Fire & Blood (A Targaryen History #1) - George R.R. Martin Page 0,246

castle sept to pray for deliverance. Rhaenyra herself wrapped her arms about her last living son, Aegon the Younger, clutching him fiercely to her bosom. Nor would she loose her hold upon him…until that dread moment when Syrax fell.

Unchained and riderless, Syrax might have easily flown away from the madness. The sky was hers. She could have returned to the Red Keep, left the city entirely, taken wing for Dragonstone. Was it the noise and fire that drew her to the Hill of Rhaenys, the roars and screams of the dying dragons, the smell of burning flesh? We cannot know, no more than we can know why Syrax chose to descend upon the Shepherd’s mobs, rending them with tooth and claw and devouring dozens, when she might as easily have rained fire on them from above, for in the sky no man could have harmed her. We can only report what happened, as Mushroom, Septon Eustace, and Grand Maester Munkun have set it down for us.

Many a conflicting tale is told of the death of the queen’s dragon. Munkun credits Hobb the Hewer and his axe, though this is almost certainly mistaken. Could the same man truly have slain two dragons on the same night and in the same manner? Some speak of an unnamed spearman, “a blood-soaked giant” who leapt from the Dragonpit’s broken dome onto the dragon’s back. Others relate how a knight named Ser Warrick Wheaton slashed a wing from Syrax with a Valyrian steel sword (Lamentation, most like). A crossbowman named Bean would claim the kill afterward, boasting of it in many a wine sink and tavern, until one of the queen’s loyalists grew tired of his wagging tongue and cut it out.

Possibly all these worthies (save Hobb) played some role in the dragon’s demise…but the tale most oft heard in King’s Landing named the Shepherd himself as the dragonslayer. As others fled, the story went, the one-handed prophet stood fearless and alone against the ravening beast, calling on the Seven for succor, till the Warrior himself took form, thirty feet tall. In his hand was a black blade made of smoke that turned to steel as he swung it, cleaving the head of Syrax from her body. And so the tale was told, even by Septon Eustace in his account of these dark days, and so the singers sang for many years thereafter.

The loss of both her dragon and her son left Rhaenyra Targaryen ashen and inconsolable, Mushroom tells us. Attended only by the fool, she retreated to her chambers whilst her counselors conferred. King’s Landing was lost, all agreed; they must needs abandon the city. Reluctantly, Her Grace was persuaded to leave the next day, at dawn. With the Mud Gate in the hands of her foes, and all the ships along the river burned or sunk, Rhaenyra and a small band of followers slipped out through the Dragon Gate, intending to make their way up the coast to Duskendale. With her rode the brothers Manderly, four surviving Queensguard, Ser Balon Byrch and twenty gold cloaks, four of the queen’s ladies-in-waiting, and her last surviving son, Aegon the Younger.

Mushroom remained behind, along with other members of the court, amongst them Lady Misery and Septon Eustace. Ser Garth the Harelip, captain of the gold cloaks at the Dragon Gate, was charged with the defense of the castle, a task for which the Harelip proved to have little appetite. Her Grace had not been gone half a day when Ser Perkin the Flea and his gutter knights appeared outside the gates, demanding that the castle yield. Though outnumbered ten to one, the queen’s garrison might still have resisted, but Ser Garth chose instead to strike Rhaenyra’s banners, open his gates, and trust to the mercy of the foe.

The Flea proved to have no mercy. Garth the Harelip was dragged before him and beheaded, along with twenty other knights still loyal to the queen, amongst them Ser Harmon of the Reeds, the Iron-Banger, who had been one of the Seven Who Rode. Nor was the mistress of whisperers, Lady Mysaria of Lys, spared on account of her sex. Taken whilst attempting to flee, the White Worm was whipped naked through the city, from the Red Keep to the Gate of the Gods. If she were still alive by the time they reached the gate, Ser Perkin promised, she would be spared and allowed to go. She made it only half that distance, dying on the cobblestones