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Hearing Robb's voice, Gendry felt his panic settle.
He raised his longsword high, swept it forward, and shouted, "Brothers, follow His Grace and trample these ants!"
After surviving the earlier panic, Gendry finally saw the field clearly.
The tens of thousands of Westerlands soldiers pressing in from three sides looked terrifying in their dense masses.
Only the six or seven thousand men ahead, the force Robb had struck with ice magic, were a mixture of well-equipped Westerlands soldiers and town levies.
The nearly twenty thousand enemies on the left and right looked, from appearance alone, like Westerlands smallfolk dragged here to fill the numbers.
Most wore crude leather armor. A few had not even that, only worn clothes, wooden boards as shields, and wooden spears in hand. They shouted loudly as they followed the surrounding army forward.
Yes. Aside from the overseers at the rear, the nearly twenty thousand soldiers on the flanks were Westerlands smallfolk Daven had pulled from the towns nearby.
Some time ago, he had used threats and promises to force them into this ambush.
In Daven's mouth, the northern savages loved eating the blood and flesh of southern smallfolk and feeding smallfolk children to their direwolf pack.
If they refused to help surround the northern army, then once the Westerlands army failed, their best end would be slavery under the northern savages, a life worse than death.
That was how nearly twenty thousand Westerlands smallfolk had been deceived and driven into the encirclement.
But now the place where fighting should have been most intense held only scattered screams. Every surrounding soldier seemed rooted to the ground, not daring to take another step forward.
All because of the king standing like a god atop the white direwolf.
Around that man and wolf, countless crisscrossing ice spikes like fangs had pierced at least four or five hundred Westerlands soldiers.
Some of the thicker spikes had lifted the impaled men into the air. Those lucky enough not to have died at once struggled and wailed above the ground, red blood falling continuously onto the crystal ice below.
"What... is that?"
Standing on the hill, Daven stared wide-eyed at the sudden field of ice spikes that had appeared among his more elite infantry. His mind went blank, and he had no idea how to respond.
The intelligence he had received said eight thousand northern cavalry had marched from Ashemark toward Casterly Rock. Daven had hardened his heart and devised the bold plan of abandoning the castles and fighting an ambush in the field.
If everything had gone according to plan, the northern cavalry, pressed by the encircling force until they had no room to charge, would have become prey caught in a web, bound layer after layer until they could no longer move.
Of course, their death struggle would have caused heavy casualties among the encircling troops. But by this point, Daven no longer cared.
He had never imagined that before he even understood what had happened, the elite infantry he had designated as the main force would lose a tenth of its number to that ice-spike domain.
The encircling troops were too stunned to move. The northern cavalry were not.
At Gendry's command, more than six thousand northern riders charged directly toward the enemy in front of them.
Seeing Gendry's men begin the charge, Robb willed it. The field of ice spikes formed from magic melted and vanished. The many corpses that had been held aloft by the spikes began falling to the ground.
Robb's crystal eyes had already grown dim, lacking their earlier clear brilliance.
The great ice-spike domain had essentially exhausted his magic. If he had not temporarily added several Magic points through blood pact points, he and Bloodwind would not have been able to maintain their ice armor.
Across the distance, he met the eyes of the bearded commander on the hill, a man who looked like a lion.
A smile appeared on Robb's face. He shifted Ice from his right hand to his left, and icy mist gathered over his open right palm, condensing into a crystal spear.
Standing atop Bloodwind, Robb hurled the ice spear toward the hill with all his strength. Beautiful and deadly, it shrieked through the air toward Daven.
Daven had sensed danger the moment Robb began the throw. When a fierce warning rose in his heart, he trusted his instincts and threw himself from the saddle.
As Daven rolled across the ground to break the fall, the crystal spear pierced straight through his horse's belly. The bloodstained spearhead burst out through the horse's back.
Daven's mount gave one short, sharp cry and collapsed dead. If he had not jumped in time, the spear would have killed him as well.
'Not slow to react.'
Robb's keen sight caught Daven's move. With a thought, he sent Bloodwind leaping into the Westerlands infantry ahead, carving a path toward the hill.
Bloodwind crashed through the Westerlands infantry like a heavy war engine, smashing left and right and opening a bloody road paved with severed limbs.
The Westerlands infantry directly ahead were mostly veteran soldiers who had fought at Lannisport, mixed with town levies from around Casterly Rock. Some had even belonged to the Lannisport garrison that had faced Bloodwind before.
So even while Bloodwind, more than ten feet tall, slaughtered at will, they did not collapse at once. Instead, they surged up in layers, attacking the ice armor with their weapons.
While they were still trying to crack Bloodwind's defense, the northern cavalry reached them like a flood of steel.
The Westerlands infantry around Robb and Bloodwind were torn open by the northern cavalry.
Many soldiers could not dodge and were sent flying by the northern horses. At the same time, the longswords in northern hands began cutting down lives.
Daven's encirclement had completely failed.
The Westerlands smallfolk on both sides refused to attack Robb, who had just stood before them like a god, even as the overseers behind them hacked men down.
Even a cornered hare bites.
At last, the tens of thousands of Westerlands smallfolk on the flanks turned on the overseers behind them. The overseers, fewer than one tenth of their number, were swallowed by the human tide in an instant.
An unprecedented rout began.
While the main Westerlands soldiers at the front were still fighting the northern cavalry, nearly twenty thousand men scattered and fled. Some ran toward the woods on either side. Others fled east along the river road.
The ambush forces hidden in the woods ahead had routed even earlier. The trees had only kept the rest from seeing it.
After killing most of the fleeing Westerlands ambushers, Wyl led the Wolfguard, Nymeria, and Lady out of the woods and saw the scene before them.
After a brief hesitation, he ordered his men to support the northern cavalry still fighting.
Daven, covered in earth as he climbed from the ground, watched his encircling force begin to flee. He sighed heavily and ordered the attendant beside him, "Target the enemy cavalry. Have the catapults and archers launch full covering fire."
"But... Lord Daven, our brothers are fighting them!"
The attendant froze and reminded him despite himself.
"While they can still hold that terrifying enemy in place, perhaps one stone or one arrow will kill him. Otherwise the Westerlands... no, the Seven Kingdoms will fall into his hands."
Daven's mouth twisted into a bitter smile, his voice low and bleak.
He had abandoned any thought of retreat. He only hoped the final attack might achieve something.
Where could he retreat? Casterly Rock? Lannisport? Feastfires?
Those castles no longer had any real garrisons. Many did not even have many smallfolk left. Even if he retreated now, whether he could escape the northern cavalry at all was another question.
Even if he did survive, he would merely delay defeat a little longer.
The attendant had no choice but to pass on the order that would strike friend and foe alike.
The northern cavalry cut back and forth through the Westerlands infantry. In a short time, they had already killed nearly half the enemy foot.
Then the catapults and archers behind the hill launched indiscriminate covering fire into the battlefield.
In such dense fighting between northern cavalry and Westerlands infantry, the heavy stones and sharp arrows almost never missed.
In an instant, many northern riders and Westerlands infantrymen were crushed by stones or shot dead by arrows.
Robb, who had not personally joined the melee and had only stood quietly atop Bloodwind, raised Ice and casually knocked aside a stone flying toward him.
"Trying to drag more men down with you before death?"
Seeing that the enemy commander had not fled, but instead chosen to cause as much damage as possible, Robb turned to Wyl, who had fought his way to his side.
"Wyl, you and the other Wolfguard open a road for me. I will capture the enemy commander."
"Yes, Your Grace."
Wyl answered and charged forward with Hayward and the other Wolfguard, cutting a road of blood and flesh through the Westerlands men.
Robb and Bloodwind followed that road toward the nearby hill.
When Daven saw the terrifying white direwolf leave the battle and rush toward him, he understood that the enemy wanted to capture or kill him.
He immediately mounted his attendant's horse and retreated to the back of the hill.
There stood dozens of stationary catapults and five hundred Westerlands archers, his last force.
To Robb, however, Daven's final measure posed no real threat.
Under a rain of enemy arrows, Robb and Bloodwind rushed through them toward Daven.
Bloodwind violently knocked away more than ten archers in succession and reached Daven, who wore conspicuous Lannister armor. Daven raised his sword for one last struggle, but Bloodwind ignored it and pinned him beneath one enormous claw.
Fortunately, Robb had warned Bloodwind to keep him alive. Otherwise Daven would have been crushed to death.
Once Daven was captured, neither the archers facing Bloodwind nor the remaining Westerlands infantry had any will to fight. They threw down their weapons and surrendered.
In the end, the river road ambush Daven had planned so boldly was broken by Robb's unequal supernatural power.
Once again, brute force had beaten tactics.
After this battle, the Westerlands no longer had any strength capable of blocking Robb.
In the days that followed, Robb led the northern cavalry and the captured Daven through Casterly Rock, Lannisport, Feastfires, and other important castles.
At the same time, he sent northern cavalry out from Casterly Rock to announce the Stark occupation of the Westerlands to nearby towns and villages. Anyone who wanted to live would surrender and change banners.
Those towns and villages, whose levies had already been taken away by Daven, had no power to resist. One after another, they surrendered and changed banners.
From that point on, no roaring lion banner of House Lannister flew anywhere in the Westerlands. Everywhere, the direwolf banner of House Stark snapped in the wind.
Beyond the Wall, at the Fist of the First Men, nearly three hundred men of the Night's Watch were building defenses under Lord Commander Mormont's orders.
The top of the hill was exposed to the bitter wind, but it had a broad view. If wildlings came, the watchmen on the summit would see them from miles away.
"Brother Rorge, are wildlings strong? There are only three hundred of us. Can we stop them?"
Lommy Greenhands, sent to Castle Black by Yoren for theft, had always bullied the weak and feared the strong. At the first opportunity, he attached himself to Rorge, who had briefly met Robb in the black cells of King's Landing.
Rorge, whose body was covered in black hair and whose nose was gone, was carrying snow-covered stones to build the defenses. He glanced at Lommy's soft skin.
He had not tasted flesh in a long time. His heart itched, though the time had never been right.
"You do not need to care how strong the wildlings are. When fighting starts, stay beside me and Biter, and you will be fine."
Biter, who was as strange-looking as Rorge and had no tongue, hissed beside him as if agreeing.
"Heh. If you say so, then I..."
Before Lommy could finish, a long horn sounded from the Night's Watch.
He had not yet spoken when the second horn sounded.
The basic lessons he had learned at Castle Black flashed through his mind. He dropped the stone in his hands, drew his sword, and said, "One blast means brothers returning. Two means wildlings!
"Gods! The wildlings are really here! Brother Rorge, Brother Biter, please protect me!"
While Lommy trembled and begged, the horn sounded again.
"Three?" Rorge turned toward Lommy, who had gone rigid. "What does the third one mean?"
Rorge had never paid attention to the lessons at Castle Black.
"Three blasts! Others... Others! Three blasts mean Others!"
Lommy screamed as if death had seized him by the throat.
After the third horn, every man of the Night's Watch on the Fist stood frozen for several heartbeats. Then they rushed madly toward the scout who had blown the horn.
Several miles from the hill, a white mist threaded with snow drifted toward the Fist of the First Men.
Inside the mist, many figures moved forward step by step, stiff as puppets on strings.
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