Acorn Hall

[Tytos]

A great oaken keep sits upon a rise, with a strong stone curtain wall circling the crown of the hill.

[Tytos]

Lord Vance and his contingency arrives, and Tristifer asks for an audience with Lord Smallwood.

[Horas]

Lord Vance is led to Lord Smallwood's audience chamber by hard-eyed guards, but they do not ask him to surrender his weapon.

Lord Yoren Smallwood is an old man with skin like leather and a head as hairless as a boiled egg. His mouth is fixed in a grim line.

"Lord Tristifer," Yoren coughs, "Good of you to visit."

[Tytos]

Tristifer nods silently, looking around at the chamber. After a moment he begins to speak.

"Thank you for having me, Lord Vance. Forgive me for being frank with you, but with times like these there isn't much time to dawdle. Cedric Lannister and his army sit at Riverrun, eating themselves plump off our late Lord Paramount's stores. I would like to depose of Cedric and run them from our lands." Tristifer stated, looking at Yoren.

"To do so, we need to unite against him. Time and time again the Riverlands has been ravaged, and it is about time that is stopped. But I require the support of my fellow Lords, you included, to retake Riverrun." Tristifer said firmly.

[Horas]

Lord Smallwood spits into the rushes. "I like to think that the Stranger has a special place in Hell reserved for Cedric Lannister. He can sit on the coals right next to my worthless son." He shakes his head. "But with our army smashed and Darry turning his cloak, we don't have the men to take a castle of any size, much less Riverrun."

[Tytos]

Tristifer shook his head, "I do not wish to take it by force. I am confident that if we gather a large enough force, we can persuade Cedric to return to the Westerlands. The man is not brave, he will not oppose us if we stand a threat to him. If he refuses to leave Riverrun... Perhaps we can start raiding the Westerlands until he reconsiders." Tristifer stated simply.

[Horas]

Yoren Smallwood squints at his liegelord. "Have you gone daft, boy? You cannot convince the lion to return to his den. And if you try to make him with the men you have now, he will maul you."

[Tytos]

"Cedric is a hyena with a lion's coat. He would not dare to make battle with the Riverlands, should we unite. There are still 15,000 men yet to be called, a greater force than his. If I can convince Lord Stark to join his force with ours, we will vastly outnumber Cedric, and he would not dare stay at Riverrun." Tristifer stated firmly, clearly a strong believer in a positive outcome.

[Horas]

"Bah," Smallwood says, "Stark is as bad as the rest of these jackals. Oh, he might fight Lannister, but after that? You think he will let us go back to ruling ourselves? 'King' Stark just wants more men he can force to kneel before him, the same as Lannister."

[Tytos]

"Then our current course of action remains to same as it originally was. Band together with our other lords against them, we cannot stand a chance against either of them if we stay huddled in our castles. We need to stand up and call the other Lords to us, to end this farce of staying separated, just to be picked off one by one, as history has dictated to us in every major war we have been involved in in the past century."

[Horas]

"Aye," Old Lord Smallwood says. "What happened to that army that sent my fool of a boy running? With the Valemen on our side, we'll be strong enough to stand up."

[Tytos]

"The Vale army has marched south to the Blackwater, I suppose to be in position to strike King's Landing if need be. If this Trial by Seven works out, we will likely have their support. But if the Trial by Seven turns against us..." Tristifer stated grimly, "then we will be alone. In the mean time I will try to garner what support I can, but our best option is uniting the Riverlands as best possible." Tristifer said, reaffirming the goal.

[Horas]

"Then we had best fucking win," Smallwood snarls. "Though it seems to me our 'allies' have already forgotten about us. Mayhaps someone should go remind them that it was our blood that was shed fighting the tyrant."

[Tytos]

Tristifer nodded, "Aye, you are right. It was the Riverlands that fought Rodrick and shed our blood, for a cause that was not even originally ours. I will send a trustworthy man to represent us in King's Landing should the Trial by Seven be won. We will have a willful representative to ensure we are not forgotten when the spoils are to be had." Tristifer grew silent for a moment, before changing the subject.

"How many men can you muster, Lord Smallwood? And what of Lord Piper, has he raised men?"

[Horas]

"I sent my men once before, when Tully first called. I have another five hundred, mayhaps, if I arm every old man and boy." He frowns. "I can't speak for Piper, but he sent more men for Rodrick than the other way around."