I accept."
Gawen blinked.
He was sure he wasn't the only one that blinked at those words. What exactly was this man accepting at?
Sitting atop one of the finest warhorses that would ever come out of the stables of Highgarden, Gawn, like many of the other lords with them looked hard at the man in front of him. That man being the king of these lands that had been avoiding to face them in battle like the plague.
Edmyn was a man of above average height, not reaching the great heights that he and the men of his family was, but enough to make him stand out amidst a normal crowd. His hair was a rusted red and he grew beard of similar colours, but it was his eyes that drew attraction. The way they shone like bright blue stars in the sky.
He was dressed in plate and mail covered in a blue, red and green surcoat cleaned to a degree that made it shine with the Tully tout adorned at the centre with a crown upon its head. Gawen spotted the king held no cloak to his shoulders. Something he appreciated.
Cloaks tended to be a liability in the midst of battle. Some fool might very well grab at it, pull you from your horse and onto your back then finish you off.
All in all, the king wore nothing that would truly make him stand out in the midst of combat. He took note of that. Despite the practicality of his armour and arms, his rather plain armament would not bode well if he took to the field and his own men didn't recognise him in the fighting.
With the red-haired king were several men, numbering seven all in all. Seven for them and seven for their opponents.
Father had brought his sons along, Lord Caswell, Ser Owen, Lord Roger Hook, the most prominent amongst the riverlords to join them in their cause and Ser Tytos Reyne, the commander of the westermen host that had come from the Deep Den Pass.
Father leaned forward slightly from his horse. "You...accept?"
Edmyn nodded. "That I do."
"Accept what?"
"Your surrender." Edmyn replied with the utmost seriousness on his face. He raised a hand gently. "No need to fret Your Grace, my lords, you shall all be treated with the utmost respect and generosity for those of your ranks. Now if you could, please line up to the left so I can have my men put cuffs on you."
Gawen's jaw dropped at the sheer audacity of the man in front of them. "That is a horrible jape to say, Your Grace." He heard his brother say, breathless and trying to make sense of the man. "You must be japing, yes?"
The King of the Trident blinked nonplussed as his blue eyes turned to look at his brother who was at his father's righthand side. "I'm not one for japing in matters such as this."
Father's face tightened some by the way his jaw clenched. "Have you come all this way to make japes?"
"I'm offended you would think that." King Edmyn replied, a small frown on his lips. "Really, I want you to stop wasting my time and just surrender. Save me and my men the trouble of actually putting in the work for this nonsense."
"Enough!" Father near bellowed, bringing himself to his full height that towered over the riverking. "I came to offer you the chance to surrender, but it seems you are more intent on making a mockery of such proceedings." If King Edmyn was at all threatened by Father, he didn't show it. He merely blinked as Father continued. "Look behind me, Your Grace, and see the glimmering chivalry of the reach and westerlands. Your petty tricks and distractions were not enough to turn them away from their god given duty to reclaim these lands for the Seven! Your audacity shall do nothing more than-what are you doing?"
What King Edmyn was doing was that he had tilted his body to the side slightly to peer past King Mern and look behind him. He squinted at the reacher army that stood in battle array in the distance.
"You say this chivalry of the reach and westerlands, but I can't see it."
"Are you blind?" Edmund asked, some bite to his words as he waved a gauntled hand behind him. "Do you not see the glimmering steel that shines on this day? The thousand colourful banners? The host of men ready to bring you death and destruction!?"
King Edmyn hummed for a moment. "You sure about that? Cause all I see are a whole host of soon to be dead men. Maybe this host of shimmering chivalry or whatever is behind that lot? I suppose we'll have to find out."
Gawen couldn't stand it anymore. "Your Grace, please, we outnumber you and there is no need for bloodshed. Surrender and you shall be treated with honour."
The red-haired king regarded him for a moment before thumbing in the direction of where his own army was. There was a grin on his face. "Yeah...you might outnumber us, but we have the better ground and unlike you, we can just sit out cosy arses there till to the end of days. I'm not the one suffering from lack of supplies."
The ever-hot-blooded Ser Owen snapped at him. "What kind of warrior are you? To run away from battle and savage our men so?"
King Edmyn spared him a look of boredom. "A smart one. You are the ones who started this. Don't blame me if I don't play to your rules, whatever they maybe."
"The codes of chivalry!" Ser Owen bombastic response as his horse moved forward from the knight's fiery retort. One of the king's riders edged his own horse forward but was stopped by a hand from his king. "All you have done is scurry about in the shadows, your rats gnawing and biting, scattering before we test their metal, man-to-man!"
"And here I thought I was fighting a war not a battle in some tourney." The riverking said with a sigh and a shake of the head. He raised his head to look at Father. "Look King Mern, I woke up yesterday and realised I had far better things to do than lead you and yours in a tour of my kingdom. Hope you enjoyed the sights though. I doubt there are any words that I can say to convince you to just surrender?"
Father shook his head once. A powerful statement followed by a single word. "No."
"I figured as much." King Edmyn replied with a defeated sigh. "Then, I suppose if the gods are not done playing with us, we shall be seeing each other on the battlefield." He made to turn his horse round and began to ride away before he shouted something back at them. "Oh yeah, Lord Hook, keep up the good work!"
That threw them of a bit as the lords in attends turned from watching the riverking ride away to the riverlord who was staring at the behind of the red-haired king dumbfoundedly.
Edmund snorted as he turned his horse around. "We should return to camp and prepare for the coming battle."
Ser Owen glanced at the riverlord with little veiled suspicion. "Are we to ignore that, Your Grace?"
"Nothing but a ploy." Father replied as he led their party back to their own lines. "A ploy to plant suspicion into our ranks. Nothing more."
Lord Hook eagerly nodded to Father's words as he held his head up. "Exactly, Your Grace. I have been nothing but a loyal servant to you and yours."
"If you say so..." Ser Owen heard his words and watched Lord Hook move his mouth to say them, but it was obvious that he didn't trust the man at all.
***
"I'm starting to hate these lands." Edmund grumbled some as he looked over the field. "Especially these damned rivers. How many rivers can there possibly be?"
Gawen laughed some at his brother's words. "They are called the riverlands for a reason, brother. I'm sure Maester Percy said once upon the time that the land is filled with hundreds of rivers and then some."
Still though, the rivers of these lands were now proving to be the bane of them. King Edmyn had been correct in saying that he had all the time in the world. He could seat prettily on his position across them and feast till the end of days whilst they starve.
They had to be the ones to attack.
And King Edmyn had made sure that his position was as difficult as possible to make any sort of attack on. He had positioned his army and squinting, Gawen could make a guess to around fifteen thousand or so men, beside a river that was a little too deep for the horses to cross with an armoured man on its back.
Their right flank to his left was arrayed beside the river and he could see nothing but archers positioned behind pailings angled so that only a mad horse would willingly impale itself among the wooden stakes planted so. And that wasn't taking into account the ditches and trenches dug into the earth.
'These men work fast.' He couldn't help but admit at the speed these defences had been built.
The riverlander centre was composed of pikes formed into squares, veritable hedgehogs of sharpened metal that glittered and behind them, he could see a line of something else. Bowmen or men-at-arms perhaps and like the bowmen to the right, they had also planted stakes to blunt the charge of their knights and heavy horse. To the left, what could only be the entirety of the chivalry of the riverlands stood opposed to their own formation of heavy horse and knights. It just so happened their left flank happened to be the only flank that held no stakes at all.
"This isn't going to be easy." Gawen felt the need to wipe away some sweat from his brow, made the more difficult by the helmet that he wore. "They only left one avenue of approach for our horse."
Edmund nodded as he turned his head towards the distant right flake that held no stakes. "Only because they need to move their horse as well. Though I fail to see what is the point. Our horse outnumbers theirs." He then motioned for the attention back to the centre. "And anyway, all we have to do is send in our men to dig out the stakes and the centre will be open to us."
"That'll reap a bloody toll on us." Gawen replied, eyeing those bowmen directly in front of them once more.
His brother grinned at him some. "Then it's a good thing we have loyal and leal lords to take care of that now, don't we?"
***
This was going to be a first for me.
A battle that just wasn't me playing dirty. No tricks this time. Just a full on head-to-head battle against a force that outnumbered me by quite a fair bit.
I could do this.
I had the men for this, well trained and well drilled. They could do this.
It was now or never and I really didn't want to lose. If I lost, my head was going straight on the chopping block and I didn't like the thought of what would happen to my own family back at home.
So, no pressure, right?
I rode up and down my lines, to make sure that every men saw me. I spoke to some, gave well wishes and made some japes at the amount of ass they were going to kick. You know, the usual spiel people said when they were hyping a man up. To get them ready for doing something momentarily stupid or epic and either of them weren't inclusive into said act.
I came to a halt in the centre of my lines, the centre that I commanded and turned to look at the reacher host in front of me. I made a show of drawing my sword and pointing it towards the reacher host. "I had a little chat with King Mern just a while ago, you might have seen me," I projected my voice as much as I could to make as many people hear me. I could hear some chuckles go through the ranks from my little quip at the end. I then proceeded to be as thoroughly dismissive as I could of that meeting. "He talked some nonsense about bringing the fury, chivalry, whatever of the reach to bare upon us. I suppose he wanted to make me scared, to send me running back into my wife's arms." A moment passed before I spat into the ground. "Fuck that!
"Mern frankly doesn't know who the fuck I am! I am Edmyn Tully! The Liberator! The Breaker of Iron! The godsdamned King of the Trident! I'm the man that fought against Harren and the Hoares and won when many have failed! To free these beautiful lands of ours from his and the ironborn tyranny and like hell I'm just going to roll over and hand them back to another foreign invader without a goddamn fight! And I ask you, my fellow riverlanders, ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME!?"
The roar back was full of life and vigour.
"YES!"
"TO PROTECT OUR LAND AND HOMES TILL OUR LAST BREATHS!?"
"YES!"
The reaction was better than what I had been hoping for. The butts of pikes beating into the ground, disturbing the earth even more than they already did so.
"NOW I ASK YOU, WHERE ARE WE HEADING?"
"TO BATTLE!"
"WHAT DO WE WANT!?"
"VICTORY!"
I grinned impishly as the next line came to mind. I never thought the day would come when I would say these words.
"NOW COME ON YOU APES, WHO WANTS TO LIVE FOREVER!?"
The roar back was almost deafening.
And nearly knocked me off my horse.
But I was a king, and such a thing happening wouldn't be so kingly and not at all to the badass warrior king I had just sold to the men.
***
"Are you alright, Your Grace?" Kyle Vance asked, looking me with a glance full of worry.
I rubbed at my ears to ease the ringing. "I'm fine." Man, these riverlanders were loud. "But thank you for the concern."
I was ahorse upon a raised swatch of land, watching the enfolding battle happen in front of me. With the river to my right, my right flank was protected and all that worried me was the heavy horse that the reach could bring to bear down on my left flank.
My horse was outnumbered by theirs, even with the horse that I had borrowed from Lord Mallister who was something of a surprise if this battle wasn't settled. My more professional lot were faster on foot than the levies that he had brought with him, but I had made a point to only keep half a day's distance between our two armies.
Mine was more easily balanced, compared to his which was all foot and making fast way towards this location. The levies would be tired, but by then, I hoped the help they would provide would be minimal at best and just there to reinforce any weakening lines of battle.
The horse was a worry yes, but I still had more than enough of a surprise for them to turn the battle. I just didn't decide to fight a battle against a fore with superior cavalry nilly willy. That was just stupid. I always knew the Reach could call upon more cavalry than I could in this war unless I called for the other horse from across the kingdom.
I hadn't just been keeping my distance, cutting the reach host every chance I got whether it be supplies or mentally. I had also been preparing. Hopefully, that would bring me victory this day.
"Your Grace," Ser Lyman Vance pointed towards the centre of where battle had been initially taken place. "Their van is breaking!"
And so it was.
King Mern had sent foot in first, mostly levies mixed in with some men-at-arms to provide some backbone and steel into the mass of barely trained and armoured peasantry. I had to blink when I noticed the banner that was being flown.
The grey hook on a field of cream of the Hooks.
I mean, that had just been an offhand comment on my part, but it was nice to know that it had done something, even if it did nothing more than to serve as fodder for my bowmen.
…
Actually, I was annoyed about that. They had been nothing but fodder for me to waste arrows on. No matter, we still had a shit load of buckets filled with arrows in our supply train.
His van barely numbered five hundred, but it hadn't been meant to actually meet my own forces in battle, it had been meant to get to the stakes in the centre of our army and pry them out of the ground to make a path for the cavalry to come in and smash my pikemen to bits.
I guess that had been the plan.
Ser Axel, aggressive little fucker that he is, didn't need telling twice to lead his men forward to drive back the attackers and stop their actions. Here's a fun thing, pikes are brilliant, but even they can't do everything.
Sometimes, its good to have on hand the odd detachment of men that used another weapon that wasn't a pike, like the swiss army of pole weapons, the halberd.
"Don't chase them beyond the stakes," I mumbled to myself as I watched Ser Axel run down the levies that were dropping their weapons and running away. I knew that all of them were farmers and were dressed as such and riverlanders to boot. I'd shake my head at the stupidity of the men they were following but at the moment, I was too worried about Ser Axel fucking shit up for me. "You can stop now. Any day now."
Ser Axel decided to leave it to the last moment and stop me from having a heart attack as he gave an order to the bugler that was with his company that rang out the sound to halt before followed by another to fall back.
I let out a breath I didn't even know I was holding.
Apparently, trying to pry the stakes in front of the centre of my army was the main battle plan of the reachers. Not long after the first had been dispatched, another one was soon sent forward, this one numbering near a thousand.
Ser Lyman looked at the advancing men with a raised eyebrow. "Are they going to send wave after wave?" He asked. "Not very inspired tactics."
His distant something-something cousin pointed across the field. "No, they are doing something else now. They are moving up their cavalry, a small force though by the looks of it." He leaned his head forward some. "And I think, think, those are bowmen behind them. Yes! Definitely bowmen!"
Ser Lyman squinted into the distance before I passed him my Myrish eye. No need for him to ruin his eyes like that. He thanked me before he looked through it and confirmed his fellows' words. "Bowmen alright, though they won't do much to our own soldiers. Their armour will protect them, for the most."
"They will be in range of Ser Roland and his men though," Kyle pointed to the right where the bowmen, including the Blackwood longbowmen were located. "We'll give more than they would be able to take."
My eyes drifted towards the detachment of cavalry that was riding forward in line with the new wave of attackers. My guess was that they were supposed to act as a rear guard to protect the skirmishers and infantry from an opportunistic attack by our own cavalry.
A few paces away, the Blackwood longbows let loose their deadly package. Hundreds of arrows rose up into the air, arching high and high and high, to the point I had to look back down lest the sun in the clear sky blind me. When they reached the apex of their flight, they turned and fell like a steel rain upon the fools that marched on us.
Steel fangs bit into men from above, like the talons of giant birds of prey come to feast. Men fell here and there, dropping dead to the ground beneath them. I supposed some were even still alive when they hit the ground, consigned to a slow death and then some.
Another volley of arrows was loosed by the longbows and I made a note to myself to see I can raise my own troop of longbows. Normal bows had their use, but with what I had already seen, longbows were just useful.
I needed to thank the Blackwoods for lending me there men so easily. To be honest, they had honestly thrown their longbows at my feet to use as how I wished.
Loyal lot those Blackwoods.
Still though, I only had two hundred of those longbows and it wasn't long before the rest of the bowmen started peppering our own lines with their own flight of arrows, but by then, they had taken quite a beating. The infantry though, had reached their target and was quick at work to try and pry out as many stakes as they could.
Armed men-at-arms along with most of the levies, more numerous than the last, formed a thin, haphazard shield wall to try and protect the workers busy away at digging my stakes from the ground. This time, Ser Axel was joined in his sortie by Ser Nathan's own detachment of men-at-arms.
The shield wall was haphazard, the stakes in between them not making it as solid as it should be. It was quick and easy work for our own men to break it, but they had to work for it. I turned my eyes away from the ensuing battle in front of me to the cavalry at the side and noticed that they had yet to move, still at level with the bowmen that were beginning to break.
The levies finally broke when the first of our men reached them and started cutting them down, but they had done quite the work in digging out a fair number of the stakes but we still had more. That was going to be a problem.
"Ser Lyman,"
The young knight turned his attention to me. "Your Grace."
"Send a message to Sers Axel and Nathan along with Frederic Wayn to place their men within the stake line. They are to push back against any foes trying to remove out defences and to never chase them beyond their protection. I don't want them being run down by cavalry. They are only to fall back if the threat of them being overwhelmed. Is that understood?"
The knight had been quick to take out a piece of charcoal and paper and had quickly taken notes of the orders before nodding. "It'll be delivered, Your Grace!" He nodded as he turned his horse and called for some of the squires that had been assigned to him to use as he see fit as messengers.
Watching the second Gardener attack retreat, I licked my lips. Things had been going well, but it was still early days.
"Now, what are you going to do, Mern old boy?"