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You've heard the stories about Lannisport, right?
Well, let's go over them again.
In the year 130 AC, during the Dance of the Dragons, the Ironborn king joined the Blacks and launched the War of the Kraken. They struck the poorly defended Westerlands, seized three-quarters of the western fleet, and swarmed over the walls to sack Lannisport. They carried off more wealth than anyone could count, along with over six hundred women—including the favorite mistress of the Lord of Casterly Rock and several of his bastard daughters.
Sixty-six years later, during the Blackfyre Rebellion, the rebels crushed the Westerlands army right outside Lannisport.
A dozen years after that, the Great Spring Sickness hit hardest right here.
Nine years ago, during Greyjoy's Rebellion, the Iron Fleet lit its first fires in this very port.
And now this same rich, easy target—hit it, leave, come back for more—was exactly where Renly's ships were headed.
Joffrey only needed to use about as much brainpower as Jaime to figure that out.
Besides, Westeros still remembered an old saying from the Age of Heroes:
When you have the advantage, switching sides wins the war.
When forces are equal, switching sides gives you the edge.
When you're losing, switching sides can turn the whole thing around.
And plenty of people were still willing to switch.
"Casterly Rock is magnificent!" someone shouted inside the tent.
"It was carved from a single massive rock rising seven hundred meters above the Sunset Sea—three times the height of the Wall!"
"Your Grace, forget Renly. He'll just smash his head against those walls until it splits open."
"Let's hurry south and link up with Lord Eddard."
The quality of the allied army could be summed up in four words: wind, forest, fire, mountain.
They rushed for glory like the wind.
They marched in formation like a forest.
They looted like wildfire.
And when allies were in trouble, they stood still as a mountain.
If Casterly Rock came under attack, most of them would silently cheer good and quicken their pace toward Highgarden to claim their share of the spoils.
In their minds, victory was already guaranteed.
But that wasn't what Joffrey had planned at all.
He'd expected the two armies to grind against each other for at least a month at Goldengrove and Bitterbridge. Instead, one had been taken by trickery and the other had just been bypassed by a fleet.
Sending help to Casterly Rock now would probably be too late.
Joffrey could only send a few ravens to Tywin and order the next wave of reinforcements to march into the Westerlands along the Gold Road. Then he took his five thousand King's Landing shock troops and pushed hard toward Highgarden.
At the same time he sent fast riders with orders for Eddard: any troops sent west of the river must scout thoroughly. No isolated advances. Move carefully. Watch for ambushes.
"Ambush? Here? You're joking."
Black Walder Frey leaned against a crooked tree and spat hard on the ground.
Frey soldiers swarmed over the tiny village like locusts. They pried doors off hinges, overturned pots, stabbed pitchforks into haystacks, and split open storage chests with axes. Nothing was safe.
One man dragged a bony animal out of the stable, inspected its teeth for a long time, and announced, "This horse is at least twenty years old."
Someone smacked him on the head. "Idiot, that's a donkey!"
Chickens and ducks squawked in terror as soldiers chased them, boots caked in thick mud.
Black Walder watched it all with cold eyes.
On the far side of the Unnamed River lay the northern Reach—fat, golden fields stretching to the horizon, vineyards heavy with fruit, manor castles stuffed with gold and silver.
Harvest season. You could squeeze dozens of gold dragons out of almost any spot you picked.
Instead they were here, looting this miserable little village no bigger than the palm of a hand.
A place so poor even the rats were skinny. What kind of treasure did they expect to find?
House Frey had sent three thousand men. After linking up with the main army at King's Landing, they had marched all the way here.
Their commander was his grandfather, Stevron Frey.
The old, weak fool had let Eddard push him around with a few polite words.
"Ser Stevron, send a thousand men across the river. Everything you do will be under Lord Tytos's command."
So he sent exactly one thousand. Not one more, not one less.
"The rest of you come south with me to besiege Highgarden."
And the rest had obediently marched south to smash head-on into Renly's army.
Black Walder kicked a brown ball of fur out of his way and stared past the crooked wooden fence at the rolling fields beyond.
No enemies. No garrisons. Only frightened peasants running and valuables left behind in the rush.
That was where the real money was.
He looked over at the fat man nearby.
His father, Ser Lyman, sat on an overturned barrel, sweating as he gnawed on a half-cooked chicken leg. Blood ran down his chin and stained the doublet embroidered with the twin towers.
Another useless idiot.
As Lord Walder's eldest son and second-in-line for the Twins, this fat pig could have at least kept his mouth shut if he'd just stopped drinking for five minutes. Instead his uncles had talked him into silence when he tried to speak up.
If their great-grandfather, old Lord Walder, hadn't put his foot down and insisted his eldest son come along to "show his face," their whole branch of the family wouldn't even be here to grab a piece of the prize.
But old Stevron the fool didn't understand. He handed the good assignment to his son.
His son handed command to his son.
So Black Walder's older brother, Edwyn, was now the nominal commander of this force.
Edwyn stood on the far side of the village entrance, his thin frame wrapped in a spotless blue surcoat, talking quietly with several knights, head tilted slightly.
Playing the part.
That pale, delicate older brother couldn't even swing a sword properly, yet he was the firstborn. The heir. The one who got to lord it over everyone.
Worst of all, Edwyn knew Black Walder had been sleeping with his wife, so he'd kicked him out of the command group entirely. Not a single soldier under his orders. Left him trailing at the back of the column like a stray dog, eating dust.
And still spouting nonsense like, "We must follow orders."
Follow whose orders?
The Hand's loyal hound Tytos? The honorable Starks? Or that milk-drinking boy king?
If they told the Freys to cross last, the Freys crossed last. If they told the Freys to eat everyone else's leftovers, the Freys chewed the bones without complaint.
Several thousand elite troops, treated like pack animals—pointed in any direction and expected to march.
They had crossed the river. Who could possibly control them now?
Who was even watching?
Didn't they know what they were supposed to be doing?
Lord Tytos had ordered them to scout north from Red Lake and look for any sign of Renly's army.
That idiot Edwyn had actually obeyed, marching them all the way to this godforsaken patch of nothing.
If Black Walder hadn't had sharp eyes, they wouldn't even have found this village.
And Edwyn hadn't just refused to reward him—he'd stripped him of the right to loot and stuck him on sentry duty instead.
Besides a few old men who could barely walk, there wasn't a living soul here. Not even a White Walker. What kind of sentry duty was this?
Black Walder yawned, thumb slowly rubbing the leather wrapping on his sword hilt. He narrowed his eyes at his brother and father.
On a battlefield, blades didn't care who they cut. A few dead Freys were perfectly normal.
Once old Stevron died, and then that ancient bastard Lord Walder finally kicked it, he would be the new Lord Frey.
A bloody smile spread across Black Walder's face at the thought.
He never noticed the arrow that buried itself in the back of his neck, the point sliding out through his throat.