THE NORTHERN CRUSADE

THE YOUNG WOLF STRIKES AGAIN

Robb needed to think so he, Wulfric, and Theon went riding among the hills near their camp. They were also accompanied by the now very large direwolf Grey Wind, who had now grown to be the size of a horse.

After his victory at the Camps, Robb had split his army into 5 hosts.  Ser Brynden, Lord Blackwood and Lord Bracken, each of them has a host number around 3,000 strong. Their task is to prevent Tywin's army from crossing the Trident and attack theirr army from the rear while they are in the Westerlands.

Lord Jason Mallister has about 1,000 men, all of them being cavalry. His task is to liberate the rest of the Riverlands that were still under the occupation of the Lannisters.

Robb has the remaining 22,000 men under his command, 15,000 on foot and the rest being mounted men. And now they were approaching the castle that guarded the domain of House Lannister.

The biggest problem was that the castle garrison knew that they were coming. Tywin had sent word to the Lannister forces in the Westerlands to prepare for a likely attack and Robb had been harried on his approach to the Tooth. He had not sustained much damage, but Tywin had been right in his prediction which took away any surprise entrance into the Westerlands.

“We could attempt to go further south and attack through Deep Den”. Wulfric suggested as they slowly rode through the grass.

“It would take too long to march further south. Our spies report that an army is indead gathering near Oxcross. Stafford Lannister will have more than ten thousand men in a moons turn. It is the same reason we cannot afford the time for a siege.” Robb countered.

Stafford was gathering an army from what was left of the men in the Westerlands. He had made his camp outside Oxcross so that he was more centrally located and could pull men from all corners of the Westerlands.

Robb had received word that many of these soldiers were old men and young boys. However, there were also sellswords and freeriders among them.

The longer Robb waited the more likely it was that Stafford would have an army that could reinforce the garrison at Casterly Rock and Lannisport, making it much more difficult if not impossible to take and they needed to take the Rock to break the Lannister power in the west.

Just as Theon was about to speak, he stopped, noticing that Greywind heading away from them smelling the ground.

“Where is your Direwolf off to?” Theon asked pointing at the grey direwolf as they went between two hills.

The group followed them and found what might have been the single most important trail in the whole war.

Robb looked at the trail in shock, before a cold smirk came to his face.

"Theon, Wulfric gather the lords we are having a war council in the next hour" He ordered.

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That night Robb was in the war tent having summoned his lords.

“Our scouts, that we sent down the trail report that it leads to the other side of the mountains into the Westerlands. My lords, it bypasses the Golden Tooth entirely.” Robb said with a smirk. His lords looked at him with the same blood thirsty smirk that matched his own.