With that, he drove his heels hard into his horse's flanks and surged forward, the first to charge into what was almost certain death.
Davos watched the king's resolute back, his eyes filled with grief. Yet he did not hesitate for even a moment. Drawing his sword, he roared, "For the king! For Baratheon! Kill!"
The last of the Baratheon forces followed their king, launching a tragic, desperate countercharge.
The two armies slammed into each other like waves of different colors crashing head-on.
In an instant, men and horses went down, flesh and blood flying everywhere.
Dothraki arakhs sliced effortlessly through the Stormlands soldiers' crude leather armor, throwing up sprays of blood.
The Golden Company's heavy infantry stood firm like bedrock, their spears and shields mercilessly devouring every life that came at them.
Stannis's army fell into an overwhelming disadvantage almost the moment they made contact.
Stannis himself swung his longsword, fighting with all he had.
His swordsmanship had never been exceptional, and burdened by age and a failing body, he was soon surrounded by several elite soldiers of the Golden Company.
His guards fell one after another.
A Dothraki screamer charged in from the side, the arakh in his hand hacking viciously at Stannis's back.
"Thud!"
Armor tore apart, blood bursting outward.
Stannis's body shuddered violently, his movements freezing.
Seizing the opening, another Golden Company soldier drove a spear deep into his warhorse's belly.
The horse screamed and collapsed, hurling Stannis heavily to the ground.
He struggled to rise, but more weapons came crashing down.
Swords, spears, curved blades… in an instant, they swallowed him whole.
From not far away, Davos saw it happen and let out a cry of anguish, but he himself was entangled by enemies and powerless to intervene.
Stannis fell at last upon the land called the Redgrass Field, soaking the earth with his own blood.
His eyes stared up at the ashen sky. Perhaps until his final breath, he believed he alone was the true king.
Perhaps there was also a trace of doubt, and a sense of release, about that illusory prophecy.
"Stannis is dead!!"
A thunderous cheer erupted from Young Aegon's army.
Watching that stubborn figure finally fall, Young Aegon was filled with wild joy and the intoxicating thrill of conquest.
He threw back his head and laughed, as if he could already see the Iron Throne reaching out to him.
"We've won! We've won! The Seven Kingdoms will be—"
His laughter was abruptly cut short by a deafening roar coming from both the south and the north at the same time.
It was the sound only tens of thousands of galloping warhorses could make, a tearing, earth-shaking thunder that seemed ready to grind the land itself to dust.
Young Aegon's laughter froze. Uneasy, he turned toward the sound.
On the southern horizon, a long, dense black line appeared.
It was a flood of countless cavalry.
Their banners unfurled in the wind. Among them flew Lo Quen's dragon banner, along with the standards of Dornish houses that had turned to his side, such as Yronwood and Jordayne.
Young Aegon's pupils tightened.
How could they have arrived so quickly?
Almost at the same moment, an equally vast force surged over the northern horizon.
The gleaming armor of the Vale knights still caught the dim light, and they too bore Lo Quen's dragon banner. The sigils of Vale houses like Royce and Waynwood could be faintly made out.
Harry Strickland and Jon Connington, veterans both, went pale in an instant. Straining their voices, they shouted, "Form up! Form a defensive circle, now! Damn it, it's those cursed easterners!"
The army that had been celebrating victory only moments before plunged into chaos and panic.
Soldiers scrambled to shift from pursuit to defense, officers shouting orders over one another.
Then—
The sky suddenly darkened.
A deep, rumbling roar rolled down from the clouds, drowning out every other sound on the battlefield.
Heads lifted instinctively.
Four enormous shadows tore through the cloud cover and plunged toward the ground.
One was armored in scales red as blood. One gleamed with cold, silvery light. One shimmered with a strange, dark violet sheen. And the last, slightly smaller but terrifyingly fast, bore fearsome patterns of black and crimson intertwined.
"Dragons! Four dragons!"
A scream swept through the entire camp in an instant.
Young Aegon looked up at the four colossal dragons, his gaze fixed especially on the largest blood-red one and the rider on its back. His eyes seemed ready to spit fire.
Jealousy, fury, and fear tangled together inside him.
He suddenly turned toward Caspor Hill, the Golden Company sergeant commanding the archers, and shouted harshly, "What are you waiting for?! Shoot them down! Shoot those dragons down, now!"
Caspor Hill stared at the four monstrous beasts in the sky, his face drained of color, his teeth chattering. "Your Grace… M-me? Shoot… shoot dragons?"
He could hardly believe what he was hearing.
"Nonsense! Yes, you!"
Young Aegon roared in a frenzy. "Those are my dragons! Mine! Stolen by that damned Eastern Sorcerer! Shoot them down, now!"
Any trace of reason had already been swallowed by jealousy and rage.
At that moment, Lo Quen, high above, took in the devastation of Stannis's army below and the chaos tearing through Young Aegon's forces.
He also spotted his own army advancing from the south, and his heart finally steadied.
He looked toward the three Queens nearby, each riding a dragon of her own. The four exchanged glances, seeing relief and the joy of reunion reflected in one another's eyes.
Lo Quen hesitated no longer. He patted Blooddancer's neck and pointed toward the densely packed formations below, his voice cold and calm.
"Blooddancer. Dracarys."
Blooddancer opened its massive jaws, its hundred-foot body diving downward.
Crimson dragonfire poured forth, swallowing the Golden Company archers who had just raised their bows.
Caspor Hill's face went deathly pale. Seizing the moment while Young Aegon wasn't looking, he collapsed backward and vanished into a heap of corpses.
The three Queens urged their dragons into dives of their own.
The first to strike was Chai Yiq, riding her relatively smaller yet ferociously savage black-red young dragon, Ashshadow.
It plunged toward the ground, unleashing its first blast of dragonfire at the Golden Company infantry struggling to form ranks.
The flames burned an eerie dark red, their heat terrifyingly intense. Dozens of soldiers were melted and ignited in an instant, shields and armor fusing with their bodies.
Immediately afterward, Janice swept in from the opposite flank atop her purple dragon, Duskshadow.
Duskshadow had fought in many battles and was well accustomed to slaughtering horsemen.
Its jaws opened, and torrents of purple dragonfire cascaded into the Dothraki cavalry.
The horses panicked instantly, rearing and bolting in all directions, throwing their riders violently to the ground.
The flames spread at frightening speed, turning the grasslands into a sea of purple fire. The screams of men and horses echoed across the sky.
Jaelena, astride her silver dragon Silverfall, set her sights on the enemy's ranged troops and supply camps.
Silver-white flames obliterated towering piles of arrows, firelight shooting skyward.
Meanwhile, Lo Quen rode Blooddancer straight through the heart of the enemy formations, carving them apart with unstoppable force.
The Redgrass Field was now truly consumed by the wrath of dragons.
Soldiers cried and fled in panic, but there was nowhere left to run.
Formations collapsed completely. Morale shattered beyond repair.
At the same time, the armies advancing from north and south completed their encirclement, crushing the enemy already trapped in fire and chaos.
The Knights of the Vale thundered forward in heavy charges. Dornish soldiers moved with deadly agility, cutting down the fleeing remnants. Lo Quen's Dragon Soul Guards, regular troops, and slave soldiers methodically wiped out what remained.
The battle became a total annihilation.
When the setting sun cast its final light over the Redgrass Field, now a vision of hell itself, the chaos at last began to fade.
Young Aegon's army of more than thirty thousand had been almost completely destroyed.
Corpses covered the land. The stench of burning flesh filled the air. Tattered banners smoldered among the ashes.
Young Aegon, his face blackened with soot and his armor in ruins, was dragged from a pile of bodies by the Dragon Soul Guards, his sword Blackfyre taken with him, and hauled before Lo Quen.
He struggled weakly, his eyes filled with unwilling fury, yet utterly powerless.
Ser Jon Connington, the old veteran who had devoted his life to avenging Prince Rhaegar and supporting his son, was gravely wounded in the final battle. Exhausted and bleeding, he was captured.
As he looked at the captured Young Aegon, his eyes brimmed with boundless sorrow and guilt.
Harry Strickland, struck on the arm by Janice's dragonfire while trying to organize a last stand, was finally forced to the ground by a group of Dornish soldiers and bound tightly.
Elsewhere, the Dragon Soul Guards brought in prisoners from Stannis's army as well, including the red priestess Melisandre and Davos.
Lo Quen dismounted from Blooddancer and walked toward the defeated commanders.
His gaze was calm and deep. The three Queens came to his side. Though they had endured a brutal battle, they all relaxed upon seeing one another safe.
The victorious men of the Vale and Dorne exchanged looks, then turned their eyes to the four massive dragons resting upon the ground. They understood.
The Battle of the Redgrass Field was over.
The civil war of the Seven Kingdoms was over.
And more than that, one era had ended, while another had begun—an age that belonged to a new conqueror, rising proudly into the world.