Scene 1: The Lion's Calculation
Location: The Gold Road, East of the Blackwater Rush.
Time: Day 3(The Race).
The Westerlands army was marching.
Fifteen thousand men—ten thousand knights and five thousand mounted infantry—thundered down the Gold Road. They left a cloud of dust that rose up in the sky for miles. They had left their baggage train behind days ago. They had left the sick behind. They were killing horses by the tens, riding them until their hearts burst, then stripping the saddles and mounting fresh remounts requisitioned from every farm they passed.
Tywin Lannister rode at the center of the column.
He sat tall in the saddle, wearing armor of crimson steel highlighted with gold. His face was a mask of cold, imperious calm, betraying nothing of the urgency that drove him.
He was not a man who rushed. He was a man who arrived exactly when he intended to.
But the world had changed.
A scout, his horse foaming and stumbling, rode down the line from the vanguard. He wore the dust of the Riverlands.
"My Lord!" the scout gasped, pulling up beside Tywin's destrier.
Ser Kevan Lannister intercepted the man. "Report. Did the armies meet?"
"They met at the ford, my Lord," the scout wheezed. "Three days ago."
Tywin turned his head slowly. "The outcome?"
"Total victory for the Rebels," the scout said. "Prince Rhaegar is dead. His chest caved in by Baratheon's hammer. The Royalist army is shattered. Ser Barristan is captured. The Dornish are routed."
Tywin didn't blink. Rhaegar was dead. The betting pool had closed. The Dragon was bankrupt.
"And Baratheon's army?" Tywin asked. His voice was level, precise. "What is their condition? Are they decimated? Is the Flux taking them?"
This was the variable Tywin had been counting on. He expected Robert to win, perhaps, but to emerge from the battle with a broken, sickly army—one that would need House Lannister's fresh swords to secure the capital.
The scout shook his head.
"No, my Lord. That is the strange thing. They... they are fresh."
Tywin frowned, a microscopic creasing of his brow. "Fresh?"
"They suffered light casualties. Maybe six thousand to eight thousand.
There is no sickness, my Lord. They dig deep pits for waste, far from the water. And by the riverbanks... they have strange black piles of charcoal. The men fill their skins from troughs, not the stream." Tywin's eyes narrowed. Filtration, he realized.
The scout hesitated, realizing who he was speaking to, but Tywin gestured for him to continue.
"They fought in shifts," the scout explained, awe creeping into his voice. "They used pike squares. They didn't charge blindly. They fought like a men possessed. And after the battle... Baratheon didn't let them loot freely. He tallied the spoils. He has the army locked down."
Tywin looked at the road ahead.
He had expected a brute. He had expected a whoring, drinking savage who swung a hammer and let his stewards handle the numbers. A man like that could be managed. A man like that could be bought with a money and a few flattering words.
But a logistician?
He filtered the water, Tywin thought. He drilled pike squares. He tallied the spoils.
This was not the Robert Baratheon of the tourneys. This was a Warlord who understood the boring, gritty numbers of war.
You can bribe a glutton, Tywin thought, the realization settling over him like a shroud. You can flatter a vain man. You can trick a fool.
"But you cannot bribe a Lord who checks his own ledgers. You must serve him."
Tywin realized his position had just become precarious.
If Robert arrived at King's Landing and found Tywin sitting outside the walls, waiting to see who won, Robert would not see a wise neutral party. This new, calculating Robert would see a threat. He would see a rival.
And a King who counts his own coppers is a King who remembers who failed to show up.
"Kevan," Tywin said.
"Brother?"
"Increase the pace," Tywin ordered. "Double time. If a horse falters, slit its throat and move on."
"We are already riding hard, Tywin," Kevan warned. "The men are exhausted."
"We are not racing an army anymore," Tywin said coldly. "We are racing a verdict."
He looked toward the southeast, where the Red Keep waited.
"Baratheon is competent," Tywin stated, as if diagnosing a terminal illness. "He will not accept a late apology. He will only accept a crown."
"And Aerys?" Kevan asked.
"Aerys is a liability," Tywin said. "And his children are complications."
The dirty facts of the politics crystallized in Tywin's mind.
To secure House Lannister's place in the new order, half-measures would not suffice. He could not just open the gates. He had to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he had severed all ties with the Dragons.
He had to offer Robert a gift that Robert, as a "hero," could not ask for, but as a King, would desperately need.
He had to kill the heirs.
"We must sack the city," Tywin said, his voice void of emotion. "We must root out the Targaryen line. Root and stem."
"The children too?" Kevan asked softly.
Tywin looked at his brother. His eyes were hard, green stones.
"It is a kindness," Tywin said. "Better they die quickly by our swords than live as beggars or threats to a King who keeps a ledger of his enemies."
He spurred his horse.
"Ride," Tywin commanded. "We must reach the Lion's Gate before the Stag wakes up."
[End of Scene]
Chapter 28: The Waking Lion
Scene 2: The Relay at Castle Antlers
Location: Castle Antlers, Seat of House Buckwell (The Crownlands).
Time: Day 3 (Morning).
They didn't ride into the castle; they crashed into it.
The vanguard of five hundred men, once a terrifying wedge of cavalry, was now a ragged column of ghosts. Their armor was caked in grey dust. Their cloaks were shredded. But it was the beasts that told the true story.
The horses were blown.
As they clattered over the drawbridge of Castle Antlers, three destriers collapsed mid-stride, their hearts bursting from the strain of the relentless pace. Men were thrown onto the cobblestones. There were no screams, only the wet thud of exhaustion.
Robert Baratheon slid from his black stallion a second before the animal's legs buckled. He landed on his feet, stumbling slightly, his own legs feeling like jelly.
He ignored the pain. He ignored the burning in his lungs.
"Lord Buckwell!" Robert called out. His voice was raspy, but it held the authority of a King, not a raider.
Lord Jarmen Buckwell, a small man with a nervous tick who had wisely stayed neutral during the war, came running down the keep's steps. He was flanked by a maester and a steward holding a tray of bread and salt.
"My Lord... Your Grace!" Buckwell stammered, looking at the army of dirty, terrifying men filling his courtyard. "We... we did not expect you so soon! We offer you the guest right! Bread and salt, and wine for your men!"
Robert didn't slap the tray aside. He wasn't a savage. He stepped forward, grabbed a piece of bread, dipped it in the salt, and ate it in one bite.
"I accept your hospitality, Jarmen," Robert said, wiping crumbs from his beard. "Your house is safe. But I cannot stay for wine."
He looked at the courtyard.
"I need horses. Fresh mounts. Now."
Buckwell nodded. "Horses? Of course. My stables are yours."
"I need five hundred," Robert stated. "Warhorses. Coursers. Anything that can run forty miles without dying."
Buckwell's eyes bulged. He looked around the courtyard at the five hundred exhausted men.
"Five... five hundred?" Buckwell squeaked. "Your Grace, I am a minor lord. I have... maybe fifty. Mostly garrons and farm horses. A few hunting rounseys."
Robert closed his eyes for a second. He didn't curse. He didn't rage. He just felt the crushing weight of the math.
Fifty horses, he thought. Four hundred and fifty men left walking.
A column moves at the speed of its slowest rider. If he took the fifty horses and rotated the men, they would still be too slow. They would lose hours switching saddles.
He looked at the Hud.
We are losing, Robert realized.
He looked at Siro, who was already stripping the saddle off his dead mount, his face grim.
I have to cut the weight. I need the men who know how to move without a trail.
Robert turned to the assembled men. He scanned the faces of the Stormlanders until he found them.
The men from Ashford.
The hunters and scouts he had personally led through the woods to ambush the Tyrell vanguard weeks ago. Men who knew how to ride light, how to track, and how to ignore pain.
"Corwin! Kirth!" Robert barked. "Get the Ashford boys! To me!"
Ten men separated from the group. They didn't look like knights. They wore boiled leather and muddy cloaks. They carried hunting bows and short swords. But they moved with a predator's grace.
"Your Grace?" Corwin asked, wiping sweat from his brow.
"We are shedding the armor," Robert told them, unbuckling his heavy plate pauldrons and handing them to a stunned Buckwell squire. "We are shedding the numbers."
He turned to Lord Buckwell.
"Jarmen, bring me your twelve best horses," Robert requested, his voice firm. "I don't care if they are your personal hunters' horses. If they have four legs and lungs, bring them."
"And the rest of the army?" Buckwell asked, trembling.
"Feed them," Robert said. "Let them sleep for six hours, then give them the garrons. They follow as they can."
Buckwell nodded and shouted for his grooms.
Robert stripped down to his chainmail and gambeson. He kept his warhammer and the Dragonbone bow.
Siro and the ten Ashford hunters did the same, checking the girths on the fresh horses—sleek, fast coursers that looked like they could fly.
"We ride for the capital," Robert told his small, elite squad. "We do not stop. If you fall behind, you are left behind. If you pass out, you are left behind."
He mounted a nervous chestnut mare. She danced sideways, sensing the rider's intensity.
"What about the Lion?" Corwin asked, adjusting his bow. "If we catch him... it's twelve of us against fifteen thousand."
Robert gathered the reins. He looked at the men who had bled with him in the woods of Ashford.
"If we catch him," Robert said, "I won't need an army. I just need to see."
He nodded to Lord Buckwell, a gesture of thanks proper for a King.
"Thank you for the salt, my Lord."
"Ride!"
The twelve men thundered out of Castle Antlers, leaving the four hundred and eighty-eight behind. They were no longer a vanguard. They were an arrow, shot desperately at the heart of a ticking bomb.
[End of Scene]
Chapter 28: The Waking Lion
Scene 3: Brigand Mode
Location: The Kingsroad, South of the Trident.
Time: Day 4 (The Sprint).
They were no longer Kings or knights. They were a force of nature.
For the last twenty-four hours, Robert Baratheon and his twelve hunters had moved with a speed that defied the laws of logistics. They had abandoned the roads where the mud was deep, cutting through fields, jumping fences, and fording streams that would have drowned a lesser man.
They did not stop for parleys. They did not stop for courtesies.
They stopped only for fresh meat—of the four-legged kind.
At a wealthy farmhold near Duskendale, the party thundered into the yard. The farmer, a stout man with a pitchfork, ran out, ready to defend his home from what looked like a band of desperate brigands.
"Stand back!" the farmer yelled. "I've got sons with bows!"
Robert didn't slow down to argue. He slid off his exhausted horse—a beautiful mare from Castle Antlers that was now lathered in white foam, her head drooping.
"I don't want your daughters, and I don't want your coin," Robert rasped, his voice raw from the wind. He threw a heavy leather pouch at the farmer's feet. It clinked with the heavy, dull sound of gold dragons.
"I want that grey gelding and the two rounseys in the paddock," Robert pointed. "And I want them saddled before I count to ten."
The farmer stared at the pouch. He opened it, saw the gold, and his eyes widened. It was more money than he would make in ten lifetimes.
"Take them!" the farmer shouted to his sons. "Help them saddle the beasts! Move!"
Within minutes, the saddles were transferred. The exhausted horses were left in the care of the stunned farmer, and the twelve riders were back on the road.
"We are gaining," Siro called out as they galloped past a milestone. "The tracks on the main road... the Lion's vanguard is slowing. They are losing horses faster than they can replace them."
"Don't celebrate yet," Robert shouted back, leaning low over the neck of his new mount. "Keep riding!"
The System flickered in Robert's vision.
His body was screaming. His thighs burned from gripping the saddle. His back ached from the constant pounding. His stomach was a hollow pit, gnawing at itself.
He reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a strip of dried beef—hard as shoe leather and salty as the sea. He chewed it rhythmically, forcing himself to swallow without water.
"Eat!" Robert commanded his men. "Chew the leather! It keeps you awake!"
Corwin, one of the Ashford hunters, looked like he was about to fall off his horse. His eyes were glazed.
"Your Grace," Corwin mumbled. "Just... just an hour. Please."
"No," Robert said. He rode up beside Corwin and slapped the man hard on the shoulder. It wasn't cruelty; it was a lifeline.
"If you sleep, you die!" Robert roared. "Look at me, Corwin! Look at the road! The Lion is right there! Can you smell him?"
Corwin blinked, the shock rousing him. "I... I can, Your Grace."
"Then hunt him!"
They rode on.
The sun set, and they didn't stop. They rode by the light of the moon, trusting their horses not to break a leg in a pothole.
Robert's mind began to drift. The rhythmic thud-thud-thud of the hooves became a hypnotic drumbeat. He saw flashes of the future he was trying to prevent.
He saw the Red Keep burning. He saw the green fire exploding from the sewers, shattering the city like a glass jar. He saw Lyanna's face, not in a bed of blood, but in a pillar of ash.
Not this time, Robert thought, gripping the reins until his leather gloves creaked. I changed the river. I changed the sickness. I can change the fire.
He shook his head, slapping his own face.
"Faster!" Robert screamed at the empty night. "FASTER!"
The twelve riders, fueled by loyalty, fear, and the iron will of their King, tore through the darkness. They were ghosts on the Kingsroad, hunting a Lion who thought he had already won the race.
[End of Chapter 28]