[Chapter Size: 4100 Words.]
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Third Person POV
Reach, 300 AC.
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When Jon arrived at the location, they had already entered the castle and were killing people both in the courtyard and atop the walls. They could clearly already be executing people inside the castle as well.
"Those bastards..." Jon muttered.
He tilted Eragon into a diagonal descent, leaving the altitude that had still kept them somewhat hidden in the sky.
He continued observing. "The castle has practically already been taken, but part of those men is positioned outside to kill anyone who manages to escape..." He analyzed the several dozen men outside the castle.
Jon was furious. Absolutely furious about what was happening.
As he rapidly approached, he began searching through the eyes of the animals. He managed to see Lady Durwell, who was inside a room, protected by sworn swords alongside her crying daughter, while the men slaughtered every male soldier and servant. They weren't even trying to hide; all they had were gray cloaks to conceal their red armor.
But there would be no witnesses, so they didn't think that would matter much. There was also no way to replicate Valyrian steel armor or armor made from any other special metal, so they had to make do with what they had.
Women were being stripped, while every man was killed. Other men hunted down the remaining soldiers throughout the area as they fled. The castle was somewhat isolated from the nearest villages and towns, making it the perfect place to attempt a coup, so long as no important person witnessed what had happened and spread word of just how cruel Arctic was.
Jon no longer hid his powers, causing all the animals to begin changing at that very moment. He had no choice but to show why he should be feared.
As the dragon drew closer and closer to the castle, tonight would be the first time Westeros witnessed Eragon's true appearance.
The enemies were completely at ease, unable to see the dragon approaching above their heads, more focused on the slaughter, looting, and rapes.
They barely had time to react when Eragon opened his mouth. The very next moment, all the fighting and combat around them was drowned out by a deafening explosion of sound.
ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR
The sound of the roar immediately made everyone jump, their hearts nearly leaping out of their chests, both those inside the castle and those outside. The ones out in the open looked up in terror.
A white creature over seventy meters long flew above them, covering the entire sky. Its wings beat with a sound like thunder.
The entire castle shook from that roar alone. The men seemed to have a few seconds to understand what was happening before they began shouting:
"Dragon!" they cried out immediately as panic spread. They might never have seen a dragon before, but only one creature could resemble something so enormous descending from the sky.
That was when the real chaos began.
While everyone was still staring at the creature in the sky blocking out the stars, the horses' eyes went mad at that very moment. So did the rats, cats, and dogs throughout the castle.
The horses were the closest to the men trying to do anything at that moment, which most likely meant fleeing at the sight of the enormous creature flying above their heads. They began throwing the men to the ground one by one, while the horses simply dropped themselves onto the ground, crushing everyone beneath their legs. The men screamed in desperation at the animals' sudden behavior, only to be violently trampled.
Even the horses inside the walls began lashing out with powerful kicks, attacking only the raiders. Every kind of smaller animal also began attacking the men.
If Jon had received the information earlier, he would have simply wiped out the entire cavalry as they advanced toward House Durwell's seat. But he knew it was already too late by the time the news reached him. Unfortunately, there had been no way to prevent the invasion. Now, however, he would save everyone and eliminate every last one of them.
Most of the people in the castle were still alive, so he had time. Eragon's roar had been enough to make them stop most of the fighting.
Jon maintained the synchronization while Eragon watched those men lying on the ground after being thrown off by the horses. They could only stare in horror at their broken bodies after being abandoned by the animals, which had simply thrown themselves to the ground to cushion their own falls.
As a result, many of them had shattered multiple parts of their bodies.
Jon moved the horses away, and the men could only watch as that white creature approached, announcing their true deaths. They barely had time to react before it simply opened its mouth and spewed flames, consuming them in the next instant and illuminating the entire night with a vast sea of fire. It covered a large area outside the castle, Eragon's flames being far more than ordinary fire, exploding in every direction, and even the castle itself felt the intense heat.
The men within the flames couldn't even scream, their voices smothered by the fire itself.
Jon turned Eragon and headed toward the castle. That alone had been enough to shake everyone. As if that weren't enough, they lowered their guard while countless animals began attacking the invaders.
Some rats bit at the men, horses continued delivering crushing kicks, dogs broke free and began tearing into the men, who screamed as fangs sank into their necks. Some managed to kill those animals, but very few, and the dragon itself was a clear sign that they were undoubtedly doomed now.
Jon approached the castle, turned Eragon upside down, then jumped onto one of the walls, a maneuver he and the dragon had long since grown accustomed to performing.
He fell about twenty meters, but all that was heard was the impact of Valyrian steel striking stone, while his knees straightened as though nothing had happened.
He saw several men staring at him, having clearly witnessed his fall. He stood up and walked over to the soldiers bearing House Durwell's sigil.
"Tell me, what's the situation?"
One of them stepped forward. The man was undoubtedly still in shock.
At any other moment, he would have asked if he was dreaming.
A dragon had just flown over them, generating a tremendous gust of wind, and now there was a man standing before him who had just jumped off a moving dragon.
Jon wore his helmet, so they had no idea it was the king who had been there a week earlier, but the sigil on his chest already revealed where he came from.
The soldier swallowed hard. "They're inside the castle. Ser Sigma Flowers is with a group of men protecting Lady Durwell inside, but many enemy soldiers got in while we were trying to stop their forces from up here... we've already lost half the guard," the man said, still watching the courtyard, where the animals continued attacking the invaders.
That was another strange and bizarre thing—were their enemies being killed by animals?
"Take advantage of the opportunity that's been created. Get those bastards. Kill them, every last one of them!" Jon said from behind his helmet.
The man nodded. He took a step forward, and Jon charged ahead, finding the first men trying to flee from the smaller animals. He wasted no time. Blackfyre was drawn from its sheath and cut them down before they had time to react.
Jon would show no mercy tonight. He kept advancing, finding every other man in his path fleeing from the chaos. As the dragon flew over the castle once more with another roar, he stabbed one man and joined a fight alongside the Durwell men for a few moments, killing those enemies as well.
Jon looked at the startled soldier watching his enemy fall at the hands of this man clad entirely in Valyrian steel armor.
"Men of House Durwell! What are you waiting for? Kill the invaders!" Jon shouted, not just to the man in front of him, seeing everyone's hesitation after so many bizarre events, still terrified after witnessing the animals behaving that way and a dragon flying above their heads after leaving an entire horizon ablaze beyond the walls.
His voice seemed to snap them out of it as they exchanged glances for a brief moment.
"What are you waiting for? This is your chance! Kill every invader!" Jon repeated.
The first to react was the same man. He approached a frightened soldier struggling with a dog and drove his sword into the man's stomach.
"Kill them!" he shouted, and at last the soldiers sprang into action.
Jon watched with satisfaction. The animals alone would have taken a little longer to finish them all, but with the soldiers attacking as well, this would become a massacre.
He took the opportunity to enter the castle. He found men fleeing with rats clinging to them as they bit into their flesh.
"Stop this demonic thing!" one man screamed while a rat was latched onto his arm, crying out in pain.
He barely had time to finish the sentence before his eyes widened as he saw Jon approaching with the clear intent to kill him.
Jon simply thrust his sword into the man's neck with lightning-like speed, making him choke on his own blood. The rat was no longer his concern.
Jon continued onward.
There were naked women trying to cover themselves in the corners, while he saw men killing dogs in another corridor, and others staring fearfully out the window, terrified of the dragon.
Jon simply approached. The men looked at him in alarm before charging, but he dealt with all of them in just a few movements before beheading them.
The dog that had survived moved on to its next target, and Jon would use it to track them by the animal's sense of smell.
"Go somewhere safe. The animals won't attack you," Jon said to the women and servants he had met a few days earlier, when they had served the table alongside him, Arya, and Lady Durwell during his stay. The young women had nearly been raped, all because someone wanted to frame him. Ever since Eragon's roar, the attackers had been unable to continue carrying out their terror.
The people heard his words and simply nodded with tears in their eyes, perhaps still afraid of the raiders or even of the animals that had begun attacking them. Some invaders were half-naked, their pants missing, while dogs that had entered the castle tore out their throats.
He continued forward, cutting down every man wearing red armor that he found.
Most of the invaders had been outside, and now all of them were being massacred by the castle's own men. Eragon had burned around eighty of them outside the walls, and at least another fifty were dying in the courtyard.
The remaining seventy were inside the castle.
Jon had no difficulty dealing with those ordinary soldiers as he cut through them, some attempting to attack him the moment they saw he intended to block their escape.
To his eyes, they were all slow, easily dealt with. It only took one or two movements to slice through their necks with such ease and force that they couldn't even understand how they had been struck. They simply lost their strength and collapsed to the floor as they felt death drawing near.
Jon simply left them bleeding in the corridors as he continued advancing.
He had already cut down around thirty men and pressed on with fury blazing in his eyes. He wasn't using magic. His steel blade alone was enough.
One man saw him and immediately ran after witnessing the sight of at least five corpses scattered across the floor.
Several dogs followed him, showing Jon where to find the enemies, some of whom were hiding. He found men concealed inside rooms, trying to protect themselves from the animals or hiding in fear of the dragon.
Eragon's roars made the castle tremble.
Some had locked the doors, but nothing that a little magic, at last, couldn't solve.
He finally reached the corridor leading to a vast chamber. When they saw him approaching with three dogs, one man ran inside to warn his companions as he shouted.
Lady Durwell and her daughter were being cornered with only five guards, Ser Sigma Flowers being one of them.
Before all that chaos had begun, everyone had been caught off guard by the roar of an enormous monster from above, making the entire castle shake. The men had been just moments away from finally claiming their prize. They hesitated for the first time, and after that, chaos erupted as the animals attacked.
"There's a man here wearing Valyrian steel armor. I think it's him... the King of Arctic," the man said, trembling as he spoke to his commander.
"Why? Why is he here?" asked the commander of those troops, utterly bewildered. "He shouldn't be here. Have we been discovered?"
Lady Durwell had several marks on her face after being slapped. Even injured, before her guards intervened to protect her, she still managed to display a smile of hatred.
"It seems that, in the end, all of you are going to die in this place!" she said, holding her daughter.
"Silence," the enemy leader said angrily before looking at the messenger. "Tell me where he is."
"He's getting closer. I saw him myself," the man replied.
"Quick! Put all our archers on the other side of the door. Close it, and when he opens it, shoot him," he ordered.
The man ignored Lady Durwell in the corner, protected by the guards with the crying child, and everyone's attention turned to the door as it began to close.
They stepped back afterward and waited. But no one foresaw what came next. The door simply exploded without any warning, shattered apart by a massive blast of fire that sent splinters flying in every direction, while the screams of the men and servant girls echoed through the room in terror.
"What the hell..." the leader muttered as he saw someone walking through the flames wearing a helmet.
"Fire! Fire!" he shouted.
The arrows were loosed, but they struck the man without so much as scratching his armor, while Jon watched them through the slits of his helmet.
"You're going to have to do better than that," Jon declared before charging forward.
He rushed toward the first men, who barely had time to react. He found openings with ease, beheading the first before he could respond, then dealing with a second, a third, and a fourth in only a few seconds before advancing on the knights.
The dogs also came through the doorway behind him and charged.
The man in command looked on in terror, trying to back away. He needed to reach Lady Durwell to use her as a hostage, but Jon caught him with ease. After killing several more men, he slashed off the man's hand at the wrist, making him drop his sword, before landing a punch that knocked him unconscious, the bloody stump where his hand should have been pouring blood.
Jon still wanted some information. For now, the man needed to stay alive.
The room was quickly secured as more guards entered after following Jon through the castle.
The remaining enemies begged for mercy, but the dogs kept attacking while Jon finished them off as well, beheading them one by one until no one was left alive.
He alone had slaughtered more than thirty men inside the castle.
While everyone stared at him in shock, Jon removed his helmet, relieved to see that nothing had happened to Lady Durwell besides a few injuries, nor to the little girl.
Little Alyssa, only five years old, ran out from the group while her mother called after her.
"You defeated them! You fought all those men!" little Alyssa cried, her tears a mix of relief and lingering fear.
Jon picked up a cloth, wiped the gauntlet of his Valyrian steel glove clean, then gently placed his hand on her head.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
She looked at him. Despite her tears and the obvious terror she had endured ever since the men had invaded the castle, she simply nodded and forced herself to smile.
"I knew you would come. I was sure of it," she said.
After hearing so many stories about him, she had always believed that Jon would appear. Just as he had saved a princess in Yi Ti, a story the little girl had especially loved. She truly believed in his adventures and had desperately wished he would save her family from those bad men.
And there he was.
Even covered in blood from head to toe, she still looked at him with a smile.
Jon picked her up and handed her back to her mother.
"Take her away from here. Bring her somewhere clean. We'll talk later. I'm going to see how your men are handling the situation outside," Jon said.
He already had an idea of what was happening because the king was there and what that monster outside meant, but he still needed to gather the men.
The sounds of battle were already beginning to fade. Jon had killed around forty men by himself since getting off Eragon. Eragon had killed eighty.
He still didn't know how many of the other eighty had been killed, but they hadn't met a pleasant end, dying by fangs or blades... Though the latter was the more merciful fate.
The soldiers outside advanced into the castle, searching for any survivors with burning rage, while the animals also hunted them down, especially the crazed dogs that relentlessly charged at any enemy still hiding.
Jon found Ser Sigma Flowers outside the castle, who hesitated the moment he saw him. He had witnessed many things that night, and a heavy impact from outside made everyone turn toward the sound as Eragon landed nearby.
Ser Sigma Flowers had never imagined he would witness one man killing others the way he had that night. He had watched Jon fight several enemies at once while massacring them with ease.
He had just seen a dragon, a real one, and an enormous one at that, fly over the castle.
He had seen horses, dogs, rats, cats, and even other smaller animals attack the invaders as though they had been enchanted.
It was certainly a world he had no idea how to comprehend.
But there was one thing he was certain of... They had been saved.
Saved by a single man who had arrived riding an enormous dragon.
"What's the situation?" Jon asked him after seeing him come out of the castle.
Ser Sigma Flowers reported that they had already dealt with most of the men still inside, while another soldier informed him that every man who had surrendered was dead.
"Very good. Gather the survivors in the courtyard and reinforce Lady Durwell's guard inside the castle. Also bring me the man whose hand I cut off. It's time to get some answers," Jon said in an authoritative tone.
Ser Sigma nodded. Until a few days ago, they had feared him, afraid of being massacred and watching the castle destroyed. Now, they simply obeyed his orders after he had saved them all.
Jon looked toward the field of fire Eragon had created, still burning in the distance.
His dragon remained beside the castle, watching everything with its neck rising above the walls, frightening the men as they saw the gigantic head staring at them.
"The dragon is with me, men. He won't harm any of you," Jon explained to the men of House Durwell, who still looked at him with uncertainty and disbelief.
They nodded as they watched the king walk through the area once again with his helmet on, making sure there was no one left to fight.
The surrendered enemies were gathered in the center of the courtyard while all the castle's survivors assembled there as well. There were at least fifteen enemy soldiers.
Jon remained silent as he observed the uncertain gazes of the Durwell men, the servants, and the raiders fixed upon him.
After what they had witnessed that night, it was an entirely normal reaction. It wasn't every day that one saw a man with such abilities, much less someone who might have been considered an enemy only a few days earlier.
Lady Durwell was still very hesitant to speak with Jon.
She had only bid him farewell when he departed after what had happened that night—her failed attempt to sleep with the king, while at the same time he knew she had sent guards to report their numbers and other information.
And now she had been saved by him... It was a rather contradictory situation. She was deeply ashamed to face him at that moment.
But her daughter simply ran forward before she could react. She didn't understand how Alyssa had suddenly become so attached to the man standing before them.
Jon watched her approach as she wore a bright smile and began talking to the king.
In any case, Lady Durwell still had to deal with the situation and stepped forward as well to stand beside her daughter.
"Your Majesty, you saved my house. You saved our lives."
"It was something I had to do, my lady," Jon said without any resentment. He made no mention of his personal feelings about the night he had spent there.
He continued, "These men wanted to create a situation in which they would massacre you along with everyone in this castle and place the blame on us."
"Damn the Lannisters!" Ser Sigma Flowers spat onto the ground.
"Damn the Lannisters!" the castle guards began shouting.
"And they should be. From what I could determine, that bound man over there was the leader... He is Ser Malicon Hill, in service to House Ferren. Everything indicates that it was Lord Ferren who planned all of this tonight..." Jon said, pointing at the man he had subdued.
"Damn House Ferren!"
"It seems Lord Ferren was willing to murder innocent people in order to damage Arctic's reputation."
Arctic already did not have a very good reputation among much of the South, with the exception of the North and the Riverlands at the moment, but now that no longer made any difference.
After explaining the situation, Jon spoke with Lady Durwell for some time while the men cleaned up all the devastation left behind by the night's events.
Next, Jon woke the prisoner. The man awoke in terror as a bucket of icy water was poured over his head. The cold was unbearable.
Jon simply asked him a few questions.
At first, the man refused to answer while staring at his severed hand, which had somehow been healed... but he was quickly persuaded when he realized that beheading was a far more appealing option than being devoured by a dragon, according to the threat made by the enemy standing before him.
"Excellent," Jon said in the end.
In truth, he had only asked a few questions because he already knew most of the answers.
While watching those men talk, he had seen the horses' memories. He had found the commander's own horse in the courtyard, so it had been easy to access its memories and hear their plans as they spoke.
Jon had seen Lord Ferren offering money as well as a chance for glory, since he had been willing to reward any man who agreed to take part in a plan to destroy Arctic's reputation.
Jon remained at the castle for a while longer and eventually found himself in a rather unusual situation.
He was holding little Alyssa in his arms while she slept.
"Please... don't go..." she said when Jon tried to hand her back to her mother.
Jon could only give her mother an apologetic smile before sighing as he thought about Arya. He would have to postpone his plans with his cousin for the time being...
He kept the little girl in his arms while sending a message to the camp through one of the ravens. He would spend the night at House Durwell.
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