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

The Arryn Camp.

Axel Arryn.

"We rose against Renly because of the threat Willas Tyrell's army posed, we even joined forces with the Lannisters for this very cause. Did we accomplish a single one of our goals? No! Now instead of fifteen thousand men on our border, there's nearly twenty, and they're led not by some rose whelp but by Lord Rowan, a seasoned battle commander! We've gained nothing from this whole gamble, only lost." The more Luceon Templeton spoke, the more he worked himself up, and in his excess of feeling he even shot up from his chair.

"Enough, Ser Luceon, sit back down!" Huffing, he obeyed. "Answer me this: what goal were we pursuing when we attacked Tyrell?"

"What?" the man at the center of the fuss asked back. "Answer the question." At moments like this, you couldn't afford to show weakness, or they'd tear you apart. "So the army on our border would stop interfering with our affairs in the Riverlands." Templeton clearly sensed a trap, but answered honestly all the same. "Correct." His answer was about as close to the truth as it could get. "And now, after everything that's happened, have we managed that?"

"No."

"There you're wrong." The statement left most of those present baffled; how could a defeat be a victory?

"Yes, we failed to carry out our plan and paid dearly for it, but that outcome doesn't contradict our core objective at all. We wanted the army on our border to stop being a threat to us. Baratheon, Rowan, Tyrell, it doesn't matter which, none of them will have the time to spare for us now."

"May I ask why?"

"Tywin Lannister's death." The one piece of good news in a string of bad ones. "The Old Lion is dead, and so is his army. King's Landing is effectively defenseless, ripe for the taking, and Renly won't pass that up." The younger Baratheon was a clever fool, and he surrounded himself with capable men. In a situation like this, even if he didn't see it himself, his circle would tell him that striking the capital was now a necessity.

"Viserys Targaryen?" Melcolm guessed. "Have you noticed that the bulk of Tywin's army was drawn from the westerlands? Which means the forces remaining in King's Landing belong to the Crownland lords. I doubt they'll fight to the last man for 'King' Joffrey."

"More likely Viserys will find the gates thrown wide open, and reinforcements besides," Jasper noted reasonably. Strange as it seemed, the lords of the Crownlands were rather loyal men, ones who stood by their liege to the bitter end. That same loyalty was exactly why they'd withered away under Robert's reign, having given everything for Rhaegar's cause.

"With his wish to reclaim Dragonstone, and the general fealty of the lords of the Narrow Sea, Viserys will retake his ancestral seat easily enough, and that alone will threaten the capital's security." Renly simply had no choice left: either he took King's Landing here and now, or he'd substantially strengthen the Targaryen cause.

"Our forces still won't be enough to cover the whole of the Riverlands," Marcus Melcolm said after running a few quick calculations. "Our ceiling is somewhere around thirty, maybe forty percent."

"Yes, we don't have the men to spare, and storming every castle in sight isn't worth the cost, so we'll adjust our strategy slightly. The river lords will pay us themselves." As I've said more than once, war isn't only swords and axes, it's also ink and parchment.

"May I ask how you intend to manage that?" To the lords of Westeros, paying one's enemies was sheer madness, but in Essos... "Payment for our forbearance, and for adjusting our line of march." Understanding was slowly starting to dawn on their faces. "How much do you think the Blackwoods would pay for the safety of their lands, and for the sacking of their beloved Brackens?" The river lords had never been a united front, and so they often found themselves fighting on opposing sides of any given conflict. With that kind of history, every house inevitably racked up a few blood debts with their "cherished" neighbors. Sometimes it grew so absurd that the quiet war between certain houses never truly ended, and if peace ever miraculously took hold, it fell apart again over some petty slight soon enough. The blood feud between the Blackwoods and the Brackens was one of the most famous examples. No one, not even the two houses themselves, remembered how it had started, but that never stopped them from carrying on the fight. Even when the Lannisters had marched through their lands, it hadn't put a stop to their squabbling, and they'd kept right on tormenting one another in small ways. The result: the Blackwoods hated the Brackens, the Butterwells hated the Vances, the Mootons hated the Chambers, the Mallisters hated the Chambers as well, and just about everyone disliked the Freys. I was fairly confident at least half of them would take my generous terms.

...

Dragonstone.

Viserys Targaryen.

"Move it, girls!!! The king won't wait." Viserys paid no mind, as always, to the shouts of the quartermaster or the boatswain, or whoever it was, it hardly mattered, a king wasn't obligated to sort out naval ranks. Right now, the last Targaryen's full attention was fixed on the earth in his hand. It was dark grey, damp and unpleasant, leaving unsightly smudges and reeking of ash. Not the sort of thing that ought to touch a king's palm, but Viserys couldn't help himself, for the first time in sixteen years he had come home. Essos, a continent of barbarians, hagglers, and traitors, had never sat well with the young king. Endless persecution, humiliation, betrayal. Viserys couldn't understand why some money grubbing rabble thought themselves his equal, a descendant of the dragonlords, the rightful king of the Iron Throne. He never understood it, and he'd always said as much, exactly as a king should. Dozens of times, with no regard for the honor he'd shown them, he'd been thrown out of houses. Viserys had spat on the ground, but he had never once bowed to the whims of contemptible merchants; he believed that only by acting as a king would he gather worthy supporters around him and reclaim his throne. First Mopatis, then Jorah, then a dozen knights after him, hundreds of sellswords, and now thousands of men followed him. He had been right all along, and the sight of this dear, familiar land proved it now more than ever.

"Your Grace, your chambers are ready, though it will take a day to fully replace the usurper's heraldry with the rightful arms." The loyal old bear reported on the state of his house without any fear. Jorah Mormont, one of his earliest supporters, one who had served him faithfully. For that he'd been granted an honor his house could scarcely have dreamed of: Hand to the true king. Viserys had never once regretted that choice. Jorah was loyal, unambitious, an experienced commander who knew his place. If there was anything to fault him for, it was only that he was dull company.

"Have them hurry, I won't have that stag stench insulting my ancestral castle a moment longer than it must." Jorah wordlessly showed he'd understood his king's order. "Were there any problems?"

"Unfortunately, the usurper Stannis's wife and daughter weren't here, the smuggler Davos made off with them somewhere."

"No matter, House Baratheon will soon be history, a half mad woman and a girl won't stand in the way of that." The fate of the stag girl interested him least of all. "Send word to Drogo, have him ready to march on King's Landing."

"I wouldn't do that," his Hand said. "The Dothraki are unmanageable and won't heed your orders. They're more likely to ruin everything and turn your own men against their rightful king."

"What do you suggest?" If the northman hadn't had a solution in mind, he wouldn't have raised the subject at all.

"The usurper will want to rally the lords of Westeros against foreign invaders. Given their reputation, he'll succeed. King's Landing should be taken by a Westerosi army, and the Dothraki sent against your enemies' lands instead."

"Is that the whole of it?" After a moment's hesitation, Mormont explained further. "The Dothraki are poor at besieging cities, and right now they're weakened from the sea voyage. They need to recover and get back to doing what they love best, or the khalasar may turn against us."

"Very well." A wise king knew when to heed his advisors, and right now his Hand was speaking good sense. "Have Lord Velaryon land the Dothraki in the Stormlands." Let's see how the Baratheon reacts when his lands are set ablaze.

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