The Dance is not over

by Antony444

The Dance of the Dragons was the most devastating conflict Westeros had ever seen, one hundred and seventy years before the War of the Five Kings. In the end, a succession of deaths and betrayals allowed the kingdom to find peace and recover. But what if it had not happened? What if the courage of a young dragoness had pushed this war to be fought to the bitter end?

6. The Battle of Bosworth Bridge Part III

Chapter 6

The Battle of Bosworth Bridge Part III

Captain-General Makaerys Belicho

"If that elephant does not want to advance one more time, then by the wrath of Caraxes I will eat it at my next meal!"

Makaerys Belicho knew he was throwing a tantrum before half of his men, but at this moment the Volantene commander didn't really care. He was drenched and cold, his teeth were gritting in sounds no scion of the Old Blood should make or listen to. He had had to use three different mounts since the march commenced at first light. Makaerys had had to separate twice gatherings since their pause at the last village, once for a sordid story of stolen bread and the other because an officer had accused one of his pikemen to steal in his baggage. The Captain-General of the Fierce Parrots knew he had arrived to the limits of his patience.

And now one of the three elephants he had been forced by contract to bring with him was busy taking a mud bath, forcing the columns of pike and soldiers to move around or stop and create a jam.

"I've heard it's bad luck to eat elephant meat before a battle is to be fought, Captain." Intervened his second, the Paymaster Tovarro. Having celebrated two and forty name days three fortnights ago, the treasurer of the company was covered in scars and lacked half of his teeth, but his mind was sharper than most warriors and generals Makaerys had had the opportunity to meet in his life.

"Pure superstition, I assure you." Replied curtly the commander of the Fierce Parrots. If one listened to everything in the Free Cities supposed to bring bad luck, one would never go out of bed and live a life. A thousand religions and cultures tended to create a million superstitions. At least.

"You will need a lot of meals to eat an elephant by yourself."

"That sounds like a more reasonable point." Admitted the Volantene noble with the ghost of a smile on his lips. "That said," his expression turned harder and more dangerous, "if this elephant isn't moving in the next couple of hourglass turns, it won't matter. Because we will have missed the battle!"

It was a gross exaggeration and both men knew it. If each time they had had an accident or a delay from their departures of Volantis the Fierce Parrots lost the opportunity to fight in a battle, their troops would hardly fight once per year.

"I'm going to tell the trainers they have to hurry and stop blocking the progression of our foot." Proposed Tovarro, giving a disgusted glance at the men in question, who were doing their best not to go in the mud and take out their huge charge.

"Do that. And explain to them by the same occasion that every gold coin our employer will not pay us will be compensated somewhere else."

Somewhere like the elephant trainers purse for example was the unspoken affirmation.

"What is it now?" Asked the Captain-General, seeing that while Tovarro departed, one of his mounted messengers waiting in silence on his left.

"The scouts are coming back, Captain-General."

"Let's see if they have something interesting to tell us..." Makaerys said with a pinched expression of his mouth. "Apart that the weather is atrocious, that is."

Makaerys Belicho had read several books on how dreadful the winds and the rain could be in Westeros during a winter. Somehow, despite plenty of horrible tales spread by lazy sailors, the books and the stories had understated the bad weather a lot. The Volantene companies having accepted the gold of the Iron Throne had been brutally hammered in the Narrow Sea. The transports and their escorts had been dispersed everywhere, to the point Belicho had found himself at Duskendale commanding eight thousand men of his own company, sixty and two hundred archers from the Redoubtable Elephants, and five hundred spears from the Crouching Tigers. Where the last five hundred men and the main components of the two other companies had been displaced, neither Makaerys Belicho nor his officers had any idea.

Of course it isn't the only thing the books and the tales have understated...if the pay wasn't that good, I would never have crossed the Narrow Sea.

Once having landed on a good and hard ground that was not in any danger to sink, it had been to discover how miserable the transportation means in the Sunset Kingdoms were. Captain-General Makaerys had no idea what the situation in the Reach or the Stormlands was looking like, but the roads in this part of Westeros were an insult to the name. The Valyrian Freehold at the height of its power would have endlessly laughed at these muddy trails the native lords pretended to call 'roads' if they were alive today, and even Belicho's fellow Volantenes would have criticised the high roads, never mind this 'Fish Road'.

Roads. What a bad joke. No pavement, no smooth trail, and thanks to the civil war currently being fought, no maintenance. In dry season, there had to be clouds of dust every time a couple of horses followed each other. In winter and with these never-ending rains, these poor excuses for a road became a mud hell. In which an elephant was busy swimming, which was certainly not going to help things.

In Volantis we have slaves to do this sort of tasks...here they have free men who aren't doing it. And they have the gall to call slavery outdated. At least the Braavosi understand how to build their ships and cities. These Westerosi seem to be content to kill each other and build ugly castles.

It wasn't the only thing going wrong in the Seven Kingdoms. Driftmark ruins had still been smoking thanks to a Three Daughters Fleet when the transports went past the island. One in two villages had no more smallfolk or nothing anymore living in them. Crows were by the hundreds swallowing humans' corpses, feasting on the scores of battlefields having raged in the last couple of years. His hunters had had to scare away wolves and bands of errant dogs in their foraging. In spite of the winter clothes to Ibbenese traders, the men of Southern Essos were not handling the cold very well, and diseases were rampant in the camps in the evenings, coughs and various complaints agitating the ranks.

This is not the Disputed Lands...this is far, far worse.

"How are things before us?" Sighed Belicho, seeing the commander of his scouts Lahal Naero come back at a reasonable trot.

"The road or the troops of King Aegon?" Asked the vanguard officer in a tone where no happiness could be found.

"The troops. I don't need scouts to tell me more mud is waiting for us."

Naero nodded negatively once, as if to temperate the words of his commander.

"The mud is lessening somewhat in the hills, not far from here." Announced the veterans of countless clashes in the Disputed Lands, moving his hand in a vague direction partially invisible thanks to the rain and the fog created with all the clouds. "I think we will be glad to camp there tonight."

"And our allies?"

"By the trace they have made, I think they can't be more than two days before us."

"Really?"

"Absolutely, you doubt my ability to read the footprints of an entire army?" The commander of the scouts bared his teeth in a parody of smile. "Never mind. They seem to have slowed down their march a lot these last days, and we have found our pace...say what is the elephant doing in this mud pool?"

"Forget it." Told Belicho, refraining to lament at the spectacle of the elephant partially drowning ten men in a brown-coloured sea.

It's the last time I sign a contract that forces my company to cross the Sea with elephants in the baggage...impress the rebels, ha!

"As you say, Captain-General." Naero was doing his best not to burst in laughter, and was failing if his widening lips were any indication.

"Do you think we can take the chance to send another messenger to the Westerosi?"

"I would not advise it, Captain. There are a lot of bandits and dangers in the area." The fate of the last messengers was not spoken about. There had been so many body parts on the ground last time the Parrots officers had almost not recognised their men's corpses. Naero loosened a bit his helmet and gave a few caresses to his white horse. "Plus I've seen a band of archers that looked dangerously skilled with their bows in the last days. They're not slouches with their arrows, if you know what I mean."

"Black Dragon archers?"

"Them or deserters. They could be Green too and think we are enemies. It's difficult to make the difference, really."

His company commander grunted to agree. As days passed, there were less and less differences between the appearance of Westerosi Black, Westerosi Green regular soldiers, sellswords and bandits. Weapons were rusted. Horses were meagre, thin and malnourished. Colours and banners were in tatters. The Volantene equipment of the Fierce Parrots was by comparison extremely clean, both functional and perfect in appearance.

Three times since Duskendale landing there had been skirmishes between the mounted van and local forces. Each time the fresh Volantene soldiers had inflicted disproportionate heavy losses and sent their opponents packing. Alas sending away messengers away in small groups tended to find them one day or two later dead with their throats sliced open by a sword or another very sharp object.

"Any signs of Kraxos or Carthagos?"

Larko Kraxos was the Captain-General of the Redoubtable Elephants and Hanno Carthagos was the man holding the same position in the company of the Crouching Tigers, the two companies hired with the Fierce Parrots by the Greens Targaryens to fight in this bloody civil war. As the men of said companies Makaerys had under his command were pestering him night and day to search their missing officers, the Captain-General had felt obligated to ask the question.

"No, but since we never saw them at Duskendale...perhaps they drowned in the Narrow Sea?"

Captain-General Makaerys Belicho snorted. "I doubt the Gods of the Fourteen Flames will give us that good fortune. These two are like cockroaches. Once you believe you've rid of them, they're going out of hiding."

All around him his officers made similar sounds. None had been very impressed by the other two Captain-Generals. Kraxos and Carthagos had not been chosen by the Lannister recruiters because they were pleasant or very recommendable leaders of men in battle. No, the sole reason the Redoubtable Elephants and the Crouching Tigers had been attracting for any Westerosi envoy was that they were among the rare Essossi companies in the Volantene-held Disputed Lands which didn't use any slave-soldiers to fill their ranks.

On parchment, a recruiter ignorant of the state of military affairs in Volantis or any Free City sworn to its laws would certainly believe the freedmen were superior and more motivated than the slave rabble. Sweet honey candy, you didn't have to make them free once the ships touched the Westerosi shores. On the battlefield, things were often very different from this nice and reassuring painting. Volantene freedmen were rare and precious, in a city where slaves outnumbered the citizens more than three to one. Free men choosing not to try their chance in trade or estate administration were pretty much guaranteed a place in the officer ranks, whether it was aboard a large carrack or in a legion. It helped that since Volantis had the Elephants in power, the prospects of fighting to repulse encroaching Dothraki khalasars and ambitious sellswords commanders in Volantis backyard were varying from non-existent to nil.

Thus companies like the Crouching Tigers and the Redoubtable Elephants, and if Makaerys wanted to admit it, the Fierce Parrots too, had a lot of scum, murderers, drunk, crazy and heavily indebted men in their cohorts. Slave-soldiers were superbly trained and were available by the thousands when a turn of recruiting began. On the opposite side, the hiring pool for freedmen was tiny and grew even more minuscule as the years passed. Years, sometimes decades were necessary to forge a reliable weapon of these ruined recruits when capable officers were available...and the last point was rarely met. Makaerys had had to hire several non-Volantene officers himself. Tovarro and Naero, for example, were not born in Volantis but in Myr and Tyrosh respectively.

"Tell your men to be careful. Send me a messenger when your riders will see our allies' camp."

Fortunately for Belicho nerves, the rest of the day was much less exciting. It rained twice before the tens were mounted for the night, but the mysterious archers had not been seen again, all the soldiers had reported back without injuries or more problems, and none of the camp followers had been lost in the fog. Commander Averres of the archers managed to convince a minor holdfast east of the 'road' to sell them a few more supplies, principally onions, to improve the daily rations.

Yes, things were looking up. Makaerys Belicho was almost tempted to demand one of the high-paid whores to be brought to his tent, but in the end stopped the idea before it came out of his lips. Having sex with anyone was difficult for him since this incident...the Captain-Commander simply didn't trust anyone to be so close when his own family had proven they were ready to do anything to murder him. Old Blood or not, wealthy or not, loyal or not.

No, Makaerys. Don't think about her. She's not worth it.

The next morning, or what passed for a morning in winter in this god-forsaken country, was not good. Hundreds of soldiers grumbled as they rose, discovering the very cold and violent wind they hated had begun to flow again, the rain was falling in abundance, and thus the march promised to be more unpleasant than ever. The first meal was limited to some bread, boiled water with the few vegetables the foragers had been unable to buy, steal or grab in places their commander wanted nothing to know about.

Naero and his men had been the first to leave afterwards, a couple of hundred scouts searching for their allies...and their enemies. The lord and master of the Belicho cadet line was not exactly dancing in joy to let his best horses and cavaliers be separated from the main group, but it was not like the alternative, rushing in an enemy ambush, was easy to contemplate. The long process of charging everything on the chariots had ended, and the cavalry, the archers and the spears of the heavy and light infantry had started their progression northwards. The three elephants and a light cavalry detachment formed the rear-guard, nearly invisible in all this rain. And the mud. Always the mud. In the summer season, the sellsword company would have been already to the Westerosi town...what was the name anyway? Ah, yes. Maidenpool.

On the subject of the road, the current trail had been more carefully maintained in the hills, perhaps a knight or a lord more conscious of his duties than the rest? But the passage of over five hundred and eight thousand men in these conditions was largely enough to ruin it. More so when half of it formed a little torrent by itself. And to worsen the conditions, the relative close distance between the Parrots and the Westerosi army they were following disturbed the discipline. Three times the vanguard caught up with chariots trying to repair their failing wheels or having their load spread up everywhere on the ground. Here and there some camp followers tried to propose their services. While Makaerys men had the good sense to refuse, the other two companies' groups marching with them were less prudent and professional.

The day was the same grey and rainy. Once they had passed the remnant of the abandoned Westerosi camp, there was not much to attract attention, save two destroyed settlements. According to the scouts coming back and who gave their reports to Makaerys, the first village and all his inhabitants had been killed by the army of their own allies, a fact which spread in the ranks really quickly. Sellsword veterans formed the majority of the force, but as accustomed as the hard realities of war the men were, this sort of total destruction was...madness. After all, if you killed everyone, what was the point of ruling these lands when the conflict was over? Dead men paid no taxes, cultivated no harvests, never answered the call to arms of your faction and so on. And if there was a thing the Seven Kingdoms had no more, it was a surplus of men.

These Westerosi are mad...they are behaving like Dothraki when they have the blood in their eyes...

The Captain of the Fierce Parrots was about to order a new halt for everyone when Naero and half his group came back like the Doom was in pursuit. More worrying were the noises carried by the northern winds to his ears. Screams. Loud howls and thunderous noises of warhorns. War cries. And the familiar clash of steel against steel.

"We have found the Green camp...but it looks like the battle has already begun." Said unnecessarily Lahal Naero once he came back to his side.

So that's why they were slowing their march...they were preparing for battle.

"How does it look on the battlefield?"

"Bad." For a veteran of the Disputed Lands, this assessment was not frequently used. "Looks like our allies are making a mass charge on the only bridge allowing them to pass on the other side of a small valley. But the enemy is looking well entrenched on the other bank...I think they are thousands of dead already."

"Size of allied and enemies' forces?"

"The Greens have over twenty thousand, the Blacks fifteen?" Naero shrugged. "These were the numbers one of the Green captains gave to me. With all this rain and the forces fighting far from the other, it's difficult to say."

The northern wind brought the sounds of battle and agony, and the Volantenes were probably one league or two away from the battlefield. The Captain-General gritted his teeth. It looked like his options had been brutally simplified then.

If I had sent messengers we would have arrived in time for the battle...but the deed is done. I will have to eat my elephant at the end if it cost me the battle, though.

Arriving late to the battle was not exactly good for a sellsword reputation...but it beat every day arriving after the battle and see your employer die or being defeated because you weren't there. Not to think about the Blacks weren't going to let them go if they won.

Why, I'm sure they can make the difference between Lysene and Volantene sellswords! No, no! We hadn't any hand in what happened to Driftmark!

"Forced march." Belicho ordered, trying not to think about the possibility of his company finding itself in enemy territory with bloodthirsty Westerosi in pursuit. "I don't care if anyone is tired, we must accelerate our pace. Use the drums, the horns, all the instruments we have. Hearten the troops and increase our damned speed!"

"The men have not eaten since we began the walk!" Protested Mao Revao, the veteran commanding the heavy infantry when it came to the formal battles. "We have to make a halt else we risk a collapse before we arrive to the battlefield!"

"I'm aware of it." Captain-General Makaerys Belicho retorted to his subordinate, not ceasing to watch the large rainfalls dropping upon everyone's heads. "Our camp followers will have to spread what bread we can take out the rations and distribute it as we march."

By the looks of it, this proposition made his officers about as happy and enthusiastic as the Volantene Captain-General was. Which was not at all. But with the chariots and the non-fighters freedmen dispersed thorough the several columns, doing this was going to take far less time than a complete halt would take.

It's not like we can mount camp here and convince the Westerosi to finish the battle tomorrow...

"FIERCE PARROTS! THE BATTLE IS WAITING FOR US!" Screamed the Captain-General.

"TO BATTLE! TO BATTLE!" Replied the hundreds of troops, but the tension was all too clear in the stiffening of the shoulders and the eyes.

The next turns of hourglasses were miserable for Makaerys and his officers. Pressing the men that hard was easy to say around a bonfire, but in this cold rain it was a not-so-enlightening experience. Distributing the food to all was a monumental chore, and the rushed affair made sure that unscrupulous soldiers tried to eat twice, and a few examples had to be made with the lash. The Captain-General cursed the Westerosi, their gods, their lands and their roads a hundred times in his head, encouraging and vociferated countless encouragements for his men to make haste and race to the battle. Meraxes be praised, a sort of bloodlust had put the lines of pikes and bows in a murderous frenzy, and a new vigour had seized the Volantene and all Essossi present among the Fierce Parrots.

The tumult of battle was astonishing now. In the rain, small groups of running men were perceived, trying to leave the battlefield. Deserters and broken troops, no doubt. Makaerys gave a series of orders to the recruiters to gather back these fleeing soldiers, by force if need to be.

Yes, these troops were broken and useless...today. But one thing every sellsword commander learnt in the Disputed Lands was that a campaign rarely ended in a day. If the Fierce Parrots were a company at the end of this battle, these men would boots back the Volantene numbers.

It's one of the rare advantages we have, since we don't use slaves in the ranks...

The battlefield could not be far anymore. The Fierce Parrots main body started the climb of the last hill, the tumult of the battle was thunderous, a last effort and then...

"DRAGON!" Screamed a man, pointing his arm towards a dark mass in the rainy sky.

A dark mass roaring to all the Gods, challenging the world to fire and blood, came out of the dark clouds. The distance was close enough to watch the fire-breathing gigantic animal in all its glory. A sapphire colour, two large wings, enough teeth to frighten a tiger, a sinuous tail. Dragon.

Scion of the Old Blood or not, Makaerys Belicho felt in awe at such a majestic sight. This was the power the Valyrians of old had held over three hundred years ago. This was the power his ancestors had had in their hands and between their legs. The power that had allowed them to build an empire, put the Rhoynar, the Andals and the Ghiscari in their place, and conquer the Known World. The power to burn, threaten and govern from lands so distant the Sun never set on them. Fine, perhaps the last point was exaggeration.

But given the losses the Targaryen had suffered in this war according to the rumours spreading thorough the Free Cities, it was possible this was the last living member of its species. Watching it was a spectacle to remember for the rest of a soldier's existence.

Just as this thought got through Makaerys' skull, a similar beastly roar sounded and the Volantenes saw stupefied a smaller dragon emerge from the clouds and plant his fangs in the tail of its larger cousin.

The blue reptile screamed in anger and belched a colossal column of dragonfire. The move was swift and the torsion of the neck would have been utterly impossible for a human, but the small dragon was already evading, having released the part of its enemy it had chewed on. Attacks and aerial counter-attacks clashed, blue fire against pale fire, before the two flying animals plunged into the clouds and disappeared again to the mortal eyes observing them.

"What are we going to do, Captain?" Asked Tovarro, who like everyone else had stopped riding as the sky was filled with the flames of the dragons.

"Pray the battle will be over when the dragons end their dance."

"And if it's not the case?"

This isn't good at all... we haven't the siege engines to force a dragon to withdraw.

"Pray harder..." Was the sarcastic answer the Paymaster received.

Fortunately, not a single turn of hourglass later the Parrots could perceive the battlefield at last in its bloody glory. It was chaos. There were soldiers fighting, fleeing, murdering, dying everywhere. Any discipline had abandoned the armies on this side of the river long ago. Thousands of men clashed in a destructive melee where the crows descending from the skies were the only winners. Green banners were retreating feet by feet, scores of them falling in the mud as their bearers were torn apart by the enemy coming from the left flank. On the river, unstable bridges were thrown as the Black Dragon soldiers crossed the red-black torrent charring corpses by the thousands.

Faced with no recognisable formation and enemy cavalry from the left, the Fierce Parrots formed a standard formation of the Disputed Lands: the heavy infantry in the centre, with its wall of pikes, the archers behind and the cavalry on the flanks. As for the three elephants, they were too slow to follow the pace of the attack, and would mop-up the resistance left.

Or cover our retreat if things turn badly.

As the Volantene company started its advance on the battlefield, one of the veteran scouts came back, followed by a Westerosi having his armour decorated by a superb green turtle. Or what should have been a superb turtle if the armour did not look like the knight had recently taken a bath of blood.

"Well-met my lord...I'm afraid I don't even know your name?"

"Captain-General Makaerys Belicho of the Volantene Fierce Parrots."

"King Daeron compliments, Captain-General, you arrival is more than welcome!" The worst part was that the man, with his accent of the Stormlands, looked absolutely sincere when he said these words. In his guts, the member of the Belicho cadet line felt something twist. Usually, no one looked that happy to see sellswords arrive and grab the money, unless the situation was really desperate."The King asks for your company to defend the centre while his officers rally the troops on the left. Half our army is running for their lives, and I am afraid all we can do is limit the rout. The battle is lost."

"Don't be so hasty. The battle is lost, but the day is not over. We have time to win another!" Ah, that was Commander Averres. No matter the situation, always the last to believe a battle was over. Makaerys had had to counter-command him and sound the retreat several times in the last skirmishes against Myr.

"What about your right flank?" Intervened Tovarro. "There are a lot of troops fighting there..." The fog of war and the rain were hell to distinguish who was fighting there, but every Volantene soldier could tell there was a furious battle.

"Perhaps, but it's the swamp. We can't exactly drain it..." If the knight with the turtle banner could have rolled his shoulders with the plate armour protecting his shoulders, he would certainly have done exactly that. "And I'm afraid there are reinforcements there who aren't exactly receptive to the King orders! Now that I think about it, these soldiers have banners similar to yours..."

Damn. So Kraxos and Carthagos are alive and arrived to the battle before us. I wonder how they did it? Now I just have to hope the Westerosi will kill them...after all they rushed to fight into the swamp the idiots...

"Our priority is to destroy these makeshift bridges above the river." Declared Makaerys. "If we do, half their army will still be trapped on the other side and we will be free to push back the cavalry and infantry with these fish banners."

"This might be more difficult than you believe." Warned the Green knight. "The Blacks have hidden catapults behind their positions in the hills."

"How unfair...for them." Smirked the Essossi commander. "Right now, they can't fire, not unless they want to kill their own troops."

Makaerys drew his sword. All around him, his officers imitated him.

"Go to your men. Push the enemy back to the river or all is lost." As the men commanding the Parrots rode to their places, the Captain-General rose on his saddle and screamed to the thousands of Essossi gathered before him.

"LET THEM NOT TAKE POSITION! FOR THE GODS OF THE FOURTEEN FLAMES! CHARGE!"

In other occasions, a long and proud battle-speech would have been spoken, but now speed was of the essence, and for sellswords little details could be avoided when battle called.

"CHARGE!"

"FOR VOLANTIS!"

"FOR THE PARROTS!"

"MAKE THE FIRST DAUGHTER OF VALYRIA GREAT AGAIN!"

"AAATTTAACCCK! CCHHAAARGE!"

The heavy infantry, terror of Dothraki khalasars refusing to be bribed and small-sized Free Cities detachments, charged the field, a rank of long spears shredding everything on their path. Most of the time, the Green soldiers managed to run away from it, as they were already fleeing for their lives and had thrown away weapon and sometimes armour. The Black infantry who was rushing on their heels was less lucky. Their battle lines had ceased to be replaced by a free-for-all, and they were easy prey for the Volantenes.

Too bad for the Blacks, a signal from Makaerys to the archers in second line ravaged the Black second wave, and forced the enemy frontline to fight alone and unsupported. Facing a flexible line of heavy shields and pikes, the affair was murderous. For the enemy.

Westerosi were impaled on spears, pushed by the heavy shields, all the while the light cavalry Makaerys had harried them and took them on the flanks.

"RIVERRUN AND THE FISHFEED!" Screamed a knight bearing a trout helmet and about three or four scores of mounted men in the middle of the battlefield shouted in approval before launching their own counter-charge.

But the Volantene modified phalanx was well-organised, and the cavalry charge attempt ended abruptly when the horses decided that no, they couldn't jump these new opponents, that these weapons were too sharp and that if their owners wanted to fight anyway, they could do it without a courser.

"Remember our men they are supposed to take prisoners!" The Captain-General exclaimed to his soldiers, stopping in the act an imbecile who was about to slice the throat of a fallen man in costly gold and grey plate. Undoubtedly a noble of some sort. "We want the ransoms! Dead men have little value to their families!"

"Fuck that!" Screamed a young Westerosi on his right, who hacked one the pleading Black soldiers in half. "They killed my cousin, they can-" Two archers of the Fierce Parrots kicked him from behind, preventing him from finishing this anger tirade.

No ransom too? These Westerosi are a bit too thirsty on the bloodshed aren't they?

Makaerys would have enjoyed for the madman to be the exception and not the rule, but as the battle progressed and the Parrots pushed their enemies back to the river, it became painfully evident this was not the case. The sellsword companies were willing, nah, eager to take prisoners. The men of the Sunset Kingdoms were eager to slay and massacre everything breathing or having a pulse. The laughter they made while slaughtering wounded warriors asking quarter...it was really disturbing.

Good thing the battle was turning in their favour. The initial arrival of the Volantenes had allowed their Westerosi allies to reform their forces on the left and block what had to be a ford in the distance, the Fierce Parrots were pushing front and centre, and the two imbeciles in the swamps were...doing whatever they did, which forced the Blacks to send more troops on the rights rather reinforce their positions. Plus whoever commanded the troops on the other bank had seemingly understood the battle was lost on this side, and instead of troops trying to cross the enemy was now running to regroup northwards.

A cold-headed commander. Pity, I would have liked destroying them in one-attack, but it looks like we will not be that lucky.

"What is this?" Blurted a cavalier on the first lines, pointing his mailed fist towards...flying rocks?

In one moment, Makaerys Belicho realised what had happened. With less and less of his own soldiers on the southern side, the enemy commander had repositioned his siege engines and was now striking his own soldiers to stop the Parrots offensive and give his troops more time to make a fighting retreat. It was anything but 'chivalrous' as the Westerosi understood it. But the sellswords were going to be hammered. Badly.

"If you're not willing to fire on your positions, you're not fighting to win..." Whispered the Volantene commander. The comment of Tovarro next to him was far shorter and injurious.

"Oh, shit."

And then the world exploded in flames.