Chapter 130 - When Blood Flows like a River
Since Asmodeus arrived in Highgarden, a day had passed. Asha Greyjoy had almost sailed to Dorne, and Jon Snow was about to arrive at Dragonstone. At this moment, Asmodeus was hovering more than a kilometer above the ground, ensuring that his troops, already approaching Highgarden, wouldn't notice him.
He watched as an army of about 7 thousand cavalry and 20 thousand infantry swiftly advanced toward the castle.
They were less than five kilometers away from the heart of the Reach's defenses.
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Jaime Lannister watched Highgarden approaching with relief in his heart. He saw no fortifications or soldiers outside the castle, only archer towers on the walls.
"You were right to decide to attack the city so quickly. It seems empty."
"The forces of the reach haven't arrived yet, and there shouldn't be many enemies in Highgarden. We're lucky. Tyrion thought attacking the West with all their might would be wise."
"I don't know. Even if the Tyrells decided to send an army to support the Dragon Queen, why didn't they leave at least a couple of thousand soldiers, knowing that you are now their enemies?"
"Perhaps they decided to wait out the siege? They have enough grain."
"But what about the grain ripening in the fields? That's a lot of money, and they'll just leave it to us?"
"Get to the point, what are you trying to say?"
"I just don't like that such a huge castle is guarded by a few dozen archers, and the Tyrell army has disappeared somewhere. Something's fishy here."
"Even if the Tyrell army is nearby. Look around, do you see any forests or hills? Where could they hide? Either they're in the castle and decided to wait out the siege, or as we suspect, they've gone west. Either way, we're ahead."
"How are we ahead if they decide to wait out the siege?" Jaime pointed to five carts being pulled by horses to their right. "That's wildfire. If need be, we'll blow up the wall and enter the city."
"Is that the thing that blew up the Sept of Baelor? Don't you want to keep it away from the army?" Bronn moved his horse so Jaime was shielding him with his body.
"You know if I die, you won't get paid, right?"
"Well, it's better if you die, not me even if I won't get paid "
Jaime sighed wearily and said, "When we approach within 2 kilometers, start positioning archers. Keep the catapults away, and get the ladders ready. If the Tyrells decide to open the gates and attack, we'll rain arrows on them. If they stay inside the castle, we shouldn't get too close to the walls until we have a chance to blow them up."
"What chance?"
"Nightfall, a distracting maneuver, or something else. I don't want to start a war by blowing up the city walls. If I can convince them to hand over Olenna, I'd prefer not to fight."
"Do you really believe that's possible?"
"No..."
Jaime turned his horse and rode toward the carts with wildfire. Bronn shook his head and rode toward the archer squads.
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Asmodeus watched as the army drew closer to the castle, even beginning to set up catapults and siege weapons. He pulled a beetle phone out of his pocket and dialed a specific number.
"Prepare yourselves, the attack will start any minute now, upon my signal. Remember, the order is as follows: long-range attack volley, Athena's attack, another volley, my attack, and then you move in for close combat to clear them out. Five minutes for clearance, the rest can be left alive."
He didn't end the call but continued to observe as the Lannister forces reformed and began fortifying.
"Just a little more..." Asmodeus intended to showcase the power of the sorcerers, and for that, he needed an opponent who was somewhat prepared.
Such a demonstration was necessary for both the Tyrells and the Lannisters. For his plan to make the Lannisters retreat behind their walls and turn against each other to work, the surviving soldiers needed to fear the sorcerers so much that they couldn't think straight.
This level of fear or PTSD would spread fear in the royal harbor and turn the people even more against Cersei, which was advantageous to Asmodeus at the moment.
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On the wall, Tarly stood, unable to understand why these strange people brought by Olenna hadn't attacked yet. He saw where they disappeared and how they vanished. At one moment, half of them blended with the grass and earth, while the other half somehow turned the earth into water and poured it onto the nearest walls.
The moat turned out to be so deep that it was impossible to notice from afar, but standing atop the tower, Randall saw soldiers, though gathered, sitting and doing nothing, regularly glancing at the man with a slightly different helmet who held a fat beetle in his hand.
Just as he was about to send one of the knights to Lady Olenna to inquire if she was certain about these people, he saw the man with the beetle raise his hand.
With the movement of the hand, the entire thousand people stood up almost simultaneously and aimed short sticks upwards. But the man continued to hold his hand in a position that Randall understood to mean "get ready."
Tarly saw that the Lannister forces would soon be within 400 meters, which was almost enough for longbow shooting. Again turning his gaze to the army in crimson armor, he saw the man with his hand raised suddenly lower it.
Literally within a second, the thousand people who had previously been invisible reappeared before Randall's eyes and everyone on the battlefield. At first, even the Lannister army was stunned but quickly resumed moving forward. They would deeply regret that decision...
"CONFRINGO!!!"
The voice of a thousand men resounded throughout the battlefield.
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Jaime stood amidst the army, overseeing the overall situation. To his right and left were units of cavalry, each numbering about a thousand people. At some point, as they approached Highgarden, a strange sight unfolded before him.
Out of nowhere, approximately a thousand people appeared. They were impeccably dressed, each wearing thick plate armor with strange patterns on them. The armor was dyed in a dark crimson color, resembling either blood or smoldering fire.
Each one had a sword at their waist, most of them standard one-handed swords with straight blades, but Jaime noticed peculiarities in some of them, such as curved swords or axes. But the strangest thing for Jaime was that when facing this army, they didn't draw their swords; they pointed forward... with sticks?
Literally within a second, he realized his mistake.
"CONFRINGO!!!"
As the last syllable was uttered, Jaime saw hundreds of orange balls flying towards his army.
As he tried to say something to his troops, he felt someone pulling him off his horse with a shout,
"GET DOWN!!!"
Jaime saw Bronn holding him as they fell from the horse. Before he could even think about why Bronn had pulled him off the horse, he saw a familiar orange ball flying directly where he had just been. Still in the process of falling, Jaime caught a glimpse of how this seemingly harmless orange ball smashed into the head of the cavalryman standing behind him.
"BOOM!!!"
Jaime's ears rang, but he didn't look away. He watched as the man's head exploded into pieces, like a watermelon falling off a table, except this watermelon was on fire.
The decapitated and burning body of the unfortunate rider instantly fell to the ground. But the consequences of the explosion didn't end there.
Jaime, lying on the ground and looking up, saw how his men within a radius of about four meters from the explosion instantly caught fire. Burning fragments of the head scattered in all directions accompanied by a wave of fire.
The most terrifying thing was that the wave of flames from the explosion was at the head level of most riders, instantly burning their faces. Jaime watched as soldiers fell to the ground, clutching their faces melting before his eyes.
'Retreat!' - was the only thought in Jaime's mind.
Nodding to Bronn in gratitude, Jaime got to his feet and was about to give the command when he saw the scene at the forefront.
Thousands of infantrymen, or rather what was left of them, lay on the ground slowly burning. In reality, those who died from the explosion were the luckiest people on this battlefield.
Those who were scorched by the blast were the unluckiest. Seeing the chaotic and tragic situation in the front ranks, Jaime shouted loudly,
"RETREAT!!! EVERYONE, RETREAT!!!"
The rear ranks immediately turned around. They saw what happened more clearly than anyone, and they didn't want to be next.
Jaime had no intention of staying either. He saw Bronn approaching him and said, "Find the horses! We need to retreat. Another attack like that and we're dead."
"Over there!"
Bronn wasn't joking at a time like this. He quickly found some unattended horses and motioned for Jaime to follow him as he ran towards the two unfortunate ones now lying on the ground in agony.
Both Jaime and Bronn swiftly mounted their horses and were about to retreat when they saw something that filled them with despair.
"ROAR!!!"
A massive dragon, so large that its shadow covered half of the army, descended from the sky towards the retreating part of the army.
Jaime was about to turn his horse to try to escape through the flanks, where there were no enemy forces or the dreadful dragon, but before he could do so, he saw a dark crimson glow with strange bright red lightning flashing in the dragon's mouth.
"AAAAHHH!!!"
The scream of terror echoed across the battlefield as the dragon's flames approached the retreating troops. But with each passing moment, the screams diminished. It wasn't that people stopped being afraid. It was just that the places touched by the dragon's flames turned into scorched earth.
There was no trace left of the people and armor the dragon targeted, and those touched by the flames turned into ash within seconds, swept away by every flap of the monster's wings. Jaime watched as the dragon flew around the army, creating something akin to a semi-circle of flames.
At first, there were brave souls who tried to leap over the fire, but as soon as the flames touched a horse or a person, they were instantly consumed. Jaime, who just a few seconds ago had wanted to rush to the right side, saw the fire there and what happened to those who tried to leap over it, and he abandoned that idea.
Seeing the dire situation, he lowered his sword and shouted at the top of his lungs, "SURRENDER!!!"
But in the chaos filled with cries of pain and agony, no one except Bronn heard Jaime.
Jaime thought it was all over. If things continued like this, even if he wanted to surrender, the people running around the field in fear wouldn't allow him to do so. He didn't know what to do, but he had a glimmer of hope. He saw the dragon, which had just killed his army like cattle, flap its wings and fly away.
Jaime wanted to see where the dragon was flying, but the sun didn't allow him to do so. He thought this was their chance; if they could somehow extinguish the fire on the right and left flanks, they could escape. But he forgot to take into account human behavior in critical situations. People become a herd, and a herd follows the first one who runs...
Jaime watched as, after several failed attempts to escape, the cavalry soldiers turned their horses around, drew their swords, and charged towards the thousand men guarding the castle.
Realizing something, Jaime shouted, "STOP!!! YOU IDIOTS!!!! IT'S A TRAP!!!" But no one listened to him. Perhaps a few, not overwhelmed by fear, stopped, but the rest did the opposite.
Seeing the cavalry charging towards the enemy, the infantry moved towards them. Thus, the crowd surged towards the castle, while Jaime and Bronn remained at the rear of the battlefield...
At first, Jaime loudly cursed these idiots for not obeying orders, but then he saw that the cavalry had run halfway, and the strange knights with sticks hadn't fired their dreadful weapons. Doubts crept into his mind. And then they vanished instantly. It was as if, for the cavalry to see, one of the strange soldiers had attacked slightly earlier than the others, just a bit earlier, but the cavalry immediately began to slow down. And when they saw another wave of attacks coming towards them, the same one that had killed thousands of soldiers in a single second last time, they quickly turned their horses around.
Numerous collisions occurred. Many people died simply from falling off their horses, breaking their necks, legs, arms... In reality, those who fell but only broke a leg and survived were lucky. They managed to cheat death a second time.
Once again, the sound of incessant explosions filled the air. Soldiers who had managed to turn around among the first thought they were lucky, seeing from the corner of their eyes how the burning remains of those who had started running back too late scattered. But fortune is fleeting.
Both the cavalry and infantry didn't run for long, as they first saw a small cluster of people ahead of them, and behind them, a wall of fire...
Many simply stood in the middle of the battlefield, continuously turning their heads from side to side. Fortunately, the doubts quickly came to an end.
Jaime felt something pass over him and quickly turned around. He saw a sphere similar to the ones launched by the enemy, but this time it was black...
He wanted to check where the attack had come from. Was there another troop of these monsters behind them? But before he could turn his head, he heard an explosion louder than all the previous ones combined: "BOOM!!!!"
The earth shook.
Where the cluster of hesitant people had stood just moments ago, there was now only a deep crater, at least 50 meters in diameter and about 7 meters deep, with strange black flames around its perimeter.
Jaime and the other soldiers near him fell silent. They had just witnessed around a thousand people evaporate. It was more terrifying than the dragon's fire; there, the flames burn you, and you witness it. But here, they didn't even know where the attack had come from; there was just an explosion, and a piece of land vanished along with all the soldiers who had been there before... There was no ash or body parts... As if they had been erased from the world.
Jaime saw how those closest to the explosion lay on the ground, their internal organs ruptured by the blast wave, dying on the spot.
Those who saw it began to lose their minds. Some grabbed swords and ran towards the soldiers, screaming, seeking revenge for the hell they had entered—most of them did. The rest just lay on the ground, crying or shouting into the sky.
Jaime thought it was the end when the remaining soldiers approached these monsters in crimson armor, expecting them to unleash that dreadful attack again...
But he was wrong. When the first of the cavalry approached the previous distance, there was no attack. Much to the surprise of the Lannister forces, there were no explosions, but they saw something worse: another thousand of those same Warriors in crimson armor leaped out of the ground from somewhere.
The cavalry prepared to flee, but someone shouted,
"THEY DON'T HAVE THOSE DAMN STICKS!!!! THEY HAVE SWORDS IN THEIR HANDS!!! ATTACK!!!! THE MONSTERS ARE OUT OF STRENGTH!!!!"
People, hearing this, took a closer look. And indeed, the new troops held swords they were familiar with, not those cursed sticks that explode heads.
Soldiers thought this was their chance. Perhaps these sticks didn't have an endless supply, only twice, no more! And those with swords were deployed to protect them. But assessing the situation now, they saw that even though the total number of Lannisters wasn't even 1/7 of what it used to be, they still had a clear numerical advantage, especially since many of them were mounted, while the enemy only had infantry.
With these thoughts in mind, the remaining couple of thousand people ran towards the swordsmen.
The first cavalryman swung his sword, but instead of seeing the desired expression of pain on the opponent's face, he saw his own sword shatter, while the enemy's sword was already piercing his torso.
"Strike!"
The horseman, along with his mail, was cut in half. The same situation unfolded across the entire battlefield. Soldiers who were already on their last legs collided with an iron wall in the form of people.
They couldn't even scratch the opponent, while they were effortlessly sliced like sausage... Seeing what was happening at the castle walls, Jaime dismounted and threw his sword to the ground, saying,
"This is pointless. If I'm to die, let it be as a man, not as meat. I'd rather be executed than go fearfully against an iron wall that fights back." Saying this, he sat down next to where his sword had fallen.
Bronn glanced around a couple of times, as if trying to find an exit that others hadn't noticed, but quickly realized there was no such way out. He also threw down his sword and sat next to Jaime, saying,
"You know, your brother knows how to pick sides..."
"I'm amazed at your ability to remain calm in such a situation."
"Who said I'm calm..."
Bronn looked at his hands, which were shaking like a madman's, and fell silent.
Seeing the actions of these two, the remaining sane people around them followed their example.
They laid down their weapons and sat on the ground.
Some even removed their armor, saying, "If we're going to die anyway, what's the point of wearing it? It's uncomfortable."