Chapter 159

Riverlands. Darry. 299 AC.

Axel Arryn.

My order to split the army in two met with confusion among the senior officers of my host. Everyone understood that if we advanced as a single front of twenty four thousand swords, Harrenhal would not hold out long. The logic was simple: fifteen thousand against four is good, but twenty four is better still. Even granting the pretext of guarding Darry, that task could be handled by a couple thousand men, not an entire army. My men did not understand, but they carried out the order all the same; for them, such arrangements were nothing new.

There were two specific reasons behind the decision. The first was that I had firmly resolved to test and draw out Jasper's talents as a commander, and that could never happen if one side held an overwhelming advantage. Only in hardship are truly great generals forged, men whose mere presence can turn the tide of a battlefield. By setting his "conditions for victory" as I had, I had placed Redfort in a difficult position, one he could not simply muscle his way out of. One way or another, he would have to use his head. And if he failed and charged in blindly anyway, the castle would still fall, only at a higher cost. A thousand men was not so great a price to pay for the chance of gaining a competent commander.

The second matter concerned the "cunning" of Darry. The castle had been built, quite deliberately, to be difficult to hold. It took me some time to grasp why, but after a few days of observation, the pieces fell into place. The height of the walls, the crooked roads, the awkward placement of the barracks: none of it stood out on its own, none of it caused more than minor inconvenience, but taken together it made the castle's defense considerably harder.

Having reached that conclusion, I first thought I had erred somewhere. For a Númenórean such as myself, the deliberate weakening of a stronghold seemed a grim absurdity. But then, recalling the histories of the Vale's many invasions of the Riverlands, I began to notice a pattern: the Vale attacks, takes Darry because it is the only road through, marches into the heart of the region, and then Darry is retaken behind them, the supply lines are cut, and the weakened knights of the Vale are broken on the field.

In the end I asked myself a simple question: why would the Hoares, the rulers of the Riverlands in those days, have wanted Darry to be hard to defend? Was it not the gatehouse before the interior of the region? The answer proved simpler than I expected: what is hard to hold is easy to take back. Had Darry been strongly fortified, my ancestors could have turned it, once seized, into an unshakeable stronghold and pushed their expansion deeper into the Riverlands. So some clever Hoare had chosen to wager on making the castle easy to retake instead. They took Darry and weakened its defenses purposefully.

The enemy's forces would pass by Darry into the heart of the region, an allied host would gather nearby, retake Darry, and cut off the enemy's only route of retreat. In a single stroke, both supply and retreat were severed, and the enemy could then be destroyed at leisure. It was a strategy far removed from ordinary sense; I would never have thought of such a thing myself.

Such tactics were, to put it mildly, questionable, but in those days it was the kingdom of the Hoares that held the Iron Islands, the Riverlands, and the Crownlands together, and the lords of the latter two regions did not live especially well under ironborn rule; rebellions were a constant. So the Hoares used their unreliable lords as meat shields against the Vale's invasions. Whoever first thought of it was a genius.

And now the situation had grown even more interesting. In open field the river lords are no match for us, so they had chosen instead to cut off our supply, and if they succeeded, my army would be worn down in short order. Foraging is thankless work in a land already stripped bare; gathering enough food for more than twenty thousand men here would be next to impossible.

I doubted the fool Tully could have devised such a plan himself, but that hardly mattered. I was certain that somewhere within fifty kilometers a force lay hidden, waiting to retake the half empty castle, and something told me Raymun Darry had not surrendered out of despair but as part of that plan. Slit the sentries' throats, open the gates, and the garrison would be cut down in its sleep. We knew the trick well; we had used it ourselves more than once.

"Did you find it?" I had a very quick way of testing the truth of my suspicions, and her name was Elena.

"Northwest, fifty kilometers from here, there are ruins. At least six hundred men are hiding there, maybe more." My training of her in the ranger's craft had not gone to waste. "I also found four smaller bands, up to fifty men each, scattered along the river road." Those were plainly bandits and marauders, and they concerned me little.

"And the other matter?" Before I took heads, I meant to be certain of Lord Darry's guilt.

"There are a couple of hidden armories the household never revealed. To save you the trouble of asking, there's enough weaponry in them to arm a bit over a hundred men, and it's been used recently." In moments like these I remembered why I forgave Snow so very much.

"Good." I meant to wring every possible advantage from this campaign, and the river lords' small tactical maneuvers concerned me least of all. "Send for Ser Laymon and Ser Luceon. You may go." In good spirits, Snow left at once; she had slept nearly a full day and was pleased with herself for it.

"My lord," the two representatives of my most important vassals greeted me, and at my silent gesture took their seats across from me.

"I have an important task for you both." They straightened at once, their faces going serious. "Ser Luceon, fifty kilometers northwest of here there are ruins, and in them a band of river men, at least six hundred strong. Your task: take three thousand swords, surround them, and destroy them completely."

"Two thousand would be enough for that, my lord."

"I understand, but we cannot be certain no reinforcements will come, and you are to wipe out the entire force. Failure is not acceptable." Luceon Templeton understood at once and gave a short nod. "Ser Laymon, I fear that Lord Darry and his conspirators mean to betray us, so we must show him the full folly of that judgment."

"How hard should I press?" I valued his readiness to act without hesitation.

"Lightly enough. Frighten them, execute a couple of troublemakers, and sow a few seeds of distrust." In simpler terms: gather all the castle's servants, single out a handful, and let the crowd do the killing, then quietly reward the informants afterward. Not a perfect solution, but it would serve.

"It will be done, my lord."