Chapter 335

The feast went on till late at night.

At that point, he felt the communication mirror vibrate in his pocket and excused himself from the feast.

He went out and found an empty corridor and put a sound barrier around him before taking the call.

The face Lyra came up in the mirror and he frowned.

"Lyra. Any important news?"

"I have." She nodded "But I've yet to receive the report about the battle. My informants are either dead, drunk or balls deep inside a whore and too busy to call me. So you might as well tell me how the battle went."

"It went well. The plans we had made needed to be adjusted a little bit but otherwise the battle went exactly as we had thought it would, which I'm told is quite rare."

"Not if you have the equivalent of dragons in your forces." Lyra grinned and he rolled his eyes.

"As for the precise numbers." He thought about it for a moment and continued "We lost some 400 of our men. Most of them in the Southern-West battlefield where the fighting was the toughest. But we did kill about 10,000 Lannister men, captured about 3000 of them and routed 2000 of them. We've also taken their armor, weapons and any other supplies that the wildfire didn't burn down. They might in some use in the future."

Lyra nodded.

"What of Edmure Tully? Wasn't he the prisoner of the Lannisters."

"He was. And I saved him before the battle." He said "Now if there's nothing else, tell me about the news that you wanted to give me."

Lyra nodded and spoke "I have two news. One about Stannis and one about the Lannisters."

"Give me the news about the Lannisters first." He said.

"Well. Tywin Lannister found out that Lyra Arryn called the banners. So he has called for more reinforcements." She said "The Lannisters are gathering yet another army outside Casterly Rock. This one is mainly made of boys and men who're too old to fight. But they might be able to interfere with your plans. So it's better that you know about them."

He frowned and nodded "Do you know how many there are?"

"For now? Only about 5000. But that number will swell as they force conscript more and more recruits if you don't destroy them fast enough."

He scratched his cheek and wondered which path he should take.

Destroy this growing army or destroy Tywin Lannister.

He decided to think about it later and looked at Lyra once again.

"Tell me the news about Stannis."

"He has taken Storms End." She replied and he frowned once again.

"Storms End. Wasn't that castle supposed to be impenetrable." He scrunched up his brow "I mean I know that there's no impenetrable castles but taking it must have cost a lot of men. Right?"

"Apparently not." Lyra shook her head "The Castellin of Storms End met an untimely death and the gates were opened for King Stannis after that."

"Untimely death." He frowned "I didn't take King Stannis to be the kind of person who hire assassins."

"Not assassins. At least I don't think so." She said, her voice more serious than before.

"What do you mean?"

"I… Do you remember the Red Priestess who had been counselling King Stannis."

"Yes. What of her?"

"Well… a bit of investigation on her told me that she was originally from Asshai. And… there are rumors about her."

"Rumors?"

"Rumors that she practices blood magic and Shadow binding." She said "I could not confirm these rumors but I'm pretty sure that they're true. Plus. The woman is old. Like, really really old."

He nodded "Would she be a problem?" he asked.

"Probably." Lyra nodded "Because of her, King Stannis has taken to R'hllor as his religion. Rumors about him burning the statues of the Seven have already spread. Even if he manages to take over the Seven Kingdoms, his religion would cause a religious upheaval and well… I don't think that Westeros would survive that. Not intact at least."

He thought about her words for some time.

"If Stannis has taken Storms End then his claim would gain a great deal of legitimacy. Which means that Renly would be forced to fight his brother before he could advance on Kings Landing." He said and then nodded "Let the two brothers fight it out. If this Red Priestess is as powerful as you fear then she might assassinate King Renly with her Shadow Binding as well. Which would be in our favor. But if she fails then Renly would defeat and probably kill Stannis which would be nice as well."

"You're not going to deal with the Red Priestess?" Lyra asked.

"No. Not now." He said "Any other news."

"Oh yes. I almost forgot." Lyra said "Do you remember me telling you about the agent who persuaded Ser Barristan Selmy to serve you?"

"Yes."

"Well. He and Ser Barristan Selmy should be near Riverrun now. If you wait for a day or two then they'll catch up to you."

He nodded "Anything else?"

"Not of import."

"Hmm. I've decided on which army I'm going to attack." He said.

"And which army would that be?" Lyra asked.

"The one outside Casterly Rock." He said "Mostly because I plan to take Casterly Rock and it's riches after that. But also because that would give us time for the Baratheon brothers to fight it out."

"Don't you already have all the gold that you could ever want?" Lyra asked.

"I do." He replied "But most of it is in different currencies. That makes it harder for me to use them in Westeros. Now if there was nothing else…"

"No. That would be all my lord." She said.

"Goodnight then." He replied and cut the connection.