[The Riverlands, Mummer's Ford, 4th moon, 299AC]
The man-at-arms died so quickly that Raymun never learned his name.
One moment the man was fighting three yards to his left, shield locked with the rest of the line while he shouted curses at the westermen trying to force their way through the mud.
The next, a crossbow bolt punched through the slit of his helm.
The man dropped without a sound.
Someone stepped over the body immediately.
The fighting never slowed.
Raymun hacked downward, his sword biting through a westerman's shoulder and lodging briefly in mail and bone. The man screamed. Raymun ripped the blade free and shoved him backward with his shield.
Another enemy appeared.
Then another.
There always seemed to be another.
The northern edge of the battlefield had become one enormous crush of bodies.
The ford itself had all but vanished.
Hours ago men had been fighting for control of the crossing, now, they fought atop it.
The shallows were choked with corpses.
Broken spears floated in bloodied water.
Dead horses lay tangled among men.
Everywhere Raymun looked, he saw movement.
The battle had become so dense that individual fights barely mattered anymore.
Only the line mattered.
The line held.
Or it broke.
Nothing in between.
"Push!" Raymun roared. "Push, you stubborn bastards!"
The Greycloaks answered immediately.
Not because he was noble.
Not because he carried some ancient title.
Because they trusted him.
That trust had been earned over years.
It had been bought with shared hardship and blood.
Most of the 1st Company had served under him for nearly a decade.
Many had followed him since before Alaric Stark had become king.
They knew him.
And he knew them.
That mattered.
Especially in the thick of battle, when you only have the man to your left and right to count on.
A westerman lunged forward with a spear.
Raymun caught the shaft beneath his arm, twisted hard, and tore the weapon from the man's grip.
The westerman looked surprised.
Then Raymun smashed the rim of his shield into the man's face.
Teeth flew.
The man disappeared beneath the crush.
A familiar voice shouted nearby.
"Ser-Captain!"
Raymun turned.
Serjeant Tobbot Reed emerged from the fighting, a member of a lesser forgotten branch of House Reed.
The crannogman looked half drowned.
Mud coated him nearly from head to toe.
His beard hung wet against his jaw.
Blood covered one sleeve.
Whether it belonged to him or somebody else, Raymun couldn't tell.
"What?"
"The right's holding."
"Good."
"Barely."
Raymun laughed harshly.
"Everything's barely holding."
Tobbot grinned.
That much, at least, was true.
The old crannogman had been serving under him for years.
One of the best serjeants in the company.
Quiet and reliable.
The sort of man who never seemed remarkable until things went wrong.
Then suddenly everyone realized how much work he had been doing all along.
"The Westermen are trying to shift north."
"I know."
"Think they're looking for a gap?"
Raymun glanced westward.
Toward the distant lion banners.
Toward Tywin.
"Aye, that would seem to be their only option."
Tobbot wiped blood from his face.
"Any orders?"
Raymun looked over the battlefield.
The answer came immediately.
"Tell the men nobody gives ground."
The crannogman barked a laugh.
"They'll love that."
"That's why I'm sending you."
Tobbot shook his head and disappeared back into the fighting.
Kevan Lannister's death spread slowly.
Not because the news was hidden, but because battles had a way of swallowing information.
Men only learned what happened when someone found time to tell them.
And time was a luxury most men didn't have when fighting with their lives on the line.
A group of Rivermen passed through the line shouting about it.
A wounded knight repeated it to anyone who would listen.
Eventually even the westermen began hearing whispers.
Kevan Lannister had fallen.
The reactions varied.
Some cheered.
Others stared.
Many simply kept fighting.
The dead remained dead regardless of which side they served.
Raymun pushed deeper into the line.
The 1st Company had become spread across a wide section of the northern approaches.
Normally he would have hated that.
Normally he preferred tighter formations.
But battle rarely cared about preference.
Battle cared about necessity.
A dying horse crashed into the mud nearby.
Men scattered.
The animal screamed.
The sound made Raymun's teeth hurt.
A westerman tried using the confusion to break through.
The attempt lasted all of three seconds.
Three Greycloaks stabbed him almost simultaneously.
The man collapsed.
One of the soldiers looked up.
"Ser-Captain."
Raymun recognized him.
Donnel, a boy who had come from Mole's Town, like him.
Barely twenty.
Good soldier.
Nervous smile.
Far too young.
"You're bleeding."
Donnel glanced down.
A sword cut ran across his thigh.
The young man shrugged.
"I noticed."
"Can you walk?"
"Aye."
"Then stop complaining."
That earned a laugh from the surrounding men.
Donnel rolled his eyes.
"Helpful."
"I wasn't trying to help."
The soldiers laughed again.
It was those small moments, held between men fighting for their very lives, that mattered.
Men fought better when they remembered they were still human.
The battle dragged onward.
And slowly something began bothering Raymun.
The assaults had become more focused.
More deliberate.
Earlier they had attacked everywhere.
Now they seemed interested in particular positions.
Specific holes in their formations, and roads that led west past the ford.
Tywin was adapting.
A runner soon arrived.
Breathing hard.
"Ser-Captain."
"What?"
"The commander wants reports."
Of course.
Raymun wiped blood from his face.
"What does he need?"
"Everything."
"Helpful."
The runner looked apologetic.
Raymun couldn't blame him.
Most messages became less useful the farther they traveled.
"Tell him the line's holding."
"Aye."
"Tell him casualties are heavy."
"Aye."
"Oh, and tell him Tywin's looking for something."
The runner frowned.
"What?"
"A weakness in our lines, a place to breach, I don't know yet what he is looking for, but they're looking nonetheless."
The young man nodded slowly.
Then ran away.
Raymun watched him go.
The trap had closed.
Kevan was dead.
The battlefield belonged to the North and Riverlands now.
At least on paper.
Tywin would know that.
Which meant he was already looking for a way to change it.
A horn soon sounded, followed by two others.
Western signals.
Raymun climbed a small rise littered with corpses.
From there he could finally see farther across the battlefield.
The lion banners still stood.
So did Tywin's command standard.
From there he continued to relay orders and direct what was left of his men as they began to maneuver.
Broken armies did not maneuver.
Defeated armies did not reorganize.
Yet that was exactly what Tywin appeared to be doing.
A rider emerged from the south.
One of Jory's men.
The horse looked exhausted.
The rider looked worse.
"Ser Raymun."
"What is it?"
The rider pointed west.
"Commander Cassel wants the western road secured."
Raymun felt his stomach tighten.
Jory had seen it too.
Tywin was preparing something.
"How many men?"
"As many as you need."
Raymun snorted.
"That's not an answer."
"It's the one I was given."
Of course it was.
Jory trusted his captains to make decisions.
That was one reason the Greycloaks worked so well.
Raymun looked around.
The 1st Company remained battered but intact.
Exhausted and bloodied, but still standing at least.
Good enough.
He turned toward Tobbot Reed.
"Gather the officers."
The crannogman frowned.
"Why?"
Raymun looked toward the west.
His eyes caught the fluttering of banners and the movement of men who were steeling themselves for a last-ditch attempt at something.
"Because the battle's changing."
The wind carried distant horn blasts across the battlefield.
Below them, men continued dying.
Above them, darkness crept steadily across the Riverlands.
And somewhere beyond the ford, Tywin Lannister was preparing his next move.
Raymun could feel it.
He soon found Tobbot Reed, along with two other Serjeants, Harl Condon, and Mors Slate, gathered beside a shattered wagon that had somehow remained upright through half a day of fighting.
The wagon was riddled with arrows.
One wheel was gone.
The horse that had once pulled it lay dead nearby, bloated and stiff.
Raymun crouched beside the wagon and pointed west.
"Tywin's moving his men into some kind of formation, it looks like they're getting ready to attempt a breakout."
Harl was the first to speak following his declaration.
"He can't be stupid enough to try another crossing."
"He doesn't need another crossing," said Mors Slate. "He already crossed, despite the line still holding, they had given enough ground before our reinforcements came that the ford now is behind the Lannisters' front lines."
"Aye," Raymun said. "Now he needs an escape route."
The three serjeants exchanged looks.
Tywin was trapped.
Every man on the battlefield knew it.
The problem was that trapped animals were dangerous.
Trapped lions even more so.
Tobbot scratched at his beard.
"Where?"
"The western road."
"The one running back toward the hills?"
"Aye, although His Grace now controls the Golden Tooth, surely those western bastards would know other ways into the Westerlands, they still have Lord Leo Lefford with them as well, im sure he knows his lands inside and out," Mors spat.
Harl looked toward the fighting.
"Then that's where he's going."
Raymun nodded.
That was exactly the problem.
Tywin was many things.
Cruel, proud, ruthless, but he wasn't foolish.
The old lion would see the same terrain they did.
The same opportunities and weaknesses.
Which meant they had precious little time.
"Gather every man you can find from the 1st Company."
"Every man?" asked Harl.
"Every man still capable of holding a spear."
The serjeants hurried off.
Raymun stood alone for a moment.
The battlefield stretched before him.
The sun was almost gone now.
Long shadows covered the ford.
He wondered briefly how many families would receive news from this battle.
How many wives, parents, children, and siblings would learn of their family member's death upon these damned waters.
The thought brought Corianne to mind.
Not for the first time and certainly not the last.
He pictured her standing outside their farmhouse near Winter Town.
Arms crossed and waiting.
She always waited when he left.
Never cried or begged him to stay.
She understood what he was.
A soldier, a member of the Greycloaks, and a man who belonged to the North before he belonged to himself.
And despite all of that, he still missed her dearly.
Gods, he missed her.
Oswulf would be helping with the livestock by now.
Or pretending to.
The boy had inherited Raymun's stubbornness but none of his tact or wits. That combination worried him sometimes.
Erena would likely be following her brother around.
Mara would be causing trouble somewhere, she always seemed to find trouble.
The thought almost made him smile.
Then a scream echoed across the battlefield.
Reality returned.
The 1st Company assembled faster than he expected.
Veterans of many battles and skirmishes.
Many carried wounds.
Some should have been resting, and yet here they were, battered but reay.
That was the thing about Greycloaks.
They complained constantly.
Then they did their jobs anyway.
Raymun rode before them slowly.
Nearly seven hundred remained.
Hours earlier there had been closer to a thousand.
The losses sat heavily on him.
Not because numbers mattered.
Names mattered.
He knew many of the men who hadn't answered the call.
Men he'd fought beside for years.
Dead now.
Gone.
And there would be more before the night ended.
The realization never got easier.
Tobbot Reed moved beside him.
"Say something."
Raymun frowned.
"What?"
"The men."
"What about them?"
"They're waiting."
Raymun looked out over the gathered soldiers.
Gods, how he hated speeches.
Always had.
Half the time they sounded ridiculous.
The other half they sounded worse.
And yet, the men waited.
So he spoke.
"The westermen are trying to break out of our trap."
The company grew quiet.
No surprise there.
They'd figured that much out already.
"We've spent weeks chasing this army."
Raymun pointed west.
"We bled at Sherrer."
He pointed toward the ford.
"We've bled here."
Many of them still wore blood from both battles.
"The Old Lion wants a road home." His voice hardened. "We're going to make sure he doesn't get one."
That earned a few grim smiles.
One veteran shouted.
"That's the speech?"
"Aye."
The man laughed.
Several others joined him.
The tension eased slightly.
They soon reached the western road shortly after sunset, the sounds of battle still raging on.
The terrain favored the defenders.
It was a narrow, wooded area.
Several low ridges overlooking the approach.
Exactly the sort of ground the North excelled at holding.
Raymun immediately began placing men.
Archers along the rises.
Spearmen behind makeshift barricades.
Reserve troops hidden within the trees.
The work happened quickly.
Professional soldiers didn't require much explanation.
Everyone understood the assignment.
Stop Tywin if he managed to break out of the encirclement.
Simple enough.
Darkness deepened.
The battlefield behind them continued raging.
Occasionally they heard horns.
Sometimes screams.
Other times there came cheering.
Impossible to tell who was winning any particular fight.
War rarely made things that simple.
Hours seemed to pass.
Though it likely hadn't even been a single hour.
Then Harl Condon appeared.
The younger serjeant looked uneasy.
Raymun immediately noticed.
That worried him.
Harl wasn't the sort of man easily unsettled.
"What?"
The serjeant pointed west.
"We've spotted men outside of the encirclement."
"How many?"
"Not sure, but they definitely are not ours."
Raymun's stomach tightened.
"Show me."
They climbed one of the ridges.
From there the road stretched into darkness.
For several moments he saw nothing.
Then movement.
Men marched in columns, torches burned, and horses huffed in the darkness, and from the center, there he saw it, the command standard of Tywin Lannister.
'So the bastards managed to break out, huh? Well, at least we won't have to wait here much longer than.' He thought grimly, noticing how the shouts and screams of battle were beginning to lessen at the main defense location near the ford.
Within minutes, the position came alive.
Men rushed to assigned places.
Archers checked bowstrings.
Spearmen lowered their weapons, bracing for anything that came their way.
Officers moved through the ranks.
The familiar sounds of preparation.
The sounds that came before men died.
Raymun stood at the center of the line.
Watching, and waiting.
The torches grew closer.
More appeared behind them.
Then more.
The sheer scale became obvious.
A couple of thousand men seemed to have made it out, no doubt sacrificing those who couldn't to the kill box that had been set up for them.
A mere fraction of Tywin's initial army, but enough to make a last-ditch attempt to flee west.
The old lion had chosen his path.
A beat-up road passing between two ridges, leading toward the Golden Tooth's hills.
Just as expected.
Tobbot Reed joined him.
"How many?"
Raymun answered honestly. "More then us."
The crannogman grunted.
"Helpful."
"That's what I'm here for."
Despite everything, Tobbot laughed.
The sound surprised both of them.
A horn echoed through the darkness.
Another answered.
Then another.
The enemy line adjusted.
Raymun could almost feel Tywin's hand directing it.
Most commanders would've accepted defeat by now.
But Tywin Lannister wasn't most commanders.
The approaching torches halted.
For a moment, everything became strangely still.
The battlefield noises faded into the distance.
The road fell silent.
Nothing but darkness.
And waiting, gods, how Raymun hated waiting.
Beside him, Tobbot shifted.
"Think they'll attack tonight?"
Raymun never took his eyes from the darkness ahead.
"Of course, Tywin knows exactly what happens if he waits until morning."
The crannogman nodded slowly.
Morning meant more Northerners, furious at realising they let a small force escape, hell bent on their deaths.
Tonight was his best chance.
Maybe his last.
The old lion knew it.
Which meant they would come.
The question wasn't if, but how hard they would hit.
A rider suddenly appeared from the darkness behind them.
One of Jory's messengers.
The man barely managed to stay mounted.
"Ser Raymun."
"What?"
The rider swallowed.
"Commander Cassel sends word."
Raymun listened.
"He orders you to hold this path, the fighting is all but finished at the ford, and the larger hosts are regrouping to hit Tywin's men from behind, but the chaos of the battle is taking them longer than they thought, so he implores you, ser-captain, hold."
Raymun nodded.
Then the rider departed.
Tobbot looked at him.
"That's it? No grand strategy?"
"Suppose not."
"No clever plan?"
Raymun drew his sword.
The steel gleamed faintly beneath torchlight.
That was all the answer Tobbot needed, before he closed his eyes for a moment, then drew his own weapon, readying himself.
The western horns sounded again.
Closer this time.
The torches began moving.
Thousands of them.
The darkness ahead came alive.
And Raymun Snow realized that the hardest fighting of the day was still ahead of them.
"Shields up," he ordered quietly.
The command spread down the line.
Hundreds of shields rose.
The road disappeared behind them.
The escape route closed.
And somewhere ahead in the darkness, Tywin Lannister was coming.
And all they had to do was hold long enough for the remaining forces to fall upon them, and end the Old Lion's reign once and for all.