103

 Chapter 103: Interlude: Legio V

Notes:

I fucking hate my depression.

I have a handle over it most of the time, but then there are times when it just comes back with a vengeance. I wanted to finish this fic before August, but then I had this really bad episode of depression and that really torpedoed my motivation to write.

I'm better now. Alice is back in Singapore for summer hols, and we're getting ready to move to Cambridge, which does put a smile on my face. I can't wait to get back to the UK. After three solid years of sunshine and humidity, sign me up for dreary weather and overcast skies.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

"I name you Savage. May our enemies quiver in their boots at the sight of you."

-King Rhaenyra I Targaryen granting the Fifth Legion their cognomen

115 AC, 2nd Moon, 1st day, Oldtown,

The Fifth Legion had not begun at the front of this conflict, but it would be the one to end it.

In some ways, General Roderick Dustin was displeased at his King's cunning.

Rhaenyra the Dragonqueen had so thoroughly outplayed and outsmarted the Greens that they were now walking corpses.

There was simply no way for them to turn this situation around. No way to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

They numbered a mere eight thousand men, while the Legions numbered at twenty-seven thousand.

They were stuck in an open field with no cover, sandwiched between the walls of Oldtown, and four Legions in full battle array.

They had no calvary, while the Legions had some five thousand heavy knights and over a thousand Cataphracts.

They had no siege engines, while Manglers and Megapults were being pushed to the fore atop both the walls of Oldtown and the Legion battle line.

They were half-starved from the march, and exhausted, while the Legions were well-fed and well-rested.

And most of all, Rhaenyra had broken their will irreparably, bringing down the Hightower before their eyes. Capturing their safe retreat, their last bastion of resistance, and turning it against them.

There was no escape now, and they knew it.

The men were still living, but that was little more than a formality.

Now all that was left, was the final stroke. The swing of the executioner's axe. And after that, all that was left were shallow graves and weeping widows.

General Dustin felt that there was little honour in killing men too broken and too defeated to truly fight back, but as Rhaenyra repeatedly pointed out, honour had no place in war.

And as a Legion General, it was his solemn duty to serve at his King's pleasure, and slay all whom opposed her and the Iron Throne.

As the bloody banners touched the sky, the Fifth Legion advanced.

Barbarians. Savages. Uncivilised Wildlings. The many tribes of the First Men had been called all of those and more, by the more 'civilised' Andals.

They were mocked. Ridiculed for their brutish ways and wild lifestyles. Decried as little more than tribal rabble, fit only to be scattered like grains of sand before 'superior' knights and men-at-arms.

But today, these barbarians would have their vengeance.

A hundred war drums were struck, their sound a primal thing that made the Andals remember the First Men hordes which once swept across the continent in a tide of untamed ferocity.

"Doom. Doom. Doom." The drums promised, as a series of guttural and howling war cries tore themselves out of the throats of thousands of First Men.

The beats of the drums and the crisp sound of boots meeting the earth was like the primal heartbeat of the land, resonating with the Old Gods themselves.

As his Legion neared the enemy, General Dustin reached into his satchel, and pulled out a single phial. All around him, his men did the same.

"To glorious death!" Roderick toasted.

"Glorious death!" His men echoed, as they all downed the potions.

A potent mixture of paste made from Weirwood leaves and hallucinogenic mushrooms that grew in caves below the Iron Islands. Rhaegar Fyre had laboured long and hard to improve the elixir, trying out a thousand and one different alchemical mixtures, before he finally discovered a variant that gave the best results for the least side effects.

Almost immediately, the General felt an overwhelming power surge across his body. His blood pumped, each and every heartbeat bringing yet more adrenaline and energy throughout his body. His muscles eased, his ageing body granted the vitality of a younger man.

His mind was cleared. Scoured clean of any and all unnecessary thoughts, as a certain clarity descended onto himself. His enemies were before him. His allies behind him. The rest was dust.

Roderick howled, pounding his chest as unbridled rage welled up within his breast. And all around him, the horde of bearded axemen threw their heads back and howled, eyes red and veins in their faces popping. The world itself seemed to shiver, as seven hundred berserkers roared with their General.

They took off, steps swift and powerful.

Fifty yards.

Forty.

Thirty.

Twenty.

And with savage howls, the berserkers threw themselves onto the enemy.

Shields splintered, skulls were split. Blood spurted into the air, so much and so thick that it was as though a red mist had descended onto the battlefield. Warhammers caved in chests as greataxes removed heads and limbs alike.

Screams ensued, half from the dying Greens, and half from the maddened berserkers.

As he swung his greatsword around, blade cleaving multiple men in a single stroke, General Dustin marvelled at the efficacy of the elixir. This was not the first time he'd taken the Berserker's Brew, but his previous doses were but candles to this bonfire. His body brimmed with more strength than even the most potent of potions, yet his mind remained relatively clear. The blind and uncontrolled rage was blunted, and while not allowing full control, enabled the users direction enough to not be a threat to one's own comrades.

Rhaegar's brew also supposedly came at lesser cost to one's lifespan, but that was an immaterial concern at best. None whom imbibed the Berserker's Brew truly expected to live beyond the battle.

The berserkers hacked their way through fleeing Greens, a whirlwind of violence, perpetuating an orgy of blood.

The lines broke, levies and conscripts trampling one another as they desperately attempted to flee. Men-at-arms and knights shouted, trying to rally the forces, but they were unable to stop the chaos from spreading.

Many men fled further west, right into range of the siege engines atop the walls of Oldtown. Death followed, the grim reaper riding atop the bolts of scorpions and the stones of trebuchets the Sixth Legion unleashed unto the fleeing Greens.

North or south proved no safer, for Marines and giants of the First Legion rose out of the Honeywine, flamethrowers unleashing a sea of flames onto anyone fool enough to flee south. To the north, Legion calvary rode out in force, Cataphracts of the Second backed up by the Knights of the Vale slaying any and everyone whom crossed their paths.

Eventually though, as the Berserker's Brew began to wane, the Greens rallied. A shield wall came up, too hard and too heavy to easily break.

Valiantly, the berserkers threw themselves onto the Green phalanx, but found themselves repulsed. Greataxes and warhammers glanced off shields, as spears were thrust into bellies and arrows rained down onto the legionaries. Like a wave breaking on a rock, the Fifth Legion was forced back.

But the berserkers were never truly the finishing blow, and the Fifth Legion had more cards to play.

With the enemy levies scattered, the bulk of the Fifth Legion now had a clear path towards the enemy center line. The last bastion of four thousand men, the steadiest soldiers left to the Green cause.

Giants and mammoths charged, titans of muscle and power so heavily armoured in steel that not a single patch of skin was exposed to the air. The giants were tough enough, but the mammoths were worse. Minds ridden by skinchangers, the massive pachyderms bore equally massive flanged maces in their trunks, tusks covered by massive jagged blades over six feet long.

Footsteps rumbling like roiling thunder, the ground seemingly quaking from their very presence, the giants and mammoths crashed right into the Green shield wall.

It was like watching a hammer being used to crush an egg.

The heavily-armoured behemoths were impervious to anything the Greens could muster, while their weapons tore straight through men like an axe through kindling.

Hundreds of men were trampled in an instant, ripped right though as though they were made of paper. Shields and the men behind them were shattered with a single blow from flanged maces taller than men.

With the enemy shield wall cracked open, the Fifth Legion infantry surged into the gaps in the lines.

Legion heavy infantry waded into battle, prising apart and overwhelming the enemy lines. Behind them, skirmishers unleashed slung stones, arrows, crossbow quarrels and javelins upon the Greens, pelting them with a wave of ranged projectiles.

Under heavy onslaught, the Greens begun to bend, like a man with a knife in the belly.

It was at this moment, that Fifth Legion Northern calvary crashed into the enemy rear.

Overwhelmed, outflanked, outmatched. The Greens lost all remaining semblance of order.

What was left of the lines broke and fled, bursting like an overripe fruit. An utter rout.

With their cohesion gone, the battle turned from defeat into a straight-up slaughter. The Fifth Legion fell onto the fleeing Greens like a wolf sinking its fangs into a helpless rabbit.

———

Shouting, Otto Hightower brought his sword down onto a legion savage, gasping as blood spurted everywhere as the man bled out the last of his life.

Spitting out blood, the Hightower knight— perhaps even Lord now, as both Horbert and Ormund had died at Highgarden— looked up and saw a slaughter.

There were less than two hundred of them left now, and they were surrounded on all sides by Legion blades.

And looking down imperiously on them was Rhaenyra Targaryen.

The Dragonqueen sat atop her horse of darkness, utterly unmoved by the slaughter. Her face a study in abject disinterest and boredom.

Their eyes met, indigo and brown, and somehow Otto knew she saw him, just as he saw her.

Something flickered to life within the former Hand of the King. It was neither rage nor hatred, not even indignation. Yet it burned all the way.

It felt like the gods themselves were comforting him in his hour of doom. Lending strength to his limbs and soothing away the pain and exhaustion he felt from the battle. The bruising campaign. The entire losing war he'd been waging against Rhaenyra since the day that foul hellspawn had crawled out of Princess Aemma's womb.

The world seemed to narrow. Turn grey and dull, leaving behind only two splotches of colour. Otto himself, and Rhaenyra atop her horse.

"No." Otto Hightower declared, stepping forwards. Leaving the protective embrace of the last of his soldiers.

Arrows fell, but the Hightower knight swept out his sword, cutting down with impossible grace a dozen quarrels that would have slain him where he stood.

"No." He repeated.

Two berserkers rushed him, faces red with blood and mouths frothing white foam.

Otto ducked between their blows, stabbed one in the gut, then danced aside as he fell. Narrowly sidestepping the other berserker's wild swing. The blow missed, the battleaxe splitting open the face of the stabbed legionary, and embedding itself deep into the skull. Too deep to easily tug free.

Three steps and a pivot, and Otto's blade decapitated the second berserker.

A horseman charged him. Northern heavy calvary, both mount and rider clad completely head-to-toe in matte steel.

"No!" Otto yelled.

With supernatural precision, Otto kicked up a crossbow from the corpse of a Legionary. The weapon flew into his left hand, and he squeezed the trigger. The recoil blew it out of his hands, but the bolt shot forth with impossible accuracy, punching straight through the eyeslit of the enemy horseman.

The rider fell out of the saddle, crashing down onto the muddy ground. The helmet skittered off, revealing it to be a woman underneath. Face frozen permanently in a look of duty and determination.

She looked like Alicent, Otto realised with a jolt, and the reminder of his daughter only made his blood pump faster, his breathing grow harsher.

Sprinting forwards, Otto grabbed ahold of the reins of the woman's horse, pulling himself onto the saddle of the riderless animal.

Spurring the horse into action, the last knight of House Hightower rode forth.

He wove through the melee, dodging legionaries and fleeing Greens alike. The old knight had never been the greatest fighter or rider, yet today it was as though he'd been blessed by the gods themselves. Like an arrow in flight, he shot forth, unerring and accurate. Nothing able to impair or slow his flight until he stuck his target.

A trio of knights rode forth to challenge him.

Otto snatched out a spear from the back of a corpse, dual wielding it in his left hand in conjunction with his sword. Guiding his horse with his knees, he charged the three knights.

The spear took the first knight's mount in the eye, the horseman being thrown violently off of his horse.

He dodged a lance thrust, and his sword ripped open the throat of the second horseman.

The third horseman's lance punched straight into the skull of Otto's horse, but the Hightower knight leapt off of his mount as it fell.

His shoulder rammed into the third's horseman's face, throwing the man off of his horse. Otto himself somehow managed to grab ahold of a piece of horse armour with his other hand, giving him enough grip and leverage to pull himself onto the horse before he fell.

Sliding his feet into the stirrups, Otto wheeled his second stolen horse around and charged forth.

He'd broken through the melee, and now there was nothing but open field left between him and the Dragonqueen.

As soon as he got within two hundred yards, the Fifth Legion's strategic reserve opened fire. Crossbow bolts fell like rain, Otto yelling and spurring his horse on, attempting to power through the rain.

Quarrels skittered off of his armour, and that of the horse's, glancing off harmlessly.

One hundred yards.

A bloodforged arrow took the horse straight in the eye, and it fell.

Otto rolled to his feet even as Laena unleashed more cursed arrows at him, and continued charging up the hill.

Eighty yards.

A crossbow bolt punched through his left shoulder, but he refused to falter.

Sixty.

A second bolt took him in the right thigh, and his steps stuttered, but he powered on.

Forty.

Shaeterys shot forth, Peregrine in hand, skating across the ground on a pool of darkness. Otto dodged the blow and slugged the boy in the face, throwing him aside without a second thought.

Twenty.

Daenys unleashed lightning, and though the cackling blue energy scorched his insides and boiled his blood, Otto continued on. He should have felt agony from his many wounds, but it was clear he was in a place beyond pain.

Ten.

One step after the other, Otto trudged forwards despite the onslaught of magic. Just putting one foot in front the other was like trying to lift a boulder with his bare hands, and yet he soldiered on.

And there he was. Rhaenyra the Dragonqueen stood right before him, less than three feet away.

Otto Hightower raised his sword high above his head, bringing it down on Rhaenyra.

The blade stopped less than an inch away from her head.

Tendrils of shadow had stopped both it and Otto himself. Strands of oily darkness wrapping around his body and sword, holding him in place.

Dark Sister lopped off his right hand and the sword it held, both tumbling to the ground with a dull thud.

The tendrils of shadow holding him vanished, letting him fall directly onto Blackfyre, the Sword of Kings punching straight through his heart and emerging from the other side.

Otto fell, feeling the last of his desperate strength bleed out of him. He fell down, tumbling onto Rhaenyra's embrace. It was an almost intimate gesture, Otto's beard lightly brushing Rhaenyra's paudron as she supported him.

"You had a good run." Rhaenyra said, her voice right in his ear. "But it was always inevitable."

"Could… could we have won?" Otto stuttered out, spitting out blood and bile.

"No." Rhaenyra simply said, voice devoid of malice or cruelty. It was almost gentle, comforting. "The Greens always lose, no matter the world or timeline. Sometimes it takes days, other times up to centuries, but what is certain is that you, and the cause you champion will always die."

"Ah…" Otto sighed, feeling the rasping breath leave his lungs. The last he would ever take. "I'll give your regards to Alicent."

———

Corpses carpeted the grounds as the last of the Greens were either encircled and slain to the last, or run down like animals.

By the time the afternoon sun arrived, the fighting was over.

There were no survivors among the Greens.

A pike was thrust into the air, held up triumphantly by King Rhaenyra Targaryen, and on it was spiked the head of Lord Otto Hightower.

"The usurper Otto Hightower is dead!" The Dragonqueen proclaimed, sorcery carrying her voice across the battlefield. "Victory is ours!"

A great cheer went up at the sight of it. Over twenty thousand men shouting and hollering at the top of their lungs at the sight of their victory.

"Fire and Blood! Fire and Blood!" Someone chanted, and the rest of the Legions followed, until every single Black soldier on the battlefield was shouting the words of House Targaryen.

"All hail King Rhaenyra I Targaryen!" Daenys yelled, thrusting a fist towards the sky in triumph.

"Long May She Reign!" Twenty thousand voices shouted, a tide of fists touching the skies.

Notes:

And so end the Greens.

Do you think that this a fitting end for them? I am interested to hear your thoughts.