GOT: The Great Khal — Chapter 138 - They Are Kindling
Kevan Lannister received the news at dinner.
He was working through a piece of overcooked cod, the skin charred black, the flesh breaking apart like sawdust. The Red Keep's kitchens had been cutting corners since the war heated up, and even the Lannisters weren't exempt. He prodded the fish with his fork, gave up, and reached for his wine instead.
A eunuch in a blue robe pushed through the door, fifteen at most, his voice still pitched high, and read out the king's written decree.
Kevan listened. His wine glass stopped halfway to his mouth.
"Me. Lead the army to attack Storm's End."
The young eunuch shrank into his collar. "His Grace requests your presence in council immediately."
Kevan set the glass down. His knuckles were thick with calluses, forty years of gripping a sword compressed into hardened skin. He wiped his mouth, pushed himself to his feet, and his knees crackled like green wood.
Joffrey didn't wait for pleasantries. "Ser Kevan, I am appointing you commander of the northern army. You will march from the Crownlands and attack Storm's End from the north."
Kevan stood in the center of the room, feet planted shoulder-width apart. He didn't bow. He didn't thank anyone. He just looked at Joffrey and waited until he was certain the boy had finished.
"Your Grace. How many men do I have?"
"Three thousand." Joffrey said it like it settled something. "The King's Landing garrison can spare three thousand."
Kevan's expression didn't move. His throat did.
"Three thousand men," he repeated. "To attack Storm's End."
"To coordinate with the southern and western advances," Cersei corrected, her tone carrying a particular brand of impatience, the kind that meant stop making this complicated. "You don't need to take Storm's End. You only need to press from the north and pin down the Horse Lord's forces."
"Your Grace." Kevan turned to her. "How many Dothraki are encamped in the Stormlands right now? Twenty thousand? Thirty thousand? You want me to pin them down with three thousand men?"
Cersei's lips pressed into a thin line. "King's Landing has no more troops to give."
Joffrey's palm hit the table. "Are you questioning my orders?"
"Uncle Kevan has a point." Tyrion's voice was mild, almost bored. "Three thousand men would be broken up before they even caught sight of Storm's End's walls. Prince Doran is demanding a simultaneous three-pronged assault. Every prong needs enough weight behind it — otherwise that prong is just theater."
"Then you tell me." Joffrey's eyes fixed on him. "Where in the Crownlands are there any more troops? Grandfather took the bulk of the army to Crackclaw Point. What's left has to hold King's Landing. And Drogo's fleet is still sitting in Blackwater Bay, in case you've forgotten."
Kevan moved to the map. He pressed a finger to Crackclaw Point. "If the army at Crackclaw Point is only there to draw our attention, why not pull part of it back?"
"Draw our attention?" Joffrey's voice climbed. "Jorah Mormont — that traitor, that slaver, the Horse Lord's lapdog — is leading tens of thousands of men against Crackclaw Point. If those savages take Rosby, they can push south and hit King's Landing from the north, or swing into the Riverlands and burn everything in reach. You make it sound simple."
Kevan's chin lifted a fraction. His gaze stayed level on the boy.
"Your Grace. House Frey cannot govern the Riverlands. Riverrun was retaken by the Blackfish, Brynden Tully has them tied up besieging it now. They can offer us nothing either way."
He kept his voice flat. "Let them have the Riverlands. These barbarians have no base of power in Westeros. The more territory they hold, the more enemies they collect. Let them play cat-and-mouse with the river lords. We pull our forces back, concentrate them, and take Storm's End. That is how this war ends."
Joffrey opened his mouth.
Cersei got there first.
"Uncle Kevan." Her tone had shifted, something warmer in it now, almost fond. "You make an excellent point. I genuinely admire your strategic thinking."
A pause. The corner of her mouth twitched.
"Then go persuade my father to give you the men."
Tywin Lannister would not give him the men.
Any reduction at Crackclaw Point handed Jorah Mormont's cavalry the gap they needed. Tywin had committed everything to the defensive line outside Rosby. He would not risk the shield protecting King's Landing's northern flank.
Kevan knew this. Cersei knew he knew.
"Storm's End has to fall," he said. "If one prong of Doran Martell's encirclement is hollow, the entire plan comes apart. The Dornish won't bleed for us. The moment they decide we're just going through the motions, "
"Right." Tyrion cleared his throat. "Since pulling from Father is off the table, and stripping too much from the city garrison isn't realistic either, we need a different solution."
Joffrey looked at him with open suspicion. "What solution?"
"Recruitment." Tyrion said it simply. "We enlist in King's Landing and the surrounding towns. Blacksmiths' apprentices. Dock workers. Refugee farmers. Any man in the Flea Bottom mud who can get to his feet."
Cersei made a sharp sound in her throat. "Recruitment. With whose money? The treasury can barely cover candles."
"House Tyrell has money," Tyrion said.
"House Tyrell doesn't give money for nothing," Cersei said.
"They will this time. Mace Tyrell may be a fool, but he isn't blind. He'll fund a war to defend the realm, gladly. Because if King's Landing falls, Highgarden's comfortable life ends with it."
Kevan studied his nephew. On that ugly, mismatched face was an expression he didn't often see there.
He thought of something Jaime had said once. Tyrion is Tywin's true son. Tywin just can't bring himself to admit it.
---
By sunrise the next morning, recruitment notices covered every street and alley in King's Landing.
Blacksmiths' apprentices. Tavern boys. Dock laborers. Riverlands farmers who'd fled to the city. Even prisoners willing to trade their sentences for a spear. Any man who could walk and hold a shaft could sign his name.
5 silver stags up front. 10 more when it was over.
Heavy pay draws hungry men. The line stretched out of sight.
"What sort of men are these?" Kevan asked the adjutant riding beside him, a distant Lannister nephew named Martyn, young enough that his face was still losing a war with pimples.
Martyn stood in his stirrups and looked. "Blacksmiths. Farmers. Tailors. Gamblers. Pickpockets."
Kevan said nothing.
He rode along the line slowly. He could smell them before he reached them, sweat, sour wine, mud, the rot of bad teeth.
Tyrion rode beside him and said nothing either.
"You call these soldiers?" Kevan said at last.
"I call them kindling," Tyrion said. "Light them right, they'll still burn a man."
---
The recruitment ran 10 days.
Tyrion pried 12,000 gold dragons out of Mace Tyrell, faster than anyone expected, because Margaery had said a few quiet words first.
With that coin they cleaned out every spearhead and longsword in the city's smithies. When the counting was done: 17,321 men.
Add the 3,000 regulars from the garrison, and Kevan had 20,321.
5,700 of them wore iron. The rest came in leather coats, linen shirts, a few in what were barely rags. The shields were planks nailed together and painted to look like something, Kevan could tell at a glance that a solid hammer blow would split them clean in half.
The morning they marched out, the sky was flat and grey.
Kevan rode a dun horse at the head of the column. He turned and looked back at his army.
The line bent and swayed like a crushed snake dragging itself south along the Kingsroad. Men drifted out of formation. Some carried their spears over their shoulders the way farmers carry hoes. One man squatted by the roadside, trousers around his ankles, and nobody around him seemed to find this remarkable.
Martyn rode up, his expression worse than his complexion.
"At this pace, ten days to reach the Kingswood."
"Good," Kevan said.
Martyn stared at him. "Good?"
"Every extra day on the road is another day to teach them which end of the spear points forward."
➤ Next: The Envoy — The Conversation