The morning mist clung to the earth like milky gauze, blurring the line between the dying night and the dawning day. To the west, the sky remained a bruised black, punctured by the fading light of the last stars. To the east, the rising sun extended pale red fingers, gently touching the dew-slicked banners of the Reach.
Randyll Tarly's camp was a masterclass in military discipline. Positioned on a dry, grassy slope east of the King's Road, his tents stretched for miles in neat, orderly rows. Fires smoldered, their embers casting a warm, orange glow against the grey dawn.
Isaac, a common spearman from a village near Highgarden, stood on the perimeter patrol. He was exhausted, the kind of bone-deep fatigue that made the world seem distant and dreamlike. He had joined the army seeking a better life than the endless cycle of wheat and taxes, but as the mist swirled around him, he found himself wishing for his mother's hearth.
A long, low horn blast suddenly tore through the silence from the west.
Isaac's fatigue vanished instantly, replaced by a cold, sharp dread. He scrambled onto a hastily built wooden observation platform, squinting into the fog. In the forest west of the King's Road, the trees were shaking violently. Birds took flight in a frantic cloud.
Then, they emerged.
A full two hundred humanoid shapes, towering and massive, charged out of the tree line. Isaac rubbed his eyes, convinced he was hallucinating. These weren't men. Clad from head to toe in thick, drab grey plate armor and carrying iron-shod shields the size of barn doors, they thundered toward the camp.
"ENEMY ATTACK!" Isaac shrieked, falling off the platform in his haste to wake his companions. "THE GIANTS! THE GIANTS ARE HERE!"
The camp erupted into chaos. Horns blared, low, mournful notes that signaled a total mobilization.
Randyll Tarly emerged from his tent, already in his armor. He didn't waste time on shock. He watched as his elite pikes formed a "hedgehog" at the crest of the hill, shields inside, long spears out.
Beside him, Garlan Tyrell, known as "Garlan the Valiant" was already mounting his warhorse. His green banner with the two golden roses fluttered defiantly. He had a thousand heavy cavalrymen forming ranks behind him, their armor gleaming in the morning light.
Tarly looked to the north. Across the plain, a black flood of ten thousand Free Folk was advancing. They looked disorganized, a "rabble" by Reach standards, but their sheer numbers were a threat that could not be ignored.
However, the giants coming from the west were the true danger. They were moving up the gentle slope with a terrifying, rhythmic thudding that seemed to shake the very foundations of the hill.
"Archers! Nock! Draw!" Tarly commanded.
A cloud of arrows took flight, arcing toward the grey behemoths. Most simply skipped off the heavy plate or thudded harmlessly into the oak shields. Fear, thick as the morning mist, began to spread through the Reach ranks. Men were whispering of the Old Gods and the monsters of the North.
"Cavalry! Charge!" Tarly bellowed, his voice an iron whip. "Smash those monsters! For the King! For the Reach!"
Garlan Tyrell led the charge. Thousands of hooves hammered the earth, a green tide of silk and steel meant to break the giants' momentum.
Eddard was embedded in the center of the giant contingent, standing just behind Marga. He was tiny compared to the giants, but his presence was the anchor of the formation. Through a narrow gap in the shields, he saw the Reach cavalry accelerating.
"SLOW!" Eddard shouted in the Old Tongue.
Marga roared the command. The giants reduced their pace, their heavy boots digging into the turf.
"CIRCLE! DEFEND!"
The giants moved with a discipline that would have stunned a Maester. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder, shield-to-shield, planting the steel-tipped bases of their barriers deep into the earth. They formed a stone-like dam on the slope, a grey wall of metal and oak.
"THUMP. THUMP. THUMP."
The shields were set. The giants braced their shoulders.
Garlan Tyrell leaned into his lance, his eyes fixed on the narrow gaps between the giant shields. He intended to use the speed of his horse to wedge the formation open, allowing his lighter cavalry behind him to swarm in with hammers and flails.
"AWOOOO!"
All two hundred giants roared in unison. It wasn't a human sound; it was the sound of a mountain cracking open. The warhorses, blindfolded or not, shied in terror. Garlan felt the shockwave in his very bones.
The green tide hit the grey dam.
Garlan's lance struck Marga's shield dead-center. The impact was enough to break a stone wall, but the armored giant merely grunted, leaning his weight forward. Garlan's lance snapped like a dry twig. His arm felt as if it had been struck by a falling castle.
In the next heartbeat, Garlan was airborne. His warhorse, its chest crushed by the kinetic feedback, collapsed in a tangle of limbs. Garlan slammed into the golden sun painted on the shield, sliding down the metal surface as he lost consciousness.
The giants didn't break. They held the line while the Reach cavalry shattered against them.
One knight managed to squeeze through a gap where two shields had briefly buckled. He scrambled to his feet, drawing a greatsword and roaring a prayer to the Warrior as he prepared to strike a giant from behind.
Eddard stepped forward, "Heartbreaker" flashing in the dim light.
A single, precise stroke of the Valyrian steel severed the knight's head before he could even finish his prayer. The giant shields closed the gap instantly.
The sound of the slaughter continued outside, whinnying horses, the screams of the dying, and the relentless thud of spears on iron.
"The Hammer is falling," Eddard muttered, looking through the gap. To the south, he saw the raven-feathered banners of Tytos Blackwood cresting the hill.
The pincer was closing.
[Strategic Update: Reach Cavalry Charge Neutralized.]
[Unit Status: Garlan Tyrell (Incapacitated/Unconscious).]
[Field Momentum: Karstark (Active).]
[Soul Power Gained (Psychological Warfare): 150 SP.]
Plz Drop Some Power Stones.
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