Chapter Text
As the ancestral keep of House Tully, Riverrun still held some majesty despite being about a tenth of poor burned Harrenhal. Commanding a magnificent view of leagues around, it was nestled betwixt two rivers, and a massive ditch dug across completed the triangle. The sluice gates had already been opened to flood the ditch, leaving Riverrun an island surrounded by red sandstone walls rising sheer from the river, its crenelations bristling with archers as its lord had, on Aegon’s request, closed off Riverrun for the riverlords to meet and prepare…
…against the Northmen.
Aegon ate without tasting – the feast was not notable beyond the fact that it was hosted by Lord Tully, and the Great Hall of Riverrun was not so remarkable. Attending were his suite of Rosby and Stokeworth as well as Dragonstone and Driftmark men, most of the lords across the northern Riverlands, and what few Stormlanders came with Orys and his lady wife – the lords, that was, whereas the men were camped on the opposing shores in deference to the lack of space. Up and down the high table and most of the lower tables the murmur echoed – most of it being Lord Frey, who was telling all and sundry about the loss of his House’s bridge, the very bridge by which the Freys had made their fortune.
“It’s the Fist of Winter,” Lord Frey sobbed, “The wolves are all out to kill us, they actually let that mad hound off its leash…”
Aegon stifled the click of his tongue that threatened. “My lord Tully, I would ask on something,” he murmured, watching as in the accompanying seat, Lord Edmyn Tully straightened.
“I… had thought that Lady Argella would be quite well-informed, sire.”
“Orys has yet to come with his lady wife,” Aegon reasoned. “But you are the Lord Paramount now, my lord.”
“I am at your service then, Your Grace.”
Aegon drew a breath. “I see, not all the lords of the Riverlands have come this night.”
“No doubt Lord Blackwood fears for the children he had sent to Winterfell, hence his absence,” Lord Edmyn dissuaded immediately. “Lord Bracken would disparage the men of Raventree Hall however he could, but the Blackwoods were exiled by House Stark to begin with – at least, this particular branch that did flee south to Raventree Hall.”
Aegon felt his face twitch. “It would behove us,” Aegon commented, “for none of the maesters of the Citadel could give me a straightforward account of the Winterlands or this Fist of Winter. I gather that Lord Frey did not expect to lose half a castle.”
“The entire eastern castle – that is, with respect to the Water Tower,” Lord Tully contemplated. “The Twins lie directly athwart the main route from Riverrun to Winterfell. No doubt the Winterlanders meant to have us march into a rain of arrows.”
“And within the northerners’ means are the destruction of castles that not even the Black Dread could conjure?”
“Queer things have always been spoken of them, especially the Starks,” Edmyn Tully rubbed his brow where the wrinkles had sunk in worry. “Nothing good comes when a Stark comes south – and in this case the Stark is a madman.”
Aegon sat straighter. “This… Fist of Winter?”
“Prince Erik Stark of Wolf’s Den,” the lord pronounced, with the air of regaling a tale that skirted disbelief. “The youngest brother of the late King Beric, which makes him uncle to King Torrhen Stark. The Northerners say that he is Einheri – a title from the Old Tongue, that means a most puissant warrior who on the lonesome could match an army.”
Aegon scoffed into his wine despite himself. “And they…?”
A shrug from Lord Edmyn, which caused the trout-shaped brooch pinned on the front of his tunic to leap. “The first Einheri recorded was King-consort Hagun Stark, who assumed the epithet of Army-Breaker when on his lonesome, he broke the Dreadfort and House Bolton’s army of ten thousand forevermore.”
Aegon’s heart skipped a beat, and he took another sip of wine. “H- How…?!”
“Hagun Stark was born Hagun Snow, to Eddara Stark of the Moat, Princess of Moat Cailin,” Lord Tully raised an eyebrow. “The Moat has held the same Master for over seven thousand years, no doubt the sire…”
Aegon contemplated that little tit-bit. “I was… reliably informed… that an approach from either coast was unfeasible.”
“In Ironman’s Bay they still sing of the idiot Farwynd who killed a Prince of the Moat and… incurred the Lord Commander’s displeasure, and thus the sinking of Lonely Light happened,” Lord Tully spoke. “Likewise, the Three Sisters in the Bite no longer exist. Rumour abounded that Lyseni pirates seized the wrong scion for a pillow boy, and thus Lys is… no longer lovely.”
For Lys no longer existed, Aegon thought in his heart.
“That was him?!”
“Allegedly, sire,” Lord Tully shrugged. “Many tales abound when a man has lived millennia and keeps to the ice wall far north.”
In his early campaign to defend Tyrosh and Pentos from the depredations of Volantis, Aegon had flown by the empty part of the Narrow Sea where Lys had existed, where it was alleged that some aftereffect of the Doom had taken it down, as a lovely daughter to company its old mother beneath the waves.
“Like as not, it was for this reason that Loren Lannister picked a fight with the Iron Fleet, rather than sail the fleet of Lannisport past Cape Kraken to face the Seawards of Sea Dragon Point,” Lord Tully’s assessment was doleful. “The Velaryons exhausted themselves with the battle off Gulltown, and the eastern coast… aside from the Manderly fleet, it would be rather close to the Moat.” The last few words were spoken with the honest intent to fall on his own sword afore committing such an action, one that Aegon felt sure to agree with.
Honestly, the main sticking point behind the lack of surrender from the Winterlands – the North, Aegon thought – was the Night’s Watch and what role the monster in human form that was the White Wolf played. If the Starks losing the crown meant that he, Aegon Targaryen, had to renegotiate with the Lord Commander… this, when that thing’s very presence caused dragons to refuse crossing the Neck or any further north than Coldwater. When Aegon had already lost one dragon and rider both to that creature.
…it was a glorious purpose, Aegon tried to assure himself, despite the horripilation that had crawled across his forearms at the very thought.
Aegon was spared from wondering if Dragonstone would have been next, when a man in the fish-crest helmet and red-blue livery of Tully guards approached to murmur in the lord’s ear, and the resultant expression was not one of good news.
“The men reported a scream in the keep, by the Lord Hand’s apartments,” Lord Tully spoke in a hush when Aegon had abandoned the feast to rush from the Great Hall to the keep, only to find the bloodstained and cooling body of his dearest brother not of his name. The body had now been taken to the castle sept to await the Silent Sisters, and Aegon sat stone-faced in the lord’s triangular solar as Lord Edmyn rushed to instruct his men and relay news to the monarch.
“The guards rushed in only to see Lady Argella screaming before she fell from the balcony… we’re dredging the Tumblestone now, hopefully we would know what had happened, but-”
“My strong right hand is dead and his wife missing,” Aegon hissed. “What is the ‘but’ for?”
Lord Tully swallowed, no doubt wishing not to wake the dragon but already knowing that he was well beyond. “…Selmy and Peasebury men had heard and…”
And the Stormlands was no doubt dissolving into squabbles beyond control, now that the last Durrandon or Orys was… gone. Aegon rubbed his brow in thought, even as the redwood door behind echoed in a knock, and then a swift hurry of footsteps.
“My lords, an attack!”
“Who?!”
“Erik Stark crashed the Water Gate! He’s headed for the Great Hall now?!”
“We are surrounded by water on three sides,” Aegon pointed out even as he followed Lord Edmyn, only stopping by the room he had commandeered to strip off the tight doublet and retrieve Blackfyre. Thus armed, Aegon had run from the keep to the Great Hall, willing for Balerion or that the gods would smile on them and Rhaenys would be on the wing swooping down.
Aegon’s entry to the Great Hall was mirrored as his closest guard Ser Corlys Velaryon was bodily flung – in full-plate armour, no less! – with a crashing of redwood off of its hinges. The song of steel on flesh was punctuated only with the thumps of blunt attacks, save that those blunt attacks sent men high- and low-born alike crashing up into the minstrels’ gallery. The torches flickered overhead onto the scene of carnage. Some guardsman had loosed a bolt from his arbalest, only for the newcomer to somehow reach to seize the arrow and throw it back, which ended the poor shooter’s life as the bolt tore into his left eye, right as Quenton Qoherys screamed and Aegon saw his neck be grabbed and snapped with nary a pause.
The great melee slowed to a close, the storm of arms and legs and flying bodies slowing to reveal a half-cloak and furs of grey, framing a grin seen mostly on hunting wolves set in Stark features – if Torrhen Stark ever went mad, so Aegon saw in his mind’s eye. The intruder’s hair had somehow bleached itself half-grey up from the temples and down the curve of his scalp into a short braid that trailed from under a war hat, though the dark of his neat-clipped beard burn belied his age or health. The furs of his collar were sewn into a jack of plate worn with vambraces that strangely ended with his hands wrapped around the palms and knuckles in bandages, and that jack trailed down to leggings reinforced with greaves over cuisses, that ended in heavy worn boots that crunched ominously with each step. The bastard sword and the long dirk that still hung at his waist however taunted everyone left reeling or dead in his wake, as though no man could, or had, compelled him to draw them.
“Are you going to draw the sword, then?” came the amused query and a cock of his head.
Aegon had already entered a sword stance, aiming to at least wound the thigh before there was an almighty crack, and the jangle of metal and shattered ruby reached his ear as the weight on his head only lightened – and then his skull bloomed with pain where the crown had been whacked off of his head and onto the floor, with his skull joining it to kiss the floor.
An almighty crunch of Aegon’s wrist bones later, and Blackfyre was in the miscreant’s hands. “You the beastie’s rider then?”
Aegon bit back the hiss of pain that threatened as he backed slowly. “You know the Black Dread will come and yet you attack?”
“Sure,” a shrug. “Call yon beastie. Burn down this castle, with you and all the rivermen here in it with me.”
“………”
Aegon was beginning to think that Lord Tully had severely understated the degree of madness held by… this……he fought like the Warrior himself, or a god made flesh; raiding the waters and moats and walls of Riverrun and beating over eight hundred men with his bare hands, and still he held the insouciant air of taking a midnight stroll.
Another shift and a crunch, and Aegon’s quick glance down froze when he saw the crown – the crown of rubies and Valyrian steel – be reduced to smithereens under Erik Stark’s careless step. The part of his brain ruled by fear gibbered at the sight of Valyrian steel reduced to scraps by cold-working brute force, the strength required for such a feat, and how close Aegon’s skull had been to that foot.
“Or you could, but the big beastie’s not going to fly in time, what with the broken wing and all when it caught me off-guard shooting grouse,” Erik Stark’s voice threw the Great Hall into absolute silence. “And, just this morn I saw a big silver beastie get caught with Tobi’s caber tossing practise over the Vale – nobody told the Valyrian that Tobi owns everything above the ground in the Vale? – and get winged, probably stuck under Alyssa’s Tears.”
As though he had verbalised their line of thought, there was a flash of fang bared and a shiver across the hall. “That would leave… all you lords, trapped in here, with me.”
Never before had Blackfyre seemed so intimidating when it was no longer in Targaryen hands, but held by this… this…
“Well, then. Which is faster, Your Foreign Grace? Your dragon, or my arm?”