c7: Courage
Thump
Viserys hit the blood-slick road hard and rolled, disheveled, across churned mud and crushed gravel. His blue velvet tunic embroidered with the three-headed dragon of his house was now soaked and stained dark. The banner of House Targaryen had once flown over the Red Keep, and now its last young prince lay face-down in filth beneath its distant shadow.
A startled warhorse thundered past his ears, iron-shod hooves smashing into the earth and sending pebbles flying like sling stones. The animal's scream was shrill and wild, no different from the panicked mounts that had bolted during the sack of King's Landing when the Lannister host turned on the Mad King.
The prince felt as if his ears would burst. He scrambled onto his knees and curled instinctively, arms over his head, trying to shield himself from the chaos.
Huff
Huff
He gasped for breath, chest heaving violently, cheeks flushed red beneath streaks of mud.
"I…"
He wanted to speak to say that he had survived, that the blood of Old Valyria did not spill so easily but his heart pounded so fiercely it drowned his voice. Blood roared in his ears like the wildfire explosion that had once consumed the Great Sept of Baelor.
But the battlefield did not pause for princes.
The situation shifted by the heartbeat.
Sir William's sword lay several paces away, half-buried in mud yet gleaming with a cold, steady light. Its steel had been forged in King's Landing, balanced for a knight's hand, not a boy's. Even so, it shone with the quiet promise of survival.
Around him, steel rang against steel. The air was thick with the metallic scent of blood. Guards of the Red Keep fought with desperate discipline, reforming their lines just as soldiers had once regrouped during the Battle of the Blackwater, when wildfire lit the bay green and men burned screaming.
Viserys remained on his hands and knees, trembling. He lifted his head slowly and fixed his eyes on the longsword. It looked impossibly heavy, far too large for him.
"I…"
The word caught again.
Then something changed.
A surge rose within him not madness like that of Aerys II Targaryen, nor cruelty like that whispered of Joffrey Baratheon. It was something raw and desperate, born of extinction.
"Damn it!"
The silver-haired boy clenched his teeth so hard his jaw hurt. He forced himself upright despite the tremor in his limbs. His heart hammered wildly against his ribs, but he moved stumbling forward through mud and scattered corpses until his fingers wrapped around the hilt of Sir William's sword.
The blade was icy cold.
So cold it felt alive.
The chill traveled up his arm like a warning.
Perhaps in another life had he been some nameless boy in the streets of King's Landing he would never have dared touch such a weapon. The laws of the crown were merciless, and a commoner wielding steel could lose a hand. But he was not common. He was blood of the dragon, descended from conquerors who had forged kingdoms with fire and sword.
And as his hand tightened around the leather grip, an unexpected familiarity settled over him.
The weight no longer seemed entirely foreign.
In this chaos, no Kingsguard stood at his side. No white cloak shielded him as they had once shielded his ancestors. The legendary protectors who had served princes like Rhaegar Targaryen were long dead or sworn to other banners.
No one could protect him now.
Only himself.
Viserys swallowed hard, knuckles whitening around the hilt. He silently vowed that no matter who came for him, he would not die cowering like prey. If cornered, he would strike. Even if he fell, he would leave a mark a dragon's bite.
"I will…"
But fate did not grant him time to finish the vow.
Not far away, a masked "bandit" struggled to his feet. He had been thrown when his horse's foreleg was severed in the melee cut cleanly by a Red Keep guard who had fought with ruthless precision. The animal had collapsed screaming, and its rider had crashed hard onto the stones.
Now the man staggered upright. One hand gripped his longsword; the other pressed against his head as if steadying spinning vision. A gruesome slash cut across his leather armor, nearly disemboweling him. Blood soaked his side, but the wound had missed his entrails by a narrow margin.
As he straightened, torn leather shifted.
For a brief instant, beneath the shredded outer layer meant to disguise allegiance, a red field bearing a golden lion flashed into view.
The sigil of Tywin Lannister's house.
The glimpse was fleeting but unmistakable.
For reasons of secrecy and shifting loyalties, the attackers had concealed their identities. Yet even hidden claws sometimes showed.
The Red Keep guard who had crippled the man's horse had been overwhelmed moments later, cut down by two others before he could finish the job. The fighting was vicious and close, blades hacking in confined space, men dying before they could cry out.
Thus the wounded attacker had been spared.
He shoved aside the corpse of a fallen comrade and steadied himself, blinking blood from his eyes.
Then he saw him.
In the very center of the battlefield stood a boy with silver-gold hair, pale violet eyes shining like gemstones even through fear, clutching a longsword far too large for him. The mud-streaked velvet, the unmistakable Valyrian features there was no mistaking it.
Prince Viserys.
The boy saw him too.
The determination that had flared moments before faltered. Panic flickered across his youthful face, raw and unhidden like a startled hare caught in open field.
He had barely found courage when death found him instead.
The fallen masked man's lips curled into a slow, sinister smile as the wind tugged loose the black cloth covering his face. He did not bother to pull it back up. There was no need.
A prince alone on a battlefield was worth more than anonymity.
Longsword in hand, ignoring the blood soaking his side, the lion-marked attacker began to walk toward Viserys step by deliberate step.
A Targaryen prince without protection was like a fish laid bare upon a butcher's block.
No matter how noble the boy's birth, how pure the blood of Old Valyria flowing in his veins the same blood that had once ridden dragons over Westeros none of it could turn aside cold steel. Even when this masked attacker knelt, he might not have been fit to look upon the prince's toes in court. Yet here, on a nameless stretch of road not far from the Red Keep, titles meant nothing.
Now, noble birth and ancient lineage could not shield Viserys from a common sword.
And Viserys, whether stunned or seized by some deeper instinct, stood motionless.
His breathing quickened. His fingers tightened around Sir William's longsword, knuckles pale beneath streaks of mud. The blade's tip pointed straight at the approaching enemy.
His mind was nearly blank.
Only one sentence echoed within it the stern instruction given to him not long ago by the middle-aged master-at-arms who trained the young princes within the castle yard:
"Learn to use the sharp end to stab the enemy."
It was a simple lesson, spoken in the same yard where boys once dreamed of becoming knights of the Kingsguard like Barristan Selmy.
Behind Viserys unseen by any mortal eye a black mist began to coil and gather. It swirled like smoke from wildfire, thick and unnatural. Within it, a pair of scarlet eyes slowly opened, staring at the boy's back with ancient hunger.
Viserys' own eyes gradually darkened, crimson veins threading through pale violet irises. His breathing deepened, heavier, harsher. The hand gripping the sword trembled not with fear, but with something far more dangerous.
Then
in a sudden flash
a thunderous roar shattered the moment.
A warhorse charged.
Hooves tore through blood and mud alike, spraying crimson droplets into the air.
William Darry—Sir William rode like a man possessed. His armor was soaked in blood, whether his own or his enemies' none could tell. His longsword dripped red, and his jaw was clenched in grim resolve. He looked every inch the seasoned knight who had once served loyally beneath the banners of Aerys II Targaryen during the final, doomed days before the fall of the dragons.
He raised his blade high.
The warhorse surged past the bandit at full gallop. Steel flashed in the dying light like the fatal stroke delivered by Jaime Lannister when he slew the Mad King to end a reign of madness.
The sword came down.
Thud.
In the next heartbeat, a head spun through the air. A fountain of blood followed, hot and violent.
The masked attacker's body collapsed limply into the mud.
Sir William's slightly curly hair, plastered to his brow with sweat and gore, gave him a fierce and terrible appearance. His eyes were bloodshot, his legs locked tightly around the flanks of his warhorse as he guided it through churned corpses and broken weapons. Without pause, he shifted his longsword to his left hand.
The horse's hooves pounded through the blood-soaked road.
As he passed Viserys, Sir William leaned low across the saddle. In one powerful motion, he seized the small prince by the collar and belt and lifted him from the ground as if he weighed nothing.
He placed the boy securely behind him on the saddle.
"Your Highness, hold me tight!" Sir William barked, urgency cutting through the chaos.
At the most critical instant, realizing that Viserys stood alone and moments from death, Sir William had spurred forward without hesitation. One strike clean and absolute had ended the threat before the boy could throw himself into a hopeless duel.
Hot blood splattered across Viserys' pale face.
For a moment, the warmth stunned him.
It was not the first blood spilled in Westeros for a throne. The Targaryens had conquered kingdoms with dragonfire, and rebellions such as Robert's Rebellion had drowned the realm in blood to cast them down.
Viserys shivered as if waking from a dream.
Behind him, the black mist slowly thinned and dissolved, unseen by others. The scarlet eyes within it faded into nothingness.
His own jewel-like eyes cleared, returning to their pale, Valyrian hue.
His throat bobbed. He clenched his teeth lightly.
Only now did the full weight of what had nearly happened strike him.
He… had truly intended to fight.
To charge forward with a blade far too heavy for him and stake his life upon it.
Where had that courage come from?
Was it madness inherited from a broken king? Or something else, something fierce and unyielding that had once driven dragons across the Narrow Sea?
He had no time to answer.
Sir William's words rang in his ears, and Viserys obeyed instantly, wrapping both arms tightly around the knight's waist.
Another enemy lay beheaded less than three feet from where he had stood. Blood streaked his cheek, sticky and warm. Yet no nausea rose within him. Or perhaps there was simply no room for it.
Instead, something else grew stronger.
Resolve.
He understood now with brutal clarity: survival allowed no weakness. If he faltered, he would die. If he froze, he would be trampled.
A fierce heat seemed to ignite in his small chest.
For a boy of only seven years, such composure was rare. Few children raised in silk and shadowed corridors of the Red Keep could have endured such a sight without collapsing in terror.
But Viserys did not cry.
He tightened his grip.
"Kill!!"
The battle cry erupted again across the blood-drenched road, thunder rolling from a knight's throat as steel clashed and hooves hammered the earth, and beneath the fading light of day, Sir William rode on with the last dragon prince clinging to his back.
...