Chapter 30: The Iron Throne's Shadow of Wings
The twenty-four hours granted by Vaelyx Targaryen to the beleaguered city of King's Landing ticked away, each moment heavy with the suffocating dread of impending annihilation. Within the Red Keep, King Robert Baratheon, his face flushed with wine and impotent rage, bellowed defiance, alternating between boasts of crushing the Targaryen pretender and demands for his commanders to achieve impossible victories. Lord Jon Arryn, his wisdom overshadowed by the Usurper's fury, and Lord Eddard Stark, his Northern honor compelling him to stand by his friend and king, prepared for a desperate, hopeless defense. Queen Cersei Lannister, her golden composure fractured by terror for her children and the news of her father's death and Casterly Rock's fall, plotted her own desperate survival. Ser Jaime Lannister, a silent, golden shadow in his white Kingsguard cloak, watched it all, his loyalties a tangled, bitter knot.
As the final grains of sand trickled through Vaelyx's hourglass, the assault on King's Landing began with a symphony of draconic fury that dwarfed even the horrors visited upon Myr and the Westerlands.
Vorlag and Ignis, Vaelyx's twin battering rams of living fire, descended upon the city's main gates – the Gate of the Gods, the Lion Gate, the Old Gate, the Dragon Gate. Their roars were like the cracking of the world itself. Black-red and scarlet flames, hotter than any earthly forge, engulfed the ancient stone and ironwood. Towers crumpled, gatehouses exploded, and defenders caught on the battlements were reduced to screaming torches or molten slag within their armor. The famed walls of King's Landing, which had stood for centuries, began to buckle and flow like wax under the unrelenting inferno.
Through the newly created breaches, the Aegis Guard, Commander Valerion at their head, advanced with the inexorable, silent discipline of death itself, their spear-walls a glittering tide of Myrish steel. Behind them poured the battle-hardened Golden Company under Ser Damon Sand, their war cries a mix of Westerosi and Essosi tongues, eager to prove their worth to their new Dragon Lord. The Myrish Legions and Reach levies, their initial fear now replaced by the grim determination of veterans, surged forward to widen the breaches and engage the panicked Gold Cloaks and city defenders in brutal street-by-street fighting.
Boros, his Dothraki screamers held in check until a significant breakthrough was achieved, patrolled the plains outside the city like a wolf pack, ensuring no organized force could escape the tightening noose. Their howls of anticipation added another layer of terror to the city's death knell.
While the outer city burned, a more insidious assault was unfolding beneath the very feet of its defenders. Lyra, her face smeared with grime and shadow, led her handpicked team of Serpent's Scale assassins and Qohorik Unsullied through the labyrinthine, forgotten tunnels beneath the Red Keep. Veridian, the jade dragon, moved with them, not in his full colossal form, but having used his innate magical abilities (and perhaps some of Vaelyx's own transfigurative guidance) to shrink his mass, his scales shifting to a dull, stony grey, making him an almost invisible reptilian horror in the oppressive darkness. His empathic senses guided them past ancient traps, identified weak points in tunnel walls, and located the hidden sentries Varys had long forgotten. Their objective: Maegor's Holdfast, the Red Keep's impregnable core, and if possible, the Usurper King himself.
Above the chaos, Astra and Aurumel executed their deadly ballet. Astra, the snow-white queen, her sapphire eyes blazing with cold light, systematically dismantled the Red Keep's formidable defenses. Trebuchets on the castle walls, scorpion nests, fortified towers – each was met with a precise, devastating beam of her colorless energy, vaporizing stone and steel alike. She was not merely destroying; she was dissecting the fortress with chilling precision.
Aurumel, her golden scales shimmering, wove illusions across the battlements of the Red Keep, making squads of phantom Unsullied appear at unguarded sections, drawing defenders away from the true points of Vaelyx's assault. Her protective luminescence flickered over the Aegis Guard as they began their advance up Aegon's High Hill towards the Red Keep's outer gates, deflecting the increasingly panicked and inaccurate fire from the surviving defenders.
Tempest and Argentus, meanwhile, had secured total dominance over Blackwater Bay. The remnants of any Royal Fleet or merchant vessels foolish enough to remain had been annihilated, their burning hulks littering the water. Now, they patrolled the river mouth, their roars and lightning strikes a clear message that there would be no escape by sea.
Within the Red Keep, the situation deteriorated rapidly. Robert Baratheon, refusing to cower, had donned his antlered helm and armor, his massive warhammer in hand. He roared for his men to stand firm, his presence a bulwark of defiance, but even his legendary courage was beginning to fray against the tide of dragon fire and collapsing walls. Jon Arryn and Eddard Stark fought valiantly beside him, rallying the knights of the Vale and the grim Northmen, but for every Essosi soldier they cut down, three more seemed to take their place.
It was then that Lyra's infiltration team struck. Emerging from a forgotten servant's passage directly into the lower levels of Maegor's Holdfast, they overwhelmed the surprised Kingsguard and household guards. Veridian, resuming a portion of his true size in a series of terrifying, bone-jarring expansions, became a jade nightmare in the confined stone corridors, his eerie green fire consuming defenders, his empathic roars sowing primal terror. Lyra's assassins, moving like wraiths, slit throats and disabled internal defenses, while the Qohorik Unsullied methodically cleared passages, their silence more terrifying than any war cry.
They fought their way upwards, towards the Great Hall and the royal apartments, their objective shifting from mere chaos to the capture or elimination of Robert Baratheon.
Robert, learning of the attack from within his own supposedly impregnable fortress, let out a bellow of pure, animalistic rage. "Traitors! Spies! I'll kill them all!" He turned from the outer defenses, gathering his remaining loyal knights, including Ser Jaime Lannister, and charged back towards the Great Hall, intending to crush the infiltrators.
This was the moment Vaelyx had orchestrated. As Robert's forces were drawn inwards to deal with Lyra and Veridian, the main gates of the Red Keep, already weakened by Astra's precise bombardment and the sapping efforts of Ignis and Vorlag from Aegon's High Hill, finally gave way with a deafening crash.
Commander Valerion and the Aegis Guard stormed into the Red Keep's main courtyard, their disciplined phalanx an unstoppable wave of black iron and Myrish steel.
The battle for the Red Keep became a desperate, three-dimensional slaughter. Robert Baratheon, a cornered stag of immense power, fought with the fury of a dying god in the Great Hall, his warhammer crushing helms and breastplates. He found himself assailed by Lyra's Serpent's Scale assassins, their poisoned blades seeking any chink in his armor, while Veridian, a terrifying jade behemoth, harried his flanks.
Eddard Stark and Jon Arryn, attempting to organize a defense in the outer courtyards, were overwhelmed by the sheer numbers and discipline of the Aegis Guard. Lord Arryn, old and weary, fell to an Unsullied spear, his last thoughts likely of the Vale he would never see again. Eddard Stark, fighting with Northern ferocity, was eventually disarmed and captured, his Valyrian steel sword Ice taken from him.
Ser Jaime Lannister, the Kingslayer, found himself in a surreal battle, defending the Usurper King against forces claiming to restore the dynasty he had helped overthrow by killing its last mad king. His golden armor was stained with blood, his skill undeniable, but even he could not hold back the tide.
The end for Robert Baratheon came not at the hands of a common soldier, but in a confrontation orchestrated by Vaelyx. As Robert, wounded and gasping, made his last stand near the foot of the Iron Throne, Vorlag, Vaelyx's first-hatched and most savage dragon, smashed through the already damaged roof of the Great Hall, landing with a thunderous impact that cracked the ancient flagstones. The black dragon, its eyes like burning coals, fixed its gaze on the Usurper King.
Robert, with a final roar of defiance, hurled his warhammer at the beast. It bounced harmlessly off Vorlag's obsidian scales. The dragon leaned down, opened its cavernous jaws filled with teeth like black daggers, and with a single, contemptuous gout of black-red fire, incinerated Robert Baratheon where he stood. The Usurper King, the Demon of the Trident, was reduced to a pile of smoking ash and molten metal before the Iron Throne he had stolen.
A chilling silence fell over the Great Hall, broken only by the crackling of flames and the guttural growl of Vorlag.
Vaelyx Targaryen, astride Astra who landed gracefully in the devastated outer courtyard of the Red Keep, made his triumphant entry. His remaining five dragons settled upon the towers and battlements of the conquered fortress, their colossal forms a new, terrifying heraldry for the city. He strode into the Great Hall, his black Valyrian-style armor immaculate amidst the carnage, his pale lilac eyes taking in the scene – the dead Usurper, the captured lords, the kneeling Unsullied, the triumphant but bloodied Lyra and her assassins. Veridian gave a soft, rumbling hiss of acknowledgement from the shadows.
He ascended the steps to the Iron Throne, that monstrous chair of melted swords, symbol of conquest and centuries of Targaryen rule. He did not sit immediately. He simply stood before it, feeling the culmination of years of patient planning, ruthless conquest, and Voldemort's indomitable will fused with his Targaryen blood.
"The Usurper is dead," Vaelyx announced, his voice amplified by magic, echoing through the silenced hall and carried by his dragons' roars to the terrified city beyond. "House Baratheon's rebellion is extinguished in the blood of its leader. I am Vaelyx of House Targaryen, First of My Name, Emperor of New Valyria, Rightful King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm. This city is mine. This throne is mine."
He turned to his commanders. "Order the cessation of indiscriminate looting. Secure the city. Bring the captured traitors before me – Stark, Lannister, any who still presume to defy their rightful sovereign. The war for the Iron Throne is over. The era of the Dragon Emperor has begun."
He finally turned and, with a slow, deliberate movement, seated himself upon the Iron Throne. It was cold, hard, unforgiving – a seat worthy of a conqueror. His seven dragons, visible through the shattered roof and windows, let out a simultaneous, earth-shattering roar of triumph, a sound that heralded not just the fall of a king, but the dawn of a new, terrifying age for Westeros and all the known world.