98

Chapter 98: Interlude: RoutNotes:

Sorry for the late posting. There was a lot of things happening in my family the past week.

The good news was that my cousin just gave birth, which means that my daughter Yuri is no longer the youngest person in the family, and no longer the only great-grandchild.

That was fun.

The bad news was that my 12-year-old younger brother was caught vaping, so we had to stage an intervention.

That was NOT fun.

Anywho, onto the chapter.

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

Chapter Text

"This is not going to end well."

-King Rhaenyra I Targaryen, right before the infamously bloody Rout at Highgarden,

115 AC, 1st Moon, 23rd day, Highgarden,

Lord Unwin Peake had been raised to the old military dictum of never attacking during a siege unless one outnumbered the defenders three-to-one.

They only had Rhaenyra two-to-one, and the usurper sat atop a fucking fortress. Quite possibly the single most fortified position south of the God's Eye.

Thousands would die taking the first line of defence, and thousands more would die taking the second, and the third behind them. Legion crossbows and siege engines would reap hundreds of lives without swords ever meeting, and Rhaenyra was sure to unleash some form of sorcery before the day was done.

Were the Greens to attack Highgarden, come dawn the next day, less than a third of the host would still be alive. If they were lucky. 

But there was no choice.

There simply wasn't enough food left to feed fifty-thousand soldiers, and not even the supply train—stretching all the way from Oldtown— could provide enough in time.

They had maybe a week, even on half-rations, before the army ran out of food and the Greens all starved to death.

The surrounding lands had been picked clean. Larders, cellars and up to and including fields full of grain… they'd all been taken by the Second Legion, with the local smallfolk being left with only the absolute bare minimum to avoid starvation.

Rhaenyra was soft though, and had paid handsomely for everything her armies took. But an army could not eat gold.

No, there was only ever really one option.

The Greens had to take Highgarden. 

Even in peacetime, the castle's granaries were traditionally the most well-provisioned and supplied of all the great castles in the Realm. And with the food taken from the smallfolk, and the supply wagons looted from the abandoned Green camp, the old seat of House Gardener was positively overflowing with foodstuffs. 

And so, five days after the Retreat from the Rosewood and less than a day before they ran out of food, the attack on Highgarden began.

———

Ser Ormund Hightower watched from his far-eye as the attack started.

Over the past five days, while the men rested and healed, Green high command— or whatever was left of it, after the depredations of the Third Legion— had put their brains together to work out the best way they could take Highgarden.

Rhaenyra had better soldiers, better siege engines and a lot more of them to boot, a better position and far more supplies. Even time was on her side, so retreating back to Oldtown to resupply and regroup was out of the question.

No, Highgarden had to fall and Rhaenyra had to die, here and now. But that was easier said than done.

The first line of defence itself had three sublayers of defence.

First and foremost, was a series of trenches, with barbed wire and stakes up front to prevent easy access. The second layer was a series of fortified bunkers and pillboxes dug into the earth, higher up. The third layer was the palisade, topped by watchtowers bearing siege engines.

When the First and Second Legion had first arrived to siege Highgarden, they'd built a massive encampment around the seat of House Tyrell. Fortified on both sides, it was essentially in the shape of a giant donut.

Two rings of fortifications, with an open space in between for the Legions to pitch their tents.

This massive encampment had since been repurposed as the Black's first defensive line, with the tents behind moved to the second defensive line beneath the walls of Highgarden. Leaving behind an open avenue with only the occasional supply cart or tent as roadblocks.

Behind this donut, was a no-man's-land that led right up to the second line of defence. The no-man's-land itself was a nightmare of broken ground, filled with ditches, tall mounds of earth, stakes, caltrops, pit traps and more. Zero cover, and a treacherous terrain that would slow and delay any attacking force, anyone whom was fool enough to venture out into there would be as arrow fodder to the second line of defence.

The second line of defence itself was less built-up than the first, with only trenches and a single palisade, but it boasted far stronger weapons. Ballistae and trebuchets, castle-breakers of the highest order, stood poised to unleash death upon any whom tread the no-man's-land between the two defensive lines.

But… there still was a way through this meat-grinder.

Four straight avenues, in each of the four cardinal directions. Leading right up to the four gates of Highgarden. The Legions had left the roads intact in order to sortie troops out from Highgarden, and easily reinforce the first defensive line.

If the Greens could take the avenues, it was feasible to hit the second line of defence fast enough that they'd lose only a few thousand to the siege engines.

Naturally, the Blacks knew this as well, and had constructed a mind-boggling series of fortifications around the avenues.

The avenues intersected with the donut-shaped first line of defence at four gatehouses. Gatehouses which were less gatehouses, and more small forts given their sheer size. Bristling with siege engines, and surrounded by a comprehensive series of earthworks.

There were castles in the Seven Kingdoms, which were less fortified than them.

But the finest minds left in the Green host had poured over the strategic situation for days, with Shaera taking observers up on Syrax to perform overflights in order to gather what information they could.

And so, a plan had been drawn up. One tailored to their one and only advantage. Their numbers. 

It was simply a problem of space.

There were only so many troops that Rhaenyra could cram into one of the gatehouse-forts at once, while the Greens could attack from a multitude of directions all at once.

While there was serious debate about whether to hit the other gatehouses, or try take the less vulnerable sections of the first defensive line beforehand, they ran the risk that splitting the host would lead to Rhaenyra hitting the smaller portions and defeating them all in detail.

Safety in numbers was their one and only option here.

And so it was, that a massive lumbering column of men fifty-thousand strong descended upon the southern gatehouse. There was no need for any tactics or subtlety here. It was just brute and overwhelming force.

Ser Ormund's hands tightened on the reins of his horse as the men got into position. Behind him stood ten thousand calvary, the strategic Green reserve. They were being held back, to be sent into whatever breach was made by the first wave of men.

It was a role some would consider easy, and it was no secret that Father and Uncle Otto had assigned it to Ser Ormund in hopes of keeping him out of danger. But Ser Ormund knew the stakes, and was willing to lay his life down for the cause.

Which meant that he had to do the single hardest task possible on the battlefield; wait.

Horns were sounded, and the Green men charged into battle.

It was an utter slaughter.

Over a hundred men must have died in the first minute, and easily a thousand by the fifteenth.

Legionaries wielding crossbows stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the trenches, unleashing volleys of quarrels downrange. So much so that it appeared to be a solid wall of arrows, flying forth to skewer and kill men too slow to raise their shields.

Scorpion bolts were unleashed, skewering even the most heavily armoured of knights in a single shot, while catapult rocks shattered shields and the men behind them.

Tortoises were brought forward, most of them overturned boats with handles nailed on for easy carrying. They shrugged off the crossbows and scorpions, and several were well-made enough to resist shattering from the catapults.

But the ground was uneven, the path to the palisade filled with many hazards. Caltrops that could pierce the thin shoes of the conscripts, and barbed wire too thick to be easily hacked through with swords.

And even as Green soldiers tried to cut their way through, Legion pikemen in the trenches thrust their spears through the gaps in the barbed wire, skewering men with impunity.

Ser Ormund clenched his fists at the sight. Reminding himself to hold back from charging into the fray, even as casualties mounted. He was needed as the hammerblow, to strike the enemy lines at their weakest point and crack the defence open.

———

While it was true that three-to-one in favour of the attacker was the most recommended number for a siege, Lord Horbert Hightower had read several old Valyrian legion manuals in the past, where the generals had noted that two-to-one was sufficient, if the attacking army had 'sorcerous superiority' or 'siege engine superiority'. One-to-one, of both were present. And that 'dragon air superiority' meant that a host could feasibly take a castle despite being outnumbered three-to-one by the defenders.

Unfortunately, those were useless pieces of advice. Rhaenyra was the single best sorcerer on the continent, and commanded a solid bloc of war mages in the Dragonseeds. One could not seriously expect to go up against her in terms of magic.

Much as, Lord Horbert dismally found out, one could not seriously expect Westerosi siege engines to go up against Legion engineering.

Legion-made siege engines fired further and faster than the siege engines his lords had brought, and that was before the fact that they had the fucking high ground.

Lord Horbert had sent out two dozen mixed trebuchets and ballistae, behind a series of tall mantlets for cover. To screen their advance, he'd also deployed thousands of infantry on his flanks to assault the gate from the sides and draw men away from the center.

None of the siege engines even made it into engagement range, or fired a single shot.

While the Legion ballistae proved unable to pierce the mantlet movable cover, their trebuchets were manned by cannier engineers. The Legion sappers had angled the siege weapons to fire their projectiles in a manner that arced over the mantlets. That'd be bad enough, but it was not rocks those catapults fired, by clay jars full of wildfire.

Explosions of green fire followed, consuming entire companies of men instantly.

Regardless, while the legion siege engines had focused fire on the siege engines, during this time they'd refrained from shooting the tide of infantry battering away at their flanks in favour. And without Legion siege engines providing cover, several Green tortoises had managed to reach the trenches. The fighting had been brutal though, and Legion crossbowmen and pikemen took a heavy toll on the levies.

Eventually, enough bodies had piled up that they could be made to lie down over the barbed wire, forming a bridge of corpses for the next wave of men to cross over.

And say what you would about the Third Legion, but they stood their ground. The second wave of sellswords was slaughtered to the last by the legionaries, whom were only forced back by the third wave of professional men-at-arms.

Just when a foothold had been established, the bunkers further back opened fire. A thick cone of blazing green flame was unleashed downstream into the Green breachhead, scouring hundreds of them off the face of the earth in a wave of cackling wildfire.

Over a dozen legionaries too slow or wounded to escape had been torched alongside the Greens, Black commanders unhesitatingly making the cold choice to sacrifice a dozen of their own men in order to prevent the breachhead from growing and costing them a lot more men down the line.

By the time the flames had guttered out, the legionaries had fallen back and regrouped in good order. They'd fallen back to the second sublayer of defence now, the pillboxes and bunkers turning the trench that was the first line into a dry moat obstacle.

Too thick to simply jump across, and designed in such a way that it provided no cover against the fortifications further up the hill, the trenches—not even fully taken— had now become a meat grinder.

———

Lord Humfrey Lefford had tasted triumph, when he'd finally breached the palisade.

Lord Horbert's opening artillery duel may have been an utter disaster on the Greens' part, but it had been most illuminating.

After the first few volleys, it swiftly became apparent that the Blacks were holding their ballistae and trebuchets in reserve, presumably at the second and third lines of defence, with the four gatehouses being the only points on the first defensive line to have any of the enemy siege's heavy hitters.

As such, further afield the Third Legion was fielding only smaller catapults and scorpions in their attempt to defend the flanks.

Catapults and scorpions that were outranged and outmassed by the trebuchets Lord Lefford deployed.

As part of the war effort, Lady Cerelle Lannister had commissioned a dozen massive trebuchets. Massive monsters of weapons that took dozens of oxen to drag along. Larger even than those fielded by the Legions.

They'd been a pain to bring, and so slow to lug along that they'd actually been spared the battle at the Rosewood by sheer virtue of being so heavy they'd lagged behind the main host and thus only arrived the day after the retreat.

And they were worth every delay and broken axel.

Legion-made siege engines were probably the better model, truth be told. They had superior rate of fire, were easier to build and were made of cheaper materials while still boasting superior range and firepower to nine-tenths of the conventional siege engines on the continent. Their cost-effectiveness alone was marvellous.

But House Lannister had coin to splash around, and so could sink a small fortune into creating impractically massive one-of-a-kind monsters of trebuchets which outranged and overpowered anything the Legions had.

As soon as they were dragged into position, those massive, magnificent machines immediately begun lobbing rocks the size of houses uncontested. Rocks that easily shattered the Third Legion's palisade and toppled their watchtowers.

Lord Humfrey had come in expecting a harsh uphill battle. The Legions fought hard as knights and tricky as devils. But instead, this battle, was… almost easy.

He'd struck at a weaker point in the defensive line, towards the west of the northern gate. Too far away for the gatehouse's siege engines to hit him, but close enough that it opened up another angle of attack.

Only the bunkers and trenches were left, quite literally dug in too heavily for easy dislodging. After a half hour of fruitless bombardment, Lord Humfrey realised that his assessment that the battle would be easy was premature.

"Fine, the hard way it is, then." The Lord Lefford muttered, calling for his men to advance.

He'd sent his men out in the traditional three waves, with levies up front to soak up the brunt of the casualties, sellswords in the middle, and finally professional men-at-arms at the rear. 

They were attacking the most lightly defended point of the defensive line they could, far away from the main gate hardpoints, with only a bare few hundred legionaries defending it.

It was still hard uphill fighting. Even with the great energy and fervour their desperation granted them, barely two hundred of his vanguard of two-thousand had made it through the meat grinder. And only then mostly because they had more bodies than the enemy had ammunition.

The crossbowmen begun retreating in good order once they ran low on ammunition, and the legionaries torched the siege engines behind them as asset denial.

But he'd done it. He'd taken a breachhead.

The sounds of hoofbeats made him turn around on his horse, and riding up from the eastern was a wedge of horsemen. Thousands of them, the full calvary contingent of the First and Third Legions, bolstered by footmen riding every single horse the Blacks could raid from the famed— and highly extensive—stables of Highgarden.

"Spears and shields! Spears and shields!" Lord Humfrey yelled, the men sluggishly obeying. A shield wall went up, but it was weak and ill-organised.

The wedge of knights crashed into the Green shield wall with a sound like a thunderclap. Shields shattered, lances broke, horses trampled men underfoot.

Breaking through, the Legion riders wheeled their horses around skilfully, and regrouped once more into wedges.

Lord Humfrey cursed and ordered his men-at-arms into position. A proper shield wall was raised, men in the first rank bracing themselves behind heavy tower shields as men in the second and third ranks lowered spears and pikes.

———

Ser Ormund Hightower raised his lance and thrust it straight towards the charging knight.

It glanced off of his paudron, trailing sparks, and Ser Ormund had to dodge a sabre strike that nearly cleaved his head off.

He reared his horse around, his surviving men gathering around him for yet another charge, and winced at the sight.

Of Ser Ormund's six thousand calvary, less than half were still alive.

Westerlands forces under the command of Lord Lefford had breached the palisade with his men after near two straight hours of uphill fighting, and had run right into the enemy's own strategic reserve.

Less than two thousand knights from the First and Third Legions, but the horsemen had cut a bloody swath through Lord Lefford's ranks, forcing Ormund to ride to the Westerlands lord's rescue, lest he and his breakthrough be swept aside by the legion horse.

Most armies of the Seven Kingdoms tended to field light calvary, fit more for fighting other calvary or running down conscripts. Mobility was highly important, and heavy armour expensive, and so these horsemen wore maille and boiled leather.

There were exceptions, of course. Most of the knights and lords bore suits of full steel plate, but they were the minority. The rank-and-file horsemen made do with iron chainmail.

The Legions, on the other hand, fielded mostly heavy calvary. Cost was not an issue to Rhaenyra, and she'd built her army specifically to break the old feudal hosts which had ruled Westeros for millennia.

It was a consistent part of a larger pattern that Ser Ormund was only now starting to grasp.

Wars in the Seven Kingdoms were fought by feudal armies. Men levied up from a lord's lands, with a solid core of professional men-at-arms and knights, occasionally bolstered by sellswords. Archers and longbowmen, generations upon generations of them, bred and trained for war.

Men-at-arms were heavy infantry, and highly trained. They were meant to hold a shield wall against calvary charges, and cut down hordes of conscripts.

Archers wielding heavy longbows, capable of punching through plate. Training them was a work of generations, and they were prized. But they could be outflanked by calvary, and slaughtered in close combat.

Knights, a wedge of heavy calvary, to lead the far more numerous light calvary in running down conscripts and charging against other knights. Checked by heavy infantry, counter to archers.

Such was the tactical game of strengths and weaknesses for millennia. They were each known quantities, staples of all armies in the Seven Kingdoms. And Rhaenyra had built her Legions to counter them all.

Sappers wielding siege engines, to break the lumbering heavy infantry from afar.

Crossbowmen, quicker to train and equip than longbowmen, while being near as effective.

And finally, heavy horse. Specifically designed to contemptuously snap their lighter counterparts over their knees.

Both sides had charged each other, two thousand heavy horse, versus six thousand light horse. And it was not the light horse which was doing well.

Lances glanced off or broke upon shields and heavy plate. Swords and spears failed to penetrate. Maces drew some blood, but those were comparatively rare.

Meanwhile, the legions had no such issue, their weapons piercing chainmail and cleaving boiled leather.

The tip of Ser Ormund's wedge practically disintegrated under Legion heavy calvary, shredded with only minimal enemy casualties to show for it. The two sides wheeled around, regrouped and charged once more, the legionaries demonstrating that their heavy arms and armour did nothing to hamper their horsemanship.

They charged thrice more, and the odds slowly got better for the Legions.

Three-on-one slowly tipped towards five-on-two, and then two-on-one.

It was only when Lord Unwin Peake finally broke through on the eastern flank that the Legion calvary sounded the retreat.

With Lord Unwin to the east, Lord Lefford on the west and Ormund's father Horbert in the south, the southern gatehouse was now encircled on three sides. The fort became as an island, with a sea of Greens battering away at it's shores.

Realising that the position was becoming untenable, the Third Legion immediately begun pulling itself out of the fight, retreating in good order down the avenue while a First Legion rearguard held the line, preventing any Green pursuers.

———

Under the noonday sun, the combined First and Third Legions were retreating towards the second line of defence. Quickly, but without disorder, impressively disciplined. Abandoning the gate-house fort that they had held since dawn.

Not that Lord Otto was willing to let them leave so easily.

The second line of defence was less built-up than the first, with only trenches and a single palisade, but it boasted far stronger weapons. Ballistae and trebuchets, castle-breakers of the highest order, stood poised to unleash death upon any whom tread the no-man's-land between the two defensive lines.

Any legionary that made it back would become an entire magnitude harder to kill. Hence Lord Otto had ordered every single horseman he could muster quickly enough up front.

Lord Unwin Peake's army had taken the least losses in the entire battle so far, and their calvary contingent was largely untouched. Two-thousand horsemen sallied out, with Lord Unwin himself in the lead, atop a snow-white destrier. He formed up with Ormund's own two thousand knights and immediately begun a run on the Third Legion.

Trebuchets and ballistae fired, ripping red furrows in the approaching calvary wedge, but sooner rather than later were forced to hold fire, for the knights had gotten close enough to the legionaries that the sappers risked hitting their own men if they continued.

The Unsullied were among the first to retreat, Rhaenyra clearly desiring to preserve the valuable and irreplaceable eunuchs. And as such it was conventional heavy infantry from the First Legion whom made up the rearguard.

They were nowhere nearby as well-trained or disciplined as the Unsullied, and although they took the first few charges head-on unflinchingly, by the fourth they were visibly battered and weakened.

Erik had sortied out to try batter Lord Unwin into retreat and salvage the situation, but Shaera had flown out to meet him, and though the Lady Tyrell was unable to overcome her brother, she was able to keep him busy and prevent Grey Ghost from torching Lord Unwin.

Unopposed, Peake knights slammed into the battered First Legion rearguard, and the Black host begun to bend like a man with a knife in his belly. With the lines crumbling, the fleeing soldiers were exposed.

Rhaenyra would have to do something soon, lest she lose half the First Legion. And with Erik tied down, there really was only one last trump card up her sleeve.

Magic came down in a wave, pulping near a hundred knights and horses in a single blow.

As the men screamed and the horses whinnied in fear, a bloodforged arrow took Lord Unwin Peake straight in the eye, slaying him instantly.

Illusions broke, and the Dragonseeds appeared in the midst of the Green knights. Sorcery lashed out, raining from above and sweeping from below. Fire and lighting and smoke, a whirlwind of energy and steel. There were less than ten of them, yet they tore straight through the knights like an axe though kindling.

Laena Velaryon stood in midair, standing atop a pane of translucent energy. Her every arrow hit true, slaying men with every one loosed.

Shaeterys rode atop a mount of oily shadow, tendrils of darkness shooting out to skewer knights, punching through plate like cheap tin.

Daenys flew above them all, a whirlwind of sorcery spiralling around her. Fire and brimstone were unleashed, shaped from and unleashed by the storm of magical power orbiting her, dozens of knights pulped with every shot.

And something subtler still… hidden within the maelstrom. Madness and fear, spreading through minds like ink through water. Causing ranks to break and men to scream and fall upon one another.

Twins Vaelon and Baelon stood at the back, unleashing annihilation from their fingertips. Vaelon wielded tendrils of lighting, spearing out like branches of a tree, ignoring legionaries to smite solely Green soldiers. Baelon generated clouds of billowing smog, hungrily consuming Greens like a living thing, the curse melting flesh leaving behind only half-corroded bones behind.

Aemon and Daemon strode the carnage unhurried, the whirling storm of sorcery harming them not. Wielding blades Blackfyre and Dark Sister, the two of them hacked off heads and lopped off limbs, stabbed torsos and gutted bellies. Their every movement was precise, almost like a dance, one with a trail of corpses left behind them.

Seven Gods and Hells, but Rhaenyra really was keeping quite the ace up her sleeve. Those seven— children mostly— were ripping straight through a wedge of knights like they were made of paper, near as destructive as a dragon unleashed.

Near four hundred had died in the fifteen minutes it took Otto to send in his countermeasure, and he could only pray that it would work.

To his utmost gratitude, it did.

Sorcery slid off the prayer-carved armour of the Paladins of Oldtown like water off a duck's back. Tendrils of shadow and clouds of acidic smog evaporated the instant they touched the blessed raiments. Lightning and fire and brimstone dripped off the holy armour impotently. Fear and madness were reflected by the silvered steel.

It was said in the Seven-Pointed-Star that magic would be impotent against a man armoured in faith, and the Paladins were proving this true.

Swords bearing crystals in the shape of a seven-pointed-star cleaved straight through Shaeterys' shadow mount, burning it away in a wave of holy indignation.

Laena fired several bloodforged arrows, and managed to draw some blood, but only what was expected from regular arrows. The curses nullified, unable to punch through steel and kill with a single hit anymore.

Peregrine, Blackfyre and Dark Sister came out, and paladins began to fall. Enchanted steel proving capable of breaching even the holy protection conveyed by the gods. But there were simply too many paladins, and without sorcerous fire support, the boys were unable to hold for long.

The Dragonseeds broke and ran, fleeing divine judgement.

Without them to cover the Legion retreat any longer, the knights of the Greens were able to regroup and hit the rearguard several more times.

At least thirteen hundred legionaries were slain before the siege engines battered the knights into retreat.

———

However bad the first line of defence was, the second was even rougher.

Like the first line of defence, there was a gatehouse sitting atop the avenue, barring access to the camp behind it and the gates of Highgarden. This gatehouse was not as large or as daunting as the small forts the first defensive line boasted, but they were far from easy meat.

Worse was the pair of bastions flanking the avenue, about a hundred yards before the gatehouse proper. They sat on either side of the avenue, flanking it in such a manner that anyone whom wanted to hit the gate had to pass beneath them.

Short and squat towers fashioned out of concrete, their foundations were a solid hunk of stone with no openings, not even a doorway. Access to the bastions was instead through a door on the second floor, low enough for the defenders to jump out of and retreat, high enough that battering rams could not touch it. Before the battle had begun, the Legions had used movable wooden staircases to access the tower. Staircases that had been moved away once the siege started, barring access to the bastion.

The Greens came in waves at the palisade, dying in droves as they attempted to overwhelm the defenders through sheer numbers.

Siege towers trundled down the avenue in the middle, with mantlets providing cover. On the flanks, a sea of infantry battered away at the enemy's defensive line, running across the ground too treacherous for siege engines, bearing tortoises and ladders.

The Legions met them all with Fire and Blood.

Trebuchets lobbed barrels full of wildfire, torching siege towers and incinerating mantlets in a firestorm of green. Ballistas and catapults unleashed stones onto the infantry, shattering tortoises and pulping the men beneath them. Scorpions fired bolts, streaking across the field to skewer the survivors benefit of their cover.

The bastions were the worst though, shredding any offensive that tried to make it past them in a fusillade of artillery. Efforts to run at the base of the towers, below the minimum firing depth of the siege engines, were met with barrels of burning pitch and flamethrowers unleashing torrents of green fire.

Efforts to coordinate the host had been stymied, as Laena, Shaeterys and Daemon had come out to play. Popping out of the woodworks, they would strike like lighting, then fade like shadow. They ignored soldiers and went straight for commanders, spilling noble blood at a truly impressive rate.

Uncle Otto had sent the Paladins out, but the sorcerers would not let themselves be bogged down in a slugging match, fleeing once they'd got the highborn scalp they were after.

It was still midday, and yet the sky was thick with crows and other carrion birds, ready to feast upon the thousands upon thousands of corpses that carpeted this field.

With Lord Unwin Peake's death, command over the Green vanguard had fallen to his uncle Ser Gedmund Peake, and the man was in a foul mood. The Peake knight had allegedly demanded no quarter or half-measures from his men, threatening to feed any man whom fled the battle his own entrails and vowing to sell their families to slavers.

An amusing threat, but one Ormund sincerely doubted he'd truly follow through on. Regardless, the fear had put iron back in the spines of the unwashed masses, and fire in their conscript bellies.

Rhaenyra had thought to turn Highgarden into a meat grinder, but Ser Gedmund was willing to jam enough meat down that the machine jammed. He and his men fought like devils, overwhelming the defensive lines through sheer ferocity.

Seven Hells, but the Peake army would be a skeleton of itself come nightfall, with over three-quarters of his original eight-thousand men already lying dead on the ground. But they were doing it.

Gods preserve them, but they were doing it.

Vaelon and Baelon stood atop the bastions, unleashing death and destruction onto any Green they saw, but were soon battered into retreat, for Lady Cerelle's monstrous trebuchets had finally trundled into range. And say what you would of the twins, but they did not easily falter, unflinchingly retaliating with strikes of lighting even as the tower they stood upon crumbled around them.

Five of the twelve trebuchets were destroyed in the duel between artillery and sorcery, before the twins retreated.

But with the bastions down now, the central approach had been significantly cleared, allowing for entire companies to make serious runs at the gates.

Legion siege engines took their toll, but without the bastions holding the middle, they had to spread their fire out, relieving pressure on the beleaguered flanks.

More and more men began making it through the onslaught, running close enough to the palisades that the enemy heavy artillery could no longer hit them. Scorpions and catapults atop the watchtowers and behind the palisade still fired unimpaired, of course, but unlike the trebuchets and ballistae, these could not kill more than one person per shot.

The legionaries were more than willing to try make up the deficit, though. The Fifth Legion had come out in force, archers, crossbowmen, javelineers and slingers stood packed shoulder-to-shoulder, unleashing a volley of projectiles downrange.

And what few men were able to reach the dry moat before the palisade soon found himself skewered, pikemen thrusting their spears out of murderholes in the wooden palisade.

Lady Cerelle had deployed her remaining siege engines, in an attempt to bombard the enemy gatehouse, only to find that not even those hulking behemoths could outrange the monstrosities known as Manglers. Valyrian steel bolts tore right through four of the seven, before Lady Cerelle ordered a halt to their advance.

And without Green siege engines to provide cover, things begun looking bad, as tens of thousands of men rushed the palisades, only to be slaughtered like pigs.

But then… a miracle happened.

Lord Humfrey Lefford's beleaguered offensive on the right flank finally scored a breakthrough.

Through sheer numbers and determination, his men had managed to wade through the onslaught, and had managed to batter down a section of the palisade with their rams.

Green soldiers immediately begun flooding into the Black camp, like a drop of ink, tainting a glass of water.

They'd almost immediately run into entrenched resistance, First Legion heavy infantry running up to staunch the tide, but they were through. And without their fancy walls or siege engines providing cover, the legionaries were proving themselves no superior to professional men-at-arms. Unable to push back the breach in a timely manner.

The legionaries might still succeed, for there were simply too many fresh troops, compared to Lord Humfrey's exhausted and battered men. The Greens could be forced back to the palisade, and the breach sealed.

Not of Ser Ormund Hightower had anything to say about it.

Rallying every single knight he could, Ser Ormund rode to the rescue, ten thousand horsemen streaming behind him.

They rode across the broken ground, dodging stakes and caltrops, leaping over pit traps and ditches. Less fortunate or skilled men and horses fell with screams, but they were long past flinching.

A fusillade of trebuchet stones and ballista bolts fell upon them, ripping red furrows in the ranks, but they rode on. Through scorpion darts and catapulted stones, through wildfire and sorcery, through a rain of arrows and a hail of javelins, the knights of the west rode on, a tide of steel and muscle, riding in to save the day.

They rode up the hill, through the breach in the palisade, and slammed right into the legion shield wall.

Shields shattered, lances snapped, maille was pierced and plate broken. Horses fell with pikes in their bellies as men were trampled by steel-toed hooves.

The First Legion broke and routed, fleeing as Green calvary cut them down from behind.

Ormund raised Vigilance, ancient blade of House Hightower, and beheld their triumph.

With the First Legion scattered and in disarray, there was no one left to contest them. Now that they were in the camp, they could silence the siege engines pounding away at the Greens from the back.

While there were additional artillery and crossbowmen atop the walls of Highgarden, the third line of defence, they could not fire at Ormund, deep in the Blacks' own camp. Not without risking friendly fire, given that the place was still chock-full of legionaries.

Better, Ormund's breakthrough had been unexpected, and thus Rhaenyra had been unable to pull her legions back to the third line of defence in time. At least six thousand men were caught outside the gates of Highgarden. If they moved fast enough, they could kill the legionaries before they could retreat behind the walls of Highgarden, drastically weakening the defences.

It was unbelievable, but after everything, after all the losses and the humiliation, after this entire bruising campaign, the Greens now stood on the precipice of triumph, desperation allowing them to break through and snatch victory away from the jaws of defeat.

But then, high above them all, Rhaenyra Targaryen begun to sing.

———

A battlefield was a truly terribly loud place.

Hoofbeats, the sounds of men screaming, the whistling of arrows and the song of swords. Signal horns and messaging bells, the bellowed orders of a hundred sergeants. Shouts of triumph or dismay, wails of lament and cries of agony. The cawing of ravens and carrion birds, and the roaring and screeching of dragons high above them all.

Rhaenyra's voice cut right through all of them, a hush falling across the battlefield, even war cries petering out at the sound.

Otto himself had been in the rearguard, past even the first defensive line, and yet he did not fail to hear the Princess' voice, as though she were right beside him, singing right into his ear.

"Gatrandis babel ziggurat edenal,"

The Dragonqueen stood atop the tallest tower in Highgarden, facing the heavens with her eyes closed. Her voice was lovely, and the song slow. Even singing in a foreign tongue, none would not be moved by the sheer mournful lilt in her voice.

It felt like a dirge, and were it any other woman, Otto would have thought her about to surrender, with her armies facing imminent defeat. A swan song, the last she would ever sing, before throwing herself off the battlements to avoid being dishonoured and tormented by the victors.

"Emustolronzen Finé el balal zizzl,"

The trenches began to shake and glow, sorcery rising up and illuminating them beneath the feet of the soldiers. Weeks upon weeks of work by the Legion sappers, working tirelessly at the earth, to carve a massive magic circle into the land, hidden in plain sight as trenches.

"Gatrandis babel ziggurat edenal,"

A full retreat was sounded, and none dared disobey, discipline crumbling as men threw others behind them in their attempts to flee this massive ritual array. The Blacks retreated as well, legionaries barring themselves in Highgarden without bothering to chase the fleeing Greens.

"Emustolronzen Finé el zizzl,"

On the last note, Rhaenyra Targaryen snapped her fingers, and unleashed Desolation.

Notes:

For those curious, no Vaelon and Baelon are not actually sorcerous masterminds. Rhaegar and Rhaenyra were riding their minds and puppeteering their bodies.

Also, the song Rhaenyra sung was the Swan Song from the magical girl anime Symphogear. It felt fitting, as a reference. It set an appropriate tone, and sounded eldritch enough.

I initially wanted to make that whole scene into some sort of eldritch incantation, some three-verse poem demanding that the gods smite the Greens, but I couldn't find a fitting rhyme for 'folly', 'mortals' or 'Balerion'.

Ah well, magical girl song was good enough.