The Riverlands, the northern army's camp, the clearing outside the Main Tent.
The rank smell of horses filled the air.
In the center of the clearing stood a dense mass of twenty thousand figures, their heads shaved, their bodies clad in standard-issue "Unsullied" tunics and trousers.
They had dark skin and sharply defined features, and their eyes swept their surroundings with the wary defiance of untamed hawks.
The Arakh curved blades gripped tightly in their hands gleamed coldly. Dothraki horn-and-sinew composite bows hung across their backs, while the poor-bred horses tethered beside them snorted impatiently and pawed the dirt.
Menace! Savagery!
A wild breath of the grasslands swept toward them, utterly at odds with the solemn discipline of the northern camp.
Robb Stark, King in the North, stood on the high steps at the entrance to the Main Tent.
Wrapped in a heavy cloak, he stared fixedly at the Horsemen below, the color draining from his face little by little.
Beside him, Lady Catelyn was pale, her eyes holding nothing but anger and humiliation.
"These are the soldiers the Easterner lent us? And he has the gall to call them Unsullied?!"
Earl Karstark was the first to burst into an irrepressible roar. "Open your eyes and look! These are plainly twenty thousand Dothraki savages who've only just been thrown into rags, jackals of the grasslands! Wendel! Has the sea breeze addled your brain?! How could you bring things like these back?!"
"Lord Rickard is right!"
Galbart Glover's face was livid. "Unsullied? What a joke! We've let twenty thousand hungry wolves into the sheepfold! What do they know of discipline? Of loyalty? All they know is curved blades and plunder. Put them to work fighting for us, and before the Lannisters can crush the Riverlands, these savages will have robbed and