’d hack off a flatland lord’s head for your gold!” Tyrion sat atop his red pony, looking at this crude yet promise-keeping savage.
He let out a bitter smile and nodded.
“Then you’d better pick a rich lord, Gunthor.” Right at that moment, a small patrol of fully armed Westerlands light cavalry trotted slowly past from behind.
Leading them was Lord Crakehall, clad in mirror-polished silver scale armor emblazoned with a boar crest.
He gestured with his riding crop toward the hillfolk, who reeked of sheep stench.
“This is our left vanguard?” Lord Crakehall sneered.
His voice was not loud, but just enough for Tyrion to hear.
“Can they hold against even a single charge from the Northmen?
These wild dogs look more like scavengers coming to gnaw dead bones.” The overseeing quartermaster covered his nose, rolling his eyes.
“As long as they take a little longer to die and keep the Northern infantry bogged down in the mud, even a blind man would applaud.” Bronn spat a glob of bloody saliva.
“Did you hear that, Officer Soren?” He gripped his hilt, his eyes turning cold.
“They’ve already dug the pits for our corpses.” Soren did not look back; he was slowly drawing his sword.
*Thump— Thump—* Drums thundered from the thick fog in the distance.
Heavy, dull, like the heartbeat of a giant.
The army of The North had arrived.
Charging at the very front was Roose Bolton’s terrifying flayed man banner of dark pink, their pike phalanxes advancing like a wall of barbed iron.
Volleys of arrows tore through the white fog like a swarm of black locusts.
Two hundred paces.
One hundred paces.
“Raise shields!” Soren roared, his throat instantly activating [Intimidating Vocal Cords].
The clansmen’s frontline held firm for a moment under the psychological suppression of the roar, raising their battered wooden shields overhead.
A gruesome crackle echoed as arrows slammed into the wood.
A Moon Brothers warrior had his eye socket pierced by a stray arrow, falling into the muddy water without making a sound.
“Push forward!” Shagga roared from the front rank, charging into the oncoming forest of pikes.
“Fall back!
Draw them into the mud pits!” Soren sliced through a thrusting pike shaft with one sword sweep, sharply correcting the order.
Following the rules agreed upon the night before, the clansmen began fighting while falling back.
To the enemy, their front formation appeared to collapse in an instant.
On the dirt slope behind the main center, Lord Crakehall watched the retreating left flank, lowering his visor with a cold laugh.
“Wild dogs are wild dogs.
They break at the first touch.” However, they soon realized something was wrong.
Seeing the left flank scattered, the Northern vanguard pressed forward with excited shouts, their heavy combat boots squelching loudly into the mud.
The retreating clansmen had not routed.
The riverbed’s deep mud—along with broken iron scraps and shattered spearheads planted upside down beneath the puddles by Soren the night before—trapped the Northmen’s feet in a vice grip.
The weight of their heavy armor caused them to lose balance amidst agonizing pain, sinking completely into the mud traps.
“Bite!” Soren slid down from the flank off a spear shaft.
Hand-to-hand combat erupted; this was the clansmen’s element.
Timett fought like a demonic fire ghost, tackling a Northern pikeman bare-handed and slicing open his carotid artery with a short knife.
Shagga’s three axes swung up and down, staining the mud bright red.
Yet Soren soon realized he was locked in a brutal struggle of his own.
He had locked onto a Northern heavy knight in exceptionally fine armor.
His 23 Intelligence allowed him to instantly perceive the openings between the opponent’s attacks, while his 22 Agility enabled him to slide step to the knight’s left like a phantom.
*Chiii—* The tip of Soren’s sword stabbed with extreme precision toward the thinnest joint under the knight’s armpit.
However, the moment the point touched the scale armor, a harsh metallic scraping sound echoed, and the blade slipped half an inch off course!
[System Warning: Target armor hardness exceeds host’s current physical penetration threshold!
[Armor Seam Sight (Green Shard 1/3)] failed to trigger a critical strike due to lack of complete armor-penetration check!] *Fuck!
It didn’t trigger!* Soren’s heart sank.
He felt a surge of intense regret for his greed last night, when he had chosen that broken green attribute for its “High-Tier Potential.” Now he had the eyes to spot weaknesses, but lacked the raw strength to pry open that turtle shell!
The Northern knight roared, slamming his heavy full-face steel shield fiercely into Soren’s chest.
*Bang!* Soren was knocked flying backward, crashing heavily into the muddy water.
He had only 15 Constitution, which made him feel as though his internal organs had shifted places.
His ribs groaned under severe strain, and a mouthful of rust-tasting blood welled straight up into his throat.
In this thousand-man meat grinder, no amount of Intelligence could withstand such raw, crushing mass.
“Protect the Halfman!” Bronn’s cracked shout burst out nearby.
Soren wiped the blood from his mouth, enduring the intense pain as he flipped himself up.
A burly Karstark pikeman had locked his eyes on Tyrion amidst the chaos.
A vicious spear thrust sent Tyrion’s red pony down with a pathetic wail, pinning his short leg firmly under the horse’s belly.
A mud-caked short sword came slicing down right toward his face!
Soren gave a furious shout.
Relying on his base 18 Strength, he rammed past two Northern foot soldiers and lunged from the rear flank.
He smashed the pikeman’s knee with a heavy kick, then slashed open his throat with a reverse sweep of his sword.
Warm blood sprayed all over Soren’s face.
He leaned against the dead horse, gasping for air, a stray arrow having grazed a bleeding gash across his shoulder.
He possessed none of the elegance of a master warrior; in this swamp, he was merely a mortal fighting with everything he had just to stay alive.
The Northern army was pinned down in the left flank’s mud pit for over an hour.
The clansmen paid a horrific price, with severed limbs and broken bodies scattered everywhere.
When Tywin’s central pike formation finally pressed forward and heavy cavalry swept in from the flank, the Northern commander, Roose Bolton, decisively blew the horn to retreat.
The left flank had actually held.
…
After the battle.
The muddy water was soaked in blood into a dark red paste.
Severed limbs, broken bones, and entrails mixed with the mud, emitting a nauseating stench.
Surviving clansmen scavenged excitedly among the piles of corpses.
“Soren!
Look!” A rough, honest shout sounded.
Gunthor son of Gurn limped out of a mud pit.
Covered in blood, his left arm split open in a bone-deep slash, his leather armor torn to ribbons.
Yet his mud-stained face beamed with pure ecstasy.
He clutched a rope tightly; at the other end was a knocked-out Northern noble knight, tied up securely.
Though covered in mud, the knight’s scale armor glistened in the morning light—obviously priceless.
“I told you I’d catch a big fish!” Gunthor panted heavily, slapping the unconscious knight’s iron helmet with force.
“I broke this fellow’s sword!
He surrendered to me!
Remember to tell the Halfman that Gunthor keeps his word—I didn’t hide behind his back!” As he spoke, he stroked the fine scale armor with his calloused hands, eyes filled with longing.
“Once we trade for gold, or strip off this iron shell…
when my son reaches the age for ear-cutting, he can wear real flatlander armor.” Just then, a rhythmic sound of horse hooves approached again, shattering the dead silence of the mudflats.
Two squads of Westerlands light cavalry and dozens of halberdiers surrounded the beach area.
Leading them was none other than Lord Crakehall who had overseen the battle from the slope.
Riding a tall warhorse, his silver scale armor featuring the boar crest was spotless, without a single speck of blood.
He looked down cold and arrogant at the foul-smelling hillfolk.
“Take your filthy hands off, savage.” Lord Crakehall covered his nose and mouth with a perfumed handkerchief, pointing his riding crop at the Northern knight at Gunthor’s feet.
“By Lord Tywin’s martial law, all enemy commanders, noble prisoners, and high-grade standard equipment belong to the main command tent for allocation.
Hand him over.” The air fell instantly dead silent.
Dozens of Westerlands halberdiers raised their polearms in unison, their cold tips pointing dead at the clansmen ahead.
Gunthor froze.
He looked at the rope in his hand, then up at the high-and-mighty knight, his eyes widening.
“I knocked him out with my own hands!” Gunthor stood fiercely in front of the prisoner like a beast guarding its food.
“He surrendered to me!
By the laws of the Mountains of the Moon, he is meat for the Stone Crows!
By the Halfman’s rules, we earned this loot with our lives!
Why should we give him to cowards like you who watched from the rear?!” “Rules?” Lord Crakehall chuckled mockingly, as if hearing the grandest joke.
“On this battlefield, there are only the rules of Lord Tywin Lannister.
You barbarians are nothing more than expendable fodder to fill the mud pits.” His eyes turned cold, and he snapped his riding crop.
“The barbarians resist military orders and intend to mutiny.
Execute him on the spot.
Kill him.” Tyrion had already been escorted away by his guards to wash up.
Everything happened too fast, too unreasonably.
*Pfft!
Pfft!* Without giving any room for argument, two halberds pierced Gunthor’s chest with cold, precise ruthlessness.
Blood surged instantly from Gunthor’s mouth.
This warrior, who yesterday had shared roasted meat with Tyrion by the campfire and moments ago was dreaming of his son wearing iron armor, gripped the halberd shafts in his chest with both hands.
His eyes opened wide in disbelief as he stared at the high-and-mighty Westerlands noble.
Even in death, he couldn’t understand why his desperate fighting had earned him not gold and honor, but a blade in the back.
*Thud.* Gunthor’s massive body crashed into the bloody mud, twitched twice, and moved no more.
“Gunthor!!” Shagga uttered a heart-wrenching roar, like an enraged mad bear, raising three battleaxes to hurl himself forward in a desperate assault.
Chella, Timett, and every surviving high clansman’s eyes turned instantly blood-red.
Beastly roars burst from their throats as they grabbed broken swords off the ground.
“Everyone stop!!” At the critical moment, Soren lunged forward, locking his arms around Shagga’s waist with all his strength.
The extreme exertion tore open the wound on his shoulder, blood soaking half his body.
“Let me go!
I’m going to split that boar!!” Shagga thrashed wildly.
“Look at the slope above!
Shagga!
Look up!!” Soren gritted his teeth, his fingernails digging deep into his palms as blood trickled through the gaps of his fingers.
He hissed an enraged, low roar into Shagga’s ear.
Shagga looked through bloodshot eyes.
On the surrounding dirt slopes, two rows of Westerlands crossbowmen holding heavy crossbows had lined up at an unknown moment.
Strings pulled tight, the bolt tips pointed coldly down at the mudflat.
It was a trap!
A trap to legally slaughter them under the pretext of mutiny!
That Crakehall master didn’t care about a Northern prisoner at all—he was deliberately provoking the high clansmen!
“If we act now, Gunthor dies for nothing!” Soren pinned Shagga’s shoulders down tightly, his eyes terrifying as an abyss.
“Every last one of you will die in this mud pit, without anyone left to bury your bodies!” Sensing the deadly menace all around, Shagga’s heavy panting gradually turned into a hopeless whimper.
The clansmen, eyes dripping blood, were forced to step back.
Lord Crakehall saw that these savages had actually endured it, a flash of disappointment passing through his eyes.
“At least you dogs have half a brain,” Lord Crakehall sneered, glancing at them like trash before having his men drag the Northern noble away and stripping the battleaxe from Gunthor’s waist.
The accompanying quartermaster looked at the damaged wooden shields ruined by the clansmen in the mud, shaking his head regretfully.
“Such a waste.
All losses on the quartermaster’s ledger.” Soren slowly released Shagga and stood up straight.
He didn’t scream, nor did he angrily decry the nobility’s injustice.
He merely glanced at the quartermaster, then turned his head, his pitch-black, deep eyes looking straight into the arrogant young master on horseback.
“My lord gave us scrap iron,” Soren’s voice was low, raspy, yet terrifyingly calm.
“What we returned were Northern lives and a field covered in fine enemy armor.
On Lord Tywin’s ledger, there shouldn’t be any deficit, right?” Lord Crakehall narrowed his eyes, unsettled by that fearless gaze.
He turned his horse’s head and sneered, “A wild dog biting people for the lions dares to talk about settling accounts with me?” Soren lowered his eyelids.
He did not argue.
[System Notification: Left Flank Defense successful.
Key friendly NPC survived.
Gained Honor Points +5.
Current Honor Points: 7/100.] The system’s cold prompt sounded in his mind, but Soren felt no joy in his heart.
He lowered his eyelids and even bowed his head slightly.
In that shadow, however, he silently memorized the owner of that boar-crested armor.
In this massive meat grinder, dying was all too easy.
It could be a stray arrow.
It could be fleeing soldiers.
Or it could be a silent black blade drawn across a throat.
*You took Gunthor’s life.* Soren passed cold, quiet judgment in his heart.