Chapter 229 - 229: The Mad Commander

Thousands of boots pressed into the parched earth, kicking up a thick, choking cloud of yellow dust that hung low over the column.

Solomon pulled hard on his reins, shifting his horse to the side of the track to watch the long, winding line of the march.

Before departing the gates of Deddington, he had detached Lady Rona's four hundred raw recruits, leaving them behind to bolster the garrison of the castle. For his own advance, he brought only his nine hundred seasoned infantrymen from Willowdale, integrating them into this so-called coalition host.

Combined with the lances and levies of House Bracken and House Lychester, the army numbered some two thousand shields, tasked with the singular directive of locating and eliminating the wandering ironborn raiders.

Yet, as the days stretched on, it became clear that this host was not engaged in a military pursuit, it was merely wandering aimlessly through the river valleys.

A sharp, brittle voice cut through the heavy monotony of the afternoon. "To me! Turn the vanguard down the western path! Move quickly, you lazy hounds!"

Solomon looked toward the high ground. Lord Lymond Lychester, the man holding the highest rank in the host and the nominal commander of the expedition, stood atop a grassy knoll. The old lord was waving his gauntleted arms frantically, gesturing as if driving away a swarm of invisible flies.

It was the third time the column had been ordered to shift its direction before midday. A wave of frustrated murmuring swept through the ranks. Solomon's common pikemen looked toward their sergeants with blank confusion, the sergeants looked to the officers for guidance, and the officers ultimately turned their eyes to Solomon.

Solomon's brow furrowed. He understood the deep-seated desire of the river lords to preserve their own strength, indeed, his own strategy was built on that very principle. But the old man's performance was growing entirely too transparent.

One hour they were marching east because the lord claimed to have a premonition that the ironborn were landing on the banks. The next hour they were counter-marching because he believed they had already missed the tracks. Now, he was ordering two thousand men down a narrow goat trail that led into an uncharted thicket.

If we are to spend our days doing nothing, Solomon thought, we must at least maintain the appearance of a military campaign. A farce this obvious will leave a stain on our ledger when the high seats look for accounts.

Determined to address the matter, Solomon prepared to spur his mount toward the knoll to demand a coherent plan from the commander.

Before his boots could touch the flanks of his horse, a leather-gloved hand reached across the space and gently caught his reins.

Solomon turned his head, finding the sharp, calculating features of Ser Hendry Bracken. He was a nephew to Lord Jonos Bracken, chosen to lead the family's detachment for this march.

Hendry kept his voice low, his eyes scanning the nearby guards. "A moment, Lord Solomon. Let the old man have his path."

Solomon met his gaze, his expression a silent demand for an explanation.

Hendry offered a soft, humorless sigh. He lifted his hand, tapping his own temple with a single finger before pointing toward the high ground where Lord Lymond was still shouting at the wind. He made a slow, rolling gesture with his wrist.

The mind has turned, the gesture said.

Solomon froze, his dark eyes narrowing. "Is this a performance, or true rot?"

Hendry closed the distance between their horses, his voice dropping to a whisper that barely cleared the sound of creaking leather. "During the rebellion against the Mad King, Lychester's sons split their vows. Some followed the silver dragon to the Trident, while the others rode beneath Robert's crowned stag."

A genuine touch of pity softened the Bracken knight's sharp features.

"When the smoke cleared, not a single one returned to the hall."

"The line ends with him. There is no heir."

Solomon felt a cold chill that had nothing to do with the wind. The old man was a ghost ruling over a graveyard of his own name.

Hendry watched Solomon's silence, his nod full of cynical resignation. "The crown remains on his head, but the kingdom inside is gone. His mind left him when the ravens stopped coming."

A gust of wind swept down the path, rustling the dry leaves across the mud. Solomon stared at the knight, his eyes conveying the grim absurdity of their situation. Two thousand spears were currently tracking through the heart of a war zone under the explicit direction of a lunatic.

Hendry simply shrugged, a bitter, thin smile touching his lips.

Under the old lord's conflicting shouts, the vanguard ground to a halt once more. The common levies dropped their heavy shields into the dirt, sitting down in small clusters along the roadside to wait for the next nonsensical command.

Solomon and Hendry rode clear of the main body, stepping their horses along the flank of the resting column. As they moved, Hendry's gaze drifted repeatedly toward the Willowdale men.

He noted that Solomon's soldiers did not scatter across the fields like his own Bracken levies, who were currently hunting for shade beneath the hedgerows. The Willowdale men remained organized in their ten-man squads, sitting in tight, defensive circles with their weapons laid flat within arm's reach.

There was no shouting, no gambling with bone dice. They moved with a quiet, synchronized discipline, sharing their hard bread and water skins without a word. They looked less like a feudal levy and more like a single machine, completely detached from the chaotic host around them.

Unable to contain his curiosity, Hendry finally spoke. "Lord Solomon."

"Those men at the rear, they carry no noble crests on their leather."

"How is it that common smallfolk move with the bearing of household knights? I have never seen river levies maintain a line while the baggage wagons are stopped."

By all reports, the master of Willowdale was a man of modest means. He should not have possessed the gold required to maintain a permanent standing army of that scale.

Solomon gave him a cool, brief glance, his voice level and entirely devoid of pride. "The method is simple."

"I offer them a road."

"A road?" Hendry asked, his brow furrowing.

"If you provide a common man with a legal path to secure things his father never dreamed of touching, whether it be gold, land, or a sergeant's coat, he will guard that path with his life. His discipline is not for my name, it is for his own ledger."

Hendry opened his mouth to reply, a look of profound surprise crossing his face. The concept of offering common smallfolk a structured path to wealth was entirely foreign to the ancient customs of the Riverlands, where a peasant was expected to die for his lord's banner out of simple duty.

He seemed about to argue, but ultimately shook his head with a dry, skeptical chuckle.

The conversation was cut short by the approach of hooves. Lord Lymond Lychester rode down from the knoll, the wild, frantic light in his eyes having receded for the moment, leaving behind a cold, fragile clarity.

He pulled his horse alongside the two young commanders, his voice sounding remarkably steady. "Lord Solomon, Ser Hendry."

"We have reached the middle forks. What say your scouts regarding our next line of advance?"

The sudden shift to sanity caught both men unprepared. For days, the old man had done nothing but mutter to his dead sons and ignore every captain who attempted to speak with him.

Hendry recovered first, pointing toward a silver thread in the distance where the river cut through the valley. "We should follow the Greenfork, my Lord. If the sea-rats have moved inland, they will require the deep water to move their plunder."

Solomon nodded his agreement. It was the standard textbook choice, the safest and most logical path for a defensive host.

But then, Solomon looked at the old lord's clear eyes, an opportunistic thought taking shape in his mind. "Lord Lychester, the scouts claim your ancestral keep fell to the ironborn vanguard during the first week of the invasion."

"We have two thousand lances under our banners. Why do we not march north and take it back from the squids?"

The question fell between them like a heavy iron gauntlet. A spasm of sharp, agonizing pain crossed Lymond's weathered face, though he forced his features back into a rigid mask before Hendry could speak.

He shook his head, his voice entirely rational. "My hall is small, but the stone is thick. It sits on a rise that commands the western ditch."

"If there are three hundred ironborn behind those parapets, our two thousand levies would break themselves against the gates before the wood gave way. The cost in blood would be too high for a single keep."

"We shall wait for the King's host to march from the south. When the royal banners arrive next month, there will be steel enough for every wall."

The old man's tactical reasoning was flawless, his grasp of defensive warfare perfectly intact when the cloud left his mind. Solomon watched him with an internal sense of surprise. If he hadn't known the lord was truly mad, he would have suspected the old man had mastered the art of preserving his own strength at the expense of the realm.

But the effort of thought seemed to drain the old man's remaining reserves. The clarity vanished from his eyes, replaced by a hollow, vacant stare. He turned his horse without another word, his lips moving as he resumed his silent argument with the air, disappearing back toward the vanguard.

Hendry Bracken watched him go, a thin, knowing smile returning to his sharp features as he turned to Solomon to reveal the true nature of the campaign.

"A fine speech," Hendry murmured, unhooking a leather water skin from his saddle pommel. "But the reality has nothing to do with the King's peace, Lord Solomon."

"Lord Norbert Vance has no desire to see our lances broken against the Lychester stone. His explicit orders from Riverrun are to hunt the raiders in the open, not to spend our infantry against a secondary keep while the main fleet sits at Seagard."

"An assault on a castle is a bloody, thankless business. If we win, Lychester gets his hall back and we get a hundred dead cousins. If we lose, our names are ruined before the Lord Paramount."

"And Lychester's remaining household men lack the strength to even knock on their own front door."

The Bracken knight uncorked his skin, taking a long, deep swallow of sour red wine before fixing his eyes on Solomon like a fox watching a coop.

"Tell me, Lord Solomon. Would you truly offer the blood of your pristine Willowdale squads to win back another man's hearth?"

Solomon returned his gaze, his expression completely blank as he looked from the knight to the retreating back of the mad old lord.

"Why not?" Solomon said softly.

Hendry took another pull from his skin just as the words left Solomon's lips. The wine sprayed from his mouth in a sudden, violent cough, splattering across his fine leather doublet as he choked against the reins, his face turning a deep, furious crimson.

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