Okay, full disclosure, I'm not sure how realistic the battle plan that I used in this part of this fanfic is, or how well the battle is portrayed, but I'm pretty sure it's clear what happens so I think it'll be okay. Please bear with me lol.
Also, note for this entire AU: there is canon typical violence. I assume people know that, and the violence is the only part of this that makes me wonder if I should bump up the rating, and maybe I will, but not right now. Again, there is canon typical violence, I would like to emphasis, for the entire fic. You have been warned.
Some people have pointed out that it is unrealistic that so many parts of the canon TV show and books is coming into this AU, and I'll admit it totally is. It is very unrealistic. (And we see more of that in this chapter lol.) But I'm just writing this for fun and I enjoy it when parts that I enjoyed watching in the show come into this fanfic a little differently, and, again, I'm writing this for fun so I'm okay with the unrealisticness of it. Also, as someone pointed out, I have been kind of mean to Dany by not letting her hatch her dragons before this point, but Dany does some really cool stuff down the line so I hope to redeem her and flesh out her character in this AU more later.
I would also like to say that this is a Jon centric fanfiction, and he is the main character. If you don't like that, don't read it.
Additionally, this is going to be an extremely long fic, probably upwards of 200,000 words (I've written about 130,000 of them so far). A lot of the plot things I have planned are going to take a while to play out, and the arcs I have planned for the characters is going to take a while.
Finally, thank you to everyone who reviews, I appreciate your feedback so much. If you enjoyed this chapter and the fic (and especially if you didn't), please consider dropping review :)
CHAPTER 16: Small Hills; Large Mountains
Jon's dreams were fitful that night. He dreamed he was on the Wall and Jynessa's face swam before him, chanting something he'd never heard. It scared him and as he stared at her the background of the Wall faded and he was in Riverrun.
He saw himself as if from outside his own body. He was dressed as he had been when he died. Then, although no attackers were before his other self, he fell. And he died. And blood leaked through the fingers clutched over his heart and stomach.
Jon looked upon his face and the wounds that burned now… and felt ill.
Then, before his eyes, his dead self glimmered, shimmered for a moment… and then morphed into Bran… Bran as he had been when he fell from the Tower, broken on the ground of Winterfell but somehow the same age he was now. And his legs weren't just broken… now he was dead.
This time Jynessa was no where to be seen. Jon looked for her wildly, but the woman was gone. How could she have abandoned him? She at least, was devoted to him. She had sworn never to leave him.
"No!" Jon screamed and realized with a pang that this was a dream. He urged himself to wake up but that relief was denied him.
Bran twitched once, then twice. He sat up. Then he stood. He was facing away from Jon who stumbled backwards. When he turned to face him, moving as if in slow motion, it was no longer Bran.
"How do you let me die, brother?" asked a man who looked as Jon had imagined Aegon would look if he'd been allowed to grow up. He had white hair shaved close to his head in the fashion of the Dornish, and his skin was tan. His purple eyes glowed. Jon's heart skipped a beat painfully. "How? How could my father love your mother more than mine? How could he have loved you more than me? Did you know the Mountain raped my mother? He had already killed me, had shoved my head against a wall…"
As the man announced this in a terrible, familiar voice that was both Robb and Bran. His head caved in on itself in a single motion, like an overripe melon dropped from a height. Aegon stood unwavering though, as blood and brains ran down his body like rain.
"His hands looked like this," Aegon said and held up his own hands, thick with gore from his demolished head.
Aegon grinned with the unruined portion of his mouth, and his single eye gleamed. It was glazed over; Jon saw this with another missed beat of his heart. Glazed like that of the dead. Glazed as his own had been moments before. Jon shuddered. He couldn't tear his eyes away.
"And now you'll take my place? Now you'll sit our father's and my throne like it's yours? You stupid bastard, how dare you? Don't you understand?! Don't you understand?! I'm dead!" Aegon was screaming now, insane. "I'm dead! I'm dead, Jon! Dead, dead, DEAD!"
Aegon was writhing even as he stood and laughing as well.
Then, in the horrible fashion of dreams, Jon was in another place and another time. He looked around wildly, but Aegon was gone.
A blonde woman with a long braid in her hair dangling with bells rode on a white horse out of nowhere past him. Jon could feel the whoosh of wind as she went by. He stared as she went. Unexpectedly and seemingly for no reason she pulled her horse to a stop and trotted it back to him.
"Fire and blood," she said to him, her face impassive. She was evaluating him. Jon knew instinctually she was Daenerys Targaryen. With a start, he saw there was a man, barefoot and stumbling, attached to her horse.
"Fire and blood," she said again, this time in response to his horror. She smiled gently. The man had done something to her, Jon knew. Everything he needed to see was here, and he saw the scene clearly.
Daenerys turned and rode her horse from him then, the man running to keep up. He couldn't and fell. Overhead, three shadows crossed each other and when Jon looked up, he knew it was dragons not birds that looked so small so far above him. He wondered idly if they were seven hundred or eight hundred feet high up there.
"Fire and blood," Jon whispered, now alone as Daenerys and her horse became small figures in the distance. Jon kept his eyes on the man behind her as he stumbled and fell. It made his heart soar to know someone who had hurt her had been punished.
Even as Jon said this, and thought this, he could smell smoke. Smoke, and cooking meat. It was a good smell, some deep part of him thought.
He turned and was pleasantly startled to see a great fire burning just behind him. Knowing what to do without knowing why, Jon stepped toward it. It beckoned him. It was beautiful. Jon stared at it, transfixed. One step, and then another. There was something moving inside it, writhing in the flames… something alive… Jon stepped closer and strained to see…
He woke up, breathing heavily and his skin flushed. He was drenched in sweat. The dream was banished from his memory almost immediately, although Jon must have remembered some of it because he felt extraordinarily uneasy… and with the shameful feeling that he had done something wrong.
But none of that mattered. Jon knew why he'd woken so suddenly.
Ghost was at the castle gates. His friend had finally arrived.
Robb departed with his host for Winterfell a few days later. Jon took the field with the bulk of Robb's forces to meet Tywin in the field to the South.
"I'll see you soon, brother," Robb had said, grasping his arm.
"Aye. Good luck."
"You as well."
And then Robb was gone, and Jon was flanked by the captains of the army Robb had established for him. Howland Reed was to his right, and Ghost to his left. Around him was Lord Manderly and Lord Edmure.
Robb had mostly taken Riverland lords with him, knowing leaving them with Jon would be prickly, but Robb's uncle had been the least hostile to Jon, leaving Lord Edmure to fight with Jon was an obvious message: Jon was to be obeyed. By everyone.
"Let's ride out then, my lords," Jon said simply, nodding to them around him. Giving commands was unusual and odd feeling, but Jon forced himself not to acknowledge that. He needed, right now, to be Robb's heir more than anything else. He needed to be strong.
They rode hard that day.
"Timing is key," Robb had told him, again looming over the map. "And I suspect it will be close. Tywin is here, according to our scouts, so we can assume it will take him somewhere between a day's ride and two's to arrive at the hills. He doesn't have all of his army, at most seven thousand are with him. You have to meet him at these hill, Jon."
"I will. We'll be waiting for him," Jon had said, nodding. They'd been over this before.
"Right. If he gets there before you… well, you'll have to ride hard."
They rode hard.
By dusk they were at the hills.
"Keep the men off the road," Jon told Lord Manderly. "There's to be no trace we were here." Lord Manderly rode off to do as he was told, yelling at those that stood on the road, but Jon didn't look. He was looking in disbelief at the hills.
"Those are some small hills," said Lord Edmure, voicing all their thoughts.
"Yes. We'll have to change some things…" Jon was thinking hard. The old plan would no longer work, but it didn't seem to matter to Jon now. He felt cool and calm and knew that he was not entirely himself and was grateful for it. "I want the bowmen in the trees," he said finally. "All but twenty of them. Tell them to hide along the next mile and a half of roads. They'll wait for the command but when they have it, they're to rain hell down on Tywin's people. Scatter the horses if they can."
"What, just with arrows?" Lord Edmure said, sounding more skeptical than Jon would have liked him.
"No. Tell them they're to light the arrows before they shoot them. With any luck, the entire east section of the road and forest will catch. See all the dead grass? We'll flush them away from the cover of the forest and toward the hills."
Jon nodded to the hills. He didn't look to see any of the faces of the captains around him. He didn't need doubt now. No one said anything, which he took as acquiescence.
So he continued. "Then I want the main portion of our army below that rise over there," he nodded toward the hills again. A half a mile beyond the disappointing hills the ground seemed to drop away. It was a steep decline, and it would be easy enough to have lines of men crouch down to be hopefully unseen. "We'd been seen by scouts, so we'll have to kill any we see, and hope Tywin is bold enough to press onward. We have at least 12 hours on them, and if they stop for the night, which I bet they will, they could get here from noon tomorrow to dusk the day after. Let's hope its dusk. It'll be darker."
Howland spoke, reminding everyone he was there. "What if the fire doesn't flush them west but north, and they merely continue down the road?"
Jon had thought of that. "There was a river, Lord Reed, remember? Maybe a mile from here. Less even. We had to cross it over a wooden bridge to get here."
"I recall. It was heavily flooded and running hard."
"Have some men destroy that bridge. They're not to burn it, though. If we lose here, it'll put a serious cramp in Tywin's style when he wants to press to Riverrun. If we win, we have men here who know the lands better than Tywin and can find an alternative route back to Riverrun. Then I want a hundred foot soldiers posted between that bridge and us here. Closer to us than the bridge. They're to stay out of sight until battle has emerged here, and they're to kill any who would attempt to continue through the road, not knowing the bridge is destroyed. Tell them no one is to know the bridge is destroyed, and no one is to make it back to Lord Tywin. Make it two hundred."
"Why post men if the bridge is destroyed?" Lord Edmure sounded impressed, despite his skeptical question.
"The destroyed bridge is just one last way to thwart Tywin, and if word gets through that it's destroyed, he may abandon this road and battle and head back south to find another way. But if he thinks this is still a viable path, he won't abandon it. Especially since he'll never see all our men at once. We'll send them out in waves as needed, and maybe we can convince them that we have fewer men than we really do."
"What do you want with the twenty archers you held back?"
"I want them further up the road, hiding in the forest to support the two hundred men protecting the bridge. Tell them that they're only to shoot if the men appear overwhelmed, and then they're to set the way south on fire, behind Tywin's men, to discourage any more men from coming through the road. Then our men will have Tywin's between them and between fire." Jon turned impressively around and looked at the five thousand men they'd brought down below. Then he looked impassively at his captains. "Any questions?"
There were none and the captains were dismissed to do his bidding. Jon had wondered if the decline he had made his plans around was enough to hide all the soldiers but was soon informed it was.
By night that day, they were ready for Tywin.
Which was lucky because Jon had been wrong about one thing: Tywin hadn't stopped for the night. He'd pressed onwards.
The arrows reigned heavily, and it was enough to light the forest east of the road on fire, as Jon had planned.
Jon had left Manderly crouching with about half their forces with instructions to let them out in the specified waves when the battle seemed to need it, and to hold five hundred back in reserve until Jon commanded otherwise.
Once the Lannister army was close, violence had broken out readily.
It was a half an hour or so since the battle had begun, and Jon had lost his horse.
Well, he hadn't lost it. He had fought with the Mountain and Ser Gregor had cut down his horse. Jon had reeled away and barely managed to avoid Gregor, who was mounted and could have killed him with a glancing blow. Reluctantly, Jon spun away into the crowd, losing Ser Gregor.
Since seeing him, Jon had made it his mission to find him again, and this time to win.
Jon waded through the thick violence around him of people mostly on foot, brandishing his sword, and yanked a man in Lannister red and gold from a horse roughly. He threw him behind him and took the horse.
He'd finally caught sight of Gregor and refused to lose him again.
Fury pounded heavy in his blood, in his veins. The roar of the battlefield fell away sharply, and Jon's vision was red. Again, Jon felt that he was not quite as he had been that morning and was immensely grateful for the subtle shift in himself.
He could only see Gregor.
The man was fighting, playing really, with a much smaller man, who was tripping and falling in the mud. Smoke billowed around them, and the man coughed hard. Gregor seemed unfazed and prepared to kill the man who'd never been any real threat to him—
"Gregor!" Jon roared and the Mountain turned to see him. Gregor had been fighting with Ser Garret, Jon saw as he approached, a very minor riverlord Lord Edmure had brought. As Gregor turned to see Jon, Garret jumped forward, hoping to press an advantage. He'd been aiming for a joint in Gregor's armor at his shoulder but had missed and his sword glanced off harmlessly. The Mountain turned carelessly to deliver a brutal blow with his great sword and Jon watched as Ser Garret's throat came open and blood exploded from him. He fell, and the Mountain turned again to look at Jon.
Jon pulled up his horse to stare at the Mountain, unhorsed.
"I'm Jon Snow," said Jon Snow, and then the fight began.
The Mountain was so large Jon chose to take swings at him while riding his horse past Gregor and turning his horse and repeating. It was a bit like jousting, except the Mountain was stationary. He barely turned to meet Jon each time, but not for exhaustion. There was a smile on his face, and it was clear he regarded Jon as slightly more amusing than Ser Garret and not any more of a threat.
They went on like this for a while. Gregor finally bothered to raise his sword (Jon would make him rue his hubris) and Jon took a cut along his sword arm. But Jon had cut Gregor's face and shoulder, where Ser Garret had been aiming.
The fire was bearing down on them now. Sweat trickled down Jon's face and he squinted to see through the heavy, billowing smoke. Taking up a new tactic, he rode his horse at Gregor with Longclaw ready to spear him. With no other choice and taken aback at the change of tactic, Gregor stumbled back into the fires. He leapt back immediately and narrowed his eyes at Jon.
"You murdered Aegon Targaryen! You raped and killed Elia Martel!" Jon yelled, bearing down on him again.
He must have surprised Gregor because the huge man hadn't raised his sword that time. Jon cut him shallowly from the edge of his shoulder's armor to the base of his throat. Gregor raised a hand to his neck and when it came away with blood he stared for a moment. Then his face darkened with a serious anger that he had lacked thus far.
Jon smirked and wheeled his horse around to look at Gregor. He trotted a few steps forward and yelled gruffly, "Confess! You murdered Aegon! You raped and killed Elia Martel!"
Gregor's only answer was to raise his sword. Jon gave the horse his heels and stood up, crouching over the horse, Longclaw ready. The Mountain tried the same tactic as before and killed Jon's horse underneath him. Jon was ready, though, and sprung off the horse as it screamed and thrashed. He was on his feet again as it hit the ground dead, and Jon felt the heat of its blood on his back and as it trickled down his neck.
Their swords met. Gregor loomed over him by at least a foot and so Jon was forced to move quickly, something he was unaccustomed to doing in a fight. Normally, Jon was the stronger in any fight he was in but crossing swords with Ser Gregor was like a mouse against a dog.
Ser Gregor might have been a dog, but Jon wasn't a mouse; he was a dragon.
"Confess!" He was driven back but Jon kicked harshly at Gregor and parried the attack. He made a move to stab him through the neck, but Gregor blocked the move. "You murdered Aegon! You raped and killed Elia Martel! Confess!"
Jon drove him back. They were near the fire now and sweat poured down both of their faces. Again and again their swords clashed. Jon could no longer avoid, the moment he was engineering was drawing nearer and nearer.
"Who are you?" Gregor grunted to him as they both pushed hard on their locked swords. Their faces were inches apart now. Jon had told him his name earlier, but the man seemed to have forgotten. It made no matter, that name felt wrong here and now anyway.
"I'm Jaeherys of House Targaryen, son of Rhaegar and Lyanna. Prepare to die, Ser."
Something had changed at Jon's declaration, but he wasn't sure if it was within himself or Gregor. The Mountain's footing was unstable despite Jon being downhill, and now when Jon pushed hard there was give. Jon pushed slowly forward, every foot and step contested. Gregor stumbled backwards a few times.
Jon pushed hard; he came at Gregor from differing angles, jumping around the much larger brute of a man. The tide of the battle changed when a strap of Gregor's breastplate was struck by the flat of Jon's sword. Gregor stumbled a short retreat and Jon let him.
Fury was upon Ser Gregor now. With a roar, he tore away his sagging, half secured breastplate and charged Jon.
Jon danced away, staring at his opponent's unprotected chest.
They met swords a moment later, and Jon was forced to pull away. They danced, close then back away. Close, then away.
When they were close enough, Jon waited until Gregor reared backwards to deliver what might have been a mighty death blow to Jon, before Jon kicked a foot forward. He caught Gregor in the lower chest and Jon kicked as hard as he could.
Comically the Mountain's arms flew outward as he was toppled.
Jon's sword was a flash of reflected firelight when he swung the valerian steel blade. For a moment they both watched as it arched and then fell… and slashed Gregor's chest open.
"I am the last dragon, Ser, and you should fear me," Jon said into the sudden silence as Gregor pulled away and looked down at his own blood. Jon wondered if it was the first time he'd seen it in a battle.
The Mountain the Rode dropped his sword and was knocked to the ground. He pushed back to his feet… but was only able to get to his knees.
And on his knees he stayed.
For a long moment, both just looked at each other.
"Confess," Jon commanded, his voice cold and certain where it had been furious a second before. He was still enraged, but it was cold fire that burned in him now. "You murdered Aegon Targaryen. You raped and killed his mother, Elia Martel! Confess, Gregor."
"Yes," said Gregor after a long silence. His voice was deeper than Jon had expected, and his eyes glittered in his skull with fire light as he looked at Jon. "I killed Aegon. I burst his head like a grape. I raped his mother and took her heads in my hand and squished her, LIKE THIS!"
Gregor exploded to Jon.
His hand caught Jon around the throat, and he tacked Jon to the ground. But Jon had been prepared for an attack, and Longclaw had not been knocked from his hand as Gregor had doubtlessly hoped. Gregor was above him now, his hands in Jon's hair as he began to apply pressure—
They were close, but not too close. Jon raised Longclaw and in a single arching cut took Gregor's head from his shoulders.
The body collapsed onto Jon, spewing blood. The head rolled next to his own. His hands and chest and head were drenched and Jon, despite himself, felt bile rising in his throat and the stench and feel of it. He pushed it down and pushed Gregor off him. Then he stood and stumbled away.
He felt, more than anything, a victorious fire within him. It was better than any feeling he'd ever felt before.
Jon fell to his knees then and breathed hard. The head of the Mountain rolled, still, before coming to a stop. His eyes were wide in his skull, and Jon stared into them.
He looked around. The battle was winding down and coming to an end.
Dead men with red cloaks were all around him. An audience of men tired of fighting on both sides had been drawn to see the Mountain die, and Jon knew rumors of the battle would fly up and be around their army before the sun had risen. Most of them had been there from the beginning of their fight, and most stared at his bloodied form in either awe or horror.
He wondered if they had heard him shout his name to Ser Gregor, and when those rumors would begin in earnest. It made no difference to him, but he thought the roar of the battle would have been to much to be heard.
Jon paid those watching little mind. Jon strongly suspected, unless he was very much mistaken, that it was Ser Kevan Lannister was on the field just a few hundred feet away. He was watching Jon, but as Jon watched two of his men hurried to attack Ser Kevan now that the Mountain's fight was over and he was dead.
Jon was laughing slightly as he took Gregor's sword, its sheath and his head (he had no hair, so Jon grabbed it by his ear) and wrapped his grisly prizes in Gregor's cloak and slung it over his shoulder. He needed the Mountain to come with him.
"Fire and blood, Gregor," Jon whispered to the head. The victorious feeling only strengthened and grew, like a fire being fed.
Kevan was fighting those two men at once and as Jon watched, he slew one and took the left arm off the other. Jon approached.
"Do you command here?" Jon called. In one hand was the bloodied cloak and in the other Longclaw.
"Yes," Ser Kevan yelled back, brandishing his golden sword. "Who commands for Robb Stark? He's not here, I've noticed."
"I do."
"And who are you?"
"You can call me Jon," said Jon. It had been personal between the Targaryens and Gregor Clegane… but he wasn't Jaeherys Targaryen to anyone else, not even Aemon. At least not yet. He was Jon Snow.
Ser Kevan recognized the name. "The Bastard of Winterfell?"
"Yeah." A tinge of irony made Jon smile. "That's me."
Ser Kevan snorted derisively. "I see Robb Stark's gotten desperate since-"
Jon started the fight.
