97

Chapter 97: Interlude: Legio IIINotes:

I'm splitting this chapter into two, but even then it's already long enough. I do believe it might be the single longest chapter I've ever written.

Anywho, hope you guys enjoy!

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

"I name you Rampart; The unyielding wall upon which our enemies break themselves on."

-King Rhaenyra I Targaryen granting the Third Legion their cognomen

115 AC, 1st Moon, 17th day, Highgarden,

Seven banners fluttered in the wind. One for each of the Legions, and one more bearing the three-headed-dragon of House Targaryen.

And under those banners, a spiderweb of wood, stone and steel sprawled out.

Shaera's castle itself looked relatively intact, save that several of the castle gates had quite clearly been destroyed, presumably when the Legions had first taken the castle by storm. The solid gates of fancy rose-inlaid bronze had since been replaced with utilitarian gates of iron-banded wood by Legion sappers.

That was not all that the sappers had done though.

Legion siege doctrine dictated that a fortified camp be raised around the besieged settlement, just outside of siege engine range, and walled and fortified on both sides to defend against enemies from within and without. Now that Highgarden had fallen, the fortified camp once inhabited by the First and Second Legions had been repurposed as an additional defensive line.

Two palisades topped by wooden watchtowers, with a series of earthworks before them. Fortified bunkers had been dug into the earth, jutting out like teeth on a gear, with trenches to connect them to the camp behind and ditches filled with sharp stakes and laced with barbed wire to prevent easy access.

The next line of defence was closer to Highgarden, sitting underneath the walls of the castle.

Even a castle as vast as Highgarden would struggle to quarter nearly thirty-thousand legionaries, so additional walled camps had to be raised outside the walls to house and hold them.

The palisade was far less elaborate than the first, presumably due to being raised later, after the castle fell. There were no fancy earthworks or watchtowers with this one. Just a simple wall of stripped wooden logs, lashed together before being driven into packed earth, with a dry moat before it.

Amidst the sea of tents behind the second line of defence were raised terraces, halfway between the palisade and the outermost wall of Highgarden. These terraces, as well as the walls of Highgarden behind them, were positively dripping with massive siege engines, including those vicious Manglers which Shaera had intimately experienced at Southpool only ten days ago.

The five hundred yards or so of open space between the first and second lines of defence was being worked on by the sappers even as the two Green hosts approached. Ditches, pit traps, stakes and all sorts of other nasty tricks were being raised in the space. The sappers were breaking up the grounds, making the no-man's-land uneven and hard to traverse, with the only clear paths of access to Highgarden being four straight avenues, one at each cardinal direction, leading to the four gates of Highgarden.

It did not seem a coincidence that those very same avenues and gates were flanked by a pair of concrete bastions and heavily fortified with siege engines and bunkers.

"Seven hells, the Legions are raising a veritable fortress." Ormund Hightower muttered in reluctant awe. "However did they get it done so quickly?"

"Pre-fabricated parts, mostly." Shaera answered. "They pre-build the fortifications in peacetime, with standardised hardpoints to allow for compatibility between parts, then transport them to the appropriate warfront."

"Indeed. It would not surprise me if the First and Second Legions had dismantled Camp Cockleswhent before they left." Otto Hightower added. "And it is very possible that in addition to the standard grain and steel, Legion supply lines from King's Landing are bringing prefabricated parts with them as well."

"It was very likely how despite having such a short notice, Lord Rowan was able to raise such a comprehensive line of defence at Old Oak." Lord Horbert agreed.

After the Second Skirmish at Southpool, things had looked rather bleak for Greens.

Another thousand men and one dragon dead. Gone to the night attack by the First Legion. Yet another chunk of their host shaved off before pitched battle, with only minimal Black casualties to show for it. Less than fifty dead legionaries, nearly half of them giants.

The Legions were running circles around the Green host, humiliating them with loss after loss. Demonstrating the qualitative difference between conscripts and professional soldiers.

Defeatism began to creep across the army. An insidious poison that destroyed morale and ruined discipline, and the men had drunk hard of it. Already, deserters were beginning to emerge, unwilling to continue fighting against Rhaenyra and her Legions and deciding to take their chances at fleeing in the night.

Come dawn, and the proud host of twenty-five thousand that had set out from Oldtown had dwindled down to a mere twenty-one thousand. Nearly a fifth of their number had been lost in the first two weeks of the campaign.

It was swiftly apparent to Green high command that they needed a victory, and fast. Something that could put the fires back into the bellies of the soldiers.

So Shaera— now riding Syrax— had set out with ten thousand men to hit Old Oak in the back.

Lord Rowan had negotiated a surrender the instant he saw Syrax. 

His army of ten thousand laid down their arms and armour, gave several highborn children up as hostages, and marched back to Goldengrove with an oath to remain neutral for the rest of the war.

Lord Unwin Peake and a few other of the more belligerent highborn had made noises about the Greens being too lenient on Lord Rowan, but he'd been argued down by Lord Otto Hightower, whom had pointed out that taking the time to fight and destroy the host would have been costly, given their fortified position. Letting him surrender and walk away with his dignity intact was a good and cost-effective way to achieve victory.

They had to spin the story a bit before giving it to the rest of the army at Southpool, embellishing the details into a comedic tale that Lord Rowan and his entire army had been terrified by Syrax, and promptly started fleeing at the sight of the dragon, throwing down all their weapons, armour and gold to run home even faster. Oh, and they pooped their pants as well.

That had provided some much needed levity and a hefty morale boost, bolstered by the ten thousand Tyrell conscripts which swelled their ranks as they marched on Highgarden.

A host sixty-thousand strong, more men than the Lannisters and Gardeners had at the Field of Fire, once more attempting to slay a Targaryen whom fancied themself overlord of Westeros.

———

Rhaenyra had come out to parley.

And it was her, this time. In the flesh.

She came out by herself, riding out on a horse with neither Kingsguard nor Dragonseeds as escort. The Dragonqueen struck the truce banner into the ground, halfway between their armies, and patiently waited their reply with her arms crossed.

As the highest leader of the enemy had come out to meet them, it was only appropriate that they too not clutter the field.

Lady Shaera Tyrell, Lady Cerelle Lannister, Lord Horbert Hightower and Lord Otto Hightower rode up to meet the Dragonqueen.

The Green leaders reared their horses up about ten feet away from where the lone Black leader sat.

"Avada Kadava." Rhaenyra ordered, looking Shaera in the eye.

The leash woke, but swiftly fell back to sleep.

"You do not hold thrall over me any more." Shaera smirked. "I have slipped your leash. Escaped the chains you clapped on me."

"It is not too late to return to the fold." Rhaenyra replied. "If you surrender now, I am willing to swear a binding oath not to kill you."

The Dragonqueen turned to looked at the rest of the Greens.

"The offer stands for you all here." She said. "I'm willing to be lenient."

"Lies." Lord Horbert rebuffed. "We all know your treachery, usurper."

"Where was this leniency when you murdered my son and daughter in cold blood?" Lord Otto demanded. "Where was this leniency when you slew your own father to claim the throne?"

"Ah well." Rhaenyra shrugged, discarding the lie without any more pretence. "It was worth a shot."

"We offer you surrender as well, and we hold your cousin Naerys in our camp." Lady Cerelle pointed out. "It would be wise of you to accept our terms, lest something… unpleasant happen to her."

"Ah, but I hold not just Lucas Tyrell, but the entirety of House Tyrell in the dungeons of Highgarden." Rhaenyra retorted. "Anything you do to her, I shall inflict tenfold onto them."

"My husband is but a pawn, and most of his relatives despise me." Shaera retorted. "You would be doing me a favour by purging them."

Her face then twisted into a grin.

"A pawn that has outlived his usefulness anyway." Lady Tyrell tittered, hand going down to stroke her womb. "For I already have all I needed from him."

Something flickered across Rhaenyra's face at the revelation that Shaera was pregnant. Her final insurance, Rhaenyra's much-awaited dragonblooded Tyrell heir. The entire reason why Rhaenyra had suffered her treachery and kept her alive for so long.

Shaera had deliberately used contraceptive spells to prevent pregnancy and stretch out her stay of execution under Rhaena's nose for years, despite Rhaenyra and gang's best efforts to impregnate her. She'd only stopped using contraceptives the day before she murdered Rhaena, using magic to ensure a successful conception.

"I reiterate my offer, then." Rhaenyra said, and Shaera could tell she was being completely honest now. "Shaera, if you return to the fold, I am willing to swear binding oath not to kill you. In fact, I shall guarantee your position as Lady Tyrell, with a full royal pardon. Surrender, for the sake of your unborn child, if nothing else."

"And I shall reiterate my refusal." Shaera replied.

"With Lady Tyrell's… revelation, it would seem your hostages are worthless now, while we still have Naerys." Otto said, with what Shaera deemed to be incredible poise. "Your leverage, however paltry it was, is gone."

"I will reply to that with the exact thing I told your daughter, on the eve of the ball at Casterly Rock." Rhaenyra declared.

"When my father passes, I shall inherit the Iron Throne." The Dragonqueen quoted. "There shall be no compromises, no negotiations, no elections and no viceroyalties. The Iron Throne will be mine, with no ifs ands or buts. Make your peace with it, for I shall not hesitate to serve fire and steel to all whom would rebel against my rule and jeopardise the safety and sanctity of the Realm, be they my friend, sibling or even my own child.

"If you think I will balk at sacrificing Naerys— or Aegon, Helaena, Aemond or even young Daeron—for the cause, you are fools."

And she really would, they could all feel. Rhaenyra had that iron in her, that willingness to sacrifice as much as was necessary to achieve victory, no matter the personal cost to herself.

Shaera was pretty sure that if push came to shove and Rhaenyra had to choose between Aemma and the Realm, the Dragonqueen would sacrifice her own daughter. Sacrificing Naerys, a mere bastard cousin? She wouldn't even hesitate.

"Threatening my grandchildren will not stop us. Not at such a late hour." Lord Otto evenly said. "I'd resolved myself before this campaign even begun. If you murder them all, then so be it. You are not the only one willing to sacrifice."

If anything, that would be Shaera's ideal outcome. Should all of Alicent's progeny die, and Rhaenyra herself, there would be a really fun crisis of succession.

Princess Aemma would get the Iron Throne, there was no doubt about that, of course. But whom would she marry? Whom would be regent until she came of age?

It'd be pure and utter chaos. Perhaps even a second civil war as everyone fought over the young Princess. But Shaera was a deft hand at scheming and ascending the ladder of chaos. Odds were good that she'd come out on top of such a hypothetical situation.

But she digressed, for such tantalising thoughts were still pending a lot of royal deaths.

"Very well then." Lady Cerelle finally said. "But at least hear out our terms before you refuse them out of hand."

"Let me guess: I lay down my crown, and swear allegiance to King Aegon Targaryen, second of his name." Rhaenyra shrugged. "I get Dragonstone as my seat, for my children to inherit after me. My daughter Aemma will marry Aegon, as promised by Alicent and I, and ascend as Queen one day. The Dragonseeds will be given high positions and titles befitting them—Marriages and lands and all that good stuff—if they swear obedience to the Iron Throne."

"In addition, your various crimes, including the murders of King Viserys, Queen Alicent, Lord Royce Caron and many more, shall be pardoned. Any knight or lord whom so conspired to usurp King Aegon shall be pardoned as well." Lady Cerelle added. "Lastly, a regency council will also be named, to rule until King Aegon is of age. A body of seven members. You, Lord Corlys Velaryon and Lady Jeyne Arryn, shall be granted seats on this council."

A flicker of shock went through Rhaenyra's face at that. Surprise. She didn't expect the last bit, Shaera could tell.

It vanished near instantly, and Rhaenyra's trademark poker face went back up.

"Lady Cerelle Lannister." The Dragonqueen formally replied. "I accept your sincerity and generosity in these terms, and so shall be similarly generous to you as well."

She locked eyes with the Lady of Casterly Rock, indigo meeting green.

"Return home. Take your army and leave. Put down your swords and head back to Casterly Rock. No additional taxes or punishments will be levied onto you, or any of your bannermen." Rhaenyra declared. "Depart without strife. This is not your war."

"And what, let you turn my brothers even further against me?" She demanded. "We both know that you're waiting the day to sink the knife in. The day to supplant me with your pliant puppets in the Sixth Legion. No, I refuse."

"Leave now, and the terms will only have grown starker the next time we speak." Rhaenyra threatened.

"We can say the same to you." Otto Hightower warned. "We will not make such a generous offer a second time."

There was a long pause, as both sides stared down the other in a clash of will. Mutually daring the other to blink first.

"I suppose I should make the requisite threats." Rhaenyra finally said, sounding resigned. "Boast about my army's superiority. Threaten all sorts of devilries. Pontificate to you all on what kinds of gruesome and over-the-top methods I shall use to murder you all… but that's not me, and so I shall say this one fact to you all."

The Dragonqueen faced down four of the most powerful and influential lords and ladies on the continent, stared them all in the eyes and met them, straight-backed and fearless.

"This is not going to end well." She declared.

"I think we'll take our chances." Lord Horbert replied, wheeling his horse around and riding away.

———

It would have been the epitome of stupidity to attack Highgarden immediately after arriving. Soldiers needed a safe place to eat and rest in between attacks, weapons and armour needed to be taken out of wagons and distributed, and siege engines built.

That meant that a fortified camp to launch attacks from was imperative, but the Legions weren't going to just twiddle their thumbs while the Greens pitched tents and chopped wood.

Legion skirmishers were out within five minutes of both sides returning safely behind friendly lines.

While the Second Legion was indisputably the best at irregular warfare, the Fifth Legion was particularly well suited to skirmishing. General Dustin's Legion was made up of a hodgepodge of men, raised half from the now-disbanded Night's Watch, and half from the various barbarian First Men tribes across the continent. And all of them knew how to raid and skirmish and fight dirty.

Most Legion ranged fighters wielded crossbows, given their ease of use and lack of skill required to wield such a weapon. So much so that Legion doctrine dictated that all soldiers regardless of profession be cross-trained in the use of such a weapon.

However, the Fifth Legion was a maverick Legion, and so fielded significantly more unorthodox forces than their more conventional brethren.

Sappers whom had once been Builders in the Night's Watch deployed scorpions and catapults on wheels, rolling them out beyond the palisades before unleashing bolts and rocks with unerring precision.

Longbowmen whom had once served in the Night's Watch unleashed flurries of arrows. Turning the great yew longbows they had once wielded in the defence of the Wall for millennia against the Green soldiery.

Slingers had been an old and proud tradition of the First Men, used by their goatherds to protect their flocks from wolves since the dawn of time. And even now, there were many First Men tribes—particularly in the Northern Mountain Clans— whom taught their young in the art of slinging. A properly slung stone could hit hard, hard enough to crack a helmet and the skull beneath. 

Others tribes—particularly those living along the Bay of Ice— favoured javelins or harpoons. They were easier to maintain than bows, and hit harder. The soft iron shanks of the javelins were designed to bend, embedding themselves into shields and preventing easy removal. Scrapping the shield and preventing the javelin from being thrown right back.

And coordinating them all were the skinchangers, flying above the battlefield in birds of prey and directing the skirmishers with unerring precision. Enabling the legionaries to hit weak points with overwhelming force, while dodging around counteroffensives and elite soldiers.

In the span of an hour, near two hundred men had died to the efforts of the Fifth Legion. Levies and sellswords mostly, with the Legionaries hightailing it whenever professional men-at-arms or knights came out to play.

Shaera had flown out on Syrax a few times to try stabilise the situation, but found that Rhaenyra had summoned an old foe to match her.

Last reports had placed Erik with the Ironborn and Mormont Fleet, currently on the Fair Isle—captured early in the war, now used as a forward operating base for the Black navy— staring down the Green fleets in the Shield Islands and Oldtown.

But clearly this was yet another one of Rhaenyra's tricks, for Grey Ghost had risen out of the Highgarden courtyard to challenge her.

Erik was by far and away the better flier between the two of them, and it quickly became apparent that Shaera's previous triumph over her brother was due to surprise more than anything else. Still, Syrax was twice the size of Grey Ghost, and Erik was fighting conservatively, which meant that the situation in the sky was a stalemate.

They both played at this game of cat-and-mouse for hours on end, before the sun finally set and the Blacks allowed the harried Greens to retreat.

———

115 AC, 1st Moon, 18th day, Rosewood,

The Rosewood had once been the personal hunting grounds and forest of House Garderner, and later House Tyrell. Though nowhere nearby as vast or as majestic as the Kingswood or Wolfswood, it held a certain beauty that both lacked.

It was said that one of the Garderner kings, fabled to be Garth Greenhand himself, had been so enamoured by the beauty of the Rosewood that he'd decreed that no wood be harvested from this forest, deeming it as sacred as a Weirwood.

It was now also a forest of stumps now.

Legion sappers had hacked down trees hundreds of years old in order to build the fortifications that surrounded Highgarden. Near a tenth of the forest—hundreds if not thousands of oaks and birch—had been mercilessly chopped down for lumber and timber, with no thought to sustainability or replanting.

It would take decades for the forest to recover, if at all.

Was this truly not what would be in store for the rest of Westeros, should Rhaenyra get her way?

Tradition and honour would be ripped out, root and stem, by the Dragonqueen's vicious grasp. Torn out in order to build horrible contraptions and feed her filthy industries and cities. She was as a blight on Westeros, corrupting and perverting everything she touched. Until the Seven Kingdoms was as warped and twisted as the Seven Hells itself.

Lord Elias Blackbar seethed to himself as he walked the perimeter of the Green camp, as was his duty as captain of tonight's watch.

The Legions had skirmished through the afternoon, Fifth Legion savages having reaped a harsh harvest of lives. Eight hundred men dead, with twice that in wounded. And to add insult to injury, the Legions had taken less than a hundred casualties due to their damnable sorcery.

Rhaenyra had no honour or dignity, cowardly refusing to give a fair fight and instead holding up in a fortress, intent on dishonourably wearing down the Green host one skirmish at a time.

In the end, the Greens had retreated to the Rosewood, far enough away from the defensive lines that Legion skirmishers would not harass them, and pitched camp overnight.

The men were exhausted from the relentless attacks by the Legions, and were basically dead on their feet by the time they arrived, most of them collapsing into their bedrolls the instant tents were pitched. Too tired to make cooking fires or to remove their armour before going to bed.

Even now, the palisade protecting the camp was rather patchy, and only really protected the frontal approach. The remaining three sides were screened by the Rosewood, so the men had been a bit sloppy with regards to raising the fortifications.

In some cases, improvised barricades had been raised purely by buffering supply carts between the trees, creating a wall of wood whose pillars were the trunks.

Sufficiently defensible, Lord Elias figured. It was not the first time in war supply wagons had been used as improvised walls. But the sellswords had neglected to empty the carts beforehand and move the supplies to a more defensible depot in the middle of the camp.

Lord Elias decided to be charitable and chalk the sloppiness up to exhaustion from Legion skirmishers than lack of discipline on the sellswords' part. But the whole thing worried him.

Leaving vital supplies right out in the open was just inviting…

Just then, a massive explosion shook the entire Rosewood, as a great plume of green fire burst into the air less than three hundred yards away from Lord Blackbar.

That.

It was just inviting that.

Not that Lord Elias Blackbar had to worry about it for much longer, for a crossbow bolt took him straight in the head a heartbeat later.

———

Most tacticians and generals in the Seven Kingdoms tended to treat forests and woods as impassable obstacles.

The trees cut off lines of sight and reduced visibility. The uneven ground and brushland made passing supply carts through an exercise in frustration, and slowed the pace of a marching host down to a crawl. There were all sorts of creatures like bears or wolves which could cause trouble for armies or spook beasts of burden like horses or oxen.

And this went doubly so for a night march, where the canopy ensured that even a full moon provided a negligible amount of light to navigate by. Treacherous terrain, chaos and confusion due to lack of visibility, and no way to bring full supply carts through… A hundred and one different elements for failure, for things to head towards disaster.

In short, attacking through a forest at night was the most difficult thing to do. The least obvious thing to do. Therefore it was exactly the thing Rhaenyra ordered the Third Legion to do.

There were many distinctive and interesting things about the Legions of Westeros, such as their strict professionalism, their acceptance of female soldiers, their steel arms and armour, the impressive siege engines they fielded, or the fact that at the end of every day, legionaries were crammed into classrooms and taught how to read and write.

With such interesting facts front and center, it was easy to overlook the relatively innocuous and boring fact that all six Legions had been intensely trained in jungle warfare.

And why wouldn't they? The Fifth and Sixth Legions were deployed in the Haunted Forest for years. The First, Second and Third Legions had been stationed on the border with the unruly Stormlands, of which vast swaths were covered by the Kingswood. And even the Fourth Legion had to go hunt down a rouge Mountain Clan every so often, in the woods and mountains of the Vale.

The Kingswood was larger and denser than the Rosewood. It had more vicious predators and a greater quantity of them to boot. The terrain was rougher, and the foliage thicker. And the Third Legion had spent years drilling in the Kingswood, performing war games and exercises in preparation for a hypothetical invasion of the Stormlands.

They had set out at dusk, emerging from hidden camps and bunkers, marching in utter silence across the Rosewood, guided by a combination of local poachers and bloodhounds and wolves possessed by skinchangers of the Fifth Legion. Green scouts were quickly ambushed and silently dispatched, their torches making them easy targets for the Legion scouts.

It was just after midnight when the Third Legion finally arrived at the Green war camp, hastily-raised and sloppily guarded due to the exhaustion of the soldiers.

The Legionaries formed up in ranks. Unsullied heavy pikemen up front, with regulars behind them. Crossbowmen and sappers took positions behind the mass of infantry, assembling siege engines and loading weapons. The six hundred knights of the Third Legion mounted their horses, and a pair of sappers ran up to the palisade, wildfire breaching charges in hand.

———

The green flames guttered out after less than half a minute, and through the blazing breach rode in Legion calvary.

Men and horses, clad completely in a shell of matte metal, wielding long lances of turned ash banded and tipped by steel. At their sides were curved sabres, sidearms to use after the lances were rendered unusable.

Facing them were half-dressed and disoriented sellswords, unarmoured and rare wielding anything greater than a short sword.

It was an utter rout.

Lances skewered men like pigs. Sabres decapitated footmen, slashing through necks like a hot knife through butter. Horses trampled men underfoot, splitting skulls and caving in chests with steel-toed hooves.

Harshly taught from experience, Hightower men-at-arms immediately mustered around the dragon paddock, and Shaera herself immediately mounted Syrax before retreating into the safety of the sky. Naerys was put under heavy guard, and hidden away in a tent. While the Blacks had not bothered make a rescue attempt on the one captured Dragonseed, it was a possibility that legionaries could break Naerys out from her confinement and get her to riderless Tessarion. 

The Blacks would not be claiming yet another dragon head tonight.

But not even a stray horse so much as wandered in the direction of the dragons.

———

High in the air, Shaera winced at the carnage inflicted.

After breaching the outer perimeter, Legion calvary had rushed in, overwhelming and slaughtering the unprepared defenders wholesale. Following the calvary were no less than five hundred footmen. Legion light infantry, from the looks of things. Clad in lightweight chainmail and wielding swords and spears. Many bore crossbows, but none bore shields.

Light infantry generally saw use as skirmishers or guardsmen, not as proper soldiery. They weren't properly equipped to deal with anything other than criminals, rioters or maybe conscripts. Against professional soldiers, these men would have been as wheat to the scythe, their weapons too weak to pierce armour, and their armour too weak to hold up in a shield wall. But these legionaries weren't fighting professional soldiers, they were fighting sellswords.

Disorganised and disoriented sellswords at that. Many of whom were not properly dressed or armed for war.

The end result was a massacre, and it was not the Legions whom were on the losing end.

It had not escaped Shaera's notice that the Legions had once more hit the sellswords.

This made a cold sort of sense, Shaera reluctantly admitted.

Levies were little more than poorly-trained arrow fodder, meant more to make up numbers and soak in casualties than anything else, making any losses to them negligible. While knights and men-at-arms were skilled fighters, highly disciplined and could rally against such surprise attacks better.

Sellswords on the other hand usually knew their way around a blade, making them more valuable than conscripts, while their lack of discipline made them easier meat than the professional soldiers. If one wanted to whittle down the Green's fighting strength in the most cost effective manner, killing the sellswords was definitely the way to go.

Gods, there were at least a thousand dead in such a short span of time. Combined with the casualties they had taken in both Skirmishes at Southpool, come dawn most of the sellsword companies would be skeletons of themselves.

Most would probably desert, Shaera grimly realised. Unwilling to fight for the Greens any longer, no matter how much gold was promised. This was a problem that particularly afflicted the Lannister host more than anyone else. Outside of the heartlands, the Westerlands were relatively sparsely populated, hence the Lions had traditionally bolstered their numbers through the hiring of mercenaries. And in this case, near a third of Cerelle's host were sellswords.

But however badly the sellswords were getting mauled by the light infantry, it was the six hundred Third Legion calvary that was doing the most damage.

After breaching the barricades, the knights had split in all directions, in companies of forty or so. They rode down the avenues of the camp, cutting down any whom tried to fight them but otherwise riding past most of the Green soldiers.

Shaera only realised what they were up to when they reached the personal tent of the Lord Crakehall. The man had pitched his tents alongside those of his knights and officers, which quickly proved a mistake. Legion calvary rode them down, slaughtering him and all of his commanders, some of whom had yet to even wake.

The other detachments were doing much the same, ignoring soldiers in favour of putting down highborn and officers.

A decapitation strike. Shaera realised. The Legions were going after the commanders in an attempt to throw the army into disarray. Without proper leadership, an army was little more than an unruly mob.

That could not be allowed to happen.

Spotting an opportunity, Shaera guided Syrax into an attack run, the yellow beast swooping down and torching a company of knights instantly. Several of them stumbled out of the blaze, screaming in pain as they threw aside burning clothes and armour, desperately trying to extinguish themselves.

They were easy prey for the Green soldiery, whom put them out of their misery with quick strikes.

Shaera torched two more companies of knights before the retreat was sounded, but by then the damage had already been done. There were too many of them, and only one of her. While she flew faster and hit harden than them all, they were able to be in far too many places at once. 

The knights scattered in all directions, unable to withstand Syrax's aerial assault. Most managed to escape, fleeing into the night, and Shaera knew it would be more trouble than it was worth to hunt and chase down individual riders.

Wheeling around Syrax, Shaera flew towards the breach, only to find that the tide had turned since she was last present.

The surviving sellswords had managed to link up with companies of men-at-arms, and with a proper shield wall up, were now pushing the Legion light infantry back towards the breach.

The light infantry were fighting hard, but there were simply too many Green soldiers. It seemed as though every single soldier in the camp, angered by the knights and without officers to restrain them, had rushed the breach in fury. Intent on slaking their bloodlust on the legionaries now that the Black knights had fled.

Shaera moved to attack as well.

If Syrax could strafe the legionaries, the controlled retreat would quickly become an uncontrolled rout.

But those hopes were dashed with streaks of light ascending into the sky, backed by telltale screeches.

Cussing, Shaera wove a shielding spell around herself, but most of the Megapult missiles missed her. These explosions were small, but they were constant. An enduring miniature sun of brilliant light that hung in the air, banishing the night as it sluggishly descended towards the ground.

This wasn't an attack, it was illumination. Shaera gasped.

An illuminate it did.

The flares fired by the Megapults revealed a tide of matte steel, arrayed in the woods just beyond the main camp. The full muster of the Third Legion, Unsullied, siege engines and things stranger still, mustering between trees and atop short hills.

There was a heartbeat of horror, before they open fired.

Scorpion bolts and catapult rocks shattered shields and skewered men. Megapults unleashed streaks of burning fire into the thickets of Green soldiers, demonstrating that in addition to being effective anti-dragon weaponry, they could also be turned on regular infantry. Crossbow bolts fell like rain and javelins fell like thunder.

The severed head of Lord Elias Blackbar—commander of the men on night sentry duty—was tossed into the fray by Marshal Darold Darry, a crossbow bolt still sticking out of the back of his head.

Green soldiers ran into the breach as the siege engines reloaded.

Shouting and screaming, in rage or fear, Shaera could not tell. The soldiers charged up the forested hill as javelins, arrows and fire filled the night air around them. Atop the hill, Unsullied locked shields and lowered spears.

It was well past midnight, but there was enough light than one would be forgiven for thinking it day.

Shaera guided Syrax into an attack run, strengthening her shields to tank the Megapults, only for an arrow to pass right through her shield like it wasn't even there. Shaera was quick enough that the holy arrow only punched into her shoulder and not her throat—Syrax and her screaming in pain as one— but the pain caused her to lose her focus.

The shield fell, and the Megapults opened fire.

Syrax was able to torch the rockets with dragonflame before they could come close through, igniting the night with great bursts of green fire.

A second holy arrow punched straight through the conflagration, untouched by the sorcerous flame, and Shaera had to guide Syrax into a barrel roll to avoid the shot.

Atop the tallest tree in the Rosewood, Laena Velaryon clicked her tongue in frustration, before firing yet another arrow at Syrax. A bloodforged arrow went up Syrax's nostril, and the yellow beast immediately began bucking and rearing, snorting and sneezing out spurts of flame as Shaera tried and failed to regain control over her mount.

Catapults fired, but instead of stones, it was people. 

Dragonseeds.

Flying through the sky in utter defiance of gravity, Daenys unleashed tendrils of lightning towards Shaera, whom barely managed to dodge.

A tendril of shadow snaked out, looping itself around one of Syrax's horns, and Shaeterys literally cut in, ozone filling the air around them as Peregrine clashed with Shaera's hastily-conjured Electron Cutter.

Syrax bucked him off, displeased by the rider of another dragon mounting her, but wings of oily shadow burst right out of Shaeterys' back. Not enough to allow him to fly, but enough that he could glide instead of free fall.

A second tendril of shadow looped itself around Syrax's tail, and Daemon landed on the back of Shaera's mount, reeled in by his lasso. Dark Sister swung for Shaera's head. Shaera parried the blow with her Electron Cutter, only to find Daemon's other hand closing around her throat.

Mistake.

He should not have touched her.

"Crucio, Daemon." Shaera gasped out, tapping into her youngest brother's leash with practised ease.

The boy fell over screaming in utter agony, toppling off the side of her dragon. Not that Shaera had time to celebrate, for both Shaeterys and Daenys were on her once more.

———

Godsdamnit but the Third Legion could take a beating.

There could only have been around four and a half thousand of them, facing down nearly four times their number in angry Green soldiers, yet they neither flinched nor faltered even as hundreds or thousands of warriors charged up their hill, frothing for blood. They simply locked shields, lowered their spears, and dauntlessly took the tide of men head on.

Like a rock, standing tall against the waves of the sea crashing down upon it.

Ser Richard Rodden would have been impressed by Legion stubbornness had said resilience not been to his detriment.

The Third Legion had holed up on a series of low hills, taking not a single step down, and had turned the no-man's-land between the tree line and the camp palisade into a meat grinder.

Siege engines atop the hills unleashed their deadly cargo, catapult rocks methodically reducing any cover to rubble even as scorpion bolts skewered men, punching through even steel plate like paper.

But worse than those were the strange siege weapons known as Megapults.

With Lady Tyrell and her dragon busy in a midair tussle with the sorcerous servants of Rhaenyra, the Megapults were freed from their anti-air role, allowing them to pummel the infantry.

The streaks of light fired by the Megapults were fast as lighting and struck like thunder, swatting down entire companies and blowing holes in the tide of Green men charging up the hill.

Those whom managed to make it through the fusillade of projectiles fired by the engines soon realised that they had escaped out of the frying pan only to find themselves in the fire. Crossbow bolts fell in a continuous rain, Legion crossbowmen rotating volleys in order to keep up a constant stream of arrows.

Legion crossbows were of a lever-action model that gave it an unparalleled rate of fire, while simultaneously being designed to be powerful enough to punch through even plate armour. Any man whom didn't have his shield up when the volleys came soon found himself bleeding out on the ground.

And any man whom did have his shield up soon found out that that was a trap as well, for iron-tipped javelins were mixed into the rain of arrows. Tossed by the ranks of regular infantry standing behind the Unsullied shield wall, these javelins buried themselves into shields, iron tips bending in such a way that the spear was stuck into the shield, scrapping it by making it too heavy and unwieldy to be usable.

Still, sheer tenacity and rage meant that many men still managed to make it through the meat grinder, only to run into a wall atop the hill.

For men with neither balls nor cocks, the Unsullied could hold the line like nobody's business.

They stood in ranks three men deep, brandishing pikes dozens of feet long, forming a veritable wall of spiked death, almost like a hedgehog. The Unsullied moved like one single organism, striking out in quick precise thrusts, steel speartips skewering men with exceptional skill and efficiency. Rare was it that more than a single spear stabbed an individual, and rarer still were the pikes broken or left stuck in corpses.

A captain sounded a whistle, and the Unsullied moved as one.

The front rank smoothly stepped back as the second rank came forward to replace them. Tower shields overlapped, forming an unbreakable wall of steel, pikes were lowered and the slaughter resumed. The former first rank retreated to the rear of the phalanx, where those whom lost their spears rearmed, before returning to the back of the line, once more awaiting their turn at the front.

They kept up this rotation, moving whenever the tide of men slackened. Sending their front lines to the back to rest and rearm. Constantly ensuring that the steadiest and most effective soldiers were at the forefront of the phalanx.

Still, while the phalanx was tough, it was hardly unbeatable. The Greens charged, enveloping the Unsullied like a wave crashing against a rock. The pikes came out, and in a heartbeat, dozens of men were stabbed and killed. 

Grabbing ahold of one of the wounded men in front of him, Ser Richard Rodden shoved him forwards into the mass of pikes, deliberately using him as a shield to soak up as many pikes as possible.

Even as the poor man bled out his last, skewered on the spears, Ser Richard struck out with his axe, hacking through the pikes and rendering them unusable. Creating a chink in the phalanx.

"Forward!" Ser Richard ordered. "Use the wounded as shields! Break their pikes!"

He then had to duck behind the corpse of his human shield, for half a dozen javelins and crossbow bolts impaled themselves into the ground around him, several of them glancing off of his armour. The legionaries seemed to be under standing orders to kill officers, as anyone attempting to command the horde of Green soldiers would swiftly find himself perforated by ranged projectiles.

Ser Richard had lost many old and dear veteran friends in such a manner, Legion marksmen proving themselves most deadly.

Tossing aside the valiant soldier he'd used as shield, Ser Richard barrelled into the Unsullied shield wall, too close for the large and unwieldy pikes to hit. He rammed his shield into that of the eunuch before him, narrowly dodged a short sword to the belly before hacking away with his axe. But it was like attempting to chop down an oak. The Unsullied did not break or bend like regular soldiers, and the heavy plate and thick tower shields they bore barely seemed to tire them.

It was only when more knights rammed into the shield wall alongside him that the Unsullied finally began to give. Ser Richard worked with a Tarbeck knight to pry the line open, smashing his axe down into the exposed arm of an Unsullied whose sword got caught in the Tarbeck's shield, before another Marbrand knight behind them finished the eunuch off with a stab to the neck.

Ser Richard immediately rushed into the gap created, even as the Unsullied in the second rank tried to force him back. The Tarbeck and Marbrand joined him, wedging themselves into the shield wall like a chisel chipping into stone, and they slowly began to expand the gap.

The Unsullied were meant to fight in ranks, with the enemy in front of them. They struggled from the side, pikes and spears being too unwieldy to swing around. And while the short swords they used as sidearms was sufficient to gut Essosi foes, whom often forsook armour, they were proving somewhat less effective against Westerosi heavy infantry.

The eunuchs were skilled though, swords splitting maille or stabbing into unarmored weak points more oft than not, but they were a definite comedown in terms of lethality compared to the pikes.

Unfortunately, the enemy commander was no fool, and swiftly sent his reserves to reinforce the faltering line. The Unsullied ranks smoothly split apart, allowing First Men berserkers sourced from House Blackwood to rush into the breach. Wielding great axes and warhammers, the berserkers hacked straight into Green lines, savage rage stemming the tide where Legion discipline failed.

The Tarbeck knight was first to die, decapitated by a single swing of an axe. Ser Richard was pulled out of the way of falling warhammer by his Marbrand ally, only for the Westerlander to fall a heartbeat later, a Legion berserker angrily pouncing onto him and pounding him into submission with his bare hands.

Ser Richard slew the berserker with an axe blow to the neck, but the Marbrand's face was a red ruin by then, skull caved in by the savage's brute strength.

The berserkers retreated after three-quarters of their number had fallen, but they'd done their job, pushing the Green front line back far enough that the Unsullied could regroup and reform their shield line once more. The gap was plugged, the pikes came back down, and the slaughter resumed.

Ser Richard picked himself up and prepared for yet another run at the phalanx, only for horns to sound.

"Retreat?" The Rodden knight asked out loud, disbelieving the command. "Why would we retreat? We have the Third Legion dead to rights…"

Ser Richard's voice faltered as he turned around and paled rapidly.

A great dust plume was rising up from the north, telltale hallmarks of a host on the march.

Grimly, Ser Richard realised that the Legions had pulled yet another fast one over the Greens.

———

It had taken them far too long to reestablish control over the host, and by then it was far too late.

The Third Legion had come out of nowhere, and hit them in the back with one of those sneak attacks conniving Rhaenyra had such a taste for. And say what you would of the Dragonqueen, but she had a truly nasty knack for sticking the knives in where it hurt.

Even before the Greens came in sight of Highgarden, the Third Legion must have already been in hiding, stationed further south in order to ambush the Greens, with their banner flying over Highgarden a decoy.

And ambush they had, striking out with the Legions' traditional professionalism and lethality. Before the first hour of battle was over, their knights had killed much of the host's highborn commanders in a sneak attack, effectively decapitating the army.

The chain of command had collapsed, and while the Legions had clear protocols and procedures in regards to what exactly to do in such a situation, the Greens lacked such contingency plans and were thus caught flatfooted and unable to properly respond effectively.

Headless, the mob of angry men had charged the Black position on the hill, intent on exacting revenge onto them, only to run into a meat grinder.

Without proper formations or tactics, casualties had mounted far too rapidly, but there was no one whom could sound the retreat and cut their losses, and thus more and more Greens charged into the fray, doing nothing but feeding corpses into Legion jaws. Maddened by the sheer number of times the Legions had tricked, befuddled and embarrassed them, the men were blinded by anger, and without officers to restrain them, rushed mindlessly into the breach. Aiming to finally battle a legion force willing to stand and fight, instead of flee when pressed.

Still, it at first seemed as though the battle would be as a siege; costly, but not beyond victory. The Third Legion counted only five thousand men, while the Greens numbered at sixty-thousand. There was no way, no matter the quality of soldiery involved, for the Third Legion to triumph. Surprise and superior firepower only went so far after all.

Rhaenyra would not toss away such highly trained and loyal troops— The single largest concentration of rare and irreplaceable Unsullied on Westeros even!— away if she didn't think it was worth it.

Which naturally then begged the question; Just why were the Third Legion attacking when they knew they were so badly outnumbered?

The answer was because they were an anvil.

The Third Legion wasn't there to defeat the Greens. They were there purely to hold the line, to lure in as many men as possible, so much so that the host was too deeply committed to swiftly redeploy.

Leaving them right open for an attack in the rear. By the hammer.

And once that grim realisation was reached, Ormund Hightower had turned his far-eye north towards Highgarden, and nearly fell to his knees in despair at the sight.

The Legions had left Highgarden, marching towards the Rosewood in full battle formation, banners flying in the night wind. The Fifth Legion was in the vanguard, with the Second and Fourth as the left and right flank respectively. The First Legion marched behind them, a strategic rearguard and reserve.

The Sixth Legion was nowhere to be seen, presumably because they were responsible for garrisoning Highgarden while the others sortied out. But what did that matter when twenty-thousand legionaries were more than halfway to the Rosewood, ready to hit the Green host in the back?

A hammer, ready to smash them right into the anvil of the Third Legion.

It didn't matter that the Greens had Rhaenyra two-to-one, for they were in disarray, outflanked and facing a pincer. If they stood and fought, they would die.

The Third Legion would probably be crushed in the fighting, but what was the cost of a Legion, if it could buy Rhaenyra full victory? It would have been cheap at thrice the price, and Rhaenyra's bottom line was far lower than theirs.

Not even Shaera and her dragon could turn the tide now, for although she'd managed to shake off her siblings, there were the telltale silhouettes of the Mangler siege engines amongst the four approaching Legions, atop massive carts pulled by Fifth Legion mammoths.

"Sound the retreat." Ser Ormund reluctantly ordered. "We need to leave, now!"

———

115 AC, 1st Moon, 18th day, lands to the southeast of Highgarden,

The night retreat was brutal.

Bloodhounds from the Fifth Legion tracked down fleeing soldiers with ease, allowing Legion skirmishers to savage the Green rearguard in the dark.

The only saving grace was that the Cataphracts had not come out to play, Legion generals wary of committing the rare and highly-trained calvary without a proper counter to Shaera and Syrax.

Come dawn, and the proud host of sixty-thousand men had been whittled down to fifty-thousand. Not all of them due to casualties.

Fed up with the losing campaign, and the way the Legions were deliberately going out of their way to target them, much of the sellswords had deserted in the night, fleeing during the retreat away from the Rosewood.

That was bad enough.

Worse was the fact that much of their supplies had been left behind or torched when the Greens were forced to abandon their camp. Fifty-thousand men meant fifty-thousand mouths to feed, and the Greens had lost much of their foodstuffs overnight, leaving them with less than a quarter of their original stores.

Rhaenyra and her Legions had picked the surrounding lands clean, and sending parties out to forage was just begging the cataphracts to kill the Green host, one company at a time. Executing a slow, but gradual, defeat in detail.

There was no choice but to take heavily-fortified Highgarden before the food ran out and they all starved to death.

Notes:

I couldn't find a good place in the chapter to say this, but Legion combined arms doctrine really kicks butt.

The Third Legion fielded:

1) Sappers, to blow up the palisade and man the siege engines.

2) Calvary, to break through and hunt down the Green commanders.

3) Light infantry, to strike the sellswords quickly, and act as scouts in the woods.

4) Unsullied Heavy Infantry, to hold the line.

5) Crossbowmen to soften up the enemy.

6) Legion regulars bearing javelins, acting as support to both the Unsullied and Crossbowmen.

7) Legion berserkers as shock troops.

They all worked together in concert, enhancing one another's abilities while covering weaknesses. Creating a more cohesive whole that is greater than the sum of their parts.

The combined arms doctrine is a subtle thing, compared to the rest, but I feel that it should be credited for this victory.