The Dragon of Duskendale -- A Song of Ice and Fire Fanfic

Chapter 12

They'd turned Flea Bottom into a funeral pyre.

The fire that had started during the Sack had not been set intentionally, unlike the burning of the river wharfs, but it had spread quickly and savagely. Randyll Tarly, commanding the main force of Aelor's army, had sent teams through the shieldwalls and the chaos of the sack to contain it as best as they could. As the serious fighting had died down, he'd added more and more to their number, eventually committing most of the loyalist force to the task. While that had successfully stopped the fire from escaping the slum, it had already grown too large to save Flea Bottom itself. The morning after the battle she still burned hot and high, the army encircling it and patrolling the streets and rooftops around it to ensure the flame did not take any more of the city.

The bodies of the dead, lord and peasant alike, were carted to the raging bonfire from wherever they had died across the city. Corpses bred disease and thusly had to be dealt with, and there were thousands of them in the capitol; soldiers of both sides who were killed in the fighting, citizens of the city who were victimized by the attack, even merchants and visitors who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time. All came to the fire, hauled there in fly-infested mounds by tired mules and grim men. Soldiers were stripped of arms and armor before being tossed, alongside the dead innocents, into the heart of the flames. The stench of burning flesh clung to the city like a Lyseni gown, ugly work for hard hearts. Several septons, tougher of will and stomach than most of their brethren, repeated death rites for hours, a communal prayer over a communal end.

The wagons of armor and weapon were hauled away from the fire to the Red Keep and into the custody of Aelor' quartermasters, headed by Lord Donnel Buckwell. The armaments that could be identified as belonging to lords—Brax, Falwell and Jast had been recovered already, and more were sure to be found—were set aside to be returned to the dead men's families, per the orders of King Rhaegar Targaryen. The rest—spears of levies, swords and armor of knights and retainers—were sorted and distributed among the loyalist forces, per the orders of Aelor Targaryen, Hand of the King.

That same man rode through King's Landing in the light of morning, ten of his companions riding alongside. The scent of burning bodies and buildings clung to the quiet streets, the smoke black and billowing in the sky behind him. The capital was a massive, sprawling city of hundreds of thousands of people, but the streets were almost empty of anyone not a soldier, few of the smallfolk venturing from their homes so soon after the attack. Thrice, though, the prince passed carts of mounded dead. One of those had a child, a young lad of no more than eight, sprawled across the top. The Dragon of Duskendale had glanced at it, then turned his head.

Many Lannister men had undoubtedly used the sheer size of the population to their advantage, discarding their weapons and armor for stolen or stripped civilian garb once it was clear the day was lost. The prince was certain there were dozens throughout the city, but there wasn't anything he could do about them now; besides, in small groups or alone as they were they could do little. Except try and assassinate me, I suppose. Ser Barristan had remained with Rhaegar at Aelor's instructions, but Aelor had honored the knight's requests and kept the ten men with him as a guard. Together, they were on par with one Barristan the Bold.

Two or three men are not my concern, the fortress inside a fortress that Tywin Lannister and his retainers have made of the Great Sept of Baelor is.

The Lord Paramount of the Westerlands had realized rather quickly that his men were too disorganized and focused on pillaging to throw Aelor and his attackers back. Instead, Lord Tywin had rallied close to seven hundred of his men, stripped the Street of Steel for all the weapons they could carry, and pulled back to the top of Visenya's Hill. His men had charged the Mud Gate, heavy fighting taking place before they were thrown back by footmen under Lord Cleyton Byrch, but it was soon discovered that it had been nothing but a gory diversion. Fishmongers Square, a maze of a market located just inside the Mud Gate, had been picked clean of food and drink, as had the bakeries along the Street of Flour. While men fought and bled and died, Tywin and his advisors had used the chaos to carry as many rations as they could to the home of the High Septon.