POV: Stannis Baratheon
The ground before Storm's End had the smell now that it had when he was a child, when he, Renly and Robert would go riding with their father. Then Robert went to foster in Vale, few years later Father died then rebellion happened and nothing had been the same since then. He knew stewards and men of Storms End were angry towards him, their love for Renly crossed all bounds but it was his duty to be its ruler, with Robert dead he was next in line. But then the Targaryen appeared and the Red-women had all but sing songs of his deeds and arrival.
He loved and hated Storms End in equal measure, a place where he lost his parents, a place he was denied because of childishness of two men. But he loved it more than Dragonstone for true, he had learned to hate that smell at Dragonstone, where it had clung to him for years while the storms came and went and his supply ships grew fewer. He had learned to hate many things at Dragonstone.
He stood before his tent on the ridge above the Stormlands plain, looking down at the field in the early grey of morning. His three thousand were already formed, or most of them. He could see the blocks of spears on the left and the outriders on the right still working to keep their horses from scattering in the wet.
The Reach men had still not arrived which meant that Mace was waiting, just he did in last rebellion.
"Your Grace." Ser Gilbert Farring came up the rise with that careful tread of his, the mud sucking at his boots. He was a broad man, older than his lord by twenty years, grey-bearded, with the look of a man who has been disappointed by many things and has arranged his face so as not to show it. "The Reach lords are deploying. My outriders count their van at six thousand foot and two thousand horse."
"Six thousand in the van," Stannis said.
"Their main body is behind. We estimate fifteen thousand in total, perhaps somewhat more. The Tyrells have brought everything, it would seem."
Stannis said nothing and looked at the field. Fifteen thousand against his own three thousand. He knew his men were as good as any men in the Seven Kingdoms but he thought with the cold pragmatism that he had always carried that there was no winning in this one.
"The men's spirits?" he said.
Farring considered the question with the seriousness it deserved. "They hold, Your Grace. They have known the odds since we marched."
"And yet still they stand."
"They follow you with conviction, Your Grace."
Stannis looked at the Reach host spreading across the plain below. Even at this distance and this light, their banners were bright things, the golden rose of Highgarden, the green apple of Fossoway, the butterflies of House Mullendore, a dozen others he did not have to look long to name. They had brought their colours and their pride, all these men who had bent their knees to Lannisters, Renly included. His own brother had sided with the Lannisters of all things just for Storms End to fall in his grasp.
"Is there word from Lord Estermont?" he said.
Farring's face changed, not much, but enough. "There have sent us no word, Your Grace."
"Other Houses?"
"Nothing, Your Grace."
Stannis turned from the field. "Then we will fight without them."
"Yes, Your Grace." Farring paused. "If they do not turn-"
"They will or they will not," Stannis said. "What they do or don't do is not in my hands. What is in my hands I will attend to."
He went back into his tent to finish putting on his armour.
The squire was a boy of fourteen, the son of one of the Stormlands knights who had followed him to Dragonstone when Robert had exiled to place of ruined stones. The boy's name was Edyard and he was not gifted with his hands, and he knew it, and he worked twice as carefully for knowing it.
"Your Grace," Edyard said, fumbling with the gorget clasp.
"I know it," Stannis said. "Take your time."
The boy did, which was its own sort of virtue. He worked the clasp with both hands, his tongue between his teeth. When it caught, the relief on his face was visible.
"There," Stannis said.
"I had it." The boy looked down, suddenly embarrassed. "My lord, I..... I had it."
"I know." Stannis took his helm from the campaign table and looked into it. Plain, with no ornament, he was no Renly afterall, a slight dent above the right temple that the smith had not quite worked out when he reforged it at Dragonstone. He had never asked for it to be fixed. He was not a man who minded dents.
"Edyard," he said.
"Your Grace."
"After the battle starts." He settled the helm onto his head and turned to look at the boy. "You will go to the bay where you will find Ser Davos. He will tell you which ships to take. You will go with him, you will not stay to look for me."
The boy's throat moved. "Your Grace, I couldn't-"
"You could and you will. A squire's duty is to follow his Lord's order." He straightened with lad with his sharp voice. "Understood?"
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Good." He said as he picked up his gauntlets.
He rode down the ridge to the line, and the men turned to look at him. Stannis had never been gifted with Robert's manner, the laugh and the jest and the casual word that made men love him. Robert had never needed to think about how he talked to soldiers. It came from him like warmth from a fire. Stannis had always had to think about it, and the thinking showed, and these men knew it and followed him anyway, which was the thing about Stannis Baratheon that no one who served him ever quite forgot. He did not pretend, and they knew that every word coming out his words held nothing but truth and honesty.
He rode the line without speaking. What was there to say? They knew why they were here. They had marched here knowing the numbers, a speech would not improve the numbers.
Ser Elwood Meadows, who commanded the left, brought his horse alongside as Stannis reached the end of the pike block. "Your Grace. The Reach cavalry is dressing its lines. They mean to lead with horse."
"Of course they do. They have thrice our horse and they know it." Stannis looked across the field at the distant glitter of Reach armor. "Hold the left with the pikes. Do not let them break your square. Can you do that?"
"I can, Your Grace."
"Then do." He turned back to the line. "What of the right?"
"Lord Caron's men are steady. His knights are impatient."
"Knights are always impatient. It is one of their few useful qualities." He turned his horse and looked toward the Reach host again. "Ser Eldon, if there is a moment when I ride forward, if you see me advance from the centre then you will hold the left. You will not follow me forward. You will hold."
Eldon looked at him for a moment. "And the centre, Your Grace?"
"The centre is mine."
He rode back to the middle of the line, to the place where his banner stood, stag black on gold, the Baratheon of every lord in the line before him, the banner he had watched all his life as if it belonged to someone else. Ser Gilbert was waiting there with the household knights, a dozen of them.
Ser David Nettles was there, scarred man from Dragonstone who had followed him here. Ser Helman Cole, who had ridden with him for fifteen years.
Stannis looked at them.
"I know what this looks like," he said.
They said nothing.
"I know the numbers. I know we are three thousand against fifteen and I know that somewhere behind all of this is the Lannister men marching." He paused. He was not a man for speeches. But there was a thing that wanted saying and no other moment to say it. "Robert would have made this a celebration. He would have had you laughing by now. You would be drunk on his confidence and you would not be counting the numbers on the other side." He looked across the line of old faces and young ones. "I cannot do that, I do not know how. What I can tell you is this; I am right. That is all I have ever had. I am right, and I have never in my life required anyone to follow me on that basis alone, and I do not require it now."
He turned his horse to face the plain.
"But here we are."
The Reach host came forward at the second hour of the morning, when the mist was still on the ground and the light was flat and grey. They came in good order, which reminded him of Tarly and Rowan.
Randyll Tarly had trained his men, had drilled his levies into something that moved and turned and dressed its lines like a real army rather than a mob with banners. Even marching against him now, Stannis could appreciate the man's work. He hated appreciating quality in the wrong hands.
Then came the sound of fifteen thousand feet on wet Stormlands earth.
"Steady," Stannis said, not loudly though no one was going anywhere.
The Reach cavalry, green-cloaked, perhaps two thousand strong, moved wide on both flanks. They would pin his own outriders and then come around behind to hit the pike squares from the rear. He had expected it but he could do nothing for he did not had enough men to stop it.
A man rides at what he has, Stannis thought, and kicked his horse forward fifty yards to see the field better. The Reach foot was perhaps a quarter mile out now, close enough that individual banners could be distinguished from the great colored mass of them. Close enough that the faces of men in the front rank were becoming things with features.
Ser Gilbert rode up beside him. "They're almost in range of the archers."
"Wait."
"Your Grace-"
"Wait."
The ground between the armies was soon trampled. Stannis counted heartbeats.
"Archers," he said. "Now."
The arrows came flat and fast out of the grey, and they went into the front ranks of the Reach foot and men started falling down. But they were fifteen thousand, they swallowed the arrow fire and dressed their lines and kept coming.
Stannis watched them come and then drew his sword and raised it above his head, not for drama, just so his household knights would see it, and they formed up behind him.
He had not flinched in the siege of Storms End, had not flinched at Greyjoy Rebellion. He was not a man who had flinching in him.
"Forward," he shouted.
And then the eastern flank of the Reach host came apart.
It began with a shout from Stannis's direction. From the east, from the flank, where the Reach cavalry had been wheeling wide.
"Your Grace." Ser Gilbert was at his shoulder, his voice controlling the astonishment that any other man would have hid that easily. "I can see.... I believe those are Ashford banners mixed with the Tarly, in the east. They are engaging the Reach banners."
Stannis said nothing but watched. In front of him, the Reach foot van was still moving forward, though the men at the rear were beginning to look behind them and the orderly advance had developed the subtle wobble that certainly came before disorder.
"And there." Ser Gilbert pointed west. "The Hightower, Your Grace. I would swear to it."
House Hightower, a fire burning on top white tower, had turned their momentum on the west end of the field. The Hightower men were pushing into the west guard, into the men they had marched beside all the way from Highgarden.
Stannis watched it happen. He could feel cold sensation of watching something he had never thought of happening become real.
For whom did these men turned side for. He thought because it certainly wasn't for him. He had no love for Reach lords after all and he knew they didn't either.
Could it because of the Targaryen King, the Red woman had certainly been out of worry since we have heard of Reach men marching, and if it was him then it told Stannis a good deal about the King's estimation of his own intelligence and the Lannister both.
Stannis had come out of Storms End because he didn't want to lay under the siege with his family with enemies walking in the halls of the castle. So he had marched outside and send his family to the bay.
"Your Grace," said Farring, and there was something in his voice that made Stannis look up.
To the rear of Reach march. Coming from the south, over the low hills, banners he did not recognize at first, orange field, gold spear, red sun, but when he did recognize them, his breath got caught in his throat.
The Dornish rushing against Reachmen may not seem strange but for them to come to Storms End for a Baratheon no less.
A number of Dornish spears came over the hills from the south, as they rushed in the space between the Reach host and their retreat.
And Oberyn Martell too, the viper himself.
"Your Grace," said Ser Gilbert, very quietly. "There is something else."
Stannis heard it before he looked up. The same thing the horses heard as they did same, he looked south and saw the shadow moving .
The thing was red and very large. The dragon came in from the south and east, parallel to the ground, not attacking, only flying low.
Stannis found that he was gripping his sword. He made himself loose the grip, one finger at a time. Not mine, he thought, with the cold finality. This victory would not mine nor the throne is never going to be mine.
The thought sat in him like a splinter, small and sharp. He had known it for months, or he had half-known it, he turned blind eye and ignored the other Kings strength. The iron throne was not going to be his.
But there was still a battle on the field below him, and men who had followed him here were still looking to him, and Stannis Baratheon had never once in his life failed to finish what he started.
"Forward," he said again, and rode down the ridge.
The Reach front van met Stannis's three thousand and they clashed hard. Men at the front of a fight knew only the man in front of them, the push of bodies, the sound of iron slashing flesh.
Stannis fought in the centre, because a king who did not fight in his own battles had no business being king. He was not brilliant with a sword in the way that Robert had been brilliant with his war hammer, with that laughing berserker joy that had made men follow Robert into fire. He was competent and strong and very hard to kill.
He killed a man with a green cloak and didn't see his face. He turned a spear on his shield and cut the haft in two. Around him, his household knights were doing what they had learned.
The Reach van pressed forward and the press of it was enormous, fifteen pounds of armored man behind every step, and Stannis felt the line give behind him and screamed at Farring to hold and the man held.
There were in the middle of the field while enemies from all the side clashed against their own. Dornish from the rear, Ashford, Tarly and the Hightower's push from both of the flanks, and in front of them was Stannis, and above all of it the shadow of the dragon moving slow and red across them. The only solace here was that it wasn't burning anything.
It was there that Lord Renly, commanding the Reach men, wheeled his horse and looked at the ring closing around them and made his calculation.
He threw down his sword.
It made a sound in the mud, a quiet, anti-climactic sound. The man near him looked at it and then they looked at the dragon's shadow.
Then they started throwing down their own swords.
It moved through the Reach host through large groups of men with its own momentum, each man's surrender making the next one easier. It was a total rout with no panic. Something more orderly which was perhaps the strangest thing about it. Thousands of men of the Reach, the pride of Highgarden, laying down their arms with the quiet competence.
The dragon circled twice and did not breathe fire.
Stannis noticed that. The fire was not needed, and the man on the dragon's back knew it was not needed, and had not used it.
Ser Gilbert found him in the middle of the field, his horse stepping carefully through the wreckage of the advance. "Your Grace. The host is breaking up. A rider from Ashford's had requested your presence at the eastern edge of the field."
"How many dead?"
"The counting is not finished. Our side, perhaps two hundred. Their van suffered considerably more. But their flanks-" He paused. "The flanks cost them dear. Ashford's and Hightower men drove through the Reach horse before they could complete the encirclement."
Two hundred against fifteen thousand, it was as good as any outcome in such predictament. He thought and felt nothing particular about it, which was usual.
"Tell Lord Ashford that I will come," he said.
He sheathed his sword and rode east.
Lord Androw Ashford of Ashford was not what Stannis had expected, the man was young with sharp features as he met him on his way to eastern edge. Not impressive in any obvious way but he knew their actions, House Ashford was few of the House that had put a Targaryen above their own liege lord. The man had worn his armor and looked ready for further action, beside him was a tall lad he didn't know but seeing his features he thought him of as son of Randyll.
His eyes turned back to Lord Ashford who gaze were very direct and not warm and did not pretend to be warm.
He dismounted when Stannis approached and gave a short nod.
"Lord Stannis," Androw began.
"Lord Ashford." Stannis knew that the title of King was long gone. "I received your letter."
"I assumed you had, or you would not be here."
Stannis looked at him. "And what now?"
"Now we wait for the order of the King."
They stood in the quiet of the aftermath, the sound of men tending wounds, calling names. The dragon had landed somewhere to the east.
"Do you want the Reach for yourself," Stannis said. "A man who had turned the tide of the battle, brought a new Kingdom to your Kings fold would surely deserve wardenship of his own."
"No." Ashford denied no few moments later.
"Why not." Stannis asked.
The man was quiet for a moment. Not considering whether to answer, Stannis had the sense he had already considered all of this at great length but finding the exact right way to say the thing he had already decided to say.
"My kin had served under men who deserved it and men who did not," Ashford said. "The Targaryens for all their fault had brought stability to the realm. What was the cause of last rebellion I care not, what I do care is that we lost our prince and princess and many. Robert was never my king, Mace Tyrell deserved nothing of the kind after his lack of actions, but he was Lord of Highgarden and so I served him as the oath required, and I served him well, and that has been the waste of years. I knelt to Robert reluctant as I was but I would not Lannister whelp when true king lives." He looked at Stannis directly. "I do not care about wardenship, the King knows well about his men. I want nothing except a kingdom that is governed by someone who is not an idiot."
Stannis held that. It was, he thought, the most honest thing anyone had said to him in many years.
"I am not an idiot," he said.
"No," Androw agreed. "You are not."
"That is not quite praise."
"Of course," Ashford said. "It is not."
Something that was almost the ghost of a smile crossed Stannis Baratheon's face but was gone soon. He looked across the field, at the Reach host being disarmed, at the dragon's red bulk visible above the eastern tree line, at the banners of a dozen great houses being taken down.
"Lord Stannis," he said. "It's time you meet the King."
"Yes," Stannis nodded.
They rode east together, toward the place where other lords were waiting to bend his knee, and surrender their arms.
It was for first time that Stannis lay eye on Aemon, the House his brother had sworn to finish off the world. It was cruel thing to do and he did not have enough patience to placate his brother. Their meet took place on eastern edge of the field, where the dragon sat like a hill with red eyes, and a dozen lords stood at a respectful distance.
Aemon was standing near the dragon's shoulder and not on her. A woman stood by his side with a hand on her sword and only half a head shorter than what Robert had been, and looked a couple year older than the king. When Stannis reached up close he saw that the boy had the Targaryen look, the pale coloring, the hair, but what he did not have was eyes. He did not have the purple shade of typical valyrian eyes but red eyes.
"King Stannis," Aemon said, and it was not a greeting performed for the watching lords. It was a courtesy given to a man who had earned it this day.
"Your Grace." Stannis said it without difficulty, which surprised him slightly. He had thought it would stick in his throat. It did not, he was an honest man, and an honest man could look at what had happened on this field today and know who had won it and for whom and act accordingly.
"You held the centre with three thousand men," Aemon said.
"It would have been considerably nothing if Ashford and others had not turned," Stannis said.
"What you say is true." He glanced toward the field. "But the holding action is worth something, a holding action against those numbers is worth more."
Stannis looked at him. The boy said things plainly, which Stannis had not expected. He had prepared himself for politics and smoothness and the particular slipperiness that he had seen in Small Council and certainly his younger brother.
"I have seen Dornish flag," Stannis said carefully, "you have certain strength to challenge the only two King who remain now."
"I do."
"What do you intend to sit on the throne for?"
Aemon was quiet for a moment. "The realm must stand united for things to come," he said and then turned to look him dead in the eye. "A threat marches against the living and the throne which Lannister sully is my right and I will have it whether by diplomacy or blood."
"I do not know what that means but I do know that you care for Westeros," Stannis said.
Aemon looked at him.
"You burned the Ironborn," Stannis had learned of the King's action. "You went to Dorne rather than leaving it for plunder in hands of reavers and men of golden company. These are the actions of a King who protects the realm, whether or not he has put crown on his head." He said.
"And which am I."
"That you are," Stannis said. "and soon all would know of it."
A small smile graced the Kings face.
"Storm's End," Aemon said. "and you, I would have your fealty."
"I would have gates opened," Stannis said. "Now that the field is settled the ruse of incompetent men in the castle must have quailed." He looked back at the great grey walls visible on their rear, the castle that had been Robert's, then it had been Renly's, by Robert's decree while Stannis was exiled to stones. "Storm's End is mine by right of blood. It was Robert's first and he gave it to Renly, which was not right but that is done. The castle is mine."
"Yes," Aemon said. "It is."
He was stunned by the Kings words. The boy did not say if you will bend the knee or in exchange for. He said it as though it were already settled, which was the kind of confidence that was either arrogance or certainty of his own fealty to come, so he held it and said nothing for a moment.
"I will swear you loyalty," Stannis said. "I would not pretend it comes easily." He looked at the dragon, which had been looking at him for some time with those dark gold eyes. He met the gaze. He had never in his life been able to look away from something because he was afraid of it. "I am a useful man but I am not an easy one."
"That you are not" Aemon said with a small smile as if there was more beneath it.
POV: Ser Gilbert Farring
The boy Edyard found him at the edge of the weapon stacks, as he watched the Reach men file past the collection points. Gilbert turned to him noticing the lad coming, he was a good boy, that one. He had not left to find the ships. He had stayed and defied Lord Stannis order.
"Ser Gilbert," the boy said. "Are we.. did we win?"
Farring looked at him. He was fourteen. He had probably never seen a battle before today, and today had been a strange one, a battle that had turned into something else before it properly finished, and fourteen-year-olds who had not seen battles found this one confusing.
"We won," Farring said.
"With three thousand men."
"With three thousand men and the good sense of Lord Ashford and others." He watched a group of Reach spearmen stack their weapons under the eye of two of Ashford and Tarly soldiers. "That is the thing you need to understand, lad. Winning is not always about the numbers."
"His Grace said it was always about the numbers."
"It's Lord Stannis now." Farring corrected the lad and then thought for a moment. "Lord Stannis is often correct. Today he was also right, because the numbers changed." He picked up a fallen banner from the mud. "Lord Stannis knew this morning that there was no of winning and yet he came anyway. Do you know why?"
The boy considered. He was the kind of boy who actually considered questions, rather than just nodding. Farring had noticed it before.
"He is not afraid of dying." Edyard said.
"He is not."
"But he came anyway."
"He came anyway." Farring turned back to the field. "That is not the same as being reckless. Being reckless is not knowing the risk. He knew the risk down to the last man. He came because the alternative was worse." He watched the weapon stacks grow. "That is what he is. He is a man who chooses the least bad option and follows it to the end without flinching. Most men find that difficult but he does not seem to."
"Does he feel it?" the boy asked. "When the men die?"
Farring was quiet for a long time.
"He feels everything," Farring said finally. "He is just very bad at showing it." He put his hand briefly on the boy's shoulder. "Go find yourself some food. The cooks have set up on the north side."
Edyard went and Farring stood and watched the Reach army being disarmed piece by piece, and thought about the fourteen years he had served a man who felt everything and showed nothing, and what that had cost the man, and whether it had been worth it.
Today, he thought. Today, perhaps, something of what it cost was starting to be repaid.
The dragon landed when the sun went down. She had come back from her hunt, her prey clutched in her talons as she roasted it while sitting on eastern edge.
She breathed and then she was quiet again.
The men on the field looked at the flame for a long time after it was gone with the honest acknowledgement that there were things in the world larger than anything they had planned for when they'd left home that morning.
Stannis Baratheon watched it from the steps of Storm's End, where the gates had opened as he'd said they would and Cortnay Penrose had come out with his sword held out and his men behind him and his face turned ash who knew how to lose without dishonour and intended to do so.
Stannis had taken the sword and sent Penrose to dungeon until further duration.
The gates were open now. The great hall of Storm's End, Robert's hall, the hall that Stannis had last stood many years ago while Robert looked at him across the feast table with that great laugh of his that managed to be both entirely sincere and mockery, that hall was lit again, and the fires were up, and men who had been fighting all day were eating and drinking.
Stannis did not go inside.
He stood on the steps and looked east where the dragon sat. Davos came and stood beside him. He knew better than to say anything.
After a long time, Davos said. "Robert would have made a grand feast of this."
"Yes," Davos agreed.
"He would have had them all laughing. He would have put his arm around men or would have been dick deep in some maids."
"Yes."
"I cannot do that."
"No," Davos said. "You cannot."
Stannis was quiet again.
"He could also not hold a siege for a year and survive on rats," Farring said, "and I am fairly certain he could not have kept three thousand men steady in the face of fifteen thousand without breaking. Those are also things you should consider."
Stannis said nothing. After a moment, the ghost of a smile moved across his face again, and again it was gone.
"Get some food," he said. "It has been a long day."
Davos went away and Stannis stood on the steps of Storm's End as the fires burned in the great hall behind him, the night was cold, and Stannis Baratheon stood in the dark and counted the stars.
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