A Game of Thrones ÔÇö Catelyn X

In the Whispering Wood Robb springs his trap on Jaime Lannister; the Kingslayer is taken, and the price is paid in Karstark sons.

The chapter retold

While Tywin's attention stays fixed on the Green Fork, Robb Stark springs the real trap in the Whispering Wood, catching Jaime Lannister's separate host completely unprepared in the dark. The fighting is brutal and close ÔÇö Torrhen and Eddard Karstark, sons of one of the North's oldest houses, both die in the chaos of it, and Daryn Hornwood falls defending the Young Wolf directly ÔÇö but when the wood falls silent, it is Jaime Lannister himself who has been taken alive, the single most valuable prisoner either side could hope to capture in this entire war.

The victory is total and, for Robb, ruinously expensive in the coin that matters most in the North: not gold, but the sons of loyal houses, and Lord Karstark's grief over his two dead boys plants a resentment toward Robb's command that the book will not let go unpunished later. Still, taking Jaime alive rather than dead is, by any strategic measure, the single greatest prize the war has yet produced ÔÇö Tywin Lannister's most beloved son, in a cage, worth more as a hostage than his death would ever have been worth as vengeance.

What the chapter proves, in the space of one night engagement, is that Catelyn's gamble at Moat Cailin has paid off spectacularly ÔÇö the 'one throw of the dice' she taught her son to make lands exactly where it needed to, converting a boy commander that half his own bannermen doubted into the architect of the most consequential single capture of the entire conflict. It is also, quietly, the high-water mark of Robb's war: everything that follows will be measured, by his own lords and by history, against what he managed to pull off here in the dark.

This movement: The Green Fork and the Whispering Wood

• Tywin's van tramples Tyrion's hill tribes on the Green Fork ÔÇö a battle Robb never meant to win.
• The real blow lands in the Whispering Wood: Jaime Lannister taken, his host shattered under Riverrun's walls.
• Ned trades a false confession for his daughters' safety; Joffrey trades Ned's head for eternity's contempt.
• Khal Drogo takes a wound in Lhazar; Mirri Maz Duur's blood magic costs Dany her son and her sun-and-stars.

The fallen ÔÇö spoilers

• Torrhen Karstark ÔÇö Died at the Kingslayer's hand in the Whispering Wood.
• Eddard Karstark ÔÇö Fell beside his brother, sword in hand.
• Daryn Hornwood ÔÇö Died defending the Young Wolf.