The silence lasted only a heartbeat before the screaming began.
I didn't give them time to organize. I stood over Ned, my paws planted firmly on the splintered oak of the stage. The Kingsguard were already reaching for their swords, their faces pale behind their golden visors. I could see the hesitation in their eyes. The raw, primitive fear for a predator that didn't belong to their world.
I drew a deep breath, feeling the fire churn in my chest and let out.
[Roar]
A shockwave spread out from me that rattled the iron pikes of the Gold Cloaks and sent the front row of the crowd stumbling backward. The frequency was so low it made the wooden boards beneath me groan. Joffrey scrambled away on his hands and knees, his crown slipping into the dirt.
...
I turned my head toward the base of the platform.
[Flamethrower]
I didn't aim at the people. I swept my head in a wide, punishing arc, blasting a stream of white-hot fire directly into the stone steps and the remains of the wooden scaffolding. The heat was punishing. The decorative marble cracked and popped under the thermal stress, and the dry timber caught instantly, sending up a massive, billowing wall of black smoke and heat.
The fire curtain worked better than I expected. The Gold Cloaks were cut off by a barrier of fire, their screams of terror muffled by the burning of the flames.
I looked down at Ned. He was staring at me, his eyes wide and bloodshot, his face clearly showing his disbelief. He wasn't the broken man from the cells anymore; the sight of the chaos seemed to have shocked some life back into him.
"Red?" he rasped.
I didn't have time to explain. I leaned down, my jaws closing firmly but carefully around the wool of his tunic at the shoulder. I felt his weight as I hoisted him upward. He struggled, but he didn't fight me. His leg, though bruised and stiff from his time in the dark, wasn't the shattered ruin like I remembered from the screen. He had enough strength to reach out and bury his fingers deep into my thick, cream-colored mane.
I felt him pull himself onto my back, his chest pressed against me trying to hold tight.
I rumbled out a sound trying to let him know to "Hold". The sound was a low vibration that seemed to calm him.
I didn't look for an exit through the crowd. There wasn't one. I turned toward the edge of the high platform, facing the sheer drop into the plaza. Thousands of people were packed below, a sea of upturned, terrified faces.
I coiled my haunches. The wood groaned under the pressure of three hundred pounds of muscle.
I leaped.
For a second, the world was silent. We sailed over the heads of the crowd, clearing the first twenty rows in a single, massive arc. I saw the statue of Baelor flash past, saw the look of pure shock on Yoren's face as he clutched Arya to his chest.
I hit the cobblestones with a heavy, bone-jarring thud, my claws gouging the street. I didn't stop to check the damage.
[Extreme Speed]
The city became a blur. I saw the buildings flash by. My paws hammered the ground, each stride covering twenty feet of street. We tore through the narrow alleys of the Alchemists' Quarter, the wind whistling past Ned's head. He was clinging to me with everything he had, his face buried in my mane to shield himself from the speed and anything else along the way.
"Close the gate!" a guard screamed as we reached the Mud Gate.
They were too slow to react. The portcullis was halfway down, its iron spike descending toward the road. I didn't slow down. I lowered my head and put every ounce of my mass into a final burst of speed. We cleared the gap with inches to spare, the heavy iron gate slammed into the dirt behind us.
The city walls fell away. The smell of the harbor and the stench of the slums replaced by the sharp, clean scent of the Blackwater and the open woods.
I didn't stop until the towers of the Red Keep were nothing more than a jagged silhouette against the morning sky. I slowed to a soft gallop as we hit the Kingsroad, my breath coming in deep, steaming clouds.
I felt a sharp, familiar chime in the back of my mind.
[Level Up: 30]
[Current Status: Fugitive / Protector of the North.]
I slowed to a walk, the heat in my chest finally settling into a dull, manageable glow. I turned my head back, looking toward the city. King's Landing was a hornet's nest now, and I had just stolen their prize.
Ned moved on my back, his grip on my mane loosening slightly as he realized the danger had passed, but his worries still remain. He sat up, looking back at the distant walls of the city he had nearly died in. He didn't speak for a long time. He just looked at his hands, then at the massive beast he was riding.
"You're not a hound," Ned whispered, his voice steadying.
I didn't answer. I couldn't. I just turned my eyes north, toward the mountains and the cold.
We were hunted, and the war hadn't even truly begun. But for the first time since I woke up in this world, I wasn't just surviving. I was thriving.
I started to run again, a long, easy stride that would carry us toward the Neck. The pack was scattered, but the alpha was alive.
That was enough for today.
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