Westerosi soldiers always found ways to entertain themselves.
Even on the battlefield, even when death could come at any second.
They kicked around a fuzzy, lumpy ball—definitely not round—leaving bloody smears across the grass. It was rock-hard. A few solid kicks and your toes swelled up like carrots.
Jaime leaned against a tree trunk, eyes closed, pretending to nap. He had zero interest in that crude shit.
Shouts drifted in from the edge of the woods.
"Hey! Stinking crabs! Come and get it!"
"Soft-bellied cowards! Too scared to crawl out of your holes?"
A handful of bold idiots had run out to the open ground at the treeline, booting the ball high and yelling straight at the enemy camp. Every time, some hot-headed crabman charged out in a rage. The archers hidden in the brush would loose their arrows and turn the poor bastard into the next ball.
Ser Balon Swann stood nearby, arms folded, face tight with disapproval. He'd already bitched to Jaime multiple times about how low and dirty the tactic was.
Jaime didn't give a damn.
It wasn't his order anyway.
Idiots were everywhere. These guys were bored out of their skulls and figured a few extra kills might earn them some favor with the Kingslayer.
Besides, they weren't allowed to actually fight.
The Hand had ordered nothing but harassment patrols, and Jaime was following that order to the letter—at least so far. He'd resisted the urge to charge that joke of a camp that would fold at the first real push. He only sent out small parties of fifty or a hundred riders at a time.
They'd make a big show of a full cavalry charge, cut down a handful of surprised fools, torch a couple tents, then wheel and gallop away before the enemy could react.
Boring as shit. Like slaughtering chickens.
The crabmen had no fight in them. They'd just blow their horns in a panic, scramble to form up, and stand there like morons eating the horse shit the raiders left behind.
Except for the occasional idiot who rode straight onto an enemy spear.
Over the whole night Jaime's side had taken almost no losses.
The crabmen, on the other hand, had to sound the alarm and muster every single time. Horns blaring like the world was ending, and they never learned. They never strengthened their defenses. Never dared chase.
With those horns going nonstop, Jaime couldn't even think straight.
His old man was too selfish—marching off to the Reach and leaving them stuck defending King's Landing. The city should have been perfectly safe. Who could have guessed that Dragonstone—the island guarding the capital's doorstep—would be the first to rebel?
Jaime didn't know Stannis well, and the sour-faced bastard had never even liked Robert. But the royal fleet was mostly under his control now, and the Westerlands forces were too far away to recall. Otherwise they could've done what they did during Greyjoy's Rebellion—sail straight to Dragonstone and end it quick instead of wasting time here.
Too bad. Real shame.
"Wooo—"
Another horn blast.
But this one was different.
Closer.
More urgent.
Coming from inside the woods.
Jaime's eyes snapped open. He swung into the saddle.
"Everyone up!" he barked.
The soldiers dropped the bloody balls and grabbed their weapons. A thousand cavalry formed up fast, hooves thudding through the trees.
Jaime spurred forward and reined in at the treeline.
Dawn light was just breaking.
A ragged mob of crabmen was charging straight at them.
Jaime couldn't help laughing out loud.
"Ser, they… they're coming out?" Vylar edged up beside him.
"Must've finally had enough."
The bastards were so sick of sleepless nights that they'd abandoned the safety of their camp and spilled out onto the open riverbank.
Right into cavalry country.
"Ser Jaime, the enemy's attacking. We should pull back," Vylar suggested.
But Jaime narrowed his eyes, studying their formation. It looked like a huge swarm, but the mess only showed how disorganized they were. These crabmen wore patched-up roughspun, most without shoes. They carried axes, fish-spears, or short pikes—no shields.
One good volley would drop half of them.
Too bad Jaime only had cavalry. Fewer than fifty men who could actually shoot.
They could withdraw anytime.
But Jaime suddenly didn't feel like it.
"They came all this way," he said. "Be rude not to greet them properly."
Vylar stared. "Ser? There's three thousand of them!"
"I can count." Jaime rolled his shoulders. "Only three thousand."
The knights crowded in around him, bloodlust thick in their voices.
"Ser Jaime, let's do it!"
"Show those stinking crabs what real steel feels like!"
Jaime raised a hand, cutting off Vylar's protests. "The men have made up their minds. No more talk."
He glanced back at his riders, then at the disorganized crabmen shambling closer, their lines fraying with every step.
"Ser Balon."
"Here."
"Take two hundred and ride straight at them. Draw them into the woods."
Balon nodded and started picking his men.
"The rest of you—follow me."
Eight hundred riders slipped deeper into the trees and swung south at a gallop.
Outside the woods, Balon's detachment rode back and forth in the open, taunting. The crabmen faltered for a second, then saw how few they faced and charged with wild shouts, determined to crush the annoying bastards.
Balon fell back at a measured pace—just fast enough to keep the crabmen chasing.
A hundred paces. Eighty. Fifty.
The crabmen drew closer to the trees, farther from their camp.
Jaime's force had circled wide to the south and now sat on the enemy's flank.
From here the three thousand crabmen looked like one giant sideways-walking crab—the front claws already snapping at Balon while the rest crawled along behind.
Jaime raised his sword.
Eight hundred riders kicked into a trot, then a canter, then a full thunderous charge.
Hooves tore up the earth. Wind roared past helmets.
They hit the crabmen from the side and rear like a golden spear.
Jaime's blade flashed in an arc. A crabman's head flew. Hot blood sprayed across his gilded armor, warm and coppery.
"For Casterly Rock!" he roared.
"For King's Landing!" "For Rosby!" "For Harford!"
Chaotic, fierce shouts rose behind him.
The barefoot wretches screamed, dropped their weapons, and scattered.
Jaime didn't stop. He hacked through one man's back, drove his sword through another's chest. Blood seeped into his helm. He licked his lips.
This was fighting.
Not cheap tricks to lure out a few idiots—this was riding straight through them so the enemy could see what real warriors looked like.
He cut down seven or eight in a row, armor now red instead of gold.
Then horns blared from another direction.
Down by the shore, a dense mass of figures poured out from behind the rocks.
Feathered helmets, belts bristling with daggers and throwing axes. Black and colorful banners snapping in the wind, strange red symbols on them.
Pirates.
At least five thousand.
They'd been hidden among the reefs the whole time and now closed the trap.
"Shit," Jaime muttered.
Arrows hissed through the air like sudden rain.
Jaime started to raise his shield.
One shaft found the gap in his right-arm armor and punched straight in.