There is a "main road" between the Riverlands and the Westerlands, the River Road. It runs from King's Landing to Riverrun, passes through the Golden Tooth and Sarsfield, and ultimately reaches Casterly Rock.
Back then, when Robb Stark invaded the Westerlands from the Riverlands, he used the River Road.
Of course, Robb was cunning. He only followed the first half of the River Road to the Golden Tooth, making Tywin believe he intended to attack that gateway to the Westerlands. Once the Lannister forces concentrated there, he took a side path and quietly entered the poorly defended northern Westerlands.
But generally speaking, the River Road is the key passage connecting the Westerlands and the Riverlands. If hundreds of thousands of wights want to leave the Westerlands and enter the Riverlands, they can only use the River Road.
The Westerlands are full of mountains, and there are only three main routes connecting Casterly Rock to the outside world: Casterly Rock to Riverrun (Riverlands) via the River Road; Casterly Rock to King's Landing (Crownlands) via the Gold Road; and Casterly Rock to Highgarden (the Reach) via the Ocean Road.
If Daenerys wanted to stop the wights from spreading like a plague from Casterly Rock into the southern continent and rotting everything, she had to block those three roads completely.
At this moment, her target was the River Road.
Near Sarsfield, Bran discovered a massive army of the dead, numbering up to 300,000.
Tyrion led his men ashore from the opposite side of Fair Isle and pursued eastward along the River Road, while the Dragon Queen swept westward from the Golden Tooth.
A pincer attack.
Well, Tyrion only had three thousand soldiers. Going to flank three hundred thousand wights sounded terrifying.
At least, the Westerlands soldiers facing the undead army for the first time were extremely afraid.
This was a mountain valley. On both sides stood steep, towering peaks, their rocks covered in heavy snow. Birch and beech trees were not yet fully buried, exposing most of their trunks, their bare branches like the withered fingers of corpses, beckoning to the soldiers below.
The soldiers used local materials to build a simple wooden barricade across the valley, which was more than forty meters wide.
In front of the barricade, they also set up a burning line of fire using branches and freshly cut wood, sending thick smoke rolling into the air.
"Your Highness, can this stop the wights?" Behind the barricade, a fifteen-year-old boy with freckles asked the dwarf, who was staring intently into the distance.
This was Tyrion's newly recruited squire, Jaime Clifton, the second son of landed knight Gareth Clifton and Jeyne Farman, and their fifth child.
Besides Jaime Clifton, there was also a chubby youth who looked like a little pig, Leon Farman, the second son of the Earl of Fair Isle.
Clearly, with the fall of Casterly Rock today, the Lannisters needed to win over the strongest house in the Westerlands, House Farman.
The dwarf had even publicly promised that after the Long Night ended, he would grant them lands matching their merits.
After all, among the three thousand men who came with Tyrion to flank the Others today, two thousand were from Fair Isle. Another seven hundred were mercenaries, thugs, and refugees recruited at Fair Isle's docks. The final three hundred were Dawn Warriors clad in full Valyrian steel armor.
"Can it stop them?" Tyrion himself wasn't sure. He turned to the Great Bear beside him.
"It definitely can't," the Great Bear said calmly. "It's like trying to block a flood with a wooden door plank over a broken dam."
"Then… aren't we doomed?" Leon the fatty asked in fear.
"What are you afraid of? We have the Dragon Queen!" Tyrion immediately shouted, steadying morale.
"The Dragon Queen has never lost. If we follow her tactics, we won't lose," freckled Jaime said firmly.
Tyrion gave him an approving look. "We're here to fight in the field, not to build a camp to block the Others."
"They're coming!" the Great Bear said in a low voice as he lowered his visor.
Everyone fell silent, listening carefully, but heard nothing.
Just as Tyrion was about to ask again, he suddenly felt that the wind blowing down the mountain path had grown colder.
Jorah explained in time, "The Others and wights make no sound when they run, but they bring cold and frost with them."
Then he shouted, "Long live the Maiden of Light!"
Tyrion and the others echoed, "Long live the Maiden of Light!"
"Caw, caw!" The large raven that had been dozing on a branch flapped its wings and took off, expanding above their heads into a small sun radiating brilliant light.
A rustling sound came from the distant snowfield, like snakes slithering through grass, and it came from a dense mass of figures.
The wights ran like rabbits chased by dogs, frenzied, leaving the cold mist trailing behind them.
"Seven hells! This is the army of the dead?!" a Westerlands knight exclaimed.
"Fuck!" Tyrion's hands gripping the axe went weak. He felt like a female celebrity recognized by fans on the street, except now the celebrity was naked, and tens of thousands of drooling male fans were charging at him.
He wanted to turn and run.
But he couldn't. If he ran today, House Lannister would be finished, completely losing the people's support.
"For the Mother, for justice, for humanity, for honor!" he shouted slogans to relieve the pressure in his heart.
"For the Queen!"
"For the Seven, for humanity!"
Others shouted chaotically as well.
Compared to the noisy Westerlands militia, the advancing tide of wights was terrifyingly silent.
A dragon's roar echoed from afar, and faintly, flames could be seen dyeing the eastern sky red.
Boom!
The wights crashed into the fire line and the wooden barricade. Tyrion hurled a jar of wildfire, igniting a patch of green flames among the corpses.
The dead avoided the eerie green fire and began surging up the slopes on both sides of the barricade.
The living and the dead clashed at close range.
"Kill!" Jorah roared, swinging his sword. A wight's head, along with its lion-crested helmet, flew into the air.
"Kill!" Tyrion split open a wight's chest with his axe. Suddenly, the sky above seemed to tear open with a horrific howl.
Looking up, he saw above the small sun a silver-armored figure with a blue cloak billowing, floating in midair. It was the Dragon Queen.
What astonished Tyrion was that she seemed to have grown over twenty pale cyan "tentacles," each holding a strange sword at its end.
Hiltless willow-leaf swords.
He had seen her forge them in Faircastle, long and wide Valyrian steel blades shaped like willow leaves.
Two meters long, half a meter wide in the middle, tapering at both ends, with blades as thin as paper except for the central ridge.
The horrific howling came from those blades as they circled around her, growing louder and spinning faster.
Visible to the naked eye, her figure blurred as a twisting tornado formed around her.
More than ten meters in diameter.
The tail of the tornado extended downward from midair like the slender leg of a woman getting up at midnight, cautiously probing until it landed squarely in front of the wooden barricade.
In the next moment, something terrifying happened.
The tornado was like a whale swallowing water. Everything it touched, wooden barricades and wights alike, was sucked inside.
Then came the sound of flesh being sliced.
Severed limbs and half-man-high wooden stakes were flung out from midair.
The tornado advanced at the speed of a running man, like a harvester in a rice field. The wights were drawn in neatly, and broken limbs flew out.
"Fuck… so this is how the willow-leaf swords are used? This must count as a forbidden spell," Tyrion muttered in shock.
After a moment of stunned silence, he swung his axe again, splitting open a wight's abdomen. Cold, slippery organs spilled out in a mess of colors.
But the excitement on his face was gone. He stared at his axe and muttered, "This is a god. A god shouldn't appear in the human world. Otherwise, ordinary people like us can't survive."
"Long live the Queen!" Jorah and the Dawn Warriors shouted in excitement.
"Long live the Dragon Queen!" The Westerlands volunteers' morale soared.
The tornado was gradually compressed and thickened under the Dragon Queen's control. When it reached a diameter of thirty meters, it was only about forty meters tall.
The wind wall grew thinner, and people could vaguely see dozens of giant leaf-like blades layered within it, shredding every wight drawn inside.
The Dragon Queen drove the tornado forward, sweeping the battlefield clean. The soldiers rushed out from behind the barricade, following behind to slaughter the stragglers.
They advanced for five kilometers until they met the three dragons.
Black, white, and green dragons flew side by side in the air, their flames scorching the ground, followed by a group of soldiers from the Golden Tooth fortress.
The Golden Tooth was guarded by House Lefford, but it was not their fief. It controlled the only mountain passage from the Riverlands into the Westerlands and was rich in gold. The Lannisters had never granted it away.
After the two forces joined, Tyrion finally gained a group of loyal Lannister troops.
The tornado gradually dissipated, revealing the Dragon Queen surrounded by the willow-leaf swords.
With a series of sharp sounds, the twenty-seven broad blades lost their momentum and fell from the sky, guided by a breeze into leather sheaths strapped to the back of the black dragon.
Only then did the Dragon Queen slowly land on the saddle.
Those around her, having witnessed this fantastical scene firsthand, looked at her with awe and did not even dare approach.
Only Tyrion seemed unaffected. He walked up to the black dragon and asked curiously, "What kind of sorcery is this? A forbidden spell?"
The Dragon Queen did not answer. Instead, she gave orders, "Bring the wounded to me. The rest gather the remains on the ground. Pile human corpses together for cremation. Preserve and smoke animal meat for rations."
The freckled squire looked around in confusion. "How do we tell human remains from animals? It's all just chunks of flesh mixed together."
Tyrion immediately said, "Hair that's thick and coarse belongs to animals. If there's little or no hair and you can see the skin, it's human."
"Oh." The soldiers responded and dispersed under the knights' command.
Tyrion stayed behind. While waiting for the wounded, he brought up the earlier topic again. "Have you become a god? Why can those iron swords fly?"
"Have you seen a kite? Why can it fly?" Daenerys asked in return.
"I saw cyan tentacles on you. They were holding the swords," Tyrion said.
"That was wind as well." Daenerys smiled slightly and opened her palm. Invisible wind gathered at the center of her gauntlet, turning from colorless into cyan, from formless into ribbon-like strands.
It was almost exactly like the "tentacles" Tyrion had seen, now coiled together.
"What is that?" Tyrion asked curiously.
"You're the thing. I'm Sweet Beet," said a female voice that sounded like howling wind.
"Who… who's speaking?" Tyrion looked around in alarm.
Seeing this, Daenerys burst into laughter. "What demon dares show off before me? Reveal yourself at once!"
"Caw, caw—"
The "demon" obediently appeared, transforming in her palm into a raven with cyan eyes.
(End of Chapter)
Want to read the chapters in Advance? Join my Patreon
https://patreon.com/Glimmer09