Chapter 10: The Crimson Tide and the Kingslayer's Dawn
The groan of King's Landing's ancient gates yielding to the might of the Lannister host was the death knell of a dynasty. Lyonel Lannister, Divine Axe Rhitta blazing in his grip like a captured sun, was the first to surge through the breach. Behind him, the Lion's Pride, his elite guard, roared, followed by the relentless tide of crimson and gold that was the Westerlands army.
The city erupted into chaos. The remaining Gold Cloaks, those not already bought or too terrified to resist, were swept aside like chaff. Some citizens, driven by fear or desperation, tried to fight, their makeshift weapons pathetic against disciplined steel. Others simply screamed and fled, swallowed by the encroaching maelstrom of violence.
Lyonel, astride his powerful black destrier, Valerion, was a figure of terrible glory. Rhitta pulsed with an eager, almost sentient heat in his hand, its golden luminescence casting an ethereal glow on his formidable armor. He did not engage in indiscriminate slaughter; his focus was strategic. "Secure the main thoroughfares! To the Red Keep! Aegon's High Hill is our objective!" his voice, amplified by the sun's power thrumming within him, cut through the din of battle.
His men, however, were less restrained. Tywin Lannister's unspoken order had been clear: King's Landing was to be made an example of, its wealth plundered, its defiance broken. The common soldiers, loosed from their leashes, fell upon the city like starving wolves. Shops were smashed open, homes invaded, the screams of the violated echoing through the narrow streets. Marco Scarlatti, the ruthless pragmatrist within Lyonel, acknowledged the grim utility of such an act. A city cowed and looted would offer no resistance to a new king, especially a king indebted to the conquerors. But another part of him, a nascent nobility perhaps born from Escanor's prideful chivalry or the sheer overwhelming power he now wielded, felt a profound distaste for the unchecked brutality against the truly helpless.
He saw Ser Amory Lorch and his men veer off towards a wealthy merchant district, their eyes alight with greed. He saw Gregor Clegane, the Mountain, a terrifying behemoth of destruction, wade into a fleeing crowd, his greatsword reaping a bloody harvest. Lyonel's jaw tightened. He could not stop it all – to do so would be to countermand his father and sow confusion among his own forces. But he could direct the spearhead.
"Ser Addam!" Lyonel roared to Marbrand, his voice cracking like a whip. "Maintain discipline in the vanguard! Any man who breaks formation to loot before the Red Keep is secured will answer to me!" He punctuated the statement by casually swinging Rhitta in a glittering arc, the axe shearing through a thick wooden market stall support as if it were parchment. The message was clear.
His path to the Red Keep was nonetheless bloody. Pockets of die-hard Targaryen loyalists, mostly household knights and desperate men-at-arms, attempted to form barricades. Lyonel and Rhitta made short work of them. One such barricade, made of overturned wagons and piled debris, blocked a key intersection. As his men prepared rams, Lyonel dismounted. The sun was nearing its zenith. He felt its power surge through him, an intoxicating fire.
"Stand aside!" he commanded. He strode towards the barricade, Rhitta held high. The axe blazed with an almost unbearable light. He brought it down in a single, cleaving blow. There was a sound like thunder, a flash of incandescent energy. The makeshift fortress of wood and stone simply… disintegrated. Wagons were splintered into kindling, cobblestones cracked and thrown aside. A clear path lay before them. His men stared in stunned, fearful silence, then erupted into a frenzied roar of "Lyonel! Lyonel! The Golden Lion!"
He ignored them, remounting Valerion. "Forward! To the Keep!"
Inside the Red Keep, King Aerys II Targaryen was lost in his final, fiery fantasy. His eyes, wide and bloodshot, darted around the throne room. His long, dirty fingernails scrabbled at his silks. Lord Rossart, his pyromancer Hand, stood beside him, equally agitated.
"The wildfire, Rossart! It is all in place?" Aerys shrieked, his voice cracking. "The caches beneath the city, beneath this very castle! Burn them! Burn them all! Let Robert Baratheon be king over charnel and ash! Let me be king of the ashes!"
"Yes, Your Grace! My pyromancers await only your command!" Rossart cackled, his face alight with a mad zeal that mirrored the King's.
Ser Jaime Lannister, his white cloak a stark contrast to the growing shadows in the throne room, stood guard, his heart a cold stone in his chest. He had heard the screams from the city, the roar of his own family's army at the gates. And now this. Aerys would destroy King's Landing, its half-million souls, rather than yield. His oath, his sacred vow to protect the King, warred with the fundamental decency that still resided within him.
"Your Grace," Jaime said, his voice hoarse. "Think of the innocents. Your people…"
"Innocents?" Aerys spat, whirling on him. "Traitors! All of them! They cheered for Robert, they welcomed the Usurper's lackeys! They will burn! You will burn! Your treacherous father will burn!" He pointed a trembling finger at Jaime. "Perhaps you should join him, Kingsguard! Burn with your false lion pride!"
Aerys turned back to Rossart. "Give the order, Lord Hand! Now!"
As Rossart turned to obey, Jaime made his choice. His sword, until now a ceremonial weight at his side, whispered from its scabbard. With a cry of despair and desperate resolve, he lunged. Rossart fell, a bloody gurgle his only reply, Jaime's blade buried in his back.
Aerys stared, his mouth agape, his mad eyes wide with disbelief, then a dawning, animalistic terror. "No… you wouldn't dare… I am the KING!" He scrambled back towards the Iron Throne, trying to climb its barbed steps.
Jaime advanced, his face a mask of anguish. "You are no king of mine," he whispered, and plunged his sword into Aerys Targaryen's chest. The Mad King slid down the steps of the throne he had so defiled, a surprised look on his face, his lifeblood pooling on the ancient stone.
At that moment, the great doors of the throne room burst inwards, shattered by a golden axe that blazed with the light of a captive sun. Lyonel Lannister strode in, Rhitta held ready, his eyes taking in the scene with preternatural speed. He saw Aerys, dead at the foot of the throne. He saw Jaime, standing over the King, his sword dripping crimson, his face pale and shocked, his white cloak stained with royal blood.
Lyonel paused, lowering Rhitta slightly. The axe's glow subsided, though its power still hummed. He understood. Jaime had done what had to be done. He had saved the city. He had also damned himself.
"Jaime," Lyonel said, his voice surprisingly gentle. "Are you harmed?"
Jaime looked up, his eyes haunted. "Lyonel… I… I had to. He would have burned them all."
"I know," Lyonel said, stepping forward. He looked at the dead king, then back at his brother. "You saved countless lives, little brother. Though the world may not thank you for it."
Lannister soldiers poured into the throne room then, Ser Addam Marbrand at their head. They stopped short, taking in the tableau: the dead King, the Kingslayer, and the Golden Lion with his sun-axe.
"Secure the throne room!" Lyonel commanded. "The King is dead. Long live… well, we shall see who lives long."
The fighting in the Red Keep was sporadic but vicious. Some Targaryen loyalists fought to the last. Lyonel, with Rhitta, was an unstoppable force, clearing corridors, breaking down barricaded doors, his power at its absolute peak under the noon sun that streamed through the high windows of the fortress. He felt no fatigue, only a burning, righteous energy. He was Escanor's avatar, a lion of judgment.
He knew, with a cold certainty, what else was happening within the castle's walls. Tywin's orders regarding the remaining Targaryens would be absolute. Elia Martell and her children, Rhaenys and Aegon, were loose ends, potential claimants. His father would not suffer them to live. Marco Scarlatti understood the brutal logic. Eliminate all threats. Consolidate power.
As he made his way towards the royal apartments, a chilling scream echoed down the corridor, followed by the roar of a familiar, brutish voice. Gregor Clegane.
Lyonel's steps faltered. Elia. Her children. Escanor's pride, for all its arrogance, possessed a strange, almost noble core. It did not revel in the slaughter of the defenseless, especially women and children. This was not glorious combat; this was butchery.
He hesitated. To intervene would be to directly defy his father's unspoken will, to potentially compromise their entire strategy. Robert needed to be utterly free of Targaryen claimants to feel secure. The Martells needed to be alienated from any potential Targaryen restoration, pushing them towards neutrality or even eventual alliance with a new, stable regime.
But the screams…
Rhitta pulsed in his hand, a warm, almost admonishing thrum. What is pride without honor? What is power without the will to protect those who cannot protect themselves? The thoughts were not his, yet they resonated deep within his soul, a whisper from the Lion's Sin himself.
With a sudden roar that was more lion than man, Lyonel charged down the corridor, Rhitta blazing. He burst into Maegor's Holdfast just as Gregor Clegane, his armor spattered with blood, was emerging from a chamber, a bloodied bundle in his massive arms. The Mountain's other hand dragged a screaming, struggling Rhaenys. Amory Lorch was just behind him, grinning cruelly.
"Clegane!" Lyonel bellowed, his voice cracking like thunder, infused with the sun's fury. Rhitta flared, its light scorching, its heat intense. "What is the meaning of this?!"
The Mountain, surprised, turned. He saw Lyonel, the axe, the incandescent rage. Even Clegane, a beast in human form, felt a primal tremor of fear.
"Lord Lyonel," Clegane grunted, his eyes bloodshot. "The Hand's orders… the dragonspawn…"
"My father ordered the castle secured, not women and babes butchered like cattle!" Lyonel's voice was a lash. He took a step forward, Rhitta radiating such power that the very air seemed to crackle. "Release the girl. And whatever… that is." He gestured to the bundle, suspecting with a cold horror it was the infant Aegon.
Clegane hesitated, confused. This was the Young Lion, their champion. But the Hand's will…
"Do it, Clegane," Lyonel snarled, "or by the sun that lights the sky, I will cleave you where you stand, orders or no!"
The sheer, overwhelming force of Lyonel's presence, the undeniable divine power emanating from him and his axe, broke through even Clegane's brutish conditioning. He sullenly dropped the bundle – it was indeed the babe, bruised but miraculously, it seemed, still breathing – and released Rhaenys, who immediately scrambled behind Lyonel, clinging to his leg, terror in her eyes. Lorch looked uncertain, his grin wiped clean.
"Ser Addam!" Lyonel roared, without turning. Marbrand and a squad of the Lion's Pride appeared almost instantly. "Take Princess Elia and her children into my protective custody. Harm a hair on their heads, and you will answer to me. Understand?"
"My Lord Lyonel!" Addam stammered, awed and terrified. "But Lord Tywin…"
"Lord Tywin will understand that a true Lion does not prey on cubs," Lyonel stated, his gaze unwavering, fixed on Clegane. He was directly contravening his father. The consequences would be severe. But in that moment, wielding Rhitta, filled with the sun's righteous fire, he cared not. This was his decree.
Tywin Lannister arrived in the throne room shortly thereafter, his armor immaculate, his face a mask of cold triumph as he surveyed the scene: the dead king, his Kingslayer son, and his eldest, standing like a vengeful god, his golden axe still radiating power.
"The city is ours, Father," Lyonel said, his voice calm now, the earlier fury banked, but not extinguished.
Tywin nodded, his gaze sweeping over Aerys's body. "Well done." He then looked at Jaime, a flicker of something – contempt? Disappointment? – in his eyes. "You have broken your sacred oath, Jaime. You have stained your white cloak with the King's blood."
"He would have burned the city, Father," Jaime said, his voice flat.
"Perhaps," Tywin conceded. "The outcome is… acceptable." He turned his attention fully to Lyonel. "I trust all loose ends have been dealt with?" His meaning was clear. Elia and her children.
Lyonel met his father's gaze, unflinching. "Princess Elia and her children are under my personal protection, Father. They are unharmed."
Tywin's eyes narrowed dangerously. The temperature in the throne room seemed to drop by twenty degrees. "Explain yourself, Lyonel."
"There is no honor in butchering women and babes," Lyonel stated, Rhitta held loosely at his side, yet its presence was a potent declaration. "It is not the Lannister way. It is not my way. They are defeated. They are no threat."
"No threat?" Tywin's voice was silk over steel. "Every Targaryen whelp is a potential rallying point for rebellion! Every Martell slight is a seed for future vengeance!"
"Then we shall deal with those threats if and when they arise, with honor and strength," Lyonel countered. "We are Lions, Father, not jackals feasting on carrion. Our pride demands more."
He deliberately used the word 'pride,' and felt Rhitta hum in agreement. For a breathtaking moment, father and son stood locked in a battle of wills, the fate of dynasties hanging in the balance. Tywin, the master pragmatist, against Lyonel, the sun-blessed champion who was beginning to define his own, more Escanor-like code.
Finally, Tywin looked away, a muscle twitching in his jaw. "Your… compassion… may yet be the undoing of us all, Lyonel. But the deed is done. See that they remain secured." He was furious, but Lyonel, armed with Rhitta and a conviction that burned as bright as the sun, was no longer a son he could easily command in all matters. He was a power unto himself.
The Sack of King's Landing subsided as Lannister control solidified. The city was a smoldering, looted ruin, its people terrorized, its treasures stripped. But it was theirs. Tywin Lannister sat on the steps of the Iron Throne, not claiming it for himself, but holding it for the victor, Robert Baratheon.
Jaime, stripped of his white cloak by Tywin's order (though he still wore it in his heart), was a ghost, haunted by his actions. Lyonel sought him out.
"You did what was right, Jaime," Lyonel said, finding him staring out a window at the smoke rising from the city. Rhitta was now sheathed, its glow contained, but Lyonel still felt its comforting weight.
"Right?" Jaime laughed, a broken sound. "I'm the Kingslayer. A man without honor."
"You have more honor than many who will call you oathbreaker," Lyonel said firmly. "You saved half a million lives. That is a legacy worth more than any knightly vow to a madman." He placed a hand on his brother's shoulder. "History will judge you, Jaime. Ensure it judges you correctly."
As dusk fell over the conquered city, Lyonel stood on the battlements of the Red Keep, Rhitta in his hand. The setting sun painted the sky in hues of blood and gold. He had taken a city, defied his father, and saved a princess and her children, all in a single day. He felt the drain of his power as the light faded, but also a new sense of purpose. He was not just Marco Scarlatti, the survivor. He was not just Lyonel Lannister, the heir. He was the wielder of Rhitta, the Lion's Sin of Pride reborn in a new world. And his story, he knew, was only just beginning. The crimson tide had swept away the old order; now, in the Kingslayer's dawn, a new one would be built. And he, with the sun as his ally, would be its architect.