Game of Thrones: Viserys the Three-Headed Dragon.

Chapter 131 The arrow is on the string
"There is no time to hesitate. Make a decision, my Lord Marquis!" The speaker was Edwin Frey, the great-grandson of Marquis Walder Frey, whose inheritance rights now rank second in the Frey family.

"Stark was the first to betray and trample on the dignity of the Frey family. He must be severely punished!" The second person to speak was Lyman Frey, who was the first in line for the succession. After speaking, he poured himself a sip of wine. He was not a qualified heir. He was greedy and drunk, and liked to mess around with prostitutes. His two sons were secretly fighting for the succession.

"The Frey family has paid so much for his kingdom. Your eldest son and heir, my grandfather Ser Stevron, died for him, but in return he got perjury and ruthless betrayal!" The third person to speak was Black Walder Frey, who was third in line to the throne.

This was a resolution made within the Frey family. The ninety-year-old head of the Frey family and Marquis of the Twins, Walder Frey, sat in the middle of the family's chairman's table. He was no longer young and was confined to his chair due to gout.

Due to the strategic position of the Twins, the Frey family became rich since they built the only double-headed castle across the Green Fork, a tributary of the Trident. They soon became one of the richest and most powerful families in the Trident River Basin, but their rapid rise in status also made other families look down on them and regard them as nouveau riche. Therefore, they have been looking for opportunities to be promoted to a position of power that matches their wealth.

The current Marquis Walder has married eight wives and has many children, including twenty-two legitimate sons and seven legitimate daughters, as well as an unknown number of illegitimate children. He is jokingly called "capable of giving birth to an army on his own." The size of the Frey family expanded rapidly during the reign of Marquis Walder.

The old Ward was conceited, sensitive, and ambitious.

Now the most ambitious and scheming members of this huge family have been summoned to decide a major event that will affect the family's honor, disgrace, rise and fall. But the main people who have the final say are still the heirs who are at the top of the succession list. It is worth mentioning that the family members who are close to Stark have been sent outside the castle.

Now only the Freys who were radical toward Stark and the even more radical Freys participated in the meeting.

Old Walder looked at his great-grandson and namesake, known as Black Walder. "What did Roose Bolton say? King Targaryen's letter was unfavorable to him, and Tyrion Lannister married Sansa Stark, yet he insisted on cooperating with the Lannisters. What else did he hide besides what he told us about his appointment as Warden of the North by King's Landing?"

"Arya!" said Black Walder, third in line. "Tywin promised him Arya Stark."

Tywin didn't have the real Arya, he had a fake one, the girl was Jeyne Poole, the daughter of the steward of Winterfell and a good friend of Sansa. Because few people in the North had seen Arya, Tywin used a fake one to deceive Roose Bolton.

Old Walder asked, "Is his son with Fat Walda marrying a Stark daughter?"

"Definitely not." Edwin, the second in line, said, "It's Ramsay Snow, his bastard son. But that's nothing to worry about. Bastards are always inferior to legitimate sons. Walda's son will be the guardian of the North after him. There is no one in the North now. With our help, Roose can easily pacify the North. Roose gets the North, and we get the Riverlands. Our two families are allied, and no matter who will be the master of King's Landing in the future, Lannister or anyone else, even a Targaryen, can move freely."

Old Walder's face darkened. "Have you ever asked why King's Landing doesn't respond to our Targaryen on Dragonstone? If they can handle it and drive him out of Westeros, why don't they write back to reassure us? Tywin Lannister is too arrogant!"

"Tywin promised to give us the Riverlands, and Grandfather Emmon will get Riverrun!" said Edwin. Emmon Frey's wife is Tywin's sister Gena Lannister. This is undoubtedly a sincere manifestation of the two families' in-depth cooperation. "The Frey family will take care of the Trident River Basin and the Riverlands!"

Lord Walder, who twice delayed responding to the Tully family's call for vassalage in the War of the Usurper and the War of the Five Kings, and only responded late after confirming his own benefits, said: "The Targaryen appeal is dangerous!"

Black Walder replied: "As far as I know, no river nobles responded to the letter, let alone the northerners. Eddard Stark was King Robert's right-hand man. The weddings of Lannister and Tyrell, King Joffrey and Margaery will be held in the New Year. My Lord, the two richest families in the Seven Kingdoms have formed an alliance! And that Targaryen is on Dragonstone, a poor and rotten place. He can't even deal with Stannis's defeated army."

Old Walder narrowed his eyes like a weasel. "You don't understand. It's possible that the Targaryens could gain support from Dorne. Dorne has not moved a single soldier since the beginning of the war."

Edwin said, "It is said that King's Landing sent Princess Myrcella and the Prince of Dorne—"

Black Walder interrupted his brother: "My Lord Marquis, what do you think we should do?"

At this moment of family honor and disgrace, the descendants of old Walder still fought each other ruthlessly and shamelessly to please him. He was displeased and said: "I am asking you. Of course, Stark betrayed Frey and trampled on Frey's dignity. It is reasonable for us to retaliate. The gods will understand our revenge!"

Edwin couldn't help but mutter: "How can Dorne alone fight against the alliance of Tyrell and Lannister?"

Black Walder suddenly became excited: "My lord, I heard that Willas Tyrell of the Tyrell family is still unmarried, and Ser Kevan's third son Martin Lannister is also unengaged."

Edwin immediately retorted: "They won't agree." He wanted to say that he shouldn't humiliate himself, but he didn't say it.

Merry Frey suddenly joined the conversation and said, "What does it have to do with us what they do in the south?" Merry Frey, who was nicknamed "Merry the Fool" by his father Walder the Elder, had been a squire of Jaime Lannister. He was known for his strength and muscularity, and liked to bully the weak. He suffered a head injury during the expedition against the Kingswood Brotherhood and could no longer go to the battlefield.

He was the father of Walda the Fat, whom Roose Burton chose to marry after Lord Frey had generously promised a bride's weight in silver as a dowry.

But he was just like his nickname, a fool. As soon as he finished speaking, the Frey family's first heirs turned their heads to look at him, so Merry chose to keep silent.

But old Ward asked him to continue: "Go on, Merry."

This basically showed their attitude. The descendants of Old Walder began to rack their brains to think about how the Frey family could stay out of the possible disputes in the south and seek benefits.

"Even if the Targaryens may have Dorne, their battlefield is in the south, and the south is so far away, why should we care about it? I think the Freys just need to take care of the riverlands." But Merry's wisdom limited himself to this, and he couldn't say more.

Old Ward was disappointed with his reaction.

"We helped Roose Bolton pacify the north, and we still have the lands of the riverlands to recover. We have enough reasons not to be summoned by Lannis to King's Landing." Black Walder's mind turned quickly. He said, "Even if we have done all this, wasn't there news of the wildlings heading south? We can still shirk our responsibility to help the north resist the wildlings."

Edwin asked coldly, "The winter in the north is freezing cold. Are you going to send our Freys to freeze to death?"

"Tell Lannister we will go to help Roose resist the wildlings, but we didn't say when we will go." Black Walder smiled, "And this can be regarded as responding to the call of King Targaryen. Doesn't he want the Wardens of the North to go to the North to support the Wall? After they finish fighting in the South, we will see how to deal with it next. We will form an alliance with Roose, advance and retreat together, and the Riverlands and the North will work closely together. The Frey family can sit back and watch the success or failure in the Riverlands."

Old Walder narrowed his eyes. He asked, "How long will it take for the King in the North to arrive at the Twins? Is the banquet ready? Band?"

"Everything is ready. We are just waiting for your decision. Do you want the band to play that song at the banquet?"

"Where is Roose Bolton? Call him over and tell him that Warden of the North is a good title and suits him well. We should talk about how to welcome the King in the North." Many times, people would ask, when the Freys decided to violate the rights of guests, didn't they think about the consequences?

The answer is yes, but they don't realize how serious the consequences are.

The Rat Cook's Ballad is often used to remind people of the consequences of trampling on the sacred rights of guests, but that was not considered by the Freys, who were blinded by greed and filled with anger. Before they did this, in their own eyes, Robb Stark's betrayal of the marriage contract with the Frey family was an equal act to the oath they were about to break.

Moreover, they believed that this behavior was similar to the cruelty and decisiveness of Tywin when he eliminated the Reyes family, and the promises given by Tywin were also generous enough.

In fact, during this nearly one-year war, Tywin destroyed and killed countless nobles in the riverlands, and even the once-powerful House of Harrenhal was exterminated.

Nearly a thousand years have passed since the legendary story of the Rat Chef, and the decent people among the descendants of Frey are generally close to Stark and excluded from this meeting. It can be said that when the decent people are excluded, the Frey family will not make a second choice.

-

The arrow is on the string and has to be shot. This is the situation Tywin is facing now.

When another piece of intelligence about dragon sightings on Dragonstone reached him, this battle-hardened duke actually felt a momentary sense of powerlessness.

Every dragon sighting, every piece of news from Dragonstone was a torture for the stern duke.

It felt like being cut by a blunt knife.

The defense of Dragonstone Castle is so tight that even the most expensive assassin in the world, the Faceless Man, was fooled. It is rumored that another little dragon is growing on Dragonstone, and each piece of news is bigger than the previous one. Compared with Barristan's appearance on Dragonstone and the wise actions of the king of Dragonstone from time to time. Dragons are the most despairing thing, and that Targaryen is standing there, and no one knows when he will attack.

Dragonstone Island has left this wily duke in unrest.

The king was not one to sit around and wait on Dragonstone, and he knew that ravens were sometimes more useful than an army. Ravens from the Twins and Roose Bolton showed Tywin the king's attempt to disrupt the North, and Varys's little bird confirmed it.

Originally, Tywin wanted to give up his plan to kill the King of the North. After all, the situation is different now. The hatred between Targaryen and Stark is as deep as the sea. Keeping the King of the North might be used to fight against the Targaryen - even though Stark and Lannister are also in blood feud now.

But the king's letter made Tywin determined. The letter from Dragonstone had a hidden meaning. If Robb gave up the throne and took up the responsibility of guarding the North, and obeyed Targaryen's orders, the Targaryens of Dragonstone would pardon his family.

That was definitely not what Tywin wanted to see. Besides, his conspiracy with Roose Bolton and the Frey family was already imminent, and stopping at this time would not only mean that Robb Stark could return to the North to regain the lost territory, but also that the Lannisters would lose two allies in the Riverlands and the North that they had won through power, fraud and deception.

If the Riverlands and the North cannot be stabilized, the Lannisters in King's Landing may face attacks from all sides in the future.

King's Landing
Tywin really hopes that the Targaryen of Dragonstone will attack King's Landing, because in this way he can determine the fighting power of the dragon as soon as possible. If he is unable to fight, he will decisively abandon the city, take the Tyrells and important nobles of the River Reach with him, and retreat to the Westerly in multiple routes.

As winter approaches, the King of Dragonstone will occupy the city, and there is a high possibility that the city will fall into the same predicament that Queen Rhaenyra faced during the Dance of the Dragons.

Now it seems that the occupation of King's Landing has made the Lannisters feel constrained. If they had handed King's Landing to Stannis, the Lannisters could have easily left.

The most hateful thing is that the Targaryen king with a dragon did not move on Dragonstone, but just kept using stories and ravens to create an image of wisdom and disrupt the situation in the inland.

Tywin also wanted Stannis to attack and explore the way, but the king, who was hiding in Storm's End, was unable to organize an active attack.

His eyes turned to Stonehenge and the Point on the map, which were separated from Dragonstone by only a body of water.

The narrow strip of land on Cape Marseille offers ample mountain and woodland away from the road.

After Tywin got the information about the dragon's weakness, he secretly arranged a team of 700 Lannister soldiers to break up and disperse along the Wend River to Marseilles Point, bringing enough food to survive for many days from the deserted woodlands and grasslands to the outskirts of Stone Dance City. A group of logistics troops disguised as shepherds wandered in the grasslands outside Marseilles Point to provide them with supplies.

This army of 700 will secretly disperse in various terrains along the coast and in the wild to build high-altitude fortifications based on the advice of the Academy.

He had these Lannister soldiers disguised as Stormland soldiers, and had a group of death warriors sandwiched in between. When the high-altitude fortifications were built, another group of people would fly Stannis's king's banner to attack Stone Dance Castle of Stoneyon Castle - the original plan was to attack the Point, but Stoneyon Castle surrendered to Dragonstone Island, which led to the revision of this plan.

Their goal was to try and lure the dragons of Dragonstone into range of secret fortifications set up in the wild.

Are the so-called anti-aircraft defense and dispersed guerrilla warfare suggested by the Academy really useful?

Lord Tywin must confirm this.

The person in charge of this matter is Lord Tywin's younger brother Kevan. He should be exploring the battlefield now. The news he received in the letter is optimistic. The terrain of the protruding part of the Marseilles Peninsula is mostly rugged mountains. The mountains near Stoneyon Castle are rarely visited, with many uneven valleys and high points. Kevan dispersed these 700 people among the wild mountains, hiding in caves, and asked the craftsmen in the team to use local materials to quietly build anti-aircraft crossbows in hidden high points.

Once the time is right and enough giant high-altitude crossbows have been built, Kevan will order a group of assassins to attack Stone Dance City and try to lure the dragon from Dragonstone to attack.

Although Lord Tywin is in King's Landing now, his heart is already in the Twins and Stonedance. His face is still stern and serious, but his heart is not actually at peace.

The famous Duke of Lannister knew very well that his plans, whether in the direction of the Twins or Stonedance, were already ready.

(End of this chapter)