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The commander responsible for Riverrun's southern wall was Edmure, acting lord of the castle.
But the southern wall was wide and long, and several round towers stood along it, blocking sight lines.
One commander could not oversee the whole situation alone. Gaps in command would be inevitable.
So Edmure commanded from the center while Lord Tytos Blackwood of Raventree Hall and Lord Piper of Pinkmaiden assisted the defense on the left and right.
Lord Tytos had a short gray beard, a hooked nose, and long hair that fell past his shoulders. Over his tall, thin frame he often wore a splendid cloak woven from raven feathers.
He was a warrior with rich battlefield experience and fierce loyalty to House Tully. Even though his own Raventree Hall had been put to the torch by the Lannisters, he had still led his men to hold Riverrun without complaint.
He also had a strong fondness for House Stark. Years ago, at Lord Hoster's call, he had joined Robert's Rebellion, fought beside Eddard Stark, and even had his life saved by him.
As for Lord Piper, he was the man who had abandoned Lord Vance beneath the Golden Tooth and fled alone with his troops.
Of course, once he returned to Riverrun, he would never say it that way. He told Edmure that he had fought bravely, but that the Lannisters had too many men, forcing him to gather the remnants and make a tactical retreat.
Because his eldest son, Ser Marq Piper, was one of Edmure's close friends, Edmure believed him without hesitation and entrusted him with assisting in the defense of the wall.
Lord Piper had ten thousand objections in his heart, but to maintain his image as a brave and skillful fighter, he could only force a smile and accept the order.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
After the Westerlands army pushed its siege towers around Riverrun's corner, they entered the right section of the southern wall defended by Lord Tytos. Without hesitation, he ordered the archers to draw and loose.
Thud, thud, thud!
Arrows kept striking the siege towers, but the Westerlands soldiers on them had already gripped the edges tightly and crouched inside the rawhide-covered towers. They did not suffer much damage.
This assault force, assembled from the houses of the Westerlands, was clearly a step below House Lannister in equipment. Because of that, the arrows that fell into the crowd still had decent effect.
But the whole southern wall had fewer than twenty-five hundred soldiers defending it, and fewer than seven hundred archers.
Compared with the dark mass beneath the wall, an attacking army of roughly fifteen thousand men, the damage caused by the arrow rain was almost negligible.
Bubble, bubble!
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
When more than a dozen siege towers were pushed into position before the southern wall and finally stopped swaying, the Westerlands archers hidden inside immediately rose and began shooting at the wall.
The archers on Riverrun's wall and the archers atop the Westerlands siege towers began trading arrows.
Because the towers had been built slightly higher than Riverrun's wall, the archers on them clearly held the advantage. At the same time, the other Westerlands archers who had entered range began shooting upward from below.
Still, each siege tower could hold only seven or eight archers at most, and arrows shot upward from below lacked both force and accuracy. For a time, the archers on both sides fought evenly.
While their own archers suppressed the wall, the Westerlands infantry approaching below set dozens of scaling ladders firmly against it. The brave assault soldiers immediately climbed up, eager to seize the reward for being first onto the wall.
But reward and risk were born together.
Bang, bang, bang!
What greeted them were countless stones thrown down from above. Blood and brain matter splashed in every direction, and the first wave of attackers were crushed brutally beneath the wall.
As the defenders threw stones less frequently, the attacking soldiers slowly climbed to the upper halves of the ladders and came close to Riverrun's battlements.
Two Riverrun soldiers who had long prepared for this waited until the Westerlands attackers were almost at the top.
At the same time, they used the Y-shaped forked poles in their hands to hook the ladder's sides, then shoved hard.
Ah! Ah!
The ladder was successfully pushed away. The seven or eight attackers on it screamed as they fell heavily to the hard ground below.
Those lower down on the ladder had not climbed far, so they were not badly hurt. But the two or three men near the top lay twitching in slowly spreading pools of blood.
An unlucky archer beneath the wall happened to be struck by one of the falling attackers. Both men collapsed to the ground, their fates unknown.
Bubble, bubble!
Because the numbers on both sides differed so greatly, the defending archers on Riverrun's wall were gradually suppressed. The siege towers started moving again, drawing closer to the wall.
"Prepare to throw the oil!"
Lord Tytos calmly gave the order to his messenger. Then, as if remembering something, he caught the messenger just as the man was about to leave and added,
"And remember to send that order to Lord Edmure and Lord Piper over there."
"Yes, my lord!"
Edmure might not understand the temperaments of his own vassals, but the vassals knew one another very well.
Tytos was worried that the ambitious but mediocre Edmure, and the cowardly, useless Lord Piper, might have trouble holding their sections of wall. That was why he made a point of notifying them.
When the siege towers moved to within about fifteen feet of Riverrun's wall, the Westerlands infantry hiding on the second level, swords and shields in hand, swallowed nervously.
At first, arrows had kept striking the siege tower with loud impacts. Now the sound had strangely stopped, leaving everything quiet.
That unnatural quiet only drove the tension in their hearts to its peak.
When the siege tower reached a distance of about six feet from the wall, the archers on top cut the sturdy ropes tied to both sides. The thick board at the top of the tower fell directly onto Riverrun's wall.
The assault soldiers hidden on the second level roared to vent their nerves. As soon as the board dropped, they stepped onto the thick plank, now a bridge, and charged toward the wall.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Crack!
The archers who had long been waiting for them immediately drew and loosed.
At the same time, defenders holding clay jars stuffed with burning cloth at the mouths hurled the freshly lit jars at the Westerlands soldiers preparing to board the wall.
Most of the arrows were blocked by the shield-bearing infantry, but the jars shattered the instant they struck them. The black oil inside spilled across shields and bodies alike.
Ah!
The flames on the cloth ignited the oil. Several Westerlands infantrymen who had rushed out first instantly became human torches.
Two soldiers burning from head to toe panicked and jumped straight from the siege tower. Others, covered in flames, leapt toward Riverrun's wall.
The moment those Westerlands soldiers landed on the battlements, several Riverrun guards with spears thrust them back down.
One burning soldier was lucky enough to avoid the spear thrusts and step onto the wall. The infantry behind the spearmen immediately chopped him into a bloody mess with swords and axes.
At the center of Riverrun's southern wall, Edmure was holding a sword and fighting personally, paying no heed to his own danger.
He had reddish-brown hair and a medium build, but his beard looked rather imposing. From the outside, his brave posture in battle truly carried something of a fierce warrior's bearing.
That was, of course, if one ignored the layers of elite Riverrun guards surrounding him.
It was hard for the Westerlands soldiers who came down from the siege towers to break through those well-trained personal guards and reach Edmure.
Still, the guards knew Edmure's nature well. From time to time, they let through a Westerlands soldier with a severed hand or foot, or one who was already badly wounded, allowing Edmure in the inner ring to claim a kill.
But Edmure, heroically slaying his enemies, did not see it that way. Stimulated by blood, he was in high spirits and enjoying the thrill of killing, completely forgetting his duty as overall commander.
Huff, huff!
Lord Piper hid behind several shield-bearing guards, breathing rapidly as he watched Westerlands infantry begin to climb onto the wall through the siege towers. The thought of fleeing rose in him again.
In his heart, he had always believed the Lannisters could not be defeated. Now enemy soldiers were already on the wall, and below it, dense ranks of attackers were climbing closer and closer to the top.
In his view, it did not matter who ruled the Riverlands. As long as he pledged loyalty quickly enough, the ruler would still care about noble dignity, and his Pinkmaiden would eventually return to his house.
Only this time was different from the last. If he fled the field and Riverrun fell, that was one thing. But if Riverrun won, then he would surely be held to account by his liege. The best outcome would be taking the black and joining the Night's Watch.
While Lord Piper was fretting and thinking wildly, a stray arrow slipped through a gap in the shields of his guards. It passed beside his ear and pierced the throat of a tall retainer standing next to him.
Gurgle, gurgle!
The tall retainer, blood bubbling in his mouth, seemed to want to say something to Lord Piper. In the end, no sound came. He collapsed limply to the ground.
Lord Piper watched the retainer die with a pale face, and his state of mind completely collapsed. That arrow had nearly taken his own life.
Indeed, on a battlefield, arrows did not care who you were.
Wait.
Looking at the enemy arrow lodged in the retainer's throat, inspiration struck Lord Piper.
He bent down, pulled the arrow free with some effort, then took a handkerchief from his sleeve and carefully wiped away the blood.
Then he gripped the arrowhead tightly in his right hand and stabbed it hard into his left shoulder.
"Ah!"
Lord Piper let out a loud scream. Clutching his bleeding left arm, he shouted to his guards,
"I've been hit! Quick, take me into the castle to have the wound treated!"
His guards had seen everything, of course. But with their fortunes tied to his, they naturally had to help the lord they served.
They shouted that their lord had been struck by an arrow and escorted him toward the stone stairway.
While Edmure was enjoying the slaughter, Lord Tytos was focused on directing the defense, and Lord Piper was pretending to be wounded so he could flee, the battle at the western main gate had entered its fiercest stage.
Westerlands siege towers had also joined the fighting along Riverrun's western wall, and many Lannister soldiers were preparing to board through the lowered planks.
On Riverrun's western wall, the covered cauldrons were opened at last. A foul stench drifted across the battlements.
Inside those cauldrons was boiling filth. Brynden had prepared it after accepting Robb's suggestion, gathering horse and human waste from Riverrun and boiling it down.
The method came from siege warfare in Robb's previous life, and it had two broad forms.
The first was made by melting various metals at high temperature. The result was molten metal.
If thrown from containers and splashed onto attacking soldiers, it could cause terrible harm and kill them in moments.
For the effect, one could picture the miserable state of the Beggar King, Viserys Targaryen, when Khal Drogo poured molten gold over his head as a crown.
Molten metal could also effectively defend against siege weapons. Once poured over them, the heat was enough to damage and ignite them.
However, metal was already precious in this age. Few defenders would spend so much to melt metal for such a purpose.
The second kind was boiling filth, made from animal and human waste. Its materials were easy to gather, plentiful, and cheap. It was an excellent weapon for defending a city.
Any attacking soldier in this age who was drenched in boiling filth was essentially already dead.
Burns caused by this substance were difficult to heal, and there was a high chance of death from severe infection.
Some might wonder whether boiling it had not disinfected it.
Many bacteria required sustained high heat over a long period before they could be killed.
And even if the filth itself carried no bacteria, it was a rich feeding ground for them. It could accelerate the growth of bacteria in the air, infecting and rotting wounds.
Splash!
A Lannister infantryman preparing to leap onto Riverrun's wall was doused from head to toe by a ladle of boiling filth thrown by a Riverrun guard.
His entire face was scalded, and a foul stench shot straight through his nose and into his mind. It was pure torment for both body and spirit.
Fortunately for him, the torment did not trouble him for long. The Lannister infantryman covered his face with both hands and struggled, failed to watch his footing, and fell straight from the siege tower's plank, dying on the spot.
His corpse happened to land beside another Lannister infantryman who was shouting for the attack. Boiling filth mixed with blood splashed over the man's body and into his mouth.
Cough, spit, spit!
The Lannister infantryman, clearly realizing something was wrong with the taste, immediately opened his mouth and began spitting wildly.
When Riverrun's guards used boiling filth, they did not need to care whether the Lannister infantry were well equipped. It ignored armor and dealt lasting damage.
Because of these defensive methods Robb had provided, Riverrun's western wall faced less pressure from the Lannister elite than the southern wall did.
Overall, Riverrun's siege had now entered a brutal stalemate. The entire battlefield swallowed flesh and blood like a meat grinder.
In the Westerlands army's position, Tywin watched the siege unfold just as he had expected.
His expression remained calm, as if victory were already in his grasp. He said to Kevan, "It is about time. Have them begin the attack."
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