MUD GATE – BLACKWATER RUSH

Queen Daenerys exited the forest first, striding her white mare over the waxy, mud-soaked grass of the floodplain which flanked the murky river. More of a gushing canal than a majestic river, the Blackwater Rush was bound by artificial walls along the entire Northern bank, right past the edge of the city. The South bank, where Daenerys and her army amassed, tapered toward the water in a natural slant that was spongy and quickly trod to shit by her army – all of which came to heel.

She turned her horse.

The crumbling, rose coloured walls of King's Landing lifted behind her. Muted by smoke rising with the early morning light, it loomed like a great storm all monstrous and wicked. To her left, the sun had half lifted out of the Eastern water. She could see her armada choking the Blackwater and Daario's pirate fleet already blocking the mouth of the harbour, trapping the Crown's forces and rendering them mute.

Her dragons were last to arrive. All three of them swooped in from the ocean, dripping salt water as they landed – one on each side and Drogon at her back, chirping through curved fangs. Their immense weight left their feet sinking into the mud – destroying part of the bank when Viserion stepped too close to the edge. He splashed and kicked at the water before joining his brothers, preening his wings.

Readied for war, every eye was upon her. The Dornish horses were skittish in the presence of the dragons but her faithful Dothraki were as statues in the dunes. Unmoving like the nests they'd found in the depths of the desert and just as harsh. Though wild and varied, every member of her army now wore a red sash replacing their traditional yellow and blue. Today they rode as one, blood riders under a bleeding sigil. Even Daenerys forsook her silver dresses for a crimson cloak and riding pants – leather boots and armoured breast plate. Her gloves were roughened to hold onto the dragon scale and her hair tightly braided and pinned into a bun.

By now the city must know.

There was no hiding the dragons who stood nearly as high as King's Landing's wall. The Mud Gate was shut and all its guards hidden in the towers beside. Drogon cleared his throat with a roar.

Ser Jorah Mormont, a pair of dancing bears on his chest, dipped his head in the slightest nod.

"I have seen a world," Daenerys shouted to her company. Her voice echoed over the flat like the roar of her beast. "Where there are no thrones, no castles and no kings. No light and no warmth. A land of eternal dusk where ice wanders in the sea and crushes up against the bones of our kin along with the ruination of our dreams."

No one else living, lived or yet to live could give a speech such as this. Daenerys was a deity in the eyes of all those that followed her. A rare creature with the power to march men into hell – to death and have them gladly follow. They believed that spears held for her fought for the moon.

"The game of men is a lie. Dead legions are coming while our coals wither in the snow. Forget your family – forget them to save them. Take your sword. Your spear. Your arrow. Take your hands and brace yourself. By your honour you will spare the lives of any you can – for they will march beside you before the week is out and you will be glad of their heart beat when nothing else draws breath."

She paused as the guttural cheers of war rang out. Shields were beat. Hooves stamped. It was so loud that her dragons stumbled around in the dirt, puffing from their snouts. Rhaegal smelled of fish and Viserion of dust. Drogon, he always smelled of death.

"This is not the stage of our war. It is a pebble on the road." She finished in Dothraki. "A dune at the coming of the tide." She added in Dornish.

The sound of the army was so great that even Jorah found it impossible to keep his horse quiet. He watched as the queen threw her leg over and dismounted like a fish ducking between the waves. She approached Drogon. Even after so many years of watching her interact with the dragons, Jorah could not help a moment of fear. They were wild creatures and today that was twice as true. The air was riled with war and they shuffled about, agitated.

Drogon was so tall that he had to lay his stomach on the mud before reaching his front paw forward and flattening his wing. She walked along the quivering stretch of flesh, taking a hand hold on one of the bones as the dragon folded the limb back and allowed her to climb onto his bare back. Daenerys had the saddle removed deliberately. Riding bareback into war was a statement in itself. When she was in place, it was her turn to nod at Jorah.

Darkstar reached across for Jorah's reins which he passed across then dismounted his horse. He too strode across the calf-high grass, letting some of the longer threads whisper across his hands as he approached Viserion. The dragon knew what was coming – clawing at the mud with great, sinking chunks of it smacking back onto the ground. His tail swished into the water, kicking up a spray causing Drogon to turn his head and hiss.

It was an incredible sight – the three dragons waiting as soldiers and the castle with all its trembling souls inside, waiting in perfect silence.

The sun lifted higher. The sky shifted from pink to gold and then tapered off to cloudlessness.

Viserion greeted Jorah as a horse might, dipping his head right down to the grass. He reached out to the creature, rubbing its nose. He doubted the dragon could feel his touch through the layers of steel-like armour but it chirped softly all the same. Then it brought its arm around in a similar, if slightly clumsy copy of Drogon.


KING'S LANDING HARBOUR – BLACKWATER BAY

Tyrion lamented his sobriety at the ship's prowl.

"There is a magnificent depravity in it, don't you think, Varys?" He said, as the Spider joined him. They had all but barricaded the harbour, butting up against the back of the pirate fleet. Their mismatched men lined the decks in a mock show of force. He could smell their wonderful stink already. He'd be glad of their savagery later in the day. "An elegant board well laid."

Varys' face disapproved. He despised war in all its forms. Necessary or not. He was incapable of drawing pleasure from it and abhorred his special skill in the playing of it. Only a mocking god made a man excel at the thing he hated most.

"I do not buy your cheer," Varys replied, gripping the rail as the rough waves swung them about. "Nor the certainty of this outcome. Your sister is not a creature that understands loss."


THE RED KEEP – KING'S LANDING

The High Sparrow's head lay on its side, its dead eyes staring through the open window in Cersei's rooms. All its wretched sinews had long since stopped dripping and now began to shrivel like seaweed left out in the sun.

"Sorry darling..." Euron drawled with all of his pirate charm. "That wasn't part of our deal."

"Our deal?" Cersei's hand rested atop the pitcher of wine, gripping the vessel as if it were structurally crucial to her skeleton. "Have you seen the creatures tearing through the sky or the army at the Southern gate?"

"I have." Euron replied blankly, devoid of Cersei's panic. "It is of no interest to me. You asked as to kill the High Sparrow and there he is," he raised his hand to the High Sparrow's head, "and all his little chicks are put onto the wall as you wished. You have all that you desire from me. If you want me to fight a war for you it will cost a great deal more than half a chest of gold. Your Grace." He added, with a cheap bow.

"Obviously. I do not expect the service of a Greyjoy without a price."

"So name your price."


"Leave it!" Tommen dragged Margaery away from the desk where her hands rifled through papers. Whatever she was trying to salvage, it was not worth it. "The Dragon Queen is here, there's no time for any of that."

The door slammed open, smashing the wooden handle to nothing against the stone. They both startled, clutching at each other. It was the pirate king, Euron Greyjoy in all his wild glory, stinking of smoke and dried blood, some of it staining his clothes. His garish sword swiped the edge of the doorway as he stepped in.

"You the rose bud?" He eyed Margaery with silver eyes.

She stepped away from the king, inching bravely toward the strange murderer. She had met worse men than him in her time – far worse. "I am Queen Margaery."

"Your grandmother is waiting for you in Maegor's Holdfast. You are to go there now. Alone," he added, when the queen turned to take her husband's hand.

"It's all right," the king whispered. "Go. Go!" And it was with great reluctance that she did. "Are you to be my guard?" Tommen asked of the pirate, who closed the door.

"Of sorts," he replied cryptically. "Your mother sent me."

Something wasn't right. Tommen could feel it in every breath the man took. He'd been reared on stories of pirates – even fantasied of their great travels upon the waves. Seeing one was quiet different. Rather like meeting a knight from the field of slaughter stinking of horse shit and piss. The songs were written later by men that had never seen war.

"What is that?" Tommen asked, as Euron took a red sash from his belt and slipped it over his own head. It clashed with his shells and jewels.

"Safety." He replied. "I'd not stand so close to the window if I were you, Your Grace. There are dragons coming."

For a brief moment Tommen eyed the window with lustful fancy. If he were a dragon he'd clamber upon the sill and fall into the wind. As things stood he moved over to his desk and sat among the deluge of his wife's rummagings.

"I heard them call," Tommen breathed.

"You'll feel them burn," Euron assured the young king.

"Is that what you saw, in Dorne?"

"That and more," he replied. The king was very unlike his mother in manner. There was a calmness to him as he picked at the remains of the desk. "I wonder that you are still in the Capital..."

"Well that is simple," Tommen replied. "I am the King. Kings that run die as surely as those that sit on their thrones."

"Where did you learn that?"

"My Grandfather."

Euron laughed at that. "Tywin was a right cunt."


"Where is that creature?" Cersei hissed to herself, as she stalked through the lower levels of the castle. Soldiers rushed every where in a constant clink of metal while she'd all but bankrupted the realm to pay the pirates to join their ranks. They were wearing red sashes to distinguish themselves form the common rabble, having no uniforms suitable for war. A tactic that had proved useful pillaging the Sunspear, or so Euron had bragged, before laughing in the face of her despair and declaring that he'd stay for the fun of it. Anyone who accused her of madness had never met an Ironborn.

Qyburn was usually locked in his dungeon, crouched over some corpse. He picked at the seams of death like a doctor sewed life into the flesh. Behind her, the Mountain followed, silently as always. Cersei often found herself talking to the knight despite those dead eyes looking back at her through the slits in his armour.

Cersei reached Qyburn's door and nodded at the Mountain to open it for her. He did, colliding his shoulder with the surface. The wood fell off its hinges and smacked into the stone. Nothing.

"Son of a bitch..." She hissed, kicking a hinge across the floor in fury. It bounced off across the stone and through the bars of a drain.


"Inside – quickly now!" Olenna reached out her arms to her granddaughter, who was scowling all the way into the depths of the castle that lay within the Red Keep.

"What are they doing here?" She asked, seeing their guard as an odd mixture of Tyrell and pirate.

"You'll be glad of them in a minute," Olenna assured her, sliding a red sash over her granddaughter's head.


CASTLE BLACK – THE NORTH

"When them witches turn mad, the end is near..." Tormund kept to the corner of the room. The Red Witch was at the other side, hissing at the flames which curled out of the fireplace. The strange man from the West had tried to sit with her and offer comfort for a while but the flame-haired creature wanted nothing but the fire and so she was left there.

Dorin's strength and mind had returned to him after a few nights of warmth. A huge man compared to the Southerns who made most of the numbers in the watch, he struggled to fold himself into one of the chairs. Commander Thorne, Dacey and the Wildling King circled him, each stoic as the ice crept in under the doors. Their breath rose in clouds between them, puffing like a cluster of dragons.

"The Wildfire is being taken up to the top of the Wall and distributed along both flanks." Thorne continued their conversation. "More arrives every day from Oldtown. The maesters are buggers about the price but the Lady Stark has coin enough."

"How far along has it been spread?" asked Dacey.

"We've nearly made it to the Nightfort on the West," Thorne replied, "but only so far as Oakenshield to East. The Wall's in poor nick that way. We are finding serious cracks the further East we go – particularly where the castles are fallen into disrepair. Courtesy of the Long Summer. It'll take years ter get them functional an' that's if we're better manned, which we're not. Most of the fuckers we get these days need feedin' up an' trainin'."

"Any fool can roll barrels of Wildfire. Send the least useful up along with the ice masons." Dacey advised, before sharing a worried look with Tormund. There were no luxuries of time. Men were going to die and they had to decide where best for them to draw their last breaths.

"We need to more of it to Westwatch by the Bridge – ship it there direct if we have to." Dorin interjected. "It'll be the first place to fall. That an' Eastwatch. Anywhere the Wall tapers off is weak as tits. I'll go with the convoy, back ter the West. Meet the boat there an' show 'em where to lay it. I'll set the whole damn place into the waves if I have ter. You'll see the green flames outshine the fucking sun."

"I don't doubt it," Thorne nodded, "but without men you'll not get far. Wait a day. You can take some of the fresh ones with you once they've said their vows and picked a sword."

"An' we'll go East." Dacey nudged Tormund, who had not been consulted. HIs bushy brows took on an unusual curve.

"I ain' goin' back ter tha' cunt of a place," Tormund objected. "Last time I were near tha' neck o' water was-"

"I wasn't going to ask you," Thorne raised his hand.

"I'll go on my own then," said Dacey, "there should be a few stragglers arrived by now scared shitless of the snow. What are you going to do about her?"

All four of them turned to the Red Witch, rocking back and forth in her chair, staring into the flames.

"She saw something in the snow beside Castle Black," Dorin dropped his voice to a hush. "Whatever she's looking for, I think it's still 'ere, inside the castle or buried beneath it."

The edge of Thorne's lip curled up in a snarl. That made the woman his problem and he was shit out of patience for more problems. "Fuck." He growled, almost a bear himself. "Tormund?" He waited for a grunt. "See if yer can teach a bit of bloody fire inter' these frightened children while 'yer here. They look like a bunch of scraps for tinder."

"I'd 'ave cut those cunts to pieces not so long ago."

Tormund felt dreadfully sad for them, hours later, as he stood in the frozen mud with a wooden sword in his hand and a semi-circle of shivering half-men. They were draped in ill-fitted armour, metal scratching together whenever they moved. He pointed to one and waved him forward.

Her forward. There were women among the men. It was all the same to him. Wildlings didn't see a difference in their blood. Their swords clashed twice then they were in the mud. He motioned to the next one and so it went, each ending up on their arse. The last one to step forward was a short lad with shoulders nearly as broad as his height. He'd gone and carved a crude bear onto the old plank of wood he'd picked up as a shield. Tormund laughed. "Fancy yourself a bear?"

"Fook you," the boy growled. "I'm a Bear. I'll cut your Wilding hide an' hang it on my wall."

"What are you boy, ten?"

The boy raised his sword in reply.

"All right Bear," Tormund wiped the mud off his wooden sword and pointed it at him. "If you can get wood on me, I'll teach yer somethin' worth learning."


The fastest way to travel East was along the stretch of ice towering above the land. In the days of old the Wall's top was lined with torches forming a suspended curtain of fire or as the local hunters called it, the Northern dusk. There was no such joy for Dacey. The Wall was as pitch as the evening sky above and treacherous underfoot. Either side the low borders of ice varied from a very reassuring four and a half feet to absolutely nothing where they'd melted away or snapped off in battle. The Long Summer had taken its toll, slackening the once sharp surfaces into bulbous mounds as if they were grown in the sea. They'd all refrozen now and threatened her life with every step.

A party of forty men joined her – though a few of them were women with their hair cut short. More and more of them were joining The Watch. Widowed, impoverished ruined or worse, none of them were turned away.

In theory there was width for twelve mounted knights to ride abreast but it was an even structure, as fickle as the weather. There were many places where it was twice – even three times this width and others, like the stretch approaching, where half that number struggled on foot made ever more treacherous with the complete erosion of the boundary walls.

"Single file!" Dacey growled at her tail. There wasn't much of surface. Up ahead, a scattering of Night's Watch fussing around a collection of wood and rope which they hammered into the ice. A rough bridge swung out over a fissure in the ice which had taken a section out of the top of the Wall. "Well fuck me..." She whispered, taking hold of a rope and leaning to the side of the bridge. The injury to the ice went deep until it blue as the ocean. It was filthy with bits of rubble, ash and oil mixed in.

"There's more like it further on," a man said, keeping a careful hold on one of the rods stuck into the ice. "Place is a mess this way."

The wooden planks were only pine and creaked underfoot as they crossed.

Dacey eyed the land either side of the Wall. Both flanks were draped in thick fog. It lapped against the ice like a tide, swelling and curling about fifty feet below where they were standing. With the white waves sitting at the same level, the varying height of the Wall peaking above it curved up and down like a dragon's back. An entire army could be moving underneath and they'd not see it.

"Keep up, you buggers!" She growled at them.


At Castle Black, Dorin sat with the Red Woman. He wasn't a man of magic but he'd pulled her screaming from the snow with his own hands. That wasn't something a simple lumberjack forgot. His world was touched by queens, dragon eggs, witches and the violent thrash of the undead. He couldn't get the face of the maester out of his head. The terror in his eyes as the dead tore at his flesh. Then the flash of green flame… It had turned itself into a nightmare.

"I've seen 'em too," he said, shoving a poker roughly between the coals. The fire growled at the intrusion, kicking up a flame which licked around the iron bar. "Whatever it was that you saw in the ice."

"It was not what I saw – it was what I felt." Melisandre whispered. "I was drowning in ice and death. I could hear them singing to each other."

"The dragons?" Dorin asked.

Melisandre shook her head. "No… The men made of ice. They sing, like birds or sheets of ice snapping away. For a moment they were here..." She tapped the side of her head. "Two sides of the same song."

"Why'd yer come 'ere?" Dorin shifted closer. "I heard o' your magic. Things like you belong in the South or o'er the Narrow Sea not rotting at the edge of the world. Our gods are the old gods."

Melisandre turned from the fire to look upon her companion. He was an old man made strong by the years. "You are not a man of any god." Dorin withdrew slightly at her words. "Why?"

"Fuck the gods..." He whispered. "Nasty shits."

"I will travel West with you, Dorin of Bear Island."

He shook his head. "I don' a think so. No. I mean tha' lass. I ain' travellin' with a sorceress."


OLD GATE – KING'S LANDING

"There she is. Bugger of a thing. Great big old bird with two broken wings and an overbite." Davos pulled his horse up as they cleared the rise. Hills rolled out around them, wild and abandoned with purple flowers thick at their horse's feet and long, sharp grass nearly to their shoulders. Ahead, the pale corpse of King's Landing sat against the morning sky with a filthy pillar of smoke dawdling from the Dragon Pit.

"Those are soldiers on the wall – running, see?" Jon stopped beside Davos.

Jaqen was the last to arrive. His grey horse with long, speckled legs, kicked at the ground and tugged against the reins. It didn't like the scent of something in the air. "Over there." He pointed to the South. "In the sky."

"Birds?" Asked Davos.

"Not birds." Jaqen whispered.

"Dragons..." Jon breathed. "We're too late."


Darkstar had the honour of leading the ground army on behalf of Dorne and the queen. He strode along the soft earth on his horse. The others hung back a few dozen feet, four abreast so that they could pass through the Mud Gate.

He stopped at the far side of the bridge and raised a red flag into the air. There was movement behind the arrow slits. He waited. Nerves as still as the air which had driven to a halt. Everything paused. High above, the Queen and all her dragons circled, watching the Lannister soldiers race through the city. The Tyrell army held the Mud Gate. They undid the enormous steel planks – all the locks and opened the last threshold into the city.

The drawbridge slammed onto the mud in front of Darkstar. His horse stamped at the noise then panic broke out.


Jorah laid down on Viserion, his body pressing against the dragon's warm scales. They shifted in flight as his enormous wings beat up and down occasionally, maintaining his casual circle over the city. He was too high for the archers. Their arrows sank in sad curves beneath, hitting the water or the fields beyond the castle wall but never the dragons.

He watched a dance beneath – choreographed by a spider to trap a den of lions. The Lannisters scrambled along the top of the castle and found themselves hemmed in by the inferior but overwhelming numbers of Tyrell soldiers. Confused, they lifted their swords. Beneath, Euron's pirates terrified the city, ushering them back into the safety of their homes as they marauded from one side to the next, beholden to no one. They raced towards Daenerys' army. They would met as two waves at the entrance to the Red Keep.


"What is going on?" Asked Jon.

"Nothing that we are party to," Ser Davos replied. "Those there are heads mounted to the city walls," he added, pointing to the sparrows left to rot on spikes. "We best wait this out."

Jon's horse startled as the largest of the dragons, a black monster, passed overhead casting a shadow over the field where they stood. He tilted his head up in time to see the underbelly of scales quiver together. He heard the air whistle across them and the snarl of its breath. Old words whispered from his lips. Ned Stark's prayers that he'd heard uttered over and over beneath the Weirwood outside Winterfell's walls.

"Your gods will do you no good now, my King." Jaqen warned. "The gods all have the same ears and the same will that cares for nothing but itself."

"Why doesn't she raze the city?" Jon asked, ignoring the assassin. "It would be over at once if she set one of her monsters on it."

"A burning Capital is no good to any ruler," Davos whispered. "Power on the battlefield amounts to nothing if you can't take King's Landing alive."

Jon walked his horse forward. His eyes followed the three dragons, circling above. He watched them with the same detachment as the army of dead faces from the bow of his boat, fading into the shoreline.


Lannister bodies tumbled from the wall, hitting the ceramic roofs. Tiles smashed into a terracotta hail that crunched under hoof of Darkstar's army. They were riding calmly through the centre of the city with barely a sword raised in opposition. Those that tried were quickly knocked across the face and left to dream in the gutter.

Rhaegal, the only dragon without a rider, took up perch on one of those walls and stretched his magnificent wings.

"There's your dragon, boy," Euron pointed to the creature.

Tommen gripped the cold stone of the window sill. "Fire and blood. Those are their words," he whispered. "Where is the fire and the crimson river?" He set his sight further out to the harbour where his fleet floundered. A few ships had split in half and were in the process of sinking. "She is your master, is she not?"

Euron dipped his head in acknowledgement.

"I am glad of it. My queen's blood is not meant for your sword," Tommen explained. "Her grandmother has done some kind of deal for her life, I trust?"

"Come away from the window, Your Grace."

"How does this work? The Ironborn, the Tyrells, the Targaryens and the Dornish? All in league against the Crown."

"Power is a game," Euron advised. "The board was stacked against you before you were born. Now – come away from the window."

Tommen did not. "What if I told you I had no interest in games?"

"I'd tell you that the game doesn't care if you want to play or not. It plays itself."

Tommen closed his eyes and lingered at the window. "There are no screams..." He whispered. "No sounds of war. A bloodless coo..." Then he smiled.

Euron found himself unnerved by the young Lannister. There was no doubt that he'd escaped the madness of his brother and cruelty of his mother but there was something else… An echo of his grandfather.

"If you could have anything in this moment, what would you wish?" Euron asked.

"An open field," Tommen breathed. "Six feet of dirt and a sky without stars."

Tommen felt something slid around his neck. He opened his eyes to find a red sash draped over him.


Cersei stood on the roof of the Red Keep and watched as ships sank in the harbour, sandwiched between pirates and a Targaryen fleet. Dragons swooped overhead. Her eyes followed the black one. Its morbid body passed again and again, dipping lower each time. It goaded her with its silver and crimson queen, perched atop. Without the beasts the Targaryen had nothing. She was a child. An idiot with an army proving her father right. Only the stupid ruled.

If the horselord whore wanted the Capital she could have it – as a pile of cinders.


"This isn't right," Tyrion muttered, gripping the railing of the ship so hard that his knuckles turned pale as bone. His cheer had turned to disquiet while Varys did the reverse.

"Try and enjoy the brilliance of my execution," Varys turned his back on the water and trio of armies floating on it. "Be honest, have you ever seen such a graceful victory? They will sing songs about this day until the stars die and the shadows take over the land. The Spider's Tale. Yes? No…? Tyrion. Honestly. Stop being so miserable."

"As you said earlier, Cersei will find a way to shit on your glorious epitaph," Tyrion replied coldly.

Varys allowed the salt air to fill his lungs. He ignored the tug of souls beneath the waves. Those dark things had no sway over him today. "There is no path for remaining for your sister to win."

"I agree but that does not mean she will lose gracefully." He shook his head. "You were right in your apprehension."


Daenerys and Jorah took their dragons for a lap of Blackwater Bay, skirting low enough to dip their wings into the water where curved horns sliced through the salt. They banked together, lifted and faced the fleet of black sails. The pirate ships barricaded the Lannisters in. A few sad trails of smoke adorned the vessels that gave a fight. Water tugged at their broken bodies, sinking them where they'd lay among their dead Baratheon cousins. An iron mast slapped into the water. Ropes and sails floated off. Bodies swam until they were dragged under by circling sharks.

"Khaleesi..." Jorah whispered, even though his queen could only hear the rush of air from her dragon. It was only in this moment that Jorah realised he'd lived this moment before – in a vision of shadows and half-truths.

The ground beneath the city shifted. A crack, like thunder followed. It terrified the dragons, causing them to rear mid-flight. Then still waters shivered and a roar of green raged over everything.