Hugh Hammer (ASOIF/SI)

"Finally tore yourself from the arms of your loving wife?" teased Lady

 Alysanne when Prince Hugh ducked his head into the tent, a slight

 blush coming to the man's cheeks at this cutting statement from the

 Lady Blackwood.

 "And with his wife's favor on his arm" cooed Alysanne, in a

 seductively husked voice.

 "Erh, yes actually, I was commanded to stay a week in Kings landing

 by the Regent himself" replied Hugh, coughing slightly to cover his

 obvious embarrassment.

 "Making sure you left his daughter with child no doubt!" Alysanne

 once again laughed at Hugh's expense, he rolled his eyes to the

 heavens at her antics. And he was thinking of marrying her? Well,

 not thinking, he was going to marry her, for in truth he had never met

 a woman like Alysanne Blackwood, so fierce, so proud, so

 outspoken and so competent at war. She would make the perfect

 mother for Starks; of that he was certain.

 Pulling his mind away from his musings on his future children he

 returned his attention to the tent, it was where he held much of his

 meetings and where he dined with his lords and commanders.

 Outside it was dry and cold, a thinnish layer of snow coating the

 ground, frozen hard by several cloudless days and nights.

 The weather barely troubled him and his northern host, who had

 made remarkable progress in the last week, the enemy seeming to

 have melted away from them, wherever their scouts went they saw

 no sign of their foe. The great rolling plains of the upper Reach

 stretched all about them, dotted with small forests, hamlets and

 towns, the odd keep here and there. And not a scent of the Greens,

plenty of stripped tithe barns and looted storehouses, the odd keep

 slighted or partially destroyed, but only the bare minimum of what he

 would have thought was the typical damage of a war to be seen.

 It made him nervous if he was honest, this, this was not how the war

 had previously been conducted, raids and ambushes, the odd stand

up fight when the weather precluded the use of dragons. But now

 nothing, seemingly just an empty land bereft of any opposition to

 their advance.

 "I would not know" replied Hugh dryly, finally having enough courage

 to verbally spar with Lady Alysanne.

 "How are you Prince Hugh?" asked Ser Addam, seemingly glad to

 see his friend and fellow dragon rider back, probably if only to divert

 Alysanne's attentions from him, for she teased the lad mercilessly, in

 a good-natured way mind you, but still.

 "I am fine Ser Addam, thank you for asking."

 "And your wife, how is she?" asked Addam, eager to show his

 courtesies he thought.

 "Sore and happy no doubt" Lady Alysanne beat Hugh to the punch, a

 devilish smile playing across her mouth. He would have to intervene

 and put a stop to this, she really was far too much sometimes!

 "Enough! Enough, welcome back Prince Hugh, welcome back to the

 war, after your pleasant diversion. Please, come sit with us, we are

 relaxing for now. We have halted to allow our men to build a

 temporary wooden replacement bridge over the river Ory1, Ser

 Addam's dragon having destroyed the stone one a few days ago."

 "Thank you Lord Stark, it is good to be back" came Hugh's response.

 "I bet you would prefer to be in Kings Landing and still in the arms of

 your lovely wife though!"

"Alysanne! Enough!" he retorted, a sigh escaping his lips, she really

 was impossible.

 "I would, if I am honest, and not sitting out here freezing and waiting

 for the Greens to finally see sense and give up!"

 "Freezing? Why its barely cold lad!" he chucked, these southerns, no

 sense of a real winter at all….

 Hugh pulled up a camp chair and sat down, he was dressed in a

 long coat like garment, double breasted and with two rows of button

 down its front, woolen trousers and good boots, all in a rather

 somber grey color.

 He noticed Alysanne giving Hugh's clothes an appreciative eye, or at

 least he hoped it was his clothes and that the girl's attentions were

 not shifting from him to the Prince.

 He shook his head of these dammed distractions, all of them as

 usual relating to Lady Alysanne, the sooner this war was over and

 got her north to Winterfell and married her before the great weirwood

 in the Godswood, the batter!

 A charcoal brazier provided the only warmth in the tent, outside thin

 winds howled and moaned, tugging at the heavy leather and canvas

 that the tent was made of. A few camp chairs, a collapsible table and

 a writing chest completed the fittings, an oil lamp hung from one of

 the tent poles. A wooden floor that disassembled easily rounded out

 the tent, spare and sparse, nay stark even.

 He was not one to campaign with fineries and luxuries weighing him

 down, like he had heard tell some of the southerns liked to, though

 the contingent of Riverlanders accompanying them was rather lean

 when it came to their belongings and baggage. Just as he liked it, for

 it kept them light and able to move swiftly, and thankfully the rivers

 were not frozen yet, so they could rely on them for supplies.

 Apparently it was rare enough for the rivers this far south to freeze

 over fully in winter, a good thing to his mind, unlike the rivers back

home that would be likely frozen solid by now. Which of course

 allowed you to replace boats with sleds in many cases, but sleds

 could never carry as much as boats, nor as easily.

 They chatted in an easy companionship for a few minutes, he had

 genuinely missed Prince Hugh, the man was a sensible and no

nonsense type, and who easily fit in with his northern lords and host.

 Some of the Riverlanders scorned Prince Hugh because he was

 baseborn, and he wondered how they would treat him now that he

 was a Prince of the Realm and married to the daughter of the Lord

 Regent? Probably not much better he huffed to himself, these

 southerns were a stupid lot he had found, with a few exceptions. The

 Tully's were the worst of them though, prideful and prickly and wont

 to see offence where none existed, but they were good fighters and

 despite having been reduced severely in numbers by several battles

 in the Riverlands, most notably at the battle of the Burning Falls2,

 but they still had a reasonably formidable force of knights available.

 The rest of Riverlander forces were a mixed bag, both in terms of

 numbers and quality, their lords fractious to a fault and often as

 ready to fight each other as the enemy it seemed to him. But it was

 the Dragons that gave him and his armies an invaluable edge and

 allowed them to be spread out in a fashion that would invite disaster

 otherwise, and he was glad to have Hugh and his dragon Vermithor

 back and available to him.

 Not that Addam was not a good and competent dragon rider, but the

 lad lacked something of Hugh's confidence and ability, and he was a

 little bit too timid if he was honest. Probably due to his age, smallish

 size and the fact that has was also previously a bastard, a shame he

 thought, the way these Andal fools disregarded the potential of their

 bastards like that.

 And speaking of Ser Addam, a guard just entered and handed him a

 small scroll, a raven's scroll - they would use the nearest ravenry in

 castles and keeps that they captured to communicate back with

 Kings Landing.

Captured was probably far too strong a word for it he knew, mostly

 they came across them abandoned and stripped of anything useful

 and often burned to boot. But in most cases they would find the

 Maester still in residence and his books, tools and most importantly

 his ravens undisturbed.

 Ser Addam took the message and unfurled it, a frown creasing his

 features "this is from Lord Corlys, and in a code, I, I have to retreat

 to my tent to decode it."

 He gave the obviously nervous lad leave to go and do this,

 wondering what could have made him so nervous without apparently

 knowing the contents of the message.

 "Must be instructions on who he is to be betrothed to!" came

 Alysanne's quip the moment the lad was out of earshot.

 "You are the worst you know?" Prince Hugh replied, a slight grin on

 his face, but he noted it did not reach his eyes, which seemed sad

 and melancholy for some reason.

 "Why the sad eyes my Prince?" asked Alysanne, again beating him

 to the punch, though he would obviously not have phrased the

 question in that manner.

 "It's, I, well, my wife, she is all of four, I mean ten and four years old,

 and I fear too young to be wedded…."

 "Has she flowered?" he asked, realizing by the sharp look that

 Alysanne gave him that he asked the question too harshly.

 "She, she has, yes…"

 "And you bedded her?" came the flat voiced question from Lady

 Alysanne, any sign of her previous mirth at questions of this nature

 now absent.

"I, I did" Hugh replied, refusing to meet any of their eyes, a flush of

 embarrassment beginning to spread across his face and neck.

 "Aye, too young by far, her father ought to be ashamed of himself!"

 retorted Lady Alysanne, making Hugh blush an even deeper shade

 of red if that was possible.

 "Have care my Lady, the father in question is Prince Daemon

 Targaryen, the Regent of the Realm…" he reminded Alysanne,

 hoping against hope that this would silence her.

 It did not "I do not care, ten and four is far too young to be wed, ten

 and six is the absolute youngest a maid should be wed, ten and

 eight is even better. These Andals, nothing but savages, nothing but

 a bunch of bloody savages when it comes to their daughters!"

 Fortunately, Hugh had to good sense to not reply to Alysanne, who

 was left to stew in her own anger, he popped out of the tent and

 asked a guard to bring some refreshments, popping back into to the

 rather strained atmosphere inside.

 They waited in uncomfortable silence until the guard let a steward

 into the ten, he carried a platter of bread, meat and cheese, along

 with a pitcher of what turned out to be ale. He directed the man to

 set his burdens down on the table and lave, he did not stand on

 much ceremony, he gestured with his hand "help yourselves, Hugh,

 there is a tankard there for you to use."

 He ate some bread and salted meat, deciding that it needed some

 cheese, added this and drank form the ale he had poured himself,

 rough enough stuff but he had drunk worse, notably when he had

 visited the Wall once.

 His musings were disturbed when Addam burst back into the tent,

 his face chalk white.

 "What is it lad?" he asked, suddenly having a very, very bad feeling

 about all of this.

"Lord Corlys, my grandfather, he, he has discovered a plot of the

 Greens to storm Kings Landing! The dragon Vhagar has moved in

 secret to the northern Stormlands in the last few days in preparation

 for the assault. The Greens have smuggled men into Kings Landing

 and intend to mount a surprise assault on the Red Keep in

 conjunction with their assault on the city!"

 "Are you sure lad?" he asked, suddenly very, very wary of all of this,

 of this sudden and dramatic turn of events.

 "Yes! Absolutely, this code is known only to Lord Corlys and I, it's a

 special one he devised for secret communications between us, I, I

 am positive it is him, and it's, it's his handwriting…"

 "But I think what Lord Stark is asking is can we be sure that this is

 not some trick on the part of the Greens?" asked Alysanne of the

 clearly highly agitated boy.

 Before Addam could reply Hugh cut over everyone "Of course, it

 makes sense now! How long have the forces of the Stormlands sat

 in the Kingswood and done nothing, lulling us into a false sense of

 security, how long have the Greens in the upper Reach been

 retreating before us here, rarely giving combat, allowing us to be

 sucked every further from Kings Landing! And giving them time to

 secret men into Kings Landing…..oh well played, well played

 indeed!"

 "You, you give credence to this then Prince Hugh?"

 "Absolutely, I mean what are we doing here? Marching in winter

 through a land that is almost worthless to us, with an enemy who

 suddenly and very conspicuously refuses to give battle? We have

 been duped into leaving the most important thing in Westeros, the

 Red Keep and that dammed iron chair, virtually undefended!"

 "We must retreat, we must head for Kings Landing at once!" added

 Addam, his voice rising in panic.

"I have the command here boy, you will make no orders of me nor of

 mine!" he barked, a look of stunned fear blossoming on Addam's

 face in response.

 "It is true you have the command of the forces here but you may not

 command a Prince of the blood" Hugh said in a low and threatening

 voice "and one who commands a dragon."

 At that a deafening roar filled the air, Addam recognizing the battle

 cry of Vermithor anywhere.

 Lord Stark hesitated a second before saying "aye, I supposed I

 cannot command you Prince Hugh, you intend to return to Kings

 Landing then?"

 "I do Lord Stark, I understand your reluctance on this matter but trust

 me, this makes total sense, it's the correct move for the Greens to

 make, a desperate move aye, but they have no other option left to

 them."

 "I'm still unsure of this message, no, I don't question you lad, or Lord

 Corlys" he added to prevent Addam saying something foolish "but

 mayhaps your grandfather has been duped and this is a trap for us

 in some way? I have to consider all the options…"

 "Oh shut up you big oaf! Get your cavalry moving back the way we

 came and to Kings Landing. Let Hugh go on ahead, Addam can

 cover our movements in case there is a trap ahead."

 "No" Hugh interjected "Addam comes with me, if Vhagar is brought

 to battle I would not be able to face her on my own, maybe even not

 with the support of the Blood Wyrm. This is the decisive battle Lord

 Stark, the chance to remove the last dragon that the Greens have, it

 is no place for half measures!"

 He considered it for a moment or two, in reality he had made up his

 mind instantly, but he wanted to appear to be considering the

 options. In truth there were no options actually, he could not

technically command Hugh, and being a dragon rider only decreased

 his ability to exercise any control over Hugh. Less so for Addam, but

 he knew that there was a logic in what Hugh said, and he agreed

 with him, the more he thought about this the more it appeared as if

 the Greens had gotten the jump on them.

 "Go, both of you!" he said, gesturing to Hugh and Addam "and may

 the Old Gods and the new speed your way!"

 A proposed river, not shown on the map, a tributary of the

 Blackwater Rush that runs roughly parallel to the Mander halfway

 between it and the Gold Road The trap that Ser Criston Cole set for

 the Riverlander forces after he abandoned Harenhal using Vhagar