Chapter 172

"I am grateful to House Rowan for their timely aid in this battle. Together we shall..." Willas had settled into his customary songbird routine, meant to soothe the egos of proud men, but something had gone wrong this time.

"'Lord' Tyrell, save the pretty words for court. Lord Rowan ordered me to deliver a message." That the heir of Highgarden had been cut off mid speech was a glaring lack of respect, but the messenger held his tongue and delivered Matthis Rowan's words plainly. "'You've failed. I command the army now.'"

"How dare he!"

"Who does Rowan think he is?!" The young Tyrell's retinue was far from pleased with a mere vassal's words.

"Enough!" One word from Willas, and the murmuring in his ranks fell silent. "Send word to the whole army that command passes to Lord Matthis Rowan." The messengers rode off quickly, if without much enthusiasm, to relay the order to the field commanders engaged in the fighting. Tyrell himself, gentle natured as he was, seethed with fury. A vassal had shown open contempt for his future liege lord. It was a humiliation. Only his awareness of how delicate the situation was kept Willas clear-headed enough not to do anything foolish. Hierarchy mattered a great deal in an army, and objectively, Rowan was the best choice to command this battle, but such an aggressive seizure of the chain of command still galled Tyrell. He even had to relocate to Rowan's newly established headquarters.

His resentment began to fade in step with the shifting fortunes of the battle. The right flank, once the most troubled, stopped fraying at the seams and settled into something like stability. The center stopped acting on its own and once more resembled a professional army. And the left became a blade of victory, cutting through the Vale's defenses. The arrival of ten thousand reinforcements had utterly changed the balance of power, and Lord Matthis Rowan had made full and proper use of his advantages. Watching a true professional at work, Willas found his resentment fading into the background, replaced by a grudging admiration. Rowan's actions were a fusion of real talent, rich experience, sharp instinct, and deep theoretical knowledge.

The Falcon's eye had a true mastery of the art of denying his enemy any rest, weaving a shifting, deceptive tapestry of apparent maneuvers. Tactical traps, feigned movements, seemingly insignificant repositionings that folded into double maneuvers, false retreats followed by sudden counterattacks, seemingly chaotic actions that carried real consequences for those on the receiving end. Axel Arryn used them all. Willas had managed to unravel barely a third of the enemy's tactical maneuvers; Lord Rowan, for his part, countered nearly all of them.

Victory had never felt closer. It was only a matter of time before the famed knights of the Vale broke beneath the Reach's onslaught. And while Willas grew ever more heartened, Lord Rowan, by contrast, grew uneasy. Only those who had spent considerable time at his side could have noticed the mismatch between the commander's mood and the state of the battle, so well did the Lord of Goldengrove keep his composure.

One question gnawed at Matthis: why would an experienced commander like Axel Arryn, faced with such a dire situation, refuse to retreat? There had to be some reasonable explanation for such seemingly illogical behavior. Fortunately, or unfortunately, the answer revealed itself very quickly. Arryn had been waiting for reinforcements. And now they had arrived.

Tywin Lannister's army had entered the battle.

...

"PAH! Water?!" I hadn't expected such a betrayal from my own staff. "Bring me wine!" As if I'd be drinking water between bouts of fighting. "But, my lord?" the boy mumbled something.

"Now!" He vanished like the wind had carried him off. "Why be like that with the lad? He just doesn't want his lord dying from a drunken haze."

"Go to the seven hells, Jasper." I wasn't in the mood for banter. "So the Old Lion finally deigned to show up. The situation must have caught him by the tail, that's why the Lannisters arrived so quickly." And there was a certain irony to it, everything had already been set for a retreat.

"His man already came by," Redfort went on as though nothing were amiss. "We agreed on a 'pincer'. We fight however we see fit, and the Lannisters adapt to our tactics."

"Good." Simpler is better, especially when alliances are cobbled together in haste. "By the way, what are you doing at the main command?"

I had no shortage of capable commanders, ones whose tactical knowledge rivaled the famed generals of other regions, and who were nonetheless strong enough to inspire the men in person, leading a charge themselves; a near perfect hybrid of field officer and staff strategist. Jasper's talent, on the other hand, lay in a different plane entirely: raw power. The hardest part of breaking an enemy line is creating the breach in the first place. Fail at that, and consider the attack's momentum lost, degenerating into a stalemate. Defense was never Redfort's strong suit, but his sheer brute force was more than enough to tear through enemy formations like a knife through butter. That was his gift, his calling, but the tradeoff was his complete inability to command a battle with any competence. Jasper belonged on the field, leading soldiers directly, which was exactly why his presence at the command tent raised questions.

"Are we seriously planning to do this?"

"Yes."

"Half of Westeros will condemn you openly, and the other half quietly."

"Don't care." Other people's opinions ranked rather low on my list of concerns. "If they want to have their way with me, why shouldn't I return the favor?"

"Ser Jasper, take five hundred men from the reserve and go to the center, push the Tyrell back a hundred paces. Stanford, have Ser Tybor fall back fifty paces and form the 'wall'." After a moment's thought, I recalled who was covering for Jasper on the left flank. "Ser Bart is to slow his advance and regroup his forces. Lord Rookwood and Ser Rudolph, pull their men out of the fighting. Send word to Arthur, his right flank is sagging, he'll understand the rest. Talk sense into Lord Elesham, he mustn't overextend. Ser Monfrid..."

Within the half hour, something would happen that would shake everyone to their very core.