The wheat had ripened twice, and more than half of 298 AC had already slipped away.
Highgarden's second and third walls had fallen.
Greatjon had led the way in heavy armor, arrows raining down, personally carrying jars of wildfire and painting the iron gates until the steel ran like melted wax.
Lord Mace had locked himself inside the main keep and never came out again.
In the command tent outside the city, the lords argued over where to strike next.
"Push north and take Old Oak," Jaime said, stabbing the map. "Then we link up with Lord Tywin and crush them between us at Ashford."
Eddard thought it over, then shook his head.
"Ser, you served there. You know it's a hard castle on bad ground. Renly needed three months to take it, and now he's sitting on it with forty thousand men and Randyll Tarly running the show."
He tapped the river line above Highgarden.
"Better to hold the Unnamed River and the Mander. Block their retreat south. We can even let some of them slip through and bleed their strength."
"The northern Reach men have lost their homes. The southern ones still feel safe. But they all want to go home. The longer we wait, the more they'll crack on their own. Renly will have to attack us, and we'll have the rivers at our back."
Eddard's plan was cautious as always. He wanted to grind the enemy down slowly.
No one liked it.
You're keeping all the glory for yourself. What's left for the rest of us?
"I agree with Ser Jaime!" Bronze Yohn shouted.
The Vale lords backed him at once.
"We'll lead the vanguard!"
They had clearly talked this over beforehand. The North, Crownlands, and Riverlands had all taken prizes. The Vale had spent weeks chasing stragglers and riding in circles. Half their men had even been held back watching for Dorne and missed the looting at Highgarden.
Now the crossings were secure. They had been called forward.
The Vale troops were fresh and hungry. Joffrey didn't want to drag this out either.
He still wanted to be back in King's Landing for his nameday.
"Jaime. Royce. Listen," Joffrey said, standing. "Take the Vale men as vanguard. Move out tomorrow. Take Old Oak, then hold the riverbank outside the woods. No heroics."
"Wait for me to bring the main army to Red Lake and cut every escape route Renly has left."
"Mace Tyrell is a useless fool!"
In the woods outside Ashford, Randyll Tarly watched the homeless soldiers forced to camp in the mud, rage and grief burning in his chest.
The strike into the Westerlands had been right. It had slowed Eddard's march north.
Pulling the allied army in every direction had been right. Their supplies were stretched and their forces scattered.
The Stormlands and Reach armies had stayed together, trading ground for time, waiting for the chance to destroy another ten or twenty thousand of the enemy in one fight.
Greyjoy raids were hitting Riverlands morale. King's Landing and the Westerlands sat at opposite ends and couldn't help each other.
Cut one arm, then take back the rest piece by piece.
That was how the weaker side won.
Every step had been correct. Yet defeat was closing in.
Randyll had never expected Highgarden, held by ten thousand good men, to fall in less than a month. His plan to relieve it the moment he broke through had died with the walls.
The Redwyne fleet could only carry half the army. Tywin had stopped hiding and come out swinging like the old lion he was.
He threw men forward without care for losses, biting hard into their tail every time they tried to board ships.
After several rounds of that, Randyll had been forced onto the land route south.
Highgarden was gone. They couldn't retreat into the southern Reach. East was blocked—the northern Reach across the Unnamed River belonged to Eddard now.
When the golden lion banner appeared to the south, Randyll understood. The Kingslayer had them surrounded.
A final battle was coming.
It was the one thing Randyll had tried hardest to avoid.
"Why the long face, my lord?"
Renly strolled in as careless as ever.
Since the big storm, the sky had stayed gray and spit light rain.
He stomped through the mud, checking on the men, calling some by name. The Tarly girl tried to hold an umbrella over him and only managed to soak half his clothes.
He finished his rounds and found Randyll sighing in the tent.
"Eddard's been running hundreds of miles and fighting for months. He's worn out," Renly said.
"We just took Lannisport. We have prisoners, supplies, and rested men with high spirits."
He grinned.
"Besides, you beat my brother years ago, then lost to Eddard. Don't you want another shot at him?"
"Lord Mace made us surrender back then, but I know you've never forgotten it."
"This is your chance. Don't waste it."
Randyll felt the old fire return.
He really hadn't forgotten.
The Reach and Stormlands lords gathered for one last council.
"The rain helps us," Randyll said. "Eddard doesn't know this land or its weather."
"If he stays put and tries to trap us, we lose. But he's coming out to surround us instead. That's his mistake."
"In this mud his army can't arrive all at once. The woods around Ashford mean they don't know where we are."
Renly ran a hand through his wet hair and poked the map.
"Scouts say Tywin's fifty miles out. He can't reach us in under two days. Eddard's eastern force is still near Red Lake."
"But the hot-headed Kingslayer only left a small force at Old Oak. He brought the rest here and camped ten miles from the woods on the shallow banks."
"He's afraid we'll escape by boat, so he rushed to block the crossing."
"He has no idea that's where he dies."
Renly's edge was speed. Strike first with superior numbers and break one enemy at a time.
Turn three-against-one into three separate fights.
Renly and Randyll shared a look. Randyll stepped back.
"Lord Cenford," Renly called.
A heavy, purple-faced man came forward.
"You held Ashford well while I was at Lannisport. I'm giving you this land and eight hundred archers."
"Hold here. Make sure none of Tywin's men slip past on the coastal road while we attack."
Lord Cenford knelt and took the order.
"Lord Fossoway. Lord Otton Merryweather. Lord Elwood Meadows."
Four men stepped out.
Fossoway's two branches and the other eastern Reach lords.
"Your castles are east. The eastern line is yours. I'm giving you every light rider we have. Stop any help Eddard tries to send."
The rest of the Stormlands and Reach lords stayed under Renly.
After months of war, a little over thirty thousand fighting men remained.
"Rest tonight. At first light we finish the Kingslayer."
Morning wind carried the smell of wet earth and river water across the plain.
Jaime flexed his right arm and hated how weak it still felt.
He knew what this battle meant. He also knew he was no good in a fight right now.
So he gave command to the Vale lords and stayed in the rear with a reserve force, ready to plug any hole.
Bronze Yohn held the center.
Most of the spearmen stood in a dense line at the front. Light infantry with swords and axes waited behind them.
Farther back, Vale archers spread loose across the field.
The Vale was full of hunters and short bows. They weren't built for the longbow massed volleys the Reach favored.
Heavy infantry massed on the left along the riverbank. Cavalry filled the right along the road.
Most knights gathered there, visors down, the world narrowed to a slit.
A deep rumble shook the ground and hammered into every chest.
The horn blew—high, sharp, cutting through the quiet.
Ten thousand hooves struck at once.
Two walls of steel closed on each other, lances bristling.
Jaime could see the flowers on enemy armor and the sigils on their shields.
Both sides picked up speed.
This was the raw truth of heavy cavalry.
Courage. Discipline. Luck.
Vale Eagle Knights and Reach Flower Knights both wanted to prove they were the best in the Seven Kingdoms.
They drove their horses harder, turning the charge into a thunderous gallop.
Lances tucked tight. Bodies upright.
Even from the hill, Jaime felt the coming impact.
He had once been part of that.
The crash hit like the end of the world.
Wood exploded. Metal screamed. Bones broke. Men flew and were trampled by their own and the enemy alike.
The charge became a screaming, hacking melee.
Longswords and maces came out. At close range they cut and crushed.
Horns changed. The spearmen began to advance, a moving forest of points grinding forward.
The infantry was the hammer now. The cavalry the anvil.
They pushed like a living mountain, crushing everything in front of them.
Freeriders on the flanks saw the way the fight was going and slipped away before they were flattened.
Archers snatched arrows from the mud and shot for legs and armor gaps.
Spearmen thrust through the lines, unhorsing knights. Axemen and halberdiers swarmed the fallen.
Then tens of thousands of infantry burst from the woods and slammed into the exposed flank of the Vale center.
Horns screamed alarm.
The left-wing heavy infantry tried to turn, but the enemy in front of them surged harder and refused to let go.
The center spear line buckled between two attacks.
The reserve pushed forward to hold the line.
At that moment, ships appeared on the western sea, purple grapes flying from their masts.
Jaime tasted something bitter.
The golden wines he once loved now felt like poison.
Just as the fight hung in the balance, a banner rose on the eastern horizon.
Then spearpoints.
Renly's men saw the crowned stag and knew it wasn't theirs.
What truly shook them was the massive white stag at the front.
A knight in gold-and-red armor sat steady on its back.
In the far east, a man named Sun once wrote that forced marches without rest cost three generals for every hundred miles gained.
Speed was still the soul of war.
Westerosi armor couldn't be rolled up. You wore it or hauled it in wagons.
Moving big armies across this land was brutal.
Eddard had kept the pace steady so Renly couldn't catch them strung out.
Reach outriders had been appearing anyway.
They marched by day and camped by night.
But Jaime's scouts had ridden in hard at midnight.
A large Reach force was at the edge of the woods. Ships had been sighted at sea.
The Vale troops were the freshest and smallest in number. They looked like the easiest target.
Renly had picked them to hit.
Last night Joffrey had woken Eddard.
The man was over thirty. How did he fall asleep so fast?
"Your Grace wants to take the King's Landing shock troops and force-march through the night?"
Joffrey nodded.
"The North and Riverlands have bled too much. They can't do another hard push."
"If Jaime's fight is the real one and the main attack is here, we could be caught wrong-footed."
"But we can't leave him hanging. I'm taking the shock troops."
Those men had been idle for months. They had drilled hard after Highgarden and were burning to fight.
Now they were here.
Joffrey flipped up his visor and looked over the battlefield.
"Bring my horse."
"This stag bounces too damn much. I can't stay steady on it."