Read 20+ Chapter's Ahead in Patreon
As Clay began the long journey back toward the main encampment outside Stone Hedge, the Riverlands armies, led by Edmure Tully and supported by several of the region's most powerful noble houses, made a coordinated push on the southern front, concentrating their efforts on the Vale forces stationed around Stone Mill and Acorn Hall.
Once Yohn Royce arrived with his three thousand troops, the Vale's total strength in that area surged to six thousand men.
Even though Clay had already crippled half of them by stripping their cavalry of the speed and mobility they so heavily relied upon, six thousand Vale soldiers were still enough to make Edmure Tully's ten thousand hesitate. He dared not act rashly.
The Vale's military doctrine had always leaned toward elite precision. Their soldiers fought with the discipline and lethality of hardened professionals… better, man for man, than most of what the Riverlands could muster. And truth be told, those few who held real command across the Riverlands weren't exactly brimming with confidence in their own forces.
So instead of launching a full assault, the Riverlands army moved as a solid, tightly packed column, slowly and methodically pressing toward Acorn Hall.
Before his departure, Clay had sat down with Edmure Tully himself and several other major Riverlands lords. Together, they had studied the lay of the land and discussed how the battlefield was unfolding.
Clay's conclusion had been firm and confident: even with six thousand men under his command, Yohn Royce wouldn't dare come looking for trouble again.
Because even if Royce somehow managed to win another battle, it would not change the reality that the Vale's forces were still trapped, surrounded on all sides with no real path forward.
Clay Manderly still held the key to everything: Lord Harroway's Town. That strategic choke point remained firmly under his control. Seven thousand men moved through it in shifts day and night, working without pause to strengthen the outer defenses, adding layer upon layer until it became a wall of sighs, an immovable barrier meant to make any enemy who dared to approach pay for their arrogance in blood.
And yet, to this day, no Vale soldier had even shown his face there. Not one Lannister, not even a single scout. According to the latest raven from Rickard Karstark, stationed at Lord Harroway's Town, it was as if the enemy had completely forgotten about the place altogether.
It defied all reasoning.
He held the town that could choke the Vale's entire offensive to death, and no one had come to contest it. No one had even acknowledged his presence, as if Clay Manderly were invisible, or as if the very fact that he existed had been erased from their calculations entirely.
It was enough to make a man feel like he was losing his mind.
Which only led Clay to one conclusion: the Vale and the Lannisters were even weaker than they had feared.
If either of them had any real strength left, they would have long since marched on Karstark's seven thousand green recruits… or at the very least, tested their defenses with a probing attack.
But they hadn't. Not even once.
————————————————————
"Yohn Royce, you damned fool! This war is already lost… for all of us Vale folk!"
The one shouting, unleashing his fury at Yohn Royce without a shred of restraint, was none other than Ser Morton Waynwood, heir to Ironoaks. He stood in the heart of the Vale army's main encampment outside Stone Mill, his voice echoing through the damp air like a war drum pounded in rage.
The Waynwoods of Ironoaks held real power among the Vale's great houses, and few would deny it. As their heir, Morton had no reason to fear Yohn Royce, not even after a defeat like this, not when Royce had already failed so catastrophically.
Morton was never one to hold his tongue. His temper flared quickly, and when he had something to say, he said it plainly, sharply, and loud enough for all to hear. So it came as no surprise when he hurled something so bleak and damning straight into the face of a fellow lord.
Across from him sat Yohn Royce, slumped deep into his chair, silent and unmoving. His face was drawn, heavy with frustration and fatigue, his brows furrowed in a grim expression that betrayed the storm churning behind his eyes.
But it wasn't Morton's words that stung… not really. Yohn had known that sharp tongue for years. Morton Waynwood's foul mouth was practically legendary among the Vale's nobility. Yohn had crossed paths with him before and had long since stopped taking his insults personally.
No, what truly troubled him now was the question that loomed above all else: What the hell was he supposed to do next?
As harsh as Morton's words had been, Yohn knew they weren't wrong. That was the worst part.
He knew full well that if not for the presence of Tywin Lannister's twenty thousand men, who still had their eyes fixed on Harrenhal and kept launching wave after wave of brutal assaults…
If not for the Riverlands army's poor coordination and lackluster combat performance, which had led to unexpected gaps and a few strokes of luck…
If not for the constant fear that his supply lines would be cut, forcing him to turn north and deal with that threat first…
Then Clay Manderly, ruthless and cunning and relentless, would have already brought his army south and completely surrounded them on this foul, muddy plain of the Riverlands. He would not have wasted a single second.
Yohn Royce could see it all too clearly.
He could picture the two thousand Vale soldiers he had left behind north of the Red Fork, the ones commanded by House Corbray, now trapped and left to fend for themselves under the crushing weight of Clay Manderly's counterattack. It was almost certain they would not hold out for long. In fact, for all he knew… they were already dead and buried beneath the mud.
And once they were gone, Yohn did not need a seer to tell him who Clay Manderly would be coming for next.
It would be him. It had always been him.
Clay was not the kind of man to hesitate. He had no patience for honor-bound delays or the pretense of gentlemanly restraint. He struck hard and without mercy, always aiming where it hurt the most, where the enemy was weakest. And compared to Tywin Lannister's monstrous host, Yohn's own force, three thousand horsemen and three thousand foot soldiers, was precisely that. Soft, exposed, and ready to be crushed.
Yohn Royce hated being seen as easy prey. He loathed the very idea of it.
But what could he do?
As the overall commander of the Vale's western expedition, Yohn bore nearly the entire weight of responsibility for the current disaster. The situation had spiraled so far out of control that there was no saving it.
And no amount of pride could change the simple truth. There was no glory to salvage, no excuses to hide behind. They had been outplayed, outmaneuvered, and outmatched.
And since there was no winning this battle anymore, Yohn Royce had no choice but to start thinking about retreat; about how to get these six thousand men out of here alive.
"Lords and Gentlemen…"
He slammed his palm down on the table, hard enough to make the firelight flicker and the room fall silent. His glare landed squarely on Ser Morton Waynwood, who had clearly been winding up for another volley of insults. Without hesitation, Yohn shoved him aside and raised his voice to the room.
"We can't stay here. This place is no longer safe. We need to start thinking, right now, about where we go next."
"Oh? Well then, our most esteemed commander," Morton replied, his voice soaked in mockery and disdain, "please, do share your brilliant plan with us lowly soldiers who somehow haven't died under your care."
And then, just to twist the knife a little deeper, he stepped forward and gave Yohn Royce an exaggerated bow, right in front of everyone.
That movement, as theatrical as it was petty, nearly broke Yohn's composure.
He had thick skin. Years of politics and warfare had taught him the value of restraint. But having someone slap him in the face like this, again and again, in front of every lord and knight in camp, tested even his limits. The fact that he had not already drawn his sword and struck Morton down was a testament to how tightly he could leash his temper.
Yohn took a deep breath, forcing himself to hold it. Endure, he told himself. You have to endure.
With effort, he dragged his gaze away from Morton's smug, infuriating face, and finally spoke.
"You all know what's happened," he said, his voice steady but laced with weariness. "Clay Manderly, that bastard, pulled several thousand men from God knows where, and now they are sitting right on top of our supply line. They have taken Lord Harroway's Town. Because of that, our provisions have stopped coming. Food, grain, fodder… everything."
They had all heard this before, but having it spoken aloud again, with that heavy finality, made every lord and knight in the tent pale. No one said a word, but their faces spoke volumes.
"Of course we know," came Morton's voice again, cold and cutting. "After all, it was you, wasn't it, Lord Royce, who decided to leave that town without a proper garrison? That stroke of genius was entirely yours."
Before the war, he wouldn't have dared speak to Yohn Royce like that… not even Morton.
But this latest round of strategic failure, this humiliating contest between Clay Manderly and the Vale's proud commander, had crushed Yohn's authority like a falling boulder from the Moon Door. His personal prestige had shattered, and the others could smell blood in the water.
If not for the fact that most of the Vale's noble houses still understood their own strength and their own limitations, they might have already tried to wrest command from him.
But the truth was, this army was not a loyal host bound by crown or cause. It was more like a military boardroom, assembled from pooled coin and soldiers contributed by a dozen different houses. The Vale army functioned more like a merchant guild than a unified force. Its strength came from shared interests, and its leadership was treated more as a chairmanship than a throne.
And right now, the chairman had steered the company straight into a ditch.
In a different world, the others might've voted him out on the spot.
But today? Today they saw the truth — this broken ship wasn't going to stay afloat much longer, and there wasn't anyone else who looked ready to take the helm.
So for now, Yohn Royce remained in command. Not because they believed in him, but because no one else had the heart or the will to replace him.
And besides… when the ship finally went under, someone would need to take the blame.
Yohn Royce lifted his head.
"We have three choices."
He held up one finger…
"First, we try to link up with Tywin Lannister. We find him, convince him to lend us some troops, and together we drive the Northerners out of Lord Harroway's Town. Once that is done, we can head back home."
He raised a second finger.
"The second option," Yohn said, "is that we do not go looking for Tywin at all. We take what we have, six thousand men, and move out immediately. We will skirt around Lord Harroway's Town and march hard for the Bloody Gate. It will be rough, but if we grit our teeth and push through, we can make it back."
Then he raised the third.
"The third option," he continued, his voice lowering slightly, "is that we take a gamble. We throw everything we have into a fight with the men Clay Manderly left behind. His garrison is likely made up of freshly raised levies. Barely trained. Poorly equipped. Their combat strength should be weak. If we strike fast and hard, we might be able to punch through before they know what is happening."
Once he had laid out the three choices, Yohn Royce fell silent. He said nothing more. From this point on, it was no longer his decision to make. The surviving noble lords of the Vale would argue among themselves, and only after a proper round of shouting and finger-pointing would some kind of rough consensus begin to take shape.
————————————————————
At that same moment, far to the north, Lord Wyman Manderly was very, very busy.
Because right now, the burden of supplying fifteen thousand men rested entirely on just two strongholds: the Twins and White Harbor. The Manderlys, for all their wealth and long history, had never handled logistics on this scale before. Not even close.
Why were there suddenly so many men to feed?
The answer was simple.
Earlier that very day, Ser Rodrik, master-at-arms of Winterfell, had arrived beneath the walls of the Twins with a fresh host of eight thousand Northern recruits. It was the last standing force that could be scraped together from the homesteads and great halls of the North.
Any further south would've brought them onto the battlefield itself, so Ser Rodrik halted there. His mission had already been completed.
After giving Rodrik a thorough briefing on the current situation and layout of the southern front, Lord Wyman didn't waste any time. He sent the man back toward Winterfell immediately.
Catelyn Tully had been sending ravens to the Twins almost nonstop these past few weeks. The poor birds had grown thin from the back-and-forth, their little legs barely able to carry the weight of message after message.
But letters could only say so much. They lacked the nuance, the detail, the unspoken urgency that came through in face-to-face conversation. A tiny slip of parchment tied to a raven's leg simply wasn't enough anymore.
Even so, the meaning behind Lord Wyman's actions had become perfectly clear. Winterfell no longer needed to worry. Now that these eight thousand reinforcements had arrived, the combined forces of the North and the Riverlands had likely swelled to more than thirty-five thousand strong.
The quality of those soldiers might vary, true… but the sheer number alone was enough to force any enemy to take them seriously.
Though Wyman remained far from the frontlines, safely ensconced in the Twins, his eyes were always turned southward. He kept a close watch on every shift and tremor in the war's progress. His information might have arrived a little later than the front commanders', but it was never far behind.
And in his view, as long as Lord Harroway's Town held firm and they could keep that vital choke point from falling, then the North and the Riverlands had already won this war in spirit, even if not yet through formal surrender.
Even if some of the Vale troops managed to make it back across the Bloody Gate, the damage was already done. The losses they had suffered, the destruction of their cavalry, and the countless horses and hard-earned equipment they were forced to leave behind would cripple their elite forces for years to come. Their entire military structure depended on long-term cavalry training, and that foundation had just been shattered.
The Vale was done for! And if the Vale had crumbled, then where, exactly, could the old lion run?
Surrounded by more than thirty-five thousand enemies, what path could Tywin Lannister possibly take?
The truth was, the moment Yohn Royce failed to break through the eastern strongholds and allowed himself to be lured north by Clay Manderly's bait, the balance of power in the war had quietly shifted.
Now, only two variables remained:
Harrenhal, and the Lord Harroway's Town!
If the first were to fall, then the North's fate would hang by a thread. If Robb Stark were captured, the entire northern front would collapse into chaos.
But if Lord Harroway's Town held, if they could keep their grip tight around the old lion's throat and deny him his supplies, then time alone would be enough to bleed him dry.
As for Harrenhal, no one truly knew what was happening inside. The Lannisters had twenty thousand men behind those ancient walls, and not even the fastest scouts could slip through to bring back anything of value.
So Wyman made his decision.
He would begin training these eight thousand men at once, and once they were ready, not a single one would be left behind.
All of them would be sent south, to reinforce Lord Harroway's Town.
Once they arrived, that little town, barely a speck on any map, would be filled with fifteen thousand Northerners. And they would squat right there, breathing down Tywin Lannister's neck.
If the old lion could still sleep soundly after that, then something was wrong with him.
And if Tywin couldn't sleep?
Well, then Wyman Manderly would sleep very, very well.
There was something deeply satisfying about building one's peace of mind on the suffering of one's enemies. It felt good. Almost too good.
As for what came next, that would depend entirely on his grandson.
Because soon, perhaps sooner than anyone expected, the golden trident and silver merman of House Manderly's banners… might need to be redesigned.
**
**
[IMAGE]
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Chapter End's]
🖤 Night_FrOst/ Patreon 🤍
Visit my Patreon for Early Chapter:
https://www.patreon.com/Night_FrOst
Extra Content Already Available