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Chapter 63
Robb Stark
The chamber smelled of woodsmoke and sap, pale weirwood roots threading through the blackened stone like veins of a living beast. A long oaken table stretched down the center. The head seat, kept for the king, stood empty for now. To its right sat Brynden Tully—the Red—his back straight, his jaw tight, and the deep lines of his perpetual frown carved into his weathered face.
Directly across from him sprawled Greatjon Umber, a hulking presence that seemed almost too large for the chair beneath him. His new left hand, wrought of weirwood bark and streaked with crimson veins, drummed loudly against the table, each tap sharp and deliberate, the thing moving as naturally as flesh. A grin split his beard as though he relished the unease it brought, while Jason Mallister further down on Brynden's side sat stiff and silent, the lord of Seagard's disapproval plain in the narrowing of his eyes.
Further along, Medger Cerwyn sat with the quiet solidity of a man used to long winters and lean harvests, his ledgers stacked neatly before him. Beside him, Stevron Frey hunched over parchment, his quill scratching ceaselessly as he tried to keep pace with every motion and mutter. At the far end of the chamber, Daemon Waters stood with arms folded, refusing a chair, green robes shifting in the torchlight as his steady gaze moved from one lord to another.
Between the beat of Greatjon's wooden hand and the scrape of quill on parchment, the silence thickened—until the heavy doors creaked open and every head turned toward the king's arrival.
Robb Stark stepped through, the torchlight catching on the fur-lined cloak at his shoulders and the pale steel of Ice strapped across his back. The lords rose as one, chairs scraping, parchment abandoned, even Greatjon pausing the restless drumming of his weirwood hand.
Robb reached the high seat at the table's head, resting one hand briefly on its carved arm before sitting. For a heartbeat, the sound of roots creaking in the walls filled the hall. Then the young king's voice cut through it, calm and firm.
"Be seated, my lords. Let us begin."
Robb leaned forward, his hands clasped on the oaken table, and let his eyes settle on the plain, solid figure of Lord Medger Cerwyn.
"Lord Cerwyn," Robb said, his tone measured but firm. "Tell us how the treasury fares."
The Master of Coin cleared his throat. "A lean purse, Your Grace," Medger admitted. "The Riverlands bled hard, and what silver we gathered from plunder is near spent on feeding thirty thousand mouths. The rest trickles in slower than needful, with merchants wary and lords yet to pay their dues." He tapped the top ledger with a flat hand, as if to nail the words into the table. "We can last, aye, but every feast given to the hungry is a battle we cannot fight in steel."
"Your Grace," Stevron interjected. "The treasury may be thin, but the fields are not." He pushed a sheaf of tallies forward. "With the refugees set to work instead of levied for war, the spring plantings already take root."
Pride touched his voice as he tapped the parchment. "Come harvest, there will be bread enough for every mouth—and grain to sell besides. Silver will flow again, and neither soldier nor smallfolk shall want."
Pride touched his voice as he tapped the parchment. "Come harvest, there will be bread enough for every mouth—and more besides—thanks to the new order of tillage and husbandry Your Grace decreed. With fields worked in common, every hand sowing and every back bent together, the yield shall be greater than any lord alone could claim. And it is not only grain—timber from the Wolfswood, furs from the hunters, and cotton from the sheep are already finding their way to market. All flow toward the treasury, and with them, silver enough to steady the realm."
Brynden, the King's Hand, shifted in his seat, the lines of his frown digging deeper. He rapped a gauntleted knuckle against the table, not to silence, but to remind the room he still had something to say.
"Aye, the harvest will come," he said, voice rough as gravel, "but let's not fool ourselves about who's bringing it in. Half these fields are being worked by folk with no ties but hunger—widows, orphans, broken men, all scattered from the war." He glanced down the table, not at Stevron alone but at every face.
"They're well fed, sure enough," he went on, leaning back with a grunt, "Yet war has a way of breaking good men into restless ones. Best we set a proper guard."
Jason Mallister, Master of Laws, inclined his head toward Robb before speaking, his tone even but carrying weight.
"That concern has not been left unattended, Lord Hand," he said. "At the king's order, five hundred of our own infantry have been set apart as a watch. Ser Daemon oversees their drilling, and they'll serve as a standing guard to keep the camps in line."
Robb straightened in his chair, his tone calm but firm as he cut in.
"Then let it be made plain," he said. "Those five hundred will form a lower division of what we'll call the Royal Guard. The Green Men will hold the Bastion itself, while this new host keeps the town in order."
The Royal Guard, much like the Kingsguard, will therefore be a division of their own, and not under the authority of the Master of Laws.
His gaze moved down the table toward Daemon Waters. "And hear this as well—the Green Men shall be free to increase their number, choosing from the best of those five hundred. Let service in the watch be the proving ground, and those who prove worthy may join their ranks."
The chamber went still, surprise flickering across the faces of lords who rarely agreed on anything. Even Greatjon's wooden hand fell quiet on the table.
Daemon Waters inclined his head in a bow so slight it was near a nod, his voice low but clear. "You honor us, Your Grace."
The making of a Green Man had always been perilous. Traditionally, it meant a weirwood seed planted in the heart through a ritual so convoluted that only one in ten survived.
With Robb's new knowledge and command of the Force, the process was reshaped. Now it required only the drinking of a potion—its brewing still complex, demanding rare herbs and careful preparation, but far less deadly.
The Green Men were not lacking in skilled herbalists, and the Isle of Faces provided no shortage of precious plants. The trade-off was clear, however: only those with notable sensitivity to the Force could endure it. Not quite Jedi-born, but rare enough. And it had to be taken willingly, for without a willing heart, the potion failed.
The result was no lesser for it. Though the new method did not grant the old semblance of immortality, it still bound the Green Men to the weirwood network. Through that bond they gained heightened strength and swiftness, an instinctive harmony with the natural world, and the power to commune with one another in dreams.
Greatjon Umber threw back his head with a booming laugh, the sound rolling off the chamber walls. His weirwood hand thumped the table with a crack that made the inkpots jump.
"Well done, Your Grace!" the Master of War bellowed, eyes alight. "A finer guard no king's ever had, I'll wager. Green men and true men both, bound to you by root and steel—aye, that'll put fear in any foe."
He leaned forward then, the mirth still in his grin but his tone turning heavier. "But tell us, Robb—what of the war? What's the next step for the host?"
"The Lannister-Tyrell forces are divided in two, with a lesser third still fixed in the Westerlands," Robb began. "In the Crownlands, their strength is gathered at King's Landing—thirteen thousand infantry, mostly green levies, and twenty-three thousand horse, more than twenty thousand of them Reacher knights."
His hand moved across the parchment to the Reach itself. "The rest are scattered through their own castles—altogether, they might call twenty thousand more knights and fifty thousand levies. But their mustering is slow, glacial even, and they cannot bring them to heel quickly."
"How many will we field, then?" Brynden asked.
***
Out on the roads, the host was already in motion.
Three thousand infantry tramped along in ordered lines, the steel of their helms and breastplates glinting under the weak spring sun. They marched beside heavy carts pulled by oxen and draft horses, wagons creaking beneath barrels of grain, bundles of spears and shields, and stacks of crossbows. The column stretched far, a river of men and wood and iron cutting through the countryside.
Behind them thundered more than half the cavalry—six thousand riders, their banners snapping in the wind, the direwolf of Stark most prominent among them. Hooves beat a steady rhythm, and the shimmer of mail and polished steel made the whole column seem like a living wall of iron. The land trembled beneath their passing, every farmhouse and hamlet they rode by pausing to stare in awe at the great host moving south.
***
"Our advantage has always been speed and discipline," Robb said. "Our strength will lie in the horse—six thousand riders—and three thousand foot carried in carts to keep pace."
Jason Mallister's brows furrowed. "How can such a force take Kingslanding?"
"They cannot," Brynden cut in, his tone flat. "To strike at the city now would be folly. Their stores may not last them more than a few months, aye—but a few months is long enough for the Reach to muster. Then they'd fall upon our rear, or worse, march on the Riverlands while we starve at the gates."
Jon scratched at his beard with his flesh hand. "The Reach must be dealt with before King's Landing can be touched."
"Exactly," Robb agreed with a nod. "Once the Lannister-Tyrell pact is sealed, Tywin will see the Reach host gathered. Together with the Crown's strength, they'll have the means to strike us from two fronts—each host greater than our own."
Frowns deepened around the table as the grim picture took shape.
Robb's hand closed into a fist and struck the map softly, his knuckle landing on a marked keep. "Yet there are ways to weaken King's Landing while keeping the Reach from ever mustering."
***
The night air was cool and sharp, the steady beat of hooves muffled against the damp earth. At the head of the great host rode Robb Stark, grey cloak drawn about his shoulders, Ice strapped across his back.
Beside him rode his chosen captains—Greatjon Umber looming large in the saddle, Rickard Karstark dour and silent, Roose Bolton pale and watchful in the torchlight, and Marq Piper with a restless spark in his eyes, younger than the rest and eager for glory.
Greywind loped alongside them, the direwolf a hulking shadow at the king's knee, his paws soundless on the grass. Taller at the shoulder than any man's horse, his eyes glowed pale in the dark, and each low growl that rumbled from his throat sent the mounts of lesser men shying.
Encircling them rode twenty Green Men, their antlered helms stark against the starlight, green cloaks trailing behind like shifting shadows. At their head rode Daemon Waters, his face cold and steady.
As the company crested a hill, the land opened before them.
In the distance, a keep rose on the banks of the Mander, its small towers cutting the horizon. The river shone silver beneath the moon, splitting stone and soil, while the Roseroad stretched eastward from its gates toward King's Landing.
Banners snapped faintly in the breeze—white fields bearing the mark of a yellow centaur drawing its bow: the arms of House Caswell.
***
"Bitterbridge?" Ser Stevron asked.
"Aye," Robb replied. "In their haste to secure leverage, the Tyrells held back not only their men, but their foodstuffs. Yet word is that the coming wedding shall be outlandishly extravagant, and that their bride-to-be spends her days feeding the poor from the city's kitchens."
"A city such as King's Landing is a maw," said Medger Cerwyn, his voice low and steady. "It devours all that enters. With the Crownlands' stores spent, another shipment of grain must soon come from the Reach."
Brynden's eyes narrowed as he looked at his nephew. "Bitterbridge sits at the crossing of the Mander and the Roseroad. Whatever food is sent north must pass its gates. You mean to starve them without ever standing before their walls."
Robb inclined his head. "Any grain enough to feed both an army and a city for months would last us longer still. That is why speed is everything."
He laid his hand flat on the map. "We strike Bitterbridge under cover of night. Once it is ours, we'll don Crownlander and Lannister colors, and take the shipments as though we were their own men."
"Our infantry, with Daemon at their head, and two thousand horse under Roose Bolton, will remain to hold the castle," Robb continued. "The rest of our riders will be split between Greatjon and Rickard, sent to scatter through the Reach and stretch their strength thin."
"A baggage train will follow at a slower pace. Once the supplies are taken, I'll bring them back here—and leave King's Landing to starve."
***
The moon rode high, half-veiled by clouds, when Robb swung down from the saddle. Greywind padded at his side, silent as shadow, while behind him the army dismounted in a hush broken only by the creak of leather and the faint jingle of steel. Robb's hand cut the air in sharp gestures, sending men slinking into their places—archers spreading along the banks, horsemen crouching low beside their mounts, infantry tensing in the dark.
Then his voice, low but hard as iron. "Now. Take them."
The charge began in a whisper of motion, boots scraping earth, but Robb was already ahead. Drawing deep on the Force, he moved like a phantom, faster than sight, covering the ground in long, effortless strides. Greywind kept pace, a pale shadow beside him, while behind, the thunder of men and steel grew into a rising storm.
The gate of Bitterbridge loomed tall before him, guards pacing above none the wiser. Robb's eyes narrowed, and in the weave of wood and iron he saw it: a network of cracks and stress, a shatterpoint waiting to be struck. He drew Ice in a single motion, Valyrian steel catching the moonlight in a cold gleam.
One blow. The gate groaned, splintered, and crashed inward with a sound like thunder. By the time the guards cried alarm, the King in the North was already through.