Author's Note: Me again, happy to see more familiar names in the reviews. I completely redid the first part of this chapter because I absolutely hated the old, but the gist is the same. On the flipside, I left much of the second part the same, as writing battles was my saving grace back then haha. Truth be told, it still is. Least favorite of the chapters so far, but still needed for the overall arc of the story.

I hope you enjoy and review this chapter!

Chapter 6

Original Word Count: 3737

Revision Word Count: 3753

The Dragon of Duskendale had captured his first castle the same day as he'd fought his first true battle; Bronzegate had surrendered without incident and bloodshed at midday. After surrounding the large but plain castle with the great bronze gates that gave it its name, Aelor had displayed both Lord Buckler and the tall, portly Lord Bryce Rogers before the walls. Lady Alerie Buckler just so happened to also be Lord Rogers' sister, and fear for her husband and brother—and ten thousand Targaryen loyalists surrounding her keep—had made the woman see sense. She'd opened the gates of bronze, and Aelor Targaryen had ridden through without trouble.

Out of respect for her practicality, Aelor had confined Lady Alerie and her children, six-year-old Andrus the Heir and three-year-old Rohanne, to the lady's chambers under guard, and even allowed Lord Buckler to join them after more interrogation. They were prisoners in their own home, a humiliating thing to be sure, but infinitely better than the dungeons and cells many prisoners of war found themselves in. Lord Rogers was learning that now in the bowels of his goodbrother's castle, though Aelor couldn't quite blame him for the vicious cursing of House Targaryen that had placed him there; the tall knight the prince had slain at the end of the battle had been his son, a lad of seven and ten. They had feasted in the halls of Bronzegate and made their plans, then retired before the next day's march.

And then a messenger arrived in the middle of the night.

The Dragon of Duskendale met the unremarkable man in Lord Buckler's commandeered chamber, during the hour of the owl. Average of height and build, wearing a common tunic and cloak of drab brown that matched his hair and eyes, Aelor could have seen him on the roads of Westeros a thousand times and remembered none of them. The commoner was the definition of forgettable, the sort who could shadow you for a fortnight and go undetected. It was probably those very characteristics that had prompted the Spider to employ him.

The prince was in simple black breeches and a white night shirt, silver hair unkempt from sleep but eyes clear by the time the man was brought in. Ser Barristan, he who never slept, was fully awake and in his Kingsguard armor, and kept one hand on the hilt of his sword as the intruder bowed to Aelor, seated at a small table of oak. The three men were the only occupants, and likely the only ones awake save for pickets and patrolling guards. "My prince," the messenger said formally, a scroll in his hand.

Bloody hells, even his voice is forgettable. "I hear you have a message, Ser…?"

"My name is Roland, Prince Aelor, though I am no ser. I am a simple messenger with news from Lord Varys." He waited, face perfectly blank.

Aelor glanced to Barristan, then back to the man. "Does this concern the war or my family?"

"The war, my prince."

"Then Ser Barristan needs hear it anyway. Continue."

Roland bowed again and began. "Lords Fell, Grandison and Cafferen opposed the rebellion, as my prince knows." Aelor nodded, for he had received a herald from Lord Fell three days prior. He'd sent one of his own, commanding the three to rally together and march to join their strength to his own. "Baratheon has defeated them all two days past, facing and defeating their hosts one at a time as they attempted to rally near Summerhall."

The prince leaned back in his seat, brow furrowing. "I knew he had made it to Storm's End, but how did he make it Summerhall so quickly? That is no small distance to cover."

"Baratheon has only his retinue and what mean he could raise on the fly; the majority of his forces are still gathering."

Barristan spoke, having relaxed somewhat—though his hand still rested on the hilt of his blade, and Aelor knew the knight could draw steel and hew Roland's head off in the blink of an eye if the man proved dangerous. "Crown loyalists among his own lords could not be borne, not by their claimant. He moved to put them down quickly."

Aelor tossed the scroll on the table. "And succeeded in doing so." The prince cursed, then looked back to Roland. "Has he moved from there?"

"No, Prince Aelor. Last I know, he intends to rally his men there."

The Dragon of Duskendale nodded, then looked to Barristan. "I need Renfred, Willis, Donnel, and Lord Bywater." The Kingsguard nodded, then backed to the door, keeping Roland to his front as he passed the command on to the guards stationed there.

Within ten minutes the lords were gathered, sitting or standing around the prince at the table, Rykker glaring down at the parchment. "It seems Lord Buckler was telling the truth about his wayward vassal." The Fells were sworn to the Bucklers, along with the Rogers and Hastys, but the royalist had realized shortly after the battle that only the latter two had been present. Now they knew why.

Lord Buckwell grunted in agreement. "He failed to mention Summerhall, however."

Willis Lyberr had reached the same conclusion as Aelor. "He was told to hold us here. Baratheon probably knew it was an impossible task and didn't fill Buckler in on the full scope of his plan."

Lord Dontos Bywater of the Kingswood, gaunt of face with copper hair he kept cut close, scrunched his face up in shock. "He sacrificed his men?"

"He had too. I had ten thousand men descending on his head, and his bannermen had only just begun to rally. He had to buy himself time, especially when Fell and his allies remained loyal to the crown." Aelor looked up and waved his hand towards the walls around him. "It worked. We scouted for two days and fought on a third. The longer I'm here the longer Baratheon has to marshal men."

Willis Lyberr spoke next. "Why is he suddenly intending to rally his forces at Summerhall, so close to the Tyrell's? Why not return to his seat of power?"

It suddenly all made sense. "Because if Varys hadn't let us know what had happened at my ancestors ruined castle, where would we be going?" Willis' face lit with understanding. "We are here to tackle the Stormlords piecemeal, all know, but our end goal was Storm's End and Robert himself. He's set himself up nicely now; if I had not known he was gone and laid siege to his supposedly impregnable castle, Baratheon could rally what was left of his men and take our lines completely by surprise. If I go towards him, he can lead me on a chase while his other lords unify."

"Or ignore us," Bywater pointed out, "and march to merge with Lords Stark and Arryn."

Aelor had no doubts that Lords Fell, Cafferen and Grandison had sent word to him; he also had no doubts that Baratheon and his rebels had made a point that none reached the prince. A well laid plan, foiled only by the Spider and his sources. Baratheon wanted him to march towards Storm's End, but knew how to make it work to his advantage if Aelor instead gave chase.

Fortune favors the bold, it seems. It favored me for making myself a nuisance so soon, and it favors Baratheon for acting decisively.

"Does he not fear the Tyrells? He is marshaling near their lands."

The prince answered Buckwell with a shake of his silver head. "Mace Tyrell has a lot of men, but he is a fool. A fool with forty thousand soldiers is less useful than a genius with fifty."

"Then what is our next move, Prince Aelor?"

The Dragon of Duskendale was silent for a long minute before speaking. "We trap him. We hunt the stag." He looked up to Barristan. "Send a messenger down the Boneway to treat with Oberyn and the Dornish. They are to march with haste up the marches and close Robert off from Dorne. Another is to go to the Tyrell's. They'll still be rallying, but the first sizeable force they can muster is to close the Kingsroad south of King's Landing. Ronald." The messenger, having gone silent since the arrival of the other lords, answered at once. "Inform Varys of what we are doing. I do not know how he knew about Summerhall, but he is to keep me informed. If he sees a cut in the noose, I want to know about it before Baratheon slips out."

He looked to the rest of his men. "Sieging Storm's End is out of the question. They'll only have a skeleton force with Baratheon already gone to Summerhall, but even that would likely be enough to hold us for who knows how long. Summerhall was a pleasure castle, and it wasn't very defensible even before it burned down."

"So we march there?

"No, we do not." Aelor stood amidst the confused ramblings of his advisors. "The Evenstar doesn't have near enough ships to sail his strength into Shipbreaker Bay—they can only ferry from the island the short distance over the Straits of Tarth to Drakesgrave, where Lord Selwyn will probably merge with Lord Musgood. They'll march on land from there to Summerhall."

Rykker nodded enthusiastically "We can potentially catch them as they disembark. Tarth has another three or four thousand men."

"Exactly. The goal of our entire campaign was to scatter the Stormlord hosts before they can march. Even if Baratheon is at Summerhall, I see no need to alter that course of action. As long as the Tyrell's and Dornish do as they're ordered and keep him bottled up in his own lands, we can cut him apart piece by piece."

All thoughts of sleep had fled the prince. "Prepare the men; we force march before dawn."

Lord Selwyn the Evenstar of Tarth was rumored to be highly competent, a good man who accomplished what was ordered of him quickly and efficiently. That's why it came as a disappointment to Aelor when he crested the ridge and saw galleys still disembarking men in the quartered yellow sun on red and white moon on blue of House Tarth.

He supposed he could understand, though; it should have only taken him half the time it had to march the relatively short distance from Bronzegate to Drakesgrave, but the storms that gave the Stormlands their name had begun a torrential downpour that hadn't lightened until two days earlier. Ten thousand men took a considerable amount of time to move in perfect circumstances, and with the rains turning the roads into mud, his supply wagons kept getting caught in the slop. It had slowed his army's movements to the point that Aelor Targaryen had been ready to rip his silver hair out by the roots.

The only benefit was that it had slowed the army of Selwyn down as well. The Straits of Tarth were shielded from the worst storms by the mountains of the island of the same name, but only a fool would try to transport hundreds of armored men across the waters in one.

Selwyn clearly was not one, for there were defensive lines defending the disembarking troops. Though they surely prayed that Aelor would forego them and march either to Storm's End or to Summerhall, as intended by Robert's strike, they were prepared. Banners peppered the field, bearing crossed white quills on a brown field of house Penrose of the Parchments, the yellow haystack on an orange field of house Errol of Haystack Hall, and the quartered yellow pavilion on blue field and green laurel branches on white field of house Musgood of Drakesgrave—whose small castle and town stood a few hundred yards behind the Stormlander lines. Men wearing all these insignias rushed to form a shieldwall behind the ditches.

That glorious anticipation crept back into the Dragon of Duskendale's bones. Best not keep them waiting.

The prince of the Iron Throne reined his stallion around sharply, a brute of a horse with a hide black as dragonglass. It was the second of three animals he'd brought on this campaign, and by far the meanest of the trio. Aelor liked him, though he knew the likelihood of it making it through this battle wasn't great. That was an inevitable part of knighthood; horses died under you by the score.

"Wedge," he boomed out, and other voices and a warhorn carried the command down the entirety of his line. It was the same attack formation he had used at Bronzegate. I suppose I am an unoriginal military mind, but things become the standard by working. This is not the time to get too smart for my own good. He had placed nearly all his mounted men, fifteen-hundred knights and freeriders, into his front line, leaving two hundred others as his reserve. "Ren, take the left. Strong shield."

Rykker slammed a gauntleted fist against his breastplate. "Stronger sword." He reined around and spurred his stallion towards his awarded flank, slamming the visor of his spiked helm down in the process.

"Ser Barristan, you have the right." The Kingsguard nodded and rode to his own assignment, the Dragon Prince calling after him. "You're nearest the walls, watch for arrows! Lords Buckwell and Bywater, the infantry is yours. We will smash into them, then you fill the cracks we leave in their lines. Cram all nine thousand into the same gap if you have to; we take those galleys." Both men nodded and turned their horses. "Lord Byrch, you have the reserve. Whenever you see an opportunity, take it. They have nowhere to go except the castle or back to those galleys, and I don't want them reaching either."

The last of his commanders nodded and spurred away, leaving two figures at the head of the lines of men. "Des." Aelor's lanky squire instantly handed the prince his helm, the white flames along its crest clean of the blood that had covered them after Bronzegate. The prince pulled it on over his silver hair, then took the lance and shield Desmond Langward had offered before Des turned to mount his own gelding. "Stay close to me, lad. I'll watch your back and you watch mine. Are you with me?"

Desmond pulled his own helm on, a plain hunk of grey steel. He's a good lad; I owe him a better suit of armor. "To the death, my prince."

A sudden wave of pride battled the rising bloodlust, and Aelor laughed aloud. He barely knew the boy or Desmond him, but he had more faith in him than he had many knights the squire's senior. "Let's hope that's not the case."

The prince turned to his men then, rows of steel and horseflesh waiting for his word and his word only. Aelor found he didn't have any to give them, as it seemed clear what their purpose here was. "I'm not good at pretty words, so I won't give any. Let's just kill the bastards!" He thrust his lance into the air and shouted, his knights doing the same, whether they had been close enough to hear him or not. "Targaryen!" "The Dragon of Duskendale!" "Prince Aelor!" These cries filled his ears, as well as a score of other houses and lords and battlecries old and new. Buoyed by the frenzy of adrenaline it brought, the prince kicked his stallion into action.

The thunder of hooves behind him seemed louder than the thunder that had rocked the land mere days ago. He had taken his place at the point of the wedge, where he believed a knight leading knights belonged. His lance was black and white, matching his armor and the barding on his horse, and the sunlight was likely catching the white flames of his helm and making them dance as if they were alive. His entire appearance was all carefully crafted, both to inspire his men and daunt his opponents.

He was certain it made him glorious sight. He was also certain it made him a target, as the first volley of arrows to rain steel upon them confirmed when three embedded in his upraised shield.

It took forever and no time at all to reach the first trench, which Aelor's mount vaunted cleanly. With hardly a stride between the horse leapt the second as well, never slowing its pace. The dragonlord knew many of his men would be held up by those trenches, some horses losing their footing in the shallow earthworks and going down. Those that did were unlikely to ever rise again, both horse and rider doomed to be trampled beneath the charging hooves behind them. It was losses he was going to have to take; the shock of hundreds of armored riders smashing into the Stormlander lines would stampede levies unused to war. Even now, through the jarring of his helm, he could see some lose their nerve and turn to flee, throwing down spears or cudgels as they fled the lines, their panic inspiring many of their compatriots to do the same. Even more joined them when Aelor and many of his knights lowered their lances, hundreds of sharpened steel points hurling towards the wavering men of Tarth.

They crashed into them like a fist.

Aelor impaled a man-at-arms on his lance, the momentum of his charge driving the shaft through the man and out his back. Aelor dropped the lance and its cargo, unsheathing his sword and setting to the grisly work he so enjoyed with a deep roar of bloodlust.

His stallion had survived the forest of spears from the Stormlander lines, bellowing a roar of its own, but the bloodcurdling scream of dozens of other dying animals filled the air. Unperturbed, his mount drove through the thick melee of enemy combatants as his rider's sword rose and fell, dealing death with nearly every blow.

Before the Dragon of Duskendale could truly comprehend the gap, the stallion burst out of the back of the first line and headlong into the face of the second. The prince nearly decapitated the first man he came across and relieved another of his arm a half second later, his horse never stopping its charge until it burst out the back of the second line as well. Aelor wheeled them both around, sword up and at the ready, finding that Desmond had stayed with him as commanded. Another knight, in the blue of either Rykker or Bywater, had appeared on Aelor's other side, and the three of them plunged headlong back into the fray.

But as Aelor resumed cutting the men-at-arms and their formation apart, the back of his mind was screaming that something was wrong. There are no knight solidifying the levies, no commanders holding them firm. These are sheep to the slaughter, not men meant to stop us.

His confusion was clarified a moment later, when the unknown knight in blue shouted his name, pointing with a mace that dripped gore and brain. "The infantry, my prince!" Looking over the mass of dying smallfolk around him, Aelor saw his own footmen and levies charging towards the melee.

And saw the hundreds of Stormlander riders, in a wedge of their own and flying the black stag of Baratheon and quartered banner of Tarth, smashing into their side.

"To the infantry, go!" Aelor shouted over the song of steel and death. He spurred his own mount forward, paying no more mind to the poor men below him other than to cut down those in his way. "The flank, the flank!" he bellowed as he rode, directing more and more of his knights to the actual threat. The galleys behind him were forgotten, for the Stormlander knights despite their small numbers had wreaked havoc on his infantry, Aelor's levies—just as inexperienced as the Stormlanders—having done the same as Lord Tarth's, turning and fleeing.

It took him much longer to navigate his way through the two Stormlander lines the second time than it had the first, the field full of bodies of dead men and horses, some of the living ones and a few of those half dead still trying to kill him. He galloped towards the new hotspot of the battle, seeing the field in front of him as if he was just an observer. Lord Cleyton's reserve of knights was already charging at the threat, his men at arms and braver levies turning to swarm at the mounted rebels. The unnamed knight in white and blue was gone, Aelor having noticed in his peripheral the man's horse go down, but Des Langward was still beside him as they tried to reach and turn the counterattack. There were other knights from the vanguard both ahead and behind him, the men who had been at the rear already well on their way to counter the flanking action.

They're all going to die, Aelor realized. It was a suicide mission for the Stormlanders. With a start, Aelor realized they had known it beforehand.

When he finally reached the flanking enemy he let his rage go, hacking a man in the yellow and orange of House Errol off of his horse with more force than even Aelor knew he possessed. The prince pulled his reins, his roaring stallion begrudgingly coming to a halt, and the Dragon of Duskendale let out a roar worthy of the title as he chopped men left and right as more and more of his own soldiers converged on the threat.

A lance nearly took him in the helm but he dodged to the side at the last moment, instinctually wrapping his arms around it and yanking. The knight it belonged to, unprepared for that, was pulled from his horse, where Aelor's footmen swarmed him like buzzards on carrion. It served to snap Aelor out of his haze, and he realized the suicide knights had been washed away in an ocean of red and black Targaryen colors.

The prince turned his stallion towards the ocean and felt his heart drop when he saw that the galleys had pulled anchor and were pulling back into the sea. The Stormlords had left hundreds of dead on the field, but Aelor knew in his heart that Lord Tarth and his most vital vassals and knights were still aboard those ships pulling farther and farther away.

"Dammit!" The Dragon Prince roared, watching as the ships escaped to the sea. "Dammit all!"