"Awwooo!" Big Jon roared, spreading his long legs and charging straight at the Giant Slayer.
He stood nearly 2.1 meters tall, his body packed with solid muscle, and his movement was explosively sudden. He was like a tank moving at jeep speed. With tremendous impact, in just a few strides he slammed aside three unprepared Knights of the Flaming Heart.
Before he even reached the sedan chair, the iron greatsword in his right hand, as wide as a seesaw, was already swinging.
Beneath the firelight of the burning fishbeamwood weirwood tree, everyone instinctively felt a gale sweep through the air. Then came a sharp crack followed by a wet thud, and the Giant Slayer's head was driven down into his chest cavity.
Well, Aegon was so stimulated that he spat out blood, which happened to spray across Gaudi Farin's face. Big Jon was far too fast, his burst far too sudden. Gaudi was cursing as he wiped his face and failed to notice the "door panel" smashing down toward his head.
By all rights, with Big Jon's strength and the weight of the greatsword, the Giant Slayer's head should have burst like a watermelon.
But he was wearing an iron helmet, and its quality was decent, at least sturdier than collarbones and ribs, so he ended up becoming a turtle pulling its head into its shell.
With a dull thud, Gaudi Farin collapsed to the ground, his limbs twitching uncontrollably. Only then did everyone snap out of their shock.
"Pah!" Big Jon, as if nothing had happened, spat on the corpse of the Knight of the Flaming Heart. He bent down and lifted King Aegon, who lay on the ground with a face as pale as gold foil.
"Aegon, Aegon, you…"
Big Jon had only called out twice when a long spear shot in like lightning. With a clang, it struck his left waist. The mail armor absorbed part of the spear's sharp impact, but it still pierced about two inches into his abdomen.
"Ah, watch out!" Only then did Meiji's warning reach them, arriving too late.
"Aw!" Big Jon felt the chill at his waist. He tossed King Aegon back onto the couch like a rag doll and swung his greatsword toward the direction the spear had come from, slashing at Richard the Pockmarked Knight, whose face was twisted with hatred.
Richard's martial skill was not poor. He released the spear, drew his sword, and met the blow. The two blades collided.
There was a grating screech that made teeth ache.
"Stop! Big Jon, be careful!" Meiji shouted again. This time her warning came faster than the knights' movements, but some twenty hand crossbows were still triggered.
In an instant, Big Jon was bristling with bolts. He let out a wail and rolled to the ground like a sack of blood.
From the moment Big Jon erupted into action to the moment he was riddled with bolts, less than half a minute had passed.
The Knights of the Flaming Heart present were all veterans of countless battles, having followed the Stag King on campaigns north and south for years. Even if their individual skills varied, there was no way they would stupidly stand by and watch their general be cut down.
The moment Big Jon struck down Gaudi Farin, they almost instinctively raised the crossbows hanging at their waists.
"Aw!" Seeing Big Jon fall, Meiji, Gybbert, and the other Northerners also went berserk, drawing their swords and charging forward to fight to the death.
The Red Priestess frowned slightly. The ruby at her throat flashed with red light. Without any visible movement from her, crimson flames mixed with thick black smoke peeled away from the burning weirwood, forming a massive black-and-red fire-and-smoke serpent that charged straight into the rioting Northerners.
Meiji and some twenty Northern nobles were choked by smoke and scorched by fire, howling as they clutched their heads and fled in all directions.
The woman in red had no intention of killing anyone. After blackening them from head to toe with soot and smoke, she dispelled the fire-control spell.
In that brief span of time, several hundred mercenaries bearing the Flaming Heart emblem on their chests surged into the godswood. With spears, shields, and bows, they completely surrounded the rioting Northerners.
Well, Serpentwood City had two thousand Northern soldiers, but most of them were camped outside the city walls. Only those of status, like Meiji's group, were allowed to stay in the stone castle.
As for the Vale folk, King Aegon was not a son-in-law of the Vale. Without the guise of being Rhaegar's son, the Vale nobles would not show him the slightest loyalty.
The Stag King glared at the bound and restrained Northerners and roared, "Are you trying to rebel?"
"Protecting one's own king counts as rebellion?" Big Jon said with a groan.
Mail armor and the inner layer of boiled leather could not, of course, fully withstand a close-range volley from hand crossbows. But Big Jon himself was powerfully built, his body covered in bulging muscle. After passing through the armor, the bolts lodged in flesh and muscle. He looked bloodied and miserable, but in truth he had suffered no fatal wounds.
"Is he your king?" the Stag King snarled, teeth clenched. "Was I not clear enough before? He may have a trace of Targaryen bastard blood, but he is still a foreign outsider."
"Maybe he is not the king of the Seven Kingdoms, but he saved me at the Twins. I do not care about anyone else. Today, I must save him."
Jon Umber's son was also named Jon Umber. Both the elder and younger Jon attended the Red Wedding. The younger Jon was killed, while the elder Jon survived thanks to his thick hide. He remained captive until Aegon and Sansa took the Twins and freed him. Not only that, Aegon helped him take revenge by hanging dozens of Freys.
"Ah!" Big Jon roared and began struggling with all his might. The chains on his hands, feet, and neck clattered loudly.
Seven or eight mercenaries rushed in at once. Some grabbed his arms, some pinned his shoulders, and another planted his backside firmly onto the giant's face.
"Aw!" Big Jon was pressed flat against the ground, utterly unable to struggle, able only to let out loud but powerless howls.
"Sigh. You should understand that you are wasting your effort," the Stag King said softly, his gaze turning gentle.
"Heh heh. At least I took out that idiot knight who dared insult him," Big Jon said with a miserable laugh.
At those words, Pockmarked Richard's fury flared. He rushed over and kicked out viciously.
With a heavy thud, the steel boot struck Big Jon squarely in the mouth. His lips split, his tongue torn, his front teeth shattered.
"Stop!" Just before the pockmarked knight could land a second kick, the Stag King, now recovered from his shock, called out.
The Stag King frowned at his knight. The words of rebuke surged up from his chest to his throat, then were swallowed back down.
"Sigh! Though you violated the king's laws, you are still a loyal and courageous man!" the Stag King said with a complicated expression. Pointing at Big Jon, he instructed the Knights of the Flaming Heart, "Take him away. Lock him in the dungeon for now and wait for Jon Snow to return before deciding his fate. We continue…"
"No, no, do not burn my son!" A fat man in fine clothes stumbled through the crowd, wailing in despair.
Illyrio had arrived.
Although he was the mastermind behind the "狸猫换太子" plot, and Stannis had long wanted to seize him and put him on trial, to Jon the crime of impersonating Rhaegar's son had little to do with Illyrio.
Well, it truly had nothing to do with the Starks.
Jon naturally did not like him, but no matter how one put it, he was Sansa's father-in-law.
These days, the fat man had been staying in the Northern camp outside the city, enjoying limited freedom of movement. He could move about Snakewood, but had to remain under the "protection" of Northern guards.
The heart tree in the godswood was a weirwood that had grown for over a thousand years, more than twenty meters tall. Once it was fully ablaze, it looked like a candle stuck into a birthday cake, with Snakewood being that very cake.
Anyone outside the city who was not blind could see it.
"We've already paid the ransom. Why are you going back on your word?" the Pentoshi Trade Prince roared at Stannis, his fat face twisted and his eyes spitting fire.
Stannis glanced at him with disgust and turned to ask Melisandre, "Does he have king's blood?"
Melisandre shook her head. "The title of Trade Prince is an honorary one. His political power is equivalent to that of a council member. Even if he had king's blood, it would be extremely thin."
Stannis said coldly, "The ransom was paid for the defeated Aegon Targaryen. It has nothing to do with the war anymore. Your son impersonated Rhaegar's child and plotted to seize the Iron Throne. His crime is unforgivable."
"A red dragon or a black dragon, aren't they both dragons?" the fat merchant cried out in grief and anger.
"That is something you should say to Daenerys, to Jon Connington, to Sansa Stark, and to all the nobles of the former True Dragon Alliance."
Stannis waved his hand, and the Knights of the Fiery Heart dragged the drooping Aegon toward the pyre.
"Aegon, Aegon." Illyrio's eyes were bloodshot as he struggled desperately, held back by two knights.
His two ring-laden hands stretched forward with all their might, as if trying to haul his son back.
Aegon, having come to his senses from his earlier rage, turned to look at that familiar yet unfamiliar fat face.
A flush of excitement rose on his cheeks, pale as ash.
This was the first time the two had faced each other since his identity was exposed. Aegon's longing for this moment was no less than his yearning for Sansa's comfort of "I don't care about your identity," and for Aunt Dany's acceptance of "you are still my great nephew."
So he began to struggle, roaring at Illyrio, "You lied to me. You ruined my entire life!"
Illyrio felt as though his heart were being cut by knives. With tears streaming down his face, he said, "I did everything for you. You deserve the very best this world has to offer."
"Bullshit!" Aegon's expression twisted. "Your so-called best. I pursued the Iron Throne only because, from the moment I could remember, I was told it was my life's mission: to reclaim the honor the Targaryens had lost, and to avenge my dead parents and sister.
"Rhaegar, who died in the Baratheon Rebellion, was my father. Elia, raped and murdered by the Lannisters, was my mother. Rhaenys, hacked into bloody pieces, was my sister. The usurped Iron Throne belonged to me. These were the reasons I always longed to return to Westeros.
"From the moment I was born, you draped me in the cloak of a ghost. My ideals were forced upon me by you, and my destiny was twisted by you.
"And now you tell me this was for my own good?I would rather spend my entire life as a fisherman by the Rhoyne, at least truly living, under my own identity."
Illyrio swayed as if he had been struck head-on by a speeding wagon. Clutching his chest, he said sorrowfully, "You are the grandson of Daemon Blackfyre. You carry the noble blood of Aegon IV and Daena Targaryen.
"You should have inherited your ancestors' will. Your mother once told me that you ought to become a noble prince."
"Heh, hahahaha." Aegon threw his head back in wild laughter. "Retribution. Retribution. Your schemes with Varys drove Viserys mad and brought endless suffering to Daenerys.
"The turmoil of the Seven Kingdoms over these years, you probably had a hand in most of it, didn't you?
"Thousands upon thousands of innocents have died. Now retribution has come.
"Burn me. Burn me!For such sins, even the seven hells are not enough for me. Only that evil foreign god… ah!"
"Aegon, no!" the fat man wailed, craning his neck.
Up to this point, as Aegon and Illyrio exchanged words, even Stannis and Melisandre, along with the Knights of the Fiery Heart and the onlooking Northerners and men of the Vale, had been watching with great relish, their faces full of satisfaction. But how could the followers of the Red God tolerate someone insulting R'hllor?
Before King Aegon could finish his last sentence, the two knights holding him shoved him hard, sending him into the sea of flames.
"Ah, Mother have mercy!" Aegon was engulfed in fire, rolling back and forth atop the burning pile of wood. His earlier resolve to descend into the hell of an evil god was instantly cast far away, and he began to cry out loudly to the Mother.
"The night is dark and full of terrors, but the Lord of Light grants us strength."
Melisandre once again chanted the litany of the Red God. The surrounding Knights of the Fiery Heart followed along, their voices mingling with Aegon's screams and Illyrio's curses, oaths, and sobs into a bizarre chorus.
Within the flames, it was as if a gluttonous monster were hidden. The agony pouring from Aegon's soul was its feast. It greedily extended shadowy tendrils once more, wrapping around the writhing Aegon amid the bright firelight.
Red flames and pitch-black shadows. The shadows danced merrily within the fire, as though drawing something out of Aegon.
Though the flames shot skyward, everyone watching felt a chill run through them, as if their souls too were being tightly seized by the dark shadows.
"Gods, what kind of monster is that?" Meggi, forced to her knees by mercenaries, went pale, as if plunged into an icy abyss.
A nearby follower of the Red God said proudly, "This is the great—"
"Hey! Great! Mighty! Heavenly! Dragon!"
Suddenly, a thunderous shout rang out from the sky, majestic, sacred, and immense.
(End of chapter)
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