The woods bordering the Kingsroad were filled with morning fog and the smell of wet decay. I moved through the deep brush without disturbing a single branch, letting my [Detection] guide me through the mist.
A quarter-mile ahead of Ned Stark's vanguard where the trees grew dense, two Lannister scouts crouched in a hunter's blind woven from dead branches, overlooking the muddy rut of the road. They wore studded leather and forest-green cloaks to break up their silhouettes in the brush. One was chewing quietly on a wad of sourleaf, his heavy crossbow resting across his knees. The other was staring down the road, waiting for the Stark banners to appear through the fog.
I had to strike quickly so as to not betray my presence to the Lannisters.
I pushed with a burst of power in my hind legs. I cleared the twenty yards like a blur crashing into the blind from the side, shattering the dead wood. My jaws clamped over the face of the scout with the crossbow, snapping his neck before he could even register what just happened.
The second man scrambled backward, his eyes wide with absolute terror as he fumbled for the hunting knife at his belt. He opened his mouth to scream.
I pinned him to the soft earth with one massive paw, the weight driving the air from his lungs. I opened my jaws and let the furnace in my chest flare. A wave of suffocating, blistering heat washed over his face, singeing his eyebrows and cooking the scream right out of his throat. He thrashed for a second before his eyes rolled back, his mind shattering from the pain. I crushed his windpipe and left them both in the dirt. Leaving Tywin's eyes blind.
On the southern bank of the Trident, the brown, rushing waters of the Ruby Ford crashed heavily over the rocks. A massive gilded wheelhouse sat, sunk deep in the mud, surrounded by an escort of gold cloaks and two knights of the Kingsguard.
Inside the stifling carriage, Sansa Stark sat rigidly on the velvet cushions. She wore a fine silk dress the color of autumn leaves, her hands clasped so tightly in her lap that her fingers ached. She tried desperately to remember her courtesies, but her breathing was shallow and frantic.
Sandor leaned heavily against the open doorway of the wheelhouse, blocking the damp river wind. He took a long pull from a skin of sour red wine, wiping his scarred mouth with the back of his gauntlet.
"Stop shaking, little bird," the Hound grunted.
"I am not shaking, Ser," Sansa replied, her trembling voice betraying the lie instantly. "The Queen promised I would see my father. She gave her word."
Sandor let out a harsh, barking laugh. "The Queen's word is worth less than the mud on my boots. She's sitting in the Red Keep shitting herself because your father brought a monster out of nowhere. She didn't send you here out of mercy. She sent you here out of her terror."
Sansa looked down at her hands. "It... it saved my father."
"Aye. And the rumors say it ate my brother's raiding party and sent his head back to Riverrun in a basket," Sandor said, taking another drink. His dark, dead eyes scanned the fog on the opposite bank. "Tywin is camped at Harrenhal. You think the old lion is going to let your father walk away with his golden boy? There's a trap waiting in those woods, little bird. I can smell it from here."
"My father has men," Sansa whispered, clinging to hope.
"Men die," Sandor replied bluntly. He looked back at her, the burnt half of his face twitching. "But men might not matter today. Let's see if your father's monster is hungry."
Across the rushing waters, the mist finally parted.
The direwolf banners of House Stark broke through the tree line. Greatjon rode at the front, holding the massive standard. Behind him came Ned Stark, his face set in carved stone, sitting tall on his warhorse.
Finally dragged between two Northern heavy lances, sitting slumped on a miserable palfrey, was Jaime Lannister.
Ser Meryn Trant, waiting on the southern bank, spurred his white horse forward to the edge of the water. The left side of his face was a mass of red, puckered scar tissue, a lasting gift from the past. He squinted through the fog, trying to see the Kingslayer. When Jaime lifted his head, the bloody, soiled linen wrapped around the stump of his right arm became visible to the entire Lannister escort.
Meryn Trant cursed under his breath, his hand resting on the pommel of his sword. The gold cloaks murmured to each other shifting uneasily. The Kingslayer was maimed, they had not expected him to be harmed by the northern host.
....
A mile upstream, hidden deep within the woods and thick underbrush of the northern bank, Tywin Lannister sat perfectly still atop his massive destrier.
Three thousand heavy lances of the Lannister vanguard sat in the gloom behind him, silent and ready. The trap was beautifully simple. He had let Ned Stark reach the ford. He would wait for the exchange to begin, wait for the Stark men to step into the water and then he would sweep the flank crushing the Northmen against the Trident.
The only variable that made Tywin uncertain was the beast, the Northern monster he had no true measure of. But he had prepared for that as well. He glanced back toward the rear of his lines, where a hidden surprise waited specifically for the creature.
Tywin watched the road through the trees. "Where are the scouts?" he murmured to Kevan Lannister, who sat his horse nervously beside him.
"Overdue, My Lord," Kevan replied.
Tywin's pale green eyes narrowed. Something was wrong. The air had grown unnaturally still. The damp chill of the morning was fading, replaced by a sudden, oppressive warmth.
Deep in the woods halfway between Tywin's hidden army and Ned Stark's vanguard on the road, I dug my heavy claws into the wet earth.
My ears twitched, picking up the muffled snorts of thousands of warhorses and the faint clinking of chainmail hidden in the trees to the west. Three thousand heavy cavalry I couldn't fight an army alone.
Well, I didn't need to fight them. I just needed to build a wall.
I lowered my head, closing my eyes, and pulled every ounce of heat from my core. The fire built in my chest, a raging, pressurized inferno. I opened my jaws and unleashed it.
A stream of the inferno rushed out through my jaws. I swept my head in a wide arc, blasting the deep woods, the dead brush, and the dry rot of the forest floor. The sheer heat boiled the dampness right out of the timber.
The forest caught with a deafening CRACK.
Flames the size of watchtowers roared into the grey sky. The fire spread with unnatural, violent speed, fueled by the blistering heat rolling off my body. It tore through the trees, creating a massive, roaring wall of flame and black smoke that stretched for a mile, completely severing the woods from the Kingsroad.
The heat hit Tywin Lannister's vanguard first who were closer to it.
The sudden, blinding inferno erupted less than a hundred yards from their tree line. The destriers panicked instantly. The three thousand massive warhorses screamed in terror, rearing up and bucking wildly as the blistering heat washed over them. Knights were thrown from their saddles, crashing heavily into the mud. Men shouted in panic, trying to control their mounts, but the instinctual terror of the flames was absolute.
Tywin's horse fought the bit, backing away from the wall of fire. Tywin hauled hard on the reins, his face illuminated by the raging flame. He didn't shout or curse, rather sat in the saddle, his cold eyes reflecting the towering flames that now blocked his army from reaching the road.
The path to the Ruby Ford was completely cut off by a wall of fire.
Through the roar of the flames and the screaming of the horses, Tywin Lannister realized the bitter truth. His trap was useless. He was the Lord of Casterly Rock, commander of the greatest army in Westeros, and now he was completely powerless against a beast guarding the North.
Down at the ford, the heat washed over the rushing waters of the Trident. Ned Stark looked toward the blazing forest, the orange light reflecting in his grey eyes. He didn't flinch. He drew his longsword, the steel singing in the damp air, and looked across the river at the terrified gold cloak escort.
"Bring me my daughter," Ned commanded, his voice cutting through the roar of the burning woods.