The Red Keep was in a state of absolute, paralyzed panic.
The entire Iron Throne administration was shocked and furious at the sheer, terrifying velocity of Roman's military expansion into the Crownlands, but they were completely powerless to stop him.
The political situation had deteriorated into absolute chaos. Both Stannis and Renly Baratheon had officially declared their respective claims to the Iron Throne and were actively marshaling massive armies in the Stormlands and Dragonstone.
Queen Cersei was entirely trapped. She genuinely did not know if the vastly understaffed City Watch could even successfully repel an assault from the Baratheon brothers, let alone afford to permanently deploy her royal forces into the field to fight a magical monster like Roman Rivers.
To make matters exponentially worse, the Tyrells of the Reach had officially cut off all agricultural supply shipments to King's Landing, citing "concerns that the unstable political climate would jeopardize their economic investments."
"Damn it! What in the seven hells are those stupid roses doing?!" Cersei shrieked, violently pacing her solar. "Are those arrogant Tyrells actually attempting to starve us into arranging a royal marriage for Joffrey?"
Cersei was constantly screaming at her ministers, and King Joffrey was faring absolutely no better.
Recently, the sprawling, overpopulated slums of King's Landing had begun to experience genuine, biting hunger. Naturally, the starving smallfolk aggressively directed their absolute fury toward the cruelty of the newly crowned boy king.
The commoners of King's Landing were notoriously volatile. Historically, these were the exact same people who had fearlessly charged into the Dragonpit during the Dance of the Dragons to violently slaughter actual, fire-breathing dragons with their bare hands. Naturally, they possessed absolutely no fear when it came to loudly and recklessly cursing Joffrey's name in the streets.
Because Joffrey had already established a horrific reputation for sadistic cruelty, the smallfolk hurled the most vile, filthy insults at him imaginable. By proxy, they also took the opportunity to aggressively curse his younger brother Tommen.
However, whenever the furious mobs turned their attention toward Princess Myrcella, a strange, unspoken rule took hold. Everyone completely avoided speaking ill of her.
Myrcella was indeed Cersei's daughter, but more importantly to the smallfolk, she was the official betrothed of Roman Rivers.
During his prolonged stays in the capital over the past few years, Roman had aggressively established heavily funded, free medical clinics throughout Flea Bottom. Originally, he had only done this to secretly compile mass epidemiological data and disseminate basic public health protocols to prevent the capital from suffering a catastrophic plague outbreak that could inevitably spread north to Harrenhal.
However, to the impoverished, forgotten people of King's Landing, Roman's free clinics were a literal miracle. The smallfolk actively revered the Lord of Harrenhal as a second parent, treating him with the same profound respect they reserved for the Mother and the Crone.
Out of absolute respect for their medical savior, the starving mobs universally chose to pretend Princess Myrcella simply did not exist, completely shielding her from their violent protests.
As for Cersei, she was teetering on the absolute edge of total psychological collapse. She was forced to listen to the ceaseless, deafening insults of the starving mobs below her windows while simultaneously receiving a constant, miserable stream of horrific military reports detailing the fall of the Crownlands.
"Someone draft a raven to my father immediately!" Cersei ordered her terrified scribes. "Command him to abandon the Riverlands and march his entire host to the defense of the Iron Throne at once! Tell him that Roman Rivers is violently wreaking havoc across the Crownlands, and that House Hayford has already lost half its territory!"
"Your Grace," a trembling scribe replied hesitantly. "Lord Tywin previously stated in his last missive that he absolutely must secure the Riverlands to prevent a flank attack, and only then—"
"Are you defying your Queen?!" Cersei screeched, her green eyes bulging with madness.
The terrified attendant immediately shut his mouth and frantically scrambled to draft the letter to Tywin. Internally, however, he was cursing her existence.
That woman is absolutely insane! With a psychotic, arrogant fool like her acting as the Queen Regent, there is absolutely no way I am remaining in King's Landing. I must find a way to escape this wretched castle before we all burn!
While the capital slowly starved, Roman was rapidly expanding his absolute control over the northern territories of the Crownlands.
On this particular day, Roman led the Vanguard to aggressively raid the fortified manor of a landed knight who had stubbornly refused his terms of surrender, proudly declaring he would fight Harrenhal to the bitter end.
Roman happily obliged him. He simply deployed his dragon wings, bypassed the walls entirely, flew directly into the knight's central keep, and personally slaughtered the arrogant lord and his personal guard before casually strolling back out to open the heavy gates from the inside.
Truthfully, Roman vastly preferred dealing with arrogant, stubborn fools. If a noble peacefully surrendered, Roman was forced to navigate complex political administration to properly integrate them into his postwar bureaucracy. But if they violently resisted? He simply caved their skulls in with his warhammer, confiscated their lands, and permanently solved the problem. It was brutally simple and incredibly efficient.
Once a hostile lord's castle was forcefully captured, the surrounding smallfolk inevitably submitted immediately. Following the conquest, Roman would instantly deploy his quartermasters to implement Harrenhal's wildly popular economic policies.
The impoverished residents of the Crownlands quickly realized just how incredibly prosperous life was under Harrenhal's banner. Under Roman's rule, there were absolutely no inexplicable, arbitrary wartime taxes, no lethal forced labor drafts, and the terrifying lord actually spent his own gold to build paved roads and clean irrigation canals for the commoners.
Because they had finally experienced the tangible, life-altering benefits of Harrenhal's administration, the newly conquered peasants often developed a significantly more fanatical love and profound respect for Roman than even his own native Riverlands subjects.
Consequently, public opinion regarding Roman became violently polarized, with two entirely different versions of his legend circulating across Westeros.
The highborn nobles terrifiedly whispered that Roman was a demonic, humanoid dragon who viciously slaughtered and ate every single aristocrat inside the castles he conquered, before burning their ancestral keeps to ash.
Conversely, the common people fiercely praised Roman for his absolute kindness and uncompromising justice. They praised his Vanguard as a flawlessly disciplined army that never pillaged or committed offenses against women. They praised his laws as comprehensive and crystal clear, noting that he brutally enforced them without any regard for noble privilege, treating the highborn and the lowborn as absolute equals.
Sitting in the massive command tent, Fili listened to the Apostle-linked ravens reporting the overwhelming civilian support. She smiled with obvious, profound delight.
"Lord Roman! Look at these intelligence reports!" Fili beamed, organizing the scrolls. "The smallfolk of the Crownlands are practically worshipping you! They are incredibly cooperative with our agricultural policies and civic management. Our logistical operations across the conquered territories have been almost entirely unimpeded!"
Upon hearing this phenomenal report, the senior Harrenhal ministers gathered in the tent all displayed fiercely proud expressions. Roman smiled, raising his steaming teacup toward his assembled subordinates.
"I owe this unprecedented success entirely to your flawless administrative coordination and logistical assistance," Roman praised them warmly. "Since alcohol is strictly forbidden in active military camps, we shall celebrate with tea. I, Roman Rivers, raise a toast to your brilliance!"
After a brief burst of proud cheers, Roman and his high command immediately pivoted back to discussing their grand strategic blueprint.
"I intend to aggressively but methodically dismantle the remaining nobility of the Crownlands," Roman outlined, pointing at the war map. "We will advance step by step. We are not prioritizing sheer speed, but rather absolute, unbreakable stability. Once we conquer a piece of land, we must hold it so firmly that the Iron Throne can never reclaim it."
"Therefore," Roman continued coldly, "we will conduct a systematic, uncompromising political purge of the landed knights and minor lords. Those who willingly surrender will be safely transported back to Harrenhal to live under comfortable, highly monitored house arrest. Those who actively refuse to surrender—and manage to survive my Vanguard—will be permanently imprisoned in the deepest dungeons."
"Regarding our public outreach," Roman instructed his civilian ministers. "We must ensure the remaining residents of the Crownlands completely understand that absolute loyalty to Harrenhal guarantees low taxes, agricultural subsidies, full bellies, and the terrifying, uncompromising military protection of the Vanguard."
Roman specifically emphasized the absolute necessity of immediate postwar recovery and local infrastructure reconstruction. The Minister of Works had already mobilized Harrenhal's massive civilian construction guilds and deployed them to the front lines.
Now, with the heavy lifting provided by the Vanguard's massive giants, these engineering teams could rapidly construct stone walls, dig defensive trenches, and build insulated housing for displaced refugees at a speed that was utterly unfathomable to traditional Westerosi lords.
Furthermore, Roman took active, aggressive precautions against the remaining Crownlands nobles forming a unified military alliance against him. He heavily utilized his aerial raven network and Vanguard light cavalry scouts to provide an impenetrable early-warning perimeter around his captured castles.
Simultaneously, Roman heavily weaponized propaganda, ensuring tales of his benevolent economic policies spread like wildfire ahead of his advancing army to actively win over the enemy's smallfolk.
Before the Harrenhal Vanguard even arrived at a battlefield, the Crownlands peasants were already deeply alienated from their cruel, over-taxing lords. After all, Roman had definitively proven he would never attack or plunder unarmed civilians. Therefore, unless a peasant had been explicitly enriched by their lord, why on earth would they fight and die to stop Roman from arriving and lowering their taxes?
Fight against Roman Rivers, the smallfolk logic dictated, and you will be brutally shredded by heavy crossbow bolts and massive boulders. If you are incredibly unlucky, the Dragon Lord will personally launch you into the sky with a flaming hammer. Submit to Roman, and you receive immediate tax relief, free agricultural tools, and absolute safety without lifting a single finger.
As a direct result of this psychological warfare, the remaining nobles of the Crownlands found it utterly impossible to conscript levies. They could only mobilize the household guards strictly stationed within their immediate castles. Whenever a lord attempted to forcefully conscript peasants from the outer villages, the smallfolk simply ignored them. If the lord pushed too far and sent recruiting officers to beat the peasants into submission, the villagers would immediately send word to the Harrenhal Vanguard. Within hours, Roman would personally lead a heavy cavalry detachment to violently trample the recruiting officers into the mud.
The Crownlands. Antlers.
The surviving noble families fiercely loyal to the Iron Throne had desperately gathered at the fortress of Antlers. Their faces were grim and exhausted as they furiously debated how to halt Roman's terrifying advance.
The military council dragged on for hours without reaching a viable tactical resolution.
"If you ask me," a hot-headed young knight argued, "we should consolidate our remaining heavy cavalry, form a massive wedge, and charge directly into the Harrenhal lines to break them in open combat!"
"Are you entirely suicidal?!" an older, seasoned nobleman retorted violently. "And then what? We get effortlessly skewered by Harrenhal's massive giants and their terrifying ballistas? Have you completely forgotten how the knights of House Hayford died? By the Seven Gods, every single corpse had three crossbow bolts the size of small tree trunks buried deep in their breastplates!"
"Then what exactly do you suggest we do?!" the young knight yelled back. "Surrender without drawing steel and allow that magical monster to legally annex all our ancestral lands? That bastard Rivers doesn't even spare the lords who surrender peacefully; he still confiscates their lands and redistributes their wealth to the filthy peasants! Do you truly intend to just hand over the wealth and legacy your families have spent centuries building?"
The assembled lords fell silent. They were absolutely, paralyzing terrified of Roman's apocalyptic military power, but they were deeply unwilling to simply surrender the ancestral castles that had been in their families for hundreds of years. Ultimately, driven by sheer aristocratic greed, they decided to completely empty their treasuries to rapidly hire thousands of sellswords, utilizing every last copper to protect their property.
Ultimately, the desperate nobles of the Crownlands managed to assemble a massive, combined coalition army of nine thousand men, aggressively preparing to force a final, decisive battle against Roman Rivers at the fortress of Antlers.
"Our scouts have definitively confirmed that Roman's Vanguard currently consists of barely four thousand troops," the coalition commander declared proudly to the war council. "With nine thousand men against his four, our allied host possesses the absolute numerical advantage! We will crush him!"
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