"Surround the point, strike the relief?" Sandor Clegane's finger, slick with a drop of spilled wine, traced a jagged line across the oak table in the command tent. "And if Lord Lymond doesn't take the bait?"
Aldric shrugged, his expression unreadable in the flickering lamplight. "Then the trap remains empty. I'll replace the septons in his villages with my own men. By the time he decides to return, he won't have a lordship left to reclaim."
"Tearing down is easier than building up," Sandor grunted. "If you don't leave a garrison, Lymond will just burn whatever you've planted the moment your back is turned."
"Perhaps," Aldric conceded. "But once the smallfolk have seen the Sun, they do not take kindly to living in the shade again. Darkness only works when the people forget that the Light exists."
In this world, however, the threads of fate rarely weave a straight cloth. While Aldric plotted his "Surgical Strike," a massive variable was already three days' ride from Riverrun.
The blare of brass trumpets shattered the melancholy stillness of the twilight air. Josmyn Peckledon scrambled to his feet, reaching for his master's sword-belt.
"Outlaws don't announce themselves with horns, Peck," Jaime Lannister told him, his voice dry. "Leave the steel. That will be my cousin, the new Warden of the West."
When Jaime stepped from his tent, the newcomers were already dismounting—six knights and forty heavy riders.
"Jaime!" a man roared, his voice a gravelly boom. He wore gilded mail and a heavy fox-skin cloak. His face was a thicket of unkempt, tawny beard. "You've gone thin and pale, man! And you've grown a chin-rug of your own!"
Jaime touched his jaw, a small smirk playing on his lips. "This? Compared to yours, it's a kitten's down, Daven. Did the outlaws steal your razor, or have you simply given up on vanity?"
Ser Daven Lannister, son of the late Stafford Lannister, looked like a lion in winter. He tossed his lion-crested helm to a squire, revealing a matted nest of yellow hair. "I swore a vow," Daven said, his tone turning momentarily serious. "No blade touches my face until my father is avenged. The Young Wolf cheated me of that by killing Karstark before I could, but I find I've grown fond of the hair. It keeps the neck warm, and Aunt Genna says my jaw looks like a brick regardless."
Daven gripped Jaime's arms, his eyes landing on the golden prosthetic. "Half of Lannisport was in mourning when they heard a Stark wolf had torn out your throat. It seems they only took the hand instead."
"I have a new one," Jaime said, lifting the gilded hand. "It has its uses. I drink less for fear of spilling, and it's remarkably difficult to pick my nose at court."
Daven let out a roar of laughter. "By the Seven, maybe I'll cut mine off as well!"
Inside the command tent, the two Lannisters sat as wine was warmed over a brazier. Pia, the girl rescued from Harrenhal, stirred the pot with a trembling hand, her eyes downcast.
"Tell me of the siege," Jaime said.
Daven slumped into a folding chair. "It's a nightmare of boredom. The Blackfish sits inside the walls; we sit outside. The Tullys have turned into stone turtles. They won't sally, they won't talk."
Daven spat into the rushes. "And the Freys... Seven preserve us, Jaime, they are a plague. Ser Ryman does nothing but drink. Edwyn is a boil full of pus and spite. And your uncle-by-marriage, 'Lord' Emmon? The new Lord of Riverrun spends his days telling me how to take his castle without scratching the paint. He wants the seat, but he's terrified of a chipped stone."
"Is the wine ready?" Jaime asked Pia.
"Yes, My Lord," she whispered, covering her mouth with her hand.
Jaime noticed the scars on the girl's face—the work of Gregor Clegane. It made him think of the other Clegane, the one who was supposed to be dead.
"So, the Freys are a mess," Jaime mused. "Ryman, Edwyn, Emmon..."
"And Walder Rivers," Daven added. "A bastard who hates anyone born on the right side of the sheets. The only sane one is Ser Perwyn, and even he is a Frey. And Cersei... she wants me to marry one of them. My father had a Redwyne girl picked out for me before Oxcross. Desmera has a dowry that could buy a kingdom and no Frey blood in her veins."
"Desmera?" Jaime smiled. "You like freckles, Daven?"
"I'd take a thousand freckles over a weasel's face. Half of Walder's brood look like they're about to steal a chicken."
They talked of politics and kin, until Jaime turned the conversation to the map. "What is your deployment?"
"We have the castle boxed," Daven explained. "Ryman and the Freys are north of the Tumblestone. Emmon and Forley Prester hold the south bank of the Red Fork with your old Westermen and the Riverlords who bent the knee after the Red Wedding. Many of them are surly. Lord Lymond Goodbrook has been at my tent twice a day, begging to take his men home. He says some 'mercenary army' is besieging his keep at Blue-Wave, but I told him to stay put. We're building dams downstream to ensure the Blackfish can't slip out by boat."
"So we starve them out?"
Daven shook his head. "The Blackfish kicked out every mouth he didn't need and scoured the countryside. He has grain enough for two years. We, on the other hand, are losing men. My foragers vanish. Half of them turn craven, the other half are found hanging from trees."
"I've seen them," Jaime said. A large apple tree, laden with naked corpses, each with an apple stuffed in its mouth. The work of the Brotherhood.
"The Lightning Lord is everywhere and nowhere," Daven sighed. "The Riverlords are helping him, I'm sure of it. And there's this new madness—this 'Light of Anshe.' The peasants are gathering at dawn and dusk, singing about a golden sun. They say it's the Seven, but they don't look at the Seven-Pointed Star anymore. They look at the sky."
Jaime touched his golden hand, watching the firelight dance on the metal. "Thoros of Myr follows Dondarrion. The Red Priest was always fond of fire."
"It's not just fire, Jaime. They say this 'Lightbringer' mends the broken. They say he's a Saint. It's spreading like a sickness through the smallfolk. If we don't resolve Riverrun soon, we'll have a peasant rebellion that makes the Kingswood Outlaws look like a tavern brawl."
Jaime stood. "Then I'll talk to the Blackfish tomorrow. I need to get back to the Queen, Daven. The longer I'm away from King's Landing, the more I feel the pride of the Lions is being picked apart by Sparrows and Sun-worshippers."
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