PART III: A City This Darkness Can't Hide
King's Gate Ruins
300 AC
The King's Gate had been completely blown to smithereens.
Jon had ridden all the way down River Row, his some hundred and fifty men tailing close behind him. Once he made it to the site of the ruins, any remaining hopes he had of actually keeping out the enemy soldiers had completely gone down the drain.
Where the thirty-foot wide gap of the original King's Gate existed, it had now opened up into a yawning expanse of over fifty feet. Sure, there were piles of rubble, but the middle portion was certainly steep enough for horses to climb and trample over. The more intact parts of the wall were still doused with dragonflame, and the stench of burning corpses, not just of Jon's men, but even of Aegon's as well. The bastard didn't even care if his soldiers were charging the gates. He put them to the torch all the same.
By the time his men had arrived to secure the gate before the enemy could regroup and charge, it was then that he'd heard the whistling howl and flapping of wings all over again.
And this time, it had gotten much much closer.
His soldiers had already been panicking, as they'd seen the great green-winged terror in the sky far before he had. By the time Jon had seen the dragon, he had no fear left to give into.
Jon Stark stood vigilant and steadfast, watching as Aegon descended rapidly upon him. And just before he saw those lungs begin to heat up in their orange glow, that was when it happened.
The dragon had been shot down.
He'd nearly fallen off his saddle when it happened, because of the overpowering roar that threatened to blow his eardrums.
"RRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHH!"
It was a like a hollow vacuum sucking out all the noise and air around him. His eyes nearly popped out of his skull, and the men sitting in their saddles beside him clutched madly to their ears, covering them as they shook in their saddles, some even falling to the slush-ridden city streets.
Even as he saw men scream, he didn't hear any of them. He couldn't hear anything except for the supreme, almighty roar of immense and world-shattering pain.
And for a few moments, Jon Stark could not even hear his own thoughts.
It wasn't until the dragon had suddenly changed directions, and instead bolted towards the forest to the northern orchards near the Gods Eye, that Jon could finally hear the crackling of fire and the screams and gasps of men all around him.
He'd come to his senses. "The dragon is dead! To the gate! Make safe the city! To the gate!"
The men around him who had also recovered their sense of hearing had seemingly become invigorated by the few simple words that left his mouth. They had all seen the dragon coming for them, and they had all seen the dragon get hit with… something… and let out its terrifying roar. And they had all seen the beast make a sharp dive to the north as if to crash.
Jon had been too stressed to smile, but he knew in his heart that his uncle had done it! Starag had taken down the dragon just like he said he would! Oh, if Jon got out of this alive, he would apologize to his uncle in any way possible.
With his men's morale suddenly renewed, Jon kicked his horse into gear and charged for the ruins of the King's Gate.
It hadn't seemed like the dragon's demise (nor that of Aegon's) actually deterred Aegon's forces, however. If anything, it seemed as if they were getting ready to attack. Out in the darkness of the early morning, Jon had seen the ranks and rows of men wearing no banners except that of solid gold. His blood froze in his veins as he realized. Golden Company.
Out of all the sellsword companies in Essos, Aegon had also conscripted the Golden Company. It was by far the most disciplined and experienced of the lot and by far the most deadly. There were ten-thousand men alone, and among them, one thousand cavalry, among their infantry and war elephants. And all of that was information that Jon had only heard about or read of in small passages. Blast!
Now, it seemed, that the Golden Company was rallying its cavalry for a charge into the city. Jon knew that this was likely the beachhead for Aegon's forces, the bulk of them would be there. No doubt there were far more than a few hundred men on horseback. No, there must have been thousands of them.
And if they crossed the ruins of the gate and got into the city, it wouldn't matter if Aegon himself was off the field. The siege would be lost.
Jon shoved his fear into the boxroom of his mind. He forced himself to remain ice-cold. He couldn't let a single one of those horses get inside the city. No matter what.
Quickly, a plan began to formulate in his mind. A plan so insanely risky and dangerous and uncertain that Starag himself would approve of it. A plan, that more or less, was their best possible hope against a battle-hardened cavalry charge…
Hold the line.
Jon looked to his men. Some fifty more had joined them. He looked over as many as he could, taking note of their weapons and armaments. Yes… he began to smile. Yes… Shields, spears, pikes… By the Old Gods! It might just work!
"Shield wall! Shield wall!" He roared at the top of his lungs. Damn near all the men were roused to action. Jon dismounted his horse and waved them to follow. "Shield wall! Spears, pikes! Anything to kill those fuckers with!" He looked at some of the corpses among the rubble, seeing one of the large round iron shields with the distinct direwolf's head emblazoned on it. He sheathed Sunwolf, picked up the shield, and quickly found a spear that had still been held by a sellsword who had been crushed by the collapsing rubble.
His men rallied to him. It no longer mattered whose banner they carried; Lannister, Tully, Stark, Manderly, or even the City Watch. All of those who had come this far with Jon appeared at his side. Each man with a shield fell into synch with the others, placing their shields at the other men's feet while others had placed them over their heads. All the while, the men with spears and pikes came forth, holding them out of the small holes in between each shield.
The opposition's cavalry had already rallied to each other, and now, as a horn sounded out from the other side of the forest, HUURRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAA, Jon knew they'd begun their charge.
The sounds of rolling thunderous hoofbeats had clapped and pounded against the ground like a million beating drums. Out of the forest came the long immeasurable line of horses charging forth, slowly converging towards the open gap of the King's Gate.
"HOLD THE LINE!" Jon roared once more. "HOLD THE LINE! HOLD!"
It proceeded to get louder, the enemy charge had now begun to quake the very ground beneath Jon's boots. Gods, they were just a hundred feet away!
Jon's reason overpowered his fear, though. He knew that if his men broke and ran from the charging cavalry, they'd all be slaughtered, and the Golden Company would ride right in and take the city within hours.
"HOLD!" Jon's bold command carried over the harsh rustling of wind, over the oncoming stampede that threatened to run them all over into a thick bloody paste.
Jon could feel the fear of the men around him. He knew they were scared shitless of the great horde of beasts, and of the seemingly imposing men who sat tall on horseback with their swords and spears.
Fifty feet away! No! Forty! Thirty! Twenty! Ten!
No going back.
"AAAAAAAAGH!" Jon's next roar was not of fear, nor of anguish, but of anger and fearless defiance. And somehow, in those few timeless moments, his men had felt those emotions in his primal shout. Because of this… they decided to stand with their commander.
And what followed, was complete and utter devastation.
As the first mounted horsemen of the Golden Company's charge had met the jagged and formed shield wall standing firm along the extended gap of the King's Gate, their mounts had reared away from the iron and steel-tipped pikes and spears, backing away from the wall as if it were wildfire.
They instantly halted and backed away, they also prevented the horsemen behind them from charging, causing a wide and spontaneous chain of disaster as mounted knights and sellswords either toppled into one another or had come to a full stop completely.
And as there was no possible way to flank the long line of brave men standing in their way, these mounted warriors had nowhere else to go but to be slaughtered.
That was when the archers had begun firing.
Jon watched through the small cracks afforded to him through the shields as arrows rained down from the walls on either end of the gap, hitting the stalled cavalry charge as if they were quite literally fish in a barrel.
He did not fail to notice the courage of his men returning once again, now suddenly aware of just how unimposing these mounted warriors had become in the blink of an eye.
"Forward!" He shouted. "Spears!"
For the mounted sellswords in front of Jon's line, there was nothing to be done. Hundreds of spears and pikes lanced forward from behind the shield wall, cutting down dozens and scores of enemy soldiers and their horses within seconds.
The archers along the walls seemed to suddenly grow in numbers, as more and more arrows continued to hail down like an impossible storm of steel and iron upon the knights of the Golden Company.
Jon could hear damn near hundreds of screams cry out in pain by the time the cavalry charge had broken and started to retreat back to the forest. Jon knew well enough that hundreds must have been wounded, and hundreds more were certainly dead. As the remaining horsemen fled for the forest, Jon saw the sea of bloodied bodies with arrows protruding from their corpses, and the mass of writhing arms and legs as men clutched at their sides, and to the shafts sticking out of them.
So as to cover the retreat of the some remaining three-hundred horsemen, a loose volley of arrows had been fired from the forest. Yet the shield wall remained compact, with the holes between the shields revealing very little. Jon felt an arrow bounce weakly off of his own shield.
It wasn't until then that he realized it. By the Old Gods themselves! He'd actually done it! The enemy cavalry had been rerouted and almost completely decimated!
But he was too exhausted to really comb over the obvious victory, too stressed to raise his spear and cheer with his men.
And yet-
HUURRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! The opposition's horn blew again. But why?
Jon found out what it was before he saw it. Or more accurately, them.
This time, the charge was not cavalry, but infantry. Clearly, it was meant to follow the cavalry into the city, but as the horseman had stalled due to their mounts, that was no longer an option.
No, what these seasoned sellswords offered up next was something different.
Coming right out of the forest, and surrounded by scores of infantry, were great hulking grey beasts with large ivory tusks as sharp as spears. Elephants, Jon forced himself to remain ice-cold. War elephants.
He knew, that along with the endless horde of infantrymen who came running out of the forests with them, Aegon's forces had actually gathered together for one unanimous charge. Not just Golden Company, but Jon also saw the sigils of many Crownlands houses: Boggs; Cave; Brune; Crabb; Buckwell; Hardy; Pyne, and so so many others as well. Far too many to count right now…
This time, they'd tear right through the shield wall.
On the thin white line of the distant horizon, far behind Jon and his brave men, the sky had already since turned from a dark blue to a bright pink flush with orange. And far above them, the sun had started its daily sojourn across the sky, rising far in the east.
Jon Stark wondered what death would feel like. Would it be a brief pain and then a blinding flash? Or would it be long and drawn out, the same jagged and harrowing end that his father had faced?
He… didn't know. And for some strange reason, it didn't scare him.
His lack of emotion was soon replaced with anger. Not today, Jon thought to himself. Not today!
"Not today." He said. Then a bit louder for the men around him. "Not today!" He roared. "What do we say to these fuckers, lads?! Not today!"
And then-
HUURAAAAAAAA! HURRAAAAAAAA! HURRRAAAAAAAA! HURRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
Four charges of a horn had sounded out. And all of time seemed to stop.
The charging infantry had suddenly begun to slow down and turn their heads in another direction… behind them.
Jon watched the northern hill above the forest, beyond the overwhelming force that had threatened to break through his line. As the first cracks of sunlight shone down upon the western front, upon the snow-covered tree tops and grounds paved with bloodied snow, he saw them…
The long line of spears as far as the eye could see, the damn near thousands of men sitting atop their horses, and flowing with the cold winter winds high above them all was a great golden rose sitting upon a verdant green field.
It was the banner of House Tyrell.
Garlan! Jon's heart soared as he recognized the sigil and remembered the letter sent to him by his good brother, by the man he already considered to be blood-related.
There was a horsed figure riding out from the front. Jon saw them raise their spear, and then, the horn bellowed once more, HURRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!
And in one fellow swoop, in one stampeding horde, the line of horsemen clambered down from the hill, the approaching thunder of the thousands of hoofbeats had begun to shake the very ground underneath Jon's feet.
Jon saw the uncertainty and doubt begin to spread throughout the expressions and stances of the enemy soldiers. He saw as they looked back and forth between the city and the oncoming storm that was the Tyrell cavalry. Jon smiled as he recognized the stench of fear within them.
Garlan's cavalry had already begun to seep well into the forest. But for the side that rode close to the river where there were no trees, Jon knew there was no escape as more Tyrell cavalry rode in from the south, cutting off any viable escape besides the north.
It was sheer murder.
No matter if the Golden Company and Crownlands Houses had superior numbers. To them, there was only one direction in which to escape. And they took it.
It was then, as Aegon's forces gave into fear and panic that they all broke for the north, completely stopping their advance upon the city, and heading towards Jon's right.
Jon knew it was time to switch to the offense. "Charge!"
As if his men had been waiting for the opportunity to turn the tables on their opponents, they'd drawn back their shields from each other and jumped across the threshold of the rubble that separated them from the fleeing invaders.
Jon was one of the first, and he sprinted down the small incline of rubble and ran with all his remaining energy at the enemy with his spear and shield in hand.
The sun continued to blaze its way into the morning sky, the first sounds of victory rung out across the fields outside King's Landing, signaling the epic defeat of The False Dragon, and his army of sellswords and traitors.
It was a day when legends were born, and it was a day when myths were put to rest.
And what a glorious day it was.
Author's Notes:
WOOOO!
Just about wraps up the Siege of King's Landing. But hot damn, it was certainly fun writing it.
This chapter concludes PART III: A City This Darkness Can't Hide…
Next chapter marks the beginning of the end. It's been labeled so eloquently as PART IV: Checkmate
Jon and Starag begin cleaning up the mess Aegon caused and decide to get out in front to change the game.
Stay tuned for that one
branphillips001: Wonderful recommendations! I've already added "Swords in the Wind" and "Call to Arms" to my workout playlist. Thank you brother 💪
Bhuvan Nagaraj.D: You guessed the Rohirrim charge a chapter early. That was in fact the plan with Garlan's host.
Though I had originally planned to have the Knights of the Vale roll in as well, but after some rough calculations, I knew it would be highly improbable (especially by ASOIAF standards) to get a cavalry host that large through the Mountains of the Moon, especially during winter.
waitwose: I'll always do mentions, my G. One of my favorite parts is going back and forth with you guys 🔥
But, as always ladies and gents, keep doing your squats (best proven natural testosterone booster) and stay hydrated.
See you next time 😎