The Fierce Battle

The second rank of Heavy Cavalry hit the first rank of spearmen with tremendous force. The more sturdily built men barely managed to hold their ground atop the wagons.

Those who couldn't withstand the impact were knocked straight off the wagons and crashed into the second rank of spearmen, sending the men nearby tumbling in every direction.

After three ranks of House Bolton Heavy Cavalry charged through, not a single spearman from the first rank remained standing atop the wagons.

But the enemy Heavy Cavalry came in wave after wave, like a rising tide. The spearmen in the second rank braced their spear butts against the ground, absorbing much of the impact and temporarily holding back the surging tide of cavalry.

The brief respite gave the third rank of reserve spearmen under Owen's command time to rush forward and fill the gaps in the first rank.

The Heavy Cavalry charging head-on and the spearmen were already locked in a bloody battle, while the House Bolton light cavalry on both flanks had only just begun their charge.

"Loose!"

Theon raised his hand and shouted.

The five hundred archers he had stationed on the left released their bowstrings, sending a dense rain of arrows into the sky.

Leading the charge, Locke rode toward the enemy's right flank—the left flank of Winterfell's formation. Though they were light cavalry, they weren't afraid of the enemy archers. Their helmets and Chainmail protected them; they just had to avoid getting unlucky and taking an arrow through a gap in their armor.

But then he noticed the sky suddenly darken...

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Theon had stationed five hundred Winterfell archers and most of the shield-bearing infantry on the left side of the formation. On the right, fewer than five hundred regular infantrymen stood in a defensive line.

As a result, the two hundred and fifty House Bolton light cavalrymen under Locke's command were battered by a concentrated rain of arrows.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Neigh! Neigh!...

The arrows arced through the air and struck the heavily armored cavalrymen with a clatter.

But their horses had no protection. Some sharp arrows pierced the horses' heads, killing them instantly and sending them crashing to the ground.

Others struck the horses' bodies, making them scream and stumble forward a few steps before collapsing limply.

The riders were thrown hard to the ground, where the horses behind them trampled them like scraps of cloth.

Locke was particularly unlucky. A stray arrow struck his horse in the head, throwing him to the ground on the spot.

But he was also lucky: in the torrent of galloping horses, not a single one trampled him.

Pfft!

Locke spat out a mouthful of blood. Fighting through a wave of dizziness, he struggled to his feet and immediately looked toward the cavalry still charging across the battlefield.

The Winterfell archers managed only a second volley before scattering to both sides and retreating toward the rear of the formation.

Behind the archers, ranks of Winterfell infantrymen advanced in orderly formation, each carrying a Kite Shield shaped like an inverted triangle, with an oval upper half and a pointed lower half.

"Raise your shields!"

Whoosh!

At their commander's order, the infantrymen drove the pointed lower halves of their Kite Shields into the dirt, gripped the handles on the inside, and waited for the enemy cavalry to hit.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

After two volleys of arrows, only about half of the cavalry under Locke's command remained. Seething with pent-up fury, they slammed into the Winterfell infantry's Kite Shields, producing a steady succession of dull thuds.

It was a pure clash of force. The Winterfell infantrymen who were knocked away could hear their own bones breaking.

The Bolton cavalry, brought to an abrupt halt, were stabbed repeatedly by the infantrymen nearby. They watched their lives drain away with their bright red blood.

On the walls of Dreadfort, the morale of Winterfell's besieging troops—once lifted by the commander's generous bounty—slowly ebbed as the battle grew more brutal.

The breach in the wall was still there, but the brave, fearless soldiers had mostly reached the wall and died fighting. The infantrymen left behind were all too afraid to advance.

These conscripted militia from the surrounding lands had neither the courage nor the resolve to fight to the death.

Trog, the infantry commander beneath the walls, saw what was happening and realized their morale had collapsed. They could no longer continue the siege.

He ordered the surviving militia to gather around the Dreadfort gate and block it tightly, at least preventing anyone from sallying out to reinforce the main battlefield behind them.

Seeing fewer and fewer Winterfell soldiers at the breach in the wall, Roose knew the battle on that front was all but decided.

His attention had long since shifted elsewhere—to the enemy army's camp in the distance.

When his trump card, the Heavy Cavalry charge, was stopped by Winterfell's spearmen, Roose merely furrowed his brow. His expression otherwise gave nothing away.

But when he saw Winterfell's left flank buckle under his cavalry's charge, a hint of delight finally appeared on his face. His cavalry only needed to push a little harder to scatter the formation.

The spearmen holding back the Heavy Cavalry would then be crushed by the final straw. Even if Winterfell had hidden troops somewhere, House Bolton was bound to win this battle.

But Theon had concentrated heavy forces on the left flank of Winterfell's formation. Compared with the seemingly endless ranks of infantry there, the Bolton cavalry numbered barely a hundred. Their charge gradually lost momentum, and they were slowly swallowed by the tide of infantry.

Seeing the cavalry on the left flank wiped out, Roose's expression turned grim again as he looked toward the cavalry on the right, which had taken a slight detour because of the terrain.

The cavalry charging on the right knew the terrain around Dreadfort very well. The ground in that direction looked level, but it was broken by a series of low, stepped ridges.

The ridges weren't very high, and skilled riders could easily jump them on horseback.

But doing so would inevitably slow the horses' charge, greatly reducing the threat they posed to the enemy formation.

So the riders took a familiar route around the ridges. Though it cost them some time, no archers were blocking their path, and their formation remained intact as they charged toward the Winterfell soldiers.

The cavalry's speed was tremendous once they got up to full charge. In the blink of an eye, the distance between the two sides had shrunk to a dozen meters. The riders at the front could almost make out the nervous faces of the infantrymen opposite them.

Hoo!

A senior officer in the infantry formation on the right ordered a subordinate to blow the horn.

The charging Bolton cavalry suddenly saw dozens of Winterfell soldiers concealed in trenches on either side of their path. The soldiers threw off the wooden boards camouflaging the trenches, stood up, and yanked together on thick iron chains as wide as fists.

Clatter!

Several iron chains were pulled taut in an instant, clanging as they tightened.

The Bolton cavalry had no time to stop. At full speed, they drove their horses straight into the chains.

Neigh!!!

The horses in this battle were truly unfortunate. On the right flank, their legs caught on the chains, and they stumbled, sending horse and rider crashing to the ground.

Some horses managed to stop just in front of the chains, but the sudden halt hurled their riders several meters forward.

Horses trampled men, and horses trampled horses. The right-flank cavalry, charging at full speed, were thrown into chaos by a few simple trip chains on the ground.

The first cavalrymen and horses to fall were trampled into bloody pulp by their own comrades. Few could have survived.