Chương 30: Liberating Torrhen’s Square
"Push forward!" Rodrik ordered swinging his blade down and killing an Ironborn. Around him men of the North and Iron Islands clashed in a bloody battle that had been waging on for hours.
Rodrik Cassel had been stationed at Winterfell, ensuring the seat of House Stark would stand strong as the pillar of the North. If it fell, morale amongst the Northern soldiers fighting against the Ironborn would plummet. That was when he received news of a host of one thousand men marching on Torrhen's Square.
The seat of House Tallhart had only a few men manning the castle walls, against a thousand Ironborn they would be killed quite easily and with it, the Ironborn would take Torrhen's Square. If they managed that they would have a staging ground upon which to launch a siege upon Winterfell.
In order to ensure that such a situation did not happen Rodrik had left a thousand men in charge of the defences at Winterfell while taking his remaining three thousand men west to reinforce Torrhen's Square.
When they arrived, the castle was already under siege. The garrison of Torrhen's Square numbering less than a hundred fought bravely but they were quite easily getting overwhelmed.
Without time to organise into proper formations, Rodrik gave the order to charge.
His three thousand men clashed with the Ironborn invaders. Hundreds had already got onto the wall with the vast majority remaining outside. They were dealt with quite easily in the opening stages of the conflict, though there were still a few pockets here and there around Torrhen's Square still fighting.
But then Rodrik was faced with actually having to take Torrhen's Square from the Ironborn who had since managed to kill the remaining garrisons forces and secure the walls. It was a bloody conflict, but they managed to gain a few footholds and were starting to push the Ironborn back.
Raising his shield, he blocked the axe that came down to cut him in half and thrust his sword through his attacker's chest. Behind him one of the berserkers swung his late battle axe round in a big sweep that knocked three men off the walls, each with deep cuts along their chests.
He saw one Ironborn swing his two axes round with great speed, one pulling down the shield of a Northman and the other piercing straight through the mans unprotected face.
However, that was as far as he got before three Northmen came from around him and stabbed their blades through his chest.
It was a bloody sight and as Rodrik came to a halt, he watched as the Ironborn started to retreat at the sound of the horn blasting. Taking a deep breath, Rodrik looked round, his eyes looking upon the sight of hundreds of corpses littering the walls and the ground below, both in and outside the castle walls.
The battle had been hard fought, but they had won.
"How many men did we lose?" Rodrik wondered, carefully stepping over the bodies of the dead men.
"Dunno, but I'd wager we've probably lost nearly a thousand and probably lose another hundred or so due to injuries." Benfred Tallhart muttered, the young lad looking to have aged ten years after the hard-fought battle. His blonde hair was caked in blood and mud and a deep cut was upon his left cheek.
"Bring the men inside, we'll camp here for now. Have riders sent to Winterfell requesting aid." What Benfred said was true, this battle had been costly on both sides and despite outnumbering the enemy, the Ironborn had fought with everything they had and more. Rodrik needed to reduce the additional casualties amongst the injured soldiers as soon as possible.
If the Ironborn were to win, they would need to take Winterfell, and to do that they would need Torrhen's Square. Rodrik would ensure that they paid for such an action with blood.
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