Author's Note: Hello again, thanks for all of the reviews and follows! I'm glad so many of you who read the original liked the changes on this rewrite.
As always, I hope you enjoy this update.
Chapter 20
Original word count: 1,977
Revised word count: 3,141
Robert Baratheon was dead.
Eddard sat a black gelding—his third horse of the day—watching the crumbling lines of Stormlanders and Valemen. The victory that had seemed certain mere minutes ago was slipping from their hands like sand, and Ned did not have to listen to the war cries and shouts all around to know why.
This battle had at its core relied on the welfare of three men: Rhaegar Targaryen, his brother Aelor, and Robert. Barring a complete rout of a flank or a betrayal, the Battle of the Trident—and for that matter the entire war, now that Aerys was dead—hinged on what befell the three men leading it.
The Old Gods had chosen, it seemed. Though I think the men involved played a part as well.
As Ned commanded the defense against the Dornish, reports and cries kept him aware of what was happening in the ford. At first is had been elation, for Rhaegar was dead at the hands of Robert. Then it had been word of a royalist rally, and claims that Aelor was still on his feet and trying to avenge his brother. Shortly after that, a runner— and the confused, disorganized flight of men in rebellion colors—informed Eddard that the Dragon of Duskendale had succeeded.
A Dornishman, bleeding from half a dozen wounds, appeared from the corpses around him to thrust a spear at Eddard's face. The Lord of the North knocked it aside with Ice, then chopped down on his collarbone, shearing through it and ribs and organs, killing him at once. The thousands of Dornish in the rear had in truth been a few hundred, though Ned knew the chaos they had wrought was to blame for the false report. Whatever their numbers they had proven devastating, their lethality doubled by their timing; the Dornish had caught Lord Tully and the rear guard just as they'd gone to reinforce the right of the line, which hadn't gained much ground during Robert's counterattack.
The Dornish cut down scores before the Rivermen even knew they were there, instilling a panic that only Eddard's own arrival had stopped. His northmen had blunted the attack and, after much blood, were finally turning it back, sending the attackers back into the trees, save for a few dozen stubbornly fighting on despite the increasing number of enemies.
Chief among those was Ser Arthur Dayne, whose rumored presence proved true. You could track where the Sword of the Morning had been by the lines of corpses, cut down like wheat before a scythe. Even now the Kingsguard knight—in plain mail and helm, not his usual white armor—was spinning and slashing with a sword in either hand, dropping men in a rain of bodies and blood.
Eddard had been making his way towards him when he'd gotten the news of Robert's death. Though I am no fool—were I to face him, I would end up a corpse like the others.
"My lord!" a knight called, wearing the merman of Manderly, pointing back towards the ford. The number of fleeing Valemen and Stormlanders was growing, their spirit for the fight dying with Robert. A wave of royalist, revitalized, pursued, cutting men down as they fled. A man in Kingsguard white rode a courser in their midst, shouting encouragement and direction, as did several knights and lords.
A force of knights broke through on the left, led by a man bearing the Hightower on his chest and waving a Targaryen banner in one hand and a sword in the other. They wheeled around to flank those few rebels who fought on in the center, blades swinging. More and more began to flee in response, and Ned realized the battle risked becoming a full rout.
If we can kill Aelor…but no, Eddard had no idea where the Targaryen was, and the rebel forces were breaking too quickly to find him. It is a beautiful morning. Time this bloodshed ends.
"Greatjon!" The Umber, ever at his side, stepped forward, a copper skinned head in his hand from one of the Greatjons foes. "Contain the Dornishmen as best you can. I'll form a line and hold it until most of our force is away, then make a fighting withdrawal."
The giant had no give up in him, gesturing towards the main battle with the freshly severed head. "We can win this, boy!"
A lie. "Robert's dead, Rhaegar too. We need to regroup and rethink. Pass the order."
As the horns blew Eddard dismounted, Ice in his hands, slapping the rear of the black gelding to send it sprinting away. Shouting and threatening, his Northmen formed a ragged line. Some of those who were fleeing joined it, falling into place, while others just forced through and kept running.
Eddard took a deep breath.
I'm sorry, father. I'm sorry Brandon.
I'm sorry Lyanna.
When the first of the royalists reached him, he stepped forward and swung.
"Prince Aelor."
Aelor Targaryen didn't move.
"Prince Aelor."
The Dragon of Duskendale knelt in the blood of the ford, a body braced on his knee. He looked more demon than man, his black armor covered in mud and gore from helm to thigh. Even below that was bloody, the usual cleansing of water impossible—the Trident was as red as the Targaryen banner.
Barristan the Bold knew who the prince was cradling, even before he limped to the younger man's side. Rhaegar Targaryen, first of his name, stared sightlessly into the blue above, violet eyes gone glassy. Aelor had removed his brother's helm, and Rhaegar's once silver hair was as red as the river, as red as the rubies that had been knocked free of his armor by the blow that had taken his life. Barristan looked down at that man, his silver tongue stilled, and again thought only of the small child he'd seen grow.
He saw the same when he looked to the man holding him.
Barristan reached out gently, wary of a sudden reaction, and laid a hand on Aelor's shoulder. He needn't have been cautious for the second son of Aerys didn't move an inch, stock still as he stared down at the body of the first. Barristan felt a stab of panic at that, immediately trying to look the prince over for serious injury. It proved a futile effort, for there was so much blood and filth that it was impossible to know how much, if any, belonged to Aelor. Disregarding his own injuries, Barristan quickly crouched beside the prince, taking a quick breath in to shout for a maester.
Aelor's hoarse whisper stopped him. "I'm fine, Barristan."
A wave of relief flooded Barristan the Bold, though it was tainted by the dead tone of the Lord of Duskendale's voice. "Your helm, Aelor." When he didn't move, Barristan shook him gently. "Your helm."
"My what?" The prince finally looked up, the violet of his eyes barely visible around the black of his pupils. Barristan, having seen it many times during the War of the Ninepenny Kings, understood what was happening at once. Battleshock.
Barristan took a firmer grip on the prince's arm, but fingers were suddenly pulling the white flame crest up and over the dragonlord's head. Desmond Langward, ever the dutiful squire, stood behind his mentor. His lean face, sheened with sweat, showed no trace of the boy he had been so recently. In place of that innocence were the hard eyes and set jaw of a man who had seen the worst the world had to offer. "Easy, my lord."
Aelor finally seemed to awaken, as if he had been in the embrace of a dream. If he had been, the reversion to reality was surely a shock.
The ford was clogged with the dead, the bodies thick enough in places that a man could walk across the river Trident without ever touching the water. The bodies of levies, mostly unarmored, were half-afloat, but most armored men were held under, stacked atop each other from riverbed to surface. A dam was forming as a result, forcing the water around the dead. Both riverbanks were much the same, particularly the northern one, where men were stacked high in great dead piles. Even Barristan found it hard; he had seen war, but never had he seen carnage like this.
Some of the royalist men, the victors if a chaotic slaughter like this could have one—Barristan didn't believe it could—were already looting. Others seemed rendered inert, much as Aelor had been. These stood amidst the corpses like blood-soaked statues, unsure of how to handle coming down from the high of battle. A flock of the looters were scoping the ford nearby, as close to Aelor and the king's body as they dared get. Those men, mostly peasant levies who struggled to feed themselves much less acquire any wealth, were frantically searching the water for the rubies Robert's hammer had smashed from Rhaegar breastplate. Barristan had half a mind to run them off or run them through, but a part of him knew that this was one of the darker realities of war.
As were the wounded. And by the Seven, there were so many. Amongst the still bodies of the dead were writhing living ones, some holding wounds as if to keep their blood inside them, others squirming in the dirt like grubs, out of their minds with the pain of their injuries. The screams and moans of their agony was a cacophony of horror in an already gruesome scene, pounding against Barristan like the bloody current of the river.
Aelor grunted, taking a waterskin that Des produced out of nowhere and drinking deeply. Handing the skin to Barristan, the prince's violet eyes seemed to clear, regaining some of their sharpness. "I take it we won the day."
Barristan nodded. "Yes."
The prince nodded, then looked around him slowly. He did not release the body of the king. "Do we know the cost?"
"Not yet, my prince.
Too high, my son. Too bloody high.
Over three thousand knights and freeriders had charged across the river Trident with Aelor Targaryen, lances raised and armor gleaming.
Eighty-three of them lived.
Ser Balman Byrch was found halfway under his horse on the far side of the river, a dirk through the eye of his helm. Lord Elwood Harte, the last of his dynasty, had fallen less than ten feet from him, a spear in his gut, the young man's hands wrapped around its shaft as he lay against the belly of a dead courser. Ser Willis Lyberr sat slumped in the mud of the northern bank, a dozen wounds turning the cat and jug sigil of his house crimson. He had the head of Ser Alester Turnbuckle, tall form missing an arm at the shoulder, in his lap. The two men, friends all their lives, had died together, Willis bleeding out while comforting his oldest companion.
Aelor Targaryen, thinking of Wylla Lyberr and young Sera, hung his head.
There would be many widows and fatherless children to face in the Dun Fort whenever the Lord of Duskendale returned. It seemed that none of Aelor's personal retinue, knights he had handpicked from all corners of Westeros and who had volunteered to a man to join the vanguard, had survived. The fifty-five had died to a man for the prince they served.
All except a squire and a black stallion.
Warrior had found Aelor standing in the ford, the prince supported on his wounded right side by Desmond. The big warhorse splashed through the water on a direct line for him, carelessly clomping over dead bodies as he emerged from the field of corpses red from muzzle to hock. He, much like his master, was battered but still alive, with half a dozen cuts and gashes leaking fresh blood. He thankfully seemed in no true danger, nudging Aelor with his head as if to apologize for letting him fall off.
Aelor patted the beast's neck and scratched behind his ears, glad his horse had lived. Very little else had.
Aelor, recovered of his senses and having ordered the master's off to men who needed them more, had finally surrendered his brother's body. Rhaegar Targaryen, the first of his name, was being carried from the field by Jon Connington and Arthur Dayne, the Lord of Griffin's Roost bawling uncontrollably. The red-haired knight had slain Denys Arryn, heir to the Vale, in single combat on the far bank, and had fought with distinction throughout the battle. Now, though, he looked nothing like an accomplished warrior, his face as red as his flaming hair as tears cut furrows down his grimy cheeks.
Aelor stood dry-eyed. Though fully back in his right mind, there was a numbness around the death of his brother, a feeling that it wasn't real. It certainly was—Aelor had seen him die, had held his corpse, had avenged him—but his mind refused to accept it. The prince didn't know how he would handle it when that dam broke, but he wagered it wouldn't be well. For now, he used the control the numbness granted him to his advantage, trying to give a calm and commanding presence as maesters and healers worked to save all they could.
He'd given Randyll Tarly temporary command, the Lord of Horn Hill having already taken a portion of it on himself by necessity. The Reachman, armed with his Valyrian steel greatsword Heartsbane, had helped solidify the royalist line in the wake of Robert Baratheon's charge, holding it as firm as he could while Aelor and Robert fought. Now, as teams of men combed through the bloody carnage for this purpose or that one, Tarly organized a guard, both to keep the survivors from straggling away and to counter any attempt by the rebels to rejoin battle.
Aelor had little fear they would. Prince Oberyn, a wound over his right eye, had stopped long enough to report to Aelor how his attack had gone. He'd lost near all his flanking force, including Ser Ormund Darry and two of his brothers—only Raymun, youngest of them all, had lived—but they'd inflicted a heavy toll. Only the Northmen under Eddard Stark had stalled them, just as the northerner's had prevented a full rout by holding the line long enough for the rebels to flee before making a fighting withdrawal of their own. The royalists had not pursued long, as exhausted and beaten down as the men they'd driven from the field.
Oberyn had given the report directly and quickly, then headed towards their camp and his paramour. Aelor envied him, but he had not budged from his place in the blood of the ford. There was one member of his retinue they had yet to recover, and Aelor refused to quit the field until they did.
When a man in blue finally rushed to him with a location, the prince had required Des' help to move, for his hip was a throbbing pain that became shooting when he put nearly any weight on it. But move he had, and quickly.
Lord Renfred Rykker had ended up on the far left of the northern bank, where the water was still relatively deep. It was unclear how he'd gotten there, for he'd started in the very center, riding at Aelor's side as he always had. But it was there he had ended, in the reeds amongst dead men. Ren was near hidden by the cattails, leaning against the rebel riverbank with the lower half of his body submerged, a circle of dead men in the mud and water near him. His once blue surcoat was now, like so much else in this cursed place, blood red. A broken lance jutted from his left shoulder, driven deep. It should have killed him on its own, but Renfred—tough as they came—had fought on despite it. It had taken a sword in his side to finally bring him down, but even now Renfred Rykker clung to life just as his hands still clung to his warhammer, refusing to surrender the weapon despite a maester's attempts to make him.
Aelor knew before he even fully reached his old friend that there was nothing the man would be able to do.
The prince dropped beside his childhood companion, hip screaming in a pain he ignored. There was no numbness here, whatever the reason; Aelor could all but feel his heart ripping apart as he took the Lord of Hollard Hall's hand in his own. Renfred's full black beard was speckled with blood, twin trickles of it trailing down from the corners of his mouth. His breathing was labored, chest rising and falling heavily, its rattling sound giving away the blood slowly filling his lungs.
It took Aelor four attempts to speak, and even then all he could do was shake his head and curse. "Dammit, Ren."
The big man opened his eyes slowly, eyes struggling to focus as he turned his head to look at his best friend. The fool had the audacity to smile when he saw Aelor, even as he lay there dying. His voice was as labored as his breathing, but Aelor could make out the words plain enough. "Did we win?"
"Yes, my brother. We won."
Rykker nodded. "Baratheon?"
"Dead."
Rykker nodded again, this one a touch weaker. "Good."
Aelor felt the burn of tears in his eyes, though he didn't let them fall. "I'm sorry, Ren."
Even when dying Rykker managed to raise an eyebrow in bemusement. "For what?"
This. You lying here. Malessa being a widow, your child fatherless. Willis and Alester. Balman and Morgan. Wylla Lyberr and Brandon Stark. "All of it."
The Lord of Hollard Hall shook his head, at least as much as he was able. "This isn't your fault, Aelor." He paused to take a pained breath before he continued. "All men must die. Today is my turn."
Aelor swallowed, fighting to keep his composure. "I'll care for Malessa and the babe, you have my word. Anything they ever want, they will have."
Rykker grinned again. "Hell, I already knew that." The grin became pained, a round of great bloody coughs wracking Renfred's body. His eyes shut tightly as he did so, frothy drops of blood coming out with each cough, before opening them again once the fit had passed. Body beginning to shake, he released Aelor's hand, fumbling as he tried to grip the dragonlord's forearm instead. Aelor obliged him, sliding his wrist into Ren's hand and taking Renfred's into his own.
Renfred Rykker spoke their old greeting, one last time. "Strong shield."
And Aelor answered, as he always had. "Stronger sword."
"You're damn right." His body convulsed once, twice, three times, and then life faded from Renfred Rykker's eyes.
Aelor Targaryen wept.