“I see,” Peg said, thinking fast about how to steer the conversation.
Edmure had already warned him that King Robb had given such an order back at Riverrun, so the news itself came as no surprise.
Still, he’d hoped to find Lord Bolton inside these walls.
Instead, nothing.
Was that good or bad?
And how should he handle these mercenaries now?
“Tho what did you want in Harrenhal?” Vargo pressed.
He’s desperate, Robert thought.
The mercenary’s haggard face, the dark circles beneath his eyes, the pallor, the ragged clothes, the raw desperation, all of it was plain to see.
He’s at the end of his rope and doesn’t know what to do next.
Bolton’s thrown him aside like a dying dog and wiped his boots clean on the man’s hide.
“We’re hunting the Kingslayer,” Robert said, though it was hardly news; everyone already knew the Lord of Riverrun had sent men looking for Jaime Lannister.
“We’re in a bad spot, Ser Robert,” the mercenary admitted, instead of answering directly.
“Lord Bolton left us here to die.
The Lannisters could show up any day for their reckoning.
What would you have us do?
Can you help us?” “That’s not for me to say.
But Lord Tully has always kept a generous table,” Robert said.
Be clever, he thought, be careful what you promise, but promise something.
Edmure’s own advice, echoing back to him.
“Why not come to Riverrun instead?
We need swords.
The Brave Companions won’t sit idle there.
The war’s far from finished.” Speaking that way, Robert had actually promised nothing at all.
Even if the mercenaries took him up on it and made it safely to Riverrun, there was no guarantee their lives would be spared once they arrived.
“That’s a pleathant thing to hear,” Vargo said, his lips parting in something like a smile.
His men exchanged looks.
A new light, something close to hope, crept into their eyes.
They seemed to take the knight’s words as an unexpected lifeline.
“But before I can speak for you, I need a straight answer.
Where is the Kingslayer?” Robert raised his voice.
He could feel the balance of power shifting; the mercenaries were, for the moment, in his hands.
“He wath here,” Vargo said, almost at once.
“I took him prithoner, cut off hith hand for that clever tongue of hith, he thpoke ill of King Robb Thtark.
I meant to thend him back to Riverrun mythelf.
But the Lord of Dreadfort had other plans.
Roothe Bolton took him in, healed hith arm, and thent him off toward King’th Landing with an ethcort.” “Lying creature!” Vance swore.
“Did you hear that, Robert?” “I’ve had my fill of you,” Vargo said, grinning.
“Lord Bolton betrayed uth.
He’th a traitor, plain and thimple.
Perhapth you’d care to come inthide?
Over good wine we could dithcuth our bithineth in more detail.” “Unfortunately, time presses,” Robert said, spreading his hands.
He wasn’t about to trust himself to the mercenary’s hospitality.
“Tell me about the Kingslayer, my lord.” “Of courthe,” the man nodded.
Robert listened, and a bitter resentment settled deeper into his chest with every word.
The Kingslayer had been in Bolton’s hands.
And Bolton had betrayed both King Robb and Lord Tully, sending Lannister on toward King’s Landing under escort instead.
What was worse, he’d sent his own captain of the guard, a man called Walton, known as Steelshanks, along with nearly a hundred men.
Riding with the Kingslayer was Brienne of Tarth, a woman sworn to Lady Catelyn Stark’s service.
An interesting company, all told.
And the most maddening part of all was that the Kingslayer had ridden back to Harrenhal only yesterday morning, without Tarth, collected her, and set off again for the capital.
Vargo was vague on why Brienne had been left behind at Harrenhal in the first place, or why she hadn’t traveled with Lannister from the start.
But the most galling thing of all was simply this: the Kingslayer had been so close.
Robert Peg thought, with mounting irritation, that his men and their horses badly needed rest.
At least one night’s worth.
There was no sense in giving chase right this moment.
“Tho what will you do, Ser Peg?” “We’ll camp in the nearest woods tonight.
A few of my men will ride into Harrenhal in the morning.
Don’t mistake my meaning, Lord Hoat,” Robert said, trying to sound as innocent and unhurried as he could manage.
He had no intention of simply taking the mercenary at his word on something this important.
“You’ve given me news hard to credit, and I mean to see it confirmed.
Take no insult from that.
A betrayal by Lord Bolton is worth checking twice.” “I underthtand.” The mercenary nodded.
“And then?” “I’ll need to think it over.” In truth there was nothing left to think about.
Come morning they’d give chase and try to intercept the Kingslayer and his escort.
Fortunately his men knew this country far better than any northman did, which meant they might yet get ahead of them and spring an ambush of their own.
“In the meantime, what will you do?” “We’ll weigh your offer of Riverrun again.
Are you thure we’d be welcome there?” “Absolutely.
Lord Tully is known far and wide for his hospitality,” Peg answered evenly.
He’d briefly considered bringing the mercenaries along with him, then thought better of it almost at once.
They’d bring more trouble than they were worth.
And with that they parted ways.
Peg rode back to his men and began giving orders.
Hard days lay ahead.
“Forward!” Robert shouted, rising in his stirrups and drawing his sword.
“For Tully!” “For Tully!” His men took up the cry as one.
A hundred riders surged forward.
The long march lay behind them now.
Every man was exhausted, but they’d managed to get ahead of the northmen and lay a trap along the King’s Road.
It wasn’t an easy thing to arrange, and the ground wasn’t ideal for an ambush, but it would have to do.
Worst of all, either Vargo hadn’t known or had lied outright, because the Kingslayer’s escort turned out to number not a hundred men but twice that.
Before the attack, they’d agreed to drive straight into the middle of the northern column, splitting it in two, sowing panic, and trying to seize the Kingslayer before the enemy could regroup.
That was the plan.
The horses surged forward as though carried on wings, turf flying up behind their hooves.
Cries went up from the riverlands men, from Riverrun’s own banners.
Peg rode at the front, his gelding tucking its head low and pouring everything it had into the charge.
On his right rode Ryger, favorite long handled axe in hand.
On his left, Vance.
The distant shapes of their former allies grew larger with every stride.
The attack caught them entirely by surprise, at least for a moment.
Their wedge struck the center of the enemy column and tore straight through it, scattering men and horses in every direction, cutting and trampling as they went.
Cries of pain, curses, and the screaming of horses rose up like some grim, promising music, a song that seemed to sing of victory close at hand.
“The Kingslayer alive!” Peg shouted, reminding his men once more of their true purpose.
He’d already caught sight of Lannister from their hiding place while they waited, riding just behind a dozen vanguard men, sheltered beneath a rather absurd banner of peace.
Their charge looked sure and well aimed.
Dick and forty other riders wheeled left, crashing into the rear of the northern column.
Peg and his closest men drove straight for its head.
For a moment it seemed to Robert the whole thing might be over quickly, but Steelshanks and the Kingslayer himself hadn’t earned their reputations for nothing.
“Close ranks, hold the line!” someone shouted, a voice that hadn’t lost an ounce of composure despite the chaos.
Robert, at the head of his best riders, closed steadily on the Kingslayer.
He opened a man’s nose and cheek with one stroke, sent blood spraying in a bright arc.
He drove his sword into the neck of a second man’s horse, then struck a third opponent full across the shield.
And there he was.
The Kingslayer himself, mounted, sword in hand.
In his left hand.
Peg had heard the stories of this man’s swordsmanship, the sort of tales that had grown into legend.
But here, in the thick of battle, he only remembered them for a heartbeat before the fight swallowed everything else, every thought that wasn’t strictly necessary.
Robert met Lannister’s uncertain first strike with a hard block that sent the man reeling back, and on the return stroke, turning his blade flat, caught his opponent across the shoulder hard enough to nearly unseat him.
“To me!” A short haired, imposing warrior roared, and it could only be Walton, called Steelshanks.
“Protect my lord!” Steelshanks threw Vance aside with a spin of his halberd, the hook catching for Hugh’s shoulder in an attempt to drag him from his horse, though Hugh caught the blow on his shield and turned it aside.
Meanwhile Ryger reached for the Kingslayer, who was still struggling to master his own horse, one hand alone being not enough to hold a sword and manage the reins at once.
“To Catelyn Stark!” A woman on a piebald horse suddenly wedged herself between them and their quarry.
Not merely a woman, but a huge one, plain faced, wearing no real armor to speak of, yet with a sword flashing dangerously in one hand and a shield braced in the other.
And she knew exactly how to use both.
Her battle cry threw Robert’s men into confusion for a moment; a war cry naming Catelyn Stark from an enemy’s throat wasn’t something they’d expected to hear.
She clearly meant it to rattle them, and kept shouting as she fought, well enough that a man might almost envy her skill.
She struck Ryger, punching through the mail across his chest, then followed with a second blow that caught him in the shoulder.
Robert closed with her himself, and realized almost at once that whatever this opponent lacked compared to Gregor Clegane, it wasn’t much.
They traded a dozen blows.
Robert took a solid hit to the head; his helm held, but the exchange cost them time they didn’t have.
Their momentum had bled away.
More and more men kept closing around the Kingslayer and Steelshanks.
They’d fought bravely, but a long battle favored the larger force, and the northmen’s numbers were starting to tell.
“Forward!
A little more!” Peg kept shouting, though he already suspected the day was slipping away from them.
Vance was dragging the wounded Ryger back out of the press, and Robert felt his own boot filling slowly with blood; the cursed woman had managed to open a wound in his thigh at some point.
Damn her.
He struck at her once more, failed to find a way past her guard, and, with real bitterness, gave the order to fall back.
Disappointment settled over him like a weight.
“I won’t forget you, ser!” the Kingslayer shouted after them, mockery plain in his voice.
“I owe you a debt!” The northmen tried to give chase, but here, thank the Seven, fortune finally favored the retreating men.
Robert led what remained of his company back to the stand of trees where they’d waited for Lannister earlier that day.
Men breathed hard, talked in low voices, and avoided their commander’s eye, ashamed at how the day had gone.
The whole company reeked of sweat and blood.
Robert looked them over, the ones who could still hold a saddle and the ones clinging on by sheer will.
He counted, with a sinking heart, fewer than fifty men left.
Many of them wounded, and some, like Ryger, badly so.
“How are you, Robert?” Vance rode up beside him.
“You look pale.” “Wounded in the leg,” Peg admitted.
“It’s throbbing like a bell.
And you?” “Still breathing, it seems.” His friend managed a weak smile.
“Check on the men.
Find out how many we’ve lost, and how bad the wounds are.” “Of course,” Hugh nodded.
com/Hezzario