Chapter 691

Considering the logistical burden on the Crownlands and the efficiency of resupplying along the way, Aegor had deliberately dispersed the weaker Riverland levies and the unruly Northmen when the main force of his Western Expedition set out. The army he personally led numbered just over thirty thousand, though he publicly claimed forty thousand, a figure that included non-combatants. As they swept across the land, taking castle after castle, he had to leave behind garrisons of a hundred or so men at each stronghold. Meanwhile, the supply lines faced constant skirmishes with the Reach’s cavalry, resulting in a drawn-out battle of wits and attrition. By the time today's decisive battle arrived, the forces he could actively command had dwindled below thirty thousand.

It was a cruel paradox: if he had kept all fifty thousand men together from the start, this battle wouldn't have been nearly as difficult. But the more likely outcome was that, without trimming the excess and optimizing his forces, his army would have exhausted its supplies long before reaching Highgarden, forced to retreat in disgrace under the Reach’s scorched-earth tactics.

Yet, despite these odds, the Western Expedition had secured a hard-fought victory—achieved, in part, by playing with the dice loaded. Now, Aegor had to address the blade hanging over his neck: a severe shortage of provisions.

He had two choices.

The first was to pillage the surrounding countryside—exactly what most armies of this era would do. But doing so would mean dispersing his battle-weary troops across the land, exposing them to counterattacks. It would disrupt his siege and undermine his strategy to force Highgarden’s surrender. Worse still, it would cement his forces as mere invaders in the eyes of the Reach, threatening the stability of the Queen’s rule.

The alternative? Strike at the Reach’s main camp in a bold gamble, sustaining his army by seizing the enemy’s own supplies—just as he had done at the Blackwater, when the Reach’s baggage train had fueled his westward march.

Only a fool would hesitate.

Aegor naturally wanted to launch a flanking assault on the enemy camp.

But reality set in: his remaining twenty thousand troops had barely been enough to win the battle against the nearly one hundred thousand Reachmen. Not a single soldier could be spared.

Furthermore, the Reach’s cavalry still dominated the battlefield, enforcing a tight web of scouts, patrols, and harassing detachments. Even if he wanted to attempt some audacious maneuver, it was impossible to slip through their watchful eyes.

So he chose the safer approach.

Rather than a direct raid, he executed a daring stratagem: after shattering the enemy lines in the battle, he selected a few hundred of his least exhausted soldiers, had them don captured Reach banners from the previous day, and sent them streaming into the enemy’s chaotic retreat. Before the Reachmen could reorganize, these infiltrators mingled among the routed troops and slipped into the enemy camp. Then, as the bulk of Aegor’s forces arrived, they struck from within, flinging open the gates in a shocking display of deception and coordination.

Aegor had deliberately held Daenerys back from pursuing the retreating enemy. Aside from the practical concern that Reach cavalry—heavily composed of noble knights—posed a greater threat, there was another reason: if the dragon took flight, the fleeing Reachmen would become desperate and fortify their camp out of sheer fear. The assault had to succeed without triggering such resistance.

Disguised as fleeing Reachmen, the infiltration team wrapped cloth around their arms as a signal to each other. They divided into small groups and joined the tens of thousands of panicked soldiers racing for the gates. In the end, only fifty managed to slip inside. A pitifully small number, yet they took the enemy completely by surprise, seizing the eastern gate and paralyzing the defenders before they could rally.

Jon Connington felt as if he were living through a waking nightmare.

His entire body, from the neck down, was numb with cold, the sensation of plunging into an ice-cold abyss—the unmistakable realization that he had lost, utterly and completely.

But his face burned with humiliation, the heat of shame stinging his skin.

Twice now, in a single day, this same childish deception had fooled the entire Reach-Golden Company coalition. Twice.

"This bastard!" It was Aegon who roared in fury. The young prince ripped Blackfyre from its scabbard, his voice ringing across the camp. "Bring me my horse! Soldiers, with me! We retake the gate!"

But his order was met with silence.

The men of the Golden Company glanced toward their captain. The Reach soldiers looked to their liege lord. They were still relatively fresh, having not taken part in the battle, and could have overwhelmed the handful of enemy infiltrators with ease.

But could they do it before Aegor’s main force stormed through?

"Lord Tyrell, Captain Harry!" Connington’s face was deathly pale. "Take the prince back to Highgarden! I will stay and cover the retreat!"

This morning, he had sworn to see Rhaegar’s son seated on the Iron Throne.

Now, his only thought was ensuring that his beloved Silver Prince did not meet his end here.

The once-secure encampment had become a deathtrap. The best-trained soldiers of the Golden Company dragged a raging, struggling Aegon back toward the western gate, while the still-intact Reach troops hastily followed their liege lord in retreat. Once those two forces withdrew, the remaining tens of thousands of panicked soldiers descended into absolute chaos.

There was no one left to "hold the rear."

Even the final, desperate order to burn the supply depots was lost in the confusion. One group of men fled outright, failing to gather the necessary tools. Another had the oil and torches in hand, but their leader wavered at the last moment—he had long admired a certain Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and decided the man would appreciate an intact supply cache.

Only the southwestern granary, where Jon Connington personally oversaw the effort, was successfully set aflame. The inferno roared into the sky, briefly rivaling the sunset in brilliance.

Stripped of another layer of their pride, the last remnants of the Reach army fled their own camp.

The grand host of fifty thousand Reachmen, which had stood proudly that morning, was now reduced to a fraction of its size—fewer than one in ten remained. Yet, ironically, this made them easier to manage.

Some desperate commanders proposed a counterattack. They could loop around and strike the enemy’s rear, recapturing the camp.

The plan had some merit.

But most of the soldiers had only one thought: escape.

To the west, Highgarden loomed.

Bathed in the twilight glow, the greatest castle in the Reach no longer shone like a diamond under the sun but cast a long, jagged shadow over the fields.

The White City of the Reach was famed for its beauty, but its true strength had never been tested. Anyone with an eye for warfare could see that it was one of the most defensible strongholds in the Seven Kingdoms. Three concentric walls provided ample fallback positions, while its elevated design forced attackers to fight uphill.

But none of that mattered to the routed soldiers now.

They only wanted to reach its thick marble walls, to collapse inside with a bowl of warm broth, and to leave the next move to the lords and commanders.

Even this pitiful hope was doomed to fail.

From the hills near Highgarden’s shadow, a cavalry force suddenly emerged, blocking their path.

At first, the fleeing men thought it was Tyrell reinforcements.

Then someone shouted in horror: "There are no cavalry left inside the castle!"

Two to three thousand horsemen had lined up in a narrow formation, calmly dismounting, setting their weapons in place, and preparing for battle.

Aegor’s sole cavalry unit—Westerland knights from Casterly Rock—had fought two skirmishes against the Golden Company before breaking the light cavalry rearguard in the final rout. They had then ridden hard for the west, weaving through friendly and enemy forces alike, exhausting both themselves and their mounts to arrive at this exact moment.

Their orders were simple:

Prevent the enemy from retreating into Highgarden.

The knights were drenched in sweat, their bodies trembling from exhaustion, their hands numb on their weapons.

They dismounted, not by choice, but because their horses were too spent to charge.

The battle was far from decided.

But as fate would have it, the setting sun behind them cast long, looming shadows, obscuring their depleted state.

To the shattered remnants of the Reach host, these warriors were not exhausted men but a line of executioners, their silhouettes dark and grim against the light.

Highgarden was mere miles away.

Yet between them and sanctuary stood an impassable abyss.

"Stay calm! They’re not charging—they’re not cavalry anymore!"

Harry Strickland, ever the merchant, lacked both strategic brilliance and battlefield nerve.

Predictably, he made the worst possible decision.

"Protect the prince!" he commanded. "Retreat south!"