His sword hand trembled violently as he watched the mob surge toward him like demons from hell, eyes burning with naked murderous rage. He let out a shrill scream.
"Kill them! Quickly—"
Before the words left his lips, several rioters at the front lunged like starving beasts. Ignoring the Kingsguard who tried to block their path—only to be instantly overwhelmed—they pounced on Joffrey.
"No! My son!"
Cersei screamed, her voice breaking with anguish as she tried to rush forward, but Tyrion grabbed her and held her back with all his strength.
Joffrey flailed his sword helplessly, but within moments, several thick, filthy hands seized him.
"Take him! Take him to the Great Sept of Baelor! Let the gods judge this bastard!"
The High Sparrow's hoarse yet commanding voice rang out through the mob.
"Judge the bastard king!"
"Take him to the Sept!"
Amid the frenzy of roaring voices, Joffrey was dragged away by countless hands, his feet lifted from the ground as he was pulled from the Great Hall and swallowed by the black tide beyond the doors.
Only his desperate screams and curses echoed through the chamber.
Cersei stared blankly as her son was dragged away, her body collapsing as though her soul had been ripped from it. She slumped to the floor, a silent wail escaping her, her beautiful face twisted by unbearable pain and hatred.
But the mob did not stop there. They turned on the nobles, roaring as they charged forward.
Their eyes gleamed with bloodlust as they fixed on Tyrion and the others.
"Too many of them!" Tyrion shouted to Bronn and the remaining guards. "Take Cersei and Tommen! Pycelle, Littlefinger, Varys, and that Stark girl—move! If you want to live, stay close!"
Without hesitation, Bronn grabbed the limp Cersei and slung her over his shoulder like a sack.
The group rushed toward a wooden walkway Tyrion had secretly built along the Red Keep's walls after receiving Tywin's letter—a last escape route.
"Move!" Tyrion barked, his voice taut with urgency.
He yanked the trembling Tommen close as Pycelle stumbled after them, half crawling, half running.
Like cornered dogs, they scrambled down the narrow passage, fleeing the Red Keep's collapsing walls.
...
The square before the Great Sept of Baelor.
Once a holy place bathed in the glory of the Seven, it had become a slaughterhouse—a stage for blood and judgment.
The square was packed with a black sea of people.
Joffrey, stripped of his ornate armor, wore only a torn shirt and bloodstained breeches, mud clinging to his knees as he was forced down before the Sept's high stone steps.
His once arrogant face was now twisted in terror, streaked with tears and filth. He trembled like a leaf in the wind, his golden hair plastered to his face with sweat, tears, and grime.
"I am the King! I am your King! Let me go, you filthy worms! My grandfather will kill you all—every last one of you!"
His screams, cracked and weak with fear, were drowned out by the deafening roar of the mob.
"King?"
The High Sparrow stepped forward slowly, his withered face utterly expressionless.
"Your Grace, the gods are just. Your cruelty, your family's sins, the inhuman death you dealt to Lord Eddard Stark upon this sacred ground—all have provoked the wrath of the Seven. Famine and chaos are their judgment. And now, the hour has come."
Joffrey stared into the High Sparrow's eyes—cold, devoid of humanity—and was seized by a terror so great he could not even scream.
"Kill him! Judge him!"
"See what blood runs in his veins! Lion? Stag? Or dragon?!"
A starving woman shrieked, eyes glowing sickly green, and the crowd erupted in savage agreement.
"Cut him open! See what color his heart is!"
"Eat him! Feed the gods' wrath with his flesh!"
The frenzied cries rose higher and higher, rolling like thunder across the square.
Then, a boy—so thin his bones showed through his skin—was shoved forward. He looked no more than fourteen or fifteen, once perhaps a butcher's apprentice, but now so starved he could barely stand.
In his hand, he clutched a rusty, battered cleaver, his eyes hollow and lifeless.
"You! Boy! Come here!"
A burly mob leader with a brutish face jabbed a finger toward Joffrey, then pointed at the knife in the youth's hand. "Give this bastard king a clean death! Let the gods witness our resolve!"
The boy stared blankly at Joffrey, trembling and curled on the ground, then glanced at the rusted knife in his hand. His throat bobbed as he swallowed hard.
He staggered toward Joffrey.
"No... don't... please... I beg you..."
Joffrey's voice broke as he pleaded, tears and snot streaming down his face, his eyes fixed in terror on the rust-stained blade.
The boy said nothing.
He gripped the hilt with both hands, gathered all the strength he had left, and brought the knife down hard on Joffrey's exposed neck.
A wet, sickening sound.
The first strike—weak, off balance.
The dull, rusty blade sank deep between Joffrey's shoulder and neck. Blood erupted like a fountain. Joffrey screamed—a high, animalistic wail—as his body convulsed violently.
"Ah—!!"
Pain and terror tore the last of his strength from him, and he thrashed wildly. Several rioters immediately pinned him down.
The boy's face was splattered with blood. Panting heavily, he yanked the knife free, a glint of feral excitement flickering in his eyes.
He raised the blade again.
Crack!
The second blow landed just below the first wound—deeper this time. The crunch of splintering bone rang clear.
Joffrey's screams cut off. His eyes went wide, frozen in a mask of agony and disbelief.
Thud!
The third strike came weaker, glancing off his back. The blade tore a deep gash down to the bone, but it wasn't enough to kill.
Joffrey could no longer cry out. His body spasmed soundlessly.
The boy, nearly spent, shook as he gripped the knife. He glanced at Joffrey's twitching body, then at the mob screaming for blood, something hard flashing in his eyes.
He summoned the last of his strength and lifted the knife high.
Crack!
The fourth blow.
This time, the dull, corroded blade found the shattered vertebra.
A wet snap.
A head crowned with a few strands of tangled golden hair tumbled into the mud.
Joffrey's headless body convulsed a few times, then collapsed into the spreading pool of blood, motionless.
The brutal king had met the same end as Lord Eddard Stark—slain before the Great Sept of Baelor.
For a moment, silence suffocated the square.
Then came the roar—vast, deafening, unrestrained.
"The bastard is dead!"
"Glory to the gods!"
"Flesh! Flesh!"
The mob surged forward, throwing themselves upon the still-twitching corpse and the severed head rolling in the mud. They tore at the warm flesh and entrails with anything they could grasp.
The screams had ended. What followed were the sounds of chewing, sucking, and moaning—horrifying and ecstatic.
The sacred stone steps before the Great Sept of Baelor had become a blood-soaked slaughterhouse, a banquet table in hell.
One thick-faced thug grabbed Joffrey's head, caked in mud and blood. He stared into the eyes still frozen wide in death and laughed wildly.
"The king's head? Hah! Perfect for my piss pot!"
Without shame, he loosened his belt and, to the riotous laughter and cheers of the mob, relieved himself upon the head that once wore the crown of the Seven Kingdoms.
Soon, the defiled head was raised on a spear.
More rioters spat on it, hurled mud, and heaped insults without restraint.
At last, they hung it upon the highest point of the Gate of the Gods.
"Open the gates! Welcome His Grace Renly!"
"Welcome the true king!"
"We'll have food again!"
After feasting on the "bastard king's" flesh and venting their madness, the last shreds of reason—and the memory of Renly's "gift" of grain—took hold.
The surviving mob rushed toward the gates, pounding the bolts and winches with whatever they could find.
They would open the gates, to welcome the "merciful" King Renly, who had brought them food.
As if, once the gates opened, all their hunger, sin, and madness could be washed away by the golden-rose banners waiting beyond.
Upon the Gate of the Gods, Joffrey's urine-soaked, desecrated head swayed gently in the wind—its hollow eye sockets gazing down upon the city.
...
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