Chapter 54: Under Siege
Gods… even before his eyes opened it felt like the worst headache of Maegor's life. A thousand little masons hammering his skull from inside his head. The light streaming against his face forced his eyes shut, trying to draw out the soothing darkness for as long as he could…
The sound of cooing drew his attention.
"Kessa, sweetling. It's kepa."
Daemon… and Rhaena. The two he loved the most in the world.
"He loves you, I promise."
Fuck it. He'd endure all the pain in the world not to miss this. Forcing his eyes to flutter open, he shifted in the bed. Groaning from the pain in his battered body, but nonetheless greeted by the most wondrous of sights. "My love, you're awake." Rhaena was at his side, peppering him with kisses.
"He is." Tyanna held Daemon in her arms, the beautiful silver-haired Prince babbling and flailing his arms about. She held him strongly to her side. Gods, she was just as beautiful as Rhaena, coloring dark while his wife's was light - no less alluring to him. "How are you feeling, your Grace?"
A shrug. "Oh, just like shit, love."
Tyanna snorted. "Aye, he'll be fine." Only then did she notice what he said. "Oh." A blush adorned her cheeks. Daemon tried to reach out for his kepa, determined, but the ladies kept him away. Maegor wanted to hold him and play with him, but not just yet.
Allow him to recover first.
Suddenly feeling a bit cold, Maegor shivered and pulled the blanket to his neck. Rhaena, still watching him intently, picked up on his discomfort and signaled to Tyanna. "Ty, please take Daemon back to the nursery. I think his kepa needs some further rest."
Biting her lip - looking gorgeous while doing so in Maegor's opinion, the perfect blend of sultry and youthfully innocent - Tyanna nodded. "Of course." She however leaned down, hovering the silver-haired scamp in front of his kepa's mouth.
Maegor took advantage and kissed the boy's forehead several times in quick succession. "Love you, boy." He followed by pressing a kiss to Tyanna's lips, drawing a slight gasp from her. "Same, Tyanna."
Her eyes watered, but her lips curled into the most beaming of smiles. "My handsome King." She curtseyed as best she could with a tired babe in her arms, and gracefully departed from the bedchamber. Ample arse swaying back and forth for his benefit.
From the way Rhaena watched her leave as well, it was for her benefit too. The thought was delicious to him, and made his chill lessen.
What banished it completely was the slim form of his wife and Queen slipping underneath the covers to hug his side. She was slow and careful, but he winced nonetheless when she brushed a bruise or half-healed cut. Couldn't be helped, and the result of her snuggled close to him was wonderful enough to make up for it. "If I were more put together, I'd make a sibling for Daemon right on this bed."
Rhaena shivered, casting him a look of desire. "Certainly Tyanna would wish it her womb to be the one to grant our son that gift."
"Mayhaps I'll seed you both."
"You'd like that, wouldn't you. Lecher." They chuckled, the tension seemingly gone.
Until he winced from the laughter, causing his bruised and cut stomach a bit of pain. Nothing as bad as the grimace from Rhaena, her sweet heart broken at his agony. "I'm fine, Rhae…" He shifted to kiss the crown of her head, inhaling the scent of her silver hair. "I'll recover, do not worry."
"Do not ask me not to worry." Tears blazed against the bare skin of his shoulder. Rhaena was crying. "I spent all the time you were gone thinking you would leave us forever. Don't do that to me again… I couldn't bear it."
"I'm sorry, my love…"
"Not just me," she continued, openly sobbing. "Daemon, and Tyanna… she loves you desperately, Maegor, I know it… and Ceryse still loves you I am sure…"
"Please, my love, calm down." Maegor kissed her and she seemed to relax against him. She wrapped a leg around his and clung to him, softly sobbing for a moment until she managed to calm. "Tell me… what happened while I was out?"
Rhaena sighed. "How far do you remember?"
He pursed his lips. "I relieved Jaehaerys… is he alright?"
"He is alive and well, and keep going."
Thank the gods for that, at least. "Trial by Seven, then I killed Damon Morrigen - it felt good… I won, didn't I?"
"You did, my strong King." Rhaena squeezed his hand. "Only survivors were Dick Bean and Ser Gawen. The rest died… Brandon is in mourning, while the others are being prepared to send back to their kin."
"So many lost." He hung his head. "Did the Sept surrender? Did Murmison…"
"No, they didn't."
His eyes darkened. "Fuckers, I'll burn them all." Maegor tried to get up, gritting his teeth from the pain. "Balerion…"
"Get back down before you hurt yourself. I already took care of it."
That stilled him. "You did?"
She nodded. "After I beat Jonos Arryn and sent him back into the Eyrie, I flew here… seeing you like this, it made me fly to the Sept and burn it to the ground. No survivors."
Someone else may have condemned her for such brutality. Maegor though, he understood. A dragon understanding a dragon. "Good work, my love."
Rhaena smiled at him and kissed his cheek. "Rest now, Maegor. Husband your strength for the fight ahead."
An order he could follow, but… "Please stay."
Her smile didn't waver. "Always."
Before Maegor fell asleep, he felt another body shift into the bed, snuggling by his side. "Goodnight, Tyanna." He only felt a pair of lips pressing against his skin before slumber took him over.
"Oi', sister-fuckers!" Likely drunk off their asses, a group of Poor Fellows were at the siegeworks showing their disdain for House Targaryen. Waving half-empty bottles of wine, they screeched and shouted and mocked and made wild gestures - usually involving their cocks in some way. "I gotcha a cock yer' Queen can happily fuck!"
Unceremoniously one of them dropped his pants, waving a rather subpar member nestled in a forest of black, scraggly hair. Certainly a sight that one would recoil from. The men guffawed from it. "Come out, Alyssa, sweetling!" one beckoned.
"Send for your whore daughter!" another giggled.
"I gots a cock fer' the Queen!" More laughs, the group finding it all hilarious.
Until a crossbow bolt shot between the aspiring jester's legs. Simply punching through the erect cock, shredding it as if it were a knife through sausage but nowhere as cleanly.
Any humorous attitude evaporated. "Fuck! Fuck!" Screaming his lungs out, the Poor Fellow collapsed to the ground as blood spurted from the stump where his cock and stones had been. "Help me!"
"'Ang on there, Sid…" One of them sputtered out once the others' drink-addled minds pierced what had happened. He moved to help his comrade when another bolt hit him. This time between the eyes.
"Good shot, your Grace," Lord Daeron Qoherys praised, slapping the young Viserys Targaryen on the back. "A proper kill. Clean." Viserys smiled slightly, watching his kill simply collapse on the ground like a sack of meat.
"Pfft…" The snorting belonged to Gargon Qoherys - who for his gluttony and hedonism was actually a crack shot with a crossbow. "Where's the fuckin' fun in that?" He giggled. "Mine's still wriggling like a worm with his cock cut off. Te he!"
"I'm not sure, Ser Gargon. I mean, mine made all of them scatter so you get to watch the poor fuck writhe some more."
Blinking, Ser Gargon surveyed the scene and let out a belly laugh. Plenty of belly solidifying the term. "Gods, my Prince, you're fuckin' right." He clasped Viserys' shoulder. "Could fuckin' kiss ye, but I'll save that for Milly in the kitchens later."
"You do that," Daeron, his uncle, rolled his eyes. It had been Gargon's depravity that led to Red Harren getting all the support he did, though not even the untested Viserys would believe that there would've been no uprising in the central Riverlands without it. Thankfully, the notoriously womanizing Gargon had settled on a girl he rather fancied - and that girl was unattached and with a deceased father.
Worked out well for everyone.
"Take cover!" The warning came long enough for Viserys to scramble behind the wood and stone battlements of Harrenhal castle as the Faith showered that particular section of the wall with arrows. Retaliation for their two dead Poor Fellows. Sharp arrowheads pinged on the stone, while in the distance a wet slap signified someone had been hit. He screamed and shouted, so he wasn't dead, at least.
"Nock and loose!" Viserys ordered. "If they want a fight, we'll give it to them!" Around him, morale sapped by the many moons besieged inside of Black Harren's monstrosity, the sight of their Prince rallying them shot a collective spirit into their arms.
It was a long-range duel with the archers and skirmishers of the Faith, but that didn't bely anything less than a fierce struggle. Archers and crossbowen dueled with each other from behind battlements and mantlets, while when possible javelineers unleashed a hail of darts and missiles. Some foolhardy men tried to rush the walls with siege ladders, but a shower of darts and some boiling water dropped upon them broke that attempt.
"Loose!" Viserys pulled the trigger on his crossbow with a loud thwack. The figure trying to reach the dying man crumpled from a headshot. He grabbed a loaded crossbow from one of the other men and loosed another bold, felling another good samaritan. Such was the pace of things - Gargon would hit a Poor Fellow in the groin or leg, mostly the groin for the brutal knight, and Viserys would snipe everyone that came to try and help the sorry sod.
Between them, nearly fifteen Poor Fellows had met their end and finally the opposing hails of arrows were dying down.
A cloaked figure ran up the staircase behind them, trembling from fear… wait, was that Lady Poore? Viserys flushed red at the sight of his muna's maid. "Your Grace?"
"Yes?" he croaked, though retaining enough clarity to load his crossbow.
"Your mother…"
"Look out!" He tackled her to the stone floor just as an arrow shot past where her neck had been. Lady Poore gasped, chest heaving as he draped over her. "It's not safe, come on." Yanking her while still crouched, Viserys dragged her out of there.
Harrenhal was akin to a city rather than a mere keep. Massive towers were interspersed between the various points on the walls as large as most keeps were in other castles - the keep and the massive towers melted by Balerion decades before were of a whole new class of size. Shoving Jeyne into one pretty much protected her from anything short of the largest siege engine or a dragon… and subsumed them both in a winding maze of hallways, corridors, and staircases.
Viserys pulled her into one, chest heaving with annoyance at the object of his affectionate, wandering glances so risking herself. "What were you thinking, girl?" he hissed. "You could've gotten yourself killed."
Her pretty eyes cast at the ground, the image of supplication. "Forgive me, your Grace… your mother the Queen insisted I come get you…"
"I don't care if the gods themselves order you. I won't have you risking your life on the battlements during a fight." He softened as she cringed. "Are you alright?"
"Yes… I… I am." Her chest rose and fell just as her gaze finally locked on his. Freezing him in place. "You saved me."
Silence reigned after that. They were in a winding stairwell, echoes of the final clashes of the skirmish dying down outside. Torchlight illuminated the round cylinder, but even with the glow being minimal Viserys could still make out her form as his hands drifted from her arms to her hips. Unable to help himself in the vision of her beauty.
A simple beauty, clad in clean homespun brown and hair in an austere bun. No less beautiful, and no less having caught the Prince's fancy.
She turned away from him. However, Jeyne didn't pull away. He could smell the flowery oiled scent that emanated from her hair. A woman of taste, even of the smallfolk. Hearing no sound from her, Viserys stepped forward and pulled her back to him by her waist. She tensed in his grip but didn't say a word as what they had shared since her arrival in the royal household had clearly culminated in this moment.
It was inevitable, even if she seemed reticent. "What do you wish of me, my Prince?" she whispered in a soft voice.
Viserys cupped her cheek. "To have you, as you wish to have me." He snaked his hand to the front of her cloak and began to slowly undo the laces.
"How do I wish to have you?" Her voice was breathy, chest beginning to heave.
The cloak fell to the ground, and Viserys pulled her back onto him, her back flush against his front. Her arse pressed against his hardening length, making them both gasp. When had his cock grown hard? As soon as he was alone with her. "Carnally." Viserys acted on instinct, latching onto her neck. Making her mewl. "Tell me I am wrong."
She reached out to lean against the wall of the stairwell as he ran his tongue over her skin. Viserys reached down and bunched up the skirt of her dress, slowly hiking it up to her waist. Her smallclothes were slick against his knuckles when he rubbed against them. More than he had ever done to a woman… it was electric, the wetness that glided beneath his fingers.
When Viserys pushed two fingers into her folds, she threw her head back and pressed further against him. "Please… I've never known a man… be gentle, your Grace. Please."
Ravenous though he was for her, Viserys was no cruel brute like Gargon. His touch slowed upon brushing her intact maidenhead, fingers shallow. Teasing her, continuing what made her tense and moan. Her pants turned into moans when his fingers rubbed against her sensitive pearl.
"Your Grace…" Voice throaty with desire, Jeyne moved to help him further. Tilting her head slightly and brushing her raven-hair to the side, allowing him to bury his head into her neck. Viserys pulled down the collar of her dress further to nibble and suck upon her skin, leaving a mark before trailing upwards to her jaw.
You're beautiful," Viserys growled as she writhed and rolled her hips, causing her arse to rub against his cock. "I wanted you from the moment I saw you." He palmed her clothed breast, growing even harder at the pertness of the most glorious of female features. So, he moved his free hand upward and squeezed a clothed breast. "Did you?"
"Yes… my Prince… you're beautiful too…" She writhed much more furiously against him. "Yes…" He licked the shell of her ear, and it set her off. Jeyne turned her head and met his lips, kissing him in a frenzy and all too eager to let him stick his tongue down her throat. Seven hells, she stuck hers down his throat, desperate for him.
Moments later, Jeyne attempted to break the kiss to cry out, but Viserys held her tightly. Squeezing her breasts as she rode his fingers through her orgasm.
Viserys, hearing her labored breaths, felt the heat coursing through him. An inner dragon he had never felt before had awoken, roiling within his core and demanding to be set free. He turned her, resuming the kiss. Drawing out the beast inside her as well, fatigue forgotten. Grinning, he broke it and reveled in her mewl of discontent.
A mewl that turned into a gasp, her dark eyes clouding with a stormy lust when he moved his honey-coated fingers up to his mouth. Licking up the savory concoction, smacking his lips just as she threw herself at him. Pretense forgotten, demanding of a moment of the greatest passion.
It passed in a blur. Their stumbling into an empty storage chamber, never breaking their juicy kiss.
His fingers dextrous as they undid the laces to her dress - watching as the fabric slid down her perfect body to pool around her smooth legs.
How Jeyne initially covered herself, looking away modestly as if she expected him to be repulsed by her naked form. He answered that by pouncing. Shoving her against the wall and going to his knees. Viserys covered her swollen sex with his mouth. Jeyne looked up at the ceiling as he ran his tongue up and down her slit. Grabbing his hair, twisting in it. Gasping in the purest of pleasure.
Rising with her juices all over his mouth. They kissed again, hungry and desperate. Viserys hiked her leg over his hip. She looked at him with her dark eyes and yelped when he pulled to him. Eyes widening when she saw his cock flop wildly, the tip leaking a bit of clear fluid and spreading onto the bulbous tip. "Take me, my Prince," she yearned of him, and he complied.
Neither of them much thought of anything after that, nigh but bliss.
What could be a better target than a Targaryen Princess? Not even a Targaryen, but a woman, riding out into the maw of danger on a whim and clearly evident by her sex and beauty to be unable to protect herself as well as a man. By the gods, her dragon was not even evident.
Thus when a host of Rhaenys Targaryen of Winterfell's five hundred mounted light cavalry - mostly of House Hornwood and Karstark, the latter under the command of the fiery young heir itching for revenge - were spotted close by the siege camp north of the ford over the Green Fork, gallant and brave Warriors Sons spurred the other knights and horsemen of the Riverlands to action. "Forward!" they said. "A dragon has barrelled into our jaws!"
"Her head! The Dragon's head!" came the cry, forming ranks and charging forward. Rhaenys, her armor glinting and sword shining in the bright light of the sun, met the charge and five hundred northmen met the seven hundred knights in a fierce melee. They had the numbers, but the northmen had skill and rage on their side.
Rhaenys was in the thick of the fighting, screaming at the top of her lungs as she swung her sword. Silver hair tumbled beneath her dragon-winged helm, a union of the three-headed dragon and direwolf upon her surcoat. There was no denying who she was, and drew Warrior Sons to her as a flame drew moths. One broke through the screen of Stark bodyguards and swung his sword. It struck Rhaenys' forehead, her vision exploding with red pain. Blood dripping into her eye.
But her helm took most of the blow. She snarled and lashed out, sword cutting against metal. Granting enough time so that Lord Karstark could run the knight through with his lance.
They held their own, but when a thousand more horse formed up and threw themselves at the horsemen it was too much for the northmen. Hornblows sounded the retreat under cover of mounted archers. Rhaenys led them from the rear, her silver hair clearly flowing in the wind and serving as a beacon. And a target.
"Her head! The Dragon's head!" The Faith would not let their prize get away, so the war mounts continued the pursuit through the ford and north of it. Hellbent on their prize, galloping hooves taking them further and further from their siege camp.
Almost too easy. Rhaenys, the slight cut above her forehead stung but her sword was bathed in blood, grinned underneath her helm. Around her, the northern horsemen funneled into a compact column while on the ride, aiming for the Kingsroad winding between two forested hills.
The army of the Faith, Warrior's Sons in the van, shot straight after them and into Rhaenys' trap.
Two thousand men lay concealed on each side of the road. On the left were the Freys, while Lord Bolton manned the right. All were footmen, but that mattered not as when the trumpets blew, the two concealed Targaryen divisions erupted in a bloodthirsty fury upon the Faith from the flanks and the rear. Beserk wildlings led by Gelina and Ralla manning the rear with their axes, hacking at the legs of horses and blocking any retreat through the Kingswood, ensuring the slaughter.
Cut off from aid and surrounded, the knights and mounted warriors' confidence quickly descended into panic. One of their leaders tried to rally his men, his rainbow cloak and crystal-topped helm displaying the glory of his faith and his position. However, his attempts were cut short by Rhaenys. She had doubled back and charged him, dodging a swordblow only to swing hers right at the join of his neck and shoulder. The steel proved true, slicing him across from the top of one shoulder to the armpit of the other.
Arrows and wildling axes finished the gruesome business. When Black Harren arrived with ten thousand footmen to support the charging cavalry, he was greeted with the corpses of near two thousand men, many of them impaled upon pikes jutting out of the ground.
He bid a quick retreat back to the fork, not wishing to turn defeat into disaster.
Still mounted as they rode back to the Twins, Rhaenys cleaned the blood off her sword. A scowl still planted on her face. "Oi', Lady Dragon."
She looked to her right to see Gelina, axe draped over her shoulder as a smug satisfaction filled her. "You look happy."
"Why not? Nothin' better than a good fight - 'cept a good fuck." Rhaenys snorted, to which Gelina laughed. "Only lost bout two hundred men in the mess, half of that only wounded."
"Thank the gods for small favors, I suppose." Rhaenys sheathed her blade. "Can't feel too happy though. Doesn't take away how many we lost."
"Aye, many more to kill."
Rhaenys eyed her with a raised brow. "Not so sentimental, are you?"
A shrug. "Lost plenty of loved ones in the True North. What use is there mourning them when a single day 'kin mean the difference between life and death?"
That… made a whole lot of sense. "He's my husband… I can't just get over him." The anger fueled her, but with battle ended and victory obtained, did it feel any less painful? No, it didn't. The agony that truly consumed Rhaenys remained and it was near crippling.
And there were only so many Warrior's Sons and Lannisters to kill, none of whom would truly sate her anger and grief.
"Eventually yer'll have to move on, Rhaenys," Gelia spoke softly, for once sounding like the young, beautiful woman she was.
"How?"
Another shrug. "Ye'll know when ye' see it." She spurred her horse forward, and Rhaenys watched her receding form.
Rising from his seat, the balding maester of Castamere reached out to comfortingly hold the Princess' hand. "Is there anything I can do to ease the discomfort, your Grace?"
Staring ahead at nothing in particular, Alys Targaryen took a moment to process his words. So troubled was she, they initially were incomprehensible. "Oh," she finally said. "No… I'm perfectly alright." The words were a gentle murmur, mind a cloud of conflicting emotions.
The maester looked as if he didn't believe her, but ceremoniously bowed. "Inform me if you need anything, your Grace." She must've nodded, for he departed.
Upon the solitude she craved for the moment - if only to clear her head - Alys sputtered out a deep exhale. She fell back in her seat, clutching the arms of the chair as if she were to fall off without them. Dear gods… dear gods why now?
Castamere was safe, virtually impregnable even if the walls and towers above were barely the size of her father's keep back in the Riverlands. Massive doors of steel and northern ironwood protected the immense subterranean complex in which the Reynes enjoyed their significant wealth and luxury rivaling their Lannister rivals. It was a proper place to hole up the war - Fair Isle and her dear friend Elissa would be better given it had the sea protecting it from Tyrion Lannister's investing army.
An army Alys yearned to escape. One day they disappeared, leaving only the most fragmentary of siegeworks - enough to hold off Lord Reyne unfortunately - only for two weeks later to return… alongside the severed corpses of a dozen Northern Lords. Brandon Stark among them. There had been great despair in that, but the resolve of the defenders never wavered.
Lord Reyne cut the noses off of Tyrion's envoys, saying he could root out the Reynes from their mines if he wanted Castamere. No surrender.
All was well and good, if not for the fact that Alys hadn't seen the sun in moons. Kept underground to protect her from the daily rain of projectiles, missiles, and arrows. She was beginning to go mad, and then came this news.
Gods, having sex with her husband was the only break in the monotony of the siege. At least Aegon could journey to the battlements and fight it out with the Lannisters.
The dark side of that blessing was bare to Alys as the door opened, Aegon trudging in. Her elation turned to horror at the moment she saw the dried blood soaking his leather cuirass and undertunic. "Egg!" she screamed, rushing to him.
He waved her off, but that didn't stop her from enveloping him in her arms. Not that Aegon ever minded, burying his grimy, sweaty face in the valley between her breasts. "It's not my blood… well, most of it isn't anyway."
His chuckles weren't appreciated by her. "What in seven hells did you do?" Alys began inspecting his arm, feeling for cuts. Thankfully he was right, there wasn't much.
"Tyrion… fuck…" he grunted when she pressed on an actual cut. It had scabbed over. "He brought up some heavy siege engines. I led a knightly charge while the morning fog shrouded everything." Aegon smirked when she opened his cuirass, revealing a bandaged chest. "No more siege engines."
"And almost no more your life," she hissed back. "What were you thinking?"
"I had to, for us."
"No, you need to live for us." Alys wished to finesse it, but his reckless bravery upended that plan. Unceremoniously she grabbed his hand and placed it on her belly. "For us."
Aegon blinked, confused for a moment… until he wasn't. "Alys…?"
She nodded. "Aye."
"When did you…"
"Just a few hours ago. The maester confirmed it."
Aegon rose, cupping her cheek. Suddenly he hoisted her up, kissing her. "I love you."
"I love you too…" Gods she was so scared, but he made her want to smile and be happy. Mayhaps that was why Alys loved him so. "I'm afraid, Egg."
He set her down and hugged her close. Powerful hands stroking her back and calming her. "So am I, but we're dragons. We'll win this fucking thing."
"I'm no dragon."
"You're married to one, that makes you a dragon by extension."
"Dragon by extension? Now you're the one who's mad."
Aegon snorted. "We'll see about that." He kissed her, and Alys felt her worries slipping away. Allowing him to lead her back to their bed while she worked at the ties to his trousers. It wasn't like she could fall pregnant again.
And as she thought before, what else was there to do to pass the time?