Scene 1: The Hunger
Location: The Deep Forests, near the Riverlands Border.
Time: Three days after the Escape from Ashford.
The rendezvous point was a hollow carved out of the earth by ancient glaciers, shielded by a wall of towering pines that blocked the wind but trapped the cold.
It was here that the two halves of the Stormlands host finally collided.
From the east came Lord Buckler's column. They did not march with the snap of victory. They moved with the stumbling, disjointed rhythm of exhaustion. They had crossed the Slate Ford, winching heavy baggage down a forty-foot cliff in the middle of the night, and then dragged those wagons through ten miles of rocky creek beds to hide their tracks.
Robert stood on a mossy outcrop, watching them arrive.
He saw the baggage train—the tents, the spare steel, the arrows. But the line of wagons was shorter than it should have been. Much shorter.
Lord Buckler rode up to the outcrop. He slid from his saddle, his legs stiff. He was a proud man, a Lord of the Marches, but today he looked like a man who had held the weight of the world on his shoulders for three days.
"We are here, my Lord," Buckler rasped. "The Slate Ford is crossed. Tarly is chasing ghosts in the marshes."
"The supply train?" Robert asked, eyeing the shortened column.
Buckler winced. "The winches held for the steel, my Lord. But the heavy wains... the ones carrying the bulk of the flour and the salted pork... they were too heavy for the wet ropes. The main cable snapped on the third descent."
He gestured vaguely back toward the river.
"Three wagons went into the water. We fished out what we could, but the river took the rest."
Robert looked at the inventory reports Ser Morrigen was already compiling.
Two days.
They were deep in the wilderness, miles from any major road. The Riverlands were still a week's hard march away.
The silence in the camp was heavy. The men knew. Soldiers always knew. They could see the quartermasters arguing. They could see the size of the ladles dipping into the pottage pots shrinking.
"We go to half rations," Robert said, his voice flat. "Immediately."
"The men are tired, my Lord," Buckler warned. "They have marched sixty miles. If we cut their food, they will weaken. We need the calories to keep moving."
"If we don't cut their food, the wagons will be empty in two days," Robert countered. "And then we starve."
He walked down from the outcrop, moving through the lines. The men were huddled around small, smokeless fires, heating up their meager portions of hardtack and watered-down stew.
Robert stopped at a fire where a group of archers sat. They looked up, scrambling to rise, but Robert waved them down.
He saw their bowls. They were barely half full.
A young squire, seeing the King, offered his own piece of dried beef. "My Lord? You must eat."
Robert looked at the beef. It was tough, grey, and unappetizing, but his stomach roared. The System flashed warnings about his own caloric deficit—he was burning energy twice as fast as a normal man.
But he shook his head.
"Keep it," Robert said gently. "I draw from the same stores as you."
He turned to his squire. "Bring me my bowl. Half ration."
The men watched as Robert Baratheon, a man the size of a bull, accepted a half-bowl of watery stew and sat on a log to eat it. He didn't take an officer's share. He didn't raid the private stores.
The tension in the camp shifted. It didn't disappear—hunger was still hunger—but the resentment vanished. If the King was hungry, then hunger was a duty, not a punishment.
Buckler joined him by the log.
"My Lord," Buckler whispered, looking at his map. "We cannot march on half-bellies forever. We are passing near Stoneyhead. It's a farming hamlet. They will have harvest stores."
"And?" Robert asked, scraping his bowl.
"We forage," Buckler said. It was the standard euphemism of war. Forage meant take. "We clear their cellars. We fill the wagons. We keep the army moving."
"We leave them to die in the winter," Robert corrected.
"It is war!" Buckler argued, keeping his voice low. "If we don't take it, Tarly might burn it anyway. Better us than the fire."
Robert stood up. He loomed over Buckler.
"If we steal," Robert said, his voice deep and vibrating with a strange intensity, "we are just another plague passing through. We confirm every lie the Mad King tells about us."
He looked North, toward the village he knew was waiting in the valley.
"We need the food, Buckler. But we will not steal it."
"Then how?" Buckler asked, exasperated. "Do we beg?"
"No," Robert said. He wiped his mouth. "We trade. We promise. We treat them like subjects of a King, not victims of a conqueror."
He adjusted his warhammer.
"Prepare the column. We march to Stoneyhead. And tell the captains... any man who draws steel on a villager hangs."
Buckler stared at him. "My Lord... they are peasants. They won't give it willingly."
"Then we will find a way to make them want to," Robert said. "We are not just fighting an army anymore, Buckler. We are fighting for the right to rule."
[End of Scene]
Chapter 14: The Pilgrimage
Scene 2: The Request
Location: Outside the gates of Stoneyhead.
The village of Stoneyhead was a cluster of thatched roofs huddled behind a low stone wall—a defense meant to keep out wolves, not armies.
When the Stormlands host emerged from the tree line, the bell in the sept tower began to ring frantically. Mothers grabbed their children, sprinting for the root cellars. Men ran for pitchforks and rusted wood-axes, their faces pale with the terror of a thousand years of history.
In Westeros, an approaching army meant only one thing: Locusts. They would strip the fields, burn the houses for warmth, rape the women, and leave nothing but ash.
Robert Baratheon halted his column two hundred yards from the gates.
"Hold," he ordered.
The command rippled down the line. Twenty thousand desperate, starving men froze.
It was an unnatural sight. A hungry army usually surged. They usually broke ranks to chase chickens or kick down doors. But the Stormlanders stood in perfect, terrifying silence. They grounded their spears. They did not shout. They did not jeer. They just watched their King.
Robert walked forward. He took only Lord Buckler and a single scribe.
He wore no helmet. His black hair moved in the wind. His armor was dented, his cloak stained with the mud of the retreat. He looked like a giant carved from the earth itself, but his hands were empty.
He stopped at the village gate. An Elder, a man with white hair and shaking hands, stood there, clutching a rusted sword. Behind him, a dozen farmhands trembled, blocking the path.
"We have nothing!" the Elder screamed, his voice cracking. "The harvest was poor! Go away! Leave us to die in peace!"
Robert stopped. He looked at the rusted sword. He looked at the terror in the old man's eyes.
Robert slowly lowered himself to one knee.
The sight of a High Lord—a man who claimed a crown—kneeling in the dirt silenced the village. The Elder lowered the sword, confused. Lords did not kneel to peasants. Lords took.
"I am Robert of House Baratheon," he said. His voice wasn't a shout; it was a rumble that carried to the back of the square. "My men are starving."
"We cannot feed an army," the Elder wept. "If we give you our winter stores, our children will die."
"I do not ask for your winter stores," Robert said softly. "I ask for the surplus. The seed grain. The dried fish you trade."
He reached into his breastplate and pulled out a scroll. It was heavy parchment, sealed with the yellow wax of the Stag.
"This is not a seizure," Robert said. "This is a debt."
He held up the scroll.
"I, Robert Baratheon, swear by the Old Gods and the New. Every bushel of grain, every wheel of cheese you give us today, I will return threefold when the war is won. I pledge the treasury of Storm's End. I pledge my honor as a Knight."
He looked the Elder in the eye.
"Look at my men, father. Look at them."
The Elder looked past Robert. He saw the twenty thousand soldiers. They were gaunt. They were armed. They could have swarmed the wall and taken every scrap of food in ten minutes.
But they stood like statues. No smoke rose from the houses. No women screamed.
"They do not pillage," the Elder whispered, stunned. "Why?"
"Because I asked them not to," Robert said. "We are not here to destroy you. We are here to protect you. But I cannot protect you if my men die of hunger."
The Elder looked at the scroll—a promise from a King. Then he looked at the man kneeling in the mud—a man who had the power to take everything, but chose to beg instead.
The rusted sword clattered to the ground.
"Open the granary," the Elder choked out, tears spilling onto his cheeks. "Open it! Give them the cheese! Give them the smoked ham!"
As the villagers hurried to obey, finding their terror replaced by a frantic, confused gratitude, the Elder hobbled closer to Robert.
"My Lord," the Elder whispered, leaning in. "You have honor. More than the dragons."
"Honor doesn't fill bellies," Robert said, rising to his feet and brushing the mud from his knee.
"No," the Elder said, looking around to ensure no one was listening. "But it opens ears. My nephew... he rides courier for the Maester at Longtable. He passed through yesterday."
Robert froze. "Longtable? That is Merryweather land."
"Aye," the Elder murmured. "And the news is bad for House Merryweather. The Mad King... he blamed Lord Owen for the defeat at Ashford. For letting you escape."
Robert's eyes narrowed. "Blamed him?"
"Stripped him," the Elder corrected. "Took his chain. Took his lands. Exiled him to Essos. The smallfolk at Longtable are spitting mad, my Lord. They loved old Lord Owen. Now they have a castellan who answers to the Crown, but the garrison... the garrison is angry."
Robert looked at the old man. This was information worth more than gold. A castle with a disloyal garrison in the middle of the Reach? That was a lifeline.
"You give me food and hope," Robert said seriously. "What is your name?"
"I am just Harys, my Lord."
"Harys," Robert said, clutching the old man's shoulder. He didn't offer a knighthood or a song. He offered a guarantee.
"When I come back," Robert promised, his voice hard as iron, "you bring this scroll to Storm's End. And I swear to you... you will never have to plow a field again."
[End of Scene]
Chapter 14: The Pilgrimage
Scene 3: The Salvation
Location: Longtable Castle.
Time: Two Days Later.
The food from Stoneyhead had been a reprieve, not a cure. It had put a handful of grain in every belly, buying Robert enough energy to march his host another thirty miles to the banks of the Mander.
Now, they stood before Longtable.
It was a sturdy keep, surrounded by rich fields that belonged to House Merryweather. The banners on the walls hung limp—the Horn of Plenty on a white field.
Robert rode to the moat's edge. Behind him, his army waited. They were still hungry, but they were disciplined. There were no ladders being built. No battering rams.
On the battlements, the Castellan, an aging knight named Ser Galladon, looked down. He gripped the stonework, his knuckles white. He saw twenty thousand men. He saw the end of his life.
"Open the gates!" Lord Buckler shouted. "In the name of King Robert!"
"I serve the Reach!" Galladon shouted back, though his voice wavered. "And I serve the Crown! I cannot open these gates to a rebel!"
Robert raised a hand, silencing Buckler. He rode his horse onto the wooden bridge, stopping just out of bowshot.
"I heard the news, Ser Galladon!" Robert roared. "I heard what the Dragon did to your Lord!"
Galladon stiffened. The exile of Lord Owen Merryweather was a fresh wound. It was a humiliation that burned every man in the castle.
"Lord Owen was a good man!" Robert continued, his voice echoing off the stone. "He served Aerys faithfully! And how was he rewarded? Stripped! Exiled! Robbed of his home because the Mad King needs a scapegoat!"
Robert pointed his warhammer at the banner on the wall.
"They say you serve the Crown. I say the Crown betrayed you. I say Aerys Targaryen is no King of yours."
Galladon stared down. He looked at the banner of his exiled master. He thought of the Crown tax collectors who were due to arrive next week to seize the "traitor's" harvest.
"What do you want, Baratheon?" Galladon asked, his voice lower, the defiance replaced by a simmering anger.
"My wagons are light," Robert said simply. "I need the harvest. If I take it, I am a conqueror. But if you give it... you are striking a blow for Lord Owen."
Robert leaned forward in his saddle.
"Let the Mad King's taxes feed the army that will bring him down."
There was a long, heavy silence on the walls. The garrison soldiers looked at their commander. They hated Aerys. They hated that their beloved Lord was rotting in a boat to Essos while the Mad King sat on the Iron Throne.
Ser Galladon looked at the massive rebel army. He could fight them and die for a King he despised. Or he could open the doors and spit in Aerys's eye.
"Lower the bridge!" Galladon ordered.
The chains rattled. The drawbridge groaned down.
It was not a surrender. It was a donation.
The Courtyard - Two Hours Later
The scene inside Longtable was one of organized chaos.
Stormlands soldiers were rolling massive barrels of flour, wheels of cheese, and casks of salted beef out of the deep cellars. They were loading the wagons that Buckler had dragged empty from the Slate Ford.
But there was no looting.
Robert stood in the center of the courtyard with Ser Galladon.
"Take it all," Galladon said bitterly, watching his cellars empty. "Better you eat it than the Crown's lickspittles. Just... leave us enough for the winter."
"You have my word," Robert said. He handed Galladon a heavy scroll—another promissory note, identical to the one he gave the village elder, but for a thousand times the value.
"When Lord Owen returns," Robert said, "tell him his harvest bought a Kingdom."
Galladon took the scroll. He looked at Robert. He saw the way the rebel soldiers moved—quiet, respectful, not touching the castle women, not stealing the silver.
"They said you were a beast," Galladon muttered, eyeing the massive man. "A drunkard and a whore-monger who started a war because he couldn't keep his temper."
Robert didn't smile. The light in his eyes died, replaced by a cold, hard shadow.
"That man is dead," Robert rasped. "He died the day the Mad King strangled Brandon Stark."
He adjusted the heavy warhammer on his shoulder.
"The man standing before you just wants to kill the Dragon."
Robert turned and mounted his horse. As the sun began to dip, the Stormlands host formed up. The wagons were heavy now, creaking under the weight of salvation. The men marched with a new energy. Their bellies were full, their packs were stocked, and their leader had seemingly conjured food out of thin air using nothing but the truth.
The garrison of Longtable stood on the walls, watching them go. They didn't fire arrows at their backs. Some even raised a hand in farewell.
Ser Galladon watched the dust settle on the empty road. The "Rebel" army had come, taken what they needed without shedding a drop of blood, and vanished.
"They walked like ghosts," Galladon whispered to his lieutenant, clutching the scroll that promised justice for his exiled lord. "Leaving nothing but hope."
[End of Chapter 14]