Chapter 91: Arthur of the Riverlands is Here

Arthur had just cleaved a poor Western Lands Army soldier in two and was preparing to search for his next target when he caught sight of someone charging straight at him.

This person wore golden armor, a lion-crested helm, and a white cloak, riding a tall warhorse and wielding a heavy lance.

It was none other than Duke Tywin's eldest son, the "Kingslayer," Jaime Lannister!

This was truly a mouse running out of its hole to call for a cat; he was courting death.

Arthur kicked the flanks of Red Hare with his iron-heeled boots and trotted toward Jaime.

The two began to charge toward each other.

The Western Lands Army soldiers along the way retreated one after another; they did not want to be cleaved in two by the Riverlands war god atop that giant horse in golden armor.

At the command center of the Western Lands Army, the high-ranking nobles—Alysanne Lefford, Lady of Golden Tooth; Damon, Jiaodu of the Marbrand house of Castamere; and Gavin Westerling, Count of The Crag—gathered together to place bets on who would win.

"I favor Jaime; he is, after all, a veteran Knight with a long-standing reputation."

"Hard to say. It is said that the man on the giant golden-armored horse is named Arthur, the champion of the Tourney held a month ago."

"The battlefield is different from the tournament grounds. This Arthur only knows how to hack at people, and his mount is too slow; he may not necessarily be able to defeat Ser Jaime."

"Exactly. Once he is unhorsed, a group of soldiers will rush up and bind him in no time."

"This is a battlefield; be serious, people will die."

Each had their own views and opinions, and they began to argue. With no powerful figure from the Lannister family present to restrain them, these high nobles only cared about indulging their own tongues.

Under their expectant gazes, the two horses crossed paths; both men remained firmly in their saddles, but Jaime's lance had snapped.

Because the Kingslayer's horse was so fast, Arthur only had time to hold his long-handled blade horizontally across the horse's back, thinking that Jaime would charge right into the blade.

Unexpectedly, Jaime pressed his horse's head down and hunched over the horse's back, slipping right under the blade.

The lance also accurately struck Arthur's greave, but it had no effect.

There was no helping it; although Jaime's horse was tall, Arthur's horse stood a full head taller at the withers, which meant the two were not at the same height.

Jaime turned his horse around, drew a new lance from the horse's belly, fixed it to the lance rest on his right elbow, and charged again.

Arthur knew without looking back that the Kingslayer would be able to charge over before Red Hare could turn around.

By then, he would be the one receiving a backstab.

So he dismounted directly, raised his long-handled blade, and performed a sliding tackle, sliding under the belly of Jaime's charging horse.

He didn't even need to exert force; the poor horse caught the blade with its own belly.

Arthur was drenched in blood, intestines, stomach, and other organs that rained down from the horse's belly.

Even with his helmet on, Arthur felt the hot horse blood flowing into his mouth.

Using its momentum, the horse's carcass crashed head-first into the ground, and Jaime was thrown from its back.

Arthur crawled out from under the horse's hind legs, quickly wiped his head and face to clear away some of the horse blood so it wouldn't obstruct his vision.

Then he turned and charged toward Jaime, who was still somewhat dazed from the fall.

He didn't care about the organs on his body, as long as they didn't hinder his movements.

Upon reaching the Kingslayer, Arthur used the back of his blade to smash Jaime's golden helmet several times, and after making the Kingslayer even dizzier, he hoisted him over his shoulder, charged toward his giant horse, jumped on, and rode toward the camp of the Vance and Piper houses.

While the giant horse was turning, he laid Jaime horizontally across the horse's back and casually cleaved a Western Lands Army soldier who wanted to save his master.

Red Hare carried the two of them at a trot toward the camp.

Western Lands Army command center.

Alysanne, Lady of Golden Tooth, was so disgusted by the sight that she vomited.

Arthur's silver plate armor and golden long-handled blade had been turned bright red by the horse blood and viscera; even from far away, Alysanne felt she could see the horse's intestines on Arthur's body still twitching.

The other high nobles were no better off; although they were on a battlefield, they had expected the fight to be spectacular, not extremely bloody.

A moment later, someone finally realized that their commander had been snatched away.

"He took Jaime, chase him!"

"Charge! Everyone resting in the back, charge! Retrieve Ser Jaime!"

"A reward of ten thousand Gold Dragons to whoever retrieves the Lannister!"

The high nobles of the Western Lands issued their own orders.

However, due to the command structure of this detachment, they could only command their own men.

Fortunately, the ten-thousand Gold Dragon bounty was very effective, and the Messenger relayed it to the resting Western Lands Army soldiers in the rear in time.

The soldiers rotating in the wheel-battle were suddenly excited; the nobles only promised the reward for retrieving him, which was much easier than killing that giant golden-armored warrior.

Consequently, two or three thousand Western Lands Army soldiers rushed over from near Golden Tooth; their target was very obvious, they just needed to charge toward Arthur.

The Western Lands Army soldiers besieging the camp did not yet know about the ten-thousand Gold Dragon bounty, so after Arthur cleaved a dozen of them, Riverlands Soldiers appeared before him.

The height advantage of Red Hare became apparent; it jumped directly over the pile of corpses, leaving thousands of Riverlands Soldiers and Western Lands Army soldiers to continue hacking at each other.

Scattered tents, overturned ox carts, burning wooden fences, and wounded soldiers were the main sights in the rear.

The horse armor hadn't been splattered with much horse blood, so someone recognized Arthur and directed him to Clement, the Jiaodu of the Piper house.

"Hey, I've captured the Kingslayer, bring your men and retreat!" Arthur shouted.

Marq Piper, Raymond Darry, Lord Beric, and others had already killed their way in and were resting.

They looked up to see Arthur, bathed in blood and draped with a section of intestine and chunks of meat, with Jaime still struggling on the horse's back, and were all too stunned to speak.

This scene was enough for them to remember for the rest of their lives.

"Lord of Light! How many people did you kill?" Thoros of Myr muttered to himself.

Clement, the Count of Pinkmaiden who had been here earlier, was also intimidated by the newcomer.

"Does the Riverlands really have such a fierce general?"

He asked himself in disbelief.

"What are you staring at? Retreat! The Western Lands Army soldiers behind are already crazy; they want to retrieve Jaime," Arthur shouted again.

Only then did this group of inexperienced Riverlands and Stormlands nobles react.

Count Clement ordered a retreat.

Count Vance of Wayfarer's Rest was already severely wounded, and now he was commanding the armies of both houses.

After a messenger galloped through to deliver the order, the soldiers of both houses finally responded to the command to retreat.

Under the cover of a group of skilled fighters including Arthur, Raymond Darry, Thoros of Myr, and Lord Beric, the Riverlands Army began to retreat toward Riverrun.

The camp was not far from the River Road, which made the retreat much faster and more convenient.

Because the Western Lands Army was simply too numerous, they could only take along the lightly wounded and the soldiers of the Vance and Piper houses who were still able to run on their own.

The Kingslayer was handed over to Count Clement, whose Personal Guard would escort this Lannister all the way ahead until they reached Riverrun.

After all, this was the greatest victory since the war between the Riverlands and the Western Lands began.

After another fierce battle, with the corpses of Riverlands and Western Lands soldiers piled into small hills, the soldiers of the Vance and Piper houses finally withdrew completely from the camp.

"Alright, brother Raymond, take the men and go first; I will hold the rear alone, no need to worry about me," Arthur shouted.

Thoros, also covered in blood, muttered, "Who was worried about you? I have always been worried about the Western Lands soldiers on the other side."

Raymond and the others did not stand on ceremony and retreated on horseback.

The Western Lands soldiers, covering the mountains and plains, were still rushing over in an endless stream.

The word of a 10,000 Gold Dragon bounty had reached the ears of these ten thousand men, and the common soldiers, who might not earn that much money in ten lifetimes, had gone mad.

Even though Arthur took down one man with every swing of his blade, he still could not block the surging enemies.

Regardless of whether these enemies were surging forward voluntarily or being pushed.

He still had to urge Red Hare to run backward slowly, otherwise, if too many corpses piled up, Red Hare would be trapped by the crush.

He did not know how much time had passed, but when Arthur felt that he could no longer grip his glaive due to the accumulated and congealed blood, the Western Lands soldiers were still charging at him.

At this moment, another pile of corpses had already formed in front of him.

Estimating that the Riverlands Army had already gone far, Arthur felt it was time for him to slip away as well.

"Arthur of the Riverlands is here; who dares to fight me to the death?"

He reined in his horse and shouted.

Perhaps the Western Lands soldiers were finally tired of fighting, or perhaps his invincible aura had suppressed them.

The entire battlefield actually fell into a sudden, stark silence.

The cawing of the ravens in the mountains of Golden Tooth could be heard clearly, echoing through the mountains along with the reverberations of Arthur's shout.

The Western Lands infantry finally realized that the one before them was the invincible War God of the Riverlands; although 10,000 Gold Dragons were tempting, their own lives were also important.

Thus, they all hesitated and stopped, and although the people surging from behind slowly pushed them forward, the offensive was halted.

A high-ranking noble of the Western Lands in the back saw that his soldiers' attack had stopped and said in a fit of rage:

"Charge! Charge for me!"

Arthur laughed when he saw the Western Lands soldiers who dared not advance and the Western Lands noble shouting for them to charge.

The laughter and its echoes traveled through the mountains of Golden Tooth, falling into the ears of the Western Lands soldiers and entering the hearts of the Western Lands nobles.

This made the Western Lands nobles, who had suffered an unfavorable start, even more furious.

"What are you laughing at? You petty noble of the Riverlands," someone shouted.

Arthur stopped his wild laughter and replied, "Wait until you understand the difference between 'charge' and 'follow me' before you try to command an army."

Watching the Western Lands soldiers who had stopped for him alone, he felt extremely satisfied in his heart.

A real man should be like this!

"Who dares to fight me to the death?" Arthur asked again.

Still no response.

The entire force of over ten thousand men from the Western Lands was as quiet as if no one were there.

Arthur raised his blade and pointed it horizontally, "Is there not a single man among you?"

Finally, a Western Lands noble reacted, "Archers, ready!"

Thus, the Western Lands archers in the rear began to gather, and the front row of soldiers slowly moved aside.

Seeing that this group really intended to shoot him to death with arrows, Arthur hurriedly turned his horse around and officially made his escape.

This was not a Mount and Blade game where one could borrow a suit of armor to catch arrows and still survive.

Even if his Plate Armor could withstand the damage, the giant horse beneath him could not withstand a rain of arrows covering the sky.

Of course, he had to leave a harsh word before slipping away.

One must not lose face even if one loses the battle.

As he spurred his horse to run toward the north, he looked back and shouted:

"You're playing dirty, aren't you? Just wait until I reorganize my army to fight again."

Having said that, he slipped away without looking back.

Count Gavin Westerling, Count Damon Marbrand, and Lady Alysanne of the Western Lands watched silently as Arthur rode away, remaining speechless for a long time.

After a long while, Lady Alysanne said, "We should just station ourselves at Golden Tooth; this man is truly unstoppable. Send a Raven to have Duke Tywin send The Mountain; perhaps he can defeat this man."

"My lady sees it clearly."

"Let it be done."

The group did not want to lead their own soldiers to die in vain for the Lannister house, so they ordered their soldiers to camp near Golden Tooth and wait for Duke Tywin's orders.

After two hours of riding, Arthur caught up with the retreating Riverlands Army.

"There are only two thousand two hundred men left. My house lost eight hundred, and the Vance house of Wayfarer's Rest lost one thousand; their Jiaodu is severely wounded," Ma Ke said to him.

Arthur thought to himself, isn't there still over two thousand left?

If it had followed the original story, these four thousand men would have all died outside Golden Tooth.

Suffering heavy losses and achieving no results, everyone remained silent, quietly making their way along the River Road.

Three days later, Riverrun.

This second-most important city in the Riverlands stood at the confluence of the Tungstone River and the Red Fork, situated at the node of a horizontal Y-shape.

Since both rivers were already quite wide by the time they reached the vicinity, the main army could not easily cross them.

Therefore, after thousands of years of experience, if the Westerlands army wanted to invade the Riverlands along the River Road, they had to capture this stronghold surrounded by water on three sides.

If the Westerlands Army invaded along the Red Fork, they would either have to cross the river on the territory of Pinkmaiden upstream, or attack along the valley between the Gold Tooth and the Red Fork.

This was precisely the purpose for the existence of the two houses of Pinkmaiden and Wayfarer's Rest.

They existed to block the Westerlands Army's advance in the upper reaches of the Red Fork, so that the enemy would be forced to attack Riverrun.

It was just that Edmure was truly a bit dim-witted, actually letting these two houses block the Gold Tooth with four thousand men, and nearly getting those four thousand men killed.

At this moment, this dim-witted eldest son of the Tully Jiaodu was leading the prominent lords of the Riverlands out of Riverrun to welcome the "victorious" heads of the two houses and the members of the King's Landing Law Enforcement Team.

Yes, his choice of words was indeed "victorious return."

Scouts had already received news that the Westerlands detachment at the Gold Tooth had halted, which made Edmure feel that his previous decision to send men to block the Western Lands Army was correct.

After a round of pleasantries, the many nobles boarded small boats, crossed the moat, and entered the great hall of Riverrun.

Everyone sat in the great hall of Riverrun according to their status; Arthur, due to his outstanding military exploits, sat in a very prominent position.

Edmure first praised Arthur's feat of slaying The Mountain with extreme enthusiasm, and then commended his great achievement of capturing Jaime.

"My Riverlands won the first battle, and Arthur contributed the most," he concluded at the end.

The Vance and Piper houses were also praised by him.

It was just that the people from these two houses could not bring themselves to be happy.

The Jiaodu of the Vance house had already died of severe wounds, and Karel had inherited the title and territory.

The Piper house's Pinkmaiden had already been burned by Tywin's army, and the entire earldom had been ruined beyond recognition.

"The King has passed away, King's Landing is in chaos, and for now, we must resist the Westerlands Army ourselves," Edmure said.

He briefly introduced the current situation.

In the five or six days since Arthur slew The Mountain and went to the Gold Tooth.

In King's Landing, Robert had died after being gored by a wild boar, Duke Eddard had been imprisoned, and Renly and the Knight of Flowers had fled with only a few attendants.

Robb Stark of Winterfell had already summoned the armies of his vassals, preparing to head south to rescue his father and sisters.

They would be a major reinforcement for the Riverlands.

As for the great nobles of the other kingdoms, The Reach and the Stormlands had begun to gather troops, while only The Vale and Dorne remained unmoved for the time being.

Regarding the Westerlands Army, Duke Tywin had led his troops north, captured Pinkmaiden, and was currently attacking Wayfarer's Rest.

It was rumored that Stafford Lannister of Casterly Rock had been sent to take over the detachment at the Gold Tooth, and along with him came three thousand men.

This brought the troop strength at the Gold Tooth up to sixteen thousand.

"Tywin's cavalry unit passed Stone Hedge last night; their target should be the empty and undefended Harrenhal," Lord Jenos Bracken added.

A Raven from his own territory had reported this news to him.

Arthur was greatly shocked; Tywin's speed was simply too fast.

"How many men?" he asked his distant uncle.

"The scouts said at least a thousand; they didn't dare get close and could only look from afar," Jenos replied.

Arthur recalled that when he had previously set out from Harrenhal to hunt down The Mountain, running day and night, it had taken him a full three and a half days to reach the middle reaches of the Red Fork.

Tywin's main army was larger in number and far less mobile than the small unit he led, so it would take them more than five days to reach Harrenhal.

Although Riverrun was further away, the speed of water transport was a bit faster.

Although the boats on the Red Fork were not large, they were extremely numerous, and carrying some soldiers downstream was not a problem at all.

Five days was still enough to arrive at Harrenhal before Tywin's cavalry unit.

"Edmure, I must go to rescue Harrenhal; give me enough troops," Arthur said.

Perhaps because of the initial victory, Edmure's face showed some joy, "No rush, while everyone is here, let us discuss the subsequent situation and strategy."

Then this heir to Riverrun stated his thoughts.

"We now have eighteen thousand men, plus the two thousand or so from the Vance and Piper houses, a full twenty thousand; we have a sufficient advantage compared to the Westerlands detachment at the Gold Tooth, so we can first fight the Gold Tooth, and then turn back to fight Tywin."

Previously, Edmure had assembled soldiers from most of the families in the Riverlands, and at that time the number reached nearly thirty thousand.

Afterward, the small units of The Mountain and Amory Lorch had successively burned and looted the Riverlands, so Edmure had let some nobles take their own soldiers back to their territories for defense.

After this, having received news of Tywin's advance, he had once again summoned the vassal soldiers.

It was just that the number of people who came the second time was much smaller.

Many noble Jiaodus harbored selfish motives, keeping some soldiers in their own territories instead of bringing them to Riverrun.

But Edmure still had twenty thousand men in his hands.

"Turn back to fight Tywin, you can actually say such a thing?" Arthur was angered into laughter, "If Tywin really takes Harrenhal, your nephew Robb will have to head south from The Twins; otherwise, the Northern soldiers will have to fight the Western Lands Army in the narrow strip between the Green Fork and the Mountains of the Moon."

The military importance of Harrenhal was far greater than simply controlling the south bank of the Red Fork.

In fact, controlling Harrenhal basically meant holding the lifeline for all traffic north of the Blackwater River.

For The North to join the war, they would either have to head south along the Kingsroad or detour from The Twins; for The Vale to send troops, they had to come out of the Bloody Gate and then cross the Ruby Ford before they could head south; even for the Riverlanders themselves, without Harrenhal, they could only live north of the Red Fork.

Some people supported Arthur's point of view and wanted to lead troops to rescue Harrenhal.

Others supported Edmure's point of view, to first have a decisive battle with the sixteen thousand men of the Westerlands detachment, and then turn back to deal with Tywin.

More noble Jiaodus remained silent.

The one they respected was the ailing Hoster; the words of this young man Edmure and the green boy Arthur could not convince them.

Pinkmaiden had already been burned, and Ma Ke decided to support Arthur's view of defending Harrenhal; he persuaded his father Clement, which allowed Arthur to obtain his first army of over a thousand men.

Karel of Wayfarer's Rest was immersed in the grief of his father's death in battle, and he still had to worry about whether the family castle he had just inherited had been taken by Tywin's army.

Therefore, he did not speak out.

Raymond of Darry did agree with Arthur, but he had too few troops at his disposal, and his words carried little weight, so he did not have much influence on the stance of the nobles present.

As for the others, such as Count Beric, he was a noble from the Stormlands and found it inappropriate to interfere in the military strategy of the Riverlands, while the Red Priest Thoros of Myr was regarded by everyone present merely as a warrior.

After a period of stalemate, a great noble with sufficient influence finally publicly expressed his support for Arthur.

"I agree to send troops to defend Harrenhal, and I will hand over my family's two thousand five hundred men to him."

The statement from Janos made the atmosphere suddenly lively.

House Frey of The Twins did not come, so Raventree Hall and Stone Hedge were the two strongest families present besides House Tully.

The head of the Bracken main house was enough to make some who were watching from the sidelines make up their minds.

PS: Seeking recommendation votes and monthly tickets.

(End of this chapter)