The Great Siege

Willas cursed his own folly. He should have known better than to try and negotiate with an uncompromising man like Stannis Baratheon.

"A matter that is already out of my hands, it seems. By their hand my father was betrayed and killed, his blood is on their hands. The irony is not lost on me, as you so graciously has pointed out already. I am not here to explain or excuse the actions of my late father and my own, but to end this mad war once and for all."

If Tarly was already out of his hands, there was no need to dwell on it for now.

"Very well, seeing as I am in no position to negotiate, I surrender myself to your will and judgement. I will make sure the armies of the Reach and my brother do the same. All I ask is that my brother and sister be returned from their captivity safely. I would get down on my knees and beg if I was capable of such a feat... your Grace."

"I will postpone judgement until after the siege. You will remain in my camp, under Lord Peasebury's watch."

The King brusquely replied, a hand idly scratching at the coarse black bristles that sprung from his jaw.

"Send summons to your brother, Ser Garlan. I would have him bend the knee here as you have done."


Stannis' men were still struggling at the King's Gate, a wall of shields and spears pushing forwards with a half-broken battering ram towards the gatehouse. Atop the walls, the King's own banner flew, and a great cheer was taken up through the ranks. 

"Ser Godry, you have the ram."

The King raised Lightbringer aloft, the blade shimmering as it caught the midday sun.

"LADDERS! To me!"

Stannis roared, raising his shield and running for the walls. A few hundred followed him, ready to climb atop the battlements and knock the the city watch from their perch.

Morrigen mounted the wall right as he heard the sound of the gate break. He drew his dirk, and planted it in the neck of a defender. He released it immediately and cried. "Advance, advance! Into the city!" As the alarum went up, the gate collapsed and his men rushed in. He drew his Longsword in response, casting aside his shield. He blocked a futile blow and brought hissword down upon another unfortunate. The gate was won. "Attack! Into the city! Attack!" Morrigen shouted from the wall. He descended from the wall at the earliest staircase and joined the surging infantry from the gate. "Forward, into the city! To me!" The Mud Gate was the closest Gate to the Red Keep, so Morrigen kept his men as disciplined as possible. "To the Red Keep! Follow me! For Stannis King!" He led his men eastward until they reached the gates of Maegor's Holdfast. "Shield Wall, assemble! Archers behind, loose at will!" Arrows were still falling heavy amongst his own men, but even if only half of the arrows fired against them found marks, the enemy would soon be exhausted.

Harrold points his sword to the walls.

Get the ladders up!

He bellows as the male dismounts and rushes forward with his men.

Get on those walls and show the valor of the Valemen!! Make the Golden Company fear your swords and spears, my Knights and Soldiers!

Lord Arryn yells his commands as ladders were rushed forward and raised up. If a foothold could be made, Harrold would ascend the ladders to join the fighting upon the wall. If the battering ram did its job, he would remount and lead the charge through the breach and into the city itself. Either way, the young Arryn would seek to join the combat soon enough.

Harrold cut his way through the ramparts, slashing golden armored man after golden armored man. One of his knights, as the way was cleared, rushed off and used his sword to cut the banner of House Targaryen from the gatehouse, causing it to fall beneath the walls before a banner of House Arryn was raised in its place. Soon enough, the walls were cleared of the defenders as Gorys and his men retreated.

What came next was unexpected, but one of his men reported additional breaches as Baratheon and Snow managed to enter the city. Harrold looked down at the rider.

Tell him to throw down his weapons and submit to the rightful Lord of the Seven Kingdoms! Then I shall accept his surrender!

And with that, Harrold accepted the surrender of what remained of the Golden Company under Gorys. A rider was sent to find Stannis Baratheon to report of this.

Baratheon’s men were swarming the streets, following their king towards the keep. With the enemy in the city, many of the Watch had begun to break and run for the safety of the keep - even as its walls were being scaled by Lord Morrigen’s men. Stannis and Massey’s men had become embroiled in the battle down in the streets, with those too proud to surrender buying time for the rest to make for the safety of Aegon’s hill. They cut through the wall of flesh and mail towards their prize, the rams and ladders being brought through the gates to scale the walls of the castle. Though fighting gripped the streets, the King’s officers kept a watchful eye on the rank and file. Looting and pillaging was forbidden on pain of death, and the King had sent a rider to Baelor’s Sept to demand that the High Septon lay down the arms of the Faith and be accepted back into the King’s Peace.

"The walls are lost, fall back!"

Commanded Kettleback. And that's when hell broke lose. With the walls overrun most the guards fled in all directions, like headless chickens, tossing their arms and leaving behind their golden cloaks, that littered the floor like a shimmering blanket, soon to be covered in blood and spilled innards. Osney tried to keep the soldiers in line, but not avail, they were too scared and their morale had shattered.

"Oh, fuck. Fuck you all! I shall plough you a new arsehole, you morons, come back whoresons!"

He glanced a Lannister banner in the distance and his mind turned its gears, slowly but determined. If the city was lost at least he would present Stannis the bugger's head on a golden plate, to match with his fucking hair. Sword in hand he followed the retreating banner and soon he started to catch up with the rear, even if he had to carved his way through the panicked troops and the increasingly higher number of Baratheon men as their openned the doors. And then he saw the bastard, golden from head to toe.

Fucking Lannister...

Sword and dagger in hand Osney reached Devan Lannister, just as the company started to waver, men sliding from the fringes of the formation, scurrying through alleys and hiding in houses and empty shops, just as the war horns and clarions of the enemy loomed behind like a symbol of inminent doom. The Lord Commander could hardly keep the men from running away and when he was more exposed Kettleback slaughtered the man next to him, a red cloak, and then landed a blow on Lannister: however, the man had instinctively moved slightly when the blood splattered over his plate and the sword only grazed his temple and sliced off half the ear -covering the golden mane in red-.

---

"Open the gate!"

Said Jon, the arm covered in red up to the elbow. The lowered visor concealed his face, the helmet fashioned after a wolf's head. He parried a blow from a man in a red cloak and the sliced him from shoulder to groin, the leather giving way to the Valyrian steel like it was mere butter. Harle the Handsom landed two arrows on a man, who fell from the battlements with agonizing cry, while his brother the Hunter skewered with his heavy lance a man-at-arms with a queer heraldry over the chest.

"Open the damn gate!"

Moving in armor was becoming slowly more difficult as the battlements got crowded and littered with bodies, the blood making everything a slippery afair. Lord Whitehill had been injured in the tight and was carried away. Lady Mormont too, bleeding from her armpit after beating a large man with a stripped heraldry. Rickard Ryswell had fallen, an arrow through the slit visor had sent him tumbling to the streets below, where he met the ground with thunderous noise. But they stood and did not yield the ground, carving their way through Reachmen, Essosi and goldcloaks. The Men of Winterfell seized the towers in the vicinity of the gatehouse and soon thereafter raised a wolven banner over the gates themselves, that were laid open. The Stark's bannermen flooded the city with a roar.

"Hear me! No sacking allowed!"

Jon struggled, sword in hand, to reach the ground, as his ferocious vassals poured into the city below. His honor guard openned a way and he finally reached street level. Jon raised the visor.

"Report!"

"Loses are significant but not substantial, sire"

"The Stag has taken a few gates North and South of us, my lord"

Said Lord Ryswell's eldest and Alysanne Mormont.

"Send detachments to the closest fight, clean the streets and the rest have them form up in the nearest square! And mount up!"

A choir of affirmative ayes rose around him as banners and horns moved to movilize the host, that could soon break loose into a hellish unruly thing if it was not reined in. Jon then was brought his barded stallion, which he mounted, thanking the horse for carrying his weight in armor, resting on the saddle for a moment. Jon then directed his gaze upwards, over the alleys and the tin-roofed houses, clustered against each other like tumbling drunks, and he glanced the Sept and the broken Dragonpit and then the keep, battlement upon battlement, tower upon tower, red spires raising to the sky in complex shapes of stone tracery.

"So this is it..."

He felt something in the belly and his hairs raised in the neck and arms. Snow, tranquil amidst the fierce scene playing around him, turned to a side and he saw a large crow, fat and black as ink, sitting on a dead man's helm. The thing looked back at him with human eyes and cawed.

"Snow! Snow! Snow!"

The Warden froze and raised his visor again, only to look to the bird that tilted its head and raised flight.

"Snow! Snow!"

He looked as it raised in circles hovering over the streets and then flew in the Red Keep's direction. Jon took the reins and followed, his eyes fixed on the crow, as his honor guard, alarmed, followed him atop their destriers. The Mermen and the Horsemen from the Rills gathered around their lord, spotting the wolven banner -white on black- as they crossed the gatehouse into the city atop their barded horses and soon the cavalry of the North headed through the laberintine city towards the Red Keep erected by so many generations of Targaryens.