Meanwhile, at The Antlers in the northern Crownlands.
The castle was as silent as a tomb.
House Donnel, its former masters, had vanished when the Ashen Company swept through the Crownlands.
The militia temporarily holding the castle had no intention of resisting. When Jaime Lannister and Addam Marbrand arrived beneath its walls with twenty thousand men of the Westerlands Army, the gates opened with scarcely a single casualty.
In the council chamber, torchlight flickered, and the air smelled of dust and old wood.
Jaime stood before a long table, a parchment map with worn edges spread across it.
He pressed a fingertip to The Antlers, then slowly traced eastward... Harford, Rosby, and finally the heavily marked point: Stokeworth.
Twenty thousand men.
That was his entire force, and his only means of rescuing them.
He had not expected a full eight thousand of those men to be cavalry.
The finest heavy cavalry in the Westerlands, men and horses clad in the best armor, a blade sharp enough to tear through any battle line.
It was this cavalry that gave him an idea-an utterly reckless one, but perhaps his only chance.
"We recreate the battle of the Whispering Wood."
Jaime raised his head and looked at Addam across the table. Firelight caught the hard lines of his clean-shaven jaw, and his eyes held a resolve that would smash through anything in his path.
"Robb Stark used this tactic to crush me at Riverrun. Now I'll use the same method to face that returning True Dragon."
Addam leaned forward, bracing his hands on the table's edge. His gaze followed Jaime's finger across the map, his brow slowly tightening. "How, exactly?"
"You take twelve thousand infantry from The Antlers and advance east along the Kingsroad, making as much noise as you can."
Jaime tapped