Chapter 11: SI POV VI

Late 153 AC

Upon hearing the news of Lord Craggner's final intrusion, as well as his burning of my villages, it was amazing how quickly a hangover melted away before shock and righteous anger. Good motivation for any man was the news that his home was threatened and lands that he loved were under siege by an enemy of the state. Or, in this case, an enemy of their lord, whose family had brought them to greater prosperity than their lands had ever known. My men certainly made a great deal of their anger known in pledges to slay or capture as many Craggner men as possible. A good enthusiasm to be had, for sure, and one I wholeheartedly refused to not take advantage of. I would see my men motivated to fight, rather than resigned to. Arming them for this sudden intrusion took longer than I would have liked, but was still less than I had originally expected. Seems that men who are both motivated and trained can become ready for battle far quicker than I gave them credit for.

As most of my men were mounted, alongside Lord Windhill's, our pace was set by the men marching, as well as by the carriages the pack horses hauled along. While not in formation, as I saw no reason to unduly tire them so far from the possible battles, we needed to stop far more often than I liked, but was willing to give them that reprieve. No better way of sapping morale than being an unrelenting commander who had yet to earn the respect of the men beneath him, even if I was their liege. Our provisions, thankfully, had been fully stocked in the carts the mules pulled, thanks to the rather enthusiastic smallfolk of Lowhill and the surrounding villages. I took care not to stop in the villages for my men to rest, for the weather was pleasant and saw no need to intrude on the people I was sworn to protect.

The journey towards the border was uneventful, thankfully. If Craggner had managed to penetrate this far into my lands with his forces, then I would have been in serious trouble. Assuming I survived or won this conflict, I'd definitely have to start an early warning system, as well as a great deal more patrols for my lands. Using them as a police force would also be good, given how few lords likely patrolled their lands unless absolutely necessary. I had the coin for it, but I needed to win this conflict before I could implement such plans.

So, after a good deal of daily marching, stopping for the night, and then packing up the next morning we came across some villagers, making an attempt to flee westward at the warnings of my scouts. Giving them some provisions we'd secured along the way, and earning cheers of good fortune from the smallfolk, we'd set up camp in their village late that night, my scouts reporting that Craggner and his men were haphazardly on their way, stopping at every hamlet along their way and either seizing what they wished or burning them if the smallfolk failed to comply. Tales ranged from the smallfolk remaining unharmed to more than a few being slain defending their homes or families, and for now, I had no idea which were true.

Lord Windhill's prior experience and insights proved invaluable in the lead up to our plan. This unnamed village was nearest the border yet not yet attacked, and thus was a perfect target for my rival lord. The small forest to its west made an eastern approach, over more open terrain, far more likely from Lord Craggner, who by all reports had a smaller mounted force than us, but likely matched us otherwise. An added bonus was layout of the houses had, coincidentally, formed a sort of funneling pattern, as the road ran down the center of town and thus only had two main entrances or exits. With the typical Stormlander cottages not spaced far apart, that meant any force travelling through the village could be penned in easily.

The plan was one of Windhill's combined with a small bit of my own after observing my surroundings. Men at arms would hide in the larger buildings, waiting for the Craggner men to ride in and begin pillaging, and then rush out in force to surprise them when they were unaware. At least half of this force would bear poleaxes, to form a sort of pike wall to block the horses from escape to the south and be able to crush any armor in their path. As the road through the village was at its narrowest here, it would serve as the perfect chokepoint, where fewer men could force and funnel the enemy towards them and not be overwhelmed from all sides. From the west and amidst houses, the crossbowmen would rain bolts upon the mounted Craggner men and their horses, and then a combined host of my mounted men and Windhill's would ride down from the north, hopefully trapping the majority of Craggner's men within the village center, where we would either slaughter or capture them. The buildings were short and tightly enough together to mean that passage on a horse would be almost impossible, so any escapees would have to be on foot.

This was where my prototype raiders would come into play, whose names I still hadn't thought of. They were, as of yet, rather shit at shooting arrows from moving horseback, and passable when holding the horse still, so perhaps turning them into some sort of dragoons might work. Firing from horseback on the move would take at least a decade to be feasible for barely acceptable archers, but seeing as having a standing army was a good way to lose some favor from my liege, their training would not allow for such an increase in skill. They seemed, however, to take just fine to swinging their swords whether on the move or stationary. They'd also been granted clubs and ropes, to clobber and then hopefully tie up runaways so that I might have captives instead of just a field of corpses. Unless the situation were to turn dire, they would see little combat outside of running down fleeing Craggner men.

Instead of leading the footmen or the ones wielding the crossbows, I was with Lord Windhill and our mounted men on the far side of the hill, waiting for the signal in the early hours of the morning. A light fog had formed, but was rapidly disappearing as the night faded away, banishing the slight chill of it. The sun had just barely begun to climb above the horizon at this point, a perfect time to attack a sleepy village, and Craggner was likely drunk off the success of his attacks thus far. Taking the bait would be no issue for him, but doing so this early… it relied on him being too brash or overconfident to scout ahead. That, and encouraging his men to rise early for such an occasion.

The slight breeze carried no real noise from the village, the hill blocking more than just sight. Yet suddenly, as I began to grow worried that they'd gone off in a different direction and avoided the trap completely, in the stillness of the morning, a sharp blast of a war horn, not one of my own, sounded in the early light. I'll admit, it spooked me, as this was my first foray into the profession so cherished and admired by Stormlanders and other Westerosi. One of my scouts, peering from over the top of the hill, quickly crawled his way back and remounted his horse.

"A whole host of men, all on horseback, attacking from the north side, just as you predicted, my lord. Not many knights among them, mostly armsmen, but I saw Lord Craggner's personal sigil towards the rear of their formation."

"Then either the man or his bastard are there," Lord Windhill said, motioning to his men. Almost as one, with a coordination I envied, they readied their lances, my men mirroring their motions moments later. "In either case, killing or capturing one will be a great blow to the other and their plans, whatever they may be. If they attempt to surrender, it would be best for us to heed their call. Ransoming them might earn you a great deal of coin to work with, as well as the respect of other lords."

A sharp blast of a different war horn sounded.

"That's the signal!" I cried, shutting the visor of my helmet. "To arms! For Stormhall!"

"For Windhall!" Lord Windhill cried, the shouts of my men joined by his own. In a rush of steel and horses, we charged up and over the hill, making a beeline right towards the unguarded rear flanks of the Craggner host.

I'd always had an inkling of having Baratheon/Durrandon blood through my grandfather, my size and strength being a good enough indicator to me of shared ancestry. Yet until now, I'd never felt anything akin to the Baratheon rage, the one that when combined with their legendary strength could make them nigh-unstoppable juggernauts on the battlefield or tourney grounds. However, as I spotted my enemy before me, their attention suddenly torn between the fighting in front of them, the crossbow bolts raining in from their sides, and a group of riders appearing from their backside, I felt something… strange happen.

My focus narrowed, the thoughts of my lands, my plans, my memories, just fading away, replaced by some kind of haze that seemed to make things… clearer. I'd not felt this way when I'd attacked the errant toll collectors, but now, somehow, my senses seemed heightened. I could feel my muscles coiling, like springs, just waiting to unleash the fury of my house's namesake, a wintry storm of sudden and incredible violence. My growing rage peaked, so long held at bay, and now unleashed for the first time, its sweet release filled me with a sort of exultation at the prospect of bashing the skulls of those who dared to cross my family and pillage my lands. Ahead, some of the village hovels were on fire, their roofs set ablaze by thrown torches, sending smoke into the midst of the battle.

The rearmost portion of the Craggner men turned and attempted a countercharge, but we had the slope and momentum on our side, as well as numbers. We also had a great deal more armor than some of them, strangely, though they had likely anticipated helpless smallfolk and not well-armed men on horseback. Even as our forces drew closer, they must have realized this, for some on the flanks tried to veer away, yet it was too late for an escape, and we closed in on them like the jaws of a basilisk snatching its prey.

Our forces met with a great clash of men and steel, horses crying out as the Craggner charge was overwhelmed by ours own, crumbling under lance and sword alike. The lances of Lord Windhill's knights punched through the chainmail of any man unlucky to have been in front, many flying from their horses in sprays of blood. My own lance skewered some unlucky bastard right through his gorget, the lance jutting a near foot out his back. With a gurgle that only I must have heard, he crumpled from his horse, like a puppet whose strings had suddenly vanished, and was promptly trampled by the thundering hooves behind me.

Dropping the lance, much as the others did, I drew my flail, blocking an attempted strike from a knight with my shield and returning the favor with a strike to his arm. The sickening crunch of metal and bone joined, as the man screamed in agony and dropped his sword. With my shield, I then batted him aside, knocking him from his horse, likely to be trampled as well. The occasional horse screamed as it fell to the ground, whinnying piteously as blood gushed from its wounds.

Our charge's momentum halted initially, we soon ruined the last of the countercharge, their numbers obliterated and either dead or lying in the dirt, and so we charged once more, into the hastily-assembled rearguard of the remaining Craggner men still within the village. None of them had so much as a lance or pike, meaning even as our charge faltered, our force of arms did not, and so began the butcher's work. I didn't know how many men I attacked, nor how many of ours were dying. All I could see were the men around me, dressed in Craggner livery, attempting to break through our forces or kill me. Every strike against my shield was met with a blow from my flail, the great weight caving in chests, shattering shields and breaking bones aplenty. I could barely see through the gore splattering my helmet, but I resisted the urge to wipe it away, somehow knowing a moment's pause could see me ended. Instead, I shook my head as I caved in another man's with my flail.

As we fought and killed and died, several figures on horseback, some with crossbow bolts in them and others splattered in gore managed to sneak through the buildings of the village and fled eastward, though a few fell immediately afterwards, additional bolts sticking from their backs like porcupine quills. A shrill blast of my war horn sounded from my crossbowmen once more, and then from over the hill came my raiders, whooping and hollering as I'd taught them to, giving chase. Being as unarmored as they were, and fresh from lying in wait, they could afford to pursue the stragglers as far as necessary.

My arms were growing heavy from use, I'd never trained this hard or this long, and I was beginning to feel my youth act against me. I did not yet have the hard-earned stamina of older men, hells I was still fourteen! Or four and ten, as said here. My flail strikes were growing increasingly weaker, still hurting plenty, but no longer with the same fierce fury they had originally. I was struggling to maintain my shield, nearly losing it thrice as I battered away at a men at arms with a long hammer, before I managed to knock his sword from his hand and bash him in the face with my shield.

He dropped to the ground, blood pooling from his face as he cried out.

"Mercy, my lord! I surrender, mercy!"

Almost at once, a unison of cries began to erupt from the center mass, growing louder in mere moments.

"Mercy!"

"Mercy! By the gods, mercy!"

"We surrender!"

I'd almost caved in a knight's helmet when I'd heard the calls, Lord Windhill calling for order as the remnants of Craggner's men laid down their weapons, bunching together amidst their dead fellows. The mounted men threw up their hands, swords and shields falling to the ground as well. A few stragglers still attempted to fight their way out, but were cut down mercilessly, and that served to cow the weaponless further.

I echoed Lord Windhill's calls, my men backing off slightly as I, still surrounded by my honor guard, or what was left of it, took stock of the situation.

It was a grisly scene. I could see men wearing my livery dead amidst the bodies, but they were far, far outnumbered by those wearing the Craggner one. The survivors had bunched up, with nary a weapon, fearful looks amidst the grime and gore splattered across them. Many were in various states of injury, from some with shallow cuts to some barely standing on their feet, crossbow bolts sticking from various places. Bodies of horses lay, some still breathing raggedly, and all around, the grass and packed earth had become a sloshy trail of blood-fueled mud. Many of the discarded weapons lay where they had been dropped, while those of the dead men were often still clenched in their fists, like a macabre display of martial training lingering beyond the mortal coil.

"Secure the prisoners," Lord Windhill called, my voice gone for the moment as I struggled to regain my breath. My men looked to me, and with a nod being all I do at the moment, they followed Windhill's own.

In less than an hour, with their arms and armor stripped and thrown into piles, the prisoners were brought before me. Many of their horses, those that were relatively unharmed, had been led off to a small stable, spoils of this fight. Good horses bred and trained for war were often hard to come by, and the ones that wouldn't make it were put down then and there. As I didn't have a throne, and didn't feel like being on my horse for a good while, I had chosen a suitable seat at the largest table outside of what I assumed to be the village chief's manor. Well, I'm not sure village chief is his exact title, and calling it a manor was rather generous, but the point stood.

With some of my men joining Lord Windhill's in extinguishing the fires and making sure it didn't spread as they did so, I took a tally of our losses. Of my forces, rounding out at slightly over two hundred including Lord Windhill's, I'd lost nearly forty men, somehow only five of them Windhill's, with a further dozen of mine unlikely to survive the night from their wounds. Such high casualties both shocked me and seemed par for the course, but we'd fought a similar number of men with similar armaments, so such a disparate ratio was something to be glad for. As for the remaining men, near half had injuries, but only around twenty of those were enough to require recuperation and a maester's touch. They I immediately had loaded into the carts I'd had hidden in one of the barns, their wounds tended to as best as possible for the time being.

The Craggner men had suffered far worse. Of their approximate two hundred, over half were dead or dying, most of those begging for the Stranger's mercy after the surrender. I'd allowed my men to grant those wishes only if they seemed to be too delirious to interrogate, which sadly seemed to be the case for most. The few still well enough to talk spilled their guts at a chance to deny themselves a painful death, some of them literally with spilled guts lying about. What little I'd learned from them only gave me a wider view of what had occurred already, and not of future plans or conspiracies, as I'd been hoping. It seemed Lord Craggner kept his cards close to his chest.

As for the survivors that were not going to die right away, they seemed broken, as if their sudden reversal of fortunes had shattered something within them. Now, I wasn't sure what to do with these men. I had every right to execute them right then and there, but that would earn me no favors nor give me any information that I'd like. They may have been at war with me, but they were also soldiers, following the orders of their paymaster and lord. Now, I had no trouble punishing them, seeing as the 'only following orders' motif was likely as much of a thing here as it was back on Earth. Yet I wasn't so heartless as to see them all hanged for the actions and orders of their master. By that logic, entire defeated armies would be butchered to the last in every conflict, and Westeros didn't seem the place to allow for such needless slaughter. What to do, what to do…

"Where is Lord Craggner?" I asked, settling on what looked to be a captain, who was dragged forward rather forcefully by my honor guard. "Where is your lord, soldiers?"

He grimaced, his bandages stained with blood but holding from where the crossbow bolt had been pulled from. "He's dead, milord," the man muttered.

Dead? "Here?" I asked, gesturing to the piles of bodies. With luck, they'd be burned before they could begin to stink. No way of telling how many carried with them some sort of disease that could spread from their corpses as easily as something like the Black Death. Luckily that spring sickness isn't supposed to hit for another fifty years or so. What was it called again? The Shivers? I'd likely be dead by then, so I'm not going to worry about it.

"Aye, saw it myself, so did his bastard in that charge of his," the captain said. "Took a lance through the gorget and was trampled after he fell, milord."

Huh. So that was the man I'd killed first. Leading from the back is usually the safest place for a lord, even if not the most prestigious, but then again this hadn't been a battle line, but an attempted raid. Turning the rear into the front of a charge didn't turn out that well for him, however the same of which could be said for many, many lords over the centuries in Westeros. "What of his bastard, Roland Storm?"

"Off, ran as soon as he saw that we were hemmed in," the captain replied. "Managed to sneak out through the houses with some others."

"Where is he headed? Are there more of you?"

"Lord Craggner was gonna pillage and then pull back, luring ye into his lands," one of the other remaining captains said, earning a harsh punch to the gut from one of my guards for his interruption. Waving them off, I had him brought forward alongside his fellow.

"Lure me into his lands?"

"Aye, milord," the man sputtered, nearly puking. "Thought he'd trap you there, maybe surround ye away from yer supply lines. Thought ye an overeager youngster lookin' to make a name for himself."

"What of his bastard? Where is Roland Storm?"

"Likely gonna try and regroup, maybe make a play for the seat. Lord Craggner's wife be runnin' his hall now, but the bastard wants it for sure."

"Very well," I said. I needed to send for more men, to nip this in the bud before the bastard could possibly kill his stepmother and assume full control of the Craggner house resources. Turning to Lord Windhill, who sat beside me, I gestured to the gathered prisoners.

"What do you think, my lord? What should I do with these fellows?"

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Stormlanders VI

The lad before him was beside himself with rage and grief, even amidst the milk of the poppy the maester had given to him. It was good they were far from the rest of the men, to where his babble was mere incoherent screaming, lest they discover things that should not be found out.

"That lowborn, upjumped son of an Essosi whore! Father is dead, by his filthy hand no less, which makes me the rightful Lord of Cragghall. I will have my due from the House Wytch, mark my words!"

"Indeed, my lord," Galewood said, looking over to Wysp and Greycairn. In a matter of hours after arriving, Greycairn had managed to secure his troops within the lands of the late Lord Craggner, guarding the border against a possible retaliatory Wytch strike, or so the story went. The messengers he'd sent upon finding the bastard Craggner, wounded but still alive, had returned with his fellow conspirators with great haste. None of the others he had managed to escape with, according to him, had made it, falling prey to these pursuers of Lord Wytch.

"I must summon the levies, yes, we've more men than him, and Lord Windhill's paltry few knights will not be enough to make due this time," Roland Storm muttered, his eyes growing heavy as the poppy began to take effect.

"What of Lady Craggner? She is now by law the one in control of Craggner lands."

"That barren bitch? The one who couldn't birth him an heir despite her youth?" the young man said with a gasping laugh, the crossbow bolt having been perilously close to piercing a lung before its removal. "What do I care for her? I was the only heir, I shall assume my place and toss her aside, as is my right as the new lord. Or perhaps I'll marry her, and see if she'll be barren for me, as she was for my father?"

"I see," Wysp said with a deadly glint in his eye, looking between Galewood and Greycairn, nodding slowly. "Did you tell any of your men of what was the plan?"

"Gods no, none of them would have been smart enough to keep the attack on Morden Wytch a secret anyway, let alone what we're going to do to the Wytch boy," the boy muttered as the three men drew close. "They're not smart like us. We took care of those bandits after we used 'em, just like father said to, and everyone was none the wiser."

"So then nobody else knows?" Greycairn asked. "Not the maester, your father's widow, not even the master at arms?"

"None."

"Good," Galewood asked, grabbing an extra pillow. "Tis a shame, then, that the secret lies only with us lords, then. It would make for a good story for the mummers to tell, were it to get out from the lips of a foolish lout."

In a moment, Greycairn and Wysp had the bastard's arms secured, and even in his inebriated state, the younger man struggled, confusion wracking his sleepy features.

"What're you doing?" he mumbled.

"Tying up loose ends, bastard," Galewood asked, before shoving the pillow over the last Craggner's face and pressing, hard.

The muffled shouts ended far quicker than they'd expected, as did his struggles. Yet with none around them, they held longer just to be sure, until the merest spasms ceased altogether. "That's my sister he was talking about evicting," Lord Wysp muttered as they finally drew away from the still form. Checking for a pulse, he found none, given the grim nod he gave. "A shame that he died in his sleep from his wounds, despite us doing all we could for him. I'm sure Lord Wytch and our lord would have wanted him alive for questioning and their own punishment."

"I thought so. What are we to do now? There will be an investigation for sure, even more thorough than the last. Two lords dead in so short a time, with a house as old as Craggner's ending? There can be no deviation between our tales, lest we draw even greater suspicion."

"We must move quickly to ensure our own survival," Lord Wysp said. "I'll meet with my sister and the boy, to negotiate a peaceful settlement without the need for our lord paramount's involvement. It should be easy to secure the borders, using our levies as evidence for claiming that we feared for our own lands upon finding Craggner building his forces."

"Yet Lord Baratheon will still seek his pound of flesh from us," Galewood muttered. "We treaded far too closely to disrupting the King's Peace, there are bound to be consequences."

"Lord Baratheon will assume control of my former goodbrother's lands if we do not reach our own settlement. My sister maintaining her title as Lady of House Craggner is vital to the security of our lands, for if Lord Wytch attempts to claim them, I'm willing to hedge a bet that half the Marcher lords will side with him on the issue. In no less than three years, I'm willing to wager he'll provide them with more food than they do themselves. Were he to gain even more land, it'll double the size of his current holdings, and at the rate he is prospering, I fear he'll become strong enough to do near whatever he wishes this far from Storm's End."

"Other than our houses, there are none that have claims to the lands within. What are we to do?"

"Leave that to me and my sister," Lord Wysp said, a thoughtful expression forming on his features. "I'm sure we can think of something to appease the young lord."

"As for us?" Greycairn asked.

"We will likely have to pay an indemnity to Lord Wytch, or worse, if our lord is angry enough, which he very well may be. However, our houses will survive this so long as what we were a part of dies here with Roland Storm."

All three nodded. Each knew that the others would keep the secret, as they would all fall if one were to try and cut a deal with Lord Wytch or Baratheon alike. Best to let this ugly business fall to the past, to be unheard of again, and eventually, forgotten entirely, as had the details of so many plots since the Age of Heroes and beyond.