At the first grey light of dawn, the massive iron-bound drawbridge of the Twins slammed down with a thunderous resonance that shook the river-mist. Over a hundred riders, their horses' hooves muffled by thick linen and their riders' faces set in grim masks of determination, streamed out of the gatehouse. They were a ghost-procession, moving with a disciplined silence that only gold and magic could buy.
They followed the King's Road south for ten miles, a dark vein of steel cutting through the dew-drenched fields, before turning abruptly east and plunging into the maw of the dense forest that hugged the Mountains of the Moon.
"Shh... easy now," Beric Dondarrion whispered, his voice a low vibration in the quiet woods. He bent down to soothe his mount, checking the linen wrappings on its hooves. Beside him, Eddard was busy bundling his own horse's tail to prevent it from snagging on the low-hanging brush.
Beric looked at the young Karstark lord, his one good eye filled with a lingering, soldierly doubt. "Lord Eddard, I have promised my sword to this endeavor, but my mind is still unsettled. Randyll Tarly is not a green boy. He is a man whose name is synonymous with victory. His scouts are likely crawling through these woods like ants. How do you expect a hundred riders to bypass the perimeter of a seven-thousand-man host without being slaughtered in our saddles?"
Eddard didn't look up from his work. "Lord Beric, Tarly is a hunter. He knows how to track a wolf, but he doesn't know how to look for a ghost. I have my own methods. If we find the perimeter too tight, we'll take what heads we can and melt back into the Twins. But if I'm right... we're going to give the Earl of Horn Hill a nightmare he can't wake up from."
Eddard's confidence wasn't born of arrogance, but of a calculated "unfairness." In his previous life, he had read of Henry V at Agincourt - how a disciplined, exhausted few could shatter a massive host by turning the enemy's own weight and overconfidence against them, striking where the line was most brittle. Randyll Tarly and Roose Bolton believed the Twins was still a Frey stronghold. They believed they were marching into the arms of an ally. That belief was a blindfold, and Eddard intended to tighten it.
Through the eyes of Blackfeather, Eddard had watched the Lannister host for hours. He had seen the way Tarly pushed his men - a relentless, forced march that had stretched the column thin. Tarly was a hunter, yes, but he was a hunter in a hurry.
"Trust me," Eddard added, his eyes flashing with a dark, elemental glint. "You'll have your surprise soon enough."
The Karstark cavalrymen, the elites who had survived the Whispering Wood and the Red Fork watched their lord with fanatical devotion. Eddard had distributed nearly half of the gold he'd "liberated" from the Frey vaults to these men. Fifty gold dragons per rider. It was a king's fortune, a price that made every man in the column feel like they were made of iron.
Eddard raised his hand, gesturing for silence. Blackfeather, the raven on his shoulder, let out two sharp "caw" sounds and took flight, vanishing into the green canopy above.
The "python" of riders began to wind its way through the forest. They moved with an erratic, calculated rhythm. Sometimes they raced along the edge of the woods, the King's Road visible through the gaps in the trees, showing the long, intermittent line of the Tarly vanguard. Other times, they dove deep into the thickets, startling deer and flushing out flocks of birds that Eddard's raven guided them around to avoid alerting the enemy's outer pickets.
On the King's Road, the southern sky was beginning to bruise with heavy, rain-pregnant clouds.
Randyll Tarly craned his neck, squinting at the black speck circling high above the column. "Lord Bolton," Tarly said, his voice a cold rasp. "Does that bird look familiar to you? I've seen it three times since we crossed the ford. I have a feeling it's watching us."
He looked at Roose Bolton with a severe, questioning gaze. "I've heard the tales from the North. The Maesters at Horn Hill say some of your people are born with the blood of the First Men, that they can see through the eyes of beasts. Is there truth to it, or is it just more Northern superstition?"
Dickon Tarly, riding nearby as his father's squire, leaned in with wide eyes. At thirteen, the boy was still susceptible to the wonder of legends, despite his father's attempts to hammer the "weakness" out of him.
Roose Bolton offered an oily, dismissive smile. "In the North, Lord Tarly, everything is a legend. The Mormont women claim to be skinchangers, but in battle, they rely on wolfsbane clubs rather than magic. And the Reeds... well, they live in a swamp. They are as mysterious as they are irrelevant. No, what you see is likely just a raven looking for a meal among the stragglers."
Tarly wasn't convinced. He looked at the bird one last time. "Squire! Tell the archers to shoot that damn crow down. I don't want it over my head another minute."
Blackfeather, as if sensing the intent, flapped its wings and ascended into the heavy clouds, its croak sounding suspiciously like "Damn bald man" to anyone who could hear it.
Randyll Tarly returned his gaze to the road. He was irritated. The forced march had begun to take its toll. His Tarly veterans were holding their ranks, but the levies from the other Reach houses were straggling, creating gaps in the line.
Suddenly, a series of rustling sounds erupted from the forest to their right.
"Alert! Shields up!" Tarly barked, though he didn't draw Heartbreaker yet.
Over the past two days, the Mountain Clans, the wildlings of the Mountains of the Moon, had been harassing his flanks like a swarm of gnats. They were impoverished, savage, and desperate for food. They would surge out of the trees, kill a straggler, snatch a sack of grain or a helmet, and vanish back into the darkness. It was a nuisance, but one Tarly had accounted for by slowing the march and deploying his cavalry as a screen.
The Reach soldiers were used to it now. They were tired, wet, and bored of chasing "ragged savages" through the briars. When the rustling happened this time, the vanguard guards merely tightened their grip on their pikes, expecting another handful of screaming tribesmen in furs to make a suicidal run for the supply wagons.
But this time, the rustling wasn't the sound of desperate tribesmen.
It was the sound of heavy hooves on damp soil. It was the sound of iron-shod wheels being held in place. And beneath the canopy, Eddard Karstark was watching the Tarly hunter through a gap in the leaves.
"Now," Eddard whispered.
The forest didn't produce a scream. It produced a storm.
A hundred Karstark riders, armored in lacquered black steel and led by a man with lightning in his eyes, burst from the tree line. They didn't target the stragglers. They didn't target the wagons.
They targeted the Hunter.
[System Notification: Ambush Conditions met.]
[Target: Randyll Tarly / Roose Bolton.]
[Initiating 'Aginford' Tactical Bonus.]
The Reach soldiers, expecting a few wildlings with pitchforks, looked up to see a wall of Northern steel descending upon them at a full gallop. Before Randyll Tarly could even unsheathe his Valyrian steel, the air around the vanguard began to hum with a terrifying, ozone-heavy energy.
"HEARTBREAKER!" Tarly roared, but the sound was drowned out by the first crack of thunder.
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