Blood and Winter

The Young Wolf and the Old Lion

Chapter XLVIII - The Vale Move

Gripping the reins of his horse tightly, Tywin nervously watched as the Stark army charged towards them across the field. There was no formation to their charge, just a group of thousands of men screaming their heads off as they came directly for them. And he could see it in the front ranks, the shifting of his men, they were scared and it was as he watched the wolves bound across, leading the cavalry, Robb Stark right up front that Tywin noticed the shaking grip he had on his rein.

He too was scared.

"Move the spearmen upfront! Prepare the archers!" Tywin ordered watching as the Stark's closed in on them rapidly. Nervously, Tywin studied the enemy, trying to figure out what they could be planning, all the while his forces moved and shifted to better prepare for the Starks.

"Fire!" Tywin shouted, watching as the Stark's closed in upon them.

As arrows flew through the air, Robb reacted quickly. "Cavalry, break off!"

At the front, Robb turned his horse to the right, a hard turn that nearly threw him off his horse. Behind him, thousands of mounted knights followed his lead, half breaking off to the left under the command of Ser Brynden while he took the right. It was a difficult turn, he momentarily looking back to see some men falling off their horses.

And as the arrows fell down, it revealed that while most of the cavalry force had managed to turn, just barely avoiding the arrows, a few dozen were not so lucky. The arrows pierced their armour and chainmail, digging into necks and eyes, some hitting horses and in pain, threw their riders off and trampled upon them. However, a large majority of the cavalry force was left untouched by the rain of arrows having turned just out of the range of the archers.

Lord Karstark who was in charge of the infantry watched the cavalry that had pulled ahead of them, breaking off and continuing to push forwards. His gaze much like the rest of the infantry focused entirely upon the Lannister lines.

Even as a second wave of arrows fell upon them, no one stopped. Shields were raised, arrows thunking against the shield. There were cries of pain as some men were struck by arrows and killed. But those that did get hit, continued on. Soldiers watched as their comrades with arrows in their arms and shoulders just pushed on with grit teeth, pushing past the pain they felt.

As they drew closer to the Lannister frontlines, Karstark could see it.

The look in the eyes of the Lannister soldiers as they watched them run forwards, ignoring their injuries.

A look of fear.

He could see some looking to their comrades, silently questioning whether they were going to stay here and face this group of suicidal people. But as Ser Addam Marbrand lined up at the centre, he shouted for the men to form up.

A shift came over the Lannister men who despite their obvious fear, moved forwards, shields raised and spears pointed towards them.

Once again, the Stark cavalry changed direction, once believed to be heading for the flanks, suddenly turned and both groups converged upon the centre once more. Rickard smirked, gripping his blade tightly with a savage grin upon his face.

As the wolves and Direwolves closed in upon the Lannister lines first, the fear amongst the enemy grew larger. Robb at the forefront, sword pointing directly at them. And it was more a reflexive action than anything else, the sight of the wolves leaping at them caused a few to lean away in fear.

At that moment, Robb and his cavalry struck.

It was a devastatingly powerful blow, they cut through the front ranks of the Lannister army with devastating ease. "Kill the bastards!" Rickard roared, his war-cry echoing across the entire infantry as they charged through the hole that the cavalry had formed.

"It seems the Stark boy still has a surprise up his sleeve," Baelish muttered in amusement, watching as the two armies in front of him clash. Beside him, Yohn Royce watched the proceedings with a look of wonderment upon his face.

The Stark army was a devastating force, just cutting through the Lannisters with frightening ease. Even now, they continued to scramble in order to try and properly defend against the Starks, but their centre was just constantly folding. Robb and his army weren't stopping and it seemed that they were just continuing to build up momentum.

Already they had made their way halfway through the Lannister lines and the flanks were beginning to fold in. A trapping manoeuvre that Yohn thought would be the end of the Young Wolf.

But it didn't.

In fact, it seemed almost as if this act was further driving the Stark army onwards. As if the greater the resistance they faced, the stronger they became. Their momentum was building and building and they just smashed through every line of men that the Lannisters through at them.

'It's a suicidal charge.' Yohn realised in shock. 'Abandoning all acts of defending themselves to attack the enemy with everything they have. How did he inspire them to do this?' He had of course heard the cheers of the Stark army; it was all but impossible not to hear them. But to hear them was one thing, to see them was another thing to entirely.

To see an army so inspired that they sacrificed all sense of self-worth, he'd never seen anything like it before.

'Are you seeing this?' He questioned, looking to the hooded man to his left, hidden slightly amongst the group of lords. The man noticed Yohn's gaze and turned, eventually nodding his head. "Lord Baelish?"

"Not yet, Lord Royce," Baelish answered with a smirk upon his face, his mind whirling as a plan began to form. When he had come here, he hadn't expected Tywin Lannister to be so badly damaged. But they had lost more than half their troops and from what he was seeing, the only ones that seemed relatively unharmed and well out of harm's way were the Golden Company. 'Oh, and there they go.'

At that moment, the Golden Company seemed to have cut their losses, turning back and retreating from the battlefield.

'I'll finish this up quickly, march south and take the Golden Company for myself. Then nothing will stand between me and ruling the realm.' Baelish thought with a smirk upon his face. He'd never do it openly of course, no that was far too risky and left him open to far too many threats. In the shadows, however, those threats could never reach him. "We wait a moment, let the Wolf walk a little further into the Lion's den so that he cannot escape."

"I see," Yohn muttered and turned to Lord Nestor Royce and Ser Jasper Redfort. Both men moved forwards, drawing their blades and pointing them at the back of Lord Baelish who froze. "Lord Petyr Baelish, you're hereby stripped of your lands and title. Come down off your horse and surrender yourself, or die right here and now."

Petyr paused, not answering straight away. "Well, I must admit I'm quite disappointed in you," Petyr said. "To think that you would do something so obvious. I've known that you would betray me from the very beginning. You always argued so strongly to Lady Lysa that the Vale should aid Robb Stark, when I came along and convinced her to aid the Lannisters, I knew you'd betray me. Do you think I didn't plan for such a possibility?"

"That's the thing Lord Baelish, I did," Yohn replied with a smirk. "You're always been so very clever, it's why you've done so well for yourself in the south, you fit right in with all the other people down here. But you've spent too long away from the Vale, you've forgotten just how loyal the men of the Vale are."

"Raise the flags." A voice called and it made Baelish freeze, his eyes widening in shock as he slowly turned around for the first time. He had been confident, so firm in the belief that he had everything under the control that he had never turned to face his aggressor. And as he did, the hooded man revealed himself and Baelish for the first time, looked petrified. Like everything in the world had come crumbling down around him, every plan he had made seemed for nought. "Hello, Lord Baelish."

Up above, a flag of a running grey Direwolf on an ice-white field was hoisted into the air and Lord Eddard Stark revealed himself to the world once more.

Nervously, Tywin watched as Robb Stark grew closer and closer. His attempts to cut him off by attacking him on the flanks failed and only seemed to push the Starks to cut their way through his army that much quicker. And they did so with terrifying speed.

"My lord, the Vale, they aren't moving!" Lord Swyft shouted, panic clear in his voice.

Looking up, for the first time, he turned to the Vale, his mind having been so focused on the momentum of the Stark army. Watching in morbid horror as they grew closer and closer to him. And as he looked up to the hill where the Stark command base had once been, he looked to see that Lord Swyft was right, the Vale hadn't moved.

Their cavalry had formed up at the foot of the hill, the infantry appearing on the flanks, curving around the hill out of sight. Up on top where the flags of the various Houses of the Vale were flapping in the wind, he noticed that there seemed to be no movement.

The Vale seemed to be just content to wait and watch.

'Baelish, what are you doing?' Tywin questioned angrily. 'Do you plan to betray me? Let Robb Stark kill me or wait for us both to be weakened so that you can swoop in to crush us both?' As the thought came to mind, his body froze, eyes slowly widening as he watched a flag rise into the air in the Vale camp.

The coat of arms of House Stark emblazoned upon it.

'So, this is your plan?! To betray me and join the Starks?!' Tywin clenched his fists tightly, watching as the Vale cavalry rushed towards them across the field, the infantry marching behind them. 'Do you believe that the truth of what you did to Eddard Stark won't be revealed? The Young Wolf will have your head on spike long before you get to do anything else. I'll make sure of it.'

Watching as the Robb grew ever closer, the Lannister's scrambling to try and figure out how to salvage the situation with the Vale betrayal. Some, mainly the flanks turned to try and halt the Vale cavalry, but this, in turn, took a vast amount of pressure off the Stark army, their momentum catapulting them through the entire army, breaking out. All that stood between them and the Starks was a few hundred meters of open space. The Golden Company having broken off some time ago only further worsened the situation.

It was at this moment that Tywin realised that there was nothing he could do.

This was his defeat.

He didn't say a word, simply turning his horse away from the battlefield and riding away. There was a moment of silence once Tywin left, the Lords still there watching him go and then turning to the battlefield.

Ser Gregor was the first to follow after Tywin, he doing so almost as soon as the Old Lion left.

The rest of the Lords gave chase moments later.

So, another chapter is done and I hope you all enjoyed it. Anyway, if you have any questions or suggestions, please let me know.