68 Battle of Highgarden - I

It was a cool morning. One unnaturally cool for this part of the Reach. It didn't faze the northerners that she associated with, but Margaery could tell. A chilly day that she hoped did not act as an omen. "Winter is coming," the new Lady Stark breathed, rubbing her stomach.

"You are certainly a Stark," Sansa quipped, allowing herself a moment of levity… before the beautiful land around them would become hells on earth. Her smile slowly turned into a frown. "Fog over the Heights of Luthor. Common?"

"No," replied Margaery. "I've never seen fog on the heights in my entire life." Not a military strategist, she knew naught of whom that would help or hurt. "Our brother and sister are on the battlefield, as well as our men."

Sansa's mind shifted to Podrick. Sweet, harmless Podrick. Her heart clenched, a silent prayer for his safety leaving her lips.

"My Ladies." They turned to find Ser Davos. Sansa knew why he was there - Jon's orders to keep the women alive in case of defeat. To take them to Sam at Oldtown. "We must move to the cellar. It's liable to get quite dicey out here."

Nodding, Sansa placed her hand on Margaery's shoulder and guided her away from the window. "Sister…" the Tyrell beauty murmured. "The rumors of Cersei Lannister at the Battle of Blackwater Bay, where she was in the throne room. Were they true?"

There was no doubt as to what Margaery was referring to. "Yes." She prayed it wouldn't come to that.

"On this field, the fate of our land will be decided." Hearing Edderon hoot behind her, Daenerys turned her head toward her husband. "Future histories will write of this day as our greatest victory."

"Or Joffrey's…" Jon replied grimly, a sudden melancholy befalling him. "If there are histories written in the future."

He felt hands clasp his own. Grey eyes meeting fiery amethyst ones. "There will be." A kiss pressing to his lips. The sight of a proper Targaryen warrior queen, hair in a Dothraki war braid, black plate and mail armor draped with a red and black cloak. "And we will win."

Jon allowed the confidence to return, smiling at his wife. "You know what to do?"

"Of course, husband. As do you." She kissed him once more. "I shall see you after the battle." With that, she made her way to Edderon - praying to whatever gods listened that she wouldn't have to fly Sansa, Margaery, and the others to Riverrun, as she promised Jon the night before. A raven hadn't been sent there, so the prince and princess wouldn't be worried. 'We will win.'

Longing filled Jon as he stared at Edderon ascend to the sky. "Protect her, my son," he whispered to the air.

"Your Majesty, Lord Stark, Lord Caryn, Ser Payne, and Lord Qaggaz have signalled their readiness," Ollie stated, handing Jon a stack of dispatches.

Jon didn't even have to read them. "Let the dice fly high."

The battlefield stretched five miles in width, arranged west to east, with a further two miles of flood plain separating the far left of the Imperial line from the Mander River - which sparkled in the light of sunrise. There, the mass of Dothraki and Vale knights waited to protect the flanks of General Theodosius Caryn's Riverlanders, Stormlanders, Essosi auxiliaries, and Ironborn marines holding the farmland and scattered hamlets northwest of Highgarden castle. On the far right flank rested Robb Stark and his elite northerners, coupled with Dornish irregulars. In the center, a dense fog covered the Heights of Luthor, though scouts had clearly seen the Unsullied and hoplites withdraw to the lower ground nearer to the castle.

"Like lambs to the slaughter," remarked Tywin Lannister from his command post. "I shall enjoy dining in Highgarden again."

"We must make sure that the Golden Company can keep the Heights secure," Randyll Tarly said. "Lose them, and our entire force will unravel."

"Nonsense, they won't know if we have two hundred or twenty thousand on that hill. We can smash the Unsullied with your cavalry the moment they move to engage my brother's drive on Highgarden." Tywin spat on the ground. "Sound the order. Full attack."

Horns and drums resonated across the tranquil fields and grazing land of the Westerosi breadbasket. "Form up!" yelled the knights leading the battalions. "March!" Armor clinked as the packed lines of the Army of the Divine Chimera marched forward towards the Imperial lines - banners waving in the soft breeze.

Tywin and Randyll Tarly had arranged their lines according to scouting reports of the Imperial dispositions. With the bulk of the enemy cavalry on the Imperial left, it seemed the attack would come from there while the right was deliberately weakened with a likely overreliance on the unsinkable defenses of Highgarden to anchor the flank. This presented an opportunity. Keeping the thousands of elite Westerlands cavalry in reserve, Tywin had the sellswords and more remaining knights on his right, joined with his one hundred-thirty war mammoths to fend off any Dothraki screamer charge. Lord Staedmon's own force of Stormlanders, the Crownlands bannermen, Reach infantry loyal to Lord Tarly, and Prince Trystane's Dornish levees formed the opposition to Caryn, while the ten thousand strong Golden company would take the Heights of Luthor and secure it - Tywin considering the center to be quite a sleepy portion of the battlefield.

It was on the Lannister left that the action would occur. Facing against the weakened forces of Robb Stark and a likely attempt to withdraw gradually to the defenses of the castle - as Robb had done once during the War of the Four Kings - Tywin intended to punch through and force a rout before Robb could conduct such a withdrawal. To do this he allocated the entirety of his crack Westerlands men at arms under his brother Kevan. The strategy was ambitious, but he was certain that he'd have Highgarden captured by the end of the day.

As soon as the Lannisters were in range, the cannon, rockets, and archers let loose. The battle was already a slaughter even before the first pair of blades met each other, hundreds falling from the projectiles. Along the Mander River, Dothraki Screamers met their match with armored knights, smashing through their front with lances and allowing the whooping sellsword cavalry and war mammoths a clean advantage in momentum to follow up the charge. Already, as the competing shield walls engaged each other along the Imperial left, rivers of blood had already been shed.

"Naejot tegon." Slower than Balerion, and less powerful, Edderon made up for it with increased agility and reaction time via his slimmer frame. Daenerys felt the wind whip through her braid as her child looped and dove to the ground. Below on the left flank, Edmure Tully and Gendry were giving ground to the onrushing Dornish, while an entire two battalions of Essosi had been cut off within a small collection of farmhouses and annihilated by Alesander Staedmon's forces, now trying to turn the flank while Lord Royce was distracted in an all out cavalry showdown with Gilwood Hunter. Only one way to even the odds. "Dracarys!"

Opening his maw as if to roar, the dragon instead let loose a jet of flame. The roaring attack incinerated hundreds of Stormlanders in an instant, Edderon continuing along the edge of the far right of the Divine Army before Daenerys pulled him up. Two rockets and a scorpion bolt shot by, causing her to order Edderon to bank leftward towards the rear of her own forces. 'Cannot lose another dragon,' she kept repeating, hoping that her support had succeeded.

The Empress' hope proved true. Delayed as Staedemon brought up forces to replace those now charred skeletons, it gave enough time for Caryn to bring up several reserve battalions and the giant king Mag Mar Tun Doh Weg to extend the line and prevent being flanked. The western battle was shaping up as a massive stalemate, charges and countercharges only managing to move the frontline fifty yards here and there.

"NOCK!" yelled Robb, horse strained as he rode up and down the line. The Northern shield wall was holding under extreme pressure, but had to give nearly a quarter mile of ground as Kevan Lannister launched attack after attack. Bodies lined the field, Robb being forced to commit the Dornish into the fray to protect the integrity of his northerners. Lady Tyene Martell and Ser Bronn of the Blackwater, both leading from the front, managed to stem the second attack, but exhausting their lightly armed and armored irregulars.

It wouldn't be enough though, Kevan Lannister readying a third charge almost immediately while bringing up rockets. Robb rallied his archers as the third Lannister charge formed up. "LOOSE!" Five hundred archers let their payloads loose, arcing upwards and raining on the Lannisters, weakening their formations. 'Jon, I hope you know what you're doing,' Robb thought. "RETREAT!"

At once, the Imperial line collapsed - or at least seemed to. The orders had been drilled for weeks now, and battalions stayed bunched up while all semblance of greater formation collapsed in a mad dash for Highgarden. Reeling from the last minute barrage of arrows, the men of the Westerlands saw their enemy fleeing en masse. A battlecry went up. Anger and vengeance for Blackwater Rush boiling within them, they disregarded all orders and charged themselves, only egged on from their officers. The rout began. The assault on Highgarden itself now in full swing as the elite of the Chimera's Army committed itself fully.

On the top of the Heights of Luthor, Captain Harry Strickland ran a hand through his damp, blonde locks. Normally the Blackfyre helmet of gold and red would adorn his head as it did for all soldiers of the Golden Company, but with the all-encompassing mist that draped the heights, he couldn't take the suffocating mugginess. 'I can't see shit,' he thought, muttering profanities in several languages as he surveilled his men. Rows and rows comprising ten thousand elite troops - veterans of many a debt collection venture gone bad.

"Captain Strickland!" Turning, Strickland saw Kevan Lannister riding out of the mist. "Why haven't you gone in?!"

"Lord Tarly wants my men holding the heights, my Lord" They were explicit orders from the Lord of Horn Hill. Stay as an anchor on the strongest position short of Highgarden itself. Tarly had been perplexed that even the coward Jon Snow abandoned it, and was wary of some sort of trick.

Kevan Lannister scoffed. "Those orders are countermanded." He handed Strickland a written dispatch. One bearing a seal of Lord Hand Tywin himself. "I have two battalions coming to hold this line. You will move your entire force under my command and strengthen the assault of Highgarden."

Blinking, Strickland read the words with bafflement. "My Lord, that would leave the center dangerously unprotected! Lord Tarly said…"

"I don't give a fuck what Lord Tarly said!" Kevan snarled, pointing in the general direction of the south. "Hear that?!" The boom of cannon and popping of rockets resonated through the mist. "We've broken through on the left. Those are our men dying at the fucking earthworks surrounding Highgarden. Where the food is that will fucking feed King's Landing. Order your men into the fray there or by all Seven Gods I will kill you!"

Head looking at his trumpeter, Strickland sighed. "Yes, my Lord. Sound assembly! Double quick march!" The orders hooting from the bugle, the Golden Company began its ponderous march into the thick of the fighting.

Lowering his spyglass, Jon allowed himself a smug grin. The fog was everywhere in the center around the heights. "Praise be to the gods, father," he murmured, hoping that both Ned Stark and Rhaegar Targaryen heard him from the afterlife. Jon suspected they did, and it filled him with comfort. "See that, there?"

Podrick and Ser Barristan gazed where the Emperor's fingers pointed. Sure enough, the first battalions of golden sellswords emerged out of the mist on their quick march towards Highgarden. "The Golden Company is abandoning the heights," Barristan breathed.

Right on schedule. "How many minutes till the center can reach the heights?" Silently, he called out.

"Around twenty, sire," Podrick responded.

"Good," Jon whispered as Rhaegal landed on the ground, wings beating a mighty gust of air that caused a struggle to stay upright, even for those on horses such as Podrick. "Barristan, you're with me. Podrick, get over there with all haste. Confer with Grey Worm and attack in half an hour. Sweep everything before you and take the heights. Understood?"

"Yes, your Majesty."

Slapping the man he hoped to be his brother by marriage on the back, Jon stepped towards Rhaegal. "Gird your loins Podrick. In half an hour, you know what needs to be done!" Had resting upon Rhaegal's side, he was rewarded with a low purr of contentment. One by one, he climbed the dragon's spines. "One sharp blow and the war is over!"

"Aye, your Majesty," Podrick shouted back, bowing once more before spurring his horse into a gallop. He had no doubt Grey Worm had the men of the center in marching order.

As he and Ser Barristan nestled on dragonback, Jon rubbed Rhaegal's scales. "This is it, boy. The big one." A grunt in response. "Sōves." The dragon roared and leapt into the air.

"FIRE!" Hearing the cannon roar beside him, in spite of the ringing numbness in his ears, Yezzan zo Qaggaz was nevertheless glad to be on the giving rather than the receiving end of these infernal devices. Five others boomed in quick succession, sending a deadly volley careening over the heads of the northerners settling inside the earthworks and houses. They shot straight towards the mass of Lannister infantry charging at Lady Tyene's Dornish militia. Formation had been broken in the mad dash, and the projectiles created a slaughterhouse of jagged flesh, primal screams, and spurting blood.

But the thousands kept coming. "The fuckers are gonna break through," Tormund Giantsbane said matter of factly. At the vantage point of the towering battlements of Highgarden castle, they could see it as plain to the day.

"Hopefully you know what you're doing, wildling." Qaggaz may not have been an expert in tactics, but he knew even those that did would have issue with leaving the gates to the castle wide open.

"Fucking A." Tormund grinned. "Gotta keep them comin!" Air filling with a high pitched scream, they dove for cover as a duo of rockets slammed into a nearby mantlet, showering bits of charred wood and rock every which way. A manic laugh left the wildling chief as he jumped to his feet. "Gonna sit there like a fucking coward? Or are ya gonna join me?!" He drew his axes and raced down the stairs.

Shaking slightly, Qaggaz grabbed his helmet and fastned it tightly on his head - suddenly grateful for the restrictive chainmail underneath his tunic. He made up his mind, vowed to prove himself as someone other than a craven, shady opportunist. "Archers! Nock and fire at will!" he ordered, drawing his scimitar and following Tormund to the courtyard.

Battle-hardened and tightly organized, the northerners crossed the mid-morning fields following their retreat in good order. Imperial quartermasters and the loyal townsfolk had fortified the town as well as possible, stockpiling earthen barriers and barrels of water for fighting fires. However, the Dornish irregulars were in a bad way. So skilled in bushwhacking and raiding, they were inexperienced in battle, only the iron will of Lady Tyene and the tenacity of Ser Bronn keeping them in order. Their retreat was sloppy and only served to heighten the bloodlust of the Westerlands men at arms giving chase.

Plate armor and a ragged shield wall managed to lessen the impact of the dense swarm of arrows and crossbow bolts sailing towards them. Cannon fire deadly but too little, the head of a sixteen thousand strong behemoth slammed into the town just as the Dornish scrambled into the earthworks. A little over twelve thousand - including the wildings and masters inside the castle - faced them.

Booms of cannon and hissing of rockets dwarfed the cacophony of blade and battlecry as the two armies embraced the form of death. The Lannisters were out for blood, and Robb Stark had ensured that they would get plenty - Lannister blood. Though far more heavily armored, as with the Whispering Wood the Lannisters were unable to bring such advantage to bear. Their charge left them unorganized and out of formation, the impact of their steel muted by the urban terrain and stubborn earthworks. "SHIELD WALLS, BOYS!" Robb screamed, driving Ice straight into the gap between a redcloak's breastplate and shoulderplate.

In a fluid motion, the scattered Northern forces brought their shields into ragged walls wherever they stood - Dornish irregulars filling the gaps. They beat back Lannister storm attempts, shields blocking spears, arrows, and blade, swords stabbing through gaps to kill those foolish to attack individually. Muddy roads became slicker with blood as the Lannisters pulled back and resumed the assault in a ragged formation.

One group of two thousand redcloaks, those under the banners of Houses Marabrand, Crakehall, and Stackspear, rallied under the able leadership of Ser Steffon Stackspear. Copying the Emperor's plan from the Coastroad, Ser Steffon threw in whatever crossbowmen he could find at the northern shield wall defending the main road to Highgarden castle. The men of House Glover found their shields under sustained fire from hundreds of crossbows, more than they could take as dozens began falling. Redcloaks charged at the earthworks under the covering fire, scrambling up the defenses in a far less bloody assault. Lord Glover realized his men could not hold in the open. "Withdraw to the alleyways!" he ordered, his men breaking up into barely organized companies in their frenzy to flee the crossbowmen.

"FOR MARABRAND!" With a cry for their beloved fallen leader, the men of the westerlands surged forth onto the open roadway to their target. It soon was joined by a curdling cry. "REYNES OF CASTAMERE!"

Flames sprouting all over the town, through the smoke the commander of the Tyrell garrison still couldn't miss the head of the massive red-armored host charging towards the gatehouse - a sight the Reynes and Tarbecks undoubtedly saw during the Storming of Castamere. Only he wasn't going to lose the castle. "Ready men? We are roses, but roses have thorns!" A sharp battlecry rang out just as the head of the Lannister line reached the open gate. "NOW!"

Boiling and steaming, at the order two large cauldrons of scalding tar and oil were overturned over two holes in the gatehouse floor - cut through the wood by the quartermasters. Dozens of men, racing through the open gate into the jewel of the Reach, were enveloped in the searing deluge. Blood-curdling screams left gaping throats as the liquid burned and blistered every inch of skin, boiling the Lannister troops within their plate armor. A Tyrell soldier dropped a torch from above the gatehouse, igniting the oil and tar and turning the entrance into an inferno and immolating further dozens.

Kevan Lannister watched with a trembling rage from the new command post. The Golden Company reinforcements would mean nothing if they were stuck in a charnel house against the walls of the castle. "Hit that gatehouse with every rocket you've got!"

"My Lord, we need to suppress the houses…"

"It won't matter if we can't get into the fucking castle! Do as I fucking say!"

Minutes later, the mobile batteries launched their payload. Rockets arced towards their target, black-grey smoke trails and brilliant yellow exhaust masking their inaccuracy. Aimed for the guardhouse, all but one slammed randomly within a hundred yard radius, hitting houses, castle walls, or within the courtyard, sowing chaos and wounding many. But no decisive carnage.

The one that met its mark was a stunning success. Gathering more tar and oil to drop on the next charge, the rocket detonated on a weak point in the gatehouse walls that was a mere wood mantlet rather than stone. The resulting sparks set the tar and oil ablaze, soon engulfing the whole battlement and roasting those that hadn't made a quick escape. Providence kept the fires contained to the gatehouse, but the damage was done. The gate was unprotected.

Cheers left the throats of the boys of the Westerlands as they prepared their next assault. "THE REYNES OF CASTAMERE!"

Behind them, the first of the Golden Company arrived on the field.

Bronn watched as four redcloaks burst through the doorway of a thatch house. One barely had time to react as Tyene dropped from a roofbeam and stabbed her dagger underneath the lip of his helmet. As another hesitated, stunned, Bronn ensured the Redcloak paid the price by kicking the man's shield and sending him toppling. Easy pickings to blood his sword. He darted back quick enough to escape the swing of the third's sword… just.

As he parried a blow, an ever growing whistling filled his ears. Observant, Tyene shoved her entire body into a redcloak's shield. "Run!" Bronn used an opening to slice the third's arm off and ran with her. They had just reached an open window when the rocket punched through the thatch and detonated.

"Now that is more like it," commented Tywin Lannister from atop his command post miles away. Already, greasy-black pyres of smoke rose from the castle and the town surrounding it - as if the fires of three weeks before had been magnified tenfold. "We shall have Highgarden wrapped up by nightfall."

"It's just that damn fog that worries me." Randyll Tarly mused, the same dark scowl planted on his face. "We should have kept the Golden Company on the heights."

Tywin scoffed. "And squander away our moment of triumph? We need to take their spirits and their castle. It ends today, Lord Tarly." He moved his eyes to their right flank, where the Dornish and Crownlanders were engaged in a bloody melee with the Riverlanders and Essosi auxiliaries. Further west, hemmed in by the width of the Mander River, Gilwood Hunter's heavy cavalry and the bulk of the sellswords battled with Dothraki and Vale Knights. Already the waters began to run red with blood of man and beast. "Besides, no one is dumb enough to attack high ground in dense fog…"

And yet… "Come on! For gods' sake, come on!" Podrick shouted, sword high in the air.

"Commander," yelled one of the senior battalion commanders, a veteran of every campaign of the Emperors War. "We can't see a damn thing!" The northern phalanx trudged up the still damp ground of the heights. They were in the van of the tight tericios of the Unsullied, but Podrick couldn't even see a single line behind them in the pea soup fog that still hung all over the heights. Sweat dripped down his brow, even the grittiest under his command tensed as they made one step after the other towards the summit of the hill. If the Lannisters continued to occupy it in force…

Podrick was undeterred. "Do not stop men! Do not stop no matter what!" Wun Wun, bellowing at the top of his lungs, served as far more of a morale booster as he and his father Dongo headed up the van. Wun Wun carried a single large log while Dongo held his massive bow, ready to sweep aside any attacking force - Jon having learned a lesson from the Battle of the Bastards about how to use his giants.

Suddenly, without warning, the fog simply disappeared. One minute it was there. The next brought the shining sun, rays stabbing through the mist, banishing it to each of the Seven Hells. Not a cloud in the sky, the battlefield spread out clear as the sparkling waters of the river Trident.

And what a sight it was. What few forces the Army of the Divine Chimera still kept atop the heights - a rearguard force of about two thousand and another thousand forces in transit towards the battle for the castle - were stunned to see row upon row of gleaming northern hoplites and Unsullied pikemen charging like a herd of mammoth directly for the summit of the heights. The Lannister bannermen were green, troops Tywin was willing to gamble among the heights with the certainty that the fog would mask their weakness… only for it to mask the Imperial strike right for the heart.

The coming Imperials, spears bristling and shouting their war cries, broke the Lannisters. Some commanders managed to fight where they stood, getting cut down by the spearmen or wild swings from Wun Wun. Others withdrew in good order, while many routed. In any case, with minimal casualties, the top of the Heights of Luthor were now claimed for House Targaryen-Stark. Flying low above the battlefield, the green visage of Rhaegal shrieked a roar so loud that it would be said that even King Joffrey could have heard it. Jets of dragonfire finished off the last of the green forces atop the hill, hoplites and Unsullied taking their place.

Stallion rearing on his hind legs, Podrick Payne bellowed as loud as his lungs could take. "Who Holds Westeros?!"

"WE DO!" The boom of the soldiers resonated across the field, broadcasting far and wide the new owners of the Heights of Luthor. Bright rays of sunlight illuminated the whitewashed direwolves upon the shields as Targaryen-Stark banners fluttered in the late-morning breeze. "HOO! HOO!" The smashed their spears and blades upon their shields, arising such a clatter.

"Who Holds Westeros?!"

"WE DO! HOO! HOO!"

Making another pass above them, all could see their Emperor draw his sword from Dragonback - even airborne, he still fought beside them as he had in battlefields close and far.

"HOO! HOO!"

In the command post of the Army of the Divine Chimera, Tywin gazed through his spyglass with a trembling hand - half-furious, half-terrified. His best troops were embroiled in a furious assault upon the castle, and now they were laid bare to assault from the rear. Assault from elite Unsullied shock troops. "My Lord?" Randyll Tarly asked, true question unsaid.

Tywin snarled in frustration. "Heavy cavalry reserve into the center!"

"We don't have infantry support…"

"You lead them!"