"If you want to go to King's Landing, you'll wait until this battle is done. I won't have my vassals see my heir abandoning the host on the eve of war."
With that, Tywin left the command tent with the knights at his side.
As the sun rose, warhorns sounded in the distance, low and mournful, their notes enough to chill the soul.
The clansmen scrambled onto their scrawny mountain ponies—though some mounts were clearly spoils of raid. They cursed and mocked one another loudly, a few still staggering under the weight of last night's drink.
When Tyrion returned to camp and led his men forward, the thin morning mist was already lifting under the rising sun. Dew clung to the grass, glittering as though some god had spilled a sack of diamonds across the fields.
The mountain clans marched in full war gear, clad either in their own battered armor or the newly issued suits, each tribe rallying behind its own chieftain.
In the dawn light, the host of Great Lord Tywin Lannister unfurled like a steel rose, crimson and gleaming with cruel thorns.
The center was commanded by Uncle Kevan Lannister, where knights had already planted rows of banners along the Kingsroad.
Archers stood in three ranks on either side of the road, calmly testing their bowstrings. Quivers swayed at their hips, each heavy with twenty arrows.
Pikemen held square formations between them, with row after row of infantry behind, armed with spears, swords, hammers, and axes. About three hundred heavy horsemen ringed Ser Kevan, Lord Leo Lefford, Lord Lewys Lydden, and the other lords with their retinues.
The entire right wing was cavalry—some four thousand strong, ironclad and grim.
More than three-quarters of the knights were gathered there, a massive iron fist that brought to Tyrion's mind the plaster fist he had worn in the Eyrie. This would make the northern foot as soft as Ser Rodrik's jaw.
That wing was under the command of Ser Addam Marbrand. Tyrion watched as his standard-bearer unfurled the banner, revealing the familiar sigil: a burning tree of orange and ash-gray. Marbrand was a fine commander—Jaime had often spoken highly of him.
Behind flew other banners: Ser Flement's purple unicorn, the striped boar of House Crakehall, the bantam cock of House Swyft.
His father commanded from the hill where the great tent stood, surrounded by the reserves, five thousand strong—half cavalry, half infantry. Tywin Lannister always kept the reserve, positioned on high ground where he could oversee the whole field and hurl his men wherever the need was greatest.
Even from afar, he blazed with splendor.
Tywin Lannister's armor outshone even Jaime's gilded suit. His great cloak was woven of countless threads of gold, so heavy the wind could not lift it, and once mounted it nearly covered his horse's hindquarters.
Ordinary clasps could never bear such weight, so upon his shoulders lay two lionesses, poised to spring at his foes. Their mate, a great-maned lion, reared atop Lord Tywin's helm, one paw lifted high, mouth open in an eternal roar.
Hear me roar, Tyrion muttered.
The three lions were pure gold, their eyes set with rubies. His armor was thick plate steel, glazed with a dark crimson enamel, the greaves and gauntlets adorned with elaborate golden whorls. His rondels were golden sunbursts, and every clasp was gilded. The red steel, polished again and again, burned like fire in the rising sun.
Were the Red Priestess to see him, she might think the Lord of Light no greater.
So Tyrion mused, until the thunder of hooves sounded behind him.
Never had he seen a horse so tall, nor a man so massive. The banner of three black dogs on a yellow field streamed behind him in the hand of a squire.
It was "The Mountain," Gregor Clegane.
His armor was plain beside Tywin's, rough and ugly as scrap iron. Yet Tyrion knew: while it cost perhaps a twentieth of his father's, it weighed five times as much.
The Mountain's plate was dark gray, thick and scarred, battered from long, brutal use. It bore no sigil, no ornament. His sword was a two-handed greatsword, yet in Ser Gregor's grasp it moved as lightly as a fork in a common man's hand.
"Lord Tyrion, Lord Tywin asks that you return to the center. I'll command the forces here."
Tyrion did not hesitate. He had no intention of playing the hero.
"Very well, Mountain. This flank is yours. I'm sure our friends from the mountain clans will get along with you just fine."
With that, he and Bronn spurred their horses toward the center.
The ground under Tyrion's mount was rough and uneven. Near the banks of the Green Fork the soil turned soft and slick with mud. A gentle rise climbed toward the Kingsroad, and further east the land broke into stony, jagged ground.
Here and there, clusters of trees dotted the hills, but most had long since been felled—cleared for farmland or cut down for firewood. He'd heard tales of hills stripped bare simply to keep cooking fires burning.
The steady pounding of the war drums echoed in his chest. Beneath the layers of leather and mail, sweat chilled his back.
He watched Ser Gregor Clegane thunder up and down the line, shouting, gesturing, driving men on with sheer force of will.
The left flank was a jumbled mess, nothing like the knightly lances massed on the right or the ordered squares of the center. It was a patchwork host.
Bowmen in worn leather, their arrows bent and bowstrings slack. Bands of undisciplined freeriders and hedge knights. Farmers on plow horses, clutching sickles, hoes, pitchforks, or rusted swords passed down from their grandsires. Half-trained thugs and boys dragged from the alleys of Lannisport. And, of course, his mountain clans.
The drums grew louder, thump-thump, thump-thump, boring through his ears into his skull, making his hands shake and his legs twitch.
It was not yet noon when a dark line rose over the horizon, moving steadily closer.
The enemy commanders rode at the front on armored destriers, though only they were mounted, their men marching behind.
Standard-bearers rode beside them, lifting the banners of their houses.
Tyrion narrowed his eyes and made out the moose of House Hornwood, the sunburst of House Karstark, the battle-axe of House Cerwyn, the mailed fist of House Glover… and among them, the gray field with twin blue towers of House Frey. Just days ago, Father had thought Lord Walder would not march. The sight proved Tyrion's suspicions right.
Everywhere flew the white banners of House Stark, snapping in the wind atop tall poles, the gray direwolf seeming to leap across the cloth.
The Young Wolf is not here, Tyrion thought. What I need to find are the flayed men of House Bolton.