The order to march upon Oldtown was given two days after Ser Jon Roxton’s head began its journey south. It did not send the army immediately onto the road.
Nine thousand men could not be lifted from Honeyholt by a single command, especially after a month spent turning camps into something close to permanence. Tents had to be struck, wagons loaded, prisoners reassigned, stores counted, and wounded men judged according to whether they could endure travel. Horses required shoes. Axles needed replacing. Every officer seemed to discover one final shortage only after being told departure had already been decided.
The march itself would take less time than preparing for it. Dick objected to this conclusion because he considered every delay predictable once someone competent examined the numbers.
"You have spent the past month allowing the army to become comfortable," he said while standing over a table covered in supply lists. "Men have repaired shelters, built ovens, dug drainage, and acquired stools from villages whose inhabitants will now expect the stools returned. Moving them again is not marching. It is relocating a small and poorly governed town."
"They are soldiers. They will survive without the stools."
"The soldiers will. The officers may not."
I looked over the lists he had arranged according to companies, wagons, and roads. "How long before the first column is ready?"
"Three days for the vanguard. Five if you want enough food behind it to remain outside Oldtown without immediately begging every village south of here for grain."
"We will not strip the countryside merely because the Hightowers chose to remain behind walls."
"Then five days."
"You have four."
Dick gave me the expression of a man asked to negotiate with arithmetic. "Numbers do not become obedient because you outrank the person reading them."
"No, but people sometimes work faster."
"They also make mistakes faster."
He still completed the work in four days.
Honeyholt would remain in loyal hands after our departure. Lord Alester Beesbury kept command of the castle and surrounding lands, supported by five hundred Reach soldiers too wounded or exhausted for the march but still capable of holding walls. The most seriously injured remained under the care of Honeyholt’s healers. Those who could travel but not fight were placed in wagons bound for safer keeps farther north.
The Redwyne prisoners created the greatest difficulty.
There were too many to bring south without weakening our marching order, and leaving them lightly guarded invited escape or rescue. I divided them between Honeyholt, Longtable, and several loyal keeps, ensuring no single prison held enough men to overwhelm its garrison. Their officers remained separated from the common soldiers and from one another.
House Bulwer’s men marched with us.
Not all of them had sworn to Rhaenyra. Those who chose captivity stayed behind under guard, but the majority took places among our Reach companies. They carried their own banners beside the queen’s, a visible declaration that Ormund’s old allies were no longer waiting for his forgiveness.
Lord Bulwer rode near the front during the first inspections. His presence would matter once we entered the lands around Oldtown. Villages that might hide from an unfamiliar prince would answer more readily to a Reach lord whose name they knew, even if his recent allegiance remained the subject of gossip.
Dravvaxx’s healing determined the pace more than any wagon.
He could fly again, but the scar through his right wing remained vulnerable. The dragonkeepers warned that repeated long flights might reopen the membrane, while armoured manoeuvres or sudden turns would place greater strain upon the shoulder. He could carry me over the army and scout the road ahead. He could not yet endure another fight like Sunfyre.
I rode for most of the march.
Dravvaxx followed from the air when weather and strength permitted, taking short flights before resting in open fields selected by his keepers. His presence mattered even without fire. Hightower scouts observing our movement could not know how completely his wounds had healed, and I had no intention of correcting their uncertainty.
Orphan-Maker hung at my side. The sword drew attention wherever I went. Dread Legion veterans had seen Valyrian steel before, but Reach soldiers recognised the weapon through stories of Ser Jon Roxton. Some stared because they knew whose head it had taken. Others saw its possession as proof that the old order around Oldtown had begun losing more than battles.
I did not display it unnecessarily. A captured sword was still only steel until its new bearer proved worthy of keeping it.
The army left Honeyholt in stages.
Black Rat led the first Unsullied companies south, followed by Legion scouts and engineers. Jasper commanded the main infantry column, while Landrey’s cavalry spread across the roads ahead and on both flanks. Bulwer guides travelled with the riders, identifying villages, wells, bridges, and wooded tracks Roxton’s surviving raiders might still use.
The baggage train moved behind the centre beneath Dick’s supervision. Grain, salted meat, tents, medical stores, spare spearheads, arrows, siege tools, and everything else required to keep nine thousand men alive filled a line of wagons long enough to occupy several miles of road.
We carried no great siege engines.
Oldtown’s walls would not be taken quickly by machines dragged from Honeyholt. Building proper towers, rams, and stone throwers required timber, labour, and time better spent once our positions were secure.
Bringing unfinished engines along narrow roads would slow the entire army and tell Ormund that an assault was intended before I had decided whether one would ever be necessary. For now, I needed men, food, tools, and control of the land.
The first day carried us through country already familiar with war. Burned farms marked the routes used by Roxton’s raiders. Villages remained half-empty, their people uncertain whether the arrival of another army meant protection or a different kind of hunger. Lord Bulwer rode ahead with small escorts to reassure them that we would pay for supplies and punish looting.
The distinction mattered more than speeches about lawful succession. Farmers judged queens and kings through the behaviour of armed men standing near their grain.
I ordered every purchase recorded. Soldiers caught taking food without payment lost wages and performed labour under Unsullied supervision. The first three punishments were conducted publicly enough that the rest of the army understood the order was not ceremonial.
By the second day, the road widened, and the signs of Oldtown’s influence became clearer. Stone bridges appeared where lesser regions used timber. Sept towers rose above larger villages. Inns carried painted images of the Hightower beacon, and even distant farmhouses had whitewashed walls kept cleaner than most settlements after months of war.
The people watched us from doors and fields. Some bowed to Rhaenyra’s banners. Others remained still until the army passed. A few houses were shut entirely, their occupants hiding livestock and anything else soldiers might value.
No organised resistance appeared.
Ormund had too few men to contest our march in open country, and sending another raiding force after Roxton’s execution would have offered us prisoners rather than delay. Hightower riders shadowed us from a distance but never came within bow range. Landrey captured two scouts on the third day and allowed a third to escape after making certain he had seen the size of our column.
"You released him deliberately," Lord Bulwer said when Landrey reported the encounter.
"The man believed he escaped because his horse was faster," Landrey answered. "That belief will help the report sound honest when he reaches Oldtown."
"What did you allow him to see?"
"Enough Unsullied to understand the centre remains intact, enough cavalry to discourage another raid, and Dravvaxx circling above the road. He did not see the shortened Legion companies or the wagons carrying men too injured to march."
Bulwer glanced toward me. "Ormund will assume the army is stronger than it is."
"He may," I said. "More importantly, the city watch will hear that a dragon and thousands of disciplined soldiers are coming. Men behind walls become less confident when rumours reach them before the enemy does."
The march remained orderly.
There were no heroic charges, no sudden battles, and no dramatic crossings beneath arrow fire. Roads required clearing after rain. Wagons broke axles. Horses went lame. One Unsullied soldier died when a tree weakened by old lightning fell across the track during the night.
Armies lost men even when no enemy stood nearby.
I spent the fourth evening among the Legion companies rather than in the command tent. Their numbers remained visibly reduced after Honeyholt. Men who once stood under Emeric’s captains now answered to Jasper’s reorganised officers, while older veterans found themselves training Reach replacements during every halt.
One soldier asked whether we meant to storm Oldtown as soon as we arrived.
"No," I told him. "The city contains more people than Ormund has soldiers. An assault would kill our men, civilians, and defenders without first giving hunger, fear, and division time to work."
Another veteran looked toward the south. "The Hightowers will use the time to strengthen the walls."
"They will strengthen them whether we attack tomorrow or after a month. Waiting costs Ormund food, money, and confidence. It costs us only if our supply lines fail or Vhagar appears."
The name silenced those nearest. Aemond remained the uncertainty around every plan. No reliable sighting had followed his departure from Harrenhal. Vhagar might already be flying toward Oldtown, or she might be waiting near King’s Landing, Driftmark, the Riverlands, or some isolated field from which no report had escaped.
Marching south placed us farther from Rhaenyra and closer to the city most likely to welcome him.
Leaving Ormund undisturbed would give him time to recruit, restore relations with frightened vassals, and turn Oldtown into the heart of a rebellion that survived without its king. A siege did not require an immediate assault. It required presence, pressure, and the removal of every easy path by which the enemy could recover.
On the fifth day, Dravvaxx flew the longest distance since his injury. He rose from a field before sunrise and remained above the army for most of the morning. His right wing moved stiffly, but the scar held. When he descended near midday, the landing was controlled, and the membrane showed no fresh blood.
The dragonkeepers were pleased until they noticed my attention.
"He flew well," I said.
"He flew adequately," the eldest keeper replied. "That is not permission to find another golden dragon."
"There are no more golden dragons."
"You are capable of finding something worse."
He was right, though I did not reward him by saying so.
By the sixth day, the first distant shape of Oldtown appeared through the haze. The Hightower rose above everything.
Even from leagues away, it dominated the southern horizon, pale stone climbing from Battle Isle toward the clouds. The beacon at its summit remained visible in daylight as a faint brightness against the sky.
Around it spread the city, too vast to understand from the road: walls, towers, septs, clustered roofs, river quays, bridges, and the dark line of the Honeywine reaching toward the sea. Some men stopped when they first saw it. Officers forced the column onward. Honeyholt had been a castle worth saving. Oldtown was a world contained inside walls.
Taking it by force would not resemble any siege I had commanded in Essos. The city held the Starry Sept, the Citadel, markets, guilds, noble residences, and streets packed with people who had little control over the succession. An assault would turn every lane into a battlefield and every fire into a threat to structures the realm could not easily replace.
Ormund knew that. The size and importance of Oldtown were his strongest defences. He expected me to hesitate because destroying the city would damage Rhaenyra more deeply than leaving him alive behind its walls. I intended to use that expectation against him.
The army halted north of the city while Landrey’s riders surveyed the approaches. Oldtown’s gates were closed. Hightower banners flew from the walls beside those of the remaining Green houses. Men crowded the battlements, though distance made it difficult to judge whether they were experienced soldiers or watchmen dressed to appear numerous.
By sunset, Oldtown was surrounded by land. The phrase sounded more complete than the reality. A city of that size could not be sealed by nine thousand men standing shoulder to shoulder.
Our encirclement depended upon roads, bridges, patrols, watch posts, and the threat of cavalry reaching anything that attempted to cross the open country. Small groups might still slip through fields, drainage channels, or hidden paths known only to locals.
Large supply wagons and organised troops would not. The sea remained open.
We had no fleet strong enough to close the mouth of the Honeywine or challenge every ship entering Oldtown’s harbour. Redwyne vessels might still carry grain, men, and messages from the Arbor. The city could also receive supplies from coastal allies if they were willing to risk Rhaenyra’s growing strength elsewhere.
This was not a complete blockade. It was enough to begin.
Our camp took shape across the northern approaches. Ditches were dug, earthworks raised, and wooden stakes placed against cavalry attacks none of us expected Ormund to attempt. Engineers marked ground for future siege works without beginning construction. Scouts mapped the walls, towers, gates, and stretches where marsh or river narrowed the approach. The men waited for orders to build ladders and rams. None came.
Dravvaxx rested upon a low ridge where the city could see him clearly. He had carried me for only the final league, enough to arrive above the vanguard without exhausting the healing wing. When his shadow crossed the northern walls, horns sounded throughout Oldtown. Scorpion crews appeared upon several towers, wheeling their machines toward the ridge.
I kept Dravvaxx beyond their range. The city had prepared for him. Ballistas guarded the gates and high walls. Other shapes beneath canvas suggested more machines waited near the river approaches. Ormund had learned from Honeyholt, and Oldtown possessed the craftsmen, timber, and labour to multiply the weapons that had wounded Dravvaxx before.
Flying directly over the city would be foolish. An assault from the air would be worse. I dismounted beside the command pavilion while Dick supervised the unloading of maps and records. He looked toward Oldtown’s walls, then toward the camps still forming behind us.
"You have surrounded a city of several hundred thousand people with nine thousand soldiers."
"I have surrounded its landward roads."
"The city will consider that distinction important when ships continue arriving with food."
"We are not trying to starve every person inside immediately."
Dick watched another Hightower banner rise above a distant gate. "Then what are we doing?"
"We are giving the city time to understand its position."
"Oldtown may reach a different conclusion."
"It may. Ormund has lost his field army, the Bulwers, the Redwyne troops who marched north, and every realistic chance of defeating us without Vhagar. His citizens will know that eventually, even if he tries to hide it."
"And while they discover this?"
"We wait."
Dick gave me a long look. "You marched an army for a week to stand outside the walls."
"I marched an army here so Ormund cannot pretend the war exists somewhere else."
A summons was sent before nightfall.
It was addressed to Lord Ormund Hightower, the city watch, the Citadel, the Faith, the guilds, and every landed knight sheltering behind Oldtown’s walls. The message named Rhaenyra as lawful queen, confirmed Aegon’s death, Daeron’s submission, and the collapse of Green strength in the Stormlands and Riverlands.
It offered terms. Common soldiers who laid down arms would be pardoned unless accused of murder, raiding, or other crimes beyond ordinary military service. The city watch could remain in place under new officers approved by the queen. The Citadel, septs, markets, and property of citizens would be protected.
Ormund and the principal leaders of the rebellion would be required to surrender themselves for royal judgment. The gates would remain intact if opened willingly. A white-cloaked rider carried the summons to the northern approach. Hightower guards allowed him close enough to leave the sealed parchment upon a stone marker before withdrawing. No arrow was loosed. No answer came that evening. I had not expected one.
Campfires spread across the northern fields beneath the darkening sky. The Unsullied settled into ordered lines, while the Dread Legion established pickets and rotating watches. Reach banners moved in the wind beyond them. Dravvaxx lay upon the ridge, his dark form visible against the last light.
Oldtown answered with bells. They rolled from septs across the city, joined by the deeper sound of the Hightower beacon bell. The noise passed over the walls and along the river, solemn enough to resemble mourning even if the city intended defiance.
I stood outside the pavilion with Orphan-Maker at my side and watched torchlight appear upon the battlements. Men expected the siege to begin with fire, arrows, and engines. Instead, nothing happened. No ladders moved toward the walls. No dragon rose above them. No archers tested the range. Our patrols closed the roads while the army ate, rested, and watched.
Ormund had escaped Honeyholt because I could not risk chasing him with a broken army and wounded dragon. He had reached Oldtown believing its size would force me either to destroy it or leave him undisturbed.
I would do neither. The city was surrounded by land. Its lord was contained behind stone. Every day we remained outside would remind his allies that no new host was coming to save them. There would be no assault that night. There would be none in the morning unless Ormund gave me a reason.
For the moment, I merely waited.