The black-haired Lord Borros Baratheon raised his longsword and fought on, cornered and doomed, yet still burning with the last embers of his courage.
Across the field of slaughter, only Borros remained.
His great warhorse had fallen long before, pierced by the arrows of Aly Rivers and her longbowmen. Clad head to heel in battered plate, Borros yet stood, though now he fought afoot, with nothing left to him but raw strength and stubborn defiance.
"Up. Charge." He lifted his shield, the crowned black stag upon a field of gold, and held his sword high. This was the last stand of a lone man.
Behind him lay ruin. Dead men and slaughtered horses carpeted the Kingsroad and its ditches. Some corpses were blackened and twisted by dragonfire. Others had fallen beneath sword, spear, or arrow. Smoke drifted low over the ground, stinging the eyes.
The proud banners of the Stormlands lay trampled into the mire. The king's golden dragon was fouled with mud. The crowned stag of House Baratheon had been torn down. The most loyal Stormlands knights were all slain. Of the infantry, most had thrown down their arms and begged quarter.
Borros did not curse them. He could only hope, foolishly and in vain, that some still lived who might yet stand beside him.
This was the blackest hour the Stormlands had ever known. After the dragonfire fell, what little resolve remained had shattered. Then came the reckless assault of the Bloodthirsty Band, followed by betrayal from the Crownlands lords. The host of the Stormlands broke and fled, dissolving into rout and surrender.
"Kill them, you craven bastards," Borros roared, hacking left and right as the Riverlands men closed like a rising tide.
The blood of Orys Baratheon burned hot within him. By his own hand he slew countless footmen and more than a dozen knights, striking with savage strength even as blood streamed from his wounds. Lord Mooton fell beneath his sword. Lord Darry followed soon after.
But there the tale ended.
The knights led by Ser Kermit Tully surrounded him at last. Borros bled from more than twenty wounds. His breath came ragged. His legs trembled beneath him.
"Surrender, my lord," Kermit urged. "You cannot prevail. This day belongs to Prince Aegon. It belongs to us."
A thunderous roar answered him.
The great black dragon descended from the rear of the field, returning once more to the heart of the battle. Cannibal fixed its blazing green eyes upon Borros, killing intent radiating from it like heat from a forge.
"Surrender, Lord Borros," Prince Aegon called from the saddle, with Rhaena beside him. The words were spoken only for form's sake.
"I never bent the knee to your mother," Borros spat, forcing himself upright as he stared into the beast's eyes. "I will not kneel to a clutch of children."
"I was tired of Rhaenyra's arrogance long ago. I do not regret dying here. Princess Rhaenys was kin to House Baratheon. My aunt wed her father, though both have long since passed. But Rhaenyra has no Baratheon blood. Why should we have been bound to her cause?"
"You were not merely dissatisfied," Aegon replied coldly. "Prince Aemond offered you better terms. You bargained like a fishmonger."
Borros laughed, wet and broken. "True enough. I am dying regardless. I have always held that a man's claim outweighs a woman's. I have four daughters and cherish them as jewels, yet Storm's End will pass to my son. Why should the Iron Throne be any different?"
He coughed blood onto the mud. "Besides, there are precious few Targaryen men left now, are there?"
"Surrender, Borros," Kermit said again.
"I will not yield to women or cowards," Borros snarled. "Nor will I beg. Rhaenyra was too frightened to mount her dragon during the riot in King's Landing. She was a coward. And you, hiding behind shield walls and longbows and ambushes, pups of the Riverlands."
Kermit glanced toward Aegon, seeking leave. Uncomfortable as it was, Borros had spoken some truths. Queen Rhaenyra's dragon Syrax had grown fat and sluggish, long unused to the hunt before dying in the uprising.
"Tell your whore of a mother this," Borros bellowed, lifting his sword once more. "She may not have been a hero, but her sons are warriors. I had a son as well. A pity I will not live to see him grown."
He staggered forward, charging straight toward the dragon's jaws.
Aegon said nothing.
Rhaenyra's sons had been well forged. Perhaps she had poured all her strength into them. As for Rhaenyra herself, she had once possessed a will to rival Aegon the Conqueror, though fate had not favored her.
Borros raised his blade and hurled himself ahead, painfully slow, like a guttering candle straining toward darkness. His antlered helm lay discarded, crushed beyond use.
Cannibal showed no interest in such dying prey. Still, sickly green fire gathered between its teeth, awaiting command.
"I would sooner dance in hell," Borros screamed, "than wear your chains."
Lord Kermit spurred his horse forward. The spiked head of his flail struck Borros square in the face.
Blood, bone, and brains burst outward in a crimson spray.
Thus fell the Lord of Storm's End, last pillar of the Greens, face down in the mud.
Cannibal beat its wings and settled upon the field. Aegon and Rhaena dismounted.
Each time the men beheld the black dragon, awe seized them anew. This was a true apex beast, a dragon among dragons.
The Crownlands forces who had changed sides hastened to join the Riverlands host, smiling now and eager to be counted among the victors.
Cannibal sniffed the field, found the fallen warhorses, and began to feed. They were still fresh.
Its long neck curved like a drawn bow. With a roar, green fire seared the carcasses black. The dragon ate where it stood, indifferent to blood and mud. It had no taste for human flesh. Beasts suited it far better.
It tore open a scorched horse and swallowed. Even so, the carcass seemed small against its massive skull.
In its greatest age, Cannibal might have swallowed a mammoth whole, though by then even such dragons stood near death.
The hatchling Dawn wriggled free from Rhaena's arms. Agile and bright, it received a torn chunk of roasted horse leg flung disdainfully by Cannibal. One look into those green eyes sent Dawn scurrying back to its mistress.
Cannibal continued its feast, an extravagance beyond measure, for warhorses were never cheap.
One by one, the carcasses vanished down its gullet. The dragon fed well that day.
The Riverlands soldiers watched in dread, knowing Prince Aegon had shown restraint. Had he chosen otherwise, they too might have fed the beast. With a dragon of such size, the field could have become a river of blood.
Those brief flashes of green flame burned deep into the memories of every lord present. Fire of dreadful intensity, burning until nothing remained. By size and breath alone, this dragon rivaled Balerion the Black Dread himself.
Dawn would need eighty or ninety years to approach such might, and only if it proved extraordinarily gifted.
"Prince Aegon," Lord Kermit asked carefully, "shall we march on King's Landing at once?"
Ser Oscar, the Bloodthirsty Band, Aly Rivers, all watched eagerly. Fortune had turned. Prince Aegon had a dragon once more.
The Riverlands host stood triumphant, spirits high, ready to take the capital. Songs were already being sung. King's Landing seemed within grasp.
"Go on ahead," Aegon replied. "The city has no true defenses left."
Word of defeat and dragonfire would reach it before the army. With Borros dead, King's Landing stood exposed.
"I will ride north," Aegon added. "There is a man yet to meet."
"Lord Cregan?" Kermit asked.
"Yes. I would speak with him first."
The Wolf of Winterfell was a power unto himself. Better to meet him before the taking of the city.
Kermit would one day be named the greatest Lord of Riverrun, yet beside Cregan Stark even he would seem lesser.
Cregan Stark was only three-and-twenty, but the boy in him was long dead. What remained was iron.
"You march south," Aegon commanded. "After I meet Cregan, I will join you in King's Landing."
The Pact of Ice and Fire still held. Words with Cregan were necessary.
"And once the city is taken?" Kermit asked.
"The false king may already be dead. Speak with Lord Corlys in my stead. He knows how to rule. Send ravens to Oldtown, Casterly Rock, and Storm's End. Demand submission, gold, reparations, and hostages."
Aegon mounted Cannibal once more.
"If I receive no apology and no gold within fifteen days," he said calmly, "then I will return with dragonfire and northern wolves alike."
"Understood, my prince," Lord Kermit said, bowing.
The war, it seemed, was not yet done.
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