POV- Roose Bolton
He had been given the vanguard by the orders of King Robb and he had ordered the vanguard the orders he wanted executed and gave no sign that anything was wrong. The great betrayals were not the ones that came announced. They were the ones where nothing seemed amiss at all, right up until the moment something was.
Roose Bolton stood in his stirrups and watched the Frey banner go up.
He had not been certain, until this moment, that they would actually do it. Walder Frey was a man who liked to threaten more than he liked to act, who had spent all of his years from the War of Ninepenny Kings to the Rebellion, sitting behind his bridge and collecting tolls and making powerful men cross his palm with silver before they could cross his river, and Roose had never been fully certain whether the old man's agreement with Lord Tywin was a genuine commitment or simply the latest in a long life of leveraging promises he never intended to keep.
But the banner was up, the grey-and-blue of Frey had turned, and together with it, mixing amongst, rising on a separate pole that was supposed to be Stark banner, was the crimson-and-gold of Lannister.
Good. He had been in this war from the beginning. He had marched from north with Robb Stark out of Winterfell as dutifully as any man, had sat in councils and given advice when it was sought and held his tongue when it was not. He had led the Bolton men well at the battle on the Whispering Wood, better than what was perhaps wise.
He had been careful, always have been careful. The Starks had called the Boltons their bannermen for centuries and the Boltons had called themselves loyal of the Starks to their faces and other things in the privacy of the Dreadfort, and Roose saw no particular reason why that particular arrangement needed to mean what Robb Stark thought it meant when the Lannisters were offering him the title of Warden and Paramount of the North.
Steelshanks Walton had ridden close and was watching the Frey banner with expression that gave nothing away, which was why Roose valued him. "Lord Bolton," he said a single word, a question or a confirmation, hard to tell with Walton.
"Wait until the Mormont and Umber positions are fully engaged," Roose said. "Not before, if the Freys cannot hold their nerve long enough for us to pick our moment properly, we'll know about it in the next ten minutes. If they can, we go when Dacey Mormont rides out of the vanguard. She's the one whom the King will send, better to move when she's away taking men from the vanguard itself."
Steelshanks nodded. He looked at the mass of men twenty yards ahead, Stark and Tully soldiers who had no idea yet what the men riding among them were waiting for. He said, very quietly, "The Battle guard are going to make it difficult for us. They are close to the king and all of them are good with their weapons."
"Jaime Lannister would deal with them," Roose said and that was the end of the conversation.
Robb Stark was perhaps thirty yards to his left, his horse turned toward the Lannister front, the crown on his head catching the morning light in a way that made Roose think of targets. Dacey Mormont rode close on his left. Edmure Tully, sweating through his mail despite the cold morning, sat on his horse on the king's right and wore the expression of a man who had eaten something bad and had turned sick on the battlefield. Neither of them was looking at Roose. Neither of them was looking at the Bolton men positioned throughout the vanguard's interior and it was for the best.
He turned to Steelshanks Walton. His captain was already watching him. Walton was a tall man with a dour face. He was known as Steelshanks for the steel greaves he wears over his long legs and always kept himself armored in a mail shirt. He was a loyal and brutal man, but not cruel, which was why Roose had kept him for years and trusted him with things that would have turned a more imaginative man's sleep bad. Walton did not suffer from imagination. He only suffered from orders, and this morning's orders he had already memorized when the offer from Tywin Lannister arrived.
Roose gave him a single nod and that was all it took. Steelshanks raised his fist, and the Bolton spears came up, and the men of House Stark and Tully standing among them had perhaps two heartbeats of confusion before the blades found them.
The vanguard came apart like a poorly stitched seam pulled at both ends. Roose watched it happen with the same detached attention he gave to most things. He watched Stark men spin and shout and raise swords at men who had been riding beside them since the march out of Riverrun, watched the particular chaos that came as they were not able to immediately determine which direction the danger was coming from, watched the discipline of the Bolton men hold while the vanguard's discipline dissolved around them.
Robb heard it, of course he did. The boy had good instincts, whatever else he lacked. Roose thought as he watched the boy turn the horse to him, and the boy King's eyes found the Bolton swords first and then Roose himself, and the fury that came into his face was something that the boy had not yet learned to keep it off his face, which was one of the many differences between them.
"Turncloak," the boy shouted, over the noise of everything else. The word was aimed at Roose like an arrow, which was touching but ineffective.
Roose brought his horse closer, only a few feet, close enough that he did not have to raise his voice, which he rarely did. "No, my King," he said. "Not quite, the Lannister wished to send their regards." He let a small pause sit there. "I merely obliged."
Robb's mouth tightened. He looked, for a moment like Ned Stark around the eyes.
Dacey Mormont had already pulled away many of the troops under King's order to support Maege and Umber and the vanguard was now collapsing into a chaos that Roose had no further need to manage personally, and he let his own guard close around him and turned to watch the next piece of it arrive, which was the Lannister line, now pushing hard from the front into a vanguard that had just lost a third of its interior to Bolton steel.
Roose watched the Lannister and Bolton men tighten the space between them. He did not feel bad about it, he had made his calculation weeks ago, weighed the Stark cause against the Lannister offer, set the promises of a boy king against the certainties of Tywin Lannister, and then their wasn't much to think about.
Some would call it treachery, and Northmen would, for years probably, but Flayed men would not talk for much longer. Steelshanks, for all his virtues, had never quite grasped that distinction. He was a man of loyalties, in his way, only his loyalties ran to the man who paid and commanded him rather than to any house or name or king, which made him loyal enough for Roose's purposes if not for any other. Roose thought that was adequate. He had never required his soldiers to love him. He had only ever required them to do what he said when he said it.
He turned his horse away from the collapsing vanguard. There was nothing left there that required his attention now. He rode back to his own men, held the Bolton formation in good order through whatever came next, and wait to see which way the morning fell. He had done his part, the Lannisters would do theirs, or they would not, and either way the Dreadfort would still be standing strong when the dust settled and not Winterfell, which was, in the end, all that had ever truly mattered to him.
POV- Robb Stark
He had no time for the rage.
That was the part that was hardest. The fury was in him, real and hot, wanted to turn his horse around and drive it straight back through the Bolton men until he put a sword through Roose Bolton's pale eyes and watched them go still, but the fury was completely useless to him, here, now, with the Lannister line crashing into what was left of the vanguard's front and his men dying on both sides of him and a king's crown on his head that was beginning to feel less like a thing to fight for.
He let Ser Wendel Manderly pull him to safety. He hated it, but he let him.
Around him the vanguard was coming apart in a way that was hard to watch, because it was happening in too many places at once. Bolton spears were everywhere in the interior, rising and falling with the terrible efficiency.
Lord Medger Cerwyn, forty yards off, had managed to form a small knot of Stark men around himself and was holding it against a Bolton press, shouting something that the noise swallowed. He would not hold long, Robb could see that even from here. Two of his own household men, the Holt brothers who had ridden north with him from Winterfell and never said much to anyone but each other, were down in the mud already, gaping wound in their chests, and Robb looked away from that and made himself count what was still in front of him rather than what was already lost.
The noise was the worst of it. Worse than the blood smell, worse than the mud and the weight of the death after two betrayals. A broken vanguard from the inside sounded like nothing else in the world, men shouting at allies who were now enemies and enemies who were now allies. He could hear Grey Wind somewhere behind him and to the left, the wolf's snarl cutting through everything else.
"Northwest," Ser Wendel said, in his ear. "Thirty yards, there's a gap in the Bolton formation, if we hit it now before it closes-"
"How many do we have?"
He looked around quickly. "Your battle guard and few of their men, maybe two thousand that are still mounted and still with us."
Two thousand, against what was pressing from the front and what was now loose in their rear. Robb pulled his sword.
The Lannister advance had not come in a single wave the way a charging host did when it meant to break a line in one push. It had come in sections, each section tightening the pressure slightly before the next pushed forward. Someone on the Lannister side understood the field. He filed that away and had no time to think further about it.
"Form on me," he shouted, and felt more than counted the horses drawing together behind him, his household guard pressing close, shields going up on the exposed sides. He recognized faces. Ser Donnel Locke, his shield already dented from taking attacks, Ser Wendel on his left. Owen Norrey on his right and Robin Flint not too far from Norrey.
"The gap," he said to Ser Wendel. "Take us through."
He drove them into it. The next few minutes, were longest minutes Robb could recall sitting through while still technically moving, it was nothing but noise and pressure and steel and the constant, grinding work of staying mounted while men tried to pull him down or put something sharp through him. Grey Wind was somewhere by his side, he could hear the wolf more than see him, the furious snarling that only happened when the wolf was killing something, a sound that men flinched from even in the middle of a battle.
Daryn Hornwood went down first, he was fighting Lannister men at the edge of the gap, keeping them occupied so the column could push through, managing it well enough, and then a third man came around his horse's blind side on foot and drove a spear up under his arm where the mail gaped and then he toppled. Robb had no time to watch him hit the ground.
Robin Flint lasted longer, he fought with fury. He cleared two men from his path so efficiently it looked almost discourteous, a courtesy the third man took advantage of, driving in behind the second man's fall and taking Flint's horse in the neck with a longsword while Flint was still turning. When the horse screamed and went down, Flint went with it, and did not rise.
Then the gap ahead of Robb opened, just slightly, not enough to call it safety but enough to call it breathable, and he pushed through into it and turned to see the shape of what surrounded them.
The Bolton men in the interior of the vanguard had done their work and were now forming up on the flanks of the remaining Stark and Tully men, not charging or pressing, only holding their ground and reducing the space into which Robb could maneuver. The Lannister front had pushed through the gap the Bolton betrayal had opened in the vanguard's center and was now spreading wide, crimson-and-gold banners advancing steadily through the press of men who, minutes ago, had been fighting their enemies and were now fighting their former allies from behind. The Stark and Tully men still standing fighting as hard as they had ever fought.
Robb counted his remaining men, about two third of the two thousand still left. Grey Wind appeared at his horse's shoulder, blood on his muzzle to the ears, standing unhurt, scanning the press for the next threat.
Ser Wendel was beside him, breathing in the loud, effortful way. "My king, the line is broken behind us. Bolton's men have closed it."
"I can see that."
"We should ride for Riverrun. Now, while-"
He did not finish the sentence and Robb saw the reason. A man who had come through the Lannister line. He sat his horse with the loose, insolent ease as if he found nothing about the activity that required his full attention, sword at his side, golden hair matted on forehead with sweat where his helm had rested before he had apparently chosen to take it off. He had a kingly face and his eyes, even at the distance, were a green that looked nearly too bright for a battlefield.
Jaime Lannister.
Robb had been fighting this war to capture this man but he had never imagined finding Jaime Lannister with broken vanguard of his own.
He heard Wendel, behind him, blow out a long slow breath. "Seven hells," the big man said, quietly.
"Yes," Robb agreed.
"My lord, if we circle left, get back to the main body, there's a chance-"
"He'll follow. And we'll be running, and running into men who have broken our line." He watched Jaime cross the distance toward them. "I'm not going to run from him, Ser Wendel."
Wendel was quiet a moment. "No," he said finally. "I didn't think you were, your grace."
"Stay close."
"Aye, your grace."
And then he rode forward.
POV- Jaime Fookin' Lannister
Jaime crossed the space between them with no particular hurry, he wanted to get under that boy King's skin more than pushing his sword through his ribs. The boy had made him sleep in tents when he could have slept with Cersei laying hilt deep in her and face in her mounds.
"I'd hoped to do this closer to Riverrun," Jaime said to the boy. "Some men really forget what loyalty means, tedious the men of North are."
Ser Wendel moved to put himself between them. Jaime glanced at him with an expression that was close to polite.
"I wouldn't," he said.
"I would," Wendel answered.
He killed his horse first, a single stroke that took the animal in the throat, fast enough that everyone saw only the beginning and the end of it, the arm going back and the horse going down, and Ser Wendel hit the ground rolling and came up with his sword still in hand. He got as far as throwing it before two of Jaime's guard closed on him from behind and took him away.
The boy met the first cut with his own blade and Jaime knew that the boy King had felt it all the way to his shoulder.
POV- Robb Stark
The man was like a wall. There was no other way to put it. Every story Robb had ever heard about Jaime Lannister had always somehow failed to convey the essential, unglamorous fact of fighting someone who had been doing this single thing since before Robb was born.
Robb had trained since he was old enough to hold a practice sword. He was good, genuinely good, good enough that Ser Rodrik had praised him without reservation. He held Jaime's first cut. He held the second. The third came from an angle he had not anticipated and he caught it on his shield instead and felt his arm ring with the impact.
Jaime's horse was better than his. Bigger, better trained, positioned without any visible effort always at the precise angle that gave Jaime the advantage and took it from Robb. Robb kept moving, kept forcing Jaime to adjust.
"How old are you?" Jaime asked, pleasantly. He was not breathing hard.
Robb did not answer, because he needed his breath.
"You fight well enough for your age," Jaime continued in a tone that didn't felt sincere, turning his horse to follow Robb's movement with that same unhurried precision. "Your father was better at this, if it matters. Eddard Stark would't have won the rebellion without Robert, but he had good sense about when to defend and when to push, which is worth more than most men think." He drove another cut at Robb's sword arm, and when Robb blocked it, reversed the stroke to come at his neck from below, and Robb got his shield there by a margin that left his neck bleeding from the side, it was painful nick. "You have rather more wolf in you than he did. For all the good it's doing."
"You're going to have to stop talking at some point," Robb said.
Jaime smiled. "Am I? I find talking makes it go faster. No offense intended, your Grace. If that's still what we're calling you." He cut again, twice in fast succession, the second a feint that Robb read but a half step too late, and he felt the flat of Jaime's blade clip his sword arm hard enough to go numb to the wrist for a moment. He kept his grip. He switched angles and went forward instead of back, inside Jaime's guard, which was not where Jaime expected him to go, and got close enough that the longsword was briefly useless and drove an elbow into Jaime's jaw.
Jaime's head snapped back. His horse shied and for one second, half a second, there was surprise on that handsome face.
Then it was gone, replaced by something else. Not anger. Closer to interest.
"There," he said, resettling. "That's your father's sense. Finally."
Grey Wind chose that moment to drive himself into the flank of Jaime's horse, a furious direwolf hitting horseflesh at a dead run. The horse screamed and spun and Jaime had to grip hard with his knees to stay mounted.
Jaime pulled back and then he looked at Robb. "Loose," Jaime said, over his shoulder and the bowmen came forward.
Robb had not seen them. He saw them now, five of them, crossbowmen on foot who had been behind the Lannister guard this whole time, waiting on that word, and every one of them was aimed at Grey Wind.
The wolf had no idea. Grey Wind stood at the edge of the press, hackles up, watching Jaime's guard, and the men with crossbows were twenty feet away and drawing.
Jaime watched him, and the interest in his face settled into something that was almost satisfaction. "Did you truly think you would survive a rebellion against the crown?" He said it with the a tone, asking a question he considered so obvious its answer embarrassed him. "You are fighting Lannister gold and Bolton betrayal in your own vanguard, and Tarly's cavalry still waiting in those trees, and every road back to Riverrun is closed behind you, and you have rather a fine wolf and rather a great deal of courage for a boy who thought wearing a crown was the same thing as keeping one." He tilted his head. "How long do you think Stark banner would fly over Winterfell."
He meant it to sting and it did.
"My lord king," Own Norrey said, very quietly. "Flank look at the Mormont flank."
Robb looked across the plain, across the mess of the collapsed vanguard, across the Frey positions still pressing on the Mormont and Umber remnants, and what he saw at the Frey's own rear made his eyes stop moving and his brain go briefly, completely silent. The Frey rearmost positions had been broken, from the outside, from the Tarly's cavalry coming out of the woods, the cavalry that was supposed to be Lannisters.
The banners coming through that breach was not Lannister. He could see the black. He could see the red on the black, the dragon, even at this distance unmistakable to any noble who had studied with their maesters.
He was still taking it in when the voice spoke again, louder this time, the careful quiet gone out of his voice. "My king on the other flank, on Lord Stark's front."
Robb turned, and the same banner flew there too, deep in what had been the Hightower march, the Hightower lines were turning and rushing into Lannister allies.
The world had changed while Jaime Lannister had been talking. Robb turned back. andJaime had seen it too. He was looking at the black banners and the satisfaction was gone from his face. He was quiet, which was a thing Robb had not seen from him in the previous few minutes and suspected did not happen often.
Robb found he had nothing to say, so he said only, "You won't survive."
Jaime looked at him for a moment. The bowmen had not fired and Grey Wind had not moved, then Jaime Lannister laughed. "Neither would you," he said.
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