Chapter 111 108

Watching the mountain clan village burn, Eustace felt the quiet satisfaction of work properly done. Those who had spent centuries raiding, raping, and killing ordinary people had received their due. No quarter given, that had been the order, and he had kept to it. Every wildling put to the sword. Their bodies were piled together and set alight. This was the fifth village where he had personally commanded the assault.

The future looked bright. Only the thing resting in his hands gave him serious pause. More than once now, he and his men had come up against clansmen equipped with excellent weapons. Two or three instances could be put down to plunder, but when the total count of recovered metalwork climbed into the hundreds, it became something harder to dismiss.

It was time to write to Lord Arryn. Someone very much did not want peace to come to the Vale.

...

Lord Axel Arryn.

There is no greater pleasure than resting after a victory over one's oldest enemy. It was barely four in the afternoon, and I had already dispatched every piece of today's correspondence and was now enjoying the well-earned fruits of my labor. Settled back in a chair upholstered in Skagosi horse hide, I was savoring a sweet Meereenese wine. The wine was extraordinarily good, but my thoughts were not on it. They were on the situation in the Vale and in Westeros.

Nearly nine months had passed since the war began. Many bloody engagements, unexpected turns, brilliant tactical decisions, and acts of breathtaking stupidity. Somehow, through all of it, a rough equilibrium had taken shape on the continent. Everyone was licking their wounds and reorganizing.

Tywin Lannister had managed to drive back the army of Ser Baelor Hightower, the commander who had been blockading King's Landing. The desperate lion had resorted to wildfire and achieved results that were, in their way, impressive. The soldiers broke when fear took hold, a sally by the lions pushed the rout further, and a mass counterattack sent the roses fleeing. Wildfire is an unstable element, prone to detonation from the slightest jolt, and naturally some careless soul had neglected basic precautions and incinerated himself along with a few dozen of those around him. Because of it, the Old Lion had refused to deploy wildfire in open field after that. A victory was a victory, especially one achieved moments before the capital would have begun to starve.

But Renly Baratheon's troubles did not end there. A new star had risen over Westeros: Robb Stark. The Young Wolf had done something remarkable and driven Lord Randyll Tarly, one of the finest commanders on the continent, from the field. The best defense is a good offense, and the Young Wolf had taken that wisdom entirely to heart. Tarly could not be everywhere at once, and a portion of his force fell behind and was caught by the northern cavalry. Part of the army was lost, and what remained could still have fought, but doing so would have meant mutual destruction. As a commander, I understood his decision.

Two defeats suffered by the Reach had shifted the balance of power within Renly's camp considerably. Anyone who imagined the reachmen and the stormlanders lived in perfect harmony was a fool. They fought constantly for the younger Baratheon's favor and drowned each other in filth in pursuit of royal approval. Renly, the fool, had shown preference for his wife's countrymen over those of his own homeland. So it was the Hightowers who guarded the capital and Tarly who had gone after Stannis's forces. And now both of them had covered themselves in disgrace, as everyone around them was making sure to remind them.

The strongest are always struck first and by everyone at once. That rule had been demonstrated to me many times over these past months. Renly, the heavy favorite at the war's outset, had surrendered his advantage and become roughly equal in strength to his rivals. The entire continent had taken swings at him: Starks, Lannisters, Greyjoys, Martells. The Greyjoys because they had lost all sense of restraint and were raiding everything in sight. The Martells because they had begun testing the borders. No large-scale engagements, but the pressure was constant.

Life in the Vale was improving, but the problems had not grown any fewer. Somehow, slowly, the long-standing plan was being carried out. Hunting clansmen with soldiers alone was too costly and too inefficient, which was why a phased approach had been developed long ago.

First, the rangers of the Vale had been established. They in turn would reduce the number of successful clan raids. Fewer successful raids meant less food come winter. From there, ranger outposts had been built at strategic points throughout the region, while the clan settlements were simultaneously being located and mapped. A mass assault would eliminate a significant portion of the savages, and the harshest winter in a century would finish the rest. In the spring, a final sweep would deal with whatever survived.