(3rd Person POV)
The bells of Stoney Sept had always announced births, weddings, special events and the hour of prayer. On the day Robert Baratheon arrived, they didn't ring, however. Weeks had passed since the battle of Ashford and the crushing news of Lord Tarly's death. The entirety of the realm was shaken to hear the first major player and loyalist die at the hands of Robert Baratheon. The Stormlords didn't count.
Just as Robert and Stannis had predicted, Mace Tyrell had marched east to besiege Storm's End, like a total bellend. The 500 rose knights, which had been sent to chase Robert, didn't find him moving north to meet up with the hosts of Ned Stark and Jon Arryn; instead, he moved through the Reach for a few weeks.
Again, Robert proved his unpredictable nature in that he didn't seem to think about the war in general, and instead went ahead and attacked unsuspecting castles of nobles, taking what they could and giving the rest to the smallfolk who lived in the area. That's right, the Stormlanders attacked the castles, killed anyone standing in their way, stole what they could in terms of food, wealth and armoury and then gave the rest to the smallfolk, without touching them. Once again, this was an idea from Robert, since he was going to remove the Targaryens. So the responses to his actions were mixed, surprisingly.
On one hand, the loyalists were outraged at this and furious, and on the other hand, the smallfolk didn't really mind. Why would they? How often did it happen that an army from a different kingdom marched into yours, broke the castle, didn't touch you or any of you, and made you wealthier than you were before? Never. This would never happen.
And it was uncanny how much success Robert had as well. From Ashford, he went north and took Long Table. After that, he attacked Bitterbridge and did the same through the Reach until he reached the Stoney Sept in the Riverlands. Because, despite everything, he still had a war to win. The pillaging was necessary, since he gained some very special prizes, but he couldn't go on forever. He had heard of the new army, Aerys had prepared under the command of Jon Connington, the last remaining sleight to the Stormland's honour. And so, Robert wanted to prepare.
.
At dawn, Stoney Sept's alleys were empty of children, women and men alike; the doors had been shut as if a disease roamed the streets. Under plain brown cloaks and soot-stained caps, Stormlanders moved furtively. Robert had a plan, but only his men understood what that was, and after his monstrous success, their morale had risen to such a degree that they would do anything he said.
Robert walked the streets once more before the sun rose. His antlered helm was under his arm. He smelled wet stone and mud and looked at his men, who were staggering around, as though they were drunk.
"You've done enough pretending," he said, and smiled so they would see teeth. "When the bells ring, you lose. Not before."
They nodded, sobered.
"Hahahaha. Let's make a pretty welcome for our griffin, shall we?"
.
Jon Connington entered the west gate of the Stoney Sept by noon that very day with the red griffin above his host. He had marched as fast as his host allowed, pushing his men to catch the stag in a trap. The villagers he'd been promised were nowhere. Windows were shuttered. Not even a stray dog or beggar could be seen in the streets.
Connington lifted his visor.
"Where are they?" he asked.
"Gone, my lord," said a captain in Rhaegar's colours. "It looks... deserted."
"Deserted?" Connington's voice cut. "No town deserts like this. We didn't see any on our way here. There would have been people around the town if they had left today or yesterday."
Connington smelled a lie. But his pride and devotion to Rhaegar were a lance that pointed only one way. He had not slept in two days; he had not stopped thinking of his prince's voice, soft as a prayer and just as certain: 'You will win, Jon. I know you will.
Connington signalled the vanguard. "Sweep the streets. Archers on the roofs. Open the houses, pull out the smallfolk if you must, but find them wherever they are hiding."
They set themselves to it, fanning out through the town. They spread throughout the entire town, going into buildings and looking for the smallfolk who had so mysteriously disappeared. A mistake on their part. By doing this, they effectively split their forces and made themselves vulnerable. To their surprise, they did find men, but no women were present. In their rage, they didn't look any closer and pulled the men out of the buildings and onto the streets. If they had bothered to look at them closer and been calm and collected, they would have realised that those were not smallfolk.
*FFTT*
The first arrow hit a loyalist soldier in the throat when he looked into an alley. He made a slight, surprised gurgling sound and folded sideways. No one knew where the arrow originated. Another fell right afterwards, but in another part of the town. Tar hissed from a second-story window and sloshed across a small group of soldiers. Then a spark caught, and in the same breath, their screams became the day's first true gruesome sound.
"Shields!" Connington roared. "To me!"
But he was foolish. Shouting a formation was useless, since all his men were spread throughout the town. And they had walked into the stag's nest. Rooftops suddenly revealed men with stags on their chests, the veil was lifted, and the 'play' began.
The griffin lord drove right into the fray, into the teeth of it with clenched teeth. He tried to steady the vanguard. But Connington felt the trap, but he trusted his own skill and the weight of the Crown's cause he had been made to carry. He would break this ambush as he had broken others, and he would see his prince on the throne.
Then the bells began to ring loudly through the town.
Not by anyone pulling the rope, but by Robert Baratheon's warhammer. The mad lad announced his arrival to the battle by swinging his warhammer twice, causing the largest bell in the sept to crack and make a noise as if a mountain was splitting in half. A shudder passed through the entire town, and all the lesser men answered.
"RAAAAHHHHHHHH!!"
The sound poured through every alley and told a single message: time to kill.
Robert came out of the sept with his men behind him, his signature armour visible for all to see. He swung the hammer one-handed as if it were a child's toy and crashed it into a poor sod's side so hard you could hear his arms break.
"AAHHHHH!"
With his second hand, he wielded Hearthsbane, which he had taken from Randyll Tarly. The blade, which was supposed to be a double-handed longsword, was wielded by him with one hand as if it weighed nothing.
The town became a gristmill. Connington's men fell under brutal attacks from all sides and the arrows from above; spears lunged from doorways and alleys, and men fell and were pulled inside by still hidden soldiers.
"Cut through!" Connington ordered, his voice raw. "Cut through till we're out of the town!"
It was a brutal occurrence, and one that the loyalists wouldn't recover from anytime soon. But eventually, through sacrifice and loss, they made it, battered and smaller in number with every step. In the field outside of the Stoney Sept, the fighting stopped long enough for them to breathe. However, a moment later, the Stormlanders appeared from the town, in formation and ready to end this fight. At the front stood the bloody stag himself.
.
Robert's face was bloody and soot-blackened, sweat making it clean in places. Despite what it looked like, a battle inside a town wasn't straightforward. He had to make sure not to kill any of his own men.
"Jon," he called across the field, his voice loud. "Your prince isn't here to hold your hand. You're all alone and what's worse... you're here with me."
Connington's jaw tightened inside his helm. Around him, his men looked for orders like men on the edge, looking for more space to hold on to. But there was nothing to hold on to. They arrived here with more men than the Stormlands had, but that advantage was now gone.
"I will kill you, rebel scum! You are an embarrassment to the Stormlands!" he shouted.
"BAHAHAHAHAHA!"
Robert took off his helmet so that Connington could see his face.
"Don't speak to me while the wind blows in my face, Jon. I smell the prince's cock on your breath. I'll show you the Stormland way, you prissy."
"You are outnumbered."
"Good. Then you can't say it was unfair later."
"Form!" Connington snapped. "Spears to the front. Archers, get ready. Kill the arrogant disgrace!"
They clashed.
The fire of he loyalists' arrow barrage was answered with a powerful wall of shields, which the soldiers used to march forward and close the distance. Connington didn't realise it yet, but he was in a very precarious position at the moment. Robert's hammer rose and fell as soon as they were close enough, and where it hit, no man stood afterwards. He cut through a spear with the Valyrian sword and smashed the spearman in the ribs. A moment later, he broke a shield and stabbed the man behind it; Each step caused more and more men to die as the Stormlanders advanced.
Robert twisted the spear, which was aiming at his face, aside with his elbow, caught the swordsman by the face with his large, powerful hand, and hurled him into Connington's thrust. The griffin's blade pierced into his own man, exactly where it should have pierced Robert. They were too close for elegant and refined swordsmanship, and the battle had worn on Connington's reserve far too long already.
Robert smashed his left gauntlet into Connington's visor before the man could even deliver his first swing. He saw stars, but managed to stay on his feet, despite everything.
Connington feinted to the right, baiting the mighty warhammer's swing, and he nearly had the opening, but Robert did not fight with one weapon only. He blocked Connington's attack with his own blade and then moved around to attack once more, entertaining the Stormlander. Suddenly, out of nowhere, an arrow appeared in Robert's field of vision and forced him to react. With unnatural speed, he managed to move his face, giving him only a slash wound across the left side of his face, while still managing to block the next attack.
With a wide swing, the warhammer hit the side of Connington's chest. The bones shattered, the metal bent, and the blood splashed. Connington fell to one knee, his sword falling to the ground. His breathing came in throaty rasps as he desperately tried to fill his lungs with air.
Robert stood over him.
"Y--yield," Connington rasped through blood. "I-I... yield--"
"So? You yielded your loyalties to the mental illness of a cunt, and now you beg for your life," Robert said. There was no laugh to his words now. "No second yield for you."
The battle stood still, as Robert once again killed the Lord of a prominent House by bringing down his warhammer and painting the ground red.
As the loyalists realised that their Lord had been killed, they lost their will to fight, and morale dropped, conceivably. But they were too late to do anything, because their day turned for the worse a moment later.
From the north, new banners appeared— a grey direwolf, a falcon and a leaping trout. Ned Stark, John Arryn, and Hoster Tully with their armies had arrived. Their vanguard rode in to find the battle had already been decided, but they cut into the remaining loyalist soldiers.
.
Ned dismounted with a look of disbelief. John Arryn came slower, his older eyes estimating the result against the cost. Hoster Tully arrived shortly afterwards. Ned approached his friend, who was standing in the middle of the battlefield and overlooked the last moments of it, while still in his bloody armour.
"You rang the bells for us," Tully said, half a jest.
Robert didn't answer the Tully. He looked at him, measuring his worth and the reason he was here. He didn't like the Tully at all. He was better than the Frey at least, but as dull as a fish. In his mind, there was nothing special about him. But he kept his opinions to himself.
"You have achieved a great victory here, Robert. But Aerys will not let this slide," Jon Arryn said.
"I hope so. I still have a promise to deliver to the prince. And I don't want to go looking for him," Robert said, and he meant it.
"You moved the folk," Ned said. "All of them."
"Indeed. I won't have children die for my quarrel when I can help it. Besides, it was a good trap."
"Quarel?" Hoster asked in disbelief.
"Then you've done a hard thing well," Ned stated, ever the honourable man.
"Hoster," John Arryn said, already back in the work, "set your banners on the crossings. Seal the roads until we count the dead. Ned, the wells." He glanced at Robert. "And you, Robert, where are you going?"
Robert had already sat down on a broken step, not minding the blood and mud all around, holding a parchment on his knee. He wrote as well as he could in his state. But he promised to keep Stannis updated, and he did.
|Brother,
The griffin is dead. I managed to acquire what we discussed and made sure to extend your regards to him. Tell Thommy and Arthur to take what was ours to begin with—lands, gifts, ships—all of it. I predict another major battle before I may make it to King's Landing.
-- Robert|
Jon Arryn and Hoster Tully looked at Robert, who was writing on a parchment as if he had just come from a light morning jog, and thought to themselves. They both had similar ideas, but couldn't quite decide whether or not they were making a mistake. Robert was storm incarnate, that much was certain, but would he be a good king?