UaRoB: Chapter 43 – The Lion in the Rock (Patreon)

We smelled the sea before we saw it.

Salt stung the wind by midmorning, and the trees began to change, no more pines, no more red oaks, just pale, sea-bitten scrub and brush. The hills grew barer the farther we rode west, sloping toward something that pulled the world with its gravity.

By the time we reached the ridge and saw beyond, no one spoke.

It was a stone wall in the distance.

Casterly Rock.

It rose not like a mountain thrust up from the bones of the earth, fissured and jagged and vast.

No banners flew from the lower slopes. There was no need. The Lion’s Mouth, that gaping cavern at the eastern face, was enough to unnerve even the hard-eyed Karstarks near me. From where I sat on my horse, it looked like a wound torn in the mountain, vast, dark, and yawning. The Great Stair spiraled within, climbing into shadow. A road for kings or gods, not men.

We are half a day’s ride, and we are already seeing it…

It was bullshit, complete bullshit. It was one thing reading about it, but it was another seeing it with one’s own eyes. The Lannisters, or more accurately the Casterlys, had taken a mountain in an incredible strategic position and made a massive castle out of it. 

It was a mountain carved into a fortress, a city hidden within stone, older than half the kingdoms that had risen and fallen around it.

I had read all about it. And it was hard to believe.

The Rock stretched two leagues from east to west, six miles of jagged stone and gold-veined cliffs rising out of the sea. Its northern and southern flanks ran two miles apart, and its spine climbed more than two thousand feet into the sky. Three times the height of the Wall.

Taller than the Hightower of Oldtown. Men spoke of the Red Keep as a marvel, but even my ancestors never dared carve their seat from a mountain.

The Lion’s Mouth, the carved maw that served as its main entrance, yawned high above the surf like some beast awaiting sacrifice. Its flanks bristled with murder-holes and slits. I would have to watch out for those; they would butcher my army if unoccupied before we moved in.

Somewhere up there, out of sight, the Lannisters had mounted trebuchets atop stone platforms.

A castle you could assault.

A mountain you had to outwit.

There was no use of siege weapons to take down walls here.

The castle itself sat atop the lion’s haunches, a rise of spires, domes, and bastions, all sculpted to match the stone beneath. Golden lions watched from every parapet.

Was that real gold? It gleamed even from here.

I was already salivating at the amount of treasure we would find inside that castle; hopefully, our plans worked.

Robb approached me while staring at the castle through his far-eye. It was a good thing we had imported so many, one for every officer in the King’s Swords and a small gift to each Northern lord. He lowered it and let out a breath.

“That is one big mountain.”

“Meh,” I said. “I’ve seen bigger.”

“Not with murderholes...”

“Well, yeah, but there was a bunch of assholes in the last ones.”

Robb huffed a laugh.  My mind drifted back to the trip to the new iron mines in the northern mountains. That had been a good experience, at least until one of the mountain clan brutes decided to knock out Seren with the haft of a pickaxe.

We had not won that brawl. Not even close. I sometimes wondered if that man was part of the army right now; we had some clansmen in our ranks.

Robb lifted the far-eye again, swept it past the walls, then sucked in a quiet breath. “And then there is the city. I never knew they got so big.”

“I’ve never seen one like this either,” I admitted. “White Harbor is a fifth of this. Smaller, even.”

He lowered the lens, still staring ahead as if the sheer size might shift if he blinked.

Below the Rock, to the south, Lannisport spread like a gilded stain, nestled between the cliff and the sea. From this height I could see its whole shape, narrow at the northern docks, widening out into layered terraces of red-tile roofs and sunwashed courtyards.

A briny smoke drifted up from ten thousand chimneys. Banners flapped. Dozens of ships shifted in the harbor, merchant cogs, lean-rigged galleys, and I even recognized a Summer Islander ship.

I could see the glimmer of the Golden Sept of Lannisport in the middle of the city. Its world-renowned golden dome acts like a lighthouse to us, reflecting the light.

They call them cities, and for once, they’re not wrong.

I’ve seen the maps. I’ve read the tallies, heard the merchant and the maester's guesses. Most of them don’t know what a city is.

But standing on a hill looking down at Lannsiport, smelling the smoke, hearing the clamor even from miles off, I believe it. God help me, it really is a city in the same way I thought about it.

I used to think of medieval cities as cramped, clumsy things. Muddy villages with walls too small for their ambitions. And in truth, most of them were. In another life, a different world, a place with names like Bruges or York or Lübeck might’ve boasted ten thousand people and called itself a jewel.

Ten thousand. A quarter of a district in Lannisport. A neighborhood in King’s Landing. In Westeros, anything under twenty thousand is a large town at best. They don’t even bother with the word “city” until you're past that.

We have cities here. Real ones. Bigger than London for most of its history. Bigger than Rome during its decline. Not sophisticated, no, not by a long measure. Not clean. Not planned.

But massive.

Robb handed me the far-eye, rubbing at the side of his jaw like he was trying to make sense of the scale of it all. “Gods. Imagine trying to feed that many people.”

“That is their problem,” I said. “Ours is getting through those walls without turning half our army into pincushions.”

Robb smirked. “So the usual.”

“Pretty much.”

He nudged my arm. “Any brilliant ideas?”

“One or two,” I said. “Their garrisons are so light it is not even funny, Robb. They will never sally out. You know my plans for the Rock, Lannisport, though… You will need to get past those walls. Once that is done, it is over; ten thousand men spilling into the city will cause them to surrender or just break.”

He shook his head, grinning despite himself. Then his expression shifted, thoughtful. “We might try talking. See if they are willing to surrender.”

“Given the reputation we are getting as noble killers… I doubt it.”

Lannisport was Robb's problem, and I trusted him to take it. There were not enough men in that city to hold even half our army. And they barely had a few days ' notice that we were coming directly here. Our disinformation campaign by letting merchants go with different stories seemed to work. Some thought we were going to the Crag, others further south to Crakehall, some thought we were still sieging Sarsfield.

It could be starved. But stormed? Madness. Unless…

The thought stayed with me.

This was not a place built to be taken. It was built to endure.

Every fortress is invincible, until it’s not.

Robb rode beside me, looking over a stretch of empty farmland. “Hard to believe no one’s here. This should be crowded.”

“It should,” I said. “These are the richest lands in Westeros… the people here probably ran behind the walls.”

On our way here, we had passed densely populated valleys. The people there were nice, though a bit wary of our army. When they saw that we did not rape the land and bartered for what we needed, they became more open to us.

That had been my order: no disturbing the populace of the Westerlands. I will be ruling these people in the near future. I did not need them to hate me. No burning, no looting, no salt sown. We needed these lands. For food, for legitimacy. You don’t rule a wasteland.

Of course, we did sack some places; we had passed estates with walls of marble and slate roofs glinting in the light, probably belonging to nobles or merchants. And sacked them. Hunting lodges that would shame the halls of some lesser lords. And sacked them.

And now we had reached our high price.

Robb let out a slow breath as he looked over another empty village. “Well,” he said, straightening in the saddle, “we’re still half a day away. Let’s go.”

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After reaching the road that divided the Rock from Lannisport, I called a war council.

It was time to tell the Lords how we were doing this. And the reports from the Warg Division had given me a clear vision of what was going on in the city and fortress.

The Lannisters were heavily undermanned. In Lannisport, they were trying to recruit men. What use were the levies in front of battle-hardened men? They would fall apart if the walls were not there.

Casterly Rock was another story; they were undermanned, but one man counted as five inside that castle.

Thankfully, we were not planning an assault; if we were, then we would have lost even if all men in the Riverlands or the North joined us.

“We divide the blow.” I started.

Robb folded his hands. “His grace will take the Rock.”

I nodded.

He glanced around and continued. “And I’ll take Lannisport.”

It wasn’t a question, but I saw how some of the Lords looked to me before they nodded.

The table was ringed with faces familiar and not. Maege Mormont, Rickard Karstark, Galvart Glover, and Ser Cort with his bloody knuckles. Roose Bolton, pale and still as a milk-glass. And Howland Reed, half-shadow in the corner, saying nothing, watching everything and every other Northern Lord. The Riverlanders made up the other part of the Army, with the Freys and Malisters at the helm.

“Your grace, with all due respect,” Tytos Blackwood began. “Would it not be better to attack one of our objectives altogether?”

“Indeed, Lord Blackwood, but it is part of the strategy we shall reveal shortly. Our scouts confirm the city’s walls are thin,” I said. “Light garrison. Half the citywatch lies dead at the Crimson Field. No more than two thousand remain, maybe less. We strike hard and fast. Take the harbor first. Secure the grain stores and the ships. The rest will fold.”

“Robb’ll have ten thousand,” I said. “Glover men, the Mallisters, the Blackwoods, the Brackens. Take the Tallhearts too.”

Hopefully, putting the Blackwoods and Brackens in the same force would not cause any trouble… who was I kidding?

Robb inclined his head. “And the Rock?”

“Twelve thousand,” I said, eyes flicking to the map. “Mormonts, Karstarks, Umbers… and the Boltons.”

A quiet passed over the tent like a cold wind.

Maege Mormont didn’t move, but I saw her knuckles whiten. Karstark shifted on his feet. Cort looked away.

I was taking with me the same forces I had taken to fight Tywin, except this time I was replacing Galvart Glover with Roose Bolton.

Roose merely inclined his head.

“The Rock has fewer than twenty-five hundred inside,” I continued, before the air could curdle. “Old men, garrison knights, and whatever house guards haven’t already been bled in the field. No Tywin. No Kevan. No Jaime. But they’ve stockpiled food and sealed the gates. They could sit behind those walls for years.”

“Unless we burn them out,” growled Maege.

“They’ll burn us first,” I said. “The Lion’s Mouth is a fortress within a fortress. We have no siege towers that can reach it, no rams strong enough to break a gate that thick. And storming the stairs? We’d bleed ten thousand men before we reached the halfway mark.”

“So what then?” Greatjon asked. “Wait? Starve them?”

“That is what we will make them think, that we are waiting, or holding their men from helping Lannisport. They will never expect us to attack with so few men.” I said. “All of you know I have sent infiltrators into the Rock. We have confirmed that they are in.”

Whispers passed through the tent, anticipation. They had all already heard about the infiltrators, but the fact that it had worked was not public. Wargs had seen our men chatting with other Lannisters inside the Rock. They had been divided all along the Rock, but they seemed concentrated at the gates.

“We will look for cracks. The last time Casterly Rock fell was to trickery; it will fall to the same again.” I continued.

Bolton dipped his head, but his pale eyes lingered. Calculating. Always calculating. “What is the plan, your grace?”

“Karstarks and Mormonts will hold the high ground to the east,” I said. “Umbers will screen our rear, keep any Lannister riders from slipping past us into the countryside. We will send Wargs and men to climb the rock looking for ways in.”

“We’ll find a crack,” Robb said, finishing the thought. “Every wall has one.”

And if not, I’ll make one.

The tent was quiet now, the kind of silence that means consensus, or at least no one was willing to say otherwise.

No one knew if this would work.

“What if this does not work, your grace? If the Rock remains unassailable?” Patrek Mallister asked.

“Then we will leave a token force to hold the Rock under siege. To prevent them from sallying out. Then we take Lannisport and as much of the Westerlands as we can while they watch from the Rock, helpless to do anything.” I responded.

The best plans were the ones where even if they did not work, it was a win anyway. Even if we did not take the Rock, we still accomplished our objectives. Tywin would have to come towards us, and we would kill him.

Then King’s Landing would be opened to us.

Maege Mormont gave a nod sharp as a dagger. Rickard Karstark said nothing, but his hands rested on the table like stone. Even Howland Reed inclined his head.

It was done.

Lines drawn. Forces split.

Robb rose. “Then may the gods watch over both our blades.”

“And may they blind the lions,” I said.

He left first, trailed by his Riverlords.

Roose Bolton's eyes lingered on me. If only he knew what I had planned for him.

I wouldn’t sit and wait for him to betray us.

Outside, the wind picked up. The sun was gone now, but the Rock still glowed, catching the last light on its heights.

I stared until the light went completely out, the sun of Planetos hiding behind the horizon, and leaving the Rock in darkness.

Then I turned and began to plan its death.

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I stood in silence, eyes fixed on the map of the Rock and the bay below. Cort stood just behind me, grim as ever, arms folded across his chest.

And before me, two of my King's Swords waited, trusted men, hardened by ambushes, river raids, and shadow-work. Both nameless for now. One lean and wiry, the other stocky and scarred.

“Roose Bolton cannot walk away from this,” Ser Cort said at last, voice low, firm. “The Lord of the Dreadfort is a knife too long left unsheathed.”

I didn’t turn. I merely nodded.

“I will not risk him at my back anymore.”

I turned at last, facing the two shadows across the table.

“We are on the eve of the battle that shall change everything,” I said, my voice steady. “It will put to rest the question of who is the King, and grant me and my family our well-deserved vengeance. You two have been chosen for a task vital to our victory. Do you understand what is at stake?”

The two men exchanged a glance. Then nodded, eyes cold with purpose.

“We won’t let you down, Your Grace,” said the lean one.

Ser Cort moved around the table and unrolled a fresh map showing the narrow cleft near the Lion’s Mouth. “Roose will lead the vanguard here when the attack is called, during the first push. He'll take the slope with two thousand spears.”

“You’ll be in Bolton colors,” I added. “Your tunics are already made. One of you will get close to Lord Bolton. The other moves behind the second rank. When the charge begins, slip forward. The chaos will cover you.”

The lean one tilted his head. “And after?”

“You vanish,” I said. “Take no risks beyond the task. Leave the body where it falls. I will deal with the aftermath.”

 “And if someone sees us?”

Cort gave a thin smile. “Then die well and take three with you. The King's Sword does not surrender.”

“SIR, YES, SIR!” The men saluted. I nodded toward the tent flap.

“Go. Make ready. You ride before first light.”

They bowed in unison and turned without another word, slipping into the night between gusts of wind. One flap of the tent blew open behind them, revealing the distant flicker of campfires beyond the hill.

Cort remained, his eyes on the war-map. His jaw was set like stone.

“You’re certain, your grace? This carries a lot of risks,” he asked, voice low.

“No,” I said. “But if I wait for certainty, we will be dead.”

He didn’t argue. He rarely did.

After a moment, he left too.

And I stood alone.

The candlelight sputtered in the sudden gust. I walked to the open flap, pushing it aside, and stared out into the night.

The Rock loomed in the distance, black and jagged, half-swallowed by the sea. Somewhere below it slept Lannisport, guarded by half-trained men and trembling merchant-princes. And somewhere out there, Roose Bolton lay in his own tent, sharpening knives both steel and political.

He’d always been useful. Careful. Controlled. But I had seen it in his eyes lately, the way he watched the Karstarks, the way he lingered near my maps, always listening, always measuring.

I had not forgotten what he did to Robb in another world.

And even in this one… even with the North marching behind me, even with the tides of war on our favor… I would not risk the dagger in the dark.

Not from him.

Tywin would be desperate; he would see that he cannot win in the battlefield, and history had already shown what he would use if battle was not an option.

I already had spies watching the Freys. But Roose? He was the wildcard; he had to go, or I would be watching my back for the rest of my life.

I thought of Robb now, his laughter, his oaths, the way his shoulders bore the weight of the North even when he did not ask to. The quiet glances he shared with Meera Reed. Would he forgive this if he knew?

I stepped back into the tent and let the flap fall closed behind me. In a few days, the horns would sound, and the battle would begin.

And Roose Bolton would die.

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Shortly after the armies had divided. And the sieges were already being set up. Was it really a siege if we did not cut off the Rocks' internal port? They could resupply whenever they wanted.

 “Big bastard,” Greatjon muttered beside me. “Looks ready to chew us and spit out the bones.”

“It has done so for thousands of years,” Howland Reed said softly, already studying the cliffside. “But no fortress is perfect.”

Karstark rode up, frost clinging to his beard. “My men have taken the eastern high ground,” he reported. “If Lannister riders attempt to break through, they’ll not manage ten paces.”

“Good,” I said. “Maege?”

Maege Mormont strode over, her cloak snapping in the sea wind. “Archers are posted on the ridge. Spears is forming the second line. If they decide to show their faces on the outer gate, they’ll get a welcome they won’t forget.”

I nodded, then looked westward to the trenches being dug.

Roose Bolton approached quietly. “The camp nearest the Rock is being raised, and the trenches are being dug,” he said. “My men will hold the forward position.”

“See that they do,” I said.

He dipped his head and faded back without a sound.

Already, the sound of hammers rang through the valley as tents rose, palisades took shape, and supply trains unhitched. Fires crackled in small clusters. Messengers ran between companies. The Northern host moved with calm, practiced efficiency. They had fought too many battles this year, and the experience that came with it hung in their movements.

“Begin the search,” I told Rickard. “Rope teams on the northern face, then the west. Keep low. Keep quiet. No risks unless absolutely necessary. A single opening is all we need.”

Meera bowed her head. “The Wargs will find any opening, your grace.”

Climbers and Wargs. We would hide people in the cliffs of the rock for days waiting for the signals, and hopefully we would find those tunnels.

“How long do you think before they realize we aren’t here to stave them off?” Karstark asked.

“They will assume we are,” I said. “But perhaps a week? If they find our climbers, they will know we have other intentions.”

Maege spat into the dirt. “And when they realize their gate guards start disappearing one by one?”

I allowed myself a thin smile. “Then the Rock will understand it is already dead.”

She grinned back, sharp as a blade. “Good.”

And if we did not manage to enter… well, the Wargs could carry a lot of poison into the Rocks's supplies, they would die one by one.

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My breath stilled as my eyes rolled white. The world tilted, blurred, and then it shifted.

The smell hit first. Not through my nose, but deep in the beast's body: rot and moss, stagnant water, and the filth of a thousand years. The rat’s world was low, wet, and dark, its paws pattering through rivulets of ancient runoff. I felt its hunger gnaw at me like a second heart, but I pushed it aside. I needed eyes. Not appetite.

Some part of me still sat in my tent, my body cold, heart slowing, Ghost’s breath steady at my side. But this part, the smaller, fouler part, scurried through the guts of Casterly Rock.

Stone pressed in on all sides. Narrow pipes of worked granite, rusted grates from older ages, tunnels too cramped for men but perfect for vermin. I passed bones. A child's toy, half-chewed. Stagnant pools where other things moved beneath the scum. My whiskers twitched at every shift of air. Up above, faint vibrations echoed down the walls: boots on stone, the march of guards, the clink of a chainmail sleeve.

The Lannisters were still watching the gate. Still waiting for a siege they thought would come from above.

They’d forgotten the dark.

I turned, diving through a narrow grate cracked from age. The rat wriggled through with effort. The tunnel beyond descended sharply, carved centuries ago to drain seawater. But here it narrowed again, and then opened suddenly, into a hollowed space of worked stone. A chamber.

And there, above me, a fissure. Not wide, but natural, maybe widened with tools long ago. A shaft that climbed at a sharp slant, just enough for a child to crawl through.

Or… a small Crannogman.

I climbed. Higher and higher. The stone shifted, smoothed walls now, carved steps above. The air grew warmer. Cleaner. I smelled torch oil.

Inside.

The rat sat still for a moment, heart pounding like a drumbeat in my own chest.

If I could find this in an hour, how many breaches would the Ward Division find in a few days? How many men could we get in before the assault?

From here I could message the infiltrators, inside easily, a small letter to tell them when to open the gates.

The Rock could be breached.