GOT: The Great Khal — Chapter 140 - The Seasoned Tywin

Rosby sat north of King's Landing, a small town of timber-and-mud houses crammed tight within its walls.

Tywin Lannister had personally taken command there, turning that little town into a thorn lodged in Jorah Mormont's throat.

Jorah had been besieging it for nearly half a month.

He had tried direct assault.

The Dothraki cavalry charged first. The mounted archers' arrows cleared the battlements and fell on empty ground.

The horsemanship the Dothraki prided themselves on was useless in siege warfare. Wave after wave of riders crashed against the walls and scattered.

The Free Army raised siege ladders and rushed up, once, twice, three times. Each time, the Crown's garrison poured scalding oil down on them. The ladders were shoved over. Men fell and crashed onto the men below.

The mercenaries of the Second Sons, the Company of the Bold, and the Ragged Standard flinched the moment they reached the base of the walls. They were used to easy fights. Faced with this kind of grinding, bloody work, their morale collapsed in plain sight.

Then one night, after days of bitter fighting, Tywin opened the gates.

A unit of elite heavy cavalry slipped out under cover of darkness, silent, and drove straight into the seam between the three mercenary companies.

The Company of the Bold's camp was the first to be smashed through. Those rabble who lived by plunder didn't even have time to pick up their weapons.

The Second Sons and the Ragged Standard reacted a little faster, but only managed to throw on their armor and stumble into the melee. In the dark, there was no organizing an effective defense.

Lannister heavy infantry cut through like a red-hot blade through butter, hacking all the way forward, nearly reaching Jorah's command tent before the Unsullied and Dothraki guards drove them back.

Dawn came slowly. Jorah Mormont stood on a dirt rise and watched Rosby's walls take shape inch by inch through the morning mist.

Every sunrise brought the same sight: grey walls emerging from the fog, and Tywin Lannister's gold-and-crimson lion banner snapping in the wind above the battlements.

Mero, captain of the Second Sons, walked up from behind. His boots were still caked with the blood and mud of the night before. One side of his face was blackened by smoke. His left arm was wrapped in bandages.

"Tywin sent cavalry to raid my camp last night," Mero said. "We lost 300 men and 20 cartloads of grain."

Jorah didn't turn around. "I already ordered you to strengthen your watch. You were all fast asleep."

"The men are exhausted from the constant assaults." The complaint was plain in his voice.

Jorah finally turned and looked at him. There was no anger in that look. Only a tired, flat calm.

"This is exactly the opening Tywin was waiting for."

He turned back to the walls. When he spoke again, it was quiet, half to himself, half to everyone standing around him.

"Drogo gave me a heavy force. The Second Sons, the Ragged Standard, the Company of the Bold — 3 mercenary companies, over 5,000 men. 15,000 Dothraki cavalry. 30,000 Free Army soldiers. 2,000 Unsullied. A force strong enough to take King's Landing, bogged down in the mud outside Rosby like a bear chained to a post."

No one answered.

Hoofbeats from the distance. A Dothraki rider dismounted and strode over, placing a letter in Jorah's hand.

Jorah took it, unfolded it, scanned it, and read aloud.

"The Khal says to go attack Antler's Castle. Use the Free Army to surround it, draw Tywin's relief force out, then have the Dothraki cavalry destroy the relief force."

The messenger didn't leave immediately. He had a spoken message to deliver: "The Khal says you have fought very well."

Jorah didn't know whether he deserved those words.

A moment of silence. Then: "Pass the order. When night is deep, the whole army breaks camp and moves north toward Antler's Castle."

Tywin Lannister learned of the withdrawal the following day.

He stood on Rosby's walls, his golden pauldrons throwing back a hard glare in the sunlight. His face was like a sheet of parchment, written over with years and calculation, empty of expression.

"Confirmed heading north?" he asked.

"Confirmed, my lord. Infantry, cavalry — all of them have broken camp and moved north."

"They're going to attack Antler's Castle," Tywin said.

"My lord, should we send troops to relieve it?"

"No." The word came down like a blade. "We march on Duskendale and Rook's Rest."

"But Antler's Castle—"

"Antler's Castle doesn't matter." Tywin turned away. "Duskendale and Rook's Rest are the umbilical cord between Jorah and Dragonstone. Once we retake them, those armies lose their supply lines, their reinforcements, and their line of retreat. We trap them on land."

The seasoned Tywin had no interest in relieving Antler's Castle. He turned instead to attack Duskendale, a city Jorah had only recently taken.

That city had 500 Unsullied left to defend it.

But Tywin's march didn't go smoothly.

The Dothraki refused to meet him head-on. They just harassed him, endlessly.

One moment they burst out from the left, loosed a volley, and wheeled away. The next they crept up to the edge of camp at night and set fires, and by the time soldiers gave chase, they were long gone.

The march slowed to a crawl. The troops were exhausted and furious.

Even so, part of the army reached the walls of Rook's Rest and began the assault.

Soldiers raised ladders and pushed battering rams, charging through a hail of arrows.

The Unsullied stood on the battlements and drove their spear-points downward without a sound. Their faces showed no fear. Their hands never stopped.

Then trouble broke out inside the city.

No one knew who started it. The civilians rose up.

They came out of their houses with cleavers, wooden clubs, and stones, and attacked the Unsullied defending the walls. They screamed at them to get out. Some tried to open the city gates.

The Unsullied put them down without mercy. Bodies fell in the streets and alleyways.

The uprising was crushed quickly, but the damage was done. The garrison's numbers were already thin. Now they had to split off men to patrol the streets, guard the gates, and hold against a second revolt. Stretched thin before, now stretched to breaking.

Then the Dothraki cavalry hit from outside.

They formed up in the open ground and came thundering in, striking Tywin's siege force again and again, giving them no peace.

A ladder would be halfway up the wall. The cavalry arrived. The men carrying it dropped it and grabbed their spears.

A battering ram would reach the city gate. The cavalry arrived. The men pushing it abandoned the vehicle and ran back behind the line.

By the time darkness fell, not one of Tywin's soldiers had set foot on the battlements.

➤ Next: The Death of Kevan Lannister