A Clash of Kings — Theon V

Ser Rodrik's gathered northmen stand before Winterfell's gates; Reek rides out promising two hundred fresh swords — and brings back Bolton's.

The chapter retold

At Winterfell, Ser Rodrik’s gathered northmen finally arrive at the castle’s gates to retake it, and Theon — increasingly desperate and outnumbered — sends Reek out under a promise of reinforcement, two hundred fresh swords supposedly coming to relieve the siege. What Reek actually brings back is Roose Bolton’s men, arriving not to save Theon but to take Winterfell for their own lord under cover of rescue.

The chapter is a slow-building betrayal dressed as salvation, and the horror of it lands harder for how avoidable it looks in hindsight — Theon, already isolated and out of good options, trusts precisely the wrong promise at precisely the wrong moment. Whatever fragile authority he still held over Winterfell is about to be stripped from him by the very reinforcements he thought would save it.

This movement: The Battle of the Blackwater

• The bay goes up in green fire; Stannis's fleet burns between a chain and a trap.
• Tyrion leads the sortie when Joffrey is pulled from the walls — and a Kingsguard's sword opens his face to the bone.
• Sansa keeps the highborn women singing while Cersei drinks and plans their deaths.
• Tywin and the knights of Highgarden take Stannis in the flank; ghost-Renly's shadow rides in the vanguard of gossip.