The rioting began amidst the alleys and wynds of Flea Bottom, as men and women poured from the wine sinks, rat pits, and pot shops by the hundreds, angry, drunken, and afraid. From there the rioters spread throughout the city, shouting for justice for the dead princes and their murdered queen. Carts and wagons were overturned, shops looted, homes plundered and set afire.
Gold cloaks attempting to quell the disturbances were set upon and beaten bloody. No one was spared, of high birth or low. Sailors unable to return to their ships attacked the River Gate and fought a pitched battle with the City Watch. It took Ser Luthor Largent and four hundred spears to disperse them.
By then the gate had been hacked half to pieces and a hundred men were dead or dying, a quarter of them gold cloaks.
At Cobbler's Square the sounds of the riot could be heard from every quarter. The Shepherd drank deep of the anger. "The day of doom is upon us! This unnatural queen who sits bleeding on the Iron Throne, her whore's lips glistening and red with the blood of her sweet sister."
"Please save us! Save the city!" A septa in the crowd cried out.
"Only the Mother's mercy can save you, but you drove your Mother from this city with your pride and lust and avarice. Now it is the Stranger who comes. On a dark horse with burning eyes he comes, a scrooge of fire in his hand to cleanse this pit of sin of demons and all who bow before them. Listen! Can you hear the sound of burning hooves? He comes! He comes!"
As a thousand torches filled the square with pools of smoky yellow light. Soon enough the shouts died away, and through the night the sound of iron hooves on cobblestones grew louder. Not one Stranger, but five hundred, and the Riñnykeā Dracarys.
The City Watch had come in strength, five hundred men clad in black ringmail, steel caps, and long golden cloaks, armed with short swords, spears, and spiked cudgels. They formed up on the south side of the square, behind a wall of shields and spears.
At their head rode Lady Viserra Stark upon an armored warhorse, her mother's Valyrian steel sword in her hand. The mere sight of her was enough to send hundreds streaming away into the wynds and alleys and side streets. Hundreds more fled when Lady Viserra ordered the gold cloaks to advance.
Ten thousand remained, however. The press was so thick that many who might gladly have fled found themselves unable to move, pushed and shoved and trod upon. Others surged forward, locked arms, and began to shout and course, as the spears advanced to the slow beat of a drum.
"Make way, you bloody fools," Lady Viserra roared at the Shepherd's lambs, every torch lining the streets burning brighter. "Go home. No harm will come to you. The only blood we want shed is the Shepherd's."
Some say the first man to die was a baker, who grunted in surprise when a spearpoint pierced his flesh and he saw his apron turning red.
A rock came flying from the crowd, striking a spearman on the brow. Shouts and curses were heard, sticks and stones and chamber pots came raining down from rooftops, an archer across the square began to loose his shafts. A torch was thrust at a watchman, and quick as that his golden cloak was burning.
Battle turned to riot turned to slaughter. Surrounded on all sides, the gold cloaks found themselves hemmed in and swept under, with no room to wield their weapons. Many died on the points of their own swords. Others were torn to pieces, kicked to death, trampled underfoot, hacked apart with hoes and butcher's cleavers.
Even the fearsome Ser Luthor Largent could not escape the carnage. His sword torn from his grasp, Largent was pulled from his saddle, stabbed in the belly, and bludgeoned to death with a cobblestone, his helm and head so crushed that it was only by its size that his body was recognized when the corpse wagons came the next day.
By dawn, fires were burning throughout the city, Cobbler's Square was littered with corpses, and bands of lawless men roamed Flea Bottom, breaking into shops and homes and laying rough hands on every honest person they encountered.
The surviving gold cloaks had retreated to their barracks, whilst gutter knights, mummer kings, and mad prophets ruled the streets. Like the roaches they resembled, the worst of these fled before the light, retreating to hidey-holes and cellars to sleep off their drunks, divvy up their plunder, and wash the blood off their hands.
The gold cloaks at the Old Gate and the Dragon Gate sallied forth under the command of their captains, Ser Balon Byrch and Ser Garth the Harelip, and by midday had managed to restore some semblance of order to the streets north and east of Rhaenys's Hill. Ser Medrick Manderly, leading a hundred White Harbor men, did the same for the area northeast of Aegon's High Hill, down to the Iron Gate.
The rest of King's Landing remained in chaos. The remainder of the "Mudfoot" garrison had gone over to Ser Perkin. Ser Torrhen lost a quarter of his men fighting his way back to the Red Keep...yet escaped lightly compared to Ser Lorent Marbrand, who led a hundred knights and men-at-arms into Flea Bottom. Sixteen returned. Ser Lorent, Lord Commander of the Queensguard, was not amongst them.
⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟
The men that walked with Lady Viserra towards the throne room wept when she told them of the way Ser Lorent died. "I do not have time for tears." She hissed at the soldiers. "I came here for our queen, and I will not let that bastard win."
By evenfall, Rhaenyra Targaryen found herself sore beset on every side, her reign in ruins.
"The night is dark and full of terrors, Your Grace. This night will be far worse than the last." Lady Viserra muttered to Rhaenyra as she took her spot by her side.
At dawn, a hundred men attended her in the throne room, but one by one they slipped away or were dismissed, until only her sons, Lady Viserra, and Princess Aemma remained with her.
Viserra watched with tears glistening in her crimson eyes as Rhaenyra swung from rage to despair and back again, clutching desperately at the Iron Throne that both her hands were bloody.
"Tell Ser Balon Byrch to send ravens to Winterfell and the Eyrie for more aid." She commanded Viserra, who gave her a nod before leaving the throne room, blood from her boots leaving a trail.
Aegon the Younger was ever at his mother's side, yet seldom spoke a word, clutching Princess Aemma's hand. Princess Aemma, having witnessed the events of Queen Helaena's death, had a distant look in her eyes, yet still donned armor with both her father and mother's daggers at her sides.
After the departure of Lady Viserra, Prince Joffrey stepped forward. "I want to fight for you, Mother, as my brothers did. Let me prove that I am as brave as they were."
"Brave they were, and dead they are, the both of them. My sweet boys." Rhaenyra muttered, before looking up at her son. "I forbid you from leaving the castle."
Aegon tried to grip Aemma's hand tighter, but he couldn't stop her. "I possess the power of the dragon, fire will not harm me, Your Grace. Send me to retrieve Silverwing and put an end to this rioting."
Rhaenyra looked at the small girl, the look of determination on her face the same as Valaena's. "Very well."
⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟
With the setting of the sun, the vermin of King's Landing emerged once more from their rat pits, hidey-holes, and cellars, in ever greater numbers than the night before.
At nightfall, the Shepherd had appeared once more to resume his preaching in Cobbler's Square. "When the dragons come, your flesh will burn and blister and turn to ash. Your wives will dance in gowns of fire, shrieking as they burn, lewd and naked underneath the flames. And you shall see your little children weeping, weeping till their eyes fo melt and slide like jelly down their faces, till their pink flesh falls black and crackling from their bones. The Stranger comes, he comes, he comes, to scourge us for our sins. Prayers cannot stay his wroth, no more than tears can quench the flame of dragons. Only blood can do that. Your blood, my blood, their blood." Then the Shepherd raised his right arm and jabbed the stump of his missing hand at Rhaenys's Hill behind him, at the Dragonpit black against the stars. "There the demons dwell, up there. Fire and blood, blood and fire. This is their city. If you would make it yours, first must you destroy them. If you would cleanse yourself of sin, first you must bathe in dragon's blood. For only blood can quench the fires of hell."
From ten thousand throats a cry went up.
"Kill them! Kill them!"
And like some vast beast with ten thousand legs, the lambs began to move, shoving and pushing, waving their torches, brandishing swords and knives and other, cruder weapons, walking and running through the streets and alleys toward the Dragonpit. Some thought better and slipped away to home, but for every man who left, three more appeared to join these dragonslayers. By the time they reached the Hill of Rhaenys, their numbers had doubled.
High atop Aegon's High Hill across the city, the queen, her sons, and members of her court watched the attack unfold from the roof of Maegor's Holdfast.
"Where is Aemma?" Viserra asked, coming to stand next to a trembling Rhaenyra.
"She went to go get Silverwing." Rhaenyra whispered, watching the people approach the Dragonpit. Viserra turned and watched too in horror. Where Silverwing resided was deep within the Dragonpit. Princess Aemma would not hear the mob until they were already there, blocking her only way out.
Snapping out of her trance Viserra turned to the knights gathered around. She sent riders to Ser Balon at the Old Gate and Ser Garth at the Dragon Gate, commanding them to disperse the lambs, seize the Shepherd, and defend the royal dragons... but with the city in such turmoil, it was far from certain that the riders had won through. Even if they had, what loyal gold cloaks remained were too few to have any hope of success.
"Please mother, let me ride forth with the knights and those from White Harbor." Prince Joffrey pleaded once more.
"If they take that hill, this one will be next," Rhaenyra said. "We will need every sword here to defend the castle."
"They will kill the dragons," Prince Joffrey said, anguished.
"Or the dragons will kill them," his mother said, unmoved. "Let them burn. The realm will not long miss them."
"Mother, what if they kill Tyraxes? Or Aemma?" the young prince said, not noticing the way Viserra and Aegon both flinched.
"They are vermin. Drunks and fools and gutter rats. One taste of dragonflame and they will run."
Viserra turned back to Rhaenyra. "Drunks they may be, but a drunken man knows not fear. Fools, aye, but a fool can kill a king. Rats, that too, but a thousand rats can bring down a bear. I cannot lose another sibling, Your Grace."
Lady Viserra took her leave to go forth to the Dragonpit, causing Prince Joffrey to go sulking.
It was only when the watchers on the roof heard Syrax roar that the prince's absence was noted.
"No," Rhaenyra spoke in disbelief, "I forbid it, I forbid it," but even as she spoke her dragon flapped up from the yard, perched for half a heartbeat atop the castle battlements, then launched herself into the night with the queen's son clinging to her back, a sword in hand.
"After him!" Rhaenyra shouted. "All of you, every man, every boy, to horse, to horse, go after him. Bring him back, bring him back, he does not know. My son, my sweet, my son..."
⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟
Syrax was the queen's dragon. She had never known another rider. Though Prince Joffrey was known to her by sight and scent, a familiar presence whose fumbling at her chains excited no alarm, the great yellow she-dragon wanted no part of him astride her.
In his haste to be away before he could be stopped, the prince had vaulted onto Syrax without the benefit of a saddle or whip. His intent, we must presume, was either to fly Syrax into battle or, more likely, to cross the city to the Dragonpit and his own Tyraxes. Mayhaps he meant to loose the other pit dragons as well.
Joffrey never reached the Hill of Rhaenys. Once in the air, Syrax twisted beneath him, fighting to be free of this unfamiliar rider. And from below, stones and spears and arrows flew at him from the hands of the Shepherd's blood-soaked lambs, maddening the dragon even further. Two hundred feet above Flea Bottom, Prince Joffrey slid from the dragon's back and plunged to the earth.
Near a juncture where five alleys came together, the prince's fall came to its bloody end. He crashed first onto a steep-pitched roof before rolling off to fall another forty feet amidst a shower of broken tiles. We are told that the fall broke his back, that shards of slate rained down about him like knives, that his own sword tore loose of his hand and pierced him through the belly.
"Mother, forgive me," Joffrey supposedly said with his last breath...though men still argue whether he was speaking of his mother, the queen, or praying to the Mother Above.
Thus perished Joffrey Velaryon, Prince of Dragonstone and heir to the Iron Throne, the last of Queen Rhaenyra's sons by Laenor Velaryon...or the last of her bastards by Ser Harwin Strong, depending on which truth one chooses to believe.
The mob descended on Joffrey's corpse, and looters tore the boots from his feet and the sword from his belly. More savage rioters tore at his body, cutting off his hands so that the rings on his fingers may be claimed; his right foot was hacked through the ankle, and a butcher's apprentice was sawing at his neck to claim his head when the seven knights arrived. His remains were reclaimed, aside from his foot, although Ser Gyles Yronwood, Ser Willam Royce, and Lord Commander Glendon Goode were killed trying to retrieve the body. His half-brother, Aegon the Younger, became his mother's heir following his death. The queen's knights at last reclaimed the boy's remains, save for his missing foot, though three of the seven fell in the fighting.
And even as blood flowed in the alleys of Flea Bottom, another battle raged round the Dragonpit above, atop the Hill of Rhaenys.
The Shepherd's rats were armed with spears, longaxes, spiked clubs, and half a hundred other kinds of weapons, including both longbows and crossbows.
The Dragonpit had its own contingent of guards, the Dragonkeepers, but those proud warriors were only seven-and-seventy in number, and fewer than fifty had the watch that night. Though their swords drank deep of the blood of the attackers, the numbers were against them. When the Shepherd's lambs smashed through the doors and came clambering through windows, the Dragonkeepers were overwhelmed, and soon slaughtered.
"Shh sagon gīda... sagon nēdenka, Silverwing." Princess Aemma muttered quietly to the agitated dragon. She leaned closer into the dragon's chest as she bathed the cave with dragonfire. That's when she finally heard it, the screams and shouts, the smell of blood in the air.
⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟⃟
There were five dragons housed within the Dragonpit. By the time the first of the attackers came pouring out into the sands, all five were roused, awake, and angry.
For every man who perished, ten suffered burns and yet survived. Trapped within the pit, hemmed in by walls and dome and bound by heavy chains, the dragons could not fly away, or use their wings to evade attacks and swoop down on their foes. Instead, they fought with horns and claws and teeth, turning this way and that like bulls in a Flea Bottom rat pit...but these bulls could breathe fire.
Princess Aemma quickly unbound Silverwing from the chains and went to find a way out. Although the young girl of six had been to war, nothing could have prepared her for what she saw.
The Dragonpit was transformed into a fiery hell where burning men staggered screaming through the smoke, the flesh sloughing from their blackened bones.
Just as she was about to turn back, a girl a few years older than her turned towards her, smiling. Her teeth were filed into fangs and her nails were long enough to be considered claws. "Your father was the one to start the war was he not?"
Aemma unsheathed his dagger, still backing towards where Silverwing resided. "I'm not my father nor my mother."
But her words fell to deaf ears as the girl came forth, tackling Aemma to the ground. Although the girl was taught how to fight in the pits, Valaena had also taught her children how to fight dirty. As the girl tried to rip out Aemma's throat with her teeth, Aemma turned the blade of her dagger flat, thrusting it between the girls second and third rib into her liver.
The girl froze, looking down at the dagger. Aemma used this distraction to flip them, so she was on top. Over and over again she stabbed the girl with her mother's dagger, taking out all her pain and anger. She stopped once she felt exhaustion creeping in, going to mount Silverwing.
But for every man who died, ten more appeared, shouting that the dragons must needs die. One by one, they did.
Shrykos was the first dragon to succumb, slain by a woodsman known as Hobb the Hewer, who leapt onto her neck, driving his axe down into the beast's skull as Shrykos roared and twisted, trying to throw him off.
Morghul, was slain by the Burning Knight, a huge brute of a man in heavy armor who rushed headlong into the dragon's flame with spear in hand, thrusting its point into the beast's eye repeatedly even as the dragonflame melted the steel plate that encased him and devoured the flesh within.
Prince Joffrey's Tyraxes retreated back into his lair, we are told, roasting so many would-be dragonslayers as they rushed after him that its entrance was soon made impassable by their corpses.
But it must be recalled that each of these man-made caves had two entrances, one fronting onto the sands of the pit, the other opening onto the hillside. It was the Shepherd himself who directed his followers to break through the "back door." Hundreds did, howling through the smoke with swords and spears and axes.
As Tyraxes turned, his chains fouled, entangling him in a web of steel that fatally limited his movement. Half a dozen men would later claim to have dealt the dragon the mortal blow like his master, Tyraxes suffered further indignity even in death, as the Shepherd's followers sliced the membranes from his wings and tore them into ragged strips to fashion dragonskin cloaks.
The last of the four pit dragons did not die so easily. Dreamfyre had broken free of two of her chains at Queen Helaena's death. The remaining bonds she burst now, tearing the stanchions from the walls as the mob rushed her, then plunging into them with tooth and claw, ripping men apart and tearing off their limbs even as she loosed her terrible fires.
As others closed about her, she took wing, circling the cavernous interior of the Dragonpit and swooping down to attack the men below. Tyraxes, Shrykos, and Morghul killed scores, there can be little doubt, but Dreamfyre slew more than all three of them combined.
Hundreds fled in terror from her flames...but hundreds more, drunk or mad or possessed of the Warrior's own courage, pushed through to the attack. Even at the apex of the dome, the dragon was within easy reach of archer and crossbowman, and arrows and quarrels flew at Dreamfyre wherever she went, at such close range that some few even punched through her scales. Whenever she lighted, men swarmed to the attack, driving her back into the air. Twice the dragon flew at the Dragonpit's great bronze gates, only to find them closed and barred and defended by ranks of spears. Soon Silverwing also joined in these efforts, but it was useless.
Unable to flee, Dreamfyre returned to the attack, savaging her tormenters until the sands of the pit were strewn with charred corpses, and the very air was thick with smoke and the smell of burned flesh, yet still the spears and arrows flew.
The end came when a crossbow bolt nicked one of the dragon's eyes. Half-blind, and maddened by a dozen lesser wounds, Silverwing and Dreamfyre spread their wings and flew straight up at the great dome above in a last desperate attempt to break into the open sky.
Already weakened by blasts of dragonflame, the dome cracked under the force of impact, and a moment later half of it came tumbling down out of the two only one was able to escape, crushing both dragon and dragonslayers under tons of broken stone and rubble.
A thousand shrieks and shouts echoed across the city, mingling with the dragon's roar. Atop the Hill of Rhaenys, the Dragonpit wore a crown of yellow fire, burning so bright it seemed as if the sun was rising. And from that fire arose Princess Aemma Targaryen atop Silverwing, reborn in Fire and Blood.
Queen Rhaenyra trembled as she watched, the tears glistening on her cheeks. Many of the queen's companions on the rooftop fled, fearing that the fires would soon engulf the entire city, even the Red Keep atop Aegon's High Hill. Others took themselves to the castle sept to pray for deliverance. Rhaenyra herself wrapped her arms about her last living son, Aegon the Younger, clutching him fiercely to her bosom. Nor would she lose her hold upon him...until that dreadful moment when Syrax fell.
Unchained and riderless, Syrax might have easily flown away from the madness. The sky was hers. She could have returned to the Red Keep, left the city entirely, taken wing for Dragonstone. Was it the noise and fire that drew her to the Hill of Rhaenys, the roars and screams of the dying dragons, the smell of burning flesh? We cannot know, no more than we can know why Syrax chose to descend upon the Shepherd's mobs, rending them with tooth and claw and devouring dozens.
A/N: I am so sorry for the late update it's just that writing the last chapter literally killed me and my will to write otbotd. However, we only have two to three chapters left which is crazy to think about, but I'd love to read your thoughts and opinions. As always comments and votes are greatly appreciated <3