Chapter 453 - The Climax of the War Is Approaching!

Chapter 453: Chapter 453 - The Climax of the War Is Approaching!

[Chapter Size: 3500 Words.]

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Third Person POV

Westeros, 300 AC.

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The army of Addam Marbrand had already stopped, waiting to join the main Lannister forces.

When Kevan heard from the scouts about Addam’s camp ahead, his eyes widened. "What is going on? Why are they here? Our letters reached them, but that wasn’t supposed to be the plan...?" the lion questioned.

Jaime Lannister also joined them. Together, they rode ahead to the camp before the army, temporarily leaving the command to another.

They quickly made their way there, where Addam came to greet them with around nine thousand men spread throughout the area. These were the Lannister soldiers who should have been at Riverrun, since Tywin’s orders had been for them to march through the Golden Tooth and enter the westerlands, not head south.

"Lord Kevan," Addam greeted him with a serious yet eager expression.

Kevan merely stared at him. He already suspected something was wrong. "What is going on? Why are you here?" he asked bluntly.

Jaime noticed that Addam seemed confused by the question.

"What do you mean, Lord Kevan? We received orders from Lord Tywin to head south and meet here. Here we are..."

"When did you receive those orders?" Kevan asked, narrowing his eyes.

"When we were marching toward the Twins. We learned that the Arcticans had attacked, and the Old Fox received a letter asking for help. We were marching with eight thousand men and two thousand Freys. Then we received the letter. I also called for the other two thousand men who were at Riverrun. Even so, we lost many camps. Strangely enough, we found snow at the site... and a large number of dead men." As he finished, his tone became far more cautious.

Kevan frowned. He could ignore the part about the camps covered in snow. But he was absolutely certain Tywin had never sent those orders.

And considering they had been unable to send any reply, the situation became even more troubling. "I need to know exactly what’s going on. Tywin did not send those orders. I’m certain of it. May I see the letter?"

Addam looked at him in surprise, but nodded. He quickly instructed one of his men to retrieve the parchment from his tent.

When the letter was brought over, Kevan carefully examined the royal seal. His eyes widened. It was perfect... A flawless copy.

If he hadn’t known the truth, he too would have believed the letter had been written by Tywin. At the same time, another concern took hold of his mind.

If the enemy could copy handwriting and seals this perfectly... then they could also manipulate any of them with false information.

That immediately put Kevan on high alert. "Is something wrong, Lord Kevan?" Addam asked worriedly. Even Jaime was beginning to look uneasy.

"You were deceived," Kevan replied. "From what you just told me, that letter was sent long before our orders. Which means the enemy king had already planned everything."

Kevan raised the parchment. "This letter was written by Jon Arctic himself." The statement stunned Addam, who stared at him in disbelief.

"Is... is that possible?"

"He wanted you here for some reason," Kevan replied with a grim expression.

"The Twins... Clearly, he wanted to lure me away from there," Addam said, contributing with a worried look.

There were at least two thousand Frey men marching toward the fortress.

Had they also fallen into a trap? But based on the information left behind by the Arcticans, they should have already abandoned Seagard.

"This is bad, Uncle," Jaime commented.

He knew those people were not easy to deal with. He had already been kidnapped once, lost a duel to a woman, and then lost his arm to another Arctican man. He wanted revenge, and he certainly did not like the idea that those men were capable of manipulating them like this. Even so, his desire to face them remained unwavering.

Especially the man who had severed his arm. Though deep down, he knew he was no longer even comparable to the swordsman he had once been.

Even after nearly two years of training, he had never fully adapted to fighting with his left hand.

The men around them exchanged uneasy glances. Kevan was deeply concerned.

He was essentially entering territory where the enemy had complete control of the situation.

They could manipulate information however they wished. They could even copy the royal seal.

The forgery was so perfect that even Kevan had to examine it with extreme care to notice the subtle differences in Tywin’s handwriting.

"Should we return to King’s Landing?" one of the western lords asked.

Kevan remained silent for a few moments. That was exactly what he had been thinking. There was no way to send messages to King’s Landing.

Even if he tried, he already knew they would never arrive. Now that he had stepped into the enemy’s game, he understood that his ravens would never be delivered.

They had tried countless times. Not a single message had reached its destination. Not even the letters Tywin had sent to Addam had reached the army in the riverlands...

"No. We’ll keep going." He knew the enemy king possessed only a fraction of the main army, not all of his forces, and they had to be weakened somehow by the fighting against the ironborn.

They were powerful, there was no doubt about that, but retreating from Addam could be a good sign that they were avoiding unnecessary conflicts, and they still had to protect the Westerlands.

The strategic reasons for attacking the force in the west were still valid. Even so, he had the unmistakable feeling that he was stepping onto a battlefield where the enemy was a true master of manipulation.

"We’ll continue marching," Kevan decided at last...

The men exchanged glances but nodded. Orders were orders. They quickly resumed the march, now reinforced by Addam’s ten thousand men, who joined them after breaking camp.

With that, the army reached roughly forty thousand soldiers. By Kevan’s estimates, the enemy king should have no more than twenty thousand men.

Half their numbers... That gave them a considerable numerical advantage. It also raised the army’s morale somewhat, which had already been shaken by the prospect of facing Arctic after everything they had heard.

"Tell me more. What happened in the riverlands?" Kevan asked, and Addam began recounting everything he knew.

Besides the camps destroyed by snow and covered with the bodies of Westerlands soldiers, there was another rumor.

"They say the Twins no longer exist. The two towers of the Crossing were completely destroyed by the Arcticans." The news left many of the men uneasy.

"They used those explosions again..." Jaime remarked in a serious tone.

As much as he hated to admit it, everything pointed to the rumors being true.

"We’ll keep marching. We have no other choice. Returning to King’s Landing now will only leave our lands even more vulnerable, and everyone here wants to fight for their homeland..." Kevan said.

At Highgarden, Willas was worried. Very worried.

He had remained at Highgarden without receiving any information from King’s Landing for weeks.

"Nothing from them?" the heir, Willas, asked. No news from his family or the war... Only reports about the ironborn still lingering along his coast...

"I’m sorry, my lord. We don’t know exactly what happened, but this has happened before..." The maester merely shook his head and mentioned that incident... That person who had managed to delay the information that Arctic had attacked the Citadel...

The news and secrets concerning the Order of Maesters and the Citadel had also shaken Highgarden. Even so, the maester remained free and continued serving House Tyrell, despite admitting that he was loyal to the Order as well as to House Tyrell, having never done anything beyond passing information from his house to the Citadel.

That was a problem for his grandmother to resolve, and Willas did not have the courage to imprison him. The Citadel had also sent several maesters to speak directly with Lady Olenna in King’s Landing about all those letters, but no one knew what had happened during the meeting since communication had been cut off...

Naturally, nearly two moons had passed since the Arcticans had sent the letters, and the Citadel was desperately trying to contain the damage. Willas had heard about many maesters being thrown into dungeons.

Willas simply did not have the mental energy to deal with any of that. His sister was supposed to marry Prince Joffrey soon. However, the arrival of the Arcticans had also placed the Reach in an extremely delicate position.

Willas had never truly believed they could defeat those men from the North. Not after everything he had heard, not after everything he had witnessed at Winterfell.

He believed it was still possible to build a good relationship with them. They should not be on bad terms with Arctic.

After all, they had paid off the Reach’s entire debt to Arctic, providing the money to compensate for everything taken from the Arcticans during the horse purchases after all the chaos that had occurred at the Citadel years earlier.

At the very least, Willas hoped all of that still held some value in their eyes... From the very beginning, he had the impression they would never be able to stand against them.

But his father and his grandmother had seen an opportunity. They had gathered an enormous army, believing that all of Westeros would march beside them with Margaery as queen...

Despite commanding a gigantic army and having some confidence in victory, Willas never shared that belief.

There were too many variables in that game. The first was the lack of information. No one truly knew the real size of Arctic’s army. The forty thousand men seen years ago could represent only a fraction of his forces.

Many lords did not even believe that number, considering it an invention created to glorify the men beyond the Wall by claiming they possessed an army as large as that of an ordinary kingdom within the Seven Kingdoms.

But even that number astonished Willas. Five thousand giants alone were capable of causing unimaginable destruction. If that number was real...

If it was true, then they were capable of standing against hundreds of thousands of soldiers. On top of that, many underestimated the Dothraki, treating them as nothing more than a band of disorganized savages simply because they had been defeated by Arctic.

One hundred thousand men were still one hundred thousand men.

Especially when they were horsemen who mastered their mounts like no one else. The Dothraki were known throughout the world for their unmatched horsemanship. It was said they could even fire arrows while riding at full speed...

And yet, they had been defeated... The Dothraki had even fought against the greatest khalasars.

A volley of five thousand giant spears thrown from five hundred... or even eight hundred meters away, as some reports claimed, was terrifyingly dangerous.

An army would lose thousands of soldiers before it could even get close to the enemy.

Not to mention that the giants also fought in full armor. Those giants alone should be worth the equivalent of at least forty thousand men...

And there was another detail everyone seemed to forget. They also possessed devastating alchemical weapons.

Furthermore, their range was absurd. Arctic’s war machines could strike an enemy army from distances no other kingdom could even dream of reaching.

Arctic’s forces were divided, obviously, but they should not be underestimated, and the Reach, which was still fighting the ironborn, could also become one of Arctic’s targets, since the Tyrells had sided with the Lannisters.

On top of all that, there was still a dragon in the North.

"I hope we made the right decision," Willas murmured to himself.

At that moment, his uncle approached to report on the situation at Highgarden.

Before all this chaos had begun, there had been a few subtle hints from Varys suggesting that perhaps they should wait a little longer before allying themselves with the Lannisters.

But his grandmother had ignored all of it. They simply did not have enough information. And she would not pass up the chance to finally make Margaery queen.

In the riverlands, Edmure remained in command of the force, which was growing rapidly.

A large number of cavalrymen arrived from the south, along with the Brotherhood Without Banners, joining the cavalry force that was being assembled to fight bandits and hunt down the remnants of the enemy troops.

Ever since they learned that the two thousand Freys had been defeated outside Seagard, everyone’s confidence had grown.

The groups began advancing south, entering Blackwood lands, destroying bandit camps and small Lannister-Frey detachments.

The Freys still had a large number of soldiers, but they lived in constant unease.

There was no longer any communication, and scouts kept disappearing without giving them any chance to properly investigate, after all, Riverrun still had to be conquered.

After the Lannisters left the main force maintaining the siege, they had only about six thousand men remaining...

Brynden Tully also could not understand what was happening outside Riverrun’s walls.

Tytos Blackwood was surprised when a man approached the castle.

As soon as his guard announced the visitor, he immediately remembered the letter he had received from King Arctic some time earlier.

Jon himself, aware of House Blackwood’s connection to the Old Gods, had expressed an interest in speaking with them.

In the letter, he had requested his loyalty. Tytos did not hesitate for a moment before deciding that House Blackwood would support Arctic.

So when the guard arrived exactly as the letter had described, wearing no shining armor and looking like nothing more than an ordinary man, although his build and bearing clearly marked him as a warrior, Tytos received him.

He was surprised to learn that they already had around four hundred cavalrymen, moving from camp to camp to eliminate bandits and capture enemy soldiers.

It was exactly the spark of rebellion they needed.

The Freys had betrayed the riverlands. The Twins no longer existed. All that remained was a group of men camped outside Riverrun.

This was the call to rebellion. Tytos accepted the proposal immediately. He placed another thousand Blackwood men at the disposal of that force, with his son leading the new contingent.

Other houses soon began doing the same. It did not take long before they had assembled an army of around four thousand men without the Freys having any idea what was happening...

The Freys, who had continued their lazy routine of maintaining the siege outside Riverrun while nothing happened, were caught completely by surprise that night.

After marching all day and already exhausted, a cavalry force of around one thousand men charged at them, carrying the banners of several different houses.

The Freys barely had time to react. Even Brynden immediately climbed to the top of the walls in shock as he watched the Lannister camp being completely ravaged by the newcomers, who destroyed everything in their path.

There was no way to wipe out all of the Freys, but the attackers still managed to leave hundreds dead before withdrawing to rejoin the main force.

The Freys were utterly terrified.

There had been around six thousand men in the camp, but nearly a thousand had died in that single night.

Scouts were quickly dispatched to track down those responsible, while the army reorganized itself in anticipation of another attack.

But none came that night. Instead, every scout disappeared.

The next attack came the following night. This time, the Lannisters remained on alert, with archers positioned throughout the camp.

Even so, a rain of flaming arrows fell upon them, spreading fire everywhere and killing at least three hundred men before the attackers once again vanished into the north.

Brynden already knew that the Blackwoods were behind it, along with several other houses. This was the resistance, and an Arctican soldier was leading all of those men and their lords.

And he was not the only one. There was also a warg among Jin Sakai’s men who constantly discovered weaknesses and openings.

A little more than four thousand men remained, and they would continue to be harassed over the following days, always by small groups that struck quickly and disappeared before they could be pursued.

At sea, the Arctican fleet did not sail directly south. They first stopped at Gulltown.

With all those ships anchored off the coast, Lord Grafton immediately fell to his knees, begging for his life as he saw the entire horizon covered by ships.

The message was clear. Once they had finished dealing with the Lannister-Tyrell coalition army, they would return.

And Lord Grafton, along with the entire population of Gulltown, would serve as witnesses that Arctic was unstoppable.

The fleet then left the Vale and sailed south. Their next objective was Driftmark.

Ever since Jon had discovered Aurane Waters’ contact with White Harbor.

Another island targeted by the fleet was, of course, Dragonstone. That island had become a strategic stronghold for the royal family and needed to be captured.

They needed to secure it immediately before the dragons from the North arrived. The war was about to enter its second phase.

The end of the first campaign was rapidly approaching, making way for the conflict in the west and, soon after, the war for King’s Landing.

Jon would not take part in the main battle for King’s Landing. He needed to continue leading his men in the west.

But he trusted Ducken, Thor, and the other commanders to lead Arctic’s main force.

Likewise, he also trusted the men fighting in Essos at that very moment. As well as those in the North.

The Velaryons quickly received them, while a letter had already been sent ordering that no ship was to leave Driftmark.

At the same time, there was no member of the royal family on the island, only a man responsible for administering it on behalf of the Lannisters. And on that day, they realized the danger when the Arctican fleet of more than one thousand ships appeared.

Some ships attempted to leave the harbor, but on the seas controlled by Jon, every one of them was intercepted by one kraken in particular, Serume.

Whether fishing boats or Lannister vessels, all were either sunk or captured. The survivors, utterly terrified, were forced to turn back.

In any case, Daemon landed on the island alongside the other commanders as preparations for the true war began.

With those fifteen hundred ships, they were about to land in the Crownlands.

It would come as an enormous surprise to all of their enemies. They commanded around eighty thousand men.

Arcticans of every kind—men, dwarves, and giants. All equipped with full armor.

In addition to wildfire, they also brought every kind of siege engine, both the traditional ones and those developed in Arctic, which were far more technologically advanced.

As soon as he entered the main hall of Dragonstone, standing before a great map of Westeros, Ducken began laying out his strategy for the war.

At the same time, he could not help but think that the enemy would never stand a chance against them.

Meanwhile, in King’s Landing... Margaery hurriedly prepared for her wedding to Joffrey, completely unaware that the enemy was already so close.

The Tyrells, in a way, were also growing desperate. Olenna did not like the direction events were taking.

Ever since Pycelle had been killed in one of the Hand of the King’s fits of rage, it had become obvious that the old lion was desperate.

That was exactly what Jon Arctic wanted. To make Tywin act that way.

The lion was exposing his weaknesses before his own allies, weakening the confidence that the Tyrells and the other houses still had in him.

Jon Arctic seemed to have controlled every one of Tywin’s moves from the very beginning. First, he sent the letter that caused the old man to imprison Pycelle. Then he drove him into acting impulsively.

However, the destruction of Casterly Rock remained known only to Tywin and his children. Not even the guards who had brought Pycelle knew the real reason.

Maester Hollis’s head was immediately burned to prevent the news from spreading. But everyone knew that Tywin had received a letter from Arctic, one that had contained something that drove him to act like this...

That a single letter had left him completely desperate. The Tyrells, especially Olenna, wanted to discover the contents of that message.

But they could not. In any case, the wedding could no longer be postponed.

The preparations had to continue. Of course, Olenna also had plans of her own.

She was already speaking with Baelish to put them into motion.

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