"My lords, the false Arryn's army marched for Grey Glen two days ago!" How? When? Why were the scouts only reporting this now? He was not the only one with those questions. Lord Uthor was already interrogating the ssenger.
"Why are we only hearing of this now?!" Lord Tollett's patience was wearing thin, his lands and castle under threat.
"Ser Aenys begs forgiveness, my lord, but the enemy left a decoy with a screening force. It prevented us from learning of their movents until recently." He recalled that Ser Aenys was a capable scout commander, but failing to track an entire army did him no credit. "They also split into two columns, though we have not yet determined more."
"Move out! We cannot let them take Grey Glen." Those present were of one mind with Uthor and raised no objection.
"My lords, stop." Blackfish's voice nailed everyone to where they stood. "This is a trap. Falcon's eye wants us to ride hard to relieve Grey Glen, walk into an encirclent, and be broken. He has pulled sothing very much like this before." Uthor's lined face twisted with fury, but he kept listening. "The wisest course would be to wait for the Corbrays and relieve the castle with fresh strength behind us."
"I expected more from the famous Blackfish! That is your plan, to do nothing?! An army of cutthroats is marching through my lands, burning, killing, and ravaging, and you want to wait?! To hell with this, I am going back!"
"I did not say wait!" he snapped back. "Grey Glen is a well-fortified castle on good ground. Even if Falcon's eye throws everything he has at it, he will bleed too badly to press it. Your family can withdraw into the catacombs. No one will dig them out from there."
"Ser Brynden is right," said Harold Hardyng, speaking for the first ti. "There is no need to ride off headlong."
The Hardyngs were a minor knightly house in service to the Waynwoods. Anyone else would not have been admitted to this gathering, but Lord Hardyng was an exception. He was the only child of a landed knight of House Hardyng and the younger daughter of Alys Arryn and Ser Elys Waynwood. That made Harold third in the line of succession to the title of Warden of the East. While the elder Arryn was occupying himself in Essos and King's Landing, and the younger was being raised in Winterfell, Hardyng had been quietly building his reputation across the Vale. It had earned him the na "the Vale's Favorite." In every castle he was a welco guest, and n listened when he spoke.
"What do you propose then?" Uthor asked, his anger cooling slightly.
…
One week later.
Ser Andrew Tollett. Master-at-Arms of Grey Glen.
The Tolletts were one of the storied houses of the Vale of Arryn, holding vast lands and considerable wealth. They had once fought in the Battle of the Seven Stars under the legendary Artys Arryn. The proud house had known its share of rises and falls, but the last hundred and fifty years had been nothing but slow stagnation. Once possessing strength comparable to the most powerful bannern of the Arryns, they had been reduced to the status of lords-vassal beneath the Royces.
During Robert Baratheon's rebellion, Lord Uthor Tollett had judged the rebels' cause a losing one and quietly taken the loyalist side. When word arrived that the Stormlands army had been broken at Ashford and Baratheon himself gravely wounded, Uthor had decided to act. The main army of the Vale was far away, and the region was nominally governed by seven-year-old Axel Arryn. It seed the perfect mont, and yet the little bastard had managed to gather n, cut his forces to pieces, and stage a public execution of those who surrendered. Then he had stripped away the wealth their ancestors had spent generations building.
The boy had not acted by the laws of honor. He killed those who yielded, hanged those who offended him, stripped lords of their wealth and tossed out scraps. His father and several uncles had been thrown through the Moon Door as a lesson to the rest. Only the uncertainty of the rebellion and Lord Jon Arryn had kept things from spiraling further. And even then, after it was over, Lord Arryn had made enormous concessions to those who had suffered.
Now war had broken out between the Arryn brothers, Falcon's eye being an Arryn in fact whatever the inconsistencies in his birth date, and the Tolletts were ready to fight alongside anyone against him. They were even being paid for the privilege of their revenge. A double benefit.
Lord Uthor had joined forces with the Graftons to encircle and kill Falcon's eye, only to find himself lured into a trap, and had it not been for Blackfish, would have been destroyed. Thanks to the Seven, Lord Tollett had co out alive. Now an army of roughly two and a half to three thousand n was marching here, to take my ho, the place where I was born and raised. I would be damned before I let the bastard lay hands on my family.
"Ser Andrew, we have prepared thirty barrels of pitch," Old Tom reported.
Lord Uthor had taken the greater part of the garrison with him when he marched out, leaving only a token force behind. Grey Glen was a small, well-fortified castle on a hill. Holding it was manageable enough, but the remaining guardsn would not have been sufficient for a proper defense, so every soul in the settlent had stepped forward to help their protectors in the siege to co. The able-bodied n had taken up arms as militia. The won had made ready to tend the wounded. Even the children found small tasks to fill. No one had stood aside.
"Prepare as many again," Andrew said quietly, saddened by the knowledge that n who ought to have been living out their final years in peace would be going into battle.
"Yes, ser." Tom went to carry out the order.
Staring out beyond the horizon, Andrew Tollett understood that a hard fight was coming.
...
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