c9: Duskwood
Clang
Under the crimson glow of the setting sun, two longswords collided violently on the muddy kingsroad, steel grinding against steel as sparks burst into the darkening air.
The clash echoed across the quiet forest road that wound toward King's Landing, a road that only hours earlier had carried the royal escort south beneath the protection of the Iron Throne.
Now it had become a graveyard.
Sir William's blade, already dulled and notched from the desperate fighting earlier, scraped against Kevan's steel and gained yet another ugly scar. The impact sent a painful shock through his wounded arms.
His strength faltered.
Sir William staggered backward, his boots slipping in the mixture of mud and blood. For a moment he nearly lost his footing entirely.
Kevan Lannister saw the opening instantly.
Despite dragging his crippled leg through the mud, the veteran knight moved forward with surprising speed. His golden armor was battered and stained, but the instincts of a seasoned battlefield commander still guided his movements.
Kevan stepped inside the reach of Sir William's sword and drove his free fist forward.
Thud
The heavy punch smashed directly into the instructor's face.
The curly-haired man's head snapped sideways from the blow. Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth and his teeth loosened painfully under the force.
Sir William's vision went white for a moment before the world tilted.
He lost his balance and fell backward heavily into the mud.
"Die!"
Kevan roared the word with all the desperation of a cornered man.
He intended to end the fight immediately.
Yet in his haste he misjudged the moment.
As Kevan lunged forward to finish the fallen knight, Sir William's boot lashed out from the ground, hooking behind Kevan's damaged leg.
The maneuver was clumsy but effective.
Kevan's balance collapsed instantly.
The Lannister knight stumbled forward and crashed to the ground beside him, his longsword flying from his hand and landing several feet away in the wet grass.
For a moment neither man held a weapon.
The two blood-soaked knights grappled like animals in the mud.
Their armor scraped and clattered as they struggled, fists slamming into flesh and metal alike. Covered in rainwater, blood, and dirt, they rolled across the ruined road like two starving wolves locked in a final struggle for survival.
Around them the battlefield had fallen eerily silent.
The clash of steel had ended.
Now only the brutal thudding of fists and the occasional weak groan from the wounded soldiers lying nearby broke the stillness.
Above the road the crimson sunset spread across the sky like a vast bleeding wound.
The forest breeze slowly carried away the thick metallic smell of blood that hung over the battlefield.
High above, carrion birds had already begun to circle.
Crows and dark-winged scavengers glided in wide loops through the sky, crying harshly as they waited for the last movements below to cease.
No travelers passed this stretch of the kingsroad.
No one in the realm yet knew of the fierce battle that had just taken place here.
The ambush had occurred in the lonely woodlands north of the capital, where the road passed through thick forest sometimes called Duskwood by local hunters and travelers.
It was there that the fate of a Lannister knight was about to be decided.
Nearby, a silver-haired boy stood trembling with a sword clutched tightly in his hands.
Viserys had been watching the struggle with wide eyes.
Mud clung to his boots and cloak, and the weight of the blade still felt unfamiliar in his grip.
But he remembered Sir William's lesson from only moments earlier.
Use the sharp end.
Viserys saw the opportunity.
The two knights were rolling across the ground, neither one able to stand, their bodies tangled together in the mud.
If he struck now…
He could end the fight.
Taking a breath, the boy rushed forward.
He moved carefully so that he would not harm Sir William.
Then he thrust the sword downward.
The blade slipped through a narrow gap in the battered armor of Kevan Lannister, sliding between the plates beneath his arm and driving deep into his chest from behind.
"Die!"
Thud
The silver-haired boy pushed forward with all the strength his small body could muster.
The sword pierced through the knight's chest without resistance.
The point burst out through the front of Kevan's armor, gleaming red in the fading light as blood began to run down the steel.
For a moment everything froze.
This seasoned warrior of House Lannister a man who had fought beside his brother Tywin Lannister in the brutal War of the Ninepenny Kings decades earlier had survived countless battles across the Seven Kingdoms.
He had commanded soldiers.
He had seen entire battlefields drowned in blood.
Yet in the end, he fell not to a famous knight nor to a great lord of Westeros
but to the blade of a child.
Kevan's body trembled once.
Then all strength drained from him.
His knees buckled beneath him and he collapsed forward into the mud.
Thud.
Viserys stood there breathing heavily, his small chest rising and falling rapidly.
With trembling hands he pulled the longsword free from Kevan's body.
Blood splattered across the road as the blade slid out.
Unbeknownst to him, something strange occurred in that moment.
A thin wisp of black smoke rose from Kevan's corpse.
It was faint and unnatural so subtle that no one else present could possibly see it.
The strange smoke drifted slowly along the length of the sword and then flowed silently into the boy's palm.
At the same time, a warm current spread through Viserys's body, like heat rushing through his veins.
But the boy noticed none of it.
He was still panting, his ears ringing with the roar of his own heartbeat.
Without hesitation he raised the sword again.
Then Viserys brought the blade down hard toward Kevan Lannister's neck.
Fearing that the blow had not truly finished him, the boy tried to decapitate Kevan Lannister as well. However, lacking the strength and experience to deliver a clean execution like a trained knight of Westeros, the blade only bit halfway into the corpse's neck before stopping.
The sword stuck there awkwardly.
Blood flowed heavily from the wound, spilling across the mud and staining the ground a deeper crimson beneath the fading evening light.
But the truth was already obvious.
Kevan Lannister brother to Tywin Lannister and a veteran commander of House Lannister was undeniably dead.
Thump.
Viserys finally released the sword and collapsed onto the ground beside the body, his chest rising and falling violently as he struggled to catch his breath.
Only a short time earlier he had merely been a frightened child watching battle from the side of the road.
Now he had killed a man.
From witnessing the carnage of the battlefield up close to personally driving a blade into an enemy's heart, his transformation had happened with terrifying speed.
In order to survive in the brutal world of the Westeros, he had been forced to grow up far too quickly.
Sir William lay sprawled nearby in the mud.
Kevan's fists had nearly beaten the life out of him. His face was bruised and swollen, and blood clung to his lips. His voice came out slurred as he tried to speak, too weak even to sit upright.
"Child… why… why did you do this?"
Sir William stared at Viserys with disbelief.
He had just witnessed the boy's final act driving the blade again and again in an attempt to sever Kevan's head.
The sight unsettled him deeply.
This seven-year-old child had not only possessed the courage to stab an enemy in the back during a desperate struggle, but had even attempted to behead the fallen knight afterward.
The contrast between innocence and brutality shocked him.
It forced him to reconsider everything he thought he knew about the second prince of House Targaryen.
Sir William remembered an old saying often whispered across the Seven Kingdoms:
Whenever a Targaryen is born, the gods flip a coin.
One side brings greatness.
The other brings madness.
Looking at the boy now, the wounded instructor could not immediately decide which side of that coin he was witnessing.
Was this the cold determination of a future conqueror…
or the first signs of something darker?
"I don't know either,"
Viserys replied between heavy breaths as he sat on the muddy ground.
His gaze drifted toward Kevan's corpse. Beneath the broken breastplate he could see part of the golden lion crest that symbolized the pride of House Lannister.
Then the boy stood up and carefully helped the middle-aged instructor to his feet.
"Perhaps I was just afraid," he said quietly.
"Afraid of not killing him."
He did not speak of vengeance.
There was no need.
Anyone who understood the history of the Seven Kingdoms knew how dangerous the Lannisters could be when crossed. And as for what they would eventually do to King's Landing, history itself would tell the rest.
Compared to that looming future, the death of Kevan Lannister was only a small piece of interest collected in advance.
At this moment the women who had been hiding inside the overturned carriage finally stepped out cautiously.
Queen Leila's maids looked pale and shaken as they approached the battlefield.
No one blamed them for failing to help during the fight. They had neither armor nor training, and rushing into the struggle between two knights would likely have only worsened the situation.
Just then
the sound of galloping hooves echoed once again through the distant forest.
Viserys and Sir William both froze.
Their expressions changed instantly.
Moments earlier they had been ambushed by men disguised as bandits, so the sound of approaching riders immediately put them on edge.
But this time something was different.
The hooves were coming from the direction they themselves had originally been traveling.
The next moment
a group of mounted riders appeared at the far end of the road.
Banners fluttered above them as they rode through the trees.
…
The next day, just before dawn.
Blue banners decorated with white diagonal crosses and two crossed warhammers snapped in the morning wind as they rose above the stone walls of Duskendale.
Rumble
the gates of Dun Fort slowly opened.
A tall nobleman riding a powerful warhorse waited before the gate. He wore a dark cloak and thick deerskin gloves suitable for travel.
This was Denys Darklyn, lord of the town and ruler of the surrounding lands.
"Your Majesty."
With a swift motion he dismounted as the royal carriage approached.
When Queen Leila's carriage rolled through the gate, Lord Denys Darklyn knelt immediately. Behind him his household knights, servants, and guards dropped to their knees as well, forming a dense line along the road.
Word had already reached them from King's Landing that the queen and the young prince were traveling north along the kingsroad.
Darklyn riders had been dispatched to escort them toward Duskendale.
On their way they captured several wounded deserters who had fled the battlefield the previous evening and learned of the ambush against the queen's escort.
Without hesitation Lord Denys ordered his men to ride out and bring the survivors safely to the castle.
Thus the battered escort along with Queen Leila and the young prince had been brought to Dun Fort for protection.
The ancient castle of House Darklyn stood upon a hill overlooking the harbor of Duskendale, its stone towers rising above the sea cliffs and watching over the busy port below.
Sir William's injuries were severe.
The castle maesters worked through the night stitching his wounds and binding his ribs. Afterward they gave him strong milk of the poppy, and the exhausted knight soon sank into a deep sleep.
Queen Leila rested alone in one of the castle's guest chambers, guarded closely by household knights.
Viserys was given a smaller room to share with the two younger children, little Rhaenys Targaryen and her baby brother Aegon Targaryen.
Tap… tap…
Long strands of silver-gold hair fell across his shoulders as Viserys quietly carried the frightened but now sleeping Rhaenys back to the bed.
For some reason he felt strangely energized.
Despite the exhaustion of the previous day, lifting the little girl felt almost effortless.
The small black cat Balerion the Cat padded after him faithfully. Somehow the animal had also survived the fierce battle on the kingsroad and refused to leave its young master's side.
Viserys gently laid the girl on the bed.
The candlelight flickered softly across the bedroom walls, while outside the distant sounds of armored soldiers and patrolling guards echoed through the castle corridors.
"The Darklyns… at least for now, do seem loyal," Viserys murmured to himself.
Yet sleep refused to come.
Perhaps the horrors he had witnessed that day were too fresh in his mind. The bloody reality of the Seven Kingdoms had revealed itself far too early.
Life in this world was not the glorious tale of knights and dragons sung by minstrels.
It was closer to a swamp of mud and blood, where simply surviving required relentless effort.
The boy climbed onto a stool and leaned against the narrow windowsill.
From there he looked out over the city.
Duskendale stretched below the castle hill, its harbor separating the town from the dark waters of the bay. In the quiet early morning the sea looked calm, small waves gently striking the rocks beneath the cliffs.
The salty breeze drifted through the window.
It brushed against the boy's delicate face and stirred his silver-gold hair.
Viserys watched the horizon silently.
He already understood something most children his age could never imagine.
Loyalty in the Seven Kingdoms rarely lasted forever.
.....