I'm currently reading A Game of Thrones for the first time and I have gotten to the point where Robb is explaining his plan at Moat Cailin. This is a highly geeky question, so I apologize in advance!
The problem is that I can't make sense of what Robb claims the Lannisters have been up to (p582). According to him:
“Less than a fortnight past, they fought a battle in the hills below the Golden Tooth,” Robb said.
“Uncle Edmure had sent Lord Vance and Lord Piper to hold the pass, but the Kingslayer descended on them and put them to flight. Lord Vance was slain. The last word we had was that Lord Piper was falling back to join your brother and his other bannermen at Riverrun, with Jaime Lannister on his heels. That’s not the worst of it, though. All the time they were battling in the pass, Lord Tywin was bringing a second Lannister army around from the south. It’s said to be even larger than Jaime’s host.
“Father must have known that, because he sent out some men to oppose them, under the king’s own banner. He gave the command to some southron lordling, Lord Erik or Derik or something like that, but Ser Raymun Darry rode with him, and the letter said there were other knights as well, and a force of Father’s own guardsmen. Only it was a trap. Lord Derik had no sooner crossed the Red Fork than the Lannisters fell upon him, the king’s banner be damned, and Gregor Clegane took them in the rear as they tried to pull back cross the Mummer’s Ford. This Lord Derik and a few others may have escaped, no one is certain, but Ser Raymun was killed, and most of our men from Winterfell. Lord Tywin has closed off the kingsroad, it’s said, and now he’s marching north toward Harrenhal, burning as he goes.”
I can't make any sense of where these armies are supposed to be coming from, or where are they going?
Jaime apparently marched out of Casterly Rock, taking Vance and Piper on at Golden Tooth and forcing them to retreat towards Riverrun. That makes sense.
But how did the men Eddard sent from King's Landing (Lord Beric and company) to take on Tywin's army, get to the Red Fork before they were attacked? And how did Tywin's force then start heading "north" toward Harrenhal, when they were already north of it (at the Ruby Ford)?
Can anyone explain? I've probably misunderstood something. Thanks!
Answer
I think you have mixed the armies up. Lord Beric Dondarrion was not sent to oppose the Lannister forces, he was sent out to deal with Gregor Clegane, who was assumed to be acting on Lord Tywin's orders, though in truth no one had any proof of that. Ned Stark saw this as an attempt by Tywin to goad the Riverlords into starting the war, by taking their revenge on the westerners. I do not believe that Tywin and Gregor Clegane ever fought together, and that Dondarrion's party was ambushed by Clegane and some other force of Lannister men.
I believe Tywin made his way around south, like the first quote says, to close the Kingsroad north of King's Landing, and nothing else (at this point). It was, I believe, his intention to allow Clegane to roam free and not be directly associated with his atrocities.
So in essence: The armies are all coming from the West, Lord Tywin's and his bannermen's domains, and they are going out into the Riverlands, Tywin from the south and Jaime from the west. Clegane and Ser Amory Lorch were already there, killing and burning. Later on it is mentioned that Ser Stafford Lannister, an uncle of Jaime's, is killed with a new host of recruits at the battle of Oxcross, an army coming also from the westerlands going to the riverlands.
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