Chapter 475 - The Preparation of King’s Landing.

Chapter 475: Chapter 475 - The Preparation of King’s Landing.

[Chapter Size: 3400 Words.]

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Third Person POV

King’s Landing, 300 AC.

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"How... how did this happen!?", Cersei shouted desperately from the corner of the council chamber, as soon as everyone rushed to gather there.

"The same way we don’t understand what happened in any of the kingdoms beyond the Crownlands. After all, we’ve been rotting here in King’s Landing ever since the Arcticans came south," Olenna was the one who replied in a tone full of disdain, while Cersei was already snarling at her simply for having answered something obvious.

Olenna was deeply dissatisfied. Her son was there, trembling between anger and even fear. Fear that, now that Highgarden had fallen, something might happen to her son Willas, who had remained there.

At the meeting were, obviously, Cersei, Olenna, Tywin, Mace and Tyrion, as well as Joffrey, who had come in shouting for them to kill the Arcticans immediately.

Knowing that the city was about to be attacked by eighty thousand men was terrifying. Even though they had the numerical advantage, after all there were 120 thousand men stationed in King’s Landing, it was still an enormous number of Arcticans coming from the North.

"It’s the ships. Think about the ships that were sailing farther north from here and disappeared. None returned, not from Braavos, nor from the Vale or the North. It’s very likely that they’ve already conquered Dragonstone and Driftmark as well," Olenna said, voicing a suspicion she had carried for the past two weeks.

"So what do we do now? We have to destroy them, obviously!", Joffrey shouted. "We still have a huge army. We’ll defeat them!", he said with conviction.

"I hope you’re right. I hope the gods have mercy on us, because if they’re as good on land as they are at sea, we’re clearly fucked." Olenna said.

Cersei snorted. "Speak for yourself. Don’t compare us to your own foolishness, old woman," she replied without the slightest restraint.

"This is no time for us to be arguing!", Tywin shouted immediately, putting an end to his daughter’s argument.

Lord Tarly nodded in approval of the Hand of the King’s attitude, Tywin continued looking directly at him. "I’ll leave you to organize the Reach’s knights, Lord Tarly. You must prepare all the cavalry," he said matter-of-factly.

Lord Tarly nodded as though that were exactly what was expected.

Olenna did not like seeing her son, Lord Tyrell, simply being pushed aside. They were the ones who should decide such a thing and they should first speak with her son, but this was not the time.

Lord Tyrell nodded, confirming what he truly intended to do.

That had completely ruined the wedding, had utterly destroyed that moment and left them anxious and desperate. An army was coming from the North directly toward King’s Landing. They had to prepare immediately.

"Eighty thousand men... We have an army that size," Mace could not help but comment, with a certain desperation.

"And Highgarden has fallen as well. Your son was killed, the entire army was probably destroyed, and it’s very unusual that we haven’t received a single man who returned from that battle. Even amid the chaos, there should have been survivors, and this information should already be reaching King’s Landing." Olenna said.

"Actually, some did arrive...", Tywin said. "A knight came from Durwell in the Reach, warning that an army of fifteen thousand men had advanced south, coming out of the Westerlands,"

"House Durwell? How did we not hear about this?", Olenna said with clear irritation. It was a House of the Reach. Why had they not known about it either? And where was Lord Tyrell, who should have been informed?

"The man was intercepted by Lannister men. We kept him with us so that he wouldn’t pass the information on to Lord Tyrell or to any of you yet," Tywin said.

"I thought we were allies, Lord Hand," Olenna said with a visible threat in her eyes.

"There was no reason for alarm or outrage. I was going to speak about it at the wedding. I was going to inform you that my son would be leading men to deal with the fifteen thousand Arcticans who entered the Reach. There was no reason to make a scandal out of it before the wedding. It was news that the Lannister army, twice their size, could handle," Tywin said.

Obviously, that had been before he knew that his son’s severed head would appear at the wedding.

Olenna was frustrated. Not only her, Mace and Randyll also seemed displeased by it, but, in any case, it was too late now. The Reach had fallen. Knowing about it earlier would not have changed the outcome anyway.

If she had received the news yesterday, it would have been ironic, after all yesterday she would have known that they were invading her kingdom, while today, the news that Highgarden had fallen would also have reached her.

Still, the knight from Durwell should have arrived much earlier. He had only failed to do so because Jon had deliberately delayed him. He wanted to leave everything for that fateful day, making the horse move much more slowly and leaving the poor knight increasingly terrified because the animal did not seem to behave as it normally would.

He was already cautious, having heard some stories on the roads about men being killed by their own horses, with some witnesses saying it was a curse and that the Sorcerer of the North possessed such power.

In any case, they quickly began shouting orders to the army camped outside the gates. More than a hundred thousand men were still there.

The news spread quickly. Eighty thousand Arcticans, an army no one had expected to exist, were coming to King’s Landing. The Tyrells did not speak about the fall of Highgarden, after all, they did not want to leave their own men worried about their homes and their lands. They needed them to remain completely focused on the coming battle.

The tents began to be taken down, while the entire camp, which had previously been relaxed, soon began to move. Men began grabbing their weapons and quickly forming their units. The question was whether they would fight the Arcticans inside or outside the walls.

By the end of that day, everyone was already beginning to mobilize. Joffrey shouted at everyone while already wearing armor, following his grandfather everywhere and carrying his Valyrian steel sword at his waist as if he were prepared to lead the army.

Which was clearly a lie to everyone who knew him well enough to know that he would not involve himself in that war. He would remain behind the walls, as always, waiting for his grandfather to win the battle, only to later shout that he himself had fought and tell a completely distorted version of the story.

But, for most of the men at court and the soldiers, seeing the king that way would certainly give them more morale and hope to deal with the so-called savages from the North.

That was what they began shouting throughout the camps. That the king would fight alongside them as well.

Because most of the Lannister army had gone west, no more than twenty thousand remained to fight for the Lannisters, even with the men they had managed to recruit in recent weeks, while there were a hundred thousand men from the Reach. It was an army of one hundred and twenty thousand men, fifty percent larger than the eighty thousand Arcticans.

Tywin could not help but scoff inwardly at that moment, while listening to someone flatter the king beside him. From atop the walls of King’s Landing, as he watched everyone begin to march, he could not help but think about how that could be a variable.

Men would enter the city, no one would camp outside waiting for an attack.

Tywin could not help but think about something... Eighty thousand men. Where had they come from? They could assume that Arctic simply still had an army of that size hidden in the North.

They could think they were merely savages, men who did not know how to fight as an army, who would have neither formations nor equipment, but, according to the very man who had brought the news, things could be different. He said they had plenty of supplies and, despite not being able to see much, he had still gotten an overall view for some time before they sent him away. It did not seem like a sloppy army. It seemed like something powerful, and Tywin was worried about that.

If no man had returned alive from the Reach so far and only his son’s head had come as proof, did that mean those fifteen thousand men had destroyed the other thirty thousand?

Perhaps there were more men hidden. That could be another variable. After all, they had twenty thousand before the Iron Islands.

And who would stop them from bringing more people from the North? If they had appeared from the north with those 80 thousand on this side, they could have done exactly the same thing on the other side as well.

And if they truly did not have greater numbers and had managed to win with such a small force, with only half as many men as their enemies, that should have seemed fantastical, but that possibility could not be dismissed either. Arctic had many weapons and Tywin could not help but fear what those 80 thousand men would do.

"Your Majesty, this is the largest savage attack Westeros has ever seen this close to King’s Landing, but there is no doubt that we will defeat them. I only pity those Houses farther north, whose lands they must already be invading. I wonder how many people have been plundered, how many innocents are suffering under the relentless attack of these savages. I ask you: how did they allow those people to get so close to King’s Landing? What is happening in the North or the Vale for them to allow something like this to happen?"

Tywin listened to someone flattering Joffrey behind him, while the king wore a smug expression.

"Don’t worry. With my efforts, together with my grandfather and Lord Tyrell, we’ll deal with this and rid ourselves of these savages once and for all," Joffrey said.

Tywin said nothing as he continued watching, making his mental calculations, though a trace of mockery still crossed his mind. His grandson had done nothing throughout the entire war and would do nothing now. He was already having problems with him, as Joffrey was even beginning to grow arrogant, talking back to him or even mocking his failures, something Tywin wanted to bury as deeply as possible.

By the end of his life, he should be known as the man who brought a new era to House Lannister. He would not be remembered for his failures.

But now he had a dead son. Dead for weeks, from what he could understand, but somehow they had managed to preserve his head well enough to keep it from rotting and bring it intact to that day.

How he hated Jon Arctic.

The child who had also been born to Rhaegar had not been in King’s Landing at the time. How he wished he had torn that baby apart as well if he had known what would happen now. He would have done it and laughed at the time. Wherever that northern she-wolf had been giving birth, he would have sent men and put an end to the greatest problem he had ever encountered in his life.

The one who had killed his son was out there, perhaps very far away, probably in Highgarden, while his army was coming to finish them off in the name of their king.

And there would be no truce. Not after what had happened in Winterfell. Not after the execution in King’s Landing. Not after seeing his son’s head. Not after they had attacked Casterly Rock, his own home.

So, after losing Casterly Rock, he would be the first Lannister to suffer such a failure in history. He could change all of that later. He could simply pay to have stories written, execute witnesses later, but now he needed to win that war. Without that, he would not be able to hide his failures afterward.

Inside the Red Keep, Tyrion was drinking wine, looking out from the balcony of his room. Shae had entered silently and still served as his handmaid, but she could not help but watch the dwarf’s back.

"Stop staring at me, Shae. It looks like you pity me," Tyrion said without needing to turn around to see her.

"You’re devastated," she said, obviously.

"I just received my brother’s head at my nephew’s wedding. I couldn’t exactly be singing about it, could I?", he said, while she grimaced.

He did not even apologize that time, even though he knew he had been rude.

"Do you think they can win?", she asked, approaching him this time with a tone full of concern.

"You still have to ask?", Tyrion said, drinking the wine and downing an entire cup before staring even farther toward the northern horizon.

"That’s not an answer," she murmured.

"Just take a good look at history. How much do you already know about the Arcticans?", he asked.

"I... well, I heard about the group that had two hundred ships and landed in Dorne, but the news arrived a little late. I worked... well, you know, in a brothel in the Vale. I heard the men saying that they destroyed every pirate they came across with unknown weapons, but by the time I received that news, they were already at war on the other side of the continent," she said.

Tyrion gave a dry laugh. "Then you’ve known from the beginning. Tell me, Shae, when have you ever heard of them being defeated?", he asked.

"Never." The answer came faster than she could have imagined.

"Exactly. Never, Shae. They’ve never lost a battle. Now I ask you: what makes you think it would be different now?"

"One hundred and twenty thousand men are here protecting King’s Landing. That’s a much larger number than the Arcticans have," she insisted.

"My brother was in an army of thirty thousand. I recently learned, before entering this room, that the Arcticans entered the Reach with fifteen thousand men weeks ago. Weeks ago! And we didn’t even have that information. While we were here celebrating, our kingdoms were falling, and they had already devastated the entire West. During that time, they did things my father didn’t even have the courage to speak about. And somehow, if my brother’s head was brought here, his death makes it obvious that they lost. Either to an army half their size or to a larger force that no one has managed to discover yet. The possibilities are enormous, we have no way of predicting it, but even so, they’re winning, Shae. Don’t underestimate eighty thousand men. That’s still a very large number. As much as I want to say otherwise, I don’t think we’re going to win this war," Tyrion said, drinking a little more wine after refilling his cup.

"You’re drunk," Shae said.

Tyrion merely let out a dry laugh. "You know, I find it quite strange that Prince Oberyn disappeared. Apparently, they were on good terms in Volantis, when the Arctican fleet left the city years ago, and Varys’s disappearance makes everything even stranger. Perhaps they’re with the Arcticans, we can’t know for certain, but I believe there’s more to it. Things wouldn’t simply happen like this. To me, Varys knew we were going to lose and fled. He tends to predict these things with the information he has. Perhaps he had already discovered exactly what was happening, knew it was only a matter of time before we were destroyed, and fled because that was the best option."

Shae remained silent. She couldn’t deny that she was afraid as well. Varys had been missing since then, but neither Tyrion nor anyone else had cared much about it. The problem now was an army of eighty thousand men and a ruined wedding.

Cersei must have been crying somewhere, just as Tyrion was drinking in his room. She wanted to kill every Arctican that night, thought about taking revenge, and she had a Stark there to do it.

The problem was that...

"I couldn’t find her anywhere."

"What do you mean she’s nowhere to be found?", the queen shouted hysterically. She needed to cut off that Stark girl’s head in response. She wanted to show the Arcticans a little pain. Even knowing that Sansa was not worth that much to the Arctican king, surely he should receive a response.

"No, she’s nowhere to be found," said the Kingsguard.

"That’s not an answer!" Her voice began to grow dangerous, no longer shouting. "Where is Tyrion? What did he do with that Northern whore?"

Tyrion was summoned, but he merely shook his head. "I don’t know. I haven’t seen Sansa since the moment I saw my brother’s severed head."

That heightened the alert in the Red Keep, with everyone beginning to search for Sansa, but she was nowhere to be found.

Joffrey wanted Tyrion arrested immediately for a possible conspiracy. "Arrest him!", he shouted.

Tyrion simply found himself being dragged, stunned, toward the cells, accused of a conspiracy he did not even properly understand. He could not understand how his family could be foolish enough to think such a thing. On the verge of entering a war, they still wanted to divide themselves. His insane sister certainly would not miss the chance, his nephew would not miss the opportunity for revenge either, and his father did nothing, merely watching him with disappointment.

He was his only son now, and surely Tywin did not want to carry that shame. That would not stain his name. Tywin’s prodigal son had died and only the dwarf remained. It was obvious that the great Tywin Lannister would never allow the history books to record it that way.

Tyrion saw that, on the same day he had lost his brother, his family wanted to kill him as well, to be rid of him. And he ended up being thrown into a black cell.

All he wanted to do was drink and mourn his brother’s death.

Meanwhile, at sea, Sansa was covered by a cloak as she watched the cabin a few decks behind her.

Before all the confusion began, she had been pulled by a knight into one of the corners of the Red Keep, where she found Baelish hiding. He had said he was there to rescue her, using sweet words and even going so far as to say that the scars on their faces matched each other.

Sansa did not laugh. She merely watched him with the half-empty gaze of a woman who had already lost even the will to live.

She only showed some reaction when she saw the same man who had taken Tyrion out of her life being killed by Baelish in front of her, while he took her in a small boat to a ship anchored a little farther away.

Shortly afterward, they began to sail away. "What’s happening?", she had asked Baelish, but even he did not know. He was equally shocked and disturbed by the news that the Arcticans had an army of eighty thousand men coming from the North.

During his journey over the past week, Littlefinger had found nothing disturbing, apart from the news that green flames had been seen at sea. That was already a clear sign that the Arcticans had destroyed a fleet near the Vale. Even so, he had come to assess the situation, try to rescue Sansa and also conspire with Olenna to kill Joffrey.

They had not passed near Dragonstone or even Driftmark and, unlike the ships that had been intercepted, the Arcticans did not interfere with that one, allowing it to continue toward King’s Landing.

Everything seemed calm, Sansa wanted to be alone in her cabin that night, but it was at that moment that something happened, she began to hear men shouting outside. Her eyes quickly turned toward the window and she could see ships bearing that banner approaching them at full speed.

"What’s happening? They’re here?!", she merely whispered, unable to believe it, while Baelish entered the cabin terrified, looking at her.

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