章 179: Destroying the countryside
GIFT CHAPTER
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-Pov of governor of tumbleton seventh moon 288AC
We rode with fresh blood on our swords, having crossed the river not long ago and massacred the few guards who tried to escape, for there was no way that a few dozen guards could stop thousands of horsemen accompanied by thousands of dogs rapidly entering Tully territory.
Once we had entered their lands, we began to split into small groups to cause as much damage as possible in the shortest time, making it impossible for the local lords to respond effectively.
After ten minutes of riding, we finally reached our first stop, still under the light of the moon above us: a small village, nothing problematic for the hundred men and dozens of dogs under my command.
No one was awake; it seemed everyone was sleeping.
I kicked the door with all my strength, causing the piece of wood to splinter as it crashed against the wall.
"What…?" was all one of the inhabitants of the house managed to say before I punched him in the stomach.
Grabbing him by the hair, I threw him out of his house.
The frightened screams of a woman caught my attention; she was defending her children.
Being a bit gentler, I grabbed the mother by her hair and dragged her out of the house. Again, I struck her husband, who tried unsuccessfully to defend her.
I checked to ensure the house was empty and, after confirming there was nothing of value to loot, I lit a torch and began to burn it down.
It wasn't long before screams could be heard from all over the village, and the sound of the fire consuming the buildings grew louder.
Our dogs waited obediently for our orders, but there was no need to use them to attack the people; just their presence seemed enough to scare them from doing anything foolish.
When all the houses were burning, we torched the village granary, the surrounding fields, and finished by stealing some livestock and killing the rest of the animals that would slow our progress.
I checked one of the gifts my king had given me to confirm the time.
"Thirteen minutes. If we keep this pace, we'll burn three villages per hour, including the time it takes to move," I said to my men, who were already mounting.
I gave a signal, and we continued our journey through Tully lands.
Again, we did the same: we arrived quickly, entered the houses, and emptied them, avoiding killing anyone as much as possible. This time, I found some valuable coins since one of the houses belonged to a merchant, and we burned the entire village, its farmland, and its animals.
We carried out two more attacks on villages and then stopped to let the horses rest, slaughtering the cows we had stolen. We filled our bellies, and our dogs, with fresh meat. After butchering the animals, we packed what wasn't eaten into salt bags and continued our journey.
"Governor, a castle to the northeast. Well, calling it a castle isn't quite right; it's a walled tower."said a soldier
"Alright, let's see how strong the garrison is. If it's too strong, we'll just let them know we're here; I want them to chase us into the woods," I said, drawing my bow and taking several arrows.
We rode towards the fortification, which probably belonged to some knight with lands or a very poor lord. We only saw four guards at the gates—an easy victory.
We all rode in their direction, and before the guards could say anything, we shot several arrows at them.
The four guards couldn't protect themselves from so many projectiles and fell dead. We quickly threw grappling hooks over the walls, which weren't very high.
After two attempts, I secured my hook enough to climb the walls. When I reached the top, I saw a pair of guards coming our way, unaware that there were a hundred of us.
Pulling a dagger from my clothes, I threw it at the first guard, hitting him squarely in the jugular. As a stream of red blood spurted out, I stopped worrying about him and focused on his companion, who was approaching with a spear.
The guard tried to impale me with it, but with a slight hip movement, I dodged the spear and caught it with my hand. Quickly, I broke the spear with an elbow, and using the piece I had in my hand, I impaled the poor fool, as these guards had nothing but padded gambesons.
I could already hear the annoying shouts of the servants who were running desperately towards the tower.
One of the servants tripped while running and fell into the mud. Seeing me approach, the idiot wet himself, not realizing we wouldn't kill anyone if they didn't resist.
Many servants ran into the tower, but they forgot to close the door and seemed to remember when I was already climbing the stairs to enter. A woman was brave enough to try to close it, but I had already arrived and, without wasting much time, grabbed her by the hair and threw her outside, where she fell into the mud.
The screams continued, joined by the servants' pleas, as I searched for a way to reach the top of the tower.
Just as I was about to climb some stairs, a knight tried to cut me with his great sword.
But he was too slow and heavy. Simply taking a step to the right, I had already avoided his clumsy attempt to kill me.
I grabbed him by the forearm and yanked him towards me, causing him to lose his balance and fall to the ground.
Quickly, I made his armpit vulnerable and stabbed him with my sword. I pulled it out, followed by a lot of blood, and left him there because that knight was dead.
When I reached the second floor of the tower, I found a small dining room and encountered a young man dressed in fine clothes.
"What are you doing in my…?" he tried to say, but I shut his mouth with a few good punches to the jaw.
The young man fell flat on his face, and I entered the room he had come from, finding a woman and two of her children, whom she was protecting while pointing a dagger at me.
"Ha, ha, you're going to cut yourself, woman," I said as I walked in, looking for something to loot in the room.
"Leave that, you savage! Those are family heirlooms!" the woman shouted as I picked up a wooden box.
"Shut up, woman, or I'll beat your children to death in front of you," I replied without much interest.
I left the room and saw that my men were already tying up the young man. I pointed to the room so they could capture the woman and her children, intending to get a ransom later.
I climbed to the third level of the tower, where there was only one room to enter. There, I found what I had been looking for: the maester, who had a raven in his hands.
When he saw me, he began to tremble.
"Go ahead… tell them I'm here… I want them to come after me… I want them to come to me… where I'll be waiting for them," I said coldly.
Seeing that the maester was frozen, I grabbed the raven and released it into the air.
"Well, you're useless now," I said, grabbing the man by his clothes and throwing him from the tower.
Hearing his scream and the subsequent thud, I looked out the window and saw that the wretch was still moving; the fall was too short to kill him.
"These idiots are making me waste energy needlessly," I said, drawing my bow and shooting an arrow into his throat to ensure his death.
With the pathetic resistance of this place eliminated, we burned the underground granaries, stole the horses, and withdrew.
We placed the hostages on the back of our horses to maintain our speed.
Throughout the day, we continued, stopping only once to eat again. We burned dozens of villages, destroying everything in our path, and most surprisingly, without any patrols in sight. We ended the day by assaulting a larger castle, but the guards were distracted, and the poorly maintained walls allowed us to scale them without any special equipment, making it very easy to take control. This increased the number of noble hostages we had to negotiate with.
At the end of the day, we gathered in a large forest with several cavalry companies, pooling our captures. Using the various wargs we had brought to maintain communication, I began to learn about our losses for the day and how many villages we had burned. We had already surpassed a hundred and were almost halfway to a thousand, with a large number of prisoners.
If we keep up this pace, we'll reach the larger towns in two days, and the real fun will begin. That's when we'll truly harm the Tully war effort, with thousands of homeless and foodless peasants. The main roads will be filled with hungry people traveling elsewhere for food.
And if we keep burning all the food we find, sooner or later, there will be a famine that will test these Westerosi. They'll have to decide whether to reserve all their provisions for their armies or do what they can to mitigate the damage we inflict.
My eight thousand men may not be able to handle the thousands of soldiers the Tullys can mobilize, but they'll pay dearly every time they leave a town unprotected.
"Oh, I can almost hear the pleas of these degenerates when food is worth its weight in gold, and there's nothing to buy while we have reserves for years without producing anything," I said while stroking one of my dogs.
"Governor?" said a captain approaching with a map.
"Speak," I replied.
"Tomorrow, with my men and four other captains, we'll cross the river and ride to Stoney Sept. We should reach it in two days if we stop to burn everything we see. I remember the town had many stone buildings, and we didn't bring any Greek fire. Should I kill the population, or just settle for destroying the granaries?" the captain asked, pointing to the town where our king's first conquests battle took place.
"The granaries. Don't kill anyone… and try to burn as much as you can, but don't waste too much time because that town must have a small garrison, and we've already lost twenty-two men. I don't want the number to keep rising so quickly. Remember that each of our men is important," I told the captain.
I checked my watch.
"Alright, six hours of rest, and we continue early, because our enemies' crops won't burn themselves," I said, and I fell asleep.
I slept the exact six hours; the sun hadn't risen yet, and we continued on our way, dragging several out of their beds to burn their homes. This continued for several hours until we finally spotted a patrol.
We watched where they were headed, and after making an estimate, we hid on a nearby hill that had some bushes to cover us.
We waited a few minutes, and when they were close, the fun began.
"Hakkaa päälle, pohjan poika," we all shouted and ordered our dogs to attack the patrol.
We bombarded them with arrows from our position.
They couldn't form up in time when those thirty guards had dozens of war dogs lunging at them while we approached.
The screams of desperation, the cries of pain, the agonizing screams they made as our dogs dismembered the guards, tearing off arms and legs, and the idiots tried to run… poor idiots, no one escapes the beasts we've raised.
It only took a few minutes; I walked among the mangled bodies.
"Good, let's see how close we can get to Riverrun. If we can capture a Tully alive, I'll enjoy torturing him so much," I told my men, who were cleaning and tending to the dogs.
''The king commands and we obey''said my men
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Give me your power stones
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