He finally understood what his brother had meant when he claimed war was hell.
There was no sense to this, no defined lines. Enemies came from all different directions, some trying to kill him and others looking like they were desperately trying to find a way out of the bloody mess. Viserys tripped over corpses, nearly lost his life to a peasant with his guts hanging from his belly. He'd lost his horse mere seconds into the conflict, a knight in the colors of House Whent chopping its legs out from beneath it. Viserys had only been saved by his Kingsguard, who had killed the knight and dismounted their own horses to slog it out beside their king.
He didn't know where he was, only that he wasn't in the river. More than once he caught sight of a downed elephant, yet he could still occasionally hear their trumpet call of pain, telling him there was still at least one on its feet. His brother and nephew had pulled a nasty little trick, the Golden Dragon catching a brief glimpse of the White as he leapt into the water, driving a boar spear into the lead elephant's eye. His enemies right hadn't begun to roll as Viserys had planned, a torrent of knights meeting the Golden Company's charge, pouring around the elephant's feet like a river around rock.
But he saw all of that before he, at the center, entered the fray in the center of the lines. After that, he'd lost all picture of the battle as a whole; it'd become a bloody, filthy fight for life.
He heard the voice again, distant and nearly incomprehensible over the din of battle, so faint the Golden Dragon told himself it was all in his head. "…viserys…"
He drove Blackfyre through the heart of a knight in gold and black livery, the smoky Valyrian blade piercing the steel of his breastplate with ease. The man's blood began to flow out of the wound as Viserys withdrew the blade, only to freeze before it even reached his waist. To his right Alester Strong brought his mace down savagely hard on a levy's head, the peasants' skull imploding from the massive blow. He had lost one of his Kingsguard, Nhogo, a few feet or a few miles back. The Golden Dragon didn't know if the former sellsword was dead or alive or somewhere in between; there was no organization to this bloody mess. It was a brawl of blood and frost and snow, corpses starting to freeze as soon as they hit the ground.
The voice came again, seemingly closer but still faint. "…Viserys…" He sliced the legs out from underneath a screaming peasant levy, bashing another full in the face with his shield.
His surviving three Kingsguard had formed something of a wedge around him, Ser Gerold Hasty at his front, Ormund Cole his left and Alester Strong his right, and the four of them were making their way over the countless bodies dead and dying. Viserys had no clue where they were in relation to their starting positions, had no clue if they were marching towards where Aegon had been or back towards where his own lines supposedly lay, but wherever they went they found more men to kill.
Parry, parry, strike. He killed, he yelled, he fought, all while the voice grew closer and louder. "...Viserys…"
"Viserys."
"Viserys!"
He was in the middle of disemboweling a man-at-arms when he heard it the last time, suddenly as crystal clear over the din of battle as if it had been screamed directly in his ear.
"VISERYS!"
The King of the Iron Throne had barely managed to turn, his Kingsguard turning with him, before his brother was upon them.
The white flames of his crest were crimson in blood, his black armor covered in gore and mud and ice. Hasty stood no chance, having just started to turn when Aelor's sword drove through the damnable weak spot between breastplate and helm, stabbing in and out quick as a viper strike. He staggered forward before falling to his knees and slamming face first into a corpse. Aelor had withdrawn the sword before Hasty even realized he was dead, and the man who had saved a young Viserys' life was raining down blows on Ormund Cole with a ferocity Viserys had never seen.
Alester stepped forward and brought a mighty blow of the mace down, but Aelor sidestepped and slammed his shield into Strong's helm, sending the massive bodyguard staggering a few steps. It was all the time Aelor needed to finish Cole, who fell to the snow desperately trying to stench the flow of blood from his slit throat. Alester came at Aelor like a charging bull, but Aelor gracefully spun around the youth and his swinging mace, bringing his sword in a backhand blow that missed Strong's back by mere centimeters. Alester had stopped, turned and barreled back, roaring and swinging, quicker than light.
But not quicker than Aelor.
The third and final of his Kingsguard was impaled by his own momentum, Aelor having stepped forward when Alester was turning. The young warrior's aggression had been his undoing, finding the older and more experienced killer was inside his guard only after the blade burst out his back. His massive legs didn't stop turning for a moment, Aelor's armored boots digging troughs in the snow as Alester pushed him along despite the Hand of the King being braced against his broad chest. But the strength slowly left them, and soon enough Alester Strong sank to the ground.
Brother met brother's eyes then, as the demon who had so easily dispatched a King's Kingsguard withdrew his blade from the last of their corpses.
And, like a nightmare come to life, Viserys was alone with Aelor.
His brother started towards him in measured, calm steps. His shield was at the ready, the ruby-pommeled sword that had ended so many lives aiming to add a fellow Targaryen's blood for the first time. Viserys, having only been able to watch in shock and terror as the man who had raised him eliminated his Kingsguard, managed to raise his own shield and Blackfyre, though every nerve in his body told him to run. He was no match for the Dragon of Duskendale and they both knew it, but no one would follow a king who fled in fear.
The again, no one would follow a dead king either.
But no matter their differences and transgressions against the other, the same blood coursed through Viserys' veins that coursed through Aelor's, and the third son of Aerys held his ground against the second.
Viserys brought the attack to Aelor, as he had so many dozens of times in the tiltyard. And, the same now as it had been then, his older brother knocked aside Viserys' blade with seeming ease. Viserys caught his counterattack on his shield, the impact jarring his arm. The King stayed light on his feet, darting another strike that the Hand deflected before Viserys stepped back swiftly. He nearly tripped on the body of Gerold Hasty, barely managing to deflect Aelor's strike as he stumbled. The older of the brothers instantly took advantage, swinging his shield with what seemed like the force of a battering ram into Viserys' face.
The Golden Dragon saw stars and tasted blood as he was sent stumbling by the blow, crashing into the churned snow on his shoulder plate. He clawed his way forward as quickly as he could, almost careening back to the ground several times before he regained his balance. He turned just in time to see the White Dragon's sword flying in from above, barely jumping out of the way of the blood-coated blade. Almost as soon as he avoided that strike it was coming back with another, accompanied with a roar from the demon made man wielding it. Blackfyre caught that one, then the next, as the White Dragon drove the Gold steadily back.
Viserys was panting, nearly all of his strength focused on keeping his elder brother's sword at bay. He was constantly on his back foot, nearly tripping on several more corpses, his retreat a jerky, unkingly thing. In contrast Aelor strode relentlessly forward, strikes precise and seeming to only strengthen, using both sword and shield as a weapon as he resorted to sheer aggression. Viserys soon was bleeding from half a dozen cuts to the joints of his armor, quick enough to deflect the blows or move out of the way before real damage could be inflicted but not skilled enough to avoid his brothers blade entirely.
He could only last so long. A particularly vicious blow knocked his blade up and out a centimeter too far away from his body, and Aelor had driven his blade into the opening before Viserys could get his shield all the way around. The King of the Iron Throne cried out in pain as his brother's blade bit into his upper arm, driving through the chainmail under the plate and cleaving the bone and tendon. The Golden Dragon's arm went limp, Blackfyre falling from his nerveless fingers as the White withdrew the blade and slashed it across the side of his leg, bringing Viserys crashing to a knee.
The King of the Iron Throne brought his shield up with his one good arm as his own blood froze to his armor, but three horribly strong strikes from a devastating angle soon sent it crashing away like all his hopes of survival.
Violet eyes bore into violet eyes as Viserys looked up to the man who had both saved and killed him.
He wasn't angry, and that in and of itself was significant.
Moments earlier the focus of his rage had been to kill the man who had indirectly murdered his daughter. That anger had allowed Aelor to carve through Viserys' Kingsguard like a cake, none of the men a match for him in that moment. That anger had powered his swordarm to swing again and again and again, driving his enemy farther and farther back, wearing the false king down as he landed small strike after small strike, bleeding him slowly. That anger had allowed him to strike hard and true, piercing chainmail and cleaving bone in his enemy's shoulder and then carving into his calf, bringing that murderer to his knees.
And in that moment, when the goal of his rage was about to be reached, that anger was gone.
It suddenly wasn't a false king on one knee staring up at him, but a silvery haired child with eyes much like Aelor's own. It was a small bundle clutched to the breast of Aelor's long dead mother, a small boy pretending to be a horse for the amusement of his smaller sister. While Aelor knew it was a man in front of him, a man who had killed others both with sword and command, all he could see was a child.
Viserys didn't shirk back, didn't look away. Fear was in his eyes to be certain, but so was a resignation, a serene look of acceptance. He knew he was dead, knelt bleeding in the snow with neither sword nor shield at the mercy of a man who he had betrayed so thoroughly, but he didn't plead for mercy or cry for help from whatever remained of his men around them. He simply stared back into Aelor's eyes, and the Dragon of Duskendale realized it was the first time in his life that Viserys had ever been able to hold his gaze.
Whatever his brothers faults, whatever his eccentrics and quirks, he was meeting his death head on.
And despite all that had transpired, despite the death of his eldest daughter, Aelor realized he couldn't be the one to deliver it.
Twice Aelor Targaryen had had the opportunity to kill a brother for the good of the Seven Kingdoms, and twice—with Rhaegar at Harrenhal and now Viserys mere feet from where Rhaegar had fallen—he had failed.
He was just lowering his shield when Viserys' eyes darted to the side, looking behind Aelor's back. He had been so focused on his baby brother that he hadn't sensed the man closing in behind him, years of battle-tested instincts failing him. The Dragon of Duskendale tried to twist around, tried to bring his shield far enough back to knock aside a thrust or catch a slash, but he knew even before he got halfway that it was too late.
And then a third presence materialized out of nowhere, catching the oddly shaped blade being thrust straight at Aelor's spine and knocking the blade up. A man with black and crimson armor, seven red-gold spikes adorning his helmet like a crown, placed himself between the Dragon of Duskendale and the short foreigner wearing the white of a Kingsguard, his pointed skull bared to the falling snow and freezing wind. Before the former mercenary could overcome his shock the true King of the Iron Throne had parried the blade, knocking it from the Jhogos Nhai's hands. One vicious swipe of the King's sword sent the would-be dragonslayer's head bouncing across the bloody ground, the odd shape of his cranium making it roll jaggedly at different angles until it came to rest against the body of a downed horse.
King Aegon the Sixth turned to face his uncle as the torso of the foreigner collapsed to the snow. Aelor could only nod, knowing the boy he had saved as a child had now saved him. Aegon returned it, and Aelor knew his nephew was smiling under his visor.
The two facets of Targaryen power turned to regard the fallen king in front of them, Viserys too weak to have moved in the small amount of time the foreigner's death had bought him. Aelor realized Aegon's Kingsguard was surrounding them, holding off any attempts by surviving men from Viserys' army to rescue their wounded monarch. The three Targaryen's were in their own little bubble, time frozen as two of them decided which would kill the third.
Aegon leaned in close to Aelor's ear, voice rough. "He must die."
The Dragon of Duskendale nodded. "I know. But I cannot do it myself."
The King nodded, peering once more at Viserys, whose eyes were beginning to droop from the loss of blood from the half dozen minor and two serious cuts. The King took several steps towards the Prince who had tried to usurp him, scooping down to reverently wrap his fingers around the grip of Blackfyre, the smoky blade returning to its rightful place in the hand of a true Targaryen monarch. Aegon seemed to inflate as he lifted the sword, rising up to his full height to stare down at his enemy before him.
Then he abruptly turned and strode away.
Aelor turned and stared after him confusedly until his eyes settled on what stood waiting just behind them. Ser Rolland Storm, brother to the man whose murder at Viserys' hand had helped lay the foundation for the conflict they now fought, was covered in blood, white armor turned crimson. He and Arthur Dayne had returned to the army only half a day before they had marched out to face Viserys. Aegon walked past him with only the smallest of nods, the King raising his own defenses as he readied to rejoin the carnage around them, but it was all the big man in white armor needed. He began forward, sword and mace at the ready.
Aelor didn't watch. He followed his nephew, throwing himself back into the battle that was growing more and more vicious, despite the loss of the Golden Company's claimant.
But even over the shouts and screams of the dying and the clash of steel, he heard Rolland Storm's strike land.