The Mountain of Ice and Fire

“Lannister will be completely destroyed.” Edmure Tully said.

The rope wrapped around Edmure Tully's shoulders, looped over his arms, pulled back, drawing Edmure's arms behind him, tightening, then wrapped around his wrists, binding his hands together, tightly.

Jaime, who had reached the entrance of the tent, turned back: “Edmure, the Tully family will probably be the first to be slaughtered.”

“You won't take Riverrun, Kingslayer,” Edmure Tully said coldly.

“You think two rivers can stop the Westermen?” Jaime laughed. “If I push you to the riverbank and offer your head as a sacrifice to Lord Hoster, what do you think he would do?”

“He would ask you to hurry up, Kingslayer.” Edmure spat on the ground. “The Vale and the North will raise their banners and crush every corner of the Westerlands. The Riverlands' people and nobles will rise again. The Baratheon army will take King's Landing and hang Cersei. The Westerlands will surely lose, and you know it.”

“Then open your eyes wide and see how I take Riverrun. And, dare to say another word, and I'll cut out your tongue first. Consider this warning a freebie, Lord Edmure,” Jaime laughed, his eyes gleaming.

Edmure Tully opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Jaime and his attendants burst into laughter.

Edmure heard the sound of Jaime mounting his horse, the loud orders, the commands to attack. A voice shouted: “Stop him, he is Lord Tytos Blackwood, don't let him break through the encirclement.” In what felt like a heartbeat, all sorts of sounds flooded into Edmure's ears. He was pushed out of the tent with a guard's short sword pressed against his back.

Everywhere was filled with voices, firelight. The row of tents by the Red Fork were ablaze, forming a fiery dragon. Many people were desperately swimming in the river, while Lannister red cloaks lined the bank, shooting arrows into the water.

A group of people were fleeing along the bank of the Red Fork, with Jaime Lannister and two other groups in pursuit.

The stench of blood filled the air. Screams, pleas for mercy, the sound of wind, fire, and the clash of swords mingled together, drowning out the roaring of the Red Fork.

Lord Tytos Blackwood had suggested to Edmure Tully that they should concentrate their forces beneath the Golden Tooth, rather than dispersing them to defend the borders. Edmure had not taken Tytos's advice. If they didn't intercept them completely, wouldn't the Westermen be able to freely enter the Riverlands, and encircle them from behind?

The dispersed forces were indeed weak, and were easily defeated by the Westermen's charge. Jaime had launched a surprise attack, which Edmure found despicable. Corpses of Riverlands soldiers were everywhere he looked, and Edmure's heart ached. The only consolation was that the forces stationed in other villages had been preserved. They would become the sparks to ignite the counterattack.

Edmure was escorted to a group of people, and only when he got closer did he see Tywin Lannister sitting upright on his horse. The old dog had come in person. No wonder Jaime had launched a sudden attack.

Lord Tywin stared coldly at Edmure. In his eyes, Edmure was just a child who understood nothing, pathetically naive.

“Edmure, how could you think of dispersing your forces to protect all the border villages?” Tywin spoke, which was rare. For Tywin to speak to a prisoner, unless it was a judgment of someone of equal status. His language was usually his gaze.

Edmure's stupidity made Lord Tywin want to understand what this young man was thinking.

“They are the people of the Tully family.”

“You really have the style of loving the people like a child.” Tywin said softly, his tone full of sarcasm.

“The Tully and Stark families will make you regret this, I swear on my life. Lord Tywin, release Lord Eddard and retreat now, and you still have time.”

Tywin's green eyes with gold flecks looked at Edmure for a long while. He waved his hand, and Edmure was pushed away, coming to a prisoner carriage. The prisoner carriages were lined up in a long row, filled with Riverlands lords and knights. Some were covered in blood, looking seriously injured.

Edmure was rudely pushed into the prisoner carriage. As the iron chains wrapped around the carriage door, he saw Lord Gawen Westerling beside Tywin. His daughter, Jeyne, was still in Riverrun, deeply loved by Lord Hoster. Only, Lord Hoster often mistook her, often calling Jeyne, Catelyn or Lysa.

Edmure did not see Reynald Westerling, presumably that kid was chasing after the Riverlands soldiers who had escaped. The Mountain and his Clegane riders were also nowhere to be seen on the battlefield.

Under the gaze of Edmure and the other Riverlands noble prisoners, Lord Tywin led his army to cross the river.

The Westerlands army completely crossed the Red Fork before dawn. Lord Tywin divided his forces into two groups. He allocated twelve thousand men to Jaime Lannister to besiege Riverrun, while he led twenty thousand men east, marching rapidly towards the Crossroads Inn on the Trident River.

The main force of the Riverlands was in Edmure's hands, and had been completely defeated. Most of the generals and knights were captured. A small number of generals and knights escaped under the leadership of Tytos Blackwood, scattering into various villages. The forces scattered in various villages were few, adding up to only a few thousand men, and were now frightened birds. They had neither the numerical advantage nor the unified command of generals against Jaime's forces, and were now a scattered rabble.

If Edmure's sister, Lysa Tully, sent the Vale's army to reinforce the Riverlands, this would be very unfavorable to the Westerlands' situation. It was necessary to block the road for the Vale's army. The Crossroads Inn on the Trident River was the best place to station troops, where one could attack or defend. If the Northern army marched south, going north along the Green Fork, they could engage the enemy. Once there was a change in King's Landing, it was also the closest place to support King's Landing.

The Crossroads Inn on the Trident River was a very important military strategic location. Occupying the Crossroads Inn would control the throat through which the Vale's army would emerge, and it was also the only road for the Vale's army to come out. It could also meet the Northern army marching south, and it could also easily go south along the Kingsroad into the Crownlands to support King's Landing, achieving three things at once.

Behind the Crossroads Inn was Harrenhal in the Riverlands, the territory of Lady Shella Whent, but Tywin was not worried at all that the Whents would attack his army from behind. The Mountain would suddenly appear and easily take Harrenhal, removing this nail behind the Crossroads Inn.

*

0278 Chapter 2: The Vanguard Bloody Mummers

On the Kingsroad.

The Brave Companions, known as the Bloody Mummers by the people of King's Landing, were marching rapidly.

Hired by the Mountain, the three-hundred-man team had now become part of the Mountain's army. They marched half a day ahead of the Clegane cavalry and Clegane infantry. Their leader, Vargo, had been appointed as the vanguard by the Mountain.

Vargo Hoat, the leader, would sell his services to whoever paid more and promised more benefits.

Vargo was a tall, thin man with a heavy foreign accent from Qohor. The mercenary company was called the Bloody Mummers by the people of King's Landing because of their cruel behavior and the strange costumes of its members (wearing exotic national costumes), and they resented this name very much, feeling that it carried some kind of insult.

Leader Vargo had two major hobbies: one was collecting coins from various places and making them into necklaces, and even more coins were inlaid on the clothes on his chest as decoration.

People from different regions and cultures used different types of coins. The most commonly used coins were still those cast from gold and silver, and in some places, due to the scarcity of gold and silver mines, iron coins were used. Vargo was fascinated by collecting different currencies from various places, and he became a collector of currencies.

In his money necklaces and chest ornaments, there were square iron coins from Braavos, round iron coins with the heads of iron-helmeted men; round gold coins with a square iron tower as a pattern from Pentos; long oval gold coins with a naked woman printed on the coin surface circulating in the Free City of Lys, and iron coins from Myr; flat oval iron coins with a ship printed on the coin surface.

And so on, without going into detail. Vargo's chest ornaments were almost completely inlaid with coins from all over the world.

In addition to collecting coins from various places with different cultural expressions and symbols, Vargo also had another hobby: cutting off feet. He liked to cut off the feet of the people he caught, and then let them try to escape. If they could escape to the specified distance within the specified hourglass time, the person could get his life back.

Therefore, Vargo and his legion acquired a title: Foot Hunters.

Vargo had several important members under his command, the first of whom was Maester Qyburn. Now Qyburn had been transferred away by the Mountain in his capacity as employer.

Maester Qyburn's medical skills were superb, and he was an indispensable key figure in the Bloody Mummers. Because he liked to experiment on living people, even more cruel than Vargo himself, the brothers of the Bloody Mummers were all afraid of his kind smile.

The second most important team member was named Shagwell, who liked young boys. After abusing young boys, he liked to collect their roots and then string them up and hang them around his neck, like a necklace.

The third leader of the team was a madman who dressed himself as a clown. He wore a clown hat on his head and always wore a clown's red nose on his nose. He liked to giggle, and then cut off his opponent's hands and feet in the laughter. He didn't like to kill people, he only liked to cut off the enemy's hands and feet.

The fourth leader of the team was a fat man named Zollo, a Dothraki who used an arakh. Polliver had once killed a Dothraki mercenary on the street selling brown soup, and that guy was Zollo's subordinate.

The Brave Companions' banner fluttered in the wind. The pattern on the banner was a blood-horned black goat.

The blood-horned black goat was Vargo Hoat's belief, which in the city-state of Qohor symbolized the god of death.

*

Vargo stared wide-eyed at the huge castle in front of him.

He was amazed by the height and majesty of the castle.

He looked up, up, and up again, to see the top of the castle gate, where there was a faint shadow of a small trebuchet. But in fact, the trebuchet above the city gate was very huge, but because it was too high, the trebuchet looked very small from the ground.

Shagwell next to him was equally surprised.

Everyone had heard of the name Harrenhal, but it was the first time they had seen it up close.

This was indeed a castle that was too huge.

Looking inside from the city gate, the thickness of the city wall was even more surprising. The murder holes on both sides were symmetrically arranged, with about dozens of them. The passageway in the middle was as long as a street.

There were only two soldiers holding long spears at the gate. They were wearing armor and swords at their waists, very majestic.

Vargo ignored the two soldiers who came to inquire. He was amazed at the thickness of the city wall, which was at least four times the thickness of the city wall of King's Landing.

“Legend has it that this castle was built by the Blackheart King of the Riverlands for forty years, with a total of hundreds of thousands of craftsmen.” Vargo said in amazement to the brothers around him.

“Who are you? This is the castle of the Whent family, leave quickly!” a guard shouted impatiently.

Lady Shella Whent had no children. She was old, and the younger generation in the family led the army to Riverrun. In addition to dozens of servants, there were only twenty family guards in the castle.

Three more family guards rushed out of the gate. They didn't know who the other party was? But they were already on alert.

In order to avoid alarming the enemy, Vargo's three hundred brothers did not appear. They were ambushed in a small forest next to them, waiting for Vargo to give the order to rush out.

Vargo only brought Shagwell, the Clown, and Zollo, a total of four leaders. They appeared at the gate of Harrenhal. The original excuse was that they were passing mercenaries and wanted a drink of water.

Unfortunately, as soon as they approached Harrenhal, they were shocked by the huge and majestic Harrenhal.

Harrenhal was built hundreds of years ago by King Harren the Black of the Riverlands. In order to build this miraculous castle, more than 10,000 craftsmen were buried under the castle.

At that time, the entire Trident River region was King Harren's territory, and he was therefore called the 'Blackheart King' by the people.

“With such city walls, once the gate is closed, who can take it if they attack by force?” the Clown said.

“Get out of here, or I'll be rude,” a guard who rushed out shouted. He had already drawn his long sword threateningly.

Four very strange people, four very strange accents, never-before-seen costumes, one of whom seemed to have many little boy's genitals hanging around his neck.

Four people exuding an evil aura.

“We are mercenaries, free riders, passing by here, I wonder if the owner here still needs mercenaries.” Vargo said expectantly. He stuck out his tongue and licked his lips, which was a signal to attack.

The plan for passers-by to go in and beg for a glass of water was completely overturned. Vargo decided to go straight to the point.

Such a majestic and amazing castle obviously had few guards. Where did those troops go? There was no doubt that they were transferred to Riverrun in the Riverlands to fight.

What a godsend.

Vargo fell in love with this castle at first sight. If he could own this castle, he would be willing to pay any price.

“We wouldn't hire you even if we needed to.” a guard said unhappily.

“Go away, go away, don't force us to take action.” another guard said.

As he spoke, two more guards appeared at the gate, holding spears and looking outside.

“Knight, you can take a look at my skills first. For one gold dragon, I can sell my life for you.” Vargo choked and drew his long sword, kicking his warhorse hard. The horse charged towards the gate.

The guards of Harrenhal were not riding horses. They were caught off guard, and the warhorse charged, and they dodged one after another.

A cold light flashed, and Vargo's long sword struck down, hitting a guard's helmet.

The helmet split in half, and the blade bit hard into the head.

Clang clang clang!

Shagwell, the Clown, and Fat Zollo all revealed their weapons, shouting, and leaping forward on their horses.