The second battle of Ashford

Randyll Tartly ''It was not at Ashford that the Prussians defeated us, it was several days before when their scouts were attacking us day and night without rest, the battle was only a formality.''

Friedrich Wilhelm POV Highgarden 6 days after the Battle of Highgarden

finally, there is no force or opposition that can exert a resistance to our conquests in The reach the fall of Oldtown, Arbor and all adjacent castles was accomplished in a swift manner, with the Hihgtower ships we managed to enter Arbor and take the fortresses although with much resistance.

2 days ago that finally there is nothing more to conquer, except the shield islands because they are quite fortified and there is a large presence of fleets of various houses and I will not fight at sea where my men have no experience in naval combat, we barely managed to take Arbor and the shield islands would be a maneuver too risky even for me.

Currently, I am been doing what I hate the most seeing the casualty reports was something I have always put off until I had no choice but to review them in the whole campaign in The Reach I have lost almost 6400 men in combat and 2800 by wounds and diseases, a quite acceptable cost, the battles where we suffered the most were in Highgarden and Arbor almost 50% of the casualties were produced in those battles.

Thinking about other things, finally my men could rest more than 1 day in a row, I had demanded too much, but there was no other option to take The Reach in less than 20 days is something that nobody could replicate, it was only achieved because my men managed to march almost 13 hours a day and our horses rode without rest practically all the invasion.

A banquet had been prepared in Highgarden so that my officers could relax a little as I also issued a decree to give a golden dragon to all my soldiers as well as sending them supplies so they could celebrate too, since the war is not over yet the Tyrells can fight and tomorrow we will leave to the north to intercept them, the Finns have already been ordered to attack the Tyrell camp as well as their patrols.

I walked to the great Highgarden hall surrounded by my back guards where my nobles and officers would be waiting for me as well as some of the captured nobles, when we finally arrived I took a seat in the lord's chair and the festivities began.

''Prussians it is my pleasure to inform you that we have taken control of The reach, we have the warehouses full of food and the chests full of gold, jewels and silk, when we arrived to this kingdom we were uncertain if we would win, but here we are victorious, I asked the impossible, and you achieved it, as your king I am proud that such brave and honorable men are under my command and without bothering you more, please eat and drink, this banquet is for you the conquerors of The reach, GOTT MIT UNS''.

GOTT MIT UNS said all my men.

The great banquet unfolded as expected many told their battle experiences, they ate and drank wine to exhaustion, one thing I could notice was the difference between my men and the reach nobles, by a strict dress code imposed by my grandfather no one could wear anything other than black and white to a banquet demonstrating the influence the Teutonic order had with my grandfather and father because he never revoked it, in contrast the Tyrell nobles and bannermen wore colorful clothes and did not participate much in the celebration, I don't blame them who would celebrate getting their asses kicked.

An elderly woman slowly approached me without even stopping with my guards.

''I greet you King in Prussia I am Olenna Tyrell mother of the lord of this castle'' said Lady Olenna

''I hope my men have treated you according to your position, Lady Olenna'' I said looking her in the eyes.

When I reviewed the Tyrell correspondence I confirmed the rumor most heard in The Reach that the true ruler of Highgarden is not Mace Tyrell it is Olenna who pulls the strings for her son, Mace only does what his mother tells him.

''lord hohenzoller, i have waited long enough to speak with you since your ''lord Roxton'' took my home''' he said in a sarcastic tone

''hehe and why did you need an audience with me lady Olenna?'' i said laughing

''what will become of our house when the war is over'', Olenna said with a questioning tone

''it all depends on the future King Robert, I have a contract that makes me lord and master of any castle I capture, although everything can change'', I said with a calm voice.

Especially now that it is becoming known what happened with Lothar, although now he was no longer committing the acts of extortion, the damage was done, the faith of the seven has a lot of influence in the seven kingdoms, and it is possible that they will influence the decision-making of the future King Robert or Lord Arryn.

''oh well that would be a shame for the Tyrells, but well, my real question, are my daughters well?'', olenna asked with interest

''they are well, no one has suffered mistreatment in my custody'' I said seriously

''I thank you for the information, Lord Hohenzollern'' she bowed and withdrew again with her family.

mhhh it is clear that she was analyzing my personality, I hate politics, but I know it is necessary, if I don't understand it we will only suffer, I only hope my men get drunk soon, so I can retire from this banquet

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Randyll Tartly POV

''my lords there are no more supply wagons at least several days away''said one of the scouts I had sent out to scout because supplies stopped arriving at the encampment

the siege of storm's end had already lasted almost 3 moons and did not seem to be ending soon because of Stannis Baratheon's stiff resistance and to top it off our supply line has been cut.

The cries of several lords soon took over the air in this tent and to put the final nail in our coffin Mace Tyrell is acting more erratic than ever and can't tell what to do

''We should try to get supplies from the local camps'' said Lord Footly

''we could if we hadn't looted them when we arrived'' said Leyton Hightower.

The conversation was getting us nowhere, besides we didn't have many reserves, Lord Mace wanted to hold banquets every day, almost everywhere around our camp was looted, the only option is to go back the way we came eating our pride for failing to take a castle protected by only 1000 men with an army of over 100000.

''Lord Mace we must return to The reach staying here will only mean we will run out of supplies and hunger will do the rest'' I said looking at Leyton Hightower hoping he would support me

''I agree with Lord Tarly, son-in-law we must know what has happened, since we left our home it has been a long time since news of the rebel armies arrived, maybe something happened in our absence''.

Mace's tension was almost palpable, he was sweating like a pig, until after 2 minutes he deigned to say something.

''I think .... think..that if..if we should go back is the best option'' he said almost hesitantly

''for the moment we should send hunting parties to the nearby forests to get some meat for the return, we should be fine with what we have until we reach our borders and get supplies from the nearby villages''I said in a serious tone

''Yes...yes we will do that, I conclude this meeting, start with the preparations for our return'' said Lord Mace.

After our meeting, we broke camp and set out to return home.

But our return was far from peaceful when we had been marching for almost 8 hours, the hunting parties we sent into the woods never returned, for quite some time we thought they deserted until after continuing a little further down the road we saw several heads on pikes with the heraldry of our houses.

Quickly, I headed off to warn my lord.

''Lord Mace, our hunting parties were ambushed'' I said to the fat lord.

''what?...how?''' he said in disbelief

''I don't know, but their heads are stuck on pikes up ahead, possibly also the reason why our supply lines were cut off.''

''And what do we do?'' he said questioningly

''we must send men to clear the forests so that these attacks do not happen again'' said Lord Leyton trying to cover Lord Mace.

''I agree, who is leading this group?'', I said, asking.

''I offer myself my lords'' said Lord Roxton

''all right Lord Roxton I entrust you to clear the woods, as for us, we should rest for the day'' said Lord Mace.

We pitched our tents and rested. Hopefully, by tomorrow, Lord Roxton will have the heads of the bandits that have been tormenting us.

But it didn't go as planned, Lord roxton had gone out with 1000 men to clear the woods and only 400 came back and no Lord roxton in sight, I quickly went to ask the survivors what happened

I asked the captain of the survivors, ''what happened?''

''it was the green demons, they ambushed us, they killed lord Roxton in the beginning'' he said with a lot of fear.

''calm down and explain to me what happened'' I said in a stern tone

''we went to the forest to watch for bandits, at first, we found nothing, but after going a little deeper we heard words I had never heard before and then the bushes began to walk and shoot arrows at us, when we tried to defend ourselves, attacking them the path was full of traps, Lord Roxton died from a stake in his throat from a trap they had set, only when the green demons ran out of arrows we could escape, but many did not make it''.said the soldier

''wait, the bushes got up? I said incredulously,

''yes my lord, the bushes had legs and spoke words we had never heard before''.

''well rest I will report to our lord about what happened'' I said in a serious manner

there was a meeting on this subject of bushes with legs, they were surely bandits using camouflage, but the idea of demonized bushes had scared Lord Tyrell enough, and he decided to send more men to hunt, but in bigger groups

during the next 8 days we received constant attacks by these bandits, they attacked any weakness that our marching column presented, they were relentless, the only reason why our men did not desert is because those who deserted became prey for the bandits nobody had been able to get out of their trap so far.

2 days later in the middle of the night there was a big bandit attack, a large group of about 600 had entered our camp at night and burned almost half of our supplies, we killed several during that night, but we did not capture any of them alive.

This can't be happening because of bandits, it must be something else, the bandits would not be attacking our supplies with such determination, this is the work of an enemy commander, but who? The last news we had from Robert and his rebels is that they were in the riverlands, no army was near us, so what is happening?

We had no idea who we were fighting, we were blind, Lord Leyton advised Mace to start with forced marches because with this last attack we were at risk of not reaching the reach before we ran out of food.

When we finally arrived at our plains after 2 days the attacks were over, we were exhausted and hungry, I had never seen Lord Mace so angry, when he was hungry, he was someone else.

When we were approaching ashford where I had defeated Robert I saw the perpetrators of the attacks on our army, there was a large host of soldiers with an unknown heraldry, it's perfect battle formation, they were waiting for us and weakened us all the way back, i returned to report

''Lord mace, there is an army up ahead'' I said in a serious tone

''what? It can't be, this means .....'' he said with a face full of fear.

''how many are they'', asked Leyton Hightower ''between 50000 and 60000 they are many, but not more than us'' I said looking at the floor

We must fight, we have no choice'' said Lord Fassoway.

Lord Mace had many doubts, but finally, he decided ''prepare the men, we must fight here, I will get my second victory over the rebels'' said Lord Mace.

You damned bastard, taking my merits as his own.

After 15 minutes we formed up our men, we had more men and horses than them, I was charged with taking the right flank of our army where most of the men-at-arms of the noble houses were, Lord Leyton commanded the center, Lord Fassoway commanded the left flank and Lord Mace would command the cavalry on the left flank.

The first thing that struck me about the enemy army was that their left flank was far behind the center and the right flank was far ahead.

When they gave the order to advance I could see the weapons they were using, pikes just like ours; however, all their men were using them; they varied in size the deeper in their formation the longer they were, their infantry was using full plate armor, a model I had never seen before, and they were uniform everywhere, this army was armed to the teeth with steel.

The fighting had already started on the left flank and in the center, but we still had no contact with their forces and were under a constant rain of enemy bolts, our archers tried to attack, but most of the arrows were deflected by their pikes or by their armor.

I had lost sight of Mace's cavalry, it seems that they collided with the enemy cavalry and forced them to retreat, if so maybe we can win if we overtake them on the flanks the battle is still winnable.

When we finally made contact with the enemy the combat began and our men did not do very well, their pikes were longer which gave them ease to contain us, also some of their men carried giant swords that they used to cut our pikes, but they had no interest in taking the initiative.

After 1 hour of hard combat, there was still no winner in our flank, they just kept their formation, until a very loud musical note sounded, the enemies began to push, many of their men threw their pikes and crawled to our ranks with daggers and maces dodging our pikes in a few minutes they broke our formation and the men who entered our formation were devastating our men, the swords bounced against their armor and their maces were breaking bones indiscriminately.

I went into combat and tested the hardness of their armor even with my valyrian sword I had trouble cutting through that armor, when I tried to cut the neck of one of the soldiers it stuck in the soldier, and he tried to grab it and keep it stuck in his body while he attempted to hit me with his mace, finally I managed to cut the artery, and he died, I decided to go for another one.

I was fighting these relentless soldiers for another 30 minutes and couldn't realize that they were pushing us back alarmingly, but even more the rest of the army was separated from us now, then I saw a rider from my house approaching

''Lord Tarly, Lord Tarly,'' the rider shouted.

I approached him''what's going on''I said while attempting to wipe some of the blood that covered me

''Lord Mace fell in an ambush, all the cavalry has been captured or escaping, they had more men hidden, the enemy knights have ravaged the left flank.

I felt a stab when I heard this information, I quickly took a horse and tried to see the battlefield better, I saw how the center was almost surrounded, and the left flank was on the run.

Quickly, I took as many men as I could without collapsing our flank''captain, order your men to fall back we have lost I will attempt to prevent them from surrounding the center'' I said as I moved to attack our enemy

we charged the rear of the soldiers who were attempting to surround Leyton Hightower's forces, our charge was effective, they were unprepared, and we managed to push back for the moment.

''LORD LEYTON WE MUST ESCAPE'' I shouted hoping Leyton would hear me.

After a few seconds, Lord Leyton appeared

''Lord Tarly this is a disaster, what do we do now we are about to be surrounded ''he said in desperation.

''we must retreat as soon as possible, we can no longer continue to resist, their cavalry is occupied by the moment....'' when we heard the dreaded sound of the cavalry riding behind us

finally, we were surrounded, my men failed to escape and were pushed to the center, now we were all trapped in the encirclement of cavalry and infantry.

''Throw down your weapons, the king in Prussia promises to give honorable treatment to whoever surrenders'' shouted the enemy knight.

''we must surrender, they crushed us'' said Leyton sitting on the floor

''they defeated us days ago, the ambushes their attacks on our supplies, all this to defeat us, they were planning this battle days ago, and we fell, we never suspected'' I said angrily.

All the faces of our soldiers were looking at us in the hope that we would surrender, finally I turned to give a reply

''WE ACCEPT YOUR TERMS''

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