The Witch-King of the Vale [GoT x LotR] Chapter 13 11

The greatest problem was the mountain clans. The winter had lasted two years and been brutally hard, and these savages had wasted no ti making up for it at the expense of the Vale's people. Before the rebellion they had been kept in check by our army. Now nothing restrained them. Reports of raids on villages and caravans ca in constantly, and moving about had beco dangerous. Providing protection everywhere was impossible; there simply were not enough n. Ser Creighton, while I lay in my coma, had acted wisely in ordering the creation of a fast-moving forward patrol. Unfortunately the effect was temporary. The mountain n were not fools. They began mounting feints against villages to throw us off.

To solve the problem, I had to learn the details of the raids. The picture that erged made wince without aning to. Nearly half of all caravans were being hit, and always in different places, which made it impossible to set a trap. The pattern made one thing clear: there were traitors in the villages and towns who were passing information about unguarded caravans to the mountain n. Rooting them out would have taken too long and cost too much, so I decided to turn the enemy's own strength against them.

I sent for Ser Creighton and laid out my thinking and my plan. He was openly skeptical at first, but as I spoke his expression grew more and more thoughtful. In the end he admitted it might work.

Two weeks later, reading the report, I smiled without aning to. In that ti five raiding parties had been destroyed and the nas of the traitors learned. The thod was simple. When a caravan set out and had traveled so distance, a wagon carrying a squad of ard soldiers would join it. The informants knew nothing of these soldiers, and neither did the mountain n. When an attack ca, the soldiers cut the raiders down without much difficulty, and from the survivors they extracted the nas of those who had betrayed them. At first the traitors were brought to the Eyrie to stand trial. There they explained their reasons. There were many, but the most common were: "My family was being held hostage," and "My family was starving." By about the twentieth man dropped through the Moon Door I gave an order that sparked a heated argunt and divided the opinions of my councillors sharply. Many did not approve. I argued my case as honestly as I could, for despite our disagreents these n had been serving the Vale longer than I had been alive and they had, by and large, gotten results. The disapproval remained all the sa.

My order was this: "All traitors, regardless of circumstance, are to hang. Their property is to be seized for the needs of the Vale." The bodies were strung up in the main squares of their villages and towns, as a warning to others. It was ant to kill any desire to cooperate with the enemies of the Vale.

Beyond that, my chief duty was the redistribution of resources across the region. For example: if one village had run out of food but had surplus cloth, and a second village had food but no cloth, I compelled the peasants of the first village to trade with the second in exchange for food. This, of course, ant more caravans, which the mountain n kept trying to rob.

But after six weeks and eighteen raiding parties destroyed, the mountain n went quiet. I also ordered observers posted to watch the castles of lords who had declared for neither side. These were houses of middling power. They were clearly waiting to see how the rebellion ended before throwing their weight behind the winners.

During this ti there were attempts to ease out of governance of the Vale over unpopular decisions. The lords disliked my policy of resource redistribution. They felt I was taking their goods and giving them scraps in return. They were not entirely wrong, but their pride irritated greatly. These lords rarely traded with one another of their own accord. I had assud they would manage. They would have managed, eventually. But how many thousands of peasants would have died of cold, hunger, or mountain axes in the anti? Take the Linderlys: they had mountains of good timber and nothing to eat. What did they do? Nothing. And they complained bitterly when I compelled them to hand over the timber and gave grain in exchange. The terms were not fair to them, but it was sothing.

All of this left with a rather poor reputation among the lords. I did not particularly care. Father had entrusted the Vale to , and it would not suffer for the war. That was my duty as his heir.

In the monts when I was neither occupied with Vale affairs nor training in the military arts, I gave myself over to asured self-indulgence. In plain terms: fine food, interesting books, and making life unpleasant for people I did not like. In the ti I was free from duty, I was making up for a thousand years of bondage and misery.

Late in 282 AC ca alarming news. At the Battle of Ashford, Robert's army had been broken by the Tyrell vanguard under Randyll Tarly. Robert was wounded and withdrew north with most of what remained of his forces. The newly appointed Hand of the King, Lord Jon Connington, led a powerful army of Crownlands troops in pursuit of Robert's scattered n. The Stormlands had, to all intents and purposes, been knocked out of the war. Robert had gone to ground at the Stoney Sept, there being nowhere else, and it was only a matter of ti before he was run down. The armies of the North and the Riverlands could not reach him within three weeks. Everything looked grim for the rebels.

And it seed I was not alone in thinking so. The Tolletts, vassals of the Royces and one of the neutral houses, gathered four hundred n and marched on Runestone to demonstrate their loyalty to the dragons. I sent a raven to Redfort ordering them to muster n and lift the siege. I myself ordered Ser Creighton to gather soldiers for an assault on Grey Glen, the ancestral seat of the Tolletts.

The siege of Runestone lasted a week. The n of Redfort and Royce caught the Tollett army in a pincer and broke it. While this was happening, Ser Creighton arrived outside the Tollett castle with three hundred n and began a siege of his own. The assault went in once the Redfort-Royce army arrived.