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of the realm, I
vow.”
    Catelyn knew Ser Gregor’s evil reputation, yet
still . . . “Don’t speak to me of heads, Uncle. Cersei has
mounted Ned’s on a

spike above the walls of the Red Keep, and left it for the crows and flies.”
Even now, it was hard for her to believe that he was truly gone. Some nights
she would wake in darkness, half-asleep, and for an instant expect to find him
there beside her. “Clegane is no more than Lord Tywin’s catspaw.” For Tywin
Lannister—Lord of Casterly Rock, Warden of the West, father to Queen
Cersei, Ser Jaime the Kingslayer, and Tyrion the Imp, and grandfather to
Joffrey Baratheon, the new-crowned boy king—was the true danger, Catelyn
believed.
    â€œTrue enough,” Ser Brynden admitted. “And Tywin Lannister is no man’s fool.
He sits safe behind the walls of Harrenhal, feeding his host on our harvest and
burning what he does not take. Gregor is not the only dog he’s loosed. Ser
Amory Lorch is in the field as well, and some sellsword out of Qohor who’d
sooner maim a man than kill him. I’ve seen what they leave behind them. Whole
villages put to the torch, women raped and mutilated, butchered children left
unburied to draw wolves and wild dogs . . . it would sicken
even the dead.”
    â€œWhen Edmure hears this, he will rage.”
    â€œAnd that will be just as Lord Tywin desires. Even terror has its purpose,
Cat. Lannister wants to provoke us to battle.”
    â€œRobb is like to give him that wish,” Catelyn said, fretful. “He is restless
as a cat sitting here, and Edmure and the Greatjon and the others will urge him
on.” Her son had won two great victories, smashing Jaime Lannister in the
Whispering Wood and routing his leaderless host outside the walls of Riverrun
in the

Battle of the Camps, but from the way some of his bannermen spoke of him, he
might have been Aegon the Conqueror reborn.
    Brynden Blackfish arched a bushy grey eyebrow. “More fool they. My first rule
of war, Cat
—never
give the enemy his wish. Lord Tywin would
like to fight on a field of his own choosing. He wants us to march on
Harrenhal.”
    â€œHarrenhal.” Every child of the Trident knew the tales told of Harrenhal, the
vast fortress that King Harren the Black had raised beside the waters of Gods
Eye three hundred years past, when the Seven Kingdoms had
been
seven
kingdoms, and the riverlands were ruled by the ironmen from the islands. In his
pride, Harren had desired the highest hall and tallest towers in all Westeros.
Forty years it had taken, rising like a great shadow on the shore of the lake
while Harren’s armies plundered his neighbors for stone, lumber, gold, and
workers. Thousands of captives died in his quarries, chained to his sledges, or
laboring on his five colossal towers. Men froze by winter and sweltered in
summer. Weirwoods that had stood three thousand years were cut down for beams
and rafters. Harren had beggared the riverlands and the Iron Islands alike to
ornament his dream. And when at last Harrenhal stood complete, on the very day
King Harren took up residence, Aegon the Conqueror had come ashore at King’s
Landing.
    Catelyn could remember hearing Old Nan tell the story to her own children, back
at Winterfell. “And King Harren learned that thick walls and high towers are
small use against dragons,” the tale always ended. “For dragons
fly.
” Harren and all his line

had perished in the fires that engulfed his monstrous fortress, and every house
that held Harrenhal since had come to misfortune. Strong it might be, but it
was a dark place, and cursed.
    â€œI would not have Robb fight a battle in the shadow of that keep,” Catelyn
admitted. “Yet we must do
something,
Uncle.”
    â€œAnd soon,” her uncle agreed. “I have not told you the worst of it, child.
The men I sent west have brought back word that a new host is gathering at
Casterly Rock.”
    Another Lannister army.
The thought made her ill. “Robb must be told
at once. Who will command?”
    â€œSer Stafford Lannister, it’s said.” He turned to gaze out over the rivers,
his red-and-blue cloak stirring in the breeze.
    â€œAnother nephew?” The Lannisters of Casterly Rock were a damnably large and
fertile house.
    â€œCousin,” Ser Brynden corrected. “Brother to Lord