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Rumble!
The Lannister cavalry came down from the mountain like tigers. With their hooves thundering like muffled storm clouds, they slammed straight into the defensive line Lord Vance had barely managed to assemble.
The foremost Lannister riders couched their steel lances tightly beneath their arms. Carrying the full force of the charge, they pierced through the panicked rivermen with ease.
The instant the two sides met, blood splashed across the rivermen's line, drawing open the cruel curtain of war.
Some Lannister lances drove straight through the chests of rivermen. Under the force of the horses' charge, the impaled men were dragged onward while still alive.
Other unlucky rivermen were struck directly in the face by sharp lances.
Under that tremendous impact, half their heads were torn away, or their skulls burst apart in an instant, leaving headless corpses behind.
Behind the lancers, light cavalry carrying swords and shields followed through the gaps torn open by their comrades and harvested the lives of the rivermen without mercy.
"Hold formation! Stop them!"
At the rear of the rivermen's formation, Lord Vance sat on a warhorse brought by one of his guards. Seeing that most of the battle line had already been punched through, he shouted anxiously.
Lord Vance had been struck by a cavalry ambush and still personally organized his household soldiers into a defensive formation. His courage was commendable.
But war is not decided by courage alone.
The Lannister cavalry, holding the advantage in timing, terrain, and morale, tore through the rivermen's line with ease.
Before the formation was completely ripped apart, Lord Vance led all the guards at his side and bravely charged against that iron torrent.
A Lannister rider's lance stabbed hard into the chest of the horse beneath Lord Vance. The warhorse's forelegs buckled on the spot, throwing him heavily to the ground.
Rip!
The relatively lucky Lord Vance did not die from the fall. He had just staggered to his feet, dizzy and trying to assess the battle, when a Lannister light cavalryman swung his sword and cut open most of his throat.
Hot blood sprayed from Lord Vance's neck.
Of the more than two thousand rivermen on the battlefield, most were men of House Vance. Before the fighting began, Lord Piper had gathered more than a thousand soldiers of his own house.
When he saw Lord Vance's formation easily torn open by the Lannister cavalry and on the verge of collapse, he hurriedly mounted and led his men away.
The temporary camp had now been trampled into ruins. Some rivermen, badly wounded but not yet dead, screamed as Lannister riders finished them off.
Ser Kevan rode his warhorse at a slow pace through the ruins of blood and grief.
Beside him, a middle-aged commander in armor marked with the purple unicorn of House Brax asked:
"Ser Kevan, about a thousand enemies fled toward Riverrun when the battle began.
Most of them are infantry. If we leave now, we can catch them within half a day's ride."
"No need. These Tully men set their camp at the foot of the mountain with no defenses at all. They were practically meat delivered to our door.
Since we have already eaten that ripe piece of meat, it would not be worth the risk if there is an ambush ahead.
Lord Andros, this war is of great importance. We must be careful."
Hearing Lord Andros's suggestion, Kevan shook his head and refused.
Lord Andros Brax of Hornvale knew Kevan had never been one to make decisions on his own. If Kevan said this, it had to be Lord Tywin's meaning. So Andros nodded and said nothing more.
"Continue clearing the battlefield. Once the infantry arrives, we will go outside Riverrun, make camp, surround it, and cut off House Tully's support to House Stark.
Then, according to Lord Tywin's plan, I will take men under cover of night and go to..."
Moat Cailin stood at the northern edge of the Neck, surrounded by wetlands and swamps. It had once been a great fortress made up of twenty towers.
Worn down by time, it was now an abandoned stronghold with only three towers remaining.
Ancient or ruined, Moat Cailin's strategic position was vital. It guarded the causeway that allowed armies to pass safely through the Neck, making it a crucial fortress that had defended the North against southern invasions for thousands of years.
While he was in the black cells, Eddard had once told Robb that as long as Moat Cailin and White Harbor were held, House Lannister could never set foot in the North.
Those were not empty words.
Moat Cailin's three remaining towers happened to command the only causeway north from three directions.
To attack any one of them, an enemy army would have to wade through waist-deep black mud, cross a moat crawling with lizard-lions, and then climb moss-slick walls.
So long as a few hundred archers were stationed in those three towers, no army could force its way up one tower while enduring storms of arrows from the other two.
But all of that applied to an attack from south to north.
Because Moat Cailin had been built to defend against southern attacks, assaulting it from the north was much easier.
After seven days of marching, Robb's northern army reached Moat Cailin, currently occupied by Winterfell's supply commander, Trogg.
Just as Theon had said, Trogg was a serious and responsible worker. When the army arrived, the supply troops had already cleared and repaired Moat Cailin's three towers and built some defensive works nearby.
The arrival of more than twenty thousand northern soldiers not only filled the area around the three towers, but also covered the kingsroad along the causeway to the north and south with military tents.
Robb rode a black warhorse, studying the fortress that had protected the North for thousands of years while sending thoughts to Bloodwind in his mind.
Trogg, the supply commander, soon rode over and invited him to the tower known as the Gatehouse Tower.
The Gatehouse Tower was one of Moat Cailin's three surviving towers. It was currently the only one that still looked fairly intact, with a few feet of wall remaining on either side.
Naturally, that tower became the King in the North's residence and the hall where military matters were discussed.
The ancient Gatehouse Tower had been thoroughly cleaned, and Trogg had deliberately arranged it to make it more comfortable and suitable for living.
Beside a long table that had clearly been newly made, Robb sat with all the lords except those from the Dreadfort, Deepwood Motte, and Torrhen's Square. Commanders of every rank stood behind them.
After first praising and encouraging Trogg, Robb moved directly into the formal council.
While Robb and the others were discussing military affairs, less than twenty kilometers northwest of Moat Cailin, a different scene was unfolding.
This was a river in the Neck called the Fever River. Its mouth lay at the Saltspear, and beyond that, it opened toward the Sunset Sea.
A slender longboat, not unlike a kayak from Robb's previous life, was being rowed hard toward shore by several ironborn in gray leather armor and trousers, each carrying a longsword.
As soon as they landed, they moved swiftly, lifting the longboat and carrying it to a more hidden place.
After covering it with branches and other debris, they headed out with a clear purpose, quietly moving toward Moat Cailin.
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