The Riverlands host advanced in a great rolling tide, six thousand strong, pressing steadily south until King's Landing lay no more than four days' march ahead.
At the army's heart flew banners long known along the Trident. Silver trout leapt across fields of red and blue, beside Queen Rhaenyra's quartered standard, its dragon sigils bright against the sky. The host moved like a river in spate, swollen by rain and wrath alike, threatening to sweep all before it once the final banks gave way.
As dusk crept in, horns sounded and the army slowed. Camp rose in ordered fashion, stakes driven deep and ropes drawn taut. The largest pavilion, white and blue and trimmed with silver thread, belonged as expected to the Tully brothers. The trout banner was planted beside it, snapping sharply in the evening wind, while lords and knights oversaw the raising of command tents at the center.
The camp reflected both discipline and experience. Closest to the heart stood the great lords and their sworn swords, men clad in fine mail and plate, veterans hardened by months of war. Around them gathered their bannermen and household knights. Only on the outer ring were the foot soldiers, pikemen and levies, and beyond even them lingered smallfolk of the Trident who had taken up spear and axe of their own will, driven by loss and fury rather than oath.
Lord Kermit Tully stood amid the bustle, his gaze sharp and restless. Ambition burned in his eyes, though grief had not yet faded from them. His father, Lord Elmo Tully, had not long survived the march to war, struck down by foul water before he ever saw a battlefield. At nineteen, Kermit had inherited Riverrun and with it the weight of the Riverlands, a burden that bent his shoulders but had not yet broken him.
"I have brought every seasoned spear the Trident can muster," he declared to his brother, Ser Oscar, his voice carrying the confidence expected of a lord. "Borros Baratheon cannot stand against us."
"Our scouts are certain," Oscar replied. "Borros relies on the strength of the Stormlands itself, six hundred knights and near four thousand foot. The rest is chaff, men scraped from Flea Bottom and whatever the Crownlands could be shamed into sending. Break Borros, and the war is done."
The brothers shared a fierce look. For generations, House Tully had stood in an uneasy middle place among the great houses, respected but rarely feared, obeyed but seldom followed. Now the Riverlands marched as one, and at their head stood two young men hungry for a glory their forebears had never quite grasped.
"Take heart," Lord Kermit called, raising his voice so it carried through the tents and cookfires. "Defeat Borros Baratheon, and we win honor that will be remembered!"
The cheer that followed was loud, but beneath it lay a harder truth. By grim necessity, the host was young. Boys marched beside women, mail hanging loose on narrow shoulders, for too many grown men had already fallen in the burning of the Riverlands.
The backbone of the host lay with House Tully and House Blackwood. Their foremost warriors were scarcely twenty, yet they had already bled for the queen. From Raventree Hall had come Benjicot Blackwood, only thirteen years of age and already a veteran of more battles than many knights twice his years.
"My lads are ready," growled his aunt, Alysanne Blackwood, called Black Aly by friend and foe alike. She raised her longbow, running a callused thumb along the stave. "They will send kisses to the Stormlanders straight from their lady's hand."
She commanded three hundred archers, men and women both. To them, the longbow was a beloved mistress, the arrow her sweet kiss. Aly herself was only eighteen, yet war had hardened her early, sharpening both her humor and her cruelty.
"That oaf Borros has always sneered at women and children," rasped Lady Sabitha Frey, old, sharp tongued, and ill tempered. "We will show him what women and children can do. In war, there are no weaklings, only warriors."
Cruel, merciless, and grasping, Sabitha had prepared what she considered a fitting gift for the Lord of Storm's End. Death. Later, the fool Mushroom would claim she preferred riding to dancing, mail to silk, and that men died beneath her blade while women earned no more than a kiss.
"When the queen returns from the Vale," someone cried from the press of tents, "she will see that the lords of the Trident have offered her the finest gift of all."
"Long live Queen Rhaenyra," the Riverlords roared as one.
Their hatred for the Greens ran deep. The Riverlands had suffered grievously, first under the blades of the usurper's supporters, and worse still beneath the fires of Prince Aemond One Eye and the ancient dragon Vhagar, who had burned fields and villages alike, leaving the Trident blackened and bleeding.
Then the roar came.
ROOOAAAARRRR!!!
It was not the shout of men, nor the blare of a horn. It was deeper, older, a sound that shook the ground and rattled iron in its fittings.
The cheers died at once.
High above, a tiny black speck marred the darkening sky. With every heartbeat it grew, swelling into a vast shadow that blotted out the last light of the sun. It did not plunge in a reckless dive. Instead it descended with dreadful deliberation, each beat of its wings measured, inexorable. The beast wished to be seen. It wished its coming to be known and feared.
Black as endless night, its wings spread wide enough to darken the earth, the dragon passed over the camp, its shadow crawling across tents and men alike. The roar that followed split the air and crushed the breath from every chest.
Riverlands knights in bright mail froze where they stood, sigils gleaming dully as they stared skyward in disbelief.
"A dragon," someone whispered, and then panic took hold. "Protect Lord Kermit. Protect the lord."
Formations held, drilled by hard experience, but terror ran beneath them. They had expected steel and flesh, not fire from the heavens.
"Longbows," Black Aly shouted, already moving, eyes fixed on the shadow above.
"Hold," Lord Kermit commanded, forcing his voice steady as fear clawed at his heart. "If it meant us harm, we would already be burning. This is likely friend, not foe."
"Do not provoke it," Benjicot cried, his young voice sharp with hard earned wisdom. "That is a full grown dragon. Its scales and its fire are death. Anger it, and we all die."
The Riverlands had slain a dragon once, but that had been a wounded beast, young and dying. Nothing like this terror from the sky.
At Tumbleton, Lord Blackwood had ordered his finest archer, Billy Burley, to loose arrows into the eye of Tessarion to end the dragon's suffering. Even then it had been a desperate act, bought with blood.
"Only five or six of the dragonlords yet live," Ser Oscar muttered. "The pretender king can scarcely walk. The queen is in the Vale, and she dares not ride her own dragon. Not one this black."
If dragons still ruled the skies in strength, they would never have dared march so boldly. Even Borros Baratheon had once turned aside rather than face dragonfire, retreating into the mountains to fight lesser foes.
Then understanding struck Lord Kermit like a thunderbolt.
"It is Aegon," he shouted. "Prince Aegon!"
"I am Aegon Targaryen," the rider called, his voice carrying across the camp with practiced ease. "Lawful heir of Queen Rhaenyra of House Targaryen. Beside me is my sister, Rhaena Targaryen. I have come to treat with House Tully and the lords of the Riverlands."
The dragon settled in the center of the camp, earth shuddering beneath its weight. Warriors scattered, making space for the dread beast. A man and a woman leapt down from its massive back.
Aegon removed his helm and let the lords see his face. His hair was pale as frost, his eyes a deep violet so dark they seemed almost black, alive with confidence and flame.
"The Riverlands stand at your command," Lord Kermit said, stepping forward and kneeling. His silvered armor bore the trout of his house.
He had prepared himself for a brutal war. With an adult dragon at their side, victory no longer seemed distant.
One by one, the Riverlords followed, bowing low. Aegon bade them rise with an ease born of court and crown.
"Allow me to present our commanders," Lord Kermit said, gesturing. "The Riverrun host is led by myself and my brother, Ser Oscar. The Blackwood forces by Benjicot and his aunt, Lady Aly. House Frey by Lady Sabitha. Lord Vance, Lord Mallister, Lord Darry, and Lord Bracken."
Aegon greeted each in turn, warmth and charm flowing readily. The Riverlords were stirred, for there is no force quite like the presence of a dragonrider.
The host had been a flood already.
With a dragon to strike from above, the Stormlands would break.
Victory was no longer a hope.
It was approaching, on black wings.
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