Blood of Dragons

Ash and soot and broken barks greeted the troops from King’s Landing as they pressed on, deep into the wildfire-ravaged parts of the Kingswood where the ruffians and rebels had retreated. The King’s men had weaponry and numbers good enough for the foe to avoid open battle, and instead hole up in the blackened keep atop the ruins of Stoneback Hill. They were not to be dignified with investment and siege for more than a day.

Late in the night, the muddy fields came alive with flame, a small fire in a flank of the supply train. Enough to draw the bandits manning the keep’s ramparts to one side. The ploy having worked, a multitude of knights under Ser Luthor Rivers made, with rope and ladder, the bloody climb up, and put up a fierce fight to sustain their tenuous toehold. It was a necessary distraction, so that Ser Terrence of the Kingsguard could lead an assault, complete with a makeshift battering ram, on the gate below.

Aside from arrows, he had to contend with falling dead or dying, while the struggle in the battlements raged on. The royal knights there found hardy and vengeful men, as unwilling to die as they were to bow. Many skilled knights suffered injury to keep themselves from the grave, let alone send others there. They might still have prevailed, were it not for the Septon, better with the mace than with sermons, and that mystery, deadly, Knight of Ashes. One by one they drove to the ground the likes of Baratheon, Corbray, Roxton, Caswell, Rivers, Royce, Farman.

The Ashen Knight’s swordsmanship was singular—but the deaths in his side too many, and a last, double blow came when the cry of battle horns announced the arrival of troops from House Toyne. His kin were the last aid Ser Terrence needed to tear the gate open. As troops poured into Stoneback’s keep, in muck and smoke, the white knight and his brothers led the slaughter, rapidly enough to find Jan Marbrand and other captives alive, if worse for wear.

Mayhaps it would have been more judicious to encircle the keep, for this Knight of Ashes and his Septon managed to cut their way to a horse and flee through the postern gate. Yet few would share in their fortune, and by dawn enough bandit lives had been snuffed out for the rebellion to be thought ended. No triumph, but victory nonetheless.

Wagons were shorn of their supplies or fetched from where possible to carry the wounded nobles and commons. There wasn’t half a thought of tarrying; with half-decent order, the royal troops marched to the Roseroad and then north, to the now welcome embrace of King’s Landing.