Ser Jaegaer Ilileon
The return of Cousin Aegon heartened every soul, from the high lords to the lowliest squires and common footmen; all felt the nearing end of the war, the fall of Tyrosh, and the fulfillment of their dreams of glory and gold. The Gold Cloaks were no exception, for they yearned to don mantles of true gold—or, at the very least, silk embroidered with golden thread.
Jaegaer himself strove to dwell upon no such fancies; the Gods—be they Andal, Valyrian, or otherwise—ever held their own design, which no man might alter. In Volantis, he had once hoped to take his mother's seat in the Triarchy of the Freehold, yet he was exiled. He had thought to remain in Lys, where a man might quietly drink himself to death in some brothel, yet here he was: a recognized cousin of a Westerosi King and the confidant of two Princes at once. Who can say what the future shall bring?
Harwin, too, had no mind for coming riches. Alongside him, House Strong had dispatched fourteen souls to the war: two of his uncles, four cousins, and seven nephews. Eight of them remained lying in the Stepstones, three more perished in sea battles, and Ser Osmund—a seasoned knight and skilled commander—met his end near the Tyroshi island itself; the galley upon which he sailed struck a reef and went to the bottom with the entire landing party ready for the descent. Of all the Strongs, only Harwin himself and Robert, the youngest of his cousins, reached the walls of Tyrosh.
Yet the Strongs were not the first house at whose door the Stranger had knocked, as the Andal proverb goes. Ser Elston Tully had lost two of his brothers, and his only son, Elmo, had received his knightly spurs and a crossbow bolt in the shoulder for the storming of one of the fortresses. Three nephews of the Sea Snake rested on the sea floor along with their ships and men, as did a cousin of Lord Tarth. And there were furthermore numerous lords and knights from the Crownlands, the Riverlands, and the Stormlands, and the landless but fiercely proud knights of the West who had drifted to them—one could not recount them all.
Jaegaer sought words of support for his comrade, but the exiled Volantene had never read the Seven-Pointed Star, and thus limited himself to a sympathetic silence and a friendly clap upon the shoulder. Daemon went further. Having remained silent alongside his cousin for a space, he spoke quietly:
"It shall set naught to rights, I know, but when all is ended, your share shall be the first, after mine own."
Something greedy and jealous stirred within Jaegaer, but he ruthlessly crushed that worm within him: though he was the Prince's nearest kinsman, unlike Harwin, he had lost no one in this war.
Shortly thereafter, the Gold Cloaks were dispatched to aid those besieging one of the last fortresses on the road to Tyrosh. Its environs had already been scorched by dragons, the road to the city cut off, and the garrison methodically tested by assaults; yet the hellish mercenaries were evidently paid double wages for every day spent under siege, so they did not intend to surrender. At least, not swiftly.
They arrived beneath the fortress walls just on the eve of another assault. The place differed little from those Andal castles Jaegaer had managed to see in Westeros (to speak true, the list was small), save that there was no donjon. The walls were twenty feet in height, the towers slightly taller and projecting forward; the moat was either originally too shallow or the Westerosi had managed to fill it in—and yet the fortress bore the proud name of The Impregnable Stronghold.
When the assault began on the morrow, Jaegaer and Harwin each led their company into battle. By the will of the Gods, it was on this very day that the ram finally managed to breach the gates, and the Gold Cloaks burst within. One had to give the Tyroshi defenders their due: they proved excellent fighters and fought savagely, desperately, sparing neither themselves nor, even less so, the enemy. In the fierce skirmish that boiled up, the two companies were separated, and Jaegaer was too occupied with himself and his men to watch the other half of the detachment.
At one point, Remembrance (Jaegaer Valyrian steel sword) deprived one mercenary of his head in a single stroke and half-cleaved the chest of his neighbor. Jaegaer was forced to slacken the pace of his hewing and, with curses, jerk the greatsword from his fallen foe; fortunately, Matt—the youngest son of a baker from the Street of Flour who fought beside him—had the wits to cover his commander. The small delay gave him a chance to catch his breath and look around. To his misfortune, it was this that allowed him to see how Harwin perished.
The heir to Harrenhal, with two dozen soldiers, was fighting on the upper tier of the gallery of the fortress walls against several Summer Islanders, nearly as broad-shouldered as he himself, and surely half a head taller. At the very moment Jaegaer raised his gaze, Harwin disarmed another black giant, yet the man did not lose his head; he seized Strong by the shoulders and, with some truly devilish effort, hurled him over the low parapet down into the courtyard. The armored body fell with a clang and remained lying there.
Jaegaer let out something between a roar and a moan and, shoving aside all who came in his path (it seemed he struck one of his own flat with Remembrance), rushed to his friend. Heedless of the battle and the danger of losing his own head, he collapsed to his knees and pulled the helm from Harwin. The man yet lived, but as Jaegaer bared his face, he fell into a fit of coughing, and a sanguine foam bubbled upon his lips. The former exile howled in despair and rage.
It was all repeating. Once more he stood on his knees, once more his brother—if not by blood, then by arms—lay upon the earth departing from life, and he, as ever, could do nothing. Nay, the Gods are resolutely heartless to send him such things time and again. Nay, now it was even worse: some ghastly melding of two deaths—Laegon's and Maeyeris's. And there was neither Dennis nor Aegon nearby to tend the wounds, and the armor—'twas naught like Maeyeris's tunic.
He had to carry Harwin out of here; Jaegaer jerked to lift him himself, but then nearly boxed his own ears: a fine commander he would be if he abandoned his men during an assault! Nay, to depart now would be to leave the Gold Cloaks entirely leaderless, which meant almost certain defeat, yet he could not abandon his friend here either.
"Soon, friend, soon," Jaegaer murmured comfortingly. "Soon, only endure. Matt!"
"Aye, Ser?" the rangy baker's son was nearby all this time, once more covering his back. Somewhere on the edge of his mind, the thought flashed that the lad might be knighted for such service.
"Find another and carry Ser Harwin from here to the camp, to the Maesters. Twenty gold dragons to each of you if you deliver him alive!" Knighthood is well and good, but gold always makes men run faster.
The Gold Cloak nodded and snatched several men from the fray at random; briefly explaining the task, he boldly took overall command. Having shifted Harwin onto a shield, the soldiers lifted him with no small difficulty and briskly hauled him toward the breached gates, covering him with other shields and their own bodies. When he was carried away, Jaegaer noticed a protruding cobblestone on the ground; the fortress courtyard was poorly paved, and this stone stood out more than the others. Had Harwin fallen upon it? Or beside it? But surely a breastplate ought to save one even from such blows, aye? Or, conversely, does a fall from a height in such a heap of iron turn a man into a pulp? Doubts and anxiety seized the knight. Why was he not a Maester?!
At that moment, a red shadow flashed above them, and the sky was split by the familiar clucking roar of Caraxes: evidently, Daemon was surveying the course of the battle from the heavens. He had to distract the defenders of this cursed fortress and hearten his own, to show that naught was lost and victory was at hand. Jaegaer picked up Remembrance, saluted the dragon flying over them once more, and bellowed with all his might:
"Fire and Blood!"
. . . . . .
Bitterest of all was the realization that Harwin did not live to see the fall of the fortress. The Impregnable Stronghold proved not so impregnable after all, and shortly after noon, the dragon banner fluttered above each of its towers. The mercenaries had honestly earned their gold, yet they never surrendered; when the slaughter subsided, there was no one left from whom to accept a capitulation.
Both the attackers and Jaegaer himself had suffered: his armor was lighter than usual, for it was more convenient so to wield Remembrance, and a pair of crossbow bolts had managed to find him nonetheless. No sooner was the fortress in their hands than Maesters came rushing from the camp, beginning to tend the wounded right in the inner ward where, but a short while ago, swords had clashed and arrows had whistled. When it came Jaegaer's turn, he first of all inquired of his healer:
"Tell me, how fares Ser Harwin Strong?"
"I know not, Ser, 'twas not I who tended him," the Maester grumbled in response and warned businesslike: "Endure, Ser."
The knight hissed like a provoked serpent when the bolt head was drawn from him. He was more fortunate than Aegon had been some months past—these mercenaries used no poison. Having cleansed and bound the wounds, the Maester released Jaegaer, immediately attending to the next sufferer.
The Volantene had intended to set forth for the camp at once, but it so happened that no lords were in the fortress, and among the knights, none were found more highborn than a bastard of the dragon blood and a Captain of the Gold Cloaks. Thus, he was forced to take the Stronghold—which he had already cursed fourteen times—under his own command.
Only by evening, when his men had checked the barracks and settled the wounded within, ransacked the stores and shallow casemates, and begun to burn the dead beyond the walls, did Jaegaer manage to break away to the camp.
Beyond the walls, two moods were paradoxically joined: the joy of victory and the exhaustion after the fray. Fires were already lit near the tents, around which soldiers recalled the passing day with chuckles, and something so appetizing was brewing in the kettles that Jaegaer involuntarily remembered: instead of dinner, he had had but a stale crust and a pair of swallows of water from his flask—and those on the run.
His feet carried him of their own accord to the tents of the Gold Cloaks. As two Captains, he and Harwin were entitled to the privilege of separate pavilions, and his body, reminding him of its fatigue more insistently with every step, subtly hinted that it was time to retire for rest.
Near the white-and-gold tent with the Strong sigils, Daemon's squires, Bracken and Blackwood, were loitering. Judging by their talk, they bitterly regretted not taking part in this battle—as if they had not enough of their own. Sighting Jaegaer, both scrambled from the ground and hastened to draw themselves up before the royal cousin.
"Prince Daemon is within, Ser," Jerrel Bracken was, as ever, all politeness, while Sam Blackwood played the silent one until asked. They were like to receive their spurs soon, yet they still butted heads like Lhazareen rams.
Jaegaer nodded and, throwing back the flap, entered the gloom of the tent. Within were two: Daemon, wearily hunched on a campaign chair with his face hidden in his palms, and the high-browed Maester Loren, indifferently clinking his vials and medicinal irons. Harwin was found upon his own bed; his armor and clothes had been removed, and he was covered with a blanket.
"How is he, Maester?" Jaegaer asked, for some reason shifting to a whisper.
"Who 'he' precisely?" the man clarified coldly. The knight had dealt with him before and knew that Loren was an arrogant prick, aiming for naught less than Archmaester, but now was no time for his perverse temper.
"I speak of Ser Harwin."
"Ser Harwin has no further need of a Maester, nor even a Septon," Loren reported in that same icy, detached tone, continuing to pack his belongings into a wooden chest. "Only the Silent Sisters."
"What?.."
"Your Ser Harwin is deceased, that is what. His spine is shattered, a lung pierced by a rib... Furthermore, they brought him having fouled himself, and thrust him under my nose: 'Here, Maester, heal him'! Hells, never in my life have I seen so much night-soil in the breeches of a grown man."
Loren intended to add something more, but at that moment, Daemon's fist smashed into his face. The Prince had leaped up with such swiftness that the chair flew aside. The Maester could not keep his feet, tumbled, and shrieked in an unexpectedly shrill voice, but immediately fell silent as Dark Sister began to sing. The point of the blade froze a hair's breadth from the scholar's Adam's apple.
With most unmelodious sounds, Loren befouled himself. A characteristic stench immediately wafted through the tent, reminding Jaegaer of the foulest alleys of Flea Bottom.
"Truly, and here I was certain all Lannisters shat gold," Daemon marveled mockingly. It was evident what effort it cost him not to give vent to his seething rage. "Though Aegon used to say that Maesters renounce their names, so there is naught to wonder at here. Out with you!"
With a trembling hand smearing blood across his face, Loren somehow rose and, clutching his Maester's robes, scrambled out, managing to entangle himself in the flap on the way. The Prince grimaced and shouted:
"Sam, throw back the curtain! And you, Jerrel, carry out the rug. The little wretch managed to splash his filth."
While the squires hastily executed the orders, grimacing at the stench and glancing toward the deceased, Jaegaer approached Harwin's bed, which had become his deathbed. Judging by the words of that scoundrel Maester, his friend had managed to suffer, but death had strangely smoothed the grimace of pain. Now his face, like a waxen mask, expressed only infinite weariness.
"I was late by an hour at most," Daemon spoke hollowly when they were left alone.
"I saw you circling above us."
"Aye, and then I flew further, returned—and lo... Curse it, I was hastening to him with tidings."
"Good or ill?"
"His cousin has fallen. Hewn down in a skirmish."
"Mayhaps 'tis for the best that you did not make it," Jaegaer sighed. "I should not wish to die with such a burden upon my soul."
"Perchance," they remained silent for a time, and then Daemon added: "I must write to Lord Lyonel. While I sat here, I kept pondering what to say to him. I wanted to ask Aegon—he is better acquainted with him."
"When Maeyeris fell, it was he who told Mother. I could not have strung two words together then."
"Nay, 'tis cowardice," the cousin shook his head, and Jaegaer fancied he was answering himself. "I must write it myself. But I shall pay his share in full."
"Of course."
Hardly did Daemon need his approval, but one could not remain silent. The Prince, meanwhile, turned to more mundane matters, and his voice shifted from confidential to commanding in an instant:
"I shall send servants for his effects. Command of the Gold Cloaks is now entirely upon you. If any need reward or punishment—reward and punish, you have my leave. You have three days of rest, and then find me, and we shall decide what to do next."
"As you command, My Lord Hand."
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