Post by The Forgotten God on Mar 25, 2015 10:22:00 GMT -5
October 31st, 381
Her door wasn’t locked, but then there wasn’t much point in bothering, she thought. Dorne is tough enough to live in, hot even in the winter during the day, colder than Eddard’s Rest at night, it seemed. The dry air never held any warmth at all. And since the word had arrived from Yronwood, telling of the great lord’s betrayal, sleep had come only in fits and spurts, punctuated by dreams dominated by the thoughts of the imminent, if delayed, decision on her fate.
They had killed Hatteras first, the seer, or the supposed seer. No use being a fortune teller if your own fate is a shadow, she thought. But, magical or no, the men had cut her down all the same, right as she had come to deliver the news to her, crying over her captive sister and nieces and concerned over the fate of her nephew. He wasn’t dead, she had said, not dead but vanished. There were fates worse than death. Bryce Dayne’s men had shown her that when they killed the Princess’s most famed adviser.
For days they had screamed, her mother in law’s best and most loyal retainers. Marissa Toland had lasted two days before her cries had finally faded to a merciful silence. Some of the Orphans had thought to resist. The orphans were few, now, or fled up the Greenblood as far into the wastes of central Dorne as they could get. They would be hunted down, or so the dark knight had said. He was the worst of the lot. Lord Bryce’s eastern field commander was from King’s Landing, he had said, a nobody landed knight near Stokeworth, now in charge of six thousand men and Sunspear. Kyle Nobody. That’s how she had named him, in her head. The locals could call him the Bloody Foot all they wanted, his favored method of torture meriting the name, but to Meera Martell he was Kyle No-Name.
They had only come for her the once, when Hattera’s blood had sprayed over her, drenching her in the hot crimson wetness. The first man had torn her dress, bruised her, made her nearly cry, before the No-Name had pulled him off. Too valuable, he had said. King Bryce wanted his puppy with her tail wagging. Puppy. That was the word. He had even set his houndmaster to be her chief ‘caretaker’. Perhaps he thought the dogs would intimidate her. She smiled a bit grimly. Animals liked her. He had lived two days before she had managed to talk to his dogs, like she had done since she was young. Convince them that she was better for their future than he was. See through their eyes. Taste his flesh as they had mauled him when he had made the inevitable decision to try claiming her as his own.
Since then, Nobody had had four of his female guards around her. They were hard-eyed and tall, spoke no Common, and had treated her with more disdain than their men ever did. Meera wondered how skilled they actually were at their weapons. Robyn had studied dagger usage, which Meera couldn’t understand all those years ago, but she wished she had thought of the idea with less distaste now. She was lucky she even knew which end to stab someone with.
The waves crashed against the cliffs outside her window while she stared to the north, the cold wind not bothering her much. Lord Bryce’s banner hung from the ships in the harbor; real warships, not like the Dornish skiffs that swept the seas for pirates. As she sat in the night, her guards suddenly stood at attention. No Name had come. He brought another man with him, a small man, dark haired, with the too-quick eyes Meera distrusted. A coward’s eyes. Cowards were a woman prisoner’s worst enemy. Benjen had told her that once, or perhaps it had been Kalvin on one of his visits while her brother had squired for him. Cowards were used to being scared, and their greatest pleasure was making someone more scared than they were. Definitely Kalvin. His concluding point had been to explain why he always beheaded cowards. Rapers in training. No Name saw her regard the little man with contempt and chuckled.
“She doesn’t like you, Elias.” The small man chuckled.
“Maybe I’ll grow on her. We have a long ride to get better acquainted.” No Name shrugged at that.
“Not too acquainted, lest you want to explain to King Bryce…”
“I know, I know. Enough already.” Elias turned around and stuck his head out the door, then called quietly for someone. Two someones. No, four. Huge someones. Meera involuntarily shrank back as the huge men approached. The chains were heavy as they clapped on her wrists. Quietly they scooped her up and carried her away, not a sound being uttered. Elias watched with glee as they waltzed her down the stairs and into a blacked-out wagon, climbing in with her, hot breath running down her back. Animals. Worse than animals, animals that could not be convinced or melded with or persuaded. As she felt the wagon start to move, she took in a deep breath. A small hand patted the top of hers. “There, there, Princess Meera. Best relax; it’s a long ride to Blackhaven.”
///
November 18th
A long ride didn’t properly describe it, she reflected as the wagon ceased its seeming endless forward momentum. The back flap opened, at last, the third time she had seen real sunlight since Sunspear. Her eyes blinked in pain at the rising sun, coming up fast over the rolling mountains of the Marches. Once she had seen it crossing a river when the wagon had flooded and they had had her swim next to the cart while they forded, and once again at Yronwood, where she had seen her goodmother and sisters in their lonely cells in the castle. She still had an ache from where the traitor lord’s son had struck her for spitting on him and his coward’s face. It was a worthwhile ache. Pain was temporary, pride was forever. THAT had been her father speaking. She had had plenty of time to wonder what they’d tell her if they could speak to her now, chained and in her black wagon with the four mute guards and the handsy little prick Elias. If she made it through this, she was going to kill him herself, she promised herself that. Take her brother’s longsword and just drive it through the little bastard’s stomach until he squealed for mercy, then…give him none. Gut wounds were the worst death. More family wisdom.
Back to the present, she scolded herself. She saw an army as she looked, hundreds of tents with banners of all sorts. Dayne, Fowler, Selmy, Yronwood, some sort of sellswords with a green chicken, which she immediately dubbed the Moldy Cocks, and more. Ten thousand, she guessed, maybe twelve. Kalvin had taught Benjen and her to take the number of tents and multiply by eleven. To count the tents, take the fires and multiply by four. Two hundred or so fires…ten thousand men, about. All surrounding the last Red God castle in the Marches. Her chains were struck off, and the men brought her to the largest tent. She doubted she had to multiply by eleven to figure out who lived in that one. She was dirty and her clothes needed changing, but she doubted Lord-King Bryce cared about how she looked.
The man sat alone in his tent, a crown on his head. Jon’s crown, the dead Prince of Dorne’s tribute to his vanquisher. He waved to the men and, despite a protest from the rat Elias, they left at his look. He turned his attention to Meera. His violet eyes stared deadly at her, like there was no life at all in the vessel of a man before her. “Wine?” he asked, not politely, not rudely, just asking as though they had met at a tavern or something. He poured a glass and set it on the table in front of her. She hesitated, then drank it. It tasted sweet, oddly sweet, and she drained it in two swallows. “Blackhaven will fall soon,” he said, almost absently, “and you’ll have a bed to sleep in when it does. Until then, you stay here.” She sees a small cot in one corner of his room. Definitely not any potential for nightmares, sleeping in the same tent as the source of ninety percent of them. None at all. She wanted to protest but kept her mouth shut. A pile of clothes sat on the cot, warm clothes, suitable for the chilly air of the mountains. “Put them on. Don’t get sick.” She walked to the cot and looked back.
“Is there a curtain I can dra-“ Bryce snapped in.
“Put the clothes on. If I want you naked, you’ll be naked.” Meera turned her back to him and changed as quickly as she could. She washed her face in a basin of hot water, heated by a tiny fire burning with…was that blood? Sorcerers, she swore to herself. The heat was real, though, and it still made her feel like a whole new woman when she was clean. Gather yourself, remember your roots. Let him know House Stark doesn’t scare, even the helpless princesses. Bryce Dayne feeds on fear, she remembered. Feasts on it like the strange Lord Crowl on his enemies’ bodies. Discomfort or embarrassment leads to fear. When she came back to him, he had another glass ready. A servant entered with food, and she tore into it, shamelessly. Bryce Dayne watched her wordlessly.
“Why am I here, King Dayne?” she said, the title coming out only reluctantly. “Why bring me to the Stormlands?” The dark king stared at her, then spoke, his deep voice rumbling.
“To witness, Princess Meera. To bring the message to your father, your brother. I am the King of Dorne and the Marches, and of Storm’s End.” He stared at her until she fidgeted, a long two minutes of increasing creepiness. No one can pretend not to be intimidated by Bryce Dayne forever. He continues after a moment. “Prince Aaron Baratheon and Lord Morrigen are sending all their might against me. They shall arrive in a tenday or so. You will tell your family what you see.” Meera’s eyes narrowed.
“They won’t listen to me, and they certainly do not fear you, my lord.” She was impressed with herself at how easily the lie came out. “And they fear your sons…I mean, son, even less.” She saw the fist coming from a mile away, a second before she even said it, but Bryce Dayne’s hand did not strike. It stopped an inch short, then his grimy fingers, slick with the grease from the cooked rabbit, brushed her forehead gently. She shrank back but her muscles had seized up, and an icy stab of fear went through her heart. She couldn’t move…drowning with no water, no air, no breath…” and then she felt water, warm and sticky, running down her legs. Bryce looked to her with his dead eyes.
“Lord Kalvin will scream Markus’s name before he dies, and that cunt he married will scream it even louder. Mention him again and you will be ended.” Meera gasped and finally nodded as she choked. Her empty bladder shriveled as she tried to compose herself. Bryce looked at her. “Change again. Don’t soil these ones.” Meera put the second set of woolen clothes on. At least they weren’t purple and white. Black and silver suited her much better. “Have you ever seen a battle? Come out. Watch.”
They climbed a small hill overlooking the field. Archers dueled on the plain below, firing flaming arrows into the besieged castle. Massive stones were launched and slammed into the walls. Men screamed in pain and were carted off to be tended to. On the walls, she could see the defenders trying to stamp out fires and match the Dornishmen’s volume of arrows. Bryce sits on a chair he has brought to him while they watch. Somehow, she had pictured a commander being more…involved. But even a sorcerer cannot attack a stone wall.
An hour or so later, the breach occurred. The walls, weakened by a battle fought a year ago, finally give way. Men pour into the gaps, and dozens die on the attackers’ side, but men always get through, and in another hour the fight is over. The Dondarrion’s in the castle are executed, the lord having fallen in battle. Meera hoped more had survived, perhaps in the relief army. Prisoners are marched out to a camp set up to the east. Bryce rises and stretches like he has woken from a nap. “Let’s go find your new room, Princess.” Cheers can be head from the field over the screams of the wounded.
///
December 4th, 381
Meera looked out over the host assembled outside the gates. More than three hundred tents. Plenty more. Eighteen thousand men, at least, she figured. More, if the Moldy Cocks slept twenty five or thirty to their huge tents. She hugged the fur blanket to her as she stepped onto the balcony. Across the mountains, at the edge of her vision, she saw the long column approaching. Stags were on their banners, and hogs, crows, and more. Prince Aaron’s army had arrived. So, unfortunately, had Frances Dayne. Four days earlier he had offered to check her teeth for deformities. It had been literally the only time in her life she had ever been thankful to see Bryce Dayne. Now they were out there, and she was alone. ALMOST alone, she corrected herself. Her new guards were the terror twins. One was short and stocky and angry, a woman from Hellholt or Sandstone, armed with a heavy mace Meera doubted she could even lift, and the second was long and lithe and beautiful, with a spear and a crossbow so small she could aim and fire it one handed. The short one watched her with too curious an eye while she bathed, and Meera was not naïve enough to think she was worried about her safety.
All day the two armies set up. She saw France’s banner in the center, Bryce’s on the right, Yronwood’s on the left. The cavalry was with Yronwood, on the most open part of the field. Across the way it looked like the other army had two formations, stag on her right and crow on her left. Trumpets sounded and the men moved to battle. She had pictured them running at each other, but the two lines walked at a determined but measured pace. Too much energy to run, too much disorder caused. Lines kept you safe. Arrows filled the sky and the screams began, audible even over the sound of steel. For ten minutes the lines hacked and slashed, then both sides backed up as if by mutual agreement, to catch breath and regroup. The cavalry had not yet entered the fray. Arrows picked off men too weary already to hold their shields.
On the left, Yronwood deployed his cavalry in a charge. Aaron’s horse met it head on, and Meera watched with sickened fascination as the men danced and waved but mostly just absorbed hit after hit, no room to move in the melee. Aaron’s massive hammer struck Yronwood’s bodyguard and the men fell. The lord swung around, but the huge prince batted his weapon aside and the two struck again and again at each other. Then a man was too slow, a strike wasn’t stopped by shield or sword, and the Bloodroyal fell from his horse, missing half his skull. Meera felt her breakfast rise but swallowed it down. She drank wine from the bottle to keep her stomach from churning.
While the duel occurred, the center of the Dornish line was pressed hard, giving ground. Frances was no leader, she noted, although he killed half a dozen in just a minute of fighting. She looked to the right, htough, and there she saw why Bryce Dayne was so feared. The second charge had happened, and the sorcerer walked with his men into the line. As the stormlanders charged towards him, his men countercharged, and all of a sudden about a hundred men simply broke and ran panicking. Meera blinked in confusion as the Starfall men at arms exploited the gap, their heavy foot a match now that they had split Baxter Morrigen’s wall. The clever opponent sent his reserves in, and rallied the fleeing men, but he was being pushed back steadily. Prince Aaron’s men on the right broke through the cavalry, hundreds of Dornish dying, and he turned his horse inward to finish the battle. Meera smiled as the Dornish fled.
And then her smile died. Out of the woods, behind Lord Aaron’s charging cavalry, came more men. Thousands more. They had banners she didn’t recognize, but all had three tigers on their major standards. Volantenes, she thought. The five thousand or more collapsed on the right flank of the cavalry, and she watched in mounting horror as the Kingsland army folded on the right. Aaron cut his way free, slaying the SECOND lord Yronwood of the battle on his way out of the fight. The Kingslanders were well disciplined and formed a new line to meet the threat. Swords clashed and spears and maces were wielded with valor and skill. Meera saw a woman with a bow slaying men by the dozens it seemed with her group of women warriors. Her onslaught led her to conflict with the Volantene commander, and she slew him in a duel of shocking brevity.
For a moment the tide turned, but then there were too many men and Frances Dayne was there, his infantry pushing hard into the line. He fought with Aaron a moment before the press of men pushed them both back. Dust obscured Meera’s vision, then, and she turned her eye back to the increasing disaster on the right. Bryce’s men were seemingly empowered by their fearsome king, and even Morrigen’s brilliant fighting only held the line barely. Blackhaven’s garrison commander shouted an order, and Bryce’s men poured from the keep into the field to join the fight. The few hundred men went round and round the lines to the far right flank, and at last the line shattered.
No man in Westeros routs so well as King Bryce Dayne. His troops press relentlessly, inexorably, ruthlessly slaughtering all they came across. Baxter Morrigen was struck by an arrow and fell, killing three men before being overwhelmed. His men are rallied by Lord Cafferen, but he falls too, and the slaughter continues. One of Prince Aaron’s retainers rallies the survivors and they retreat east, towards Storm’s End.
Prince Aaron’s force fared a bit better, facing an inferior commander, but the numbers force him back. Karla Storm’s warrior women spearhead a fighting retreat, arrows flying. Frances throws all his men and the Volantene mercenaries into a last charge, and the Kingslanders retreat north in an orderly but much reduced fashion.
The battlefield is even more terrifying once the fighting is done. Without the sound of swords to make noise, the screams of the wounded and dying are even more pronounced. Meera watches the critically injured being slain with tears in her eyes. Literally thousands of men died, a dozen lords, hundreds of knights, and more are wounded. All those men…that whole army…gone. Meera leaned heavily against the ailing and watched as the triumphant soldiers celebrate.
The last thing she saw, hours later, before going inside to bury her head in her pillow to drown out the song of the dying men, was King Bryce Dayne, pardoning thousands of prisoners on the promise they fight for him now.
///
December 9th, 381
The ambassador had gone out weeks ago. Garen Dayne, the new Knight of High Hermitage. Meera pulled her knees to her chin on the bed and huddled up. The knight sought a trade, she had heard, her for a truce, or some such. Ser Frances had told her the day before he had hoped it would break down, on one of those rare occasions he had managed to corner her away from King and guard. “Then we can be married,” he had said, his perfect teeth shining, “and you can have a beautiful Dayne babe to hold. You’ll have the same number of teeth, too,” he promised. She hadn’t shuddered, then. No fear. Frances was a coward. Meera would bow to no coward’s threats.
Now she was in her room alone, waiting on the word of her fate. Rumors were flying in from Dorne. Lady Uller had bent the knee, Lord Qorgyle now the sole resistor in House Martell’s name. Sandstone was isolated and thinly people, but the location gave any invading army pause.Princess Nalya had been flayed and hanged. She doubted that. Bryce would kill her himself, in public, she was quite sure. Nina Martell had been shipped off to lands unknown, or not. Meera hoped not. Her sisters by marriage were her friends, had helped her adjust to the sandy deserts.
Her stocky guard roughly grabbed her and led her to Bryce’s room. The king had her sit next to a fire and grinned. “Ser Garen will be arriving shortly. Your family is gathering for your brother’s wedding. I hope nothing…untoward happens.” Meera gripped the edges of her dress so hard her knuckles went white. “Elias is always so hard to control.” In the fire, she saw, was her brother talking to a blonde woman. “Like a rabid dog…”
Her door wasn’t locked, but then there wasn’t much point in bothering, she thought. Dorne is tough enough to live in, hot even in the winter during the day, colder than Eddard’s Rest at night, it seemed. The dry air never held any warmth at all. And since the word had arrived from Yronwood, telling of the great lord’s betrayal, sleep had come only in fits and spurts, punctuated by dreams dominated by the thoughts of the imminent, if delayed, decision on her fate.
They had killed Hatteras first, the seer, or the supposed seer. No use being a fortune teller if your own fate is a shadow, she thought. But, magical or no, the men had cut her down all the same, right as she had come to deliver the news to her, crying over her captive sister and nieces and concerned over the fate of her nephew. He wasn’t dead, she had said, not dead but vanished. There were fates worse than death. Bryce Dayne’s men had shown her that when they killed the Princess’s most famed adviser.
For days they had screamed, her mother in law’s best and most loyal retainers. Marissa Toland had lasted two days before her cries had finally faded to a merciful silence. Some of the Orphans had thought to resist. The orphans were few, now, or fled up the Greenblood as far into the wastes of central Dorne as they could get. They would be hunted down, or so the dark knight had said. He was the worst of the lot. Lord Bryce’s eastern field commander was from King’s Landing, he had said, a nobody landed knight near Stokeworth, now in charge of six thousand men and Sunspear. Kyle Nobody. That’s how she had named him, in her head. The locals could call him the Bloody Foot all they wanted, his favored method of torture meriting the name, but to Meera Martell he was Kyle No-Name.
They had only come for her the once, when Hattera’s blood had sprayed over her, drenching her in the hot crimson wetness. The first man had torn her dress, bruised her, made her nearly cry, before the No-Name had pulled him off. Too valuable, he had said. King Bryce wanted his puppy with her tail wagging. Puppy. That was the word. He had even set his houndmaster to be her chief ‘caretaker’. Perhaps he thought the dogs would intimidate her. She smiled a bit grimly. Animals liked her. He had lived two days before she had managed to talk to his dogs, like she had done since she was young. Convince them that she was better for their future than he was. See through their eyes. Taste his flesh as they had mauled him when he had made the inevitable decision to try claiming her as his own.
Since then, Nobody had had four of his female guards around her. They were hard-eyed and tall, spoke no Common, and had treated her with more disdain than their men ever did. Meera wondered how skilled they actually were at their weapons. Robyn had studied dagger usage, which Meera couldn’t understand all those years ago, but she wished she had thought of the idea with less distaste now. She was lucky she even knew which end to stab someone with.
The waves crashed against the cliffs outside her window while she stared to the north, the cold wind not bothering her much. Lord Bryce’s banner hung from the ships in the harbor; real warships, not like the Dornish skiffs that swept the seas for pirates. As she sat in the night, her guards suddenly stood at attention. No Name had come. He brought another man with him, a small man, dark haired, with the too-quick eyes Meera distrusted. A coward’s eyes. Cowards were a woman prisoner’s worst enemy. Benjen had told her that once, or perhaps it had been Kalvin on one of his visits while her brother had squired for him. Cowards were used to being scared, and their greatest pleasure was making someone more scared than they were. Definitely Kalvin. His concluding point had been to explain why he always beheaded cowards. Rapers in training. No Name saw her regard the little man with contempt and chuckled.
“She doesn’t like you, Elias.” The small man chuckled.
“Maybe I’ll grow on her. We have a long ride to get better acquainted.” No Name shrugged at that.
“Not too acquainted, lest you want to explain to King Bryce…”
“I know, I know. Enough already.” Elias turned around and stuck his head out the door, then called quietly for someone. Two someones. No, four. Huge someones. Meera involuntarily shrank back as the huge men approached. The chains were heavy as they clapped on her wrists. Quietly they scooped her up and carried her away, not a sound being uttered. Elias watched with glee as they waltzed her down the stairs and into a blacked-out wagon, climbing in with her, hot breath running down her back. Animals. Worse than animals, animals that could not be convinced or melded with or persuaded. As she felt the wagon start to move, she took in a deep breath. A small hand patted the top of hers. “There, there, Princess Meera. Best relax; it’s a long ride to Blackhaven.”
///
November 18th
A long ride didn’t properly describe it, she reflected as the wagon ceased its seeming endless forward momentum. The back flap opened, at last, the third time she had seen real sunlight since Sunspear. Her eyes blinked in pain at the rising sun, coming up fast over the rolling mountains of the Marches. Once she had seen it crossing a river when the wagon had flooded and they had had her swim next to the cart while they forded, and once again at Yronwood, where she had seen her goodmother and sisters in their lonely cells in the castle. She still had an ache from where the traitor lord’s son had struck her for spitting on him and his coward’s face. It was a worthwhile ache. Pain was temporary, pride was forever. THAT had been her father speaking. She had had plenty of time to wonder what they’d tell her if they could speak to her now, chained and in her black wagon with the four mute guards and the handsy little prick Elias. If she made it through this, she was going to kill him herself, she promised herself that. Take her brother’s longsword and just drive it through the little bastard’s stomach until he squealed for mercy, then…give him none. Gut wounds were the worst death. More family wisdom.
Back to the present, she scolded herself. She saw an army as she looked, hundreds of tents with banners of all sorts. Dayne, Fowler, Selmy, Yronwood, some sort of sellswords with a green chicken, which she immediately dubbed the Moldy Cocks, and more. Ten thousand, she guessed, maybe twelve. Kalvin had taught Benjen and her to take the number of tents and multiply by eleven. To count the tents, take the fires and multiply by four. Two hundred or so fires…ten thousand men, about. All surrounding the last Red God castle in the Marches. Her chains were struck off, and the men brought her to the largest tent. She doubted she had to multiply by eleven to figure out who lived in that one. She was dirty and her clothes needed changing, but she doubted Lord-King Bryce cared about how she looked.
The man sat alone in his tent, a crown on his head. Jon’s crown, the dead Prince of Dorne’s tribute to his vanquisher. He waved to the men and, despite a protest from the rat Elias, they left at his look. He turned his attention to Meera. His violet eyes stared deadly at her, like there was no life at all in the vessel of a man before her. “Wine?” he asked, not politely, not rudely, just asking as though they had met at a tavern or something. He poured a glass and set it on the table in front of her. She hesitated, then drank it. It tasted sweet, oddly sweet, and she drained it in two swallows. “Blackhaven will fall soon,” he said, almost absently, “and you’ll have a bed to sleep in when it does. Until then, you stay here.” She sees a small cot in one corner of his room. Definitely not any potential for nightmares, sleeping in the same tent as the source of ninety percent of them. None at all. She wanted to protest but kept her mouth shut. A pile of clothes sat on the cot, warm clothes, suitable for the chilly air of the mountains. “Put them on. Don’t get sick.” She walked to the cot and looked back.
“Is there a curtain I can dra-“ Bryce snapped in.
“Put the clothes on. If I want you naked, you’ll be naked.” Meera turned her back to him and changed as quickly as she could. She washed her face in a basin of hot water, heated by a tiny fire burning with…was that blood? Sorcerers, she swore to herself. The heat was real, though, and it still made her feel like a whole new woman when she was clean. Gather yourself, remember your roots. Let him know House Stark doesn’t scare, even the helpless princesses. Bryce Dayne feeds on fear, she remembered. Feasts on it like the strange Lord Crowl on his enemies’ bodies. Discomfort or embarrassment leads to fear. When she came back to him, he had another glass ready. A servant entered with food, and she tore into it, shamelessly. Bryce Dayne watched her wordlessly.
“Why am I here, King Dayne?” she said, the title coming out only reluctantly. “Why bring me to the Stormlands?” The dark king stared at her, then spoke, his deep voice rumbling.
“To witness, Princess Meera. To bring the message to your father, your brother. I am the King of Dorne and the Marches, and of Storm’s End.” He stared at her until she fidgeted, a long two minutes of increasing creepiness. No one can pretend not to be intimidated by Bryce Dayne forever. He continues after a moment. “Prince Aaron Baratheon and Lord Morrigen are sending all their might against me. They shall arrive in a tenday or so. You will tell your family what you see.” Meera’s eyes narrowed.
“They won’t listen to me, and they certainly do not fear you, my lord.” She was impressed with herself at how easily the lie came out. “And they fear your sons…I mean, son, even less.” She saw the fist coming from a mile away, a second before she even said it, but Bryce Dayne’s hand did not strike. It stopped an inch short, then his grimy fingers, slick with the grease from the cooked rabbit, brushed her forehead gently. She shrank back but her muscles had seized up, and an icy stab of fear went through her heart. She couldn’t move…drowning with no water, no air, no breath…” and then she felt water, warm and sticky, running down her legs. Bryce looked to her with his dead eyes.
“Lord Kalvin will scream Markus’s name before he dies, and that cunt he married will scream it even louder. Mention him again and you will be ended.” Meera gasped and finally nodded as she choked. Her empty bladder shriveled as she tried to compose herself. Bryce looked at her. “Change again. Don’t soil these ones.” Meera put the second set of woolen clothes on. At least they weren’t purple and white. Black and silver suited her much better. “Have you ever seen a battle? Come out. Watch.”
They climbed a small hill overlooking the field. Archers dueled on the plain below, firing flaming arrows into the besieged castle. Massive stones were launched and slammed into the walls. Men screamed in pain and were carted off to be tended to. On the walls, she could see the defenders trying to stamp out fires and match the Dornishmen’s volume of arrows. Bryce sits on a chair he has brought to him while they watch. Somehow, she had pictured a commander being more…involved. But even a sorcerer cannot attack a stone wall.
An hour or so later, the breach occurred. The walls, weakened by a battle fought a year ago, finally give way. Men pour into the gaps, and dozens die on the attackers’ side, but men always get through, and in another hour the fight is over. The Dondarrion’s in the castle are executed, the lord having fallen in battle. Meera hoped more had survived, perhaps in the relief army. Prisoners are marched out to a camp set up to the east. Bryce rises and stretches like he has woken from a nap. “Let’s go find your new room, Princess.” Cheers can be head from the field over the screams of the wounded.
///
December 4th, 381
Meera looked out over the host assembled outside the gates. More than three hundred tents. Plenty more. Eighteen thousand men, at least, she figured. More, if the Moldy Cocks slept twenty five or thirty to their huge tents. She hugged the fur blanket to her as she stepped onto the balcony. Across the mountains, at the edge of her vision, she saw the long column approaching. Stags were on their banners, and hogs, crows, and more. Prince Aaron’s army had arrived. So, unfortunately, had Frances Dayne. Four days earlier he had offered to check her teeth for deformities. It had been literally the only time in her life she had ever been thankful to see Bryce Dayne. Now they were out there, and she was alone. ALMOST alone, she corrected herself. Her new guards were the terror twins. One was short and stocky and angry, a woman from Hellholt or Sandstone, armed with a heavy mace Meera doubted she could even lift, and the second was long and lithe and beautiful, with a spear and a crossbow so small she could aim and fire it one handed. The short one watched her with too curious an eye while she bathed, and Meera was not naïve enough to think she was worried about her safety.
All day the two armies set up. She saw France’s banner in the center, Bryce’s on the right, Yronwood’s on the left. The cavalry was with Yronwood, on the most open part of the field. Across the way it looked like the other army had two formations, stag on her right and crow on her left. Trumpets sounded and the men moved to battle. She had pictured them running at each other, but the two lines walked at a determined but measured pace. Too much energy to run, too much disorder caused. Lines kept you safe. Arrows filled the sky and the screams began, audible even over the sound of steel. For ten minutes the lines hacked and slashed, then both sides backed up as if by mutual agreement, to catch breath and regroup. The cavalry had not yet entered the fray. Arrows picked off men too weary already to hold their shields.
On the left, Yronwood deployed his cavalry in a charge. Aaron’s horse met it head on, and Meera watched with sickened fascination as the men danced and waved but mostly just absorbed hit after hit, no room to move in the melee. Aaron’s massive hammer struck Yronwood’s bodyguard and the men fell. The lord swung around, but the huge prince batted his weapon aside and the two struck again and again at each other. Then a man was too slow, a strike wasn’t stopped by shield or sword, and the Bloodroyal fell from his horse, missing half his skull. Meera felt her breakfast rise but swallowed it down. She drank wine from the bottle to keep her stomach from churning.
While the duel occurred, the center of the Dornish line was pressed hard, giving ground. Frances was no leader, she noted, although he killed half a dozen in just a minute of fighting. She looked to the right, htough, and there she saw why Bryce Dayne was so feared. The second charge had happened, and the sorcerer walked with his men into the line. As the stormlanders charged towards him, his men countercharged, and all of a sudden about a hundred men simply broke and ran panicking. Meera blinked in confusion as the Starfall men at arms exploited the gap, their heavy foot a match now that they had split Baxter Morrigen’s wall. The clever opponent sent his reserves in, and rallied the fleeing men, but he was being pushed back steadily. Prince Aaron’s men on the right broke through the cavalry, hundreds of Dornish dying, and he turned his horse inward to finish the battle. Meera smiled as the Dornish fled.
And then her smile died. Out of the woods, behind Lord Aaron’s charging cavalry, came more men. Thousands more. They had banners she didn’t recognize, but all had three tigers on their major standards. Volantenes, she thought. The five thousand or more collapsed on the right flank of the cavalry, and she watched in mounting horror as the Kingsland army folded on the right. Aaron cut his way free, slaying the SECOND lord Yronwood of the battle on his way out of the fight. The Kingslanders were well disciplined and formed a new line to meet the threat. Swords clashed and spears and maces were wielded with valor and skill. Meera saw a woman with a bow slaying men by the dozens it seemed with her group of women warriors. Her onslaught led her to conflict with the Volantene commander, and she slew him in a duel of shocking brevity.
For a moment the tide turned, but then there were too many men and Frances Dayne was there, his infantry pushing hard into the line. He fought with Aaron a moment before the press of men pushed them both back. Dust obscured Meera’s vision, then, and she turned her eye back to the increasing disaster on the right. Bryce’s men were seemingly empowered by their fearsome king, and even Morrigen’s brilliant fighting only held the line barely. Blackhaven’s garrison commander shouted an order, and Bryce’s men poured from the keep into the field to join the fight. The few hundred men went round and round the lines to the far right flank, and at last the line shattered.
No man in Westeros routs so well as King Bryce Dayne. His troops press relentlessly, inexorably, ruthlessly slaughtering all they came across. Baxter Morrigen was struck by an arrow and fell, killing three men before being overwhelmed. His men are rallied by Lord Cafferen, but he falls too, and the slaughter continues. One of Prince Aaron’s retainers rallies the survivors and they retreat east, towards Storm’s End.
Prince Aaron’s force fared a bit better, facing an inferior commander, but the numbers force him back. Karla Storm’s warrior women spearhead a fighting retreat, arrows flying. Frances throws all his men and the Volantene mercenaries into a last charge, and the Kingslanders retreat north in an orderly but much reduced fashion.
The battlefield is even more terrifying once the fighting is done. Without the sound of swords to make noise, the screams of the wounded and dying are even more pronounced. Meera watches the critically injured being slain with tears in her eyes. Literally thousands of men died, a dozen lords, hundreds of knights, and more are wounded. All those men…that whole army…gone. Meera leaned heavily against the ailing and watched as the triumphant soldiers celebrate.
The last thing she saw, hours later, before going inside to bury her head in her pillow to drown out the song of the dying men, was King Bryce Dayne, pardoning thousands of prisoners on the promise they fight for him now.
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December 9th, 381
The ambassador had gone out weeks ago. Garen Dayne, the new Knight of High Hermitage. Meera pulled her knees to her chin on the bed and huddled up. The knight sought a trade, she had heard, her for a truce, or some such. Ser Frances had told her the day before he had hoped it would break down, on one of those rare occasions he had managed to corner her away from King and guard. “Then we can be married,” he had said, his perfect teeth shining, “and you can have a beautiful Dayne babe to hold. You’ll have the same number of teeth, too,” he promised. She hadn’t shuddered, then. No fear. Frances was a coward. Meera would bow to no coward’s threats.
Now she was in her room alone, waiting on the word of her fate. Rumors were flying in from Dorne. Lady Uller had bent the knee, Lord Qorgyle now the sole resistor in House Martell’s name. Sandstone was isolated and thinly people, but the location gave any invading army pause.Princess Nalya had been flayed and hanged. She doubted that. Bryce would kill her himself, in public, she was quite sure. Nina Martell had been shipped off to lands unknown, or not. Meera hoped not. Her sisters by marriage were her friends, had helped her adjust to the sandy deserts.
Her stocky guard roughly grabbed her and led her to Bryce’s room. The king had her sit next to a fire and grinned. “Ser Garen will be arriving shortly. Your family is gathering for your brother’s wedding. I hope nothing…untoward happens.” Meera gripped the edges of her dress so hard her knuckles went white. “Elias is always so hard to control.” In the fire, she saw, was her brother talking to a blonde woman. “Like a rabid dog…”