The fall of Highgarden

Friedrich Wilhelm: ''If you find yourself fighting a fair fight, you failed to make your plan''.

Friedrich Wilhelm POV Dustonbury

Dealing with the count of ruppin would not be easy he has too much influence in my army no more to say most think like him, not long ago, we suffered a devastating war over religion, and now we are serving what our faith would call heathens trying to remove him by force would be too high a risk considering if this provoked an uprising among my men in the middle of this war it would be the end, so the only thing I could do for the moment was to assert my authority both as king and as head of the religion in Prussia and order him to stop with the extortion actions and the best way not to make him angry is to compare his behavior with another religion he hates even more than the faith of the seven, the Sunni Muslims.

(Captain general lothar von ruppin it has come to my ears that you are charging a special tax to the septons of the territories under your care, I want to remind you as your head of the Prussian protestant church we DO NOT CHARGE A YIZIA TAX, I must remind you of your vows as a protestant nobleman and I beg you, please do not commit similar acts that the Sunnis do, we are better than them; therefore I order you to refrain from charging/extorting money from people or institutions based on their faith)

THE KING AND HEAD OF THE CHURCH OF PRUSSIA

Quickly, I gave the letter to a messenger to be dispatched as soon as possible, with a little luck, I will be able to convince Von ruppin with this letter, but the damage is already done, it is only a matter of time before the people will begin to resist the occupation more when the news that we are extorting money from their religious institutions even the possibility that my contract with the pretender Robert will become null and void by the demand of the faith of the seven.

I turned my attention now to the most important thing, securing the fruits of victory because even though I might not get the castles, the gold, jewels, costumes, furniture and armor would fill my coffers for the future, even if I had to build everything from scratch.

A few hours ago I had received a report from Aleksanteri and Charles that they had accomplished their tasks Aleksanteri was in horn hill not long ago he took the castle by infiltrating it himself with the blackfish they stole guards' suits and walked around the castle like it was nothing and put a powerful laxative in the guards' water, which caused that the next day no one could pick up a sword without shitting themselves, taking the second most formidable castle by the skill I had heard from the soldiers of house Tarly.

As for Charles had secured all the castles adjoining the western lands, and soon we will gather the three armies to take Highgarden, it is very likely that the ''tactic'' we come by orders of Lord Mace will not work because it is likely to keep in communication with his own castle, and we will have to take by assault the castle and preliminary reports the castle will be difficult to take 3 walls has Highgarden with a garrison expected between 3000 or 4000 guards

and our army was no longer so formidable when the campaign began almost 18000 men less than at the beginning only in garrisons and another 3000 by the constant sunstroke by the damned heat at first it was only annoying, but every time we move further south the heat is increasingly suffocating having many men fainted or with terrible skin burns that leave them out of combat for weeks if we manage to bring down Highgarden in just one day would be very lucky, since the time that we act without being discovered is coming to an end, since yesterday a letter arrived from the scouts that watch the 100000 men army of the tyrell in the stormlands since we cut the communication with their supply line the wagons that were not intercepted should already be arriving to their destination, and they will realize when they will not receive any more supplies, and they will think that something bad happened, and they ran back.

The letter says that calculating at the speed they travel every day the last wagon that left the reach should arrive in 14 days to the siege of Lord tyrell, that was 8 days ago; therefore we had 6 more days to do what we want in this land and for this we must secure all the missing castles in 6 days if we succeed we will meet in the north and face in the field the Tyrell obviously with some dirty play from our part to be able to win more easily.

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Friedrich von Roon POV Highgarden 1 day later

''my lord do you really think the plan will work with that fortress it's 3 levels of walls, I don't think we can get through all 3 without them realizing we are not knights of house Tyrell'' said my sergeant major in a concerned manner.

''the trick has worked so far and if we only get past one of the walls it's better than having to storm the same castle 3 times, are the ''prisoners'' there?''

We were caging some of our men in armor from the lords of the stormlands, this time we would say that Lord tyrell secretly sent the prisoners he captured in his siege of Robert's lands and because of the increasing danger the rebels are showing he preferred to send them to his castle than risk being freed.

''They are ready, sir'' said a captain of my tercio

''well may god protect us in this mission''.

We began to march towards the castle, when we saw it we knew why they wanted to practice the tactic of the false flag, that castle was very well-built, maybe it was not a bastion fort, but it would resist for a long time to an army without much siege equipment.

As we approached the gates we were spotted by the Tyrell guards and I prepared to do again something I had already done at least 2 dozen times.

''Who is it, identify yourself'' shouted the guard.

''I am Lord Corlin Roxton I come on a secret mission from Lord Paramount Mace Tyrell to deliver noble prisoners captured in the stormlands'' I said pointing to the wagons full of armored men from the respective region.

''excuse the tone of voice Lord, but we had no information that you were coming'' he said with an apologetic tone

''we have tried to warn, but there is an army that is harassing our supply lines and shooting down our ravens that's why Lord Tyrell decided secretly to send his prisoners to prevent their escape''

we are left waiting, typically they are asking for authorization to open the gates to the Castellan

after 10 minutes, the gates begin to open.

''Remember to stay close to the gates in case something goes wrong'' I whispered to my soldiers.

Quickly, we passed through the first gate and were greeted by a captain of the guard

''welcome lord Corlin roxton I heard you brought some traitors'' said the captain.

ufff thank goodness he doesn't know the real Lord Roxton, or it's all over here.

''yes here they are, besides I have a letter for Lord Tyrell's wife'' I said to the captain

''oh don't worry Lord I'll deliver the letter to Lady alerie''

''with all due respect Captain I am ordered to deliver the letter personally'' I said pushing away the sealed letter I was holding in my hand

''Lady Alerie is in labor, she will not be able to receive the letter''.

''then I will wait, I suppose you will have a guest house for me'' I said getting a little nervous.

''Of course lord, I accompanied to the castle'' said the captain while he accompanied me to the second gate.

Between waiting for them to open the gate and walking to the third gate I had already spent 20 minutes more this operation was taking too long, and I was very nervous, when we arrived at the third stall, but something strange happened

''Why don't you open the door Lord Roxton hopes to rest'' shouted the captain to his men at the third gate.

There was only silence, and I saw more guards arriving at the gate.

''WE ARE DISCOVERED, ATTACK, FOR THE KING FOR THE FATHERLAND'' I shouted at the top of my lungs.

Quickly, I pulled out my crossbow and shot the captain between his eyebrows.

"TAKE THE GATES, SEND THE SIGNAL TO OUR MEN.

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Olenna Tyrell POV 30 minutes before the story.

this day had been intense, my daughter-in-law was actually in labor and I had been accompanying her through the whole process and according to the maester my idiot son had sent me a letter, probably to ask for advice again on how to proceed with the politics, but that can wait the priority was my grandson or granddaughter who was about to be born.

We felt a knock at the door and a servant girl came in.

''Lady Olenna, Lord Roxton has arrived, bringing prisoners from the Stormlands,'' said the maid, looking at the floor.

''Lord Roxton? What is he doing here, he should be with my son at the siege'' I said very doubtfully

''he says your son has sent with a secret mission to bring back safely the most important prisoners due to the harassment of the rebel forces, they are having trouble getting the ravens to arrive''

''mhhh I see, let him pass, I don't want to insult lord roxton'' I said to the maid and turned my attention to my daughter-in-law.

After 10 minutes something crossed my mind, my son planned this alone?, he is not that bright to do this alone, quickly with all the speed my old body allows me, I left the room to see the letter I had received from Mace this morning.

Arriving at the lord's hall, I broke the seal and read the letter.

(mother I am writing to inform you that all is well here, if we are lucky, the siege will be over soon and our participation in the war cannot be questioned).

I felt the cold sweat run down my back, that means lord roxton is lying, or maybe it's not even him.

''GUARDS, GUARDS!'', I shouted as loud as I could.

the guards rushed in

''Lady Olenna, what's going on?'' said the guard.

''don't let those soldiers in, don't let them pass, quickly go and warn the guards'', they quickly left, and I walked to see what was happening through the window.

I could see that a group of men who managed to almost pass the last gate carrying banners of various noble houses The reach, when more guards began to arrive at the walls of our last line of defense began a carnage.

The soldiers of this lord Roxton were slaughtering the guards that were in the outer defense circles in less than 20 minutes, they had already secured the 2 walls they had already managed to pass, and I watched in astonishment as a huge host approached.

Someone calls the maester to send ravens to all our bannermen we will need their help'' I said in a calm voice.

Not all is lost, we have a wall, we can hold out, there is food in the barns and there are at least 2000 guards on the last wall we can hold out for 2 or 3 weeks without any problems.

In the next 10 minutes the invading soldiers took positions on the second wall starting a battle of projectiles against our archers, when I heard the fluttering of the ravens, I looked for them to see if they would reach their destination, but they were shot down by a rain of crossbow bolts.

In the next 30 minutes the invading soldiers knocked down part of the garden of the first wall and built catapults, and they were already shooting against the walls and I could see from my position that they were assembling trebuchets, and they were almost finished.

But what's going on, those weapons take days to build.

30 minutes later, they were firing against the walls.

After 2 hours of constant bombardment by the dozens of trebuchets that they had placed, the walls collapsed.

The soldiers advanced and began to clear the debris from the wall so that they could charge more easily.

Their crossbowmen and catapults kept our men from even preventing them from removing the debris from the wall.

30 minutes later it was all over and our men surrendered and began their assault on the keep.

I went with my daughter-in-law, taking my grandchildren to wait for them to imprison us, the only good news was that my daughter-in-law had given birth to a daughter.

After waiting for several minutes we heard screams from the servants sign that our captors were approaching

the door slowly opened when I noticed a man with the heraldry of the Roxton household.

''Lord Roxton since when did you change your face'' I said looking at the man with cold eyes.

''hahahahaha right, right I am not Lord Roxton, I introduce myself I am Friedrich von Roon faithful servant of the king in Prussia'' he said with a condescending tone

''King in Prussia? And when will I have the honor of meeting him?'', I said, returning the same condescending tone.

''as soon as we remove all resistance from this castle and the magnanimous presence of my king is safe, until then, have a wonderful day''he said in a very cheerful tone

he said this and left the room

how did this happen, our castle fell in hours because of his trap, why did I think mace would plan something so brilliant all by himself?