197 AC (After the Conquest)
In a nameless stretch of wilderness on the continent of Westeros, the bloodiest conflict involving cold steel since the extinction of the Targaryen dragons was about to begin.
History would come to know this nameless field by the blood spilled upon it—Redgrass Field.
Spears stood like a forest of iron across the wasteland. A heavy, suffocating tension hung in the air, thick enough to choke on. Shield walls spanned the battlefield like mountain ranges, while a dense rain of arrows poured from a sky already yellowed with dust, blotting out the sun and plunging the world into a murky twilight.
The west wind howled, whipping up sand from the hooves of galloping warhorses. The blood staining the battlefield dried quickly in the gale, but the stench of iron and viscera remained. The clang of steel on steel and the wails of the dying echoed across the infinite expanse, a sound that felt like it would never fade.
Thousands of lives were extinguished in moments. Yet, the survivors trampled over the mountains of corpses without hesitation, marching forward. War was revealing its most cruel face, displaying its power to devour everything in its path.
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On a low hill in the distance, the Black Dragon on Red banner snapped in the wind like a struggling flame. Beneath it, the man called the "Warrior Reborn" was unclasping his armor with the help of a squire, stealing a moment of rest.
Silver-gold hair framed deep purple eyes that burned with intensity. The muscles across his broad shoulders and back were sculpted so perfectly they would make statues of the ancient gods look flawed.
The world knew the truth: When Daemon Blackfyre held the sword of the same name, the Warrior himself descended from the heavens to inhabit his flesh.
"I am Daemon Blackfyre, the true King of the Seven Kingdoms!"
The sword Blackfyre clove through the smoke, pointing straight at the heavens. "Those who stand in my way—"
The final notes of his declaration were cut short by the screech of metal in his memory. Only half an hour ago, when Daemon had torn through the earth in the aspect of the Warrior, this very sword had clipped the wings of the Vale...
He had led a heavy cavalry wedge, chiseling through the Knights of the Bloody Gate. When Lord Donnel Arryn's blue-and-white falcon banner faltered in the chaos, Daemon charged alone into the heart of the enemy formation.
His heavy cavalry cut through them like a hot knife through butter. The banners of the Vale snapped and fell.
The end of "Mad" Will Waynwood was almost farcical. The axe of the fierce Vale commander had just split a Blackfyre shield when Daemon's blade took him from behind. Waynwood was still laughing maniacally as he fell, his bloody teeth biting into the mud.
His silver-plated battle axe spun seven times in the air before burying itself in the skull of his own herald.
A knight of Ninestars tried to catch the Black Dragon's throat with a morningstar, but Blackfyre moved like a viper, slipping between the chains to pin the knight—weapon and all—to Lord Arryn's flagstaff. The moon-and-falcon sigil slid down the pole, slick with blood and brains.
Donnel Arryn's near-death moment played out in slow motion: Daemon's tip was half an inch from the Lord's throat when a sword, clear as ice, suddenly caught the blow.
"Lady Forlorn is here."
The voice of Gwayne Corbray was colder than the steel.
The surviving Vale cavalry saw only the Kingsguard's white cloak, already soaked in blood and mud, but the hand gripping the sword was as steady as a rock.
The clash of the two blades sang a requiem of death. Every swing of Blackfyre brought waves of molten heat, distorting the air; Lady Forlorn countered like a polar wind, frost forming where the edge passed.
When the two Valyrian steel blades collided, they didn't spark fire—they erupted in ghostly blue flames, as if the dragon souls trapped within the steel during the forging thousands of years ago were screaming.
The fierce battle evolved into a brutal dance of metal:
The 30th Clash: Daemon spun and shattered Corbray's greaves. The iron shards embedded in the leg bone like crushed diamonds in agate.
The 105th Clash: Lady Forlorn sliced the dragon-head ornament off Daemon's pauldron. The severed silver head bounced into the eye socket of a distant archer, who screamed and clutched his face.
The 143rd Clash: Blackfyre sliced open the white enameled helm. Hot blood sprayed from Corbray's eyes and cheeks, sizzling into steam as it hit the ripples of the Valyrian steel.
When Daemon's blade finally rested against the Kingsguard's throat, he saw a strange vision reflected in his opponent's eyes. It wasn't the smoke of Redgrass Field, but the training yard of King's Landing, twenty years ago. A seven-year-old Daemon held a wooden sword to the neck of a ten-year-old Gwayne, the boys laughing on the ground as they enacted "Aegon the Conqueror vs. The Last Dragonknight."
"Do you yield, future White Knight?" The silver-haired boy in his memory grinned, missing a front tooth.
In reality, Daemon suddenly withdrew his sword. He reversed the grip and used the pommel to knock the blinded, critically wounded friend unconscious, shielding him as the Royalist forces retreated.
"Get him out of here! Redtusk, if this noble fool dies, I'll drink wine from your skull!"
As Redtusk dragged Corbray into the smoke, Daemon's sword carved a deep gouge in the earth. That scar in the ground would feed the fantasies of singers for generations, though none would know it was a true dragon's futile struggle against destiny.
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Back in the present, Daemon turned from his brief respite to face the new tide of death. Under the dim sun, Blackfyre glowed with a dark red sheen, like a living thing that had drunk its fill of blood.
The first wave of arrows swarmed like poisonous wasps. He spun and swung, the scream of Valyrian steel actually overpowering the whistle of the arrows. Seven shafts were cut into fourteen pieces; three others grazed his dragon-scale armor, scraping blinding sparks off the shoulder plate.
The second charge followed immediately—dozens of Vale knights rushing forward with sharpened steel.
Daemon laughed. It was a sound that recalled Aegon the Conqueror burning Harrenhal, a laugh that lit up the sky with dragonfire.
"Come!" he roared, counter-charging.
Blackfyre became an arc of death. The first horse's front hooves were severed at the knees, throwing its rider into a forest of spears. The second strike pierced the gaps in a suit of plate, the point exiting the knight's back skewering a beating heart. The third knight's kite shield flew into the air, arm still attached, raining blood onto his terrified comrade's visor.
When the last man tried to rein in his horse to flee, Daemon leaped, grabbing the horse's tail and vaulting onto its back. Blackfyre thrust up through the knight's jaw, the muffled crack of the skull sounding like a ripe melon hitting the floor. The surviving warhorse galloped on, dragging its master's headless corpse and leaving a trail of organs like a scarlet path.
But the true threat was only now baring its fangs.
On a distant ridge, the banner of Brynden "Bloodraven" Rivers rose. His white dragon-bone bow was in hand, and his cloak of raven feathers surged in the wind like a living thing. Three hundred archers of the Raven's Teeth appeared on the flank, their poison-tipped arrowheads glowing with a ghostly blue sheen in the shadows.
"Black Dragon! I am here!" The scream cut through the battlefield. "For the True Dragon!"
Daemon's supporters crawled from the piles of corpses—the fiery horse of Bracken and the golden castles of Peake gathered in the smoke, forming a broken shield wall once more. But the arrows were faster than loyalty.
The boy holding the Black Dragon banner was only twelve years old when the arrows pierced him—Daemon's eldest son, Aegon. He fell to his knees, but his bloodied hand refused to let go of the staff. Silver hair and the crimson dragon crest tangled in the wind, singing a dirge as the banner dipped to kiss the earth.
Daemon saw Osgrey Bracken pinned to the scorched earth by three spears, still hacking at horse legs with a broken sword; he saw Gormon Peake's gilded breastplate caved in like scrap metal, spitting pieces of his own internal organs as he charged the enemy lines...
Loyalty, in the end, could not outrun Death.
Blackfyre hummed with a vibration like a dragon's roar. Daemon split two Royce rune-knights in half, stepping on their convulsing bodies to leap onto a massive boulder.
An arrow grazed his neck, leaving a burning trail of blood. He looked to the peak of the hill—Bloodraven's single, blood-red eye was locked onto him through the chaos. Brynden knew: if the boy Aegon still had a breath left in him, Daemon would never abandon him to flee.
The final charge began, and just as quickly, it ended.
The rain of arrows paused at a wave of the Bloodraven's hand. Across the distance, their eyes met. Daemon's words drifted away with the bloody foam from his lips:
"Brynden..."
Daemon's lips moved silently, his sword tip pointing toward the hill.
The final charge was a flash of silver lightning. The moment Daemon leaped from the rock, the silver chain binding his hair snapped. Three hundred poison arrows descended like a flock of ravens feeding on carrion.
The first arrow pierced his knee. He heard Aegon's cry twist into a dragon's roar.
The second arrow tore through his lung. In his hallucination, a dragon as black as coal was breathing dark fire.
When the third arrow nailed him in the chest, Blackfyre slipped from his hand, plunging into the scorched earth like the bone of a fallen dragon.
In his dying moments, the smoke of Redgrass Field twisted and coiled, taking the shape of a black dragon sweeping across the sky.
It was absurd. But it was the cruel truth.
Daemon Blackfyre—wielder of the sword of kings, the Black Dragon, the Warrior Reborn, the man who split the Seven Kingdoms for a year and for whom half the realm had bled—died just like that, beneath the rain of arrows commanded by his bastard half-brother, Brynden Rivers.
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