Chương 14

They set off early the next morning. Galad walked beside the men, part of the column led by Ser Willam Wythers. The army snaked through the hills, heading northeast toward Grey Garden, a castle that sat on the northeastern tip of the island of Harlaw. Without a proper port, they had brought few horses to land. Galad had left his own warhorse stabled in Highgarden. For now, only Lord Mace, the commanders of the armies, and a few of the richer knights rode instead of walked.

The rest trudged on foot, armor clinking with each step, boots scraping against rock and dirt. The strategy, if it could be called that, relied entirely on Ser Owen Inchfield seizing the port at Harlaw Hall, about a day's march east, to establish a lifeline. Lord Mace had avoided landing by Ten Towers and its port town precisely because of how much Lord Rodrik Harlaw had reinforced it.

Until then, each column of a thousand men depended on ten pairs of mules pulling small wagons and what they could carry on their own backs. Another absurdity, in Galad's mind. Provisioning an army should be a commander's first concern before any thought of battles, much less of victory. Should Ser Owen fail to take the port town by Harlaw Hall, their campaign would be doomed before it could even start. Six hours into their march, the first attack came.

They had been moving through a curving pass between two rocky hills when a trumpet blasted twice from the vanguard. Cries of "Ironborn!" rippled back through the line, but by the time Galad's company reached the river ford, the fighting was done. Two dozen Reachmen lay in the mud, their blood clouding the water of the river. The Ironborn had vanished, leaving only a handful of their own dead and a mess of hoofprints heading north into the high country.

Ser Willam doubled the scouts after that and tripled the men protecting their small baggage train, but the land was a maze of crags and gorse. By nightfall, two scouting parties had vanished into the mist. The lone survivor told a tale that chilled the campfire-less dark: cavalry, appearing from the very stones, striking with the suddenness of a mountain storm. Fearing a nighttime raid that never came, they slept poorly that night. Ate little in the morning. Were marching again before the sun fully rose.

The mood in the army was somber after the first day's harsh welcome to Harlaw, but the lack of further attacks throughout the daylight hours gave the men some hope that those had been lucky breaks for the Ironmen. It was on that second night that the Ironborn truly struck. This time, they had not found a village to settle in for the day. Instead, a farmhouse served as the center of their camp. The Ironborn seemed determined to deter their advance by any means.

Everywhere they had passed through was a burned husk, and the farm, mostly, was no different. The barn had been torched. The chicken coop was a charred skeleton. The pigsty a blackened ruin. Only the house itself stood intact, which Ser Willam was quick to commandeer it for himself and his knights. The Ironborn must have taken all the animals with them, and killed the ones they could not move.

A cow with a broken leg was found in a puddle of dark, congealed blood in the fields, flies swarming thick around the corpse. Later, the first three men to drink water from the well were squatting by the bushes even now, groaning and clutching their bellies. The fourth had been observant enough to notice the dead pig wedged inside the well, bloated and rotting. They would have to contend with the water they had gotten from the stream they had passed through earlier.

As one of the knights under Ser Willam, though certainly one without favor, Galad had been given command of the first watch. Stolen story; please report. He set the sentries in staggered rings around the farmhouse and the fields where the men were camped. No campfires were to be lit, so as not to impair their own vision. He had even ordered men into the stubby, wind-bent trees, telling them to watch the camp's interior as much as the dark horizon. In the end, none of it mattered.

He had just handed over the watch to one of Ser Willam's veterans and slipped into a shallow sleep when he woke to screams. He stumbled out of his tent with only his pants on and his sword at his side. The Oneness came to him almost by instinct, that quiet clarity settling over his mind like a veil. Around him, the camp erupted in chaos, but he could look at it with a clinical eye. Riders galloped through the edges of the camp in small groups, cutting down men where they stood, still dazed from sleep.

Others rode past throwing lit torches into tents and pavilions. The blazes caught quickly, flames leaping high, lighting up the night. Riders swept through the edges of the camp, their torches arcing through the air like falling stars. Tents erupted into blossoms of fire, silhouetting men as they were cut down in their bedrolls. He saw it all in two heartbeats, and then his eyes were moving to the center of the camp—the supply wagons.

The guards there had abandoned their posts, drawn toward the fires at the perimeter like moths to a flame. He could imagine the eager sentries leaving their posts to fight against the riders. An understandable mistake, but a costly one if the Ironborn managed to reach the supplies. Men ran all around him. Some screamed. Others moved like rats in a flood, confused and panicked. Some still hid in their tents despite being awake. No one rallied them. No one Galad grabbed the next two men that ran past him.

"You two are with me," he said, and in the cold of the void, the edge in his voice made them obey quickly enough. He moved through the chaos, gathering more men as he went. Some recognized him and fell in without question. Others he had to grab by the arm and point toward the supply wagons. Within moments, he had a group of fifteen, maybe twenty, all armed but most only half-dressed.

"With me!" he shouted, and ran toward the center of the camp. The wagons came into view, dark shapes against the firelight. They were untouched. And as Galad arrived, breathing hard, sword ready, they remained untouched. None of the riders approached. He frowned, scanning the darkness beyond the ring of tents. The attacks continued at the edges of the camp, but here, at the center, nothing. The riders circled like wolves, hooting and jeering, but did not close in. Why?

Then, across the field, the farmhouse suddenly erupted in flames. The blaze was massive, all-consuming. Fire poured from the windows and doorway, climbing the walls so fast it seemed impossible. Galad almost thought an Aes Sedai had set it afire with one of their weaves, so quickly did the flames take hold. Men screamed inside. He could hear them even from here, desperate wails as the fire consumed them.

"Seven hells," one of the men beside him breathed. Galad stared at the inferno, his mind working through it. The attacks at the edges. The lack of riders near the supplies. The farmhouse going up like kindling. A distraction. The realization settled cold in his gut. By the time the sun rose and they spoke to the few surviving men who had escaped the farmhouse, Galad's suspicions were confirmed. The attacks at the edge of the camp had been a diversion all along.

A group of Ironborn had been hiding inside the house's concealed cellar the entire time. As the Reachmen slept, they came up from below and slaughtered the men inside. Quietly at first. Throats cut. Skulls caved in with hammers. When Ser Willam had finally woken and fought back, managing to lock himself and a small group of knights inside a room, the Ironborn had simply locked the doors from the outside and set the house aflame. None of the men had stopped them as they left the camp. Not in the chaos.

Not as the Ironborn wore the colors and the blood of the Reachmen. Looking at the remains of the farmhouse, Galad stood in the gray morning light, the men who had followed him to the wagons beside him. He was thankful when he saw Mors coming up, Neral at his side. He had not seen them throughout the night, but at least they had survived. They stopped near him, silent as graves. In a way, that's what the farmhouse was. Smoke still rose from the wreckage. The smell of burned flesh and timber hung thick in the air.

Ser Willam Wythers was dead. Along with a dozen of his best knights. And the Ironborn had vanished into the hills like ghosts.