Hail to the Stag Kings

Chapter 16: Thayne of Redmont

—The Riverlands—

Near the outskirts of Lambswold...

Rain... it was supposed to rinse away the filth. It was supposed to cleanse and renew. And yet for all the water that poured from the sky, it could not wash away death. The maesters and scholars were no doubt coming up with some flowery name to give it, but to the men fighting and dying, it was war. It was a war between two brothers for the throne of their mother. The throne that had been held by their family for eight hundred years. A war between the last two members of House Baratheon for the throne of Westeros. And although the poets and historians made wars seem glorious and beautiful, it was dirty and bloody.

So very, very bloody...

Captain Gawain Thayne in the Royal Army, Lord of Redmont since the death of his father three months prior, sat on a stump ignoring the rain that soaked his mud and blood-stained uniform. He was staring out at a field that was quickly becoming marsh. The bodies of dead soldiers, both rebel and loyalist were slowly sinking into the mud.

"Captain?" A voice behind him asked tentatively.

Gawain did not even have to turn around to know who it was. "Yes, Kay?" he responded.

Private Kay, a recently conscripted peasant boy from the Stormlands, wearing an ill-fitting uniform, wiped the rainwater from his eyes. "Ser, are you alright?" He asked.

Gawain was silent for a moment then with a deep sigh before rising from the stump he had been sitting on and turned to look at the private, who gave his best salute. Gawain gave a thin smile "I'm fine." He said solemnly as he turned and headed back to camp, with the private following a few steps behind.

The arrival of Stark reinforcements had currently brought the advancement of the Royal Army to a halt. However, the loyalist forces had still managed to maintain their siege of Riverrun. The ancient seat of House Tully was indeed a unique and formidable fortress. But was not stopping the loyalist forces from trying. Surrounding the castle with a series of trenches, barricades, and hammering the defendants with heavy cannon bombardments. Though word had reached the loyalists of Daemon's victory at the Iron Islands, Colonel Loreon Lannister, the commander of the royal forces in the Riverlands was confident that once Riverrun fell that total victory would follow soon afterward. Many high-ranking officers in the Royal Army shared this view; that when Riverrun falls, order would then be restored.

Though, some thought, out of fear of being heard, that a reign under King Argilac could be called anything but peaceful.

"Captain!" arrived a scout. "We scouted the area along the kingsroad. Riverrun is not too far from here. If we hurry, we can make it on foot."

"And do what?" questioned another incredulously. "The minute we set foot in the Riverlands, we'll all be caught in the middle of the crossfire! Both sides are wary of the other based on double agents in their midst. Look, I do not know about you gents, but I have a wife and child! Desertion was one thing, but if we are caught then we will all die anyway! I mean, why did you drag me along with you? Surrender seems reasonable—"

"We're all technically traitors anyway!" exclaimed a recruit. "We surrender to the crown, we die. We surrender to the rebels, and we die. My honor was sullied since... since that fateful night."

"Orders were orders, right?!"

"Every man, woman, and child in that village were slaughtered! Every one of them... I can still see their faces in my sleep, their voices begging for mercy..."

Kay turned to Gawain. "Well, captain... What are your orders?" he asked with uncertainty in his voice. "Do we seek the rebels or camp out here?"

Gawain was silent, the voices of the men behind him becoming background noise as he thought deeply. Three months... it had been three months since he had thought of this plan. The plot for it came to fruition when he had stood over the body of his father, crammed without care into a cheap pine box. His father, who had called him a disappointment. His father, whom he could barely stand, had been in the same room as him. His father... over whose corpse Gawain had mourned.