Outside King's Landing, beyond the Gates of the Gods.
Lord Randyll Tarly sat astride his warhorse, commanding twenty thousand elite infantry and archers from the Reach. They were stationed here as the army's rear guard and reserve, keeping watch for any possible threat from Tywin.
Suddenly, a series of deafening explosions echoed in his ears.
Randyll yanked hard on the reins, his warhorse rearing and neighing in alarm.
"What was that?" he barked at the officer beside him.
The officer looked bewildered, tilting his head to listen. Moments later, the unending roar of explosions rolled from within the city, and the ground beneath them began to tremble.
Randyll's head snapped toward King's Landing. The face that had always been as solid as stone drained of all color.
He saw the infernal green flames rise from the city—saw that wave of death sweeping across it at a speed beyond imagination. He watched as the Red Keep, symbol of royal power, crumbled like a sandcastle under the blinding green light.
A silent scream tore through his mind. His son, Dickon Tarly, had entered King's Landing with the king.
No one could survive such destruction.
"No!!!!"
A heart-shattering scream erupted beside him. It was Loras Tyrell.
Renly's closest guard had been patrolling the outer camp. Now his handsome face twisted in despair, his eyes burning red. He watched the entire city consumed by green fire—and the last thread of his sanity snapped.
Without even glancing at Randyll, he dug his spurs into his horse's flanks. His magnificent white stallion bolted forward like an arrow loosed from the string, charging straight toward the Gates of the Gods and the green inferno beyond.
"Loras! Stop! Come back!"
Randyll Tarly roared, his voice breaking.
He knew too well what that green flame was.
Wildfire. To ride into it meant only ash and oblivion.
He spurred his own horse, desperate to give chase—but it was far too late.
The tide of destruction, having devoured the entire city, surged outward without pause. It crushed the inner walls, swept through the districts, and in an instant, reached the Gates of the Gods.
The massive, iron-bound gates shattered the moment the emerald flames touched them. The wall of fire burst outward, spilling beyond the city.
Loras's white figure—resolute and fearless—was swallowed whole before he was even a hundred paces from the gates.
The white horse, the shining armor, the proud posture—
All vanished in an instant within the churning emerald blaze, leaving no trace behind.
"No—!"
Randyll's eyes bulged as he watched helplessly, the young knight disappearing before his very eyes.
A wave of grief and fury nearly brought him to his knees. But he was a soldier born of war. In that moment between life and death, the cold logic etched into his bones crushed his despair.
The Red Keep was gone. The king was gone. His heir was gone. Loras was gone.
Any hesitation now, and his twenty thousand men from the Reach would be lost as well—consumed at the very edge of this fiery hell.
"Retreat!!"
Randyll drew his sword and bellowed with every ounce of strength in his body. "All troops, hear me! Fall back from King's Landing—now!"
His voice cracked like thunder, snapping the soldiers out of their stunned paralysis.
The Reach host broke into chaos. Banners tilted, formations shattered, and men fled in a frantic rush away from the burning city.
They threw down shields and helmets, running for their lives, curses and screams mingling with the desperate shouts of their officers.
Behind them, the green inferno kept roaring outward, waves of scorching air nipping at their backs.
Then, through the chaos, Randyll's ears caught another sound—deep and rhythmic, growing louder from the north.
It was not thunder.
It was the pounding of countless iron hooves striking the earth—the sound of a cavalry charge.
Randyll's heart sank. He yanked the reins tight, forcing his panicked horse to rear and halt. Turning sharply, he stared toward the northern horizon.
A massive cloud of dust rose into the sky—like a colossal, churning dragon of earth and smoke, sweeping toward their shattered army at terrifying speed.
At the forefront of the cloud, beneath the blazing noonday sun, dazzling gold light rippled like a surging tide—countless crimson-and-gold banners snapping in the wind.
Upon each banner, a golden lion roared proudly against the gale.
Lannisters.
Tywin Lannister's cavalry.
It's over.
That single, despairing thought filled Randyll Tarly's mind.
Behind them raged the wildfire inferno, devouring all. Ahead thundered the unstoppable charge of the Westerlands iron cavalry. His soldiers' morale had broken completely; their formation was in chaos, nothing more than a herd of panicked lambs awaiting slaughter.
Tywin Lannister's cavalry showed no hesitation. Their wedge formation plunged straight into the disordered Reach ranks, an iron tide crashing into flesh and blood—ripping it apart in an instant.
Spears thrust through bodies with sickening thuds, and warhorses' hooves crushed the fallen without mercy.
The Westerlands riders carved through the chaos, every swing of their blades painting the air red.
The Reach soldiers had lost all will to fight. They ran screaming, baring their backs to the killing steel.
Randyll Tarly swung his ancestral greatsword, Heartsbane, cleaving down a Lannister rider who came at him. He fought to rally what remained of his men amid the storm of panic.
"Hold! Men of Horn Hill, to me! Form up! Form up!" he roared, but his voice was swallowed by the thunder of slaughter.
Few answered.
Fear had shattered the army's spine.
He could only watch as the soldiers he had trained with such discipline fell like fields of wheat before a scythe, as Lannister banners of gold and crimson tore through the remnants of his force.
The battle was lost.
To stay meant death for them all.
"Retreat!"
His voice broke into a ragged bellow. "Those still standing, follow me southwest! Back to the Reach!"
He wrenched his horse around, refusing to watch the massacre any longer. Swinging his greatsword, he led the handful of survivors who could still follow, hacking a narrow path of blood through the chaos as they fled for their lives.
...
On a distant hill, Tywin Lannister sat astride his tall, purebred warhorse, just behind the center of his charging cavalry line.
His eyes locked on the distant city now swallowed by emerald flames, and fury burned deep within him.
Wildfire.
All of King's Landing was being consumed by it.
He had come expecting to strike in unison with his informants within Renly's army—to crush their unstable foothold in one decisive blow.
Instead, he had been greeted not by battle, but by a sea of green fire.
Every spy he had painstakingly placed within Renly's ranks was now nothing but smoke rising from that infernal blaze.
Tywin's expression hardened, anger deepening by the second.
Whoever had unleashed this wildfire catastrophe had doomed the Lannisters' name to infamy across all Westeros.
First, Joffrey's execution of Eddard Stark.
Now, wildfire obliterating King's Landing—burning Renly, the lords and knights of the Reach and Stormlands, and hundreds of thousands of innocents to ash.
Cold sweat trickled down Tywin's back.
After this, both the Reach and the Stormlands would never rest until House Lannister was destroyed.
Damn it.
Who could have been insane enough to order King's Landing burned with wildfire?
...
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