Chapter 27: Harrenhal's Shadow and the Rider's Vengeance
The news of Prince Aemond Targaryen's escape from Dragonstone, and his subsequent reunion with the monstrous Vhagar, fell upon Queen Rhaenyra's war council like a physical blow. The Stone Drum, which had briefly echoed with the grim satisfaction of victories at Harrenhal and Maidenpool, now resonated with a stunned, furious silence, quickly followed by a cacophony of disbelief, accusations, and thinly veiled panic.
"Escaped?" Prince Daemon Targaryen had snarled, his hand instinctively going to Dark Sister, his violet eyes blazing with a fury that mirrored his dragon Caraxes. "From the dungeons of Dragonstone itself? Impossible! There was a traitor! Someone aided him!"
Lord Corlys Velaryon's weathered face was a mask of grim resignation. "Or perhaps, Prince Daemon, we underestimated a desperate, one-eyed prince's resourcefulness, and the unnatural bond he shares with his beast. Vhagar has been a shadow over this island since he was brought here. Her grief may have guided her, or him."
Queen Rhaenyra herself was ashen-faced, the news clearly a devastating personal and strategic setback. Aemond, the kinslayer, the murderer of her son Lucerys, was free once more, astride the most formidable dragon in the world. It was a nightmare made real. Her gaze, when it fell upon Ciel Phantomhive, Lord Cregan Stark, was filled with a desperate, almost pleading intensity. He, the boy lord who had achieved the impossible by capturing Aemond, was now perhaps her only hope of weathering this new storm.
Ciel, alone among the shocked and raging council members, remained outwardly impassive. His single blue eye, cold and analytical, surveyed the room. Aemond's escape was a complication, a dangerous one, but not an insurmountable one. It simply altered the variables of the equation.
"Grief and recrimination will not recapture Prince Aemond, Your Grace," Ciel stated, his voice cutting through the heated exchanges with icy precision. "Nor will it defend your shores from Vhagar's renewed wrath. We must assess the damage, anticipate his next move, and prepare our response."
His calmness, his sheer refusal to be cowed by this disastrous turn of events, seemed to steady the room, if only slightly.
"And what is your counsel, Lord Stark?" Rhaenyra asked, her voice trembling slightly. "You caged him once. Can such a feat be repeated?"
"Prince Aemond will be warier now, Your Grace," Ciel replied. "And Vhagar, reunited with her rider, will be a far more focused and formidable weapon than the grieving, wounded beast we drove from Harrenhal. A direct confrontation would be… unwise, unless on terms overwhelmingly in our favor." He paused. "My orders were to take and hold Harrenhal, to use it as a base to control the Riverlands and threaten King's Landing. That plan, I believe, remains sound. Perhaps even more critical now."
"Harrenhal?" Daemon scoffed. "With Aemond and Vhagar free? They will come for you, Stark! They will burn that cursed pile of stones to the ground with you and your Northmen inside it! It would be a deathtrap!"
"All fortresses are deathtraps if defended poorly, Prince Daemon," Ciel countered, his gaze unwavering. "And all enemies, even dragonriders, have weaknesses. Harrenhal's very vastness, its ruined state, its cursed reputation – these can be turned to our advantage. Aemond will come for me, yes. He will be driven by vengeance. And vengeance, as you well know, can blind even the keenest eye."
Despite the immense new risk, Rhaenyra, clinging to any sliver of hope and perhaps seeing the unyielding resolve in the young Wolf Lord's eye, agreed. Ciel's original strategy would proceed, though now fraught with even greater peril. Daemon, with the bulk of the Black forces and his own dragon Caraxes, would remain in the Riverlands, based at Maidenpool and Riverrun, to counter any land-based Green offensives and to be ready to support Harrenhal if the opportunity arose. Jacaerys, once Vermax was fully healed, would take his campaign to the Reach as planned, hoping to draw Green forces, including potentially Daeron and Tessarion, away from the core conflict.
Ciel's departure from Dragonstone was swift, his small, battered Northern host – now numbering less than eight thousand fit fighting men – boarding a handful of swift Velaryon galleys. The mood was somber. Their lord was leading them back to a cursed castle, into the very teeth of a vengeful dragon prince. Yet, their faith in Cregan Stark, forged in the fires of Harrenhal and the bloody snows of Maidenpool, remained, a grim, almost fanatical loyalty.
Sebastian Michaelis, of course, accompanied Ciel, his presence a silent reassurance to his master, and a source of profound disquiet to everyone else. During their brief stay on Dragonstone, Sebastian had moved like a phantom, his observations on the island's draconic energies and Valyrian sorcery shared only with Ciel in cryptic, almost academic asides. He had seemed particularly interested in the Dragonmont's volcanic activity, commenting once, with a faint smile, that it reminded him of "certain… less hospitable… climes he had once frequented."
The journey back to Harrenhal was tense, every shadow in the sky, every distant roar on the wind, a potential sign of Vhagar's approach. Ciel used his warging abilities constantly, sending Sarx (who had remained with the main Northern contingent at Maidenpool, his burns slowly healing) scouting far ahead on land, and using seabirds to scan the horizons. He slept little, his mind a whirlwind of strategic calculations, contingency plans, and the unsettling echoes of Harrenhal's dark past that seemed to call to him even across the leagues.
They found Harrenhal much as they had left it: a vast, brooding ruin, its shattered towers stark against the winter sky. Lord Wyman Manderly, still recovering from his leg wound but his spirit undaunted, had maintained a grim hold on the fortress with the remaining Northmen. He greeted Ciel with relief, but his face was etched with worry.
"My lord, the men are… uneasy," Manderly reported, as Ciel surveyed the dilapidated defenses. "This place… it preys on the mind. Whispers in the night, shadows that move when no one is there. And now, with news of Prince Aemond's escape… they fear Vhagar's return more than any earthly foe."
"Fear is a shadow, Lord Manderly," Ciel said, his voice cold. "We will give them tangible enemies to face, and tangible defenses to man. Harrenhal will not be our tomb; it will be Aemond's."
The task of refortifying Harrenhal began immediately, a desperate race against time. Ciel, drawing on his memories of the castle's confusing layout, his greensight visions, and Sebastian's almost supernatural ability to discern structural weaknesses and hidden passages, devised a defensive strategy that was both ingenious and terrifyingly risky. He did not try to repair all of Harrenhal's crumbling walls. Instead, he focused on creating a series of interconnected strongpoints within its vast interior – the relatively intact Kingspyre Tower, the Tower of Dread (now even more ominous after its partial collapse on Vhagar), the cavernous Hall of a Hundred Hearths, and the labyrinthine cellars and crypts beneath.
Sebastian was instrumental in this. He seemed to possess an uncanny understanding of architecture and engineering, directing the Northmen in reinforcing weak walls, creating hidden bolt-holes, and rigging new traps with salvaged materials and the remaining caches of wildfire. He moved with an eerie silence and efficiency, often accomplishing tasks that would have taken scores of men days in a matter of hours. Northmen whispered that he did not sleep, that he could see in the dark, that he could command the very stones of Harrenhal to do his bidding.
Ciel, meanwhile, immersed himself in the castle's oppressive atmosphere. He spent hours in the ancient godswood, a small, twisted weirwood with a weeping, blood-red face at its heart, hoping to glean some insight from his greensight. The visions that came were chaotic, fragmented: Aemond's furious sapphire eye, Vhagar's fiery maw, the screams of burning men, the clash of steel in shadowed halls, and always, the chilling presence of Harrenhal's countless tormented souls, their despair a palpable miasma. He learned to filter these psychic echoes, to focus on the glimmers of strategic insight, the fleeting warnings of Aemond's likely approach.
His bond with Sarx became his anchor in this sea of darkness. The direwolf was his constant companion, his warmth a comfort against the castle's unnatural chill, his keen senses an extension of Ciel's own. Through Sarx, Ciel patrolled the vast, empty courtyards, explored forgotten passages, and felt the subtle shifts in the wind that might herald Vhagar's return.
The Northmen, under Ciel's unyielding command and inspired by Sebastian's almost demonic energy, worked tirelessly. They cleared rubble, fortified arrowslits, dug trenches within the courtyards, and stockpiled what meager supplies they had. Their fear of Harrenhal's ghosts was slowly overshadowed by their fear of Vhagar, and their grim determination to sell their lives dearly. Ciel moved amongst them, a slight, black-clad figure, his presence a constant reminder of their purpose, his cold resolve a source of both fear and a strange, fierce pride.
News from the outside world was sparse, carried by daring scouts or the occasional raven that made it through the increasingly hostile skies. Prince Daemon was reportedly engaged in a series of brutal skirmishes with Green loyalists in the western Riverlands. Prince Jacaerys had flown south to the Reach, his campaign against Daeron Targaryen and the Hightowers beginning in earnest. Of Aemond and Vhagar, there were conflicting reports. Some said they were in King's Landing, where Aemond was rallying new forces. Others claimed they were systematically burning every Black-held castle in the Crownlands. But all reports agreed on one thing: Aemond Targaryen was consumed by a singular, burning desire for vengeance against Cregan Stark.
"He will come, my Lord," Sebastian said one evening, as they stood atop the Kingspyre Tower, watching the moon rise over the desolate landscape. "His pride demands it. His hatred compels him. This castle is a beacon, drawing him towards his perceived retribution."
"Let him come," Ciel replied, his voice soft but laced with iron. "We will be ready. Harrenhal has been the tomb of many proud lords. Perhaps it has room for one more."
The waiting was a torment. Every distant sound, every shadow in the sky, sent hearts leaping into throats. The men grew gaunt, their nerves frayed, the oppressive atmosphere of Harrenhal gnawing at their sanity. Ciel himself felt the strain, the constant vigilance, the weight of responsibility. But he showed no weakness, his iron will the spine that held his small, beleaguered army together.
Then, one cold, grey morning, a scout, his face pale with terror, galloped into Harrenhal's main courtyard.
"My Lord Stark!" he cried, stumbling from his horse. "Dragon! A colossal bronze dragon! Flying from the south-east! It is Vhagar! And Prince Aemond is upon her back! They will be here by midday!"
A chilling silence fell over Harrenhal. The moment they had all dreaded, and prepared for, had arrived.
Ciel looked at his assembled commanders – Manderly, now leaning heavily on a carved weirwood cane but his eyes fierce; Karstark, his face a grim mask of anticipation; the Tully and Mooton captains who had remained with him.
"To your posts," Ciel said, his voice calm, almost serene. "You know the plan. We hold the strongpoints. We make them bleed for every inch. We use the castle's ruins to our advantage. And we trust in our preparations."
He turned to Sebastian. "The final… adjustments… are in place?"
Sebastian smiled, a slow, chillingly beautiful expression. "All is in readiness, my Lord. The stage is set. The actors are about to make their entrance. It promises to be a most… memorable… performance."
Ciel strapped Dark Sister to his hip. Sarx rose, a low growl rumbling in his chest, his golden eyes fixed on the southern sky. The Northmen, their faces pale but resolute, gripped their weapons, their breath misting in the cold air.
From the south, a distant, thunderous roar echoed across the desolate plains, growing louder, closer. A monstrous shadow fell over Harrenhal, blotting out the weak winter sun.
Vhagar had returned. And Prince Aemond Targaryen, his sapphire eye blazing with vengeful fury, had come to reclaim his honor, and to deliver the Wolf Lord's doom.
Harrenhal, the cursed castle of kings, held its breath, waiting for the inevitable storm of fire and blood.