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Brynden Tully's thousand horsemen burst forth from the western edge of the battlefield, their charge thundering like a rolling storm. Their target was clear: the detachment of a thousand Westerland soldiers stationed on the far western flank, those who were attempting to close the encirclement.
The drumming of hooves echoed across the field, carrying with it a grim weight. This cavalry, made up largely of men loyal to House Tully, had always been regarded as the family's backbone, the last true pillar of their military strength. Both Edmure and Brynden Tully had guarded them jealously, unwilling to squander them lightly.
For cavalry was not easily replaced. Though the Riverlands were richer than the North, the cost of maintaining knights and trained horsemen was still ruinous. They were the most precious of assets, as valuable as gold itself. If not for Clay's relentless pressure in the previous battle, if not for his unyielding insistence that there was no other path left, Edmure and Brynden would never have risked sending them to clash head-on in that bloody struggle against the Lannisters.
Now, as soon as they set their lances forward and began their charge, Clay fixed his gaze upon the battlefield with unwavering intensity, refusing to miss even the smallest shift in the tides of war. He did not for a moment believe that the Old Lion would sit idle in silence.
And indeed, once these thousand riders reached their position, the encirclement would be formed. Together with Lord William Mooton and his infantry inside, they would create a ring of steel around that western detachment of one thousand Lannister men.
The cavalry from without and the infantry from within would press from both east and west, a tightening vice ready to crush them.
If that enemy force were to break, before William Mooton's main body suffered defeat, then this battle would be decided. Tywin Lannister would lose beyond all doubt, for Clay would then unleash his remaining troops to turn the trap inside out, encircling the Old Lion himself and closing the jaws around him.
And just as Clay had expected, Tywin Lannister did not disappoint. Barely ten minutes after Brynden Tully's horsemen thundered into the fray, shadows began to stir within the dense forests flanking both sides of the battlefield. From within that tangle of trees, the vague outlines of riders began to emerge—first scattered, then in waves, until their numbers became impossible to ignore.
A long, low note of the war-horn rang out, resonant and mournful, yet carrying with it the weight of a command that could not be defied. At once, from the western woods, a host of Lannister cavalry poured forth like a flood breaking its banks.
Lord Tywin was a man of wealth, and wealth in war meant horsemen. Save perhaps for the Vale, where noble houses poured their all strength into mounted knights, Tywin commanded more cavalry than any lord in all the Seven Kingdoms. To place two thousand horsemen in ambush along the flanks of the field was no burden to him at all, merely another display of his boundless resources.
The cavalry on the eastern flank did not plunge straight into the heart of the battlefield where the fighting raged fiercest. Instead, they wheeled northward in a wide sweep. That was because on the farthest eastern edge lay their own forces, pressing forward in strength. These men were not light horsemen, not nimble riders who could rain arrows while darting in and out of range. Their armor was heavy, their charge built for crushing force, not skirmishing.
So they moved to seal the northern mouth of the trap, intending to close it swiftly and consume William Mooton's host of Riverlanders that was already ensnared.
But how could Clay possibly allow the Old Lion to have his way so easily?
With a single command, the three thousand infantry under his hand, the heart of his central force, lifted their heavy shields into position and leveled their long spears, weapons forged for the very purpose of breaking a cavalry charge. Without the slightest hesitation, they pressed forward in unison, advancing to meet the Lannister riders who had swung around from the north.
On the battlefield nothing remained hidden. Every movement lay bare under the eyes of both friend and foe alike. Tywin Lannister, watching from his command, saw through Clay's maneuver at once. Both sides understood that it had become a race against time.
And so, the cavalry that had swung northward, together with those who had been preparing to ride down Brynden Tully's force, loosened their grip on their former targets. As one, they redirected their lances and thundered toward Clay's three thousand advancing infantry.
Clay, of course, had already anticipated this. In truth, that had been the very purpose of his formation from the start. The three thousand infantry, together with Brynden Tully's horsemen, had served as bait, large enough and tempting enough to lure out the Old Lion's hidden cavalry. Once they revealed themselves, Clay's central force, which he personally commanded, stood ready and waiting to meet them head-on.
He was a man well versed in the use of cavalry himself. He knew their strengths, but he also knew their fatal weaknesses.
For cavalry to be cavalry, first there must be a horse.
And on the battlefield, a horse was only truly a horse when it was running.
Take away its speed, rob it of the thunder of its charge, and those fearsome riders lost their greatest weapon. Trapped within the press of infantry, hemmed in without room to gather momentum, their threat diminished to little more than men on high saddles.
"Pass the order," Clay called, his voice hard as steel. "Raise shields! Every line prepare to receive the charge!"
In this age, the delivery of orders in battle relied on little more than horns and drums, each rhythm carrying meaning to the ranks. Crude it might be, slower than the sweep of words, but it worked well enough.
The pounding of hooves grew louder, until at last the clash began. The Lannister riders hurled themselves against the shield wall Clay had raised. The first shock was terrible, the weight of men and horses slamming into the line. After suffering losses, the riders still managed to break through the outermost defense, scattering the front rank.
But that breach was not enough to decide the fight. For Clay's three thousand central troops had been arranged in depth, a layered bulwark prepared for this very moment.
Four lines of defense stood ready to absorb the charge. The first line was the thickest with men, a wall of steel and shields. Behind it each successive line grew thinner, fewer men but tighter in formation, drawing the enemy deeper, step by step.
Once the first ranks were finally broken and a handful of riders burst through, the soldiers on either side of the gap would at once press inward, closing the breach as best they could and cutting off any further horsemen from pouring through.
And those who had already forced their way in?
They would find themselves surrounded by spearmen, their horses trapped in the crush, their lances useless against a forest of steel tips bristling from every direction.
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Outside the walls the battle raged hot, but within the fortress the struggle was no less fierce.
Ser Gregor Clegane, the dreaded Mountain, had hacked his way far into the tower's defenses.
In the clash of great armies, a single man's valor often meant little. Yet here, in the confined, winding passages of Harrenhal's Kingspyre Tower, the Mountain, his entire body slick and dark with blood, had become nothing less than a slaughtering machine.
No warrior could withstand more than a few exchanges beneath the weight of his greatsword. Some had their weapons cleaved in two, their hands split and torn, blood spurting as tendons ripped. Others were struck down outright, bodies cut open in a single savage stroke, lives ended before they could even cry out.
The corridor was narrow, too tight for longbows to be drawn. Even the few crossbows in hand could not pierce the heavy iron plates that encased him. The bolts that struck merely glanced off or lodged shallowly, only feeding his rage.
The soldiers of the North were men, not stone. And men feel fear.
Fear spreads. Fear eats at courage.
Were it not for the simple fact that retreat was impossible, they would already have scattered before the Mountain's onslaught, breaking like frightened deer.
Yet even with no path of escape, they yielded ground step by step, driven upward through the stairwells. The Mountain's relentless advance carried him ever higher, closer with every stride to the upper floors and closer to the chamber where Robb Stark himself awaited.
Bad news arrived one after another. Messengers brought word of losses, breaches, and retreats. In the lord's chamber, the northern nobles could no longer waste time with quarrels. All of them understood that decisions had to be made, and swiftly.
"I propose that His Grace be moved at once!" someone urged.
But at once another shot back, equally fierce. "And what of His Grace's health? Can his body bear it?"
The two men immediately fell into argument again, voices rising against the muffled din of battle beyond the walls. Before it could spiral further, a hoarse rebuke, edged with weariness, cut across the room.
"Enough. Shut your mouths!"
It was the booming voice of Jon Umber.
The Lord of Last Hearth rose heavily to his feet, tugging his thick furs tighter about his shoulders. His voice, when he spoke again, had softened, yet the weight in it was unmistakable.
"Quarreling solves nothing. It is useless."
His eyes swept the chamber, resting briefly on each lord in turn. On his weathered face, unwillingness and helpless resolve were carved side by side.
"Take His Grace away. If it happens that on the road the old gods claim him, then at least he will die among his own men. Better that, than for the Lannisters to seize him alive, drag him into their stinking lion's den, and strip him of even the last shred of dignity when his time comes."
He drew in a slow breath, then went on, his words heavy with the weight of an oath. "This responsibility, I will bear. Should tragedy fall, my son will inherit my title. And when I return to Winterfell, I will kneel in the godswood beneath the heart tree and confess my failure to Lord Eddard himself."
When he finished, the Lord of Last Hearth, hollow-eyed from sleepless nights and grief, turned and was the first to leave the council chamber.
Among all the Northern lords present, his rank was the highest and his standing the greatest. Thus, this final and bitter decision could only fall to him.
The others exchanged glances, and more than one sighed aloud. To place the whole burden on the Lord Jon alone gave them relief in their hearts, yet at the same time it left a taste of guilt that none could swallow.
But survival pressed closer than honor. In the face of life and death, such feelings had to be set aside.
And so, before long, Robb Stark, his breath shallow and faint as the thinnest thread, was carefully lifted onto a stretcher hastily built from wooden planks and leather straps. Heavy furs were drawn up to cover him, muffling the sound of his fragile breaths, and his guards bore him out from his chamber.
The most trusted, battle-hardened men had been chosen for this task. Step by step, they carried him with painstaking caution onto the stone bridge that linked the Kingspyre Tower to the Widow's Tower.
That bridge, like much of Harrenhal, bore the shadow of Harren the Black's madness. When he had built the castle, he had ordered everything vast, towering, and overreaching, far beyond sense or need. As a result, this bridge sat frighteningly high, suspended in the open air.
When the castle had first been completed, its sides had been walled with solid stone, shielding those who crossed from wind and storm. But centuries of rain and snow had gnawed at the stonework. The walls had crumbled almost entirely away. What remained was a narrow strip of stone exposed to the elements.
Now winter howled over the Riverlands. Snow swirled thickly, and a skin of ice slicked the bridge's surface. Every step the four guards took was measured, deliberate, as if each footfall might decide whether they lived or plunged to their deaths.
Care and caution usually kept disaster at bay. But there are always exceptions.
Halfway across, a sudden gust of wind came shrieking sideways, harsh and wild.
The soldier at the front left faltered. His boot slipped on the ice, and his whole body pitched toward the abyss.
Instinct made his hand snatch for anything within reach.
That "anything" was Robb Stark's stretcher.
But his fingers closed on nothing but cold air. The slip had torn his grip loose, and in the blind panic of flailing he could not seize it again.
With a broken cry he toppled over the edge. His scream cut through the storm as he plummeted, a sound stretched thin and shrill until it ended in a brutal crash far below.
The sight was too dreadful to dwell on. Bones shattered, flesh struck stone, and the ground did the rest.
Robb Stark did not fall with him, yet the stretcher jolted violently, and the young king's body slid free of its furs, tumbling across the icy stone.
He lay sprawled on the frozen bridge, the cold wind lashing at his face, but even that biting chill could not drag him back to consciousness.
The soldiers scrambled in a panic, fumbling to lift their king back onto the stretcher. But already, from behind in the Kingspyre Tower, the sound of steel clashing on steel rang out. The noise was sharp, merciless, drawing closer with every heartbeat.
It was clear; the delay had cost them. Ser Gregor Clegane, the Mountain, was on their heels.
"Move!" Jon Umber roared, his voice like a whip cracking through the storm.
If they were overtaken here, on this exposed stone bridge, with no room to maneuver, and if their king were to fall like that poor soldier just had, then there would be no need to return north. Every lord present might as well kneel before the heart tree and open their own throats.
With that thought burning in their minds, the group tightened their grips, steadied their footing, and pressed forward with all the care they could muster while forcing their pace faster and faster. Step by step, they carried Robb Stark safely across, until at last they reached the Widow's Tower.
Relief washed through them when they realized the tower was still under Northern control. By the time they had carried their king down from the bridge and returned to solid ground, every man was gasping out a heavy breath, as though they had been holding it the whole way.
But the moment that breath escaped them, before they could draw in another, they realized their trouble was far from over.
From the shadows nearby, the Lannister soldiers had already seen them!
The Northern lords stood out like fire against the snow. No matter how plain their cloaks or how battered their armor, their bearing marked them unmistakably for what they were. These were no common men; they were highborn prey, rich prizes walking openly where all could see.
It needed no whispers, no pointing fingers. In an instant, the Lannister soldiers understood.
Big game!
If even one of these nobles could be taken alive, the credit would be beyond dispute. Their names would be shouted across the camps, their rewards would be secured. Some of them thought of home, of hungry children and barren farms. With such merit in hand, they would go back to their villages not as half-starved peasants, but as men of worth. Perhaps even as knights. Perhaps even as freeholders. They could stand tall and sing their freedom.
Their eyes gleamed red with hunger. And then, from somewhere in the press, a shout went up.
In an instant the Lannister soldiers surged forward, weapons raised, charging down upon Jon Umber and his companions like wolves scenting blood.
"Go! Get His Grace out of here!"
Jon Umber shoved Theon Greyjoy forward.
In his heart the decision was already sealed. Today, he would stand his ground. He would hold the enemy long enough for Robb Stark to escape, and in doing so, he would fulfill his duty as a bannerman of the Starks, as a son of the North. That was the debt he owed his liege, and he would pay it in full.
As for what came after, whether he was cut down or forced to yield, no one could ever say he had failed his house.
"Come on then! Come at me, you whelps of the West!"
He drew his steel with a roar, bracing himself for a desperate clash. But just as he steeled for the charge, the scene before him changed.
The rushing soldiers slowed. Then, as if struck by some invisible hand, they all faltered at once, their boots grinding to a halt. Weapons drooped mid-swing.
Every face turned upward, mouths slack, eyes wide with disbelief. It was as if the very sky had stolen their will to fight.
Jon Umber frowned, confused, until he heard it too. A deep, thunderous sound that rolled through the air, rattling his bones. The heavy beat of wings.
————————————————————
Gaelithox arrived above Harrenhal before Drogon and Daenerys.
At first, the great beast had come simply to find Clay, as it often did, following the thread of its bond. But when it dipped lower, guided by the pulse of magic it felt through the air, it sensed something else. Its master was busy.
So the dragon circled high above the clouds, restless, sweeping the sky in wide arcs. For a time it waited, uncertain. But instinct won over patience. With a powerful tilt of its wings, it chose to dive, cutting down through the cloudbank in search of Clay.
What the beast did not know was that its arrival would ripple through the battlefield like a storm, turning the tide in ways no man there could yet imagine.
Clay, of course, knew it was coming.
It was his dragon. He could no more fail to sense its approach than fail to feel the beat of his own heart.
That was why he had fought so fiercely, driving to finish the battle at hand. The moment he felt Gaelithox nearing, a calm had settled over him, the kind of ease that comes when victory no longer feels like a question but an inevitability.
He already had ten thousand fresh men marching to his aid, more than enough to counter Tywin's hosts. And now, with the shadow of a dragon's wings soon to fall across the field, what was there left to fear?
So when the clouds split and Gaelithox burst forth, wings flaring, Clay was the first to lift his eyes, the first to feel the rush of wind and power that poured down from the heavens.
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"Lord Clay… is that… a dragon?"
Edmure Tully could barely keep his warhorse steady, the beast dancing beneath him in terror. His lips trembled as he forced out the words, his deep blue eyes stretched wide upon the vast, gleaming shape that wheeled across the sky.
The dragon's scales shimmered with blue and gold, and its body was immense, so immense it seemed to blot out the sun itself. It was larger than anything Edmure had ever dared imagine, greater than the tales whispered by firesides, greater even than nightmares.
As it swept low over Clay's head, he felt it, that familiar pulse within his chest, the bond stirring awake once more. He could sense Gaelithox's thoughts, clear as if they were his own.
And the dragon… was happy.
He looked up, studying the creature's massive form. It seemed fatter than before, heavier in the shoulders and belly. Dany must have been feeding it well. The thought made him smirk.
His gaze shifted sideways to Edmure. The lord's face was drawn tight with terror, pale as chalk. Clay's disdain deepened, though his voice when he spoke remained calm, level, almost casual.
"Yes," he said. "That is a dragon."
His steady tone only sharpened the contrast, making Edmure's near-convulsions seem all the more pitiful.
"And… what… what is it here for?"
"Who can say?" Clay replied lightly. "But last time, in the Field of Fire, didn't your House Tully stand shoulder to shoulder with dragons? I doubt it will be anything so terrible."
"Ah…"
Edmure blinked, stunned, half certain he had misheard. He stared at Clay Manderly, whose composure did not waver in the slightest, and for the first time he felt something strange stirring within him. A sense of distance, of unfamiliarity, as though the man beside him was someone altogether different from the one he thought he knew.
Clay's words about the Field of Fire gnawed at him.
Dragons were Targaryen beasts. The Targaryens hated the Lannisters with every bone in their bodies. By that reasoning, perhaps… perhaps they were not the dragon's first target after all.
And if that were true, then surely Tywin Lannister had far more reason to panic than he did.
In fact, his thinking was not wrong. At the very first glimpse of the dragon, Tywin's first thought, leaping unbidden into his mind, was to flee.
How could he not?
At the Field of Fire, long ago, his own ancestor, the King of the Rock at that time, had come perilously close to being burned alive by Aegon Targaryen and his two queens, their three dragons sweeping fire across the battlefield.
That battle remained unmatched in terror, the one and only time during the entire War of Conquest when Balerion, Meraxes, and Vhagar had all appeared together upon the same field.
And once that battle was won, it had all but sealed the fate of Westeros. The kingship of the Seven Kingdoms, once proudly independent, was doomed. Not long after, at the Kneeling on the Trident, Torrhen Stark, King in the North, bent the knee in surrender. The root of that submission, the shadow that hung over it, was none other than that fire-scorched plain where thousands had been burned alive.
So one could say the Lannisters carried a stain, a precedent, when it came to facing dragons.
And so, the old lion's very first instinct, before pride or command or calculation, was simple: save his own skin.
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High above, Gaelithox circled again and again, each beat of its wings sending rolling currents of air across the battlefield. Its roars thundered down from the sky, shaking the ground itself.
A heartbeat before, men had been hacking and stabbing, locked in mortal combat. Now the entire field was frozen still, silence hanging heavy as though some unseen hand had pressed down on the world's pause button.
Swords that had already been thrust toward an enemy's gut hung mid-air. A few dazed fools even found themselves nudging their opponents with a muttered warning: "Look up, look up first."
And then came the true weight of the beast.
The pressure of its bloodline poured down like an invisible tide, flattening the chaos. Riders pulled at their reins, but their warhorses bucked and screamed, some collapsing in terror, others rearing so violently they threw their masters to the ground.
There was no mystery to it. Every horse on the field had gone mad with fear.
This was dragon's might!
Until this moment, the battle had been finely balanced, both sides locked in stalemate. Lord William Mooton's two thousand men, pressed on three fronts by Tywin's three thousand, had fought to hold the line with gritted teeth, every inch of ground bought with blood.
On the front lines, Clay's three thousand central troops had launched an assault. Tywin's cavalry had held only by throwing their lives into the gap, and even then, their losses had been brutal.
It had been clear that only by fighting to the very last man would either side be able to claim victory.
But the instant Gaelithox arrived, the tide broke. What had been a brutal, grinding contest suddenly withered into an anticlimax, like a tale that began with thunder but sputtered out before the end. There was no fighting on, not really.
Clay watched the dragon, who was scouring the field, searching for him. He allowed himself a small smile.
His horse was panicked, stamping and trembling beneath him. He laid a hand on its neck, whispered a word, and with a flick of the Axii sign calmed the beast, easing its terror until it stilled.
Then, taking up the reins, he nudged it forward and guided it slowly toward an open stretch of ground on the northwest edge of the battlefield.
For now that Gaelithox had come, there was no reason for Clay Manderly to remain on horseback.
Sooner or later he would have to stand before the eyes of the Seven Kingdoms. And since events had already gone this far, there was no sense in hiding what he was any longer.
On the battlefield, it was as if every man had been caught in a binding spell. Swords hung motionless, horses snorted and pawed the ground in panic, but none moved. Against this frozen backdrop, Clay's calm, unhurried stride out of the formation was so out of place, so stark, that it seemed to burn itself into every gaze.
Men began to whisper, eyes following him.
"Clay Manderly… what is he doing?"
It was Lord Vance who gave voice to the thought, but no one in earshot had an answer. They were wondering the same thing.
For the commander of their army had just stepped away from his place at the center of command, leaving the shield wall and formations behind, walking into an open patch of ground alone.
And then, in the very next heartbeat, something happened that left jaws dropping and eyes wide, something so impossible it seemed to crack the world open.
The great dragon of blue and gold spotted him.
And in that instant it let out a ringing, joyous roar that rolled across the battlefield. Its vast wings beat the air twice, each stroke like a thunderclap, and then it descended. With grace that defied its size, the beast landed squarely upon the empty ground before Clay.
The sight made onlookers feel an absurd and impossible thought rising in their chests:
Could it be that this dragon… had come here searching for their commander?
How could that even be possible????
Clay ignored their stares, their doubts. His eyes lingered on the enormous beast before him, and he could not help but notice how much it had grown since the day he last left it. The great fool was already a size larger, bulkier, heavier, as though it had fattened itself while he was gone.
And yet, when Gaelithox lowered its head, it was not Clay it was staring at. Its golden eyes fixed instead on the horse beneath him, the poor creature still standing rigid only because Axii held it in place.
Clay understood the look immediately.
"What's this? You choose to ride that thing instead of me?"
Gaelithox was clearly offended.
With a small laugh, Clay swung down from the saddle. He stepped forward until he stood before the massive creature, whose jaws alone were level with his own height. Reaching up, he looked at it with a wry smile and said,
"Let it go, big one. After all, it's been hauling your master around from one end of the field to the other. That's no small burden."
As he spoke, he clapped the horse's haunch with his palm, urging the wretched animal to bolt away from danger.
Clay knew his dragon far too well. Deep down, Gaelithox was nothing but a petty, jealous brute. If he hadn't spoken up on the horse's behalf, the poor creature's only fate would have been ending up roasted by dragonfire, served hot as its lunch.
From the dragon's nostrils, streaked with faint blue-gold patterns, a snort of scorching breath hissed out. That was its grudging way of showing mercy. The horse was spared.
Clay tilted his head, eyes narrowing slightly as he asked,
"Why didn't you stay in Dorne like I told you? Didn't I make it clear you were to wait until I came back?"
At that, Gaelithox fell silent.
It knew full well it had gone against its master's orders.
Instead, the dragon lowered its enormous head and nudged gently at Clay's chest, like a sulking child caught misbehaving but too lazy to apologize.
Clay sighed, half helpless, half amused. He wasn't going to scold it, not now. It had already come all this way. And besides, its timing had gifted him the perfect chance to reveal himself before all these lords and soldiers.
"Come then," he murmured. "It's been too long since I've felt the sky beneath me."
Following the curve of the dragon's body, Clay climbed up in full view of the battlefield, every pair of eyes wide with disbelief. Slowly, deliberately, he mounted the beast's back.
Heat surged against him the moment his palms touched the creature's scales, a furnace-like warmth that seemed to seep into his very bones. Clay steadied himself, fingers gripping tightly around one of the jagged spines along Gaelithox's back.
In a low voice, almost intimate, he whispered,
"Fly."
The dragon, thrilled by its master's command, loosed a jubilant roar that shook the sky. It surged forward, claws tearing the earth in great strides before those colossal wings unfurled. With a single sweep, the world was filled with a deafening rush of wind, and in the next heartbeat they were rising, soaring upward in a violent gale that sent men staggering where they stood.
————————————————————
"By the gods, I… I didn't imagine that, did I?"
Edmure Tully could hardly believe what his own eyes had just witnessed.
The man he had long thought of as little more than a usurper of his authority, Clay Manderly, had mounted a dragon, a living giant no one even knew existed, and was now flying through the skies above the battlefield.
Which meant… Clay Manderly could ride dragons?
His mind spun into chaos. He couldn't make sense of it. The Manderlys had no blood ties to House Targaryen, no secret kinship that would explain such a gift. So how? Where in the world had Clay Manderly found such a beast, a dragon so immense it robbed Edmure of even the thought of resistance?
His head filled with a storm of questions and dread, leaving him dumbstruck, rooted in place like a man struck by lightning.
At that very moment, Brynden Tully came striding back in haste from the battlefield's edge. He hadn't seen the instant Clay mounted the dragon.
Noticing his nephew standing stunned, and finding no sign of Clay nearby, Brynden frowned and asked in a low, urgent voice, "Where is Lord Clay?"
The answer he received was not words at first, but a gesture. Edmure, still pale and shaken, slowly raised one hand, his index finger pointing straight toward the heavens.
"In the sky," the Lord of Riverrun said with a helpless, bitter smile.
————————————————————
Clay rode astride Gaelithox, the dragon's massive body cutting through the air as they circled high above the battlefield. He did not rush to order an attack.
There was no need. On this field, there was simply nothing capable of holding back a dragon. The great siege crossbows, the only weapons with even a sliver of effectiveness, had already been smashed to pieces in the earlier assault on the castle walls. What remained below were men with swords, spears, and shields, all of which might as well have been twigs against fire and sky.
That meant the moment Gaelithox appeared, the balance of power was no longer in question. The battle was his to shape however he pleased. It all depended on his mood, on what he chose to do next.
And with the dragon's arrival, the fragile alliance that had once bound the Manderly family to both the North and the Riverlands had, in truth, dissolved. No one on either side would dare treat Clay the way they once had. Not anymore. Not after this.
As these thoughts turned in his mind, Clay's eyes caught movement above the clouds. His gaze sharpened. There, against the pale blue of the sky, a dark shape carved its own path through the air. A shadow vast and familiar, its scales black as midnight.
She was here too?
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[Chapter End's]
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