Aegon
His army was being formed into their marching columns as Aegon returned to the makeshift palisade he had ordered his men to put around the entrance of the town. The spears of his knights and riders stood outlined against the sky steel tips glinting in the morning sun. Of the village of Stoney Sept, nothing remained but the cold blackened walls, the half burnt roofs of the buildings and the wooden gates chipped off in the middle by battering rams. The men and women from the village had been allowed to stay in their homes. A handful of them decided to join his army on the march, hoping to do their duties to their king and the realm. Most of them stayed back with their wives and children, all young boys and old men who were not so eager to die in war.
They wanted him away from their town, Aegon could see it in their eyes. The townsfolk were happy to see him off. It meant that they wouldn't have to bother feeding the thousands and providing them their meager supplies anymore. The prince himself was happy to take his leave off Stoney Sept. He's stayed here too long for his liking. Even his men felt the delay and got tired of it. It's time he led his men back to the fight.
He had gotten word of the rebels advancement down the Kingsroad. Doubtless they would have hoped to catch him unawares and pin him inside the walls of the town from both sides. His cousin never failed to surprise him after all. If he had thought to catch him penned up inside some walls, Aegon would show him how he was barely mistaken.
He had thought to move up against Lord Tywin in the West or to tighten the hold on Riverrun itself, where the King in The North had taken up residence. It would have been a bloody affair either way and Aegon had not liked his chances on both his plans. It was then the lost bird from Riverrun brought the words that he had been waiting for so long to hear. The wolf was back on the prowl again, rushing straight into the dragon's jaws.
Aegon had planned that attack as well, making preparations for the march within the walls of Stoney Sept in the chill darkness before the dawn whilst the people of the town were fast asleep. No one can betray you if they didn't know what you were doing. And so he'd led his army out in the dark hoping to surprise his foes before they could surprise him. If he could capture or slay the Dragonslayer, he could win the war right here. He did not like the taste of any of this, but what choice did he have?
The thrice-damned Baratheons were circling around King's Landing too close for his liking, and Lord Tywin was poking him too much trying to lure him out of his defensive position to clear the way for his allies. Aegon had let no word of the march escape Stoney Sept, and he meant to keep it that way until the bloody work along the Kingsroad would be dealt with. The northmen would not realize their true peril, not until the hammers fell on Andrew Stark and then on Riverrun. And after all is done and won, they could get his brother back and he could return back to his family and betrothed.
Ser Myles Mooton stood by the head of the cavalry, all armoured in steel and armed with lances. Aegon had assigned him the task of leading the heavy cavalry. Another man would have wanted to lead the prized band of chivalry himself, but Aegon knew the worth of Ser Myles. A knight of great renown, Ser Myles was one of his father's good friends and squired for King Rhaegar in his youth.
"I have tasked Lord Rosby to hold the town while we are away," Aegon said as he walked over to the knight. "He will keep the fires burning at night and make the townsfolk in check to make it seem as if we are still encamped here."
"We have increased the fortifications as you commanded, my prince," the knight of Maidenpool said. "Three more rows of wooden stakes and caltrops in front of the gates."
"Good," Aegon said. "I don't mean to give up my position so easily."
"And the dragon?"
"He will join us on the way," Aegon shrugged. "I know that." He looked up at the sky wondering where the great green beast had gone to. He had always found Aegon when he needed him the most, yet the dragon was nowhere to be seen now that he needed him the most.
"Get the men to be ready for battle all the time," he told Myles, swinging up on the back of his mount. A lesser man might have been afraid to go into battle without the help of dragons, yet Aegon Targaryen was no mere man. He did not depend upon his companions to do his work for him.
He would ride to battle with or without his dragon. Rhaegal would find him when the time is right. He was a dragon himself, not just a man riding some beast. His father used to call him Aegon the Dragon reborn. It brought back a hundred memories. Aegon had heard it often as a boy, when he'd jumped a horse over a mossy wall, or flung an axe and split a target square. He'd seen it when he blocked a blow from Ser Willem Darry's sword, when he put an arrow through a hart on the neck, when he took his dragon to air for the first time and circled him safely through a snarl of foaming rocks around Dragonstone. His father used to give him more smiles than he'd given anyone else. Even Jaehaerys . . . he ought to have won some smiles with the things he'd done just to earn them, but instead his brother had a hard time with it where Aegon had it easy.
"Ride with me, Ser Myles," Aegon said. "You and I must talk." Though the knight was not related to him by blood, Aegon always saw him as such. For there were only so few of his family left in the world and Ser Myles had proven to be more loyal and closer than any of his blood. Aegon was yet to find a friend as close and loyal as Ser Myles was to his father.
"As you wish, my prince," Ser Myles said and handed the command of his cavalry to Ser Richard Lonmouth. The prince kept a slow pace as they left the vanguard trailing behind them with a dozen banners flapping in the morning wind.
He left his army behind him as he rode ahead, and Ser Myles followed him silently dressed up in the red enameled plate. "We did not leave enough men to hold the town. A few, but . . ."
"Well, we will make do with what we have,I suppose," Aegon cut in. "Fewer men means more glory. It was why I increased the defences of the town."
"We shouldn't have left King's Landing barely defended," Ser Myles said.
Aegon himself had thought about his decision to leave Stoney Sept often. He did not like leaving the town as well, but at the same time Aegon did not want to stay in his position just waiting for someone to come find him.
"If we plan to stay away from the fight, yes," Aegon admitted. "I have another plan." He watched the other knight carefully to see how he would take that. Without Ser Myles he could not hope to succeed. Command or no, he needed all his men behind him strongly.
"Your lord father commanded us to protect the city." Eyes blue as the famed pools of Maidenpool watched Aegon closely. Was it disapproval he saw there, or a spark of interest? The latter, he thought . . . hoped . . .
"You are my father's trusted man."
"I always have been."
"I want you to trust me as you trust my father," Aegon said. "We could end this war right here, right now. Jon Arryn, Tywin Lannister they won't matter much with Andrew Stark dead. If he is coming out to meet us, we shouldn't miss that opportunity."
"You made a good decision, my prince," Ser Myles said. "It is why I am here with you right now."
"The singers call Andrew best now and with good reason," Aegon said. "Andrew the Dragonslayer, they name him. My cousin may be a great fighter, but that's not all he's got. His men revere him whilst others fear him in the way they don't fear anyone else. If we managed to put him down here, we will be breaking all that in one day."
"Aye, that's so," Myles Mooton said, his armoured fingers curling around the reigns of his courser as he moved up beside him. "If I had an opportunity like this in my command, I would not waste it as well."
Aegon gave him a smile, wondering whether he truly thought that way or if he said it only to make him better. "I should have done it a long time ago," he admitted, uncomfortably aware of how peevish that sounded. "We stayed idle in Stoney Sept too long for my liking."
The knight of Maidenpool looked at him with curious eyes. "It is only . . . I would be more cautious with this Andrew Stark."
"I will," Aegon said. "My father once wrote an end to his father. I am my father's heir. How can I be that unless I prove myself with some great deed like he did?"
Myles merely bowed his head. He looked as if he wanted to say something, but the words couldn't manage to come out of his mouth. "As you say, your grace. You shall do your great deeds as your father once did. For now, we should keep our attention more on the upcoming battle."
"What do you think we should do about it, Ser?"
"The command was given to you, my prince," Ser Myles said. "I will follow you happily wherever you choose to lead us to."
Aegon took a long deep breath as he went about his plan in his head once again. "I have won all my battles before, and what's one more of it."
"Stark is said to have about two times the men we do."
Aegon allowed himself a slight smile. "We have a dragon. And when I am done with this war, I can hand the Kingdom back to my father as a whole like it was always meant to be. I mean to do a deed that will end this war in one day."
He knew that would give Ser Myles pause. The knight himself had been so close in winning a great battle which might have changed the course of the war. He would have won the crossroads if it wasn't for Lord Arryn and his knights of the Vale.
"And what would that be, your grace?" Ser Myles asked after a long silence, and Aegon knew he had the knight with him entirely then.
"To strike terror into the heart of the foe. The rebels are brave with having the Dragonslayer in front of them. But what happens when you slay him, you'll be giving them a much greater reason to fear us," Aegon said. "I want to do just that. I want to capture Andrew Stark dead and alive. Once that's done, you'll take the great part of our force and march on Riverrun. Jon Arryn and Hoster Tully are encamped there with their men. There will be a huge garrison left there. Make no secret of your approach. I want them to either close their gates or come out to meet us in battle or parlay."
"Riverrun is a strong keep," said Aegon. "The Tullys can turn it's position into an island of its own. How are we to take it? We can't storm the castle under such circumstances."
"Strong enough to fend off enough men," Aegon said. "But it's not strong enough for a dragon. You will make camp outside their walls and set to building catapults and siege engines while I turn south to deal with Robert Baratheon."
"It takes time to mount a siege and starve them out."
"The Tullys will not see it like that. When he learns that their King is dead and sees you raising siege towers all around the castle he will know that there isn't much he can do after that. Let your archers fly some arrows at his castle to let your point known. They only have the choice to either starve within the castle or yield it to us."
"Lord Arryn will not yield," Ser Myles said. "He commands a force as large as the one the King in the North commands. And Lord Robert. . . he has never forgiven or forgotten what happened to his friend in Starfall. Now the same with Eddard Stark's son, he will never bend so easily."
Aegon frowned grimly. "I don't want them to." He left the knight wondering about it and rode ahead to meet with his scouts.
He set a quick pace, wanting to get this over with when the Starks were least expecting it. They trotted past rain sodden fields and abandoned holdfasts encircled with trees, up to the Kingsroad and the Green Fork of the Trident. Aegon saw no bodies, but some ravens and carrion crows circled above them in the sky and the trees nearby; the remnants of the previous fights which had been fought there.
A horseman rode forward to face them as they approached a burned holdfast by the eastern bank of the Green Fork. Aegon ordered his men to halt. He had sent Ser Hubard Rambton ahead to scout and it was from him the rider came bearing word of the foe they were about to face.
"My prince," he said. "Ser Hubert bid me tell you that the Stark host is moving down the Kingsroad past the Trident. We had a brief engagement with their scouts. By their look I call them twenty thousand strong. The banners they carry is the direwolf of House Stark."
Aegon Targaryen did not smile at the news though. It was time to do the butcher's work once more. Though he took no pleasure in it the satisfaction was there on his face all the same. "Splendid," he said. "Return to Ser Hubert and tell him to fall back. He is not to engage the northerners until we arrive, but I want him to harass their flanks and draw them farther south."
"It will be as you command." The rider took his leave.
Aegon pushed his hair out of his face with the back of his hand. "Here we are then," he said and turned to face his knights and lords behind him. "The wolf of Winterfell is rushing south to meet us with his teeth bared." Aegon's voice cut through the still morning like a sword through cheese. "Prepare for battle."
"PREPARE FOR BATTLE!" A dozen voices followed picking up his command, all the knights and high lords in command of his army.
"We are well situated here," Ser Myles pointed out, looking around. "Close to the river. Let us hold our position here, ringed by pits and spikes. If they are coming south, I say let them come, and break themselves against us."
Aegon looked around him to see the wisdom in his words. "Andrew Stark may hang back or lose his courage when he sees our numbers of hesitating to face the dragon," he replied. "It would leave time for Lord Tywin to take Stoney Sept and block our way back. We left the Lannisters loose on our rear, leaving our holdings exposed to any raids and attack. The sooner the Starks are broken, the sooner I shall be free to deal with Robert Baratheon. Tell the drummers to beat assembly, we are marching against Andrew Stark."
"As you will," Ser Myles said.
It was past noon by the time Aegon caught up with his scouts and the Starks pursuing them. His army stretched for miles between the river and the kingsroad. He had split his host into three wide contingents, leaving his left under the command of Ser Raymun Darry nearby the river. His right was formed on the Kingsroad itself, a huge square of pikemen and spearmen flanked by the the trees and low hills on one side and the centre on the other. In those trees Aegon hid his archers, thinking that Andrew Stark would no doubt bring his cavalry through the dry road running southward instead of having them trod across the soft, rain soaked ground of the fields. He had pulled his own heavy cavalry back for the reserves, hiding them behind the lines of pikemen and their spears. Aegon took command of the centre himself, opting to fight in the front lines with his dismounted knights and the men-at-arms.
The horns and drums called through the evening, wild and urgent, a cry that could make the blood of even the bravest of men run cold for a moment. He heard shouts, the clatter of spears, the whicker of horses.
They came on blowing their horns and trumpets, the grey direwolf of Stark streaming above them while a dozen others banners flapped from the points of their lances beneath the wolf of Winterfell. Aegon's eyes skimmed through the battlefield, searching for a glimpse of Andrew Stark or his great white direwolf. Though his banners flapped everywhere, he couldn't find Stark or his direwolf anywhere.
The scouts' estimate of twenty thousand men could not be far wrong. Aegon watched them closely. Something didn't sit well with him, they way they came to battle or the manner their numbers seemed so small despite the huge host that'd come down with the King in the North.
A column of armoured men drew up along the road across from them. They came flying the three trees of House Tallhart, the merman of Manderly, the bull moose of Hornwood, the white sunburst of Karstark and the violet rose that he hadn't seen before below the direwolf of Stark. They drew up against them in a blaze of banners and storm of steel and men.
Aegon watched the riders spread out in a long line. His men waited with him to receive them across the field. A trumpet blast sent the horsemen forward at a ponderous walk, riding down the Kingsroad.
"Now," Aegon shouted.
The archers concealed behind the forest spoiled their splendid charge with a rain of arrows. The bowmen sent a storm of arrows hissing across the Kingsroad, strangely beautiful from afar. One man, pierced through a dozen times, whirled on top of his horse until at last he fell down crashing beneath the thundering hooves of the racing horses. By the time his body came body came to rest beneath the falling horses and fellow warriors, his life had been extinguished.
It was hard to make out what was happening, but the screams of the horses seemed so loud that it drained the dying screams of men. "Stand fast," Aegon said, riding his horse back and forth along the length of his lines. Though the arrows took out some of the riders and disorganised their massive charge, the best of them managed to stay ahorse and slammed against Ser Myles' pikemen in his right with a great crashing sound.
Aegon heard the clash of steel on steel, the sounds of steel tearing and piercing through flesh and the screams of men and horses alike dying. A banner bearing the three trees of Tallhart vanished suddenly as its bearer was swept under, and soon after another from his own lines fell. It happened so soon that Aegon couldn't even see who it was.
The Stark infantry on the centre advanced against him, holding their shields high and armed with spears and swords and axes. Aegon himself led his dismounted knights and men-at-arms out to finish the butcher's work with dagger, axe, and warhammer. His archers loosed volleys after volleys of arrows from the trees and the northerners took the brunt of it with their shields.
Aegon halted his advance, mindful not to split away too far from the rest of his men. The northmen creeped closer and closer to them under heavy arrowfire until they reached close enough to his lines so that his archers wouldn't loose anymore if they didn't want to hurt their own lines.
The Starks dropped their shields and charged in unison, shouting in the evening air and clashed against his lines. They smashed against his men so hard that for a moment the force of the charge alone pushed them back. Aegon was at the front, in the thick of the fighting. The Starks were all around him. He rode one down and smashed the helm of another one with his sword. The blow was so hard it sent him rolling to the ground. He severed the hand of the man who tried to take the reigns of his mouth. A bearded man in a half helm sent a savage blow at the foot of his horse, trying to take the legs under him. The mount shielded and sent him reeling with a kick at his face with its right hoof.
Aegon tried to push through to the lines of the Starks with his horse, trying to break through and find a hole in the enemy lines. The northmen were steadfast however, and they never gave him any inch, no matter how hard he tried. He never know where he was, if he was with his men or amidst his foes. Everywhere he turned he saw wolves cursing and shouting at him, trying to kill him. A blow from a sword, or a hammer, he could not say which scraped off his helm. Aegon was sure that the blow would have cracked his skull in half if wasn't for his helmet. He could still feel his ears ringing from the blow. He turned around to see another man raising his sword high to cut him down, but he was stopped halfway when one of his own men buried his sword through his through. Before Aegon could thank him an arrow took him down.
To his right the Stark riders had pulled back in confusion. He watched as they re-formed, conferred briefly, and galloped back the way they had come. The pikemen on the road shouted taunts and followed after them, hoping to get them to charge and break them once and for all.
He could not say how long they fought, but shoulders ached with the weight of his dark armour pressing down upon it and his arms felt so tired to even lift his sword and shield up. Yet somehow he managed to get his shield up to block in time and raise his sword to cut down his foes. He looked around, men dying and screaming and dying all around him. It was time to end this. The prince cut his way free of foes and turned his mount around to make for the mounted knights in the reserves.
"Get ready," Aegon said waving his sword around. "We ride now." A thousand shouts filled the air at once, but it was drowned by the rumbling roar of the heard in the distance.
"Rhaegal." Aegon knew even before he saw the great green beast soaring through the evening air. He lowered himself and landed beside him. The horses shielded and reared by the presence of the dragon nearby.
"Ser Richard," Aegon called. "You have the command of the reserves here."
He jumped off his horse and ran over to Rhaegal. "Where have you been?" Aegon asked as he climbed onto the saddle on the back of his dragon. The dragon just shook his neck and gave a hiss. The prince patted him on the neck. "Well, you are here now. Let's finish this together, boy."
Rhaegal lifted his long, serpentine neck and gave a blood curdling roar. He flapped his wings and took to air. Just as soon as the northmen saw him atop his dragon, he could feel the terror in their eyes. Aegon flew Rhaegal down low and directed him over the Stark centre. The dragon let loose a long breath of green flames out of its mouth and set the entire line on fire. The sounds of men and horses alike burning were sickening. Aegon wheeled around and made another pass, setting the northerners ablaze in dark green flames.
Beneath him, Ser Richard led the knights through to the burning lines of the northerners and sent the men scattering in all directions. Some tried to take refuge in the water to escape from the dragonfire. Most drowned and others found themselves surrounded by his men.
Aegon saw the northmen pulling back. "Down," he commanded to Rhaegal. The dragon circled around and took him to the ground. They hovered in the air, just a few feet above from his men, every flap from the dragon's wings sending out storms at those who were near him.
"The day is not won," Aegon shouted. "Not yet. The Starks are retreating. Give chase." And so they did, chasing the northerners and surrounded them near the God's Eye. The day was truly theirs then.
By the time he landed Rhaegal on the southern shore of the lake, Ser Myles was waiting for him with the reports. "My prince, we have taken some of their commanders. Lord Cerwyn, Ser Wylis Manderly, Harrion Karstark, four Freys. Lord Hornwood is dead, along with Benfred Tallhart."
Aegon removed his helm and kept it at the crook of his arm. He was pleased with that news. "And Andrew Stark?"
Ser Myles hesitated. "He was not here with them."
He was not here? Aegon was confused. The raven he had received from Riverrun said otherwise. He was supposed to be here.