When King Aerys drove his sword into the neck of the last Deep One, he brought the total count of Deep Ones killed in that battle to 3,121.
It seemed like a grand feat. A great victory. But with almost two hours lost in that single struggle and the beams of light fading further, Gerold quickly put an end to the war cries and ordered the march to resume.
And being now during The Hour of High Sun (11 AM), the sun would get no higher. From that point forward, it would only descend, making way for the darkness. With time against them, Gerold quickened the pace.
Passing the hill the Deep Ones had crossed to reach them, the terrain remained as bloody as before. Perhaps even more so.
From the hilltop, Gerold could see only an ocean of bodies within his line of sight. Leaving the morbidity of the situation aside, Gerold was struck by the sheer number of the dead. He had never seen anything like it. Such destruction. Such scale.
He wondered how the Ironborn could have done this. He knew that many, certainly the vast majority, were forced through the process that killed them against their will, since only the unfaithful become Deep Ones, so his question was directed at those who forced their own kin into this situation.
Faith. He answered himself. But still. It was hard for him to believe that something as simple as faith could cause such damage. It could be strong despite its simplicity, that much he knew. But, again, still. How? Those were their own people.
Educated in the history of Westeros, he knew, through the ancient Faith Militant, what men possessed by their faith were capable of doing, but even at their peak, and with far superior numbers, they were not able to cause as many deaths as the ironborn caused with theirs.
If Alaric knew about the crisis Gerold was experiencing by not being able to comprehend the actions of the ironborn, he could not help but find it ironic how he, a Paladin, a warrior of Faith, could not understand how Faith, the same faith that allowed him to manipulate reality and use divine powers without dedicating himself to a god, could drive men to commit such carnage.
Yes. Their Faiths were directed at different targets. Gerold had faith in his duty to protect the King of Westeros and maintain its structural order, while the Ironborn had Faith in a god. But still. Ironic.
Back to the march.
After thirty minutes of hurried steps toward Redhall, the castle of House Drumm, which, according to the scouts, was where the enemy forces were gathered and held thousands of non collaborators, Gerold and his forces began to encounter puddles scattered across the terrain.
They were countless. And wherever they were, several bodies lay around them. More than usual. The puddles appeared to be hotspots for the "failed" Deep One knights.
To add more mystery to them, all appeared to be filled with a strange black liquid, which absorbed all light that touched it and released something similar to smoke, but when smelled, none of the familiar scent of smoke was detected.
The only person who could smell and feel something was Alaric, who could only describe the scent exhaled by the smoke as something close to the smell of salt water, which was the same scent he felt from the veil.
And besides the smoke, he could also hear the black liquid in the puddles singing a sound similar to the breathing of someone with respiratory problems, something he quickly linked to the black sea around the Iron Islands, which sang a similar song, only much, much stronger.
It was not hard for him to realize that the smoke was the cause of the veil covering Old Wyk, which was becoming increasingly darker, just as the liquid could be the origin of the black sea, as he noticed the sea also becoming darker with every meter closer to Old Wyk.
Having made these two connections, Alaric only questioned the reason for the high number of bodies around them, but after remembering that his GM Eyes also worked on non living things, he checked the description of the puddle and discovered the people's purpose.
After discovering the reason, he was about to share it with Lord Rickard and Jeor, but, marching a bit further, the answer presented itself when a Deep One emerged from one of the puddles, throwing the army into chaos as they thought they had fallen into a trap.
But instead of attacking, the Deep One, surrounded and having several spear tips pointed at it, fell face first onto the ground after only three steps, joining the pile of bodies around the puddle from which it emerged.
When Gerold arrived at the scene and analyzed the monster, he noticed that, beneath the sticky black liquid, it, like the other corpses on the ground, had only some of the characteristics of a Deep One, but not all.
Understanding that it was through these puddles that the Deep Ones were born, Gerold explained the nature of what happened and ordered the march to continue, and that, as time was precious, they were to ignore any others that emerged from the puddles unless they attacked.
Resuming the march, the men obeyed and did not stop to fight the next Failed Deep Ones that emerged from the puddles, casting only nervous glances at them.
Continuing to march for a few more minutes, the puddles appeared as endless as the bodies, which answered the doubts of those who wondered how so many had died in such a short period of time.
Leaving The Hour of High Sun behind after more than an hour of an accelerated march, it was during The Hour of the Throne (12 PM) that two things became present.
The first thing was that the number of bodies on the ground began to decrease. Piles of bodies were no longer a common sight.
They did not disappear completely. There were still hundreds of bodies on the ground. It just decreased from thousands back into the hundreds.
At the same time, the sight of the puddles became increasingly common. To Alaric and others more attentive, like Gerold, Steffon, and Tywin, the reason for the change was quite obvious: since the success rate was very low, many bodies were generated, which must have been hindering the creation process, so they were thrown far away where they would not interfere.
That was why the location with the largest amount of corpses was where there were no puddles for them to obstruct.
The second thing, a little further ahead after passing over another hill, was the sight of a castle appearing in the distance, causing the army to stir, thinking it was Redhall.
But they were quickly calmed by Gerold, who warned that the castle was not the seat of House Drumm, but rather that of an ancient and extinct house, and that this meant Redhall was only an hour away.
His words caused a mixed reaction of relief and frustration.
Relief at not having to face the monsters again. Now that more than an hour had passed since the victory against the Deep Ones, the excitement had faded and the anxiety had returned.
Frustration at not being able to end it quickly. For some, running the risk of death was more desirable than waiting for the risk itself.
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True to his word.
One more hour of marching later, passing through increasingly larger puddles and bodies becoming increasingly scarce, at the end of The Hour of the Rest (1 PM), Redhall, the castle of the likely extinct House Drumm, came into view on the northern horizon.
But between the small threat that was Redhall and the continental forces, there stood an army of similar strength staring them down in defiance.
The choice to stay not only outside the walls of Redhall, in safety, but also hundreds of meters away from them, was one that would normally leave Gerold in confusion, but since nothing in this war was normal, he understood their choice.
As the tortured Drowned had confessed hours ago, there were thousands of ironborn trapped inside the walls, taken occasionally to be transformed into fish-men.
With the possible risk of a revolt upon learning that Westeros had arrived to end that madness, the Drowned Men anticipated their arrival and positioned themselves hundreds of meters away, where the noise and chaos of battle would not be detected or motivate the captives to do something unfavorable.
But even a kilometer away, it was still possible for Gerold to see a small force left behind, guarding the outskirts of Redhall and making the captives think nothing had changed. Ignorant.
From his distance and without a far eye, it was somewhat difficult for Gerold to discern the number left behind, but he gave a generous guess that, outside alone, there were about 300 men. As for those inside, it was much harder to make a supposition, but since there were thousands being kept captive, it could not be fewer than 800. This would put the number left behind at a minimum of 1,100 and, being generous again, 1,600 at most.
"Those are not impossible numbers to fight. I do not think they will fail," Gerold thought, turning his mind back to the Dornish forces.
As for the forces in front of him, they boasted more than ten thousand heads. Much more than the previous three thousand, but not as many as the continental forces. Besides the superior number, they also counted on the presence of Drowned Men, who were the majority, totaling close to eight thousand. They stayed in the back lines, leaving another three thousand Deep Ones on the front line.
Looking at the sky and seeing even fewer beams of light than an hour ago, Gerold knew they would not have until The Hour of Twilight (6 PM) to finish them all. By the speed at which the beams were fading, they had less than three hours until Old Wyk was totally submerged in darkness.
He had no more time to lose. It was now or never.
"Now is the time! Today will mark the day when man defied and won against a god! Generations will sing of this day, this moment! Advance! For the Old, for the New, for Westeros, for humanity!"
Short. Simple. Direct. There was no time for long speeches.
The Drowned Men, seeing the humans running in their direction and letting out war cries that could be heard even from afar, did not decide to wait for them.
Drawing their longbows, they began to shoot arrows. There was no timing. No countdown to shoot all together. Whoever was faster shot more frequently, and that was it.
Seeing the arrows paint the dark sky, Gerold alerted the men to their presence and ordered all those with shields to raise them and protect those at their side as much as they could, while simultaneously commanding them not to stop running.
Normally, this strategy would cause many casualties, but since the Drowned Men were not coordinating their shots, which would cover vast areas at once and leave them with no place to run, many did not even need to be under a shield to avoid being hit.
Seeing an arrow flying in their direction, many simply took a step to the side and dodged it, something that would not be possible if the shots were coordinated.
Instead of making it rain arrows, they made it drizzle.
Because of this, many casualties were avoided. But that does not mean the advance was without problems. Besides the dozens hit by arrows, the puddles still present proved to be a headache.
As they, for some reason, became wider the closer they got to Redhall, they became natural obstacles during the charge, hindering their speed and causing several to make abrupt stops, be accidentally pushed by those behind, and end up falling into the pools.
The worst part was that whoever fell never returned.
Thus, even before the continental forces made contact with the enemy front line of Deep Ones, Gerold had already lost one hundred and eighty men.
"Attack in pairs!" Gerold shouted the secret to defeating the Deep Ones, highlighting their inability to engage two people at the same time, while he himself fought and defeated one alone.
After a few more minutes of battle and seeing almost no progress, with them failing to push the Deep Ones and the Drowned Men still drizzling arrows, Gerold decided to replicate the tactic that gave them victory in the previous battle without many casualties.
Waiting for the front line to form an uninterrupted line and return to its lost width of 400 meters, which had been cut into three different parts by the puddles on the way, Gerold gave the command:
"ENCIRCLE! AGAIN! ENCIRCLE!"
The enemy forces might be more than three times larger than the previous ones, but he noticed how they were also, in their vast majority, compacted behind the first line of Deep Ones.
It was curious how a people, who prided themselves on not fearing death, had begun to fear death more after acquiring an imperfect form of immortality, to the point of hiding behind monsters instead of taking advantage of their ferocity to attack the enemy flank.
When Gerold's command reached the leaders of the flanks, they began to move, but this time much more slowly. This was because of the puddles, which forced the flanks to split in two and stop to regroup again.
This occurred twice with both flanks, which gave enough time for the enemies to see what was happening and retreat.
Since the Deep Ones were stupid, they, like the previous Deep Ones, did not understand what was happening and just continued to attack.
A Drowned Man wearing a gray tunic, a Drowned Priest who commanded the army, tried to order the Deep Ones to disperse, but they were too deep in their own fury and did not listen to him as they once had, as they were made to listen by their lord.
Seeing that they were a lost cause, the Drowned Priest left them aside and ordered everyone else to retreat to the back and the sides, but, as with the flanks, the puddles also presented a problem for them by being in the way.
This caused the retreat speed to decrease and caused those in the center to get stuck behind, while those in the back ran freely.
That terrain simply was not made to house a fight on that scale.
And to make matters worse for the Drowned Men, Gerold saw all of this.
Knowing it was impossible to stop everyone from disconnecting before forming the encirclement, the least he could do was stop those who managed to escape from attacking the backs of those forming the circle.
"I want the North and the Reach protecting and advancing now! I do not want to see them attacking the rear of the encirclement!" he shouts with his head turned back.
Slowly, his command was repeated by his men until it reached the ears of the leaders of the two forces that had not yet participated in either of the two fights: Lord Rickard Stark and Luthor Tyrell.
Finally receiving a command, the rested forces of the North and the Reach advanced. The two thousand two hundred Northmen went by the left, while the eight hundred highly armored knights of the Reach went by the right.
While the Northern force ran to guard the rear of Brynden Tully's flank, Jeor could not help but notice the energy with which Alaric ran while holding his halberd.
"You will stay behind me, understood? I do not want to see you in front of any of them!"
"I do not intend to. I do not need to." Immense confidence carried his words.
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