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Highgarden stood beside the Mander. The broad river flowed from the castle's northeast toward the southwest.
Upstream from Highgarden, the Mander was muddy and turbid, thick with hidden sandbars and shallows that hindered navigation. Downstream, the river widened, cleared, and flowed calmly, making it useful for transport. With the Ocean Road and the Roseroad meeting there as well, Highgarden's strategic value was obvious.
The castle itself had been built on a gentle hill and was protected by three ring walls of white marble.
The lowest wall encircled the foot of the hill. Between it and the higher second wall lay a hedge maze tended by specialists. In peacetime, the maze served to entertain guests and provide a place for strolling and display. In war, it also had defensive use.
If the first wall fell, invaders unfamiliar with the maze could easily lose their way inside it. They might be shot by guards on the second wall while threading through the winding paths, or they might trigger the traps hidden among the hedges.
Every wall at Highgarden was higher and thicker than the one before it, watched by slim, graceful round towers. That made the final wall guarding the inner keep the strongest and hardest to take.
Olenna and Left Hand stood on a balcony of an inner-keep tower, silently looking down at the enemy army forming beyond the walls.
"Left Hand, has there been any letter from Margaery at Cornfield?"
For the first time, Olenna felt the pressure of a great army at the gates. Gloom settled over her face, and her voice was low.
"No. Maester Lomys says no raven has reached the rookery these past few days. He guesses the enemy outside has been shooting them down."
Left Hand shook his round head as he answered.
Olenna turned away from the enemy host and walked slowly back into her room. She paused, looked northwest, and asked, "If they are shooting ravens, will Lord Paxter..."
"My lady, do not worry. At the beginning of the siege, we released many ravens. They could not have stopped them all. Lord Paxter must have received your letters."
"Good."
A loud horn sounded outside Highgarden, making men on both sides tense. It meant that many lives were about to vanish in battle.
Highgarden, sitting at a great crossroads, had gates to the east, south, west, and north. The south and north gates, connected to the Roseroad, were the broadest and largest. One led toward Oldtown, once the greatest city in Westeros. The other led toward King's Landing, the greatest city now.
The south and north gates were also the main targets of Oberyn's coalition army. Roughly thirty thousand men outside each gate began advancing when the horn sounded.
At the east gate facing the Dornish Marches, Oberyn left five thousand coalition cavalry to watch. At the west gate facing the Ocean Road, he did even less, leaving only two thousand infantry to hold the Mander bridge linked to the road.
Kevan did not think much of this two-sided assault. In his view, a great castle like Highgarden should be attacked with all available force at one gate, allowing their numerical superiority to break one point and shatter the whole.
But before, he had thought the Lannister army remained in the rear because they were waiting for House Tyrell's answer, so they could strike Dorne, the Stormlands, and the coalition at the same time.
Now that there had been no signal from Tyrek, Daven wholeheartedly obeyed Oberyn's command, thinking only of taking Highgarden as quickly as possible.
Although Oberyn was attacking both north and south, the two assaults were not quite equal.
Oberyn personally led half the Tyrell prisoners, the Martell soldiers, and the Lannister soldiers against the north gate.
At the south gate, Ser Bonifer Hasty led his Hundred Holy Men, the other half of the Tyrell prisoners, the Stormlanders, and the Reach houses that had submitted.
Ser Bonifer was only a knight and should not have been qualified to command that army. Yet in the earlier council, the nobles had quarreled endlessly over the position.
Based on the intelligence he had gathered and his own judgment from their time together, Oberyn had overruled the others and named Bonifer commander.
Bonifer was a devout follower of the Seven. His byname was "the Good." He had a clear head and a strong sense of responsibility. He and his Hundred Holy Men also had a reputation for discipline in the Stormlands, the Dornish Marches, and other regions.
Whether by intent or accident, Oberyn's decision struck a balance. The noisy nobles all accepted Bonifer as commander.
Hundreds upon hundreds of sharp arrows fell like rain into the ranks of the coalition soldiers approaching the north gate.
The first attackers suffered heavy losses under that volley. Hundreds were struck and fell, and red blood flowed across the scorched earth outside the castle.
In a defensive round tower at the north gate, Lord Randyll watched the first volley work so well and looked briefly surprised. He moved closer to the viewing slit and quickly understood why.
The attackers below were numerous, carrying crude one-handed shields. Most wore battered armor with various house sigils. Some wore only ordinary clothes and no armor at all. They looked entirely like a rabble stitched together at the last moment.
'They mean to spend our strength with fodder first. Once we tire, they will send in the elites.'
With his deep battlefield experience, Randyll saw the enemy commander's intent at once.
Highgarden had been caught in Tywin's scheme and now had far fewer defenders than the besieging army. The available soldiers were also split among four gates.
Although defensive supplies were abundant, drawing bows and throwing stones took real strength. If the enemy waited until the defenders were exhausted and then attacked hard, they had a real chance of success.
Randyll had originally wanted to conscript Highgarden's smallfolk to help defend the walls, but Olenna feared that Tywin had planted agents among them and had refused. Randyll understood the danger of infiltrators leading a sudden betrayal in the middle of fierce fighting, so he had not argued.
He had merely moved the idea from the first wall to the second. Compared with the common districts inside the first wall, the nobles and powerful households within the second wall were more trustworthy. And if matters truly reached that crisis, a few hidden agents would no longer be the greatest concern.
Under the arrows from the wall and the round towers, the coalition attackers left hundreds of bodies behind before finally reaching Highgarden's first wall.
Countless ladders struck the north wall. The rabble in mismatched armor began climbing.
Rocks the size of heads fell from above, crushing skulls and spraying blood and brains. Golden boiling oil poured down in steaming sheets, splitting skin and flesh and drawing scream after scream. The losses mounted quickly.
Archers on the wall had difficulty shooting the men directly beneath them on ladders, but to the archers in the defensive towers that protruded at intervals, those men were living targets.
As time passed, it became clear that forcing the wall with ladders alone was too difficult. Bodies piled in layers beneath Highgarden's north wall, and casualties kept rising.
"Why are we dying for them? Run!"
After seeing a familiar comrade's head crushed half flat by a falling stone, one attacker suddenly screamed in terror, dropped sword and shield, and fled toward the left side of the north wall.
His flight triggered the others. Attackers began running in droves. They did not flee toward the coalition center behind them, but deliberately scattered toward the left and right sides of the north wall.
"These Reach soldiers are useless. It seems their best value is still their armor and weapons," Oberyn said from a movable command platform outside the north wall. He drank a large mouthful of blood-red wine and spoke to the white-haired Lord Franklyn Fowler of Skyreach.
"Lord Franklyn, kill the first Reach men who broke. Leave the rest to continue exhausting the wall."
"As you command, Prince Oberyn."
Franklyn Fowler nodded and quickly left the platform.
"Dornish strongwine still suits my taste best," Oberyn murmured, looking at the wine in his cup. "This deep red, like blood. That lingering sweetness. Is this the sweetness of revenge? One day, I will taste it."
His gaze flicked after Franklyn, then turned toward a place behind him. Something fierce appeared in those night-black eyes.
Arrows poured from the coalition center toward the deserters on either side of the north wall. The unguarded men fell in swaths like cut wheat.
Two groups of Dornish cavalry wearing cloth armor and face veils rode out from the center, chasing the deserters who had left the range of the arrows. Their spears quickly ran down every man they caught.
The remaining attackers, whether trapped on the ladders or simply too slow to react, smothered the thought of desertion and struggled to survive the battle.
These attackers were the Reach soldiers Willas had once abandoned. Their situation after surrender had not been good.
They had survived for the moment, but their weapons and armor had been seized and divided by Stormland nobles and Reach turncoats. Until they were used as siege fodder today, they had eaten only one full meal.
Caught between Highgarden's defenders and the coalition army, these surrendered Reach men died either under the castle's defenses or beneath Dornish overseers. They kept falling under the north wall.
As the hours passed, Highgarden's defenders killed nearly five or six thousand attackers while taking almost no serious losses themselves. It was a striking result.
But perhaps because of the strain they had endured, the defenders' attacks on the remaining attackers below slowed visibly.
On the coalition command platform, Oberyn, who had seemed drunk on wine and indifferent to the siege, suddenly lifted his hazy eyes toward the wall.
He set down his red wine cup, rose, took the golden-snake spear from an attendant, pointed it toward Highgarden, and shouted, "Pass the order. Full assault! Brothers, into the city. Gold dragons and women await!"
As the horn for the general attack sounded, Oberyn led the assault himself. Apart from five thousand cavalry formed from Martell and Lannister riders, another fifteen thousand coalition soldiers pushed rams, siege towers, and other engines rapidly toward the castle.
"The enemy has begun the full assault. Dickon, tell the rested soldiers to return to their positions. All defensive engines are released for use. Prepare them."
In the round tower, Randyll gave the order calmly.
"Yes, Father."
Dickon's left cheek was still a little swollen, and several teeth were missing. He mumbled the answer and ran out.
In the early days of the siege, Randyll and Willas had split the defense of the north and south gates according to enemy movement. When he saw the Martell and Lannister banners, Randyll had taken two thousand Tarly soldiers and one thousand Tyrell soldiers to the north gate.
Now was the moment for one of Westeros's famous commanders to show his worth.
"Push! Harder! Archers, cover them!"
Lord Franklyn directed the men pushing the ram toward the north gate while the archers beside him began covering fire against the wall.
Behind the coalition army, more than a dozen crude catapults hurled stones the size of millstones toward Highgarden. Most crashed into the hedge maze inside the wall, smashing plants two men high. Two or three struck the wall more accurately, but caused little damage.
That was fine. Their purpose was only cover.
Under arrows and catapult stones, the men pushing the ram advanced quickly. Siege towers covered in rawhide and mounted on wooden wheels scattered toward various parts of the wall.
"Father, are we still not attacking with full strength?" Dickon asked after returning to the tower and seeing the enemy draw near.
"Do not rush, Dickon," Randyll said. "I arranged the family soldiers to rest in turns, had them slow their attacks gradually, and forbade the defensive engines until now.
"The enemy has absolute numbers. If they attack day and night in turns, we cannot endure. So we must hurt them badly once and make them quiet for a time."
"I understand, Father."
As the coalition approached, Highgarden's defenders were suppressed instead. The ram and towers moved even faster.
"All-out assault."
When the time came, Randyll gave the command in a calm voice.
The number of defenders on the north wall suddenly increased. Great numbers of archers began counterattacking from the wall.
At the same time, scorpions atop the defensive towers turned toward the siege towers, now very close.
One siege tower nearly as tall as the north wall was struck from both sides. The scorpion bolts slammed into its supports, snapping them with terrible force. The tower broke in half, and many Martell soldiers hidden inside screamed as the upper half collapsed.
At the north gate, the ram was almost upon the doors.
Suddenly, two copper pipes extended from the round towers on either side. Thick black jets sprayed from them toward the ram's crew.
Burning torches were held before the pipes. Two orange-red pillars of flame raced along the jets and swallowed the ram.
The ram had been covered in rawhide against fire, but it could not withstand such flames. In moments, its wooden frame collapsed. Human torches screamed and crawled out from underneath, fleeing in madness.
After destroying the ram, the two flame pillars began burning ladders and towers within range. For a time, the north gate became an inferno. Everything that could burn was burning, and the ground outside the gate slowly turned into the same scorched earth that surrounded Highgarden.
Looking through the tower window, Randyll was very satisfied with the power of the two flamethrowers. If there were enough of them, defending Highgarden would be easy.
The flamethrowers were a new defensive engine Highgarden had purchased. Because they were dangerous and costly, only two had been installed at each of the north and south gates.
The fight at the north gate gradually entered its fiercest stage. At the south gate, because neither commander matched Randyll or Oberyn, the fighting still remained in its early probing phase.
Olenna had sat in a wicker chair on the balcony since the assault horn sounded, watching the battle. Left Hand stood respectfully beside her.
When she saw the great fire at the north gate, a smile appeared on her gloomy face.
"Heh. The gold dragons spent on those flamethrowers were not wasted. They were also useful when we cleared the crops around Highgarden."
As she spoke with Left Hand, an urgent horn suddenly sounded from the west.
Olenna immediately rose and hurried inside, looking out through the western window.
On the broad, calm waters of the Mander, countless small and midsized oared warships occupied a long stretch of the river, coming toward Highgarden from the southwest.
"They are somewhat far away, and I cannot see the banners clearly. But with that many warships, it must be the Redwyne fleet."
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