Chapter 18: The Trident and the Price of a Crown

Chapter 18: The Trident and the Price of a Crown

283 AC, Month of the High Sun

The march to the Trident was a river of steel flowing through a wounded land. Forty thousand men, the combined might of the North, the Vale, the Stormlands, and the Riverlands, moved with a grim, unified purpose. The army was a patchwork of colour and creed: the grey-cloaked Northmen, silent and enduring; the proud knights of the Vale, their silvered wings and falcon crests gleaming; the boisterous Stormlanders, eager for a fight; and the beleaguered Rivermen, desperate to reclaim their homes. And moving among them like a shadow was the Onyx Legion.

They were a stark anomaly. While other companies sang bawdy marching songs or boasted of the glories to come, the legionaries were silent, their black armour drinking the sunlight, their steps falling in a single, rhythmic beat. They made the other soldiers uneasy. They were not knights fighting for honour or levies fighting for their lord; they were professionals, and their business was death.

Alaric rode with the high command, a slight, dark figure amidst the towering forms of Robert Baratheon and Eddard Stark. He was fourteen now, and the last vestiges of boyhood had been stripped from him, leaving the hard, polished certainty of a man who had commanded armies and built empires. In the nightly war councils, he spoke with a quiet authority that belied his age, his maester's chain a cold weight of intellect against his chest. He was no longer a novelty; he was the Grand Strategist of the Rebellion, and his words shaped the fate of the war.

The final council was held on the eve of the battle, in a hastily erected pavilion within sight of the Green Fork of the Trident. The air was thick with the smell of rain-dampened grass and the nervous energy of forty thousand men preparing to meet their gods.

A map of the ford and its environs was spread across a campaign table. Prince Rhaegar's army, forty-five thousand strong, was already in position on the eastern bank, a spectacular display of Targaryen power. The silver-on-black three-headed dragon flew beside the sun-and-spear of Dorne and the golden rose of the Tyrells.

"He's dared us to cross," Robert Baratheon boomed, his voice a thunderous echo of the storm that was his namesake. He was magnificent in his new suit of black plate, a great antlered helm on the table before him. "We'll give him the fight he wants. I'll lead the van, smash his center, and find that silver-haired bastard myself. This war ends when my hammer finds his pretty breastplate."

It was a plan of glorious, simple, and suicidal courage.

"A frontal assault across a river against a prepared, numerically superior enemy is not a battle, Lord Robert," Alaric's voice cut through the enthusiastic murmurs. "It is a slaughter. Your men would be cut down in the water before they ever reached the bank."

Robert's face darkened. "Are you questioning my courage, boy?"

"I am questioning your tactics," Alaric replied without flinching, his grey eyes meeting the storm lord's furious blue ones. "Courage is a virtue, but it is a poor substitute for strategy. Why bleed ourselves to death on their shield wall when we can simply dismantle it?"

He stepped forward to the map, his presence commanding the attention of every lord in the tent. "Prince Rhaegar has made a critical error. He has anchored his line on the ford, assuming we must cross there. His entire strategy is defensive, designed to repel an attack. He has neglected his flanks."

His finger traced a path on the map. "The main host, under Lord Robert and Lord Stark, will engage at the ford. You will commit just enough force to pin his center, to make him believe you are attempting the very charge he expects. This will be your stage, Lord Robert. You will have your glorious fight." He was placating the warrior while setting the trap.

"Meanwhile," he continued, "Lord Arryn's knights of the Vale will be held here, on our right flank, as a mounted reserve. They are not to be committed until the enemy line shows signs of breaking."

He then looked directly at Eddard Stark. "But the decisive blow will be struck here." His finger moved a mile south of the ford, to a section of the river marked as deep and marshy. "The Onyx Legion will not be in the main battle line. Under the cover of the initial assault, we will force a crossing here. The river is deeper, but the bank is unguarded. We will execute a wide flanking march through this marshland," he indicated a swampy, wooded area on the eastern bank, "and we will fall upon the rear of the Targaryen host like a thunderbolt."

He tapped the sun-and-spear banner on the map. "Our target will be the Dornish flank. They are the most disciplined of Rhaegar's soldiers, but they are footmen, and they will be engaged from the front. They will never expect an attack from behind. We will shatter their flank, roll up the entire royalist line, and sow chaos and panic. We will be the hammer, and Lord Robert's host at the ford will be the anvil."

Silence fell upon the tent. The lords stared at the map, seeing the battle in a new, terrifying light. It was a plan of immense risk and complexity, a clockwork mechanism of feints, flanking actions, and precise timing. It was the kind of strategy that only a mind like Alaric's could conceive, and only a force like the Onyx Legion could execute.

"By the Seven..." Jon Arryn whispered, his old eyes alight with a strategist's appreciation. "A hammer and anvil..."

"It's skulking," Robert grumbled, though his opposition was now half-hearted. "But if it gets me to Rhaegar faster, then let the black-clad lads have their march."

The plan was adopted. The fate of the Seven Kingdoms would rest not on a single duel, but on a surgeon's precise and deadly cut.

The dawn broke grey and heavy, the sky weeping a fine, persistent drizzle. The air was filled with the sounds of a great army waking to its destiny: the clatter of armour, the whinny of nervous horses, the shouts of commanders, and the low, murmuring prayers of men about to die.

Alaric's command post was a small hill on the northern edge of the battlefield, fortified by a ring of his personal guard. From here, through a large Myrish spyglass, he had a panoramic view of the entire engagement. He was a god on a hill, watching the mortals play out the bloody drama he had scripted. Nervo was beside him, not with a ledger, but with a team of runners and signalmen, ready to relay Alaric's orders.

The battle began with a deafening roar as the rebel vanguard, led by Robert Baratheon, plunged into the rushing, waist-deep water of the Trident. The Targaryen archers unleashed a black cloud of arrows, and the river churned with the blood of the first casualties. The clash, when it came, was a thunderous concussion of steel and fury. The center of the battlefield became a chaotic, brutal maelstrom, exactly as Alaric had planned.

While the titans clashed at the ford, the Onyx Legion began its silent, deadly work. Ser Damon Flowers led them into the cold, swift water of the Green Fork, the men holding their shields and weapons above their heads. The crossing was perilous, the current strong, but they moved with a grim determination, a testament to their iron discipline. They emerged on the eastern bank, dripping and cold, but a coherent fighting force.

Their march through the marshes was a nightmare of sucking mud and tangled reeds. But Alaric's preparations paid off. The lightweight paths they laid before them allowed for swift passage, and their Essosi ointments kept the swarms of biting insects at bay. They moved like ghosts, a black river flowing unseen through the swamp.

From his hilltop perch, Alaric watched the main battle with cold, analytical detachment. <>

Alaric immediately sent a runner to Jon Arryn. "Signal Lord Arryn. Commit half his cavalry reserve to reinforce the left flank. Now." The order, coming from the rebellion's acknowledged strategist, was obeyed without question. The knights of the Vale thundered into the fray, shoring up the crumbling line.

Meanwhile, the Onyx Legion had reached its position. They emerged from the woods behind the unsuspecting Dornish flank. The spearmen of Dorne, under the command of the legendary Prince Lewyn Martell of the Kingsguard, were locked in a desperate struggle with the men of the Stormlands. They were confident, holding their ground. They never saw death coming.

"Shield wall!" Ser Damon roared, his voice the only sound breaking the silence of their approach. "No quarter! For the Lord of the Onyx Legion!"

The attack was not a charge. It was an execution. A solid wall of black steel and snarling helms slammed into the rear ranks of the Dornish infantry. The surprise was absolute, the panic instantaneous. The Dornishmen, attacked from front and back, were caught in a death trap. The Legion's short swords and disciplined shield-work were devastatingly effective in the close-packed chaos. They did not fight with passion; they moved from man to man, stabbing, thrusting, killing, a machine disassembling an army.

Prince Lewyn Martell, a valiant old warrior, turned to meet the threat, but he was cut down by a dozen blades before he could even mount a proper defence. The Dornish flank, leaderless and broken, shattered completely. The panic was contagious. It spread down the royalist line like a plague.

"Signal Lord Robert," Alaric said calmly to his signalman, watching the enemy line begin to waver through his spyglass. "The serpent has struck. The enemy's flank is broken. Tell him to sound the general advance."

The great warhorn of House Baratheon sounded its deep, booming note across the battlefield. Robert, seeing the enemy line falter, led a final, cataclysmic charge. It was at that moment that Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, his armour of black steel decorated with the three-headed dragon wrought in rubies, made his last, desperate gamble. Seeing his army collapsing around him, he spurred his horse into the river, seeking out the one man who was the heart of the rebellion.

Alaric focused his spyglass on the two figures as they met in the middle of the ford. It was a clash of titans, a duel for the soul of the kingdom. Robert, a god of rage, his warhammer a blur of destructive force. Rhaegar, a poet and a prince, his swordsmanship elegant and deadly. They traded blows, their weapons ringing out over the din of the battle.

Then came the final, fateful moment. Robert, with a roar that seemed to shake the very foundations of the land, brought his hammer down in a crushing, two-handed blow. It smashed into Rhaegar's chest, shattering the ruby dragon, sending a spray of red jewels into the river. The last dragon prince of Westeros slid from his saddle and died in the waters of the Trident.

A great, collective groan went up from the royalist army. Their prince was dead. Their flank was gone. Their line was broken. The battle turned into a rout. The Targaryen army dissolved, its soldiers throwing down their weapons and fleeing for their lives.

The victory was total.

In the bloody, sunset aftermath, Alaric walked the battlefield. The ground was a nightmarish landscape of mud, blood, and the bodies of men and horses. The Trident ran red, its waters littered with the dead. He walked with a calm, steady pace, his face impassive, cataloguing the cost of his victory. His legion had taken casualties—twelve dead, thirty wounded—but they were still a coherent fighting force, already securing the field and tending to their own, a testament to their professionalism.

He found Robert Baratheon near the ford, being tended to by maesters. The big man was wounded, a sword-slash to his side, but he was alive, and he was triumphant. Eddard Stark stood beside him, his face a mask of grief and grim relief.

"The kingdom is yours, Robert," Ned said quietly.

Robert looked up and saw Alaric approaching. A great, bloody grin split his face. "Blackwood!" he roared. "You black-hearted, clever bastard! That trick of yours... it was glorious! The looks on their faces when your demons came out of the woods!"

Alaric simply nodded. "The strategy was sound, my lord. As was your courage."

He looked from Robert's triumphant face to Ned's sorrowful one. He had won them their kingdom. He had placed the crown on Robert's head with his intellect and his gold. They saw him as their saviour, their strategist, their ally. They did not see the truth. They did not see the cold, patient serpent who had just helped them kill the dragons so that he could claim the garden for himself.

"This is the price of a crown, my lords," Alaric said, his voice quiet amidst the groans of the dying. "Today, we paid it in full." He turned his gaze south, towards the distant prize of King's Landing. "The war is won. But the game is just beginning."