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"Damn it, these Lannisters are stubborn to the bone. Just how long is this siege of King's Landing going to drag on?"
It was nightfall outside the walls of King's Landing. At the heart of the besieging army's camp, a lavish and spacious pavilion stood, filled with a noisy crowd of lords from the Reach and the Stormlands. They were deep in heated discussion, each talking over the other, voices rising in a lively din as they argued about the current state of the war.
The man who had just spoken was Lord Mathis Rowan of Goldengrove, a powerful and influential lord from the Reach. For more than half a month, he had led repeated assaults against the Lannister defenses at King's Landing.
But the problem was, this wasn't just any city. This was the capital of the Seven Kingdoms—and its largest and strongest fortress. For nearly three hundred years under Targaryen rule, the crown had poured a fortune into building up this city of kings.
Centuries of construction had raised walls that were thick, solid, and formidable. And now, with Tywin Lannister—an old fox of the battlefield—personally commanding the defense, more than twenty thousand Lannister soldiers had managed to seal every crack in the city's defenses, making King's Landing impregnable.
Even with Renly's nearly one hundred thousand strong host, they had already lost thousands of men and still couldn't break through.
Earlier today, after yet another wave of attacks left hundreds more dead or maimed, King Renly Baratheon finally ordered a halt to the assault.
Because after reviewing the latest tallied results, he came to a sobering realization — even if he were to triple the kill counts reported by each of his commanding lords, the overall casualty ratio between his forces and Tywin's was still an appalling five to one.
If the math was this bad even with generous padding, then the reality had to be even worse. Renly began to understand that his grand attacks over the past few days, impressive as they seemed, had done little more than scratch the Lannisters' armor. He'd basically been throwing away his soldiers' lives for nothing.
Renly could accept his warriors being defeated on the battlefield—there was no such thing as an army that always won—but what he couldn't tolerate, what made his blood boil, was such senseless slaughter. In his eyes, this wasn't strategy. It was idiocy.
As usual, after a lavish feast filled with roasted meats and fine wine, the king gathered his bannermen inside his tent to discuss their next course of action.
"We need to come up with a new plan. We can't keep playing this foolish game with Tywin. King's Landing is his home ground now. If we continue like this, we may be able to capture King's Landing, but all our blood will be shed," Renly said, biting into a green apple..
He'd eaten so much roasted venison that the meat was starting to turn his stomach. Something fresh and crisp was the only way to cut through the grease.
Because his mouth was full of half-chewed apple, his words came out somewhat muffled, his voice thick with fruit pulp.
"Yes, Your Grace. Tywin Lannister is a capable commander," said Lord Randyll Tarly of Horn Hill. "And we must admit, his soldiers fight better than ours."
Those words immediately sparked a wave of discontent from the other nobles. Grumbles turned into outright protests.
One of them shouted indignantly, "What are you saying, Lord Tarly? Are you telling us Tywin's men are that impressive? Just recently, didn't the Kingslayer's force of over ten thousand get wiped out by some green boy from the North named Clay Manderly?"
"That's right! Your Grace, Lord Tarly must have lost his nerve. If he won't lead the charge and is scared, let us take over. The Stormlanders are ready and eager. We'll storm the gates and bring back the old lion's head ourselves!"
Renly didn't respond to those outbursts. He knew full well that Randyll Tarly wasn't wrong. But hearing it stated so bluntly still left a sour taste in his mouth.
Renly had always carried a strong sense of pride. As the pampered younger brother of the king, born into wealth and comfort, he had never truly known hardship. Aside from being constantly overshadowed and outargued by Stannis, his stern and joyless elder brother, most people had treated him with deference and flattery.
After coming of age, he had smoothly taken up the role of Lord Paramount of the Stormlands and had even been appointed Master of Laws in the small council. His status in the Seven Kingdoms arguably stood above that of his older brother Stannis, who ruled only the remote isle of Dragonstone.
Even after King Robert's death and Lord Eddard Stark's refusal to join his cause, Renly had acted decisively. He had slipped out of King's Landing just in time, regrouped, rallied the forces of the Reach and the Stormlands, and raised a host one hundred thousand strong.
In all the Seven Kingdoms, who had enjoyed such effortless success as Renly Baratheon? Everything had fallen into place for him with unnatural ease.
But now, that same massive, confidently assembled host was being stopped cold by a single wall. And after crashing against it again and again, all Renly had managed to do was split his head open, leaving him bloodied and humiliated.
He couldn't swallow the humiliation. He was determined to find another way—a smarter way—to crack open King's Landing with fewer lives lost. The same way the Lannisters had taken it from the Targaryens more than a decade ago.
So Renly didn't pay much attention to the complaints from those lesser lords. Deep down, he knew how capable Randyll Tarly was as a commander. This was the same man who had delivered his brother Robert one of his only crushing defeats during the Rebellion. There was no way a man like that was a coward or an idiot?
"So tell me then, Lord Randyll," Renly said, wiping juice from his lips, "how is it that the Lannisters folded like wet parchment under the Northerners' assault, but here in King's Landing they've suddenly become an unstoppable force? Don't tell me you think my men are worse fighters than a bunch of Northerners."
"No offense meant, Your Grace," Randyll Tarly replied steadily. "But the situation is different. Right now, we're laying siege to a fortified city. When we first arrived, we hadn't even established a proper footing before Gregor Clegane and his men launched a surprise attack on our siege equipment."
"Without those tools, we had to slap together some ladders in a rush, and they're next to useless against walls this high. You've all seen what happened the last couple of days. We barely made a dent."
After listening to Randyll Tarly's explanation, Renly tapped his fingers against the table, clearly annoyed.
"Lord Tarly, you're not answering the question. I'm asking why the difference between the two battles is so drastic. It's not just about ladders."
Faced with the king's pressing, questioning gaze, Randyll Tarly let out a heavy sigh. He hadn't wanted to bring this up, but since Renly insisted, he had no choice.
"Your Grace, I'll say it plainly. Under that boy Clay Manderly's command, the Northerners simply fought better than we have. Don't refute me, my lords. I ask all of you here: if you were in his place, facing over ten thousand Lannister soldiers head-on, could you have pulled off a clean victory like that?"
He glanced around the tent at the flushed faces of Reachs and Stormlands lords, many of whom were already preparing to argue back. But Randyll's next words silenced them like a blade drawn across their pride.
"Don't even try to tell me you'd have done the same. Clay Manderly had no more than six thousand men, not even a tenth of our army. And you all know exactly what kind of equipment the North marches with. They're not fielding gilded armor or the best steel. And yet he pulled it off."
"I've gone over that battle a dozen times in my head," Randyll continued coldly. "The conclusion I've come to is this: no matter who was in command, none of us would've done better than Clay Manderly did… not even me."
With that, the tent went dead quiet. The very lords who'd been shouting moments ago were now struck speechless. They could doubt Randyll Tarly on many things, but not his grasp of war. No one in that tent dared challenge him on that.
This was, after all, the man who'd nearly captured Robert Baratheon himself. You don't get fiercer than that.
The silence dragged on until finally Renly, still seated in the main chair, let out a long, drawn-out sigh. His voice was weary.
"And that's exactly why," he said, "I wasn't in a rush before, but now I'm so damn eager to take King's Landing."
"Eddard Stark was always my brother's staunchest supporter. In the original plan, I'd hoped the wolves and lions would tear each other apart, both sides left bloodied and broken. But what I didn't expect was that the wolf would snatch the little lion outright and force the old one to play along. Their war ended far too quickly."
"That's what worries me. If Eddard Stark continues to back my dear brother and they strike from both the east and the north before we can take King's Landing, we'll be caught in a very tight spot. If they seize the city first and my brother ends up on the Iron Throne with a proper battle-hardened army beside him, we'll be hopelessly outmatched."
"But Your Grace," a cautious voice interjected—it came from one of the Reach lords—"Eddard Stark is already dead. The reports from Winterfell are confirmed."
Renly nodded. He had known that for some time now. With a weary wave of his hand, he replied, his voice tinged with quiet resignation.
"Sure, but that doesn't solve the problem. Who knows what that promising son of Eddard Stark will do? Best-case scenario, the boy stays put in Winterfell. I deal with these rebels, he shows up afterward to bend the knee, and I'll gladly name him Warden of the North."
"But what worries me is—what if the young wolf gets carried away and starts thinking about crowning himself? You all know the title 'King in the North' has always lingered in Stark history like a ghost."
"Even if he doesn't claim a crown, what happens if he decides to march south and stick his snout into all this? Right now, we've thrown all our strength here. Aside from Lord Mace gathering reinforcements, there are barely any troops holding the Roseroad."
"Your Grace, you are… worrying too much," came another voice. This time it was Garlan Tyrell, elder brother of the famed Knight of Flowers. Regarded as the most capable man in House Tyrell, he had remained silent until now. His tone was calm and measured as he spoke.
"That boy from the Stark family will probably just stay put in Winterfell. He's got his hands full with those Northern lords breathing down his neck. Besides, we just mentioned the Manderlys—after taking the Twins, they might pose a serious threat to the Starks themselves."
"Let's hope so," Renly muttered. "As long as they don't get in our way, I don't care what they do. I just want them to stay out of our business."
He stood up from his chair, and the noble lords around him rose as well. Together, they moved to the center of the tent, where a crude model of King's Landing sat atop a sand-covered table. Renly pointed at the miniature city spread before them and said plainly:
"For now, let's forget about the Starks. What we need to figure out is how to take this city before my slowpoke of a brother drags his feet all the way to King's Landing."
Randyll Tarly let out a long sigh. Truth be told, the best strategy against a massive city like King's Landing—home to hundreds of thousands—was to surround it and wait. Siege it without assault. In time, the city would collapse under its own weight, because the Lannisters couldn't possibly feed everyone inside.
Did anyone seriously expect that twenty thousand Lannister soldiers, plus a few thousand Goldcloaks, could keep order once the starving mob turned on them? It was seriously absurd. Once food ran out, the city would fall on its own. All they needed was patience and enough grain on their side.
But time was no longer a luxury they had. The wars in the North and the West had ended far too quickly, throwing Renly's carefully laid plans into disarray. And now, no one could say for certain where Stannis might strike next.
That was the true advantage of controlling the sea. The ocean was a boundless, unobstructed highway stretching in every direction. With the fleet in his hands, Stannis could land his forces wherever he pleased. He was free in a way Renly's landbound army could never be.
And Renly knew all too well—he couldn't defend every possible target. Even if he were handed three hundred thousand men, it still wouldn't be enough. The entire coastline of the Stormlands, the Reach's Shield Islands, even Oldtown where the Citadel stood—all of it lay exposed to the sea. All of it was vulnerable to Stannis's attack.
If it had been Clay leading the enemy, he would have already launched lightning raids on several key castles, sowing fear and confusion through their lines. The armies of the Reach and Stormlands would scatter to protect their homes, unsure of where the next blow might fall. And once scattered, who could say if they'd ever regroup?
A single failed campaign could shatter Renly's standing forever.
That was why he was so desperate to take King's Landing now. Only by seizing the Iron Throne could he stake a rightful claim to the entire realm. But the brutal fighting outside the city walls had ground his momentum to a halt, and with each day that passed, his anxiety grew heavier.
"Your Grace, given the current situation, we have little chance of taking the city through a direct assault. But we must not fight this war the same way we always have. My proposal is to select an elite force from within our ranks."
"Once we've chosen them, we secretly move this unit out of the main encampment and conceal them nearby."
"Then our army will launch relentless attacks on the Lannister lines, from morning to dusk. Hit them again and again. Wear them down. Exhaust them. We have the numbers—they don't."
"When they're too worn out to rest or respond properly, we choose a night. That night, we launch a full-scale assault on multiple city gates at once. We apply pressure everywhere, force them to scramble their remaining troops across the walls. And that's when the elite unit strikes. They take one of the gates and open the way."
It was a plan built on pressure and attrition, a layered strategy that relied on Renly's superior numbers to grind the enemy down. It wasn't subtle, but it didn't need to be. It was open and aggressive—what some might call a strategy hiding in plain sight.
Renly had the advantage of mobility. He was on the outside. He didn't need to defend every position, so he could move freely, choosing when and where to strike. Tywin didn't have that luxury. He was trapped within the city walls.
A wall was only as strong as its weakest point. If one part fell, the rest meant nothing. Tywin couldn't afford that kind of risk. Which meant he had no choice but to spread his twenty thousand men across every gate, holding each line.
And that was exactly what Randyll Tarly's plan aimed to exploit—force Tywin to stretch himself thin, open up a gap, and drive a blade straight through it.
It wasn't that this was the extent of Randyll Tarly's capabilities. But without proper siege weapons and with hardly any time to prepare, even the finest commander would be hard-pressed to do much more. There simply weren't many options left.
Still, compared to the other noble lords—who spent more time boasting than planning—Tarly's proposal stood leagues above. Those puffed-up men, always prattling on about honor and chivalry, seemed to think sheer numbers would be enough to unite the Seven Kingdoms.
But they never stopped to ask: if numbers alone could win a war, why had the Reach never ruled the Seven Kingdoms?
Wine and women. Given enough time, they really could rot a man to the core. That much, at least, had proven true.
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[Chapter End's]
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