Author's Note: Hello again, told you I was excited. Thank you all for the follows and favorites, I'm glad I'm not crazy and that others seem to be interested in this as well.
Sadly, a site glitch isn't letting me read any of the reviews that were left (or new ones on the Gold Stag) despite their clearly being some, a very frustrating development that has me ready to throw hands. It should be fixed soon I'd think, as this isn't the first time this has happened, and I'm very excited to tear into those and the ones you hopefully leave on this chapter once it is. I'm telling myself they are all talking about how happy they are to see this.
No idea if that is true, but it's what I'm telling myself ;)
I hope you enjoy, please remember to drop a review. I'd love to hear your thoughts! Y'know, once the site let's me.
Chapter 2
Original Word Count: 1517
Revision Word Count: 2504
He had been born and raised in King's Landing, but Duskendale was his city.
Aelor had first laid eyes on it five years past, riding with the great host assembled by Tywin Lannister to rescue his father, imprisoned there after attempting to treat with Lord Denys Darklyn. She was built on the shores of the Narrow Sea, the castle itself—the Dun Fort—overlooking the port the Darklyns of old had built in the natural harbor. It was a squat castle, it's thick stone walls a near perfect square dotted on the corners with large drum towers. While no match in elegance to the Red Keep of his youth, it was a comfortable, defensible keep. Aelor loved it.
The city was walled as well, a strong curtain of stone that connected with those of the Dun Fort to the north and south and shimmered palely in the light of predawn. Innkeepers, carpenters, tradesmen and the like made their homes and sold their wares behind their protection, and the road from the harbor to the Shadow Gate, the only point of entry to the city proper from the docks, was heavily traveled at all hours. The captain of that gate house, traditionally titled the Shadowkeeper, kept the peace on the docks while the City Watch patrolled the streets and alleys regularly.
Though Aelor liked to think he had always been a somewhat grounded lad, it would have been a lie to say he hadn't envisioned himself storming those walls with fire and blood and rescuing the king when he first lay eyes on them. He'd been a young man and unbloodied, and a self-admitted fool.
Lord Tywin had instead settled into a siege that lasted half a year, the Hand of the King unwilling to assault the city and risk Lord Denys executing King Aerys. Negotiations, doomed from the start, had taken that amount of time to fully die, and the assault young Aelor had been envisioning had gone as far as to be planned. Instead of being carried out, though, Ser Barristan the Bold had conducted a rescue the night before, scaling both sets of walls and saving the king despite taking an arrow wound in the effort. Lord Denys had surrendered soon after, and died not long after that.
Aelor had gone to sleep envisioning the assault the next morning and woken to his father's angry curses outside. He'd also gone to sleep the night before landless, and by the end of the next day was a high lord of the Crownlands.
I was relieved then, even if father was never sane. That half a year broke him, though. Considering what he became since…there are days I wish we had just attacked immediately and called his death a tragedy.
The Prince shook his head to clear it, letting a small smile cross his lips as the smell of the sea as it blew across the Rosby Road beneath him. It was the same sea and the same winds that blew that supposedly same scent to the Red Keep, but here…here it was different.
"Manfred wasted no time." Ren, riding with Aelor and Barristan at the head of the prince's retinue and the growing herd of levies they had begun raising in the villages since entering his lands, gestured to the sandy beach south of the docks. There, in long and uneven lines, men trained with staff and shield. From the clumsy stances and general disarray, visible even from this distance, they were clearly peasant levies raised from the streets of Duskendale.
Aelor nodded, pleased. "He never does." He reined his palfrey, a fine animal he'd won at the tourney in Rosby a year past, to a stop. "Ser Willis, Ser Alester!"
Ser Willis Lyberr, a stocky man in his forties from a knightly house in Tumbleton who had made the Targaryen's acquaintance in the training yards around the siege, quickly galloped to his prince's side. He had joined Aelor's retinue the moment it had been formed, that red evening in this very city where so many had lost their lives and the prince had gained a lordship. Ser Alester Turnbuckle, a towering former hedge knight and lifelong friend to Willis, as well as another founding member of Aelor's retinue, rode alongside. "Take these levies down to the join the others. Give Ser Manfred my thanks for his quick reaction to my raven."
Both moved to obey, Ser Willas laughing as he turned his horse. "Yes, Your Grace. I'll ignore the curses he slings at me, shall I?" As if on cue, the wind carried in the distant booming of a fierce voice from the beach.
The Prince chuckled as he spurred the palfrey forward again, Renfred and Barristan joining with the handful of remaining knights of his retinue. He'd sent many of the others off in pairs or groups to raise levies deeper in his domain; Balman and Morgan Byrch to Black Swan by way of Shoaks, Gullien Elwood and Talbert Too-Tall to Redwood by way of Tilth, and a dozen other men to a score of smaller villages and towns.
They rode on until the point where the Rosby Road and Duskendale Road forked, once again reining to a stop. Renfred sidled his horse alongside Aelor's, extending his arm to clasp wrists with the waiting Prince Aelor. "I'll raise my men at Hollard Hall and return as quick as I can, Your Grace."
Aelor nodded, then lowered his head to peer at his friend knowingly, not releasing his grip on the other man's wrist. "This will not be a quick war, Ren. Shall I order Lord Buckwell to bring Malessa with his host? They will understand moving the marriage forward." The dragonlord laughed inwardly at the blush that immediately overtook his companion at the mere mention of his betrothed. "You will have the full hospitality of both the Dun Fort and Duskendale for your wedding. You need only say the word."
Rykker, who feared no man in Westeros or Essos, squirmed uncomfortably at the thought of marriage. "Aelor, there's no need to—"
Aelor cut him off, voice unyielding though he did release his grip. "We both may die, old friend. You are the first Lord Rykker, and your only family member is a sworn Brother of the Night's Watch. If you die heirless, Hollard Hall reverts to me. I've already granted it to one friend for him to keep; I don't want to have to grant it to another."
As it always did when he got flustered, Renfred's face darkened. "There is no guarantee that the bedding would result in a child, Aelor."
Aelor laughed. "No, there is not. It's worth the attempt though." His smile dimmed somewhat. "If we are to die for my family's follies, at least allow yourself some pleasure before we do."
Ren hesitated a moment longer, indecision fighting a losing battle across his features, before he finally sighed and bobbed his head. "Alright. I have put marriage off long enough, I suppose." He cleared his throat and bowed formally from the saddle. "I accept your offer, Your Grace. I shall ask Lord Buckwell."
Aelor grinned again, shaking his head. "No no, I will ask Lord Buckwell." Both laughed and then, business concluded, turned their separate ways. Aelor called over his shoulder a moment later. "Strong shield."
Riding the opposite direction, Renfred completed the phrase. "Stronger sword." As the two spoke the greeting and farewell they had used since they were lads of five, Ren's own retinue in the white and blue of House Rykker peeled off the formation to follow their lord.
The Dragon of Duskendale nodded a greeting to the sergeant of the guard, he and his complement of five in the hauberk and half helm of the City Watch bowing as the prince rode under the portcullis and into the city. Barristan rode off Aelor's right stirrup as the smallfolk of the city melted to the sides of the street to allow his passing. "You're certain it will come to war, then."
"I wouldn't call the banners if I wasn't, Barristan." He turned to look at his mentor. "If I were Eddard Stark, I would do the same."
The knight of the Kingsguard was habitually scanning the crowd around them, keeping his grey gelding even with the prince's own palfrey, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword. "I know well that his father and brother were hotspurs, but Eddard struck me as a shy lad at Harrenhal."
Aelor nodded even though Barristan wasn't looking at him, turning his attention back to the cobblestones ahead. "He is, or at least he was. Seemed to be an honorable man. But I knew Brandon better, and even that was not a friendship." The Targaryen smiled and waved at the excited greeting of a small boy from a side alley. Denys Darklyn was well liked in this city even half a decade after his death—most of the Duskendale smallfolk blamed the whole incident on the man's foreign wife, Serala of Myr. Though the smallfolk were always respectful, likely from fear after witnessing the eradication of the Darklyns, Aelor had felt less than welcome at first, as if each of the peasants felt they were next on the block and he would be the one to send them there.
Aelor had been working to endear the populace to himself in the years since. In some cases it worked, as with the child feeling safe in calling out to him. In others it didn't, as with the boy's mother, who grabbed him by the arm and hurried him away, fear evident in her eyes when she glanced over her shoulder at the silver-haired man on horseback.
He didn't let the disappointment show, instead speaking to the man in the white cloak. "You have more experience at war than any man I know. What are your thoughts? And don't try to sweeten the sound of it for my father's sake or mine, Barristan. I want the truth from you always, however hard it may be to hear."
"The truth is that you're right, Your Grace. Stark has no choice. Baratheon has a choice, but we all know the one he'll make, just as the Eyrie will refuse to surrender either of the lads to your father. The lords of the Vale will follow Jon Arryn because he's Jon Arryn. The northerners will follow Eddard Stark because he is a Stark. The Stormlords are a more disagreeable lot, but most will follow Robert for his sheer force of personality."
Aelor gritted his teeth. "He gives them a claimant as well, through his grandmother Rhaelle." He cursed softly under his breath. "The Iron Islands won't budge I daresay."
"No, not quickly at any rate. Quellon Greyjoy is alright for an Ironborn, but mainland wars are rarely joined by the reavers. I'd wager the Reach will be loyalist though, Mace Tyrell being Mace Tyrell. So will Dorne, for the sake of Princess Elia."
"Even after Rhaegar's actions?"
Now Barristan did look at him. "Princess Elia is still in King's Landing, Your Grace."
Aelor rocked back in his saddle a moment. "You think my father…" He let his voice drift off, studying the pommel of his saddle intently for a moment before nodding. "Aye, you are right, he would. And I doubt I have even the slightest chance of convincing him to send her and the children away, be it to here or to Dragonstone." He cursed again, this time louder. "What a gods forsaken mess."
They rode a good while in silence, the Prince in his own thoughts. They were nearly to the portcullis of the Dun Fort before Aelor spoke again. "Will Lannister rebel? I can not say I would blame him anymore than I would Stark. Aerys openly insulted him for years."
Barristan the bold shook his head. "He can't, Your Grace. He may not side with us, true, but he won't side against. The King keeps Jaime close at hand."
The second son of Aerys groaned. "Using his own bodyguard as a hostage."
"It may well keep the might of Casterly Rock out of this war you are so certain of, Your Grace. While I hate it for Jaime, it does serve a purpose."
Anger was thick in the prince's voice. "The same purpose as dear Elia, and maybe even my niece and nephew. How did we let things get this bad, Barristan. How did I let things get this bad."
They were not questions, and Barristan did not answer.
They were dismounting in the courtyard, an army of grooms and retainers wearing the warring white dragons moving in on them, when he spoke again. "Hoster Tully?"
Aelor handed his reins to a groom, then made for the keep with Barristan at his side. Short and portly Maester Gorold, parchments in hand, appeared from the Steward's Tower and began towards them. Aelor waved his hand once and Gorold executed a perfect spin mid step, darting off in another direction, as used to the prince's intensity as Barristan was. "His daughter was betrothed to Brandon Stark, Your Grace."
Aelor thought back to a girl of ten with bright red hair and piercing blue eyes, remembering much shared laughter. "'Was' being the key word. Catelyn. She's a fair lady, and quick of mind. Do you suppose Hoster will ask for Eddard in his place?"
The Kingsguard paused a moment, then shrugged. "I couldn't say."
"If I offer myself as husband to either Catelyn or…what's the other one's name, the younger girl?"
"Lysa."
"Yes, Lysa. If I offer to marry one of the Tully daughters, it may keep the Riverlands loyal."
A hand on his shoulder stopped the Prince at once, who realized he had been mindlessly making his way towards the interior training yard, where he tended to do his best thinking. Barristan was looking at him though, concern evident on his face. "Your father would be furious if you were to wed of your own choosing, Your Grace."
He snorted. "It wouldn't be of my choosing, Barristan. I remember her fondly, but I have no love of Catelyn and no memory of Lysa. But this is an opportunity I cannot let slip by." He began moving again. "Besides, my father will be furious no matter what I do. He hasn't chosen a bride for me these last twenty years; if my marrying now without his leave infuriates him, so be it. At least this way I might be able to save the rest of the family before the king burns me alive as well."
A note of amusement entered the knight's voice. "Fire cannot kill a dragon, Your Grace."
Aelor smiled at that, remembering saying those same words to the man in white many times when reprimanded for activities that may have led to injury. "No. But steel most certainly can. It's the steel I'm wary of, Ser Barristan; dragon or no, steel will kill you just the same."
