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The surrender lasted far longer than the battle.
"We surrender!"
"We have thrown down our weapons. Do not kill us!"
"Help me!"
Will and the other Wolfguard rode back and forth through the valley with their direwolves beside them, forcing the Westerlands cavalry to throw their swords, daggers, and lances into piles. Behind them, Winterfell spearmen moved in tight squads, tying prisoners in groups of ten and dragging the lightly wounded to one side.
The surviving riders did not dare resist.
Not while Bloodwind and the other ice direwolves were feeding among the dead horses nearby.
The ground near the valley exit was carpeted with severed limbs, broken bodies, and chunks of frozen corpses lying in blood. Some of the ice fragments still held faces inside them, each expression preserved in lifelike terror.
The sound of flesh tearing and bones cracking carried through the valley. Each time one of the great beasts lifted its head, the prisoners lowered their eyes in terror. These men had ridden from Lannisport as proud cavalry. Now they were grateful simply to remain uneaten.
By the end of the count, Robb had gained more than two thousand eight hundred cavalry prisoners, roughly six hundred lightly wounded men, and nearly three thousand usable horses.
Smalljon whistled at the number. "Enough mounts to make half the south jealous."
"Enough mounts to make Tywin angry," Robb said.
That was the more important part.
The valley ambush had not been luck. In the memories Robb carried from his previous life, the direwolf of that doomed Robb Stark had once discovered a hidden mountain path near this region. Bloodwind's pack was far stronger and far more intelligent than an ordinary direwolf pack, and after days of searching, they had found the same rough way through the mountains below the Golden Tooth.
Robb had used the path to move his true northern soldiers by night.
Ten men to a group. No loud armor. No campfires on the march. No careless talk.
At the same time, he had left fires burning in the camp below the Golden Tooth and ordered men to move between the tents in patterns that made the defenders believe the northern host was still in place.
The Golden Tooth had tried to send scouts.
Bloodwind's pack had made sure none returned.
"Your Grace!"
Crey rode up from the southern end of the valley, his horse stepping carefully around shattered rock and frozen corpses. Behind him, northern soldiers were already searching the supply carts captured with Addam's force.
"Ser Addam is dead. The prisoners say five thousand Stormlands infantry are still on the road with the main supply train. They have grain, fodder, tools, and several covered wagons that Addam ordered them to guard closely."
Robb's eyes sharpened. "Who commands them?"
"Auren Estermont. A nephew of the Lord of Greenstone, according to the prisoners."
House Estermont. Stormlands. A Baratheon bannerman dragged west under Lannister orders.
Robb thought for a moment, then pointed toward the blocked road. "Send the prisoners to clear the valley. Use the Golden Tooth men who have already surrendered to help identify useful captains and gate guards. I want names, families, habits, debts, everything."
"You mean to use them inside the castle?"
"If a gate can be opened with gold, fear, or kinship, I would rather spend those than northern lives."
Crey nodded. The intelligence net in the south had expanded quickly after Robb's victories. Gold from the Westerlands, captives seeking favor, smallfolk eager to survive, minor knights with debts, servants who heard too much, all of them had become threads in Robb's hand.
The Golden Tooth looked strong from the outside.
Robb wanted to know where it was hollow.
He then turned to Gendry, Edd, Smalljon, and the Wolfguard. "Five thousand cavalry with me. We intercept the Stormlands supply train before they hear about Addam."
The riders moved before dusk.
Auren Estermont had been born on Greenstone, where the sea wind never truly left the stone walls. He was a nephew of the Lord of Greenstone, a man of House Estermont, which ruled its island south of Shipbreaker Bay.
The Estermonts' most famous blood tie was Cassana Estermont, mother of the late King Robert Baratheon. At the beginning of the War of the Five Kings, House Estermont had first supported Renly Baratheon. After Renly was slain outside Storm's End, they had turned to Stannis. Then, during the attack on King's Landing, Stannis had left them as pieces to be spent.
After surrendering, Lord Estermont had paid ransom in King's Landing for his family's freedom. Tywin Lannister took the gold and released the main members of the house.
Then men carrying Joffrey's conscription orders kept the Estermont soldiers in service.
They were folded into companies from other Stormlands houses and marched west under Lannister command.
Auren had never expected to die on a dusty road in the Westerlands for the sake of House Lannister.
When the scouts came back reporting northern cavalry behind them, his first thought was not courage.
It was disbelief.
"Lord Auren," a household soldier said as Auren washed in his tent that morning, "when I counted the men, several dozen more had deserted in the night."
"Do not panic," Auren said, wiping water from his face with a piece of linen. "This was expected. If Ser Addam's Westerlands cavalry had not been with us on the road from King's Landing, men would have started running before we even reached the Goldroad."
"The other four commanders are losing men even faster than we are. My lord... should we return to Greenstone?"
Auren looked at him for a long moment. "If you want to return to Greenstone, find a chance and go. I cannot. My name is Estermont."
Then the thunder of hooves rolled from the direction of the Golden Tooth.
For one foolish instant, Auren thought Addam Marbrand had come back to change their orders yet again.
"Impossible," he said after the shouts began outside. "Ser Addam rode ahead with five thousand cavalry. How could enemies be behind us?"
The answer arrived as a dark line of riders across the road.
The northern cavalry did not charge at once. They formed beyond bowshot, silent beneath direwolf banners. At their center stood a monster out of nightmare: a giant white direwolf with Robb Stark seated upon his back.
Auren felt the soldiers around him falter.
"Wagons forward!" he shouted. "Make a wall! Spearmen behind it! Archers, string your bows!"
The Stormlands infantry obeyed, but fear slowed every hand. Auren and the other commanders shouted promises of silver stags and threats of direwolves until the men began to gather around the supply wagons.
They had heard too many stories on the march: Robb Stark's wolf eating men, northern soldiers wielding frost and fire, Lannisport burning, Casterly Rock plundered, impossible things following the King in the North.
One of Auren's household soldiers rode close and said under his breath, "My lord, we should abandon the wagons and return to Greenstone. These men are half ready to run."
Auren's jaw tightened. "My name is Estermont. If I abandon a Lannister supply train on the road, Tywin Lannister will remember that name."
"If we stay, Robb Stark may not leave anyone alive to remember it."
Auren did not answer.
Instead, he forced his voice to carry. "Hold the line! Any man who stands will be paid in silver stags. Any man who runs will be fed to the direwolves when the north catches him!"
That fear worked better than honor.
The Stormlanders dragged wagons across the road and formed a rough barricade. Spears pushed forward between wheels. Archers gathered behind sacks of grain and barrels of oats.
Robb watched them work, then looked to the Wolfguard.
"One ice crystal fruit first. One explosive fruit after."
Gendry had prepared the pouches himself: small ring-shaped cases with eight padded compartments, made so the Wolfguard could carry Robb's fruits into battle without breaking them by accident.
Thirteen riders moved forward with their direwolves.
"Ride hard," Robb ordered. "Break the markings and throw after five breaths."
The Wolfguard accelerated out of the northern cavalry formation. After five breaths, the first pale fruits flew in high arcs and struck the wagon line.
Crack, crack, crack!
White frost exploded outward. Wheels, axles, sacks, barrels, and the hands of men gripping spears were swallowed by ice. In a heartbeat, the crude barricade had become a frozen wall.
Then the second fruits landed.
Boom!
The frozen wagons shattered. Wooden planks, ice shards, and broken iron bands blasted into the Stormlands formation. Under the orange heat released by the second blast, much of the shattered ice melted at once, and a thick fog of steam, frost, and dust rolled over the road.
At the rear of the Stormlands formation, Auren stood frozen, too stunned even to speak.
For an instant, the first defensive line glittered in bright crystal. Then it vanished in a chain of explosions.
Hooves thundered from behind the fog.
'What is war becoming? I should have run when I had the chance.'
Out of that fog came Bloodwind.
The direwolf sprang through the ruined barricade and landed among the spearmen. Three men froze where they stood before his breath even touched them, then shattered beneath his claws. Behind him, the Wolfguard charged through the gap, throwing more black fruits into the densest knots of soldiers.
The Stormlands line broke at once.
Robb's cavalry followed, pouring through the opening with lances lowered. The supply train became a field of screams and splintered wagons.
Auren tried to flee.
His horse had barely turned before a cold shadow fell over him. Bloodwind's jaws closed around the horse's neck, and it collapsed beneath Auren in a spray of hot blood and frost.
Auren rolled across the road, losing his sword. When he looked up, Bloodwind stood over him.
Robb looked down from the direwolf's back.
Auren raised both hands before any pride could ruin him.
"Do not let him eat me," he said hoarsely. "I know something important. I know what is inside those covered wagons."
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