Aelor Targaryen had never been particularly passive in nature, his temper as hot as the blood of the dragon coursing through his veins, but he was as wroth as he had ever been in his life.
His stallion thundered underneath him, its huge lungs working like a billows as it raced towards the sound of slaughter ahead. Alaric had taken to calling the stallion Warrior, a name Aelor was certain the High Septon would disapprove of but that fit the massive destrier like a gauntlet. The beast seemed to love battle almost as much as Aelor did, having emerged from the Slaughter of the Straits with a red muzzle from where it had bitten hunks out of the Stormlander enemy. While it was particularly unwise of a knight to grow attached to his mount, as more horses would die underneath him than women would writhe, Aelor found himself liking the animal more than he did most men.
But right now the Dragon of Duskendale wasn't focusing on things he liked. No, right now he was focusing on his hate, and there was certainly plenty of that to go around.
The Lannister's hadn't left many men guarding the Mud Gate that lead to the Roseroad and southern Kingsroad. They clearly hadn't felt the need, as no one was supposed to know they were marching on King's Landing with the intent of sacking it. But Aelor Targaryen did know, thanks to the chittering's of a little bird that had appeared in his tent the night before he was to assault Robert Baratheon, and while he hadn't been able to reach the city of his birth in time to prevent the start of the Lannister's pillaging, he was certainly in time to prematurely end it.
Aelor Targaryen was going to kill them all. Each and every one.
He drove his lance through the throat of the first man he came to, turning the guard's shout of warning into a gurgle of blood and death. The others fared no better, one turning and trying to flee through the gate but instead being trampled by the mass of armored horses crashing through. The streets of King's Landing were awry with soldiers and citizens both dead and alive. Some men in the red and gold of Lannister were battling with those in the gold of the City Watch or the red and black of House Targaryen, blood being spilled onto the already red streets. Others had given up the pretense of waging war and were openly looting, the valuables being stolen from brothels and Septs alike.
Aelor drew his sword, the ruby in its crossguard glittering, and cut into them like a demon from the deepest of the seven hells.
His men knew their commands, and they would carry them out with gusto. They were to kill every man in Lannister red they came across. There would be no chance of redemption, no declaration of repentance; there would be no mercy. The Lion had bitten the Dragon's tail, and it was going to be burned into blackened nothing for the offense.
Some knight with a purple unicorn surcoat tried to knock Aelor off of his destrier, the Dragon Prince driving his sword through the narrow slit of his visor in response. Aelor roared as the lust of battle flooded his veins, withdrawing his blade from his dead enemy's face only to plunge it into the back of the next man at arms he crossed. Aelor didn't give a damn whether it was an honorable blow or not; he just wanted to kill, and whether he did so by cutting off a man's head and killing him instantly or cutting off a man's hand and letting him bleed to death on the shit covered street mattered not a whit to him.
Aelor had gotten good at killing. He intended to get much better.
The deeper he drove into the city, cutting a bloody path up the streets of his family's capital, the more Lannister red he saw, and the more his rage grew. Warrior felt his rider's fury and responded, his frequent neighing sounding more like a predator's roar, running more than one man down and turning them into a fleshly pulp underneath the stallion's hooves and weight. The black armored knight and black hided horse made a terrifying duo, spilling blood as if they were the embodiment of the Stranger. Even those Westlander's who had sense enough to run could not escape, feeling the bite of a blade or the crushing clamp of a set of flat herbivore teeth digging into their skin.
Men died by the scores, and still the Targaryen Prince drove on.
Whether Alaric or Ser Barristan were still beside him Aelor couldn't say. Whether Lord Randyll Tarly had successfully brought the infantry up to block off the city's gates, ensuring not a single Lannister would escape the purge of their own making, Aelor didn't know. The Lord of Duskendale didn't even know if this euphoric slaughter was real or just the dream of a man from a family known for its madness, dark and terrifying and beautiful.
Aelor didn't care. All the mattered was killing and the Red Keep.
When Aelor came upon a man in a lion's helm, his shoulder pads forged to look like the faces of the predator the Lannister's were so proud of, all of his rage focused on that one being. This knight was atop a horse almost as big as Warrior, the long blond hair flowing from underneath his helm waving to and fro as he tried to set up a defensive line. His men weren't listening, too intent on the loot they were pillaging and the women they were defiling to worry about something so trivial as a war.
Aelor ended his efforts for him. Warrior crashed into the Lannister's mount, nearly unhorsing the knight as the stallion beneath him staggered sideways.
The second son of Aerys brought his blade in at a downward angle, hard and fast. To his utmost surprise the Lannister knight parried it with his own, forcing Aelor's blade up and away as the Lion's horse regained its balance. Warrior, enraged that the other stallion in front of him hadn't gone down, slammed his armored body back into his rival's flank, sinking his teeth into the blanket of heavy mail covering the Lannister horse's haunch. Aelor used that momentum to strike again, his own fury growing as the Lannister parried once more, knocking Aelor's blade aside and going on the offensive even as his mount staggered again, screaming hauntingly at the pain Warrior was inflicting.
The Lion's blade crashed into Aelor's shield, the sword slashing a furrow into the warring white dragon's painted onto the heavy oak and banded steel. Aelor had almost forgotten the thing was strapped to his left arm; he hadn't needed it to this point. The Dragon swung the newly rediscovered defense out, knocking the blade of his opponent away, and once again struck, this time aiming the point of his sword at the slit in the man's visor, intending to skewer the Lion's brains as he had the purple unicorn's. Lannister managed to block this blow as well, not giving up a fraction of a second in transitioning from the defensive to the offensive, slashing his blade in at Aelor again, carving another groove into the Dragon's shield.
On an on the two danced, parry being met with parry, their stallion's warring with each other every bit as hard as their rider's. Thrice Aelor thought he had an opening, and thrice the Lannister knight managed to close it off before the Dragon of Duskendale could drive his blade home. Their deadly dance paid no heed to the carnage around them or the passage of time, blade meeting blade meeting shield meeting blade.
Aelor roared as Lannister landed a blow, the tip of the Lion's blade catching Aelor's helm, carving through the steel with the strength only battlelust could give, biting into the skin around Aelor's right eye and setting his helm ajar, his vision blocked. The Dragon roared in fury and pain, the Lion laughing as he aimed his sword for a killing blow. Warrior saved him, at that moment deciding to drive his muscular shoulders into his rival's flank again. The Lion's laughed turned into a curse as he had to regain his balance.
In that time Aelor Targaryen had removed and discarded his helm, the gash that carved diagonally from his right brow over his eye and sliced cleanly until it ran off the point of his cheek bleeding freely. Violet eyes, both unscathed despite the mess of blood surrounding the right, burned out from a face twisted in anger.
The Dragon of Duskendale looked nothing like a man in that moment. As he raised his sword, thundering out a war cry of rage and pain and hate, he looked more like a fire breathing bringer of death than even the white dragons etched onto his breastplate.
This attack was twice as furious as his first, the Dragon swinging hard enough to nearly break the Lion's shield arm when he met the blow. Whatever momentum Lannister had won with the blow that nearly blinded the Prince was lost, and soon he was barely able to ward off the deadly blade of his opponent. The Dragon Prince seemed to be growing only stronger, bloodlust fueling his every strike, his unshielded face snarling as he struck again and again.
In truth, the Lion could only hold off the Dragon's onslaught so long. One parry was a fraction too slow, the weak counter knocking the Prince's sword aside but also knocking the Lion's blade away. Before he could bring it back, the Dragon of Duskendale had thrust his sword forward, driving the point of his blade through gorget and chainmail, unleashing a roar so vicious one would think he was a dragon reborn.
The Lion never cried out in pain, as silent and sullen in death as he had been in life. Tygett Lannister only twitched twice, blood running in a torrent down his breastplate, before falling backwards as stiff as a tree, sliding off of both Aelor's blade and his own battered and bleeding horse to land in a crimson and gold heap in the street. The gold of his shoulder plates made a sharp contrast to the blood soaked filth, long blond hair turned red and brown.
Aelor Targaryen gave his dead opponent only the briefest of glances before he kicked Warrior back into a sprint, thundering up the red street for the Red Keep.
The fighting hadn't quite reached the fortress of his ancestors, the drawbridge up and nervous men manning the battlements. One man was so tensed from waiting for an enemy that had yet to arrive that he had drawn his bow and loosed an arrow before he truly saw the figure riding towards him. His heart nearly burst when he saw that figure was a Targaryen Prince, face, armor and stallion all so bloodied as to almost be unrecognizable. The archer fell to his knees in relief when his hastily shot arrow sailed well wide of his target, the man never so glad to be a lousy shot than he was in that moment.
"It's Prince Aelor!" "Hold your arrows!" "A friend, hold fire!" Each of those cries and more echoed through the line of men holding the walls. "Open that gate, let the Prince in!" Cut through the mass of voices, and men rushed to obey.
The Dragon of Duskendale galloped through the rapidly raised portcullis, not slowing as men at arms in the courtyard had to leap out of the way of his charging animal. The Keep seemed untouched, the whirlwind of death Aelor had unleashed on the Lannister rear having seemingly saved the inhabitants. Aelor rode hard anyway. Tywin Lannister was smart; he knew that the only thing that would keep many of the defenders fighting was the lives they protected. If he could slip a few men into the Keep and eliminate the Targaryen's inside, most would lose heart, ending his brilliant sack of the city with the termination of most of the bloodline that had insulted him repeatedly over the years.
Aelor knew the murder of children like Aegon and Elia wasn't above the lion. The Rains of Castamere began playing in the young Prince's mind as he neared his destination.
They have to be alive. They have to be. I must see them, I must hold them again.
Aelor came to the dry moat defending Maegor's Holdfast, finding the drawbridge up and men, the last line of defense for the Targaryen's inside, tense and ready. "Lower the bridge," the Dragon called, the blood flowing down his face mixing into his silver beard.
A knight Aelor didn't recognize with a leaping swordfish on his chest peered down from the walls nervously. "But Prince Aelor, the King demanded we open for no—"
"LOWER THE FUCKING BRIDGE," the Prince bellowed, and within a second the sound of turning gears filled his ears. Aelor thundered across the drawbridge almost before it even settled into place, flying under the ingress and into the courtyard.
The Dragon of Duskendale flew off of his stallion, barreling into the castle within a castle. It was then and only then that he realized Ser Barristan Selmy, white cloak and armor turned red, and Alaric Langward, covered in gore, were beside him. "Barristan, check Rhaenys' room and then my mother's! Alaric, with him! Find my family!"
His companions gave no argument, Ser Barristan turning a corner with Alaric close on his heels. Aelor himself ran like a madman, paying no heed to the sting of the cut down his eye. All that mattered was reaching the nursery, was seeing Aegon and Elia and Rhaenys were alive, holding them in his arms and seeing that he hadn't been too late.
When the Dragon Prince reached the nursery, too focused to even notice his lack of breath, the door was already open. Aelor burst in, hoping beyond hope to see his favorite Dornishwoman and her children safe and sound.
Instead, he was greeted with the sight of a mountain with legs and armor, a massive surcoat bearing three black dogs on a yellow field stretched across the broadest chest Aelor had ever seen. Aelor followed the surcoat up and up and up until he staring at the biggest man the Dragon of Duskendale had ever heard of even so much as existing.
And the blade, as long as Aelor was tall, that the moving mountain was swinging towards the Dragon Prince's head.