Vargo looked toward Yigo.
Yigo nodded, raised the seven-pointed star in his hand, and from a high perch let out a strange, whistling chant as he shouted to the mercenaries mounted behind him:
"Brothers! Warriors! Today we swing steel and spill blood, not for any lord, and not for any king.
We fight for ourselves. We fight for gold!
In your hands is the iron forged by smiths.
In your chests runs the blood of warriors. Raise your weapons high and let that little Dragon King's blood stain your blades!"
"Dragon King's blood! Dragon King's blood! Dragon King's blood!"
The mercenaries howled and waved their blades and swords wildly, as if they had already earned the title of dragon-slayers.
When Yigo finished, it was Vargo's turn to speak. He stood beside him and shouted:
"The little Targaryen king is right there, beneath the great black banner. He has fewer than two hundred men around him.
Charge! Catch him, and you'll have gold without end and women without number for the rest of your lives!"
He thrust his spear upward, while behind him the black banner of the Blood-Horned Goat snapped in the wind, stirring the mercenaries' bloodlust.
Like wolves catching the scent of prey, they let out excited cries.
They lashed their mounts.
The horses, driven by pain, galloped straight toward Viserys. At the moment, Viserys truly had only a little over two hundred guards with him.
But these were real elites.
Though they looked young and slight, their will to fight and skill in combat were unmatched on this field.
Vargo's cavalry needed to cross half the battlefield before reaching Viserys. That gave Viserys time to check the nearby traps and defenses.
Gorys and his men doubled back to inspect the traps.
The outermost line consisted of hoof-sized pits, dozens of centimeters deep, covered in dry grass and loose snow.
Further in were scattered iron caltrops meant to force the mercenaries off their horses.
Inside that, a ring of chevaux-de-frise and a raised earth platform.
Viserys may have been baiting the enemy, but he was not about to gamble with his own life.
The soldiers took great care checking the setup. Gorys glanced at the light cavalry drawing near and shouted to the guards beside him:
"Return to formation!"
Facing the charging mercenaries, the guards lowered their bodies, angled their spears, and prepared to receive the impact.
Warhorses ran fast. Even going uphill barely slowed them.
The mercenaries stared greedily at the two hundred short, wiry guards ahead of them like jackals spotting weakened prey.
But then something went terribly wrong.
The mercenary in the lead suddenly toppled forward as if his horse had stumbled. Rider and mount flipped over.
The horse screamed in agony.
Its foreleg had snapped cleanly. Bone shards pierced through the skin and jutted out.
The rider, by some luck, wasn't badly hurt. He staggered back to his feet.
And this kept happening. One after another, men and horses tumbled. The riders behind them lost their courage and slowed to a crawl.
Vargo quickly hauled back on his reins. Only then did the mercenaries realize they had ridden straight into the hidden hoof-pits.
But the losses did not concern Vargo.
For a battle of this scale, it was natural for a commander like Viserys to place traps around himself.
They were snatching fire from the furnace.
Time was short—Viserys had to be taken quickly. He ordered his riders not to surround Viserys from all directions but instead trample paths through the traps.
The mercenaries bunched together, still outside bow range, so the guards did not fire yet.
They pushed past the hoof-pits, only to find wide patches of iron caltrops. If they wanted to reach Viserys' guard, they had to dismount.
Vargo looked back to assess the rest of the battlefield.
The central line remained locked in fierce fighting. Arthur's cavalry, the famed Dawn Knight's riders, were embroiled deeply, unable to break free.
Viserys had fewer than two hundred men with him. Vargo had a thousand.
He checked the two Targaryen cavalry detachments.
One was fighting Yigo's Dothraki.
The other was swallowed by the Rhoynar formation.
Neither could come to Viserys' aid any time soon. He had almost half an hour to take the Targaryen king.
If he failed, he would still have plenty of time to withdraw.
He eyed the chevaux-de-frise forming a ring atop the small rise, then commanded the mercenaries to dismount.
"You bastards listen up! This little king is playing tricks on us. Don't be afraid. We outnumber them five to one.
And he's surrounded by nothing but boys without hair on their chests.
Everyone off your horses. We take him ourselves!"
A roar exploded from the mercenaries.
They jumped from their mounts, took their spears, and formed a tightening ring around Viserys.
Then Vargo noticed something else.
Viserys stood atop the highest platform, flanked only by two guards who served as both bodyguards and living shields.
A mercenary bent his bow, aiming to kill Viserys, but Vargo stopped him.
"A dead Targaryen isn't worth a living one!"
Hearing this, the archer agreed immediately.
"No one fires! I want the little Targaryen king alive!"
"Alive! Alive! Alive!"
The chant thundered across the field. Viserys naturally heard it. He gave a cold smile and stretched out his hand.
"Bring the bow."
A black dragonbone bow was placed in his grip.
Mathos handed him a finely crafted arrow, its steel head reflecting a faint blue chill. It was an armor-piercing arrow forged from pure steel.
Viserys drew and fired at the nearest charging mercenary.
The arrow shot clean through the man's throat. A single dead soldier couldn't stop the charging mob.
But Viserys had plenty more arrows.
One after another, he fired more than ten shots, each killing a man who had dreamed of capturing him.
The mercenaries at the front finally sensed danger.
"Shields up!" Vargo shouted.
Shield-bearers pushed to the front, hiding behind their round shields. But Viserys tossed aside the dragonbone bow and signaled.
Over two hundred guards drew the crossbows at their waists.
The mercenaries' shields only protected their upper bodies. Their legs were exposed.
The powerful crossbows, supplied by Lothan through Freygo's channels, crackled..Arrows slammed into calves and shins. Most struck the legs directly.
The bolts punched straight through.
The injuries didn't kill, but they crippled. Yet instead of breaking the mercenaries' morale, it enraged them further.
"Damn it, that little bastard's a sly one!"
Vargo spat a bloody glob on the ground and glared at Viserys.
Still, he refused to use arrows to kill the boy-king. He believed that with over a thousand men, he could take Viserys alive.
The mercenaries closed in around Viserys and his guards like a tightening iron band.
As they drew close enough to see faces, they realized the guards were truly just young men. Their killing intent intensified.
The traps had not cowed them—only fueled their violence.
Yigo's eyes burned strangely at the sight of Viserys' uncovered face.
The young king had exposed himself intentionally as bait, though he would have gagged if he knew what thoughts stirred in the priest's mind.
Crossbows had the advantage of being pre-loaded, but even their power could not stop the mercenary advance completely.
Vargo prepared to order another charge when someone beside him cried out, "Captain! What is that? Are those bows? Why are they so long?"
On the high platform beside Viserys stood around a hundred soldiers with longbows.
These were the longbows seized along the Rhoyne.
The guards, already excellent archers, had trained long enough to wield them to full effect. There were only a hundred, but in such a tight space, they were devastating.
"Shields up! Advance!"
Vargo sneered at the longbows. They looked unusual, but nothing extraordinary.
The distance was under thirty meters. He assumed shields could handle it.
He was wrong.
Viserys took up the dragonbone bow again and commanded, "Draw."
The creak of longbow strings was like death groaning.
"Loose!"
The white arrowstorm descended upon the mercenary ranks like the ghostly sweep of a reaper's scythe.
Over a hundred arrows tore through shields, pierced armor, and ripped open a gaping hole in their formation.
"Seven hells… what kind of bow is that?" Vargo's stomach churned. His legs twitched involuntarily. Every instinct screamed one word—run.
But the bowstrings creaked again.
Death raised its scythe once more.
His years of mercenary instinct told him that fleeing now would only waste lives and fail completely.
He gritted his teeth and roared like a maddened beast, "If you don't want to die, charge!"
The mercenaries knew the truth.
Viserys' archers were strong—but too few. If those longbowmen numbered twice or five times this amount, none of them would have continued forward.
Even so, they pressed on, pushing through the chevaux-de-frise and meeting the guards face-to-face.
The guards showed no fear. On the contrary, something about this moment felt strangely familiar to them, as though they had lived it before.
They thrust their spears in unison—swift, sharp, precise.
The mercenaries who had underestimated them paid heavily.
Angry, they tried to strike back, but shield-bearing guards immediately pushed forward, maintaining perfect coordination—like a well-oiled killing machine.
Whenever someone was wounded, another instantly dragged him back as a replacement stepped in.
Faced with these cold-eyed boys, Yigo sensed something unsettling. These were not like past victims who begged and whimpered.
These were born fighters. He could not fathom how such young soldiers had such rich experience.
Had they been blessed by warriors?
He did not know. He could not understand.
As a priest, he stood on the outer edge of the assault. If he wished to flee, now was the moment. But Vargo in the center had no such escape.
Repeated traps and losses had driven him into a frenzy.
His heart felt as if roasting over a fire. Could it be that the little king had prepared all this as bait to lure him in?
The thought chilled him.
He glanced toward the battlefield. Yigo's Dothraki were locked in combat with Arthur's riders.
The Kingsguard knight was deeply trapped in the Rhoynar formation, unable to break free.
He exhaled softly. He still had a chance.
Viserys, perched high, saw the abandoned warhorses twitching.
He looked toward Arthur's position. By chance—or by instinct—both he and Arthur lifted their looking glasses and spotted each other.
Arthur had no real enemies left before him.
Seeing Viserys nod through the lens, he lowered the looking glass and shouted to the men behind him:
"All riders, regroup and return to aid!"
___________
Upto 20 chapters ahead on patreon :-
patreon.com/BloodAncestor