Paying the Iron Price
Posted on Mon Oct 4th, 2021 @ 3:01pm by King Aethan Velaryon
Edited on on Sat Oct 23rd, 2021 @ 4:36pm
Mission:
The Iron Price
Location: King's Landing; Flea Bottom; the Mudgate
Timeline: Very Early Morning,11th Day of the 12th Moon, 404AC
The deepest hours of the night, when men and women had fallen into second sleep after prayers, started with a massive explosion, overshadowed by nothing in living memory. The days of Dragon's Fire, green and eerie, were beyond living memory and indeed, it would have easily eclipsed.
It shattered the night- one of subdued, trailing revelry. The King would be married, his procession gone from the Capitol. But the night was pregnant with the notion that it was time for the world to start turning again. Nobles were leaving, their manses tended by Stewards. Their furniture were being packed up and put on the caravan trains for home- or else on their ships. Families were abed, the denizens of Flea Bottom paying their whores and boys for their service. Homeless waifs shifted under windowsills, preying on and praying for scraps. Some huddled in alleys or dogpiled for warmth.
Reaper's Keep, a bone-white, driftwood dingy eyesore, was aflame. It crackled in red and roared skyward in orange. The smell of old wood and stone burning was thick in the nose, but overpowered by noxious black, sooty clouds that rose and billowed into the city. The air reeked of whale fat and old grease. And such an inferno had already begun to leap street refuse. Buildings around it were like kindling. But when the people's dispatches came to meet the flame out of samaritan goodness, they didn't reach the flame.
They found swords and daggers.
Emerging out of the thick, sooty darkness were Ironborn demons, face masked except for murderous eyes. And they slaughtered. Woman, man, child. It didn't matter. Tonight, the heart of Westeros would pay. It would know fear. When you lie to the Ironborn, you pay the Iron Price.
The manse was a signal: political and real.
Burn us, and we burn the last bridge.
Reaper's Keep, aflame, was a metaphor: there would be no peace, no talk, no diplomacy. And tonight it was King's Landing that would burn. As the Manse burned, Ironborn swept the docks. It wasn't clear where they'd come from- but likely they'd landed their nimble longships in harbors and coves used by pirates and smugglers. The types of coastal nooks the big ships could not enter.
Milkeye Pyke grinned a mouth of broken, angled gray teeth, his glazed eye and its gray partner focused with malicious, gleeful hate that no child- no sane child- could possibly muster. On the end of his hooked and serrated polearm, a City Guardsman twisted and writhed in agony as the teenager had impaled him up into the armpit. Milkeye twisted the blade like an expert fisherman locked a mighty tuna and the man screamed for mercy again. Around him was much the same. Snelling of burning oil and blood, the air filled with cries and bells. The Ironborn had taken the King's Gate. A wall of their shielded warriors was setting up in a disciplined fashion while the initial strike force dispatched the last of the beleaguered night watch. Milkeye, having dispatched his last victim, smirked as one- probably not much older than himself- begged. Milkeye put a serrated fish filleting knife straight through the guard's eye.
Among the sound of bells and cries, on a backdrop of new fires erupting across Flea Bottom, there was a new, dreaded sound: the creak of the city gates opening.
It was chaos.
It was blood and burning.
From the forest, Helja Greyjoy folded her arms, satisfied. Her stoic mouth did not smile. She watched as the carnage in the distance was more of the strategic kind. But she wanted to be in the mix. "Archers." She said. Her pale white eyebrow rose and she looked to her daughter. Neia Greyjoy was painted half in blue, and streaked in a spattering of blood. Neia's calm blue eyes met her mother's and she nodded.
"Archers!" Neia called. And from the wood strode a league of Ironborn. Their salt wives and salt boys scuttled out with them bearing flaming braziers. The archers lit their arrows and raised them high.
"Loose and reload." Helja said with icy calm, her gray eyes narrowing.
"Loose!" Neia bellowed. And the wall of small flames became airborne. They arced into the sky toward the city halls- and past. They were aimed at roofs. "Reload!"
Meanwhile, inside the Red Keep it was as though day had broken. Servants moved about the halls, working to prepare for the King's departure to the Reach for the Royal wedding, this activity mixed with panic as news spread. A member of the Kingsguard entered the King's chambers, but his Grace had already been roused by the activity in the corridors. "What is it?" King Aethan asked.
"Your Grace, Kings Landing burns." The knight said, gesturing with his head towards the open window.
Aethan rose from his bed and crossed the room to the window. He couldn't believe the sight before him. Flames danced over the darkened city. "The Iron Born." Aethan said aloud. He turned sharply to the guard who stood in the room still. "I need to see Lords Garth, Brannis and Jonah. Now." He demanded. "And my Uncle."
The guard nodded and left without a word.
"Gods save us." Aethan said, taking a last look at the flames before hurrying to dress and meet his Lords.
