The Witch-King of the Vale [GoT x LotR]

Kevan Lannister.

Ser Kevan Lannister was in a mood entirely foreign to him. He was furious. What he and his brother had spent a lifetime building had been put to the torch and plundered by a pack of savages. Years of grinding labor undone by northern barbarians, pirates, and fire-walkers. No matter. The Lannisters always paid their debts.

Kevan was a Lannister, and of the senior branch at that, which counted for a great deal across the breadth of Westeros. His bloodline alone had laid a dozen different lives before him. At one point he might have been Lord of Castamere or Tarbeck Hall, but he had turned his back on both in favor of duty. He was Tywin's younger brother, his unseen shadow, always present, always advancing his brother's ambitions. Without doubt, without hesitation, without regret. That was his duty, and he had performed it for more than forty years.

Tywin, with his brother's quiet assistance, had hauled the Westerlands out of the ruin their father had made of them and set House Lannister on the pedestal of the greatest family in all of Westeros. Kevan took honest pride in that achievement, which made it all the more painful to hear Stannis's savages stripping his home bare.

His elder brother was past fifty now. The body had begun to fail him, and the poisoning had robbed him of the ability to endure physical hardship. The Old Lion's mind, thankfully, remained as sharp as ever. Tywin had engineered a path back for the army into the West, and Kevan had been sent to drive every last enemy from their ancestral lands.

The news of Casterly Rock's fall he had received with flat skepticism, filing it as disinformation. The castle was impregnable. That was an axiom every Lannister had lived by across generations. He could believe in the sacking of Lannisport well enough, the northerners had proved their skill at sieges, but not the Rock. Yet as scout after scout and spy after spy delivered the same report, Tywin's younger brother had no choice but to accept the brutal reality: the Rock had fallen, and every treasury and vault filled over a thousand years of careful accumulation had passed into the hands of a usurper and his savages.

All the Old Lion's unseen shadow could do now was take back what had been stolen and salvage what remained. The situation was favorable, at least. The enemy forces were badly overextended, and he intended to make full use of that. The plan was straightforward: strike at the central section and cut the enemy apart. While the savages scrambled to regroup and push through the screening force, he would hold his positions and then drive toward the Rock. Stannis would have nowhere to fall back and would be forced to fight to the last.

"My lord, a northern detachment has come around to our rear on the right flank." In this company, Lord Damon Marbrand was serving as Kevan's second.

"What is Serrett doing? He had one task, and one only: hold and prevent a breakout or a link-up."

"Five hundred to six hundred men, perhaps a few more. Shall I send Clegane?"

"Send Lorch. Have him split that detachment. It will be far easier to destroy afterward." And for the benefit of an old comrade he added, "Clegane is my main striking force. I need him to destroy Stannis's command."

"It will be done, my lord."

And the field was unfolding very favorably. The northerners under Ned Stark had been unable to reorganize with anything like the speed or efficiency of the Young Wolf's forces, which meant they were giving ground constantly and bleeding at a terrible rate. Even the arriving detachment under the Karstark banners had done nothing to redeem a hopeless position. Amory Lorch was a sadist and a maniac, but he knew his business, and he had cut the enemy detachment in two. As a result, even striking at the rear, Karstarks had barely made a dent. Numbers had a weight all their own.

Kevan could see plainly that one hard push on any axis would buckle the enemy line. Victory was close, close enough to touch. He only had to give the order. But that was the trap. Even in such desperate straits Stannis had not committed his reserves, and he was waiting. The moment Kevan sent his men to finish the enemy off, the Baratheon would throw everything he had at a breakout. It was an elegant snare, one that would have caught most men hungry for glory. It did not catch him. Kevan had no interest in glory. He had come here to destroy Stannis and his savages, to take revenge for his plundered home.

So he held his reserves and waited for his moment. If you understand your enemy's tactics, turn them against him. Kevan would pretend to take the bait. At the moment of greatest weakness on one enemy flank he would commit part of his force, compel Stannis to attempt his breakout, and then unleash Clegane to settle the matter once and for all. Ten minutes later, the moment came.

"Clegane! Bring me Baratheon's head!" The two-and-a-half-meter monster only grinned his mad grin and went to meet the usurper.

No one leaves this field alive. The Lannisters always pay their debts.

...

Evening was drawing in. The vast plain smelled of the dead, whom no one had yet had time to clear. Bodies lay everywhere, so many of them that they stretched to the horizon. The northerners had fought to the last, knowing there was nowhere to retreat. They had fought like animals, and in dying they had taken a noble harvest with them. Dead northerners lay in their stout leather armor with dull helmets on their heads. Far from home, in someone else's war, thousands of sons of the North had found their end.

Lannister soldiers were moving prisoners along, the few who had surrendered or been taken. They shuffled with their eyes on the ground, stumbling at every step. Every gaze was drawn to the scene on a low hill. A large, one-armed man in plain clothes was being led to a makeshift scaffold. Stannis Baratheon had survived the slaughter. Clegane, wounded in his duel with Ser Manderly, had not managed to take the usurper's head, and ordinary soldiers had not dared kill a king outright. They had taken the elder Baratheon alive.

"Stannis of House Baratheon, Lord of Dragonstone, Master of Ships, for crimes committed against the Crown and the Faith, in the name of Joffrey of House Baratheon, First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm, I, Ser Kevan Lannister, sentence you to death. Have you anything to say?"

"I fought for what was rightfully mine, and I lost. I have no more battles left to fight. But that does not change a simple truth: Cersei's children are not Robert's. They are the fruit of incest and nothing more." Even on his knees, with death looking him in the face, he showed not the faintest trace of fear. "Do what you must."

"Ser Ilyn." Kevan gave the nod to the royal headsman. Tywin had sent Payne along for the symbolism of it, for the execution of traitors to the Crown.

In absolute silence, there was only the sound of air being parted.

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