Chapter 676

Garlan ultimately chose to dispatch troops to report to the command headquarters while he himself led the cavalry in a distant harassment maneuver. It was a wise and correct decision—if he launched a direct assault, he would be charging into a defensive phalanx, pikes braced, shotguns loaded, and every measure prepared to counter cavalry. Yet if he simply withdrew, the Western Expedition would no longer be pressured on the flank and could resume a conventional march, accelerating toward Highgarden at three to four times their current speed. They would once again use artillery to scatter the enemy’s main infantry force, leaving no opening for the cavalry to exploit.

...

As Aegor cautiously and slowly executed the first rolling maneuver, his nerves remained taut—this was the first time the "Aegor-style rolling advance" was being tested in actual combat. No matter how thoroughly it had been theorized and drilled, reality would always present problems that no amount of armchair strategizing could foresee. It could be said that the moment the trapezoidal formation first contracted into a triangular one was the single most vulnerable instant for the entire Western Expedition today. If the enemy's cavalry commander were decisive enough, choosing to launch a charge at the precise moment of the first transformation…

"Order all units to gather every enemy banner left behind, poles and all. Clean them up and carry them with the army for later use!"

With improved coordination between formations, the second rolling maneuver was completed nearly thirty percent faster than the first. By the time it was halfway done, the sun was already high in the sky, and Aegor stood on the very ground where, just that morning, the Reach's vanguard had confronted him.

Now, only one outcome remained.

Had the Reachmen launched an immediate and reckless charge, they might have stood a chance. But they didn’t dare.
Instead, they chose caution.

...

A slow and methodical retreat, fortifying each step, might have forced the Western Expedition to exhaust its supplies. But time and morale did not support such a strategy.

Given the nature of that Night’s Watch bastard, once he realized this maneuver worked, he would stubbornly grind his way toward the home where he was born and raised—Highgarden. Any mistake, any opening Garlan had hoped for, might never come.

Imagine it: a hundred thousand men, painstakingly mustered and barely holding onto their morale, finally arriving at the battlefield—only to find themselves being pushed back by an enemy force far smaller than their own. Even if that retreat was measured, even if each step back was incremental, it would be a devastating blow to their morale.

Even without pressure from the Reach's infantry, the situation was already precarious.

The four formation shifts of the first rolling maneuver had taken over an hour. Now, as the second was completed and all its minor issues had been addressed, Aegor finally allowed himself to relax.

The Reachmen’s retreat looked hasty, but at least they weren’t so desperate as to abandon their wounded to die on the battlefield. Scattered among the broken shields, discarded weapons, corpses, and bloodstained fields were countless banners—tokens of false bravado meant to inflate their apparent strength. Normally, a standard-bearer had the discipline to keep his flag intact even during a retreat, unless the entire army suffered catastrophic collapse. But this time, in their eagerness to feign a rout and lure the enemy in, the Reach had drafted untrained farmhands to wave banners and shout. These men had none of a proper flag-bearer’s discipline—when the retreat was ordered, they flung down their flags and fled faster than anyone else.

Garlan Tyrell had not been chosen as cavalry commander simply because "Brave" was part of his nickname, nor for his riding skills or leadership. His father had recommended him because he was never one to let emotions dictate his actions, nor to make rash decisions. And right now, the situation was crystal clear: without support, charging well-formed elite infantry with cavalry was near-suicidal. His priority was not to engage in battle but to report everything he had witnessed to his father, the commander of the main infantry, and to King Aegon. It was up to the seasoned veterans in the command tent to devise a way to deal with Aegor.

Yet in choosing caution, they had walked right into Aegor’s trap.

They had become the frog in his slowly boiling pot.

The spoils of war included armor, weapons, and even a small amount of gold and silver—personal possessions of the fallen soldiers. But there was none of what the Western Expedition needed most at this moment: food. Aegor sighed as he looked over the battlefield, still littered with fragments of discarded banners. Then, suddenly, inspiration struck.

Garlan Tyrell stood frozen, peering through his looking glass, watching as the Queen’s army stretched and contracted like a coiled spring, shifting through bizarre formations. Only after an entire maneuver had been completed did he finally awaken from his daze, feeling a cold sweat creep down his back. He had just witnessed the flawless execution of a new kind of advance—one without weaknesses. Artillery dispersed the enemy’s front line, rolling advances alternated in sequence, leaving no openings for cavalry. Slow, methodical, but utterly relentless, it pressed ever forward toward its strategic goal.

A mere few hundred casualties might be concealed or downplayed, but the constant retreat of their battle lines? That was something no soldier could ignore.

Aegor was betting on that inevitability.

With every passing second, the enemy’s psychological burden grew heavier. Sooner or later, before the Western Expedition even ran out of supplies, the enemy would break—unable to endure the pressure, they would force an engagement. And when that happened, their morale would already be shattered, their timing imperfect. Their numerical advantage would count for nothing.

The purpose of war was victory, and victory was achieved through a series of strategic objectives. Against an enemy as vast as the Reach, simply "annihilating their army" was the most exhausting and least efficient way to win. Confronted with a foe too large to consume in one bite, Aegor had chosen the slow, grinding path—first shattering their morale, then whittling them down, and only striking the final blow once they were sufficiently weakened.

He loosened his grip on the reins and turned his head, shouting, “Messenger!”

Garlan clenched his fists for a long moment before finally regaining control over the boiling blood in his veins.

His instincts told him there was no opening for an attack. Yet, at this very moment, nearly twenty thousand cavalry stood at his command. If he counted the horses, the total number of bodies under his control outnumbered even the Queen’s army and their own infantry combined. Such overwhelming force was enough to tempt any commander into throwing caution to the wind and charging headlong into battle, just to see what might happen.

But that was exactly what Aegor wanted.

Now, all that remained was to repeat, and repeat again—conducting these maneuvers right under the enemy’s nose, whittling away at their willpower inch by inch. They would cut the Reach’s defenses apart like slicing a sausage, creeping ever closer to the walls of Highgarden.

In just over an hour, Aegor’s Western Expedition had completed a qualitative leap forward. They had become the first army in the known world to successfully execute an Aegor-style rolling advance in real combat.

Like learning to swim, to ride a horse, or even to endure a foot massage—once you did it the first time, the fear was gone. The second time, you could do it with confidence.

And the simplest truth of all was this: though the battle itself was grueling, though the maneuver was tedious and exhausting, Aegor was advancing toward his strategic goal.

And the Reach?

They were being pushed back.