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

The Iron Plain. 299 AC.

Axel Arryn.

At the very heart of the raging battle stood the small command post directing the Vale army's right flank. From there, all forces under the command of Ser Tybor, Lord Arryn's trusted man, were coordinated. This flank could rightly be called the hottest point of the entire battle, for thousands of men were locked here in a fight to the death.

Rowan's forces might not have been the finest soldiers in the Seven Kingdoms, but their numbers made up for it entirely. A powerful offensive push bore down like a mountain upon the Vale's foot soldiers, who had dug in for a desperate defense. Only the men's sheer devotion and the staff's stubbornness allowed Ser Tybor's forces to hold back the tide of Rowan's men. For a brief while, a rough parity of strength held between the two sides.

Unfortunately for the Vale, it did not last. Heavy cavalry led by Ser Davon Rowan, Lord Rowan's cousin, broke through every line of defense and destroyed the enemy headquarters. Ser Tybor fell, taking three knights down with him, and his tacticians and advisors followed soon after. The entire right wing of the Vale was demoralized and left without a head.

"Tch, stubborn bastards," Davon said, watching a company under Jasper Redfort's banners reform the army's rear ranks. "And their lord's no better."

Davon himself believed the enemy army was finished, at least on this flank. The point of no return had clearly been crossed; any reasonably experienced commander could see as much. The most logical move for Axel Arryn would have been to abandon this dead weight and pull back, saving what forces he could, but for some reason he wasn't doing that. Davon, in all honesty, thought Axel Arryn a formidable swordsman, an experienced commander, and a man of tremendous charisma, but even he couldn't work miracles. While some Redfort tried to reorganize a headless army, the Falcon's eye himself had ridden straight into a hopeless fight.

A couple of minutes later, Ser Rowan's eyes widened in realization. "The madman!!!"

He understood what Arryn was counting on, and thought it nothing short of suicide. The Falcon's eye wasn't even trying to salvage his dying flank; instead, he'd thrown everything he had into breaking through to Lord Matthis Rowan's own Headquarters, his main camp. Destroying the main command post would undoubtedly turn the entire battle on its head, but it was impossible. Breaking through the Reach's infantry ranks could be chalked up to sheer luck, fighting off the reserves not yet committed to battle could be called a heroic feat, but then going on to wipe out House Rowan's personal guard besides was foolishness, plain and simple.

That was Davon's opinion, though it held for no more than five minutes. Arryn's guardsmen were breaking through too quickly, their momentum too strong, and if this kept up, they stood every chance of pulling off the impossible.

"After the Falcon's eye's head!" Better to kill this madman himself than to fret over his cousin's safety.

"Die!!!"

But before the green whelp bearing Hightower's colors could finish his swing, he was cut clean in half by Bloodbeak, House Arryn's ancestral sword.

I can say in all honesty that Valyrian steel has the finest cutting properties of any metal known to me. Morgul steel stood out among the rest for its excellent conductivity to dark magic, but suffered from brittleness. Ithildin alloy, made of mithril and other rare metals, excelled in everything except cleaving potential, and could only be compared to a well-made dwarven blade. Every metal of Arda had some significant flaw (works of the Valar excepted) that kept it from being a truly universal weapon for every occasion. By contrast, the creations of Valyrian mages were balanced with a heavy tilt toward sharpness. Which is to say, Bloodbeak, like any Valyrian blade, was an extraordinarily useful tool: sturdy, light, long-lasting, capable of absorbing, channeling, and storing magic, and its edge was beyond anything normal. Cutting down enemies with a sword like this was pure pleasure.

"My lord, another company approaching from the north!"

My guardsman's shout only proved that Reach men were panickers who didn't trust one another. I couldn't otherwise explain why, as I pressed forward, their commanders kept abandoning their posts to try to stop me.

"Right, work in threes!"

Movement is life, a saying that held true in any situation, especially when swimming in a sea of enemies, but even there they caught up to us.

"I am Ser Hugh Beesbury! Die, Falcon's eye!!!"

This one wasn't bad; he managed to parry a blow and very nearly took my head off. Unfortunately for him, I had no time for games—I simply hacked through him with brute force.

"Forward, no time to rest!"

The death of a commander always disorients soldiers, turning them into nothing more than a herd for the slaughter, which is why killing the leaders always comes first.

"Drop the banners! We ride for the enemy headquarters! Hm?!"

"My lord, leave the small fry to us!"

A few guardsmen took my place at the point of the spear. The Reach's infantry posed no real threat to the Vale's heavy cavalry; the gulf between them was simply too wide. My guard was an elite mounted company with the finest equipment available, set against hastily gathered soldiers. A hundred, a thousand, tens of thousands, we could grind through them as long as we liked, right up until exhaustion killed us. The only moments we grew truly vulnerable were clashes with other cavalry. Then we had to exert ourselves and spend precious time cutting them down, which brought irreplaceable losses.

In that sea of enemies, mixed among the main mass, were some reckless foot soldiers who struck at my men whenever the cavalry slowed. Unfortunately, they sometimes managed to break through. I needed to get clear; three or four more clashes like that and I'd no longer be able to move so freely across the battlefield, I simply wouldn't have the men left.

A few minutes later we broke free of the front-line fighting, only to immediately face Rowan's reserves. There weren't many of them, and their quality remained reliably poor, but my men weren't at their freshest either. Fortunately, swiftly beheading their commander sent them fleeing. Rowan's headquarters lay right before us, but we needed time to regroup and rest, however briefly.

"The time has come to die. I, Ser Davon Rowan, will take your head!!!"

Brother or cousin to Matthis? A complication...

"Don't trouble yourself, my lord, we'll handle this!"

Two guardsmen tried to deal with the unexpected obstacle, but couldn't. Rowan dodged a spear thrust and slashed the first man's throat, then struck the second beneath the arm. Mail may have saved him, but the guardsman was out of the fight regardless.

"Unpleasant."

I'd have to improvise. A quick closing of the distance, my opponent was clearly planning a horizontal strike, one that could easily shift into a defensive move, standard enough. Seconds would decide the outcome of this clash. Each of us drew back for an attack, but mine was faster still. I simply put the sharpness of my Valyrian blade to good use, cleaving through the horse's head and throwing Rowan from his saddle. Had I been less skilled, the knight would have been cut clean in two, but at the last moment I turned the blade flat.

"RAAAAH!!!"

As for the rest of Rowan's company, I could cut them down without a second thought. Those who survived would stay to guard their wounded commander rather than chase after me.

Two hundred, two hundred and fifty men, not a great number. Half of them wounded to varying degrees, but their eyes burned with the fire of resolve: men who would follow me into the seven hells without complaint.

The defenders of the command tent scrambled about, bracing to defend to the last. Unlike my own guardsmen, I could sense the fear in the hearts of these "green" knights. They couldn't quite believe what they were seeing.

"VWOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Somewhere behind us a long, drawn-out horn call rang out, signaling a general retreat of the Vale's army. With the signal from my own headquarters, the men surrounding Rowan grew even more frantic. Only the center of their formation, Goldengrove's personal guard, stood their ground without flinching.

Lord Matthis Rowan belonged to neither camp; he watched me with open interest. A couple hundred meters separated us, yet it felt as though we stood at arm's length. Tactics, strategy, the speed of executing his plans, troop formations, the way his noble knights reacted to threats against him, the obedience of his army, our battle had given me a fair sense of Mathis Rowan's character, but seeing his conduct with my own eyes finally confirmed his exceptional qualities and helped me grasp his true nature more fully. And just as I studied him, so too did he test me.

Our mutual appraisal didn't last long, a mere ten seconds or so, then Lord Rowan gave some order and the horn sounded once more.

"VWOOOOO! VWOOOO! VWOOOOOOO!!!"

Two short blasts and one long. The front ranks of Rowan's army stopped pressing the retreating Vale forces and turned their attention to a more interesting target: the Lannisters. Those premature tactical maneuvers had created a situation where Rowan could quite easily cut off the lions' escape routes and put his overwhelming numerical advantage to devastating use. If Tywin didn't reorient himself quickly, his army would soon find itself surrounded and destroyed.

"Let's move!"

But the possible fate of the lions' army wasn't my concern. I had troubles enough of my own.

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