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The Crippled Wolf-Stark SI: Ch.51
🕑 Added 2025-05-07 17:22:27 +0000 UTCChapter 51
TYRION LANNISTER
The death of Cersei had been a great blow that few had expected. Though, one could hardly anyone could have predicted the turn of events which had now pushed the Seven Kingdoms into a massive war.
There was little love between him and his sister, who had always thought of him as a monster responsible for their mother’s death. Yet she was still his blood, his kin, very few of whom now remained in this world. The once-thriving Lannister family had now been reduced to an old man, a disgraced Kingsguard, and a young Princess.
And he wondered if this was the legacy his father had envisioned for their house. Perhaps not for the Old Lion of the Rock was on the prowl once more, coming at Renly and his armies as he tried to solidify and support the claim of his grand-daughter.
Before her demise, his sister had done them a great favor as she had conciliated with the Starks, bolstering their feeble alliance. A pragmatic decision that might just win them the war.
Renly had the support of the Stormlands and the Reach, two out of the Seven Kingdoms, but with the Starks on their side, they had the backing of three full kingdoms while Vale and the Iron Islands remained embroiled in their own little games, putting them on an equal footing that was until Dorne had entered the war.
The desert Kingdom had been but a nominal and unwilling part of the Seven Kingdoms, understandable given the fate suffered by its Princess and her children at the end of the war. The Dornish were awfully prickly and bore good-will to any party engaged in this war, so it had been quite a surprise when they had begun attacking the marches while laying siege to Horn Hill, the lands of Renly’s Master of War.
The pyrish victory against Stannis had come at the cost of the Queen and the young Princess, but it was a victory nonetheless. Cregan had done the impossible, and slain Robert’s younger brother in battle himself, and given them a great chance of winning the war.
Now, their main adversary was Renly, whom they had encircled on all sides, leaving him with no path of escape.
“My lord, my lord,” a servant came to call on him as he sat in the solar reserved for the steward of the castle. And in the few months, little had changed in Harrenhall’s appearance, though those inside knew that the work being done was rather essential.
Silos had been built, and the Shadow Tower had been completely broken, as the builders planned the repairs and reconstruction of the massive castle.
Cregan’s castellan, the grey-eyed Qyburn, was a rather inquisitive man working constantly with the builders and the masons as he tried to prepare the castle for war.
Tyrion, though, had found himself with a different duty, as both his father and Cregan had ordered him to gather a secondary host, a task he was finding to be rather difficult, especially with Cregan taking away most of the able-bodied men available in the land.
“What is it?” he asked the servant, his head throbbing with pain because of the entire bottle of Arbor he had used to drown his sorrows last night.
‘Would Cersei have done the same?’ he wondered, and he did not like the answer that came to his mind. And so, he dedicated his pain to the little girl who had died beside his sister, just to ease his mind.
The scouts have spotted an army approaching us. It carries banners of House Stark and House Lannister,” and that was welcome news. If Renly had a good mind on those broad shoulders, he would have immediately attacked Harrenhall, the second he had heard about his father’s and Robb Stark’s armies marching into the Riverlands.
But the Baratheons were one stubborn bunch, and Renly with his armies remained stationed outside Riverrun, testing its walls and men over ten times, with no victory. And with Cregan arriving here at Harrenhall, his only route of escape was cut off, essentially trapping him within the Riverlands.
“Well, it seems our King has come to give Renly his final blow,” and essentially, Cregan was not King, but a King consort, given that by Andal law, Robert’s seat would be passed on to Myrcella.
But given her age and the prevalent patriarchal nature of the society, he already had a suspicion where the true power would rest in their reign.
“We should go and greet him,” he said, sliding out of his chair and walking past the servant.
“Gather the servants and prepare a feast. Your lord returns as a victorious King,” and wallowing away for one night was enough, for the death of a sister that bore him no love at all.
And so, he stood at the gates with around a hundred men, and heralds who all blew their horns as Cregan led his men through the gates, amongst a great cheer and celebration.
Tyrion saw him wave his hand as he rode towards him, and the war had turned the boy into a man. Though he was always a man in a way, he wondered as his castellan Qyburn stepped forward besides him.
“Congratulations on your great victory, my lord,” he added as Cregan jumped off the horse, and he did not miss the rather striking banner that stood beside the grey direwolf of the Starks and the Lion of the Lannisters.
A question for later perhaps, for it was held by a young black-haired boy who seemed to be a squire to his bastard brother.
“Thank you, Qyburn. How goes the rebuilding?” and it was just like him to jump straight to business, but the disgraced Maester was equally quick to answer.
“It is progressing well, my lord. The silos have been built and the grain has been stored, the work on the towers will begin in a few days,” and Cregan nodded, though before he could say anymore, Tyrion stepped forward.
“I never would have guessed that you would kill a man before laying with a woman,” and as he looked at him, he saw those lips turn up in genuine joy as he lowered himself and gave Tyrion a hug.
“You are a sight for sore eyes,” and so was he.
“Come, I have a feast prepared for you and your men....”
Cregan was not a fan of celebrations, especially with the war still going on. But the men besides him needed a respite, and there were few things better to rejuvenate men for war than food, ale, and women—all three of which were now aplenty in these halls
“I don’t remember Harrenhall having this many maids,” Cregan whispered to him, as he put down his own cup of watered-down wine, and despite being a man, he refused to partake in the few joys of this world.
“It does not,” he agreed, but given the size of his army, Tyrion had come upon a solution.
“So, I hired women from the local brothels to come up to the castle for a day,” and Cregan shook his head in disapproval, as he asked again.
“I do hope you have not emptied out my coffers on whores and ale,” and he laughed.
“You should thank me for bringing some life to these Halls,” and so they japed and joked, until he was rather down in his cups and the Hall had half emptied out of both men and women.
“I am sorry about your sister,” the boy began, and he had drunk enough to drown his emotions as he gave a dull nod.
“Aye! A shame that she could not keep herself in that cellar for that one night,” but few could ever order Cersei Lannister, and that one mistake had been fatal, as the rescuers led by his bastard brother all rushed towards the cellar to secure it first against Stannis’s men, only to find them devoid of the Queen and the Princess.
“But I have mourned her enough,” and he wished not to think of her again, as he turned towards the boy.
“Show me the blade that cut the head of that kinslayer,” Cregan said, and he raised a brow before reaching for his cane, which rested beside the table. He did not miss the bright red glow emanating from its handle, and with a twist, he drew out a thin, long blade.
He placed it on the table in front of him, and as Tyrion touched it, he found the blade to be hot, or perhaps it was just the wine and ale in him deceiving his senses.
“Mott’s work?” he guessed, remembering a past conversation of theirs.
“Yes, I had it reworked during my stay,” and it did shine as if it were a new weapon, and the stone. He was sure that it was new.
“Had this added to the hilt,” and as Tyrion touched it, he found it warm again, and its glow was rather ominous, and he pulled his hand back immediately.
“What does it feel like?” and he had always wondered to ask Jamie that question, about what it meant to kill a King, for that was what Stannis called himself. A king.
And apart from Jamie, the boy beside him was the only person in the realm who could speak about killing a King.
“Not that different from killing any other man,” and he should have expected that, but Cregan’s silence made him think that there was perhaps more to it.
“Perhaps the only difference is that after you kill a King, the fighting usually stops, or becomes meaningless,” and indeed that was one difference.
“Father was quite interested in you after he received your letter,” and that seemed to pique his interest as Tyrion drowned another goblet, pushing back the wave of sobriety threatening to ruin his evening.
“He asked about you in quite some detail,” and as a dutiful son, he had given him the answers, and they must have impressed him enough that he had agreed to his plot, and had come to Riverlands with his armies rather than taking them to Kingslanding as he had a bit more than a decade ago.
“I am not surprised,” and you rarely were. That was the most surprising thing about the boy, in his mind. Tyrion had spent much time thinking of the boy, about what made him so special.
In the end, the answer had been simple. For some reason or another, there were but a few things that surprised Cregan Stark, and where most men would sit still and think on hours about the veracity of a claim, and a possible solution. Cregan moved quickly, often even before the conflict had began, giving him an advantage.
Even right now, he had scoured through the ledgers, and seen how the grain that now sat in their silos had been bought around a year and a half ago, until then none had suspected the arrival of the winter or the dangers of the war.
But he had. Or at least, it seemed so for the amount of grain he had bought was way more than necessary to feed a castle for even a prolonged winter. No, these were the rations that one needed in case of a war.
There were many other things as well, like some detailed maps of the Riverlands having some obscure paths that even most locals were not aware of, a plan for farming and improving yields in his lands, and hiring smiths to improve upon their furnaces so they could produce more and better swords and spears.
“Regardless, with Renly trapped, it won’t be long before you meet the man yourself,” and he would pay gold to see that spectacle, and then suddenly, as he looked around, he saw Cregan’s brother sitting beside them, his suspicion from earlier confirmed that the boy beside him was a squire.
“That sigil,” he remembered from earlier.
“The one with three direwolf heads,” he turned towards Cregan, who raised a brow.
“I don’t remember a House from the North having such a sigil,” and Cregan nodded.
“Until now,” he said making his eyes widen as he continued.
“But that’s Jon’s sigil now. He is now both a Ser and a Lord, and is now Jon Stark of House Stark of Moat Cailin, the defender of the North...”
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Renly’s camp was in chaos, his stubbornness and overconfidence had caused him to fall into the trap set by his opponents and now he found his men getting attacked from two sides, as the Lannister's army rained down arrows from behind, while Riverrun’s host continued to advance from the front.
He had read and heard many tales about Robert’s glorious battles and how he had won the war, yet as he looked at the chaos around him, he realised that war was not the glorious and beautiful thing songs and tales made it out to be.
It was brutal, gruesome, and dirty.
“Renly,” he heard Loras scream as his Knight of Roses killed another one of the Rivermen, as he approached him along with a thin-lipped Randyll Tarly.
“We are at an impasse. At this rate, our army will be crushed between the anvil of Riverrun and the hammer of the Lannisters,” and the old lord had warned him about this, yet he had thought that with his men, he could easily overpower Riverrun’s defences.
But he was wrong.
“What are your orders, your grace?” his tone was mocking and filled with rage, but Renly had no retort. The man had warned him, and Renly had refused to listen, and now he had no choice but to pay the price.
“What do you suggest?” he asked, his most trusted advisor, and for a second, he feared that the man would strike at his King. But in the end, Randyll Tarly looked around the battlefield and continued in a grave tone.
“The battle here is lost,” and he tried to cheer himself by reminding himself that even Robert had suffered a defeat during the rebellion, but had won the war in the end.
“We must retreat, so that we may live to fight another day,” and he nodded.
“But the Lannisters are at our back. We have no path for a retreat,” added Loras, and he gulped.
“We must go towards Harrenhall, and pray that the Starks’ host has not yet returned to the castle....”
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Comments
MyAfroAteMyDog
Three headed direwolf is cool.
FallenMetalGod
Thank you. It looks like another battle is on the way for Cregan and Tyrion. Let's hope they can get out of the siege. I like how Renly realized that he is way over his head. Great job as always, and I can't wait to see what happens next.
f_2004_nashef
Thx for the chapter
Radiant Tiefling
Thank you for the chapter.
