Edric
The Boltons were spreading out to encircle the castle Hornwood. It was hard to judge their numbers. A five hundred at least; perhaps twice that many. Against their own three hundred Hornwood men. They'd brought catapults and scorpions. He saw no siege towers rolling towards the castle though. There will be no seige, Edric knew that, the bastard of Bolton will have war. 'Lord Ramsay will come for war,' the bastard's pet had told them before he was hanged. Somehow Edric believed him.
He studied their banners from the walls of Hornwood. The flayed man of the Dreadfort flapped bravely wherever he looked, all naked and bloody. Their own army was massing inside the castle, proud northerners wearing the bull moose of the Hornwoods proudly. It felt almost queer to fight under the arms of a house after fighting without a banner for years. They were waiting for the sun to set to begin their assault on Ramsay Snow.
The bastard has long since threatened to claim the Hornwood land to his own. When Lord Halys came for the help of Lord Beric, the lightning lord had chosen to aid them and keep the king's justice. The Wanderer himself had deemed the bastard of Bolton unworthy to live after hearing his slyness and cruelty. By dawn, Ramsay Snow would be brought to justice and if the leech lord has something to say about it he is very much likely to follow his bastard to grave.
Lord Beric, Rodrick and Thoros had gone out to join Lord Manderly's force in Sheepshead Hill. He hoped that they made it to them alive. Without the Manderly soldiers, they would very likely get overwhelmed by the Bolton numbers. Ramsay Snow had at least twice the numbers they had inside the castle. They might hold them off for sometime but once the walls were breached the tide might turn against them.
Edric should've gone with Lord Beric himself but the Lightning lord had tasked him to stay with the Hornwoods. They were to lead the army outside to meet the Boltons once Lord Beric comes with the Manderly knights. Edric was to lead the eastern column himself but they have to survive till Lord Beric arrives with his men.
Tom was with him along with Lem and Anguy. The singer was perched upon the guard tower on the walls, pulling the strings of his woodharp he cradled against his jerkin, as a mother might cradle a babe. A small man and fifty but Tom was still a dangerous man with his axe and throwing knives. He had a big mouth quite useful for singing, a sharp nose, and thinning brown hair. His song came drifting along the evening air from the little rise of the guard tower on the walls. "Off to Gulltown to see the fair maid, heigh-ho, heigh-ho..." He was already ready for fight. His faded greens were mended here and there with old leather patches, and he wore a brace of throwing knives on his hip and a woodman's axe slung across his back. Tom always like to sing before a fight. 'There are worse things than dying with a song on your lips' he had told him once when Edric asked about it.
"Do you think Lord Beric has met with the Manderly knights?" Edric asked him.
The singer idly plucked a string. "Lord Beric has found his way back from hells more than once. Surely a walk in the shadow of the hills is not so hard for him."
"He told he will be here by sundown." Edric looked to the west where the sky had already gone to the color of a bruise.
"With or without the lightning lord we'll kill the bastard of Bolton," Lem said in the deep voice of his.
Lem stood a good foot taller than Tom, and had the look of a soldier. A longsword and dirk hung from his studded leather belt, rows of overlapping steel rings were sewn onto his shirt, and his black iron halfhelm shaped like a cone was in his hands. He was picking his bad teeth with a thin straw. His bushy brown beard was shaggy, but it was his hooded yellow cloak that drew the eye of most men. Thick and heavy, stained here with grass and there with blood, frayed along the bottom and patched with deerskin on the right shoulder, the greatcloak gave the big man the look of some huge yellow bird. The cloak itself got him the name Lem Lemoncloak.
Tom Sevenstrings strummed his harp. "We'll hold the castle," he said. "The bastard will rush and break his host against the walls. And our Archer here will make them bleed every time they come near."
Anguy strummed the string of his longbow. "I might have found some decent archers in Lord Hornwood's host." He was as skinny as his longbow if not quite as tall and Edric was yet to see a better marksman than Anguy. He doubted if would ever see one though. Red-haired and freckled, he wore a studded brigantine, high boots, fingerless leather gloves, and a quiver on his back. His arrows were fletched with grey goose feathers, and six of them stood in the ground before him, like a little fence against the wall. "We might take a good number down if we had the light."
"You will," Tom said and went to singing again. "I'll steal a sweet kiss with the point of my blade, heigh-ho, heigh-ho."
"What do you think the Wanderer will do after this?" Anguy asked.
"I think he'll go for Winterfell," Lem said.
"Not before the dragon," Tom sang the words as if they were parts of the song.
"The dragon will be a problem, I tell you," Lem said.
"Not unlike anything we have seen before," said Anguy. "We'll have Thoros and the Lightning lord with us."
Edric wondered if the red priest could take down the dragon. He could, maybe, after all he brings dead men to life. If Thoros could bring that dragon down they'll have an easy time capturing Winterfell.
"Let's just think about what's at hand now, shall we?" Tom glanced toward the Bolton camp. "The bastard has done things bad if not worse as the Targaryens. He killed Old Pate just because the man wouldn't move his wagon quickly."
Edric had known Old Pate. The old man had been a good friend of their brotherhood ever since he knew him.
"I buried Old Pate myself," Tom continued, "right there under that sentinal beside his house he very much loved to sit under." He drew a sad sound from his harp. "We've buried many a good man this past year, and I mean to stop Bolton's bastard before the dragon."
"Patience, Tom," Edric told him. "Besides if Ramsay Snow ever shows up I believe Anguy here will fill him with arrows before he could even draw his sword."
The archer's hand moved quicker than Edric would have believed. His shaft went hissing past his head within an inch of his ear and buried itself in the wooden rail behind him. "It'll only take one," Anguy said as the arrow thrummed behind her like a bee.
Tom chuckled and went back to his song again. "I'll make her my love and we'll rest in the shade, heigh-ho, heigh-ho." As dusk began to settle over the world, the song swelled louder with every word.
As the sun moved, the shadow of the guard tower moved as well, gradually lengthening, a blackk arm reaching out for Edric Dayne. By the time the sun touched the wall, he was in its grasp.
It was when the warhorn sounded. Harooooooh... The sound split through Tom's song.
The Hornwood men on the castle walls blew their own horns, calling up the men for battle.
"Shit," Lem said and donned his helm.
Anguy picked up his arrows and secured them in his quiver. Tom dropped down from the tower already with his axe in hand. There was a little commotion down in the yard and a murmur amongst the men.
"Prepare to defend the castle," Edric shouted to them.
Lord Halys came forth dressed in mail and a tunic displaying his sigil over the mail. "Prepare to fight," he told his men. "The bastard of Bolton is coming to take our lands, our castle, our freedom. Nothing good is going to happen with him inside our walls. Fight with me and throw him away."
A cheer went through the men which relieved Edric somewhat. He wondered when Lord Beric will come. He hoped it would be so soon.
"Archers, with me," Anguy yelled and a group of guys followed him at once. He divided them and put half on one guard tower and took the rest with him to the other tower.
Edric looked from the parapets. For a moment he thought the forest was full of lantern bugs. Then he realized they were men with torches.
A column of riders moved between the trees and tents toward the castle.
Firelight glittered off metal helms and spattered their mail and plate with orange and yellow highlights. One carried a banner on a tall lance. The flayed man of the Boltons flowing in the night air. Everything seemed red or black or orange.
Edric saw a tree consumed by fire, the flames creeping across its branches until it stood against the night in robes of living orange. Everyone was awake now, manning the catwalks or struggling with the frightened animals below. He could hear Lord Halys and his son shouting commands.
The riders reined up before the gates. "You in the holdfast!" shouted a man in dark armor. His rounded helm gleamed a sullen red, and a pale pink cloak streamed from his shoulders.. "Open, in the name of the king!"
"Aye, and which king is that?" Lem yelled back down.
Edric climbed the battlement beside the gate, his sword still in its sheath. "You men hold down here!" he shouted. "You have no reason to be here."
"And who are you, boy? One of Lord Beric's cravens?" called the man in red helm. "If that fool Thoros is in there, ask him how he likes these fires." The torchlight glittered off the chipped enamel of his visor. His helm and gorget were wrought in the shape of a man's face and shoulders, skinless and bloody, mouth open in a silent howl of anguish.
"Lord Beric and Thoros are not here," Edric shouted back.
"Open the gates and give me my Reek back and I might leave you alone."
Lord Halys spat. "Come now, bastard. We'll send you to him."
"So be it. You chose to fight, and fight and die you shall."
"Let no one alive." Ramsay raised a languid fist, and his men drew sword all at once. Anguy and his archers attacked at once. Edric saw the arrows take down some of the men slow enough to block them with the shield.
"Storm the walls and kill them all," Ramsay said in a bored voice. More spears and arrows flew back and forth. From outside came the rattle of armor, the scrape of swords on scabbards, the banging of spears on shields, mingled with curses and the hoofbeats of racing horses. A torch sailed spinning above their heads, trailing fingers of fire as it thumped down in the dirt of the yard.
"Blades!" Edric shouted drawing his sword. "Spread apart, defend the wall wherever they hit. Lem take some men with you and hold the postern. Tom go to Lord Halys."
Edric stood his ground and waited. He saw a hand grasping the top of the parapet. He could see it by the light of the fires, so clear that it was as if time had stopped. The fingers were blunt, callused, wiry black hairs grew between the knuckles, there was dirt under the nail of the thumb. He waited, sword at the ready and the top of a pothelm loomed up behind the hand.
He slashed down hard, and the castle-forged steel bit in between the shoulder blades. Blood spurted, scream echoed, and the helmed face vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. The second man was bearded and helmetless, his dirk between his teeth to leave both hands free for climbing. As he swung his leg over the parapet, he drove the point of his sword at his eyes. His sword pushed through his skull as if it was cheese; the man reeled backward and fell. Every next time someone tried to climb their part of the wall, Edric hacked at their hands and sent them back away the way they had come.
Ramsay had very few ladders, the fool had somehow thought that they would meet him in the field when the castle stood strong for their defense. But there seemed to be no end to the foes. For each one Edric cut or stabbed or shoved back, another was coming over the wall. Ramsay Snow reached the rampart. Edric picked up a spear from a fallen man, and forced the point of the spear through his armor while the man was hacking wildly at him. When four men assaulted the gate with axes, Anguy shot them down with arrows, one by one. Tom hacked off a man's hand off the walk, and threw a pair of throwing knives at two men, one after the other. Edric jumped over a dead boy no older than him, lying with his arm cut off. He didn't know if he had done it, but he wasn't sure. He saw a Hornwood man fall to Ramsay. Another had his face smashed in with a spiked mace. Everything smelled of blood and smoke and iron, but after a time it seemed like that was only one smell. He never saw how the skinny man got over the wall, but when he did he fell on him. He hacked at the man's scrawny neck and sent him away from the wall.
When the skinny man was dead, Edric leapt down into the yard to fight some more. He saw steel shadows running through the holdfast, firelight shining off mail and blades, and he knew that they'd gotten over the wall somewhere, or broken through at the postern. He could see Lem smashing a man's head with a rock. The night rang to the clash of steel and the cries of the wounded and dying. Death was all around him.
They were being overwhelmed. Somehow more and more of the Boltons found themselves inside the walls and more of their own men were dying. "Stick together," he yelled. "Don't let them break you. Move forward. Now!"
Ramsay and his riders were trying to bring down the front gate down. If they got the gates down, it is done. "Hold the gate!" he shouted.
"Hold the gate," Lord Halys echoed.
Anguy jumped down from the tower. He ran along the wall, loosing arrows bringing down two of the men ramming the gates. That provided them some time but it was not enough though.
It was only then that he heard the riders pouring out the castle gate in a river of steel and fire, the thunder of their destriers crossing the forest ground louder than the sounds around. Men and mounts wore plate armor, and one in every ten carried a torch. The rest had axes, longaxes with spiked heads and heavy bone-crushing armor-smashing blades.
More and more riders were emerging from the forest, a column four wide with no end to it, knights and squires and freeriders, torches and longaxes.
When Edric looked around, he saw that the man at their head smashing through the Bolton army right up their back. His black cloak blended easily with the night but soon blood smeared on it as he killed men left and right. Lord Beric, Edric thought. He could recognise the man anywhere. Dark shapes moved in front of the flames, the steel of their armor shining orange from afar.
"Open the gates," Edric shouted. "We'll finish them off together."
Hinges creaked and chains rattled as the gate was opened. The Bolton men knew that they were done and some flew from the fight not so far though as their men rode them down. Edric saw Thoros knocking Ramsay off his horse with his flaming sword and it was then they knew that the day was theirs.
They slew all the foes there and took only Ramsay Snow as prisoner. By first light the fires were all died out and the wounded were taken inside to be treated. The crows had already started to arrive to feast on the dead.
Lord Beric, Rodrik Stark, Thoros were talking to Lord Halys and when Ramsay was brought to them Edric knew it was for judgement.
"Which one of you is Beric Dondarrion?" Ramsay said when he was dumped before them. "No Bolton would ever speak with outlaws."
"Why, that would be me," said one-eyed Jack-Be-Lucky. "Since you're not a Bolton that would serve."
"You're a bloody liar, Jack," said Lem. "It's my turn to be Lord Beric."
"Does that mean I have to be Thoros?" Tom Sevenstreams laughed.
"I am Lord Beric Dondarrion," Lord Beric stepped forward as the men parted to make way for him and the Wanderer. "Speak now when you could else you'll never get your chance to speak again."
Edric could see that the bastard was still lolking for a way to get away from them. If he had any fear he did not show it in his face. "You won but I don't care," he said. "I came here for only my Reek and nothing else. Give me my Reek and I'll be gone."
"He's in the godswood," said Lord Halys. "We'll take you to him."
Notch and Woth picked Ramsay Snow up to his feet and pushed him after Lord Hornwood. Edric followed closely with Lord Beric, Rodrik Stark and Thoros with the others following behind.
Leaves crunched beneath their heels, and every step sent a spike of pain through Edric's knee where he had taken a wound. They walked in silence, the wind gusting around them. The first light of the rising sun was in his eyes as they clambered over the mossy rocks that were all that remained in the place. Behind was the godswood.
Ramsay Snow's pet was hanging from the limb of an oak, a noose tight around his long thin neck. His eyes bulged from a black face, staring down at the bastard of Bolton accusingly. "You killed him," Ramsay croaked.
"Sharp as a blade, this one," said one-eyed Jack.
A soft gust of wind was blowing from the north making Reek sway lightly from his rope. "Murder," Ramsay told them. " You foul, reeking rogues."
"That was good of you," said Tom amiably. "But we do not reek so bad as your lover here."
Ramsay turned away from the corpse. For the first time Edric could see discomfort in the bastard's face. "You... you had no right."
"We had a rope," said Lem Lemoncloak. "That's right enough."
Woth and Notch seized Ramsay's arms and pushed him to his knees. Edric saw that he was too deep in shock to struggle.
"The crimes he did along with you are to be answered," Rodrik Stark said. "Justice was served for your pet the same way we will sort it out to you."
"Well," said Tom o' Sevens, "you don't need a trial now, do you? After all your crimes and cruelty are quite infamous."
Jack-Be-Lucky came forward with a long coil of hempen rope. He looped one end around Ramsay's neck, pulled it tight, and tied a hard knot under his ear. The other end he threw over the limb of the oak. Lem caught it on the other side.
"What are you doing?" Ramsay asked. Edric thought how stupid that sounded. "You'd never dare hang a Bolton."
Lem Lemoncloak laughed. "Good to us that you're not a Bolton then," he said. "Moreeover the Leech lord should thank us and pay us for hanging you. We're doing a great service for him by doing this."
"Even if Lord Bolton has any qualms about it he can very well come and make it even with us," Jack-Be-Lucky said.
"My father will pay you," Ramsay tried again. "I'm worth a good ransom, more than anyone you've ever ransomed, twice as much."
Tom sighed. "Gold does not fix all the things you did to the innocents now, does it? Even if we asked Lord Bolton for a ransom, he'll send a hundred swords instead of a hundred dragons, I fear."
"He will!" Ramsay tried to sound stern, but his voice betrayed him. "He'll send a thousand swords, and kill you all. Or I will."
"First you have to get out of here though." Tom glanced up at the bastard's pet. "And you can't kill us twice if you are dead, now can you?" He drew a melancholy air from the strings of his woodharp.
Ramsay reached for the last line that might save him. "They say Lord Beric always gives a man a trial, that he won't kill a man unless something's proved against him. You can't prove anything against me. I never did the things you accuse me of doing so ... you have no witness."
"I'll stop you right there," said the Wanderer. "Actually we have a witness." He raised his hand and two of the Hornwood men brought the girl Penny whom they had saved the day they caught Ramsay's pet. "Is this the man who raped you and tried to hunt you for sport, girl?" Rodrick Stark asked the girl.
The girl eyed Ramsay with such hatred and nodded her head. Tom gave Ramsay Snow a helpless shrug and began to play, "The Day They Hanged Black Robin."
"There is your trial," Rodrik Stark said and up went Ramsay Snow, choking, jerking, kicking and twisting, up and up and up and hung there until he stayed limp in the rope.
They left him there hanging returned back the way they came.
"What are you going to do now?" Rodrik asked Lord Hornwood as they entered the castle.
"I think I will go to Winterfell."
"Do you really think the Targaryen boy is going to give you any sort of justice?"
"Not to the Targaryen," Halys Hornwood stopped in his tracks. He took a piece of parchment from his tunic and pressed it in the hands of the wandering wolf. "There was a raven last night, from Winterfell. The wolves are back it says. The direwolf banner streams atop Winterfell once again and there's news of a certain ghost supposedly coming back from the dead. I intend to see this ghost for myself to see if the tales are true and you're welcome to join me."