Chapter 137 134

The Westerlands. Sarsfield. 299 AC.

Lord Eddard Stark.

They had been lucky. Very lucky. Sarsfield was no impregnable fortress, and House Sarsfield numbered among neither the mightiest nor the most notable bannermen of the West, but it was still a stone castle. Not the largest, not the smallest, simply a well-fortified stronghold capable of halting an enemy army's advance for a considerable time.

Lord Sarsfield had been caught out by his own desire to settle accounts with Robb for the death of his heir during the fighting in the Riverlands. The aging lord had not been able to restrain himself and led all his guardsmen out in pursuit of the boy, and walked predictably into a trap. The Westermen were cut down, the lord was taken prisoner, and the castle was occupied without difficulty, though it proved empty. No one of importance and no member of the Sarsfield family was found inside.

A fortunate victory, there was no other word for it. Only the satisfied look on the red priestess Melisandre and King Stannis's brooding silence gave the Quiet Wolf no peace. Something was passing between the two of them, something that made him uneasy. Ned himself kept faith with the old gods, but his upbringing in the Vale, where the Seven flourished, had taught him to tolerate any religion that did not demand human sacrifice or dark rites. The faith of R'hllor made no such demands and had earned Stark's contempt for other reasons.

Stannis had never been a particularly devout man, and his growing interest in this foreign religion was unsettling northerners and southerners in equal measure, though no one gave voice to the feeling openly. A string of victories and the preliminary betrothal of Robb and Shireen had restored Stannis's authority to an appropriate level and silenced the doubters.

When the king offered Lord Sarsfield the chance to bend the knee, the man refused. He had sworn loyalty to the Lannisters and to King Joffrey, and he intended to recognize no one else. Such faithfulness was rarely seen in the south. The king himself remarked that it was worthy of respect. The aging lord was offered the black, and refused that too. Sarsfield had no wish to live out his years in the North, and he met his death with dignity. Ned carried out the execution himself. Now, in the great hall of the castle, the king had assembled everyone for an important announcement.

"My lords, we march on Casterly Rock," Stannis said, as briefly as always.

Contrary to Ned's expectations, the men did not immediately turn the war council into a marketplace. It took them roughly ten seconds to understand what the king had said, and then they went pale with alarm. The idea of attacking the Lannister stronghold was that preposterous.

Casterly Rock was the ancestral seat of the Lannisters, the chief castle of the Westerlands, built upon an immense coastal bluff to the northwest of King's Landing, southwest of Harrenhal, south of Pyke, on the shore of the Sunset Sea. People sometimes forgot that the Rock was among the very few truly impregnable castles in the world. No one had taken it in thousands of years, not even dragons. The thought of attempting to storm such a place found no enthusiasm.

"Your Grace, I, like most of those present, consider your decision somewhat... hasty," Ned said, as diplomatically as he could manage.

"On the contrary, Lord Stark. The Lannister army is trying to fight its way back west, but the Tyrells are blocking them. They have committed everything they could; there are no soldiers left in the castles."

"They don't need soldiers," Robb cut in. "The last dregs of humanity will do. The walls take care of the rest."

Ned, turning this over in his mind, kept his silence but agreed with his son. He had visited Casterly Rock after the Greyjoy Rebellion and knew the truth of it: a hundred men could hold that place against an army of thousands. Storming it was madness, and Stannis was not a madman.

"His Grace means that we should lay the castle under siege," Ser Erren Florent explained, with an air of patience.

"No, Ser Erren. We are going to storm Casterly Rock." Before anyone could get a word in, Stannis continued. "The gold and the reputation of Tywin Lannister are the two pillars of the lion house's power. Remove one and the West would have fallen long ago. The poisoning of the Old Lion has weakened the second. We will take away their treasury."

It was not without logic. The Westerlands were famed for their ore deposits and their gold above all, and the gold mines beneath Casterly Rock were exceptionally rich. The Lannisters had built their fabled wealth on the extraction of that precious metal and their skill in managing it, and the gold of Casterly Rock had long since become a proverb.

"And how, Your Grace? No one has ever taken the Rock! All we will find there is death and defeat! I will not send my men to the slaughter!" Lord Jon Umber erupted.

"Careful, my lord, you are speaking to your king," Ser Massey shouted, and reached for his sword.

"A king who wants to get us all killed?!" Umber's hand went to his own weapon, and the northern lords followed suit.

Ned could not allow it to go further.

"Enough! Weapons down!" Seeing the general hesitation, he pressed harder. "Now!"

The northerners backed down first; the Riverlands lords followed; and finally the king's own men. Something had to be done, and quickly, or the men in this room would start killing each other.

"Your Grace, I stand with my bannermen on this. Marching without a plan and trusting to the weakness of the defenders is not a sound strategy, and..." He looked into the king's blue eyes and understood. "You have something."

"I do. I have a plan. Ready your men; we move soon. Lord Stark, Lord Tully, Ser Seaworth, and young Robb, remain."

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