Scene 1: The Health Check
The sun had not yet risen, but the command tent was fully lit by lanterns. The air inside was cool and smelled of damp wool and the faint, sterile scent of filtered water.
Robert stood at the head of the table. To his left was the "Morning Report" for the Stormlands Army. To his right, a blank sheet of parchment representing the Tyrell Host.
"Read it," Robert ordered.
Ser Morrigen cleared his throat, holding the Stormlands report. "Twenty thousand, three hundred and fifty men accounted for. Sick list: four. Two sprained ankles, one broken thumb, one case of heat exhaustion from the forge."
"Dysentery?" Robert asked.
"None, my Lord."
"Fever?"
"None."
Robert nodded. He picked up a piece of charcoal and wrote a massive '0' on the left side of the table.
"Now," Robert said, pointing to the blank sheet. "Let us do the math for Mace Tyrell."
He began to draw.
"Siro reports the Flux has hit the levies hard. Conservative estimate: fifteen thousand men are currently shitting blood."
"That is fifteen thousand men slowing them down," Lord Buckler noted confidently. "They will need wagons."
"No," Robert corrected him, his voice grim. "They are levies, Buckler. To Mace Tyrell, they are cheaper than the mules pulling the carts. He won't spare a wagon for a dying peasant. He will leave them in the mud."
Robert drew a line of 'X's at the bottom of the parchment.
"The levies will die in the ditches. But the healthy men? They have to march past their brothers. They have to hear them begging for water while the Lords ride by. That breaks a man's spirit faster than any arrow."
Robert then circled the top of the parchment.
"But the Knights," Robert said, his eyes narrowing. "When a Knight gets the Flux, he doesn't get left behind. He gets a wagon. He gets his squires. He gets his men-at-arms to strip off their armor and nurse him."
"The sickness attacks the poor," Robert explained, "but the cost is paid by the rich. Every sick Lord takes ten healthy soldiers out of the line to care for him. The Tyrell Vanguard is being hollowed out from the inside."
"The Rose is rotting," Robert said, tapping the parchment. "He isn't fighting us yet. He is fighting his own system. And he is losing."
Robert swept the papers aside. He unrolled the tactical map of the river crossings.
"The enemy is sick, divided by class, and focused entirely on the Bridge. It is time to move."
He looked at his captains.
"We split the host."
The captains stiffened. Dividing an inferior force in the face of a superior enemy was usually suicide.
"Buckler," Robert commanded. "You take the Heavy Horse, the Siege Train, and the Baggage Wagons. You take the Slate Ford."
"My Lord," Buckler hesitated. "The cliff..."
"The sappers have the winches ready. You will lower the wagons one by one. It will be slow. It will be grueling. But once you are down, the bedrock will hold you. You will cross ten miles upstream."
"And once we are across?" Buckler asked. "Do we circle back?"
"No," Robert said. "You secure the northern bank. You hide the wagons in the woods. You wait for my signal."
Robert turned to Morrigen and the infantry commanders.
"I will take the Foot," Robert said. "The spearmen, the archers, and the light levies. We take the Weeping Willow."
"The mud ford?" Morrigen asked, grimacing. "Siro said it was waist deep. It will be a slog."
"It will be hell," Robert agreed. "No horses. No pack animals. We carry our own weapons. We carry our own food. We walk through the mud."
Robert leaned over the table, his eyes burning with the thrill of the gamble.
"Tyrell watches the bridge because it is the only road on his map. He ignores the river bends because he sees only cliffs and swamps. He does not know these fords exist."
He slammed his hand down on the map.
"He thinks he has trapped us against the river. He doesn't know we are already walking through the walls."
"We move in one hour," Robert ordered. "Silence is mandatory. If Tarly hears a single horse whinny, we are dead."
[End of Scene]
Chapter 11: Before the Storm
Scene 2: The Odds
The camp was breaking down. It was a silent, practiced disassembly. Tents were struck, fires were doused with soil, and equipment was strapped tight.
Robert stood on a ridge overlooking the activity, his massive warhammer resting head-down in the dirt like a cane.
He looked South, toward the invisible, sprawling monster that was the Reach Army.
"Four to one," Robert whispered. "Even with their guts turning to water, they still have enough bodies to smother us."
He watched his men. They were brave. They were disciplined. But they were flesh. If he ordered them to stand and hold the line against seventy-five thousand men, they would die. They would kill ten thousand Tyrells, certainly, but they would still be buried under the weight of the rest.
A frontal assault is suicide, Robert admitted to himself. I cannot win a standing fight.
But he didn't need to win the field. He needed to win the war.
And winning the war meant getting his army North to the Riverlands to join Ned Stark and Jon Arryn.
Ashford is not the destination, Robert realized. It is the door. And the door is blocked by a fat man.
He began to simulate the engagement in his mind.
If he engaged the Tyrell Vanguard normally, the battle would last hours. The Tyrell center would arrive. Then the Rear Guard. Robert would be pinned and ground down.
He needed a Shock.
He needed to shatter their command structure for exactly one hour. If he could break their coordination, his lighter, healthier infantry could slip into the dense woodlands north of the river—terrain where Tyrell's heavy cavalry was useless.
"The head of the snake," Robert muttered.
He thought of the Tyrell vanguard commanders. Lord Caswell. Randyll Tarly.
Tarly was dangerous—a disciplined soldier. Caswell was a traditionalist—proud, mounted, and likely leading from the front to prove his bravery.
If the Commander falls, the orders stop. The levy captains freeze, waiting for instruction. The knights argue over succession.
In that chaos, the Stormlands army vanishes.
"We don't fight to conquer," Robert said, his grip tightening on the hammer. "We fight to sting."
He looked at the woods behind him. Thick, ancient trees. Deep ravines. A nightmare for horses. A sanctuary for men on foot.
He had already sent the heavy wagons away with Buckler. He was light. He was mobile.
"We punch them in the nose," Robert plotted, a cold smile touching his lips. "We break their nose so hard their eyes water. And while they are blinded by the pain, we disappear."
He turned away from the ridge. The math had changed. It was no longer an equation of attrition. It was an equation of speed.
He walked down to where Ser Morrigen was assembling the archers.
"Ser Morrigen," Robert said. "String the heavy bows. And find me the men with the sharpest eyes."
"For the volley, my Lord?"
"No," Robert said. "For the officers."
He looked south, his eyes hard.
"We aren't going to butcher the sheep, Morrigen. We are going to kill the shepherd. And then we are going to leave them to the wolves."
[End of Scene]
Chapter 11: Before the Storm
Scene 3: The Plan
The exodus began in silence.
There were no commands shouted. The sergeants used hand signals and fierce whispers. The Stormlands infantry, stripped of their heavy packs and cooking gear, began to file into the darkness.
They headed not for the bridge, but for the riverbank—toward the Weeping Willow.
Robert watched them go. He saw the grim determination on their faces. They knew what was asked of them. They had to wade through waist-deep mud for three hundred yards in the dark. If they stopped, the silt would suck them down. If they fell, they would drown.
But it was the only way to vanish.
"Keep the pace," Robert murmured to a passing captain. "If the mud takes a boot, leave the boot. Keep moving."
Once the main column was swallowed by the tree line, Robert turned to the small group remaining at the command post.
There were fifty of them.
They were not the noblest born. They were the hunters from the Rainwood. Men with broad shoulders and calloused fingers. They carried bows of yew and ash that were taller than a man.
"You know why you are here," Robert said. He didn't shout. The intimacy of the circle made his voice heavier.
"The main host retreats," Robert said. "Buckler takes the wagons. Morrigen takes the spears. We stay."
He walked down the line of archers.
"Tomorrow morning, the Tyrell vanguard will cross the bridge. They will expect to find an army sleeping in its tents. Instead, they will find empty fires."
He stopped in front of a grizzled archer named Kye, a man known to poach stag in the Kingswood.
"When they realize we are gone, their captains will ride forward. They will be angry. They will be confused. They will lift their visors to shout orders. They will expose their faces."
Robert walked back to the center of the group. He reached for his own weapon.
It wasn't his hammer. Not yet.
He picked up a massive longbow made of laminated dragonbone and weirwood—a trophy from the armory of Storm's End. The draw weight was one hundred and eighty pounds. A normal man couldn't even bend it.
Robert strung it in one smooth, terrifying display of strength. The wood groaned under the tension.
"We do not fire at the men," Robert commanded. "We do not waste arrows on levies."
He pointed to his own eyes.
"We look for the feathers. We look for the gold cloaks. We look for the idiots who think plate armor makes them gods."
"We kill the voice," Kye whispered, understanding the tactic.
"Aye," Robert nodded. "We break the chain of command. We put a shaft through the throat of the man leading the charge. And while his army stares at his corpse in horror, we slip into the woods and leave them chasing shadows."
He looked at the small band of killers. They were the only thing standing between the retreating army and annihilation. They were the sting in the tail.
"Check your strings," Robert ordered. "Wax them. Sharpen your bodkins. I want them to punch through steel."
He looked south, where the faint glow of the Tyrell camp stained the horizon. The enemy was vomiting, dying, and sleeping, unaware that the predator was already sighting down the line.
Robert ran his thumb over the fletching of a black arrow.
"Tonight we calculate," Robert said, his voice as cold as the river. "Tomorrow we kill."
[End of Chapter 11]