Divide and Conquer, Chapter 4: The Siege of Harrenhal

Third Moon, 97 AD (5 BC)

Aegon

Harrenhal’s colossal curtain walls rose as sheer and high as mountain cliffs from the flat fields, made out of black stone but so immense that in parts they were discolored and fissured. Atop the battlements, the wood-and-iron scorpions looked as small and numerous as their namesakes. Behind the walls rose five enormous towers, with the two tallest in the center not even complete yet but imposing nonetheless.

Had he been any other man, perhaps Aegon would have been intimidated by the fortress before him, despairing at any chance of conquering it. He was not. Instead all he could do was admire the fine work that Harren had done in making his imperial seat ready for him, even going out of his way to stock its provisions to the brim in the vast subterranean vaults beneath the towers. Truly, how helpful of him.

The man in question had accepted his request for a parley and had ridden out to meet him in the field before the great gatehouse outside of the range of either the scorpions on Harrenhal’s walls or the archers in Aegon’s army. Two truce banners stood at the parley, one for the Seven and one for the Fourteen Gods of Old Valyria. He would have put the Drowned God’s symbol on a third truce banner as well but to be honest he cared not one whit for that particular religion and it seemed to be lacking a symbol that truly represented it.

Harren rode up to the parley with a host of guards and his maester and banner bearer accompanying him. He was an old and grey man, the years of power and decadence having given him a fat and round belly. There was fierceness in the way he carried himself, but as Aegon took in the evidence of the man’s age and sloth, he wondered if it was simply for show.

For his part, Aegon had brought his own maester so that the words exchanged at this parley may be remembered, a company of Dragonguard with a banner bearer, and two particular prisoners.

“Harren Hoare,” he greeted the Black Tyrant as he approached.

“Aegon Targaryen,” the Ironman greeted in turn, with a scowl on his face, one that only deepened as he beheld his sons Othgar and Qhorwyn in chains at Aegon’s mercy.

“Yield now,” Aegon began, “and I will spare all of your sons, those at my mercy today and those that will be at my mercy tomorrow. Yield now, and you and your sons and all your servants and soldiers will be granted safe passage to the Wall where you may take the black and live out the rest of your days in honorable service beside your kin, the Lord Commander Harras Hoare. You see my army outside your walls. You see my dragons.”

“What is outside my walls is of no concern to me. Those walls are strong and thick,” came Harren’s retort.

“Strong and thick enough to repel forty thousand men?” Aegon challenged.

“Forty thousand dead men if they dare to march on these walls. They are high and impenetrable, no siege engine may break them, no ladder may scale them,” Harren boasted.

“But not so high as to keep out dragons. Dragons fly. Surely you have not forgotten what happened to your grandfather’s fleet?”

Harren the Black laughed then, a grim and cruel chuckling cackle. “I am not Harwyn Hardhand and you are most certainly not Gaemon the Glorious. You will find no ships to destroy here Targaryen. I built in stone. Stone does not burn.”

“By the time sun rises on the morrow, your line shall end,” Aegon declared.

He turned his gaze over to his prisoners and at his nod the Dragonguard threw them onto the ground before Harren, drawing the Ironman king’s attention to them once again. “Starting with these two. You said that nothing outside your walls was of any concern to you. Does that apply to your sons as well?”

At that Harren spat upon his broken and pleading sons. “Do with the weaklings as you wish. I have three more worthier sons to replace them,” he said before he turned back to his castle.

As he rode away however, Aegon called out to him one last time. “You said that stone does not burn Harren Hoare. But what of men?”

To that, Harren gave no reply, riding off into the distance back to his walls. Aegon turned and rode back to his own army, the Dragonguard quick on his tail with their prisoners in tow.

As he arrived back in his encampment, he dismounted from his horse and pet it affectionately before handing the reins over to the stable hand. Though no mount could compare to Balerion, his black stallion Thunderer was a fine specimen of horseflesh in his own right and he was fond of him. All under his care would want for nothing, even the animals.

As he made his way through the encampment, Aegon espied some of the thralls that Harren had expelled right into the midst of his army when they had arrived yesterday. All of them had been emaciated and starved, with many on the brink of death due to overwork, exhaustion, and hunger.

Perhaps Harren had thought that the sight of the poor souls who were little more than skin and bones would weaken the morale of Aegon’s army and strain their supplies as they struggled to feed thousands more mouths. Perhaps it might have if the Rivermen hadn’t been eager to receive their kinsmen and give them aid and Aegon not made a speech about liberating and freeing more people from Harren’s yoke.

Harrenton outside the western walls of Harrenhal had been seized by their army once they had set camp and many of the thralls had been sent there to rest and shelter with a few of his most trusted units serving as guards and protectors. Aegon had formally decreed the thralls freed from their servitude before their grateful eyes and ears and then ordered them all fed and watered generously. Supplies were of no concern to him, not when Harrenhal and all the provisions within would soon be theirs.

His siblings and their commanders were waiting for him in the command tent. Visenya, Rhaenys, Orys, Quenton Qoherys, Josua Scales, Gaemon Gryvetheon, the Velaryons, the Celtigars, all the lords of the Riverlands and Blackwater Bay who had joined them, and all of the sellsword captains.

“The negotiations failed, as expected. Ready the army. The Free Companies will take point and lead the vanguard,” Aegon ordered.

As he had predicted, the sellswords protested. “Do you think us expendable King Aegon?” Gyllaro of the Bright Banners demanded. His fellow captains and commanders murmured in agreement.

“Far from it. It is out respect for your skill. Even with dragons, Harrenhal will be no easy castle to storm and only the finest and most skilled swords can take it. Who better to be the tip of the spear than the finest warriors of Essos?” he flattered them.

And to sweeten the deal he offered, “And of course, those in the vanguard will have the greatest share of the treasure.”

Flattery and the promise of rich rewards had them all salivating and eager to fight then. Aegon smirked. Pride and greed never failed to motivate.

Turning to the Rivermen he spoke again. “You all have your own pound of flesh to take from the Ironmen I am sure. You will go in next after the sellswords and exact your vengeance upon those who have oppressed you and your people.”

The Riverlords nodded eagerly in excitement, their eyes alight with righteous wrath at the promise of vengeance. Aegon was not done yet however.

“There are twenty thousand defenders inside Harrenhal but only seven in twenty are Ironmen. The rest are your fellow Rivermen. Kill all the Ironmen and any who would join them, but spare the servants for they are innocent and oppressed. If any Rivermen and lords who bear arms throw them down or would turn them against the Ironmen alongside you, let them. The same goes for all of you as well,” he concluded, turning to the sellsword captains and his other lords. All nodded their assent to his orders.

Once the plans were finalized, Aegon dismissed all of them to see their troops to the assigned positions and leave him alone with his wives.

Rhaenys spoke first. “It is still not too late for us to simply burn the castle as your other self did. Why waste the lives of thousands of our soldiers storming Harrenhal when we can simply destroy it and show all of Westeros that not even their greatest castles can resist dragonfire? It could make many of our foes, present and future, kneel without a fight.”

“Because we have uses for Harrenhal my dear sister. I have told you them before have I not? Everything that makes Harrenhal so gargantuan, so impregnable, makes it perfect as our new seat, the seat of our empire. It is more than large enough to hold all of our knights and armies, our lords and governors, and all the institutions and bureaucrats that will make up our council and government. Furthermore, it is well positioned geographically to project power over not just the Riverlands but Westeros as a whole, with a central location and easy access to two river basins and three bays.

“Harren was not wrong when he boasted that none could conquer Harrenhal. Without dragons that is very much true. With our legions within its walls, an inexhaustible source of fresh water from the neighboring Gods Eye, and the subterranean vaults stocked with provisions, nothing would see our descendants overthrown even if they should lose their dragons, not hunger, not thirst, and not even the assault of a million men.

“And perhaps most importantly of all, the castle is more than large enough to hold all of our dragons within its walls. Safe and protected from thieves and any who would harm them, and easily accessible by our family. The godswood alone is twenty acres.”

“Could we not just rebuild the castle and obtain all of that anyway?” Rhaenys had already conceded he knew just by looking at her. She had heard much of this before after all. She just wanted to hear him talk more. He would indulge her, anything for his beloved wife.

“We could, but the cost of rebuilding it would be exorbitant, especially when all of the treasure that Harren has beggared the Riverlands and Iron Islands for would be burned and destroyed with it. Also, I do not know if there truly was a curse on the castle in that other world due to its burning, but I would prefer not to test fate, nonetheless.

“Most importantly of all, with our plans for a long and slow conquest, we need a strong and secure seat of power that has already been built, or near as much. One that we can remodel as we please but does not require any active construction work to function as the capital of the Empire if the campaigns demand too much of our attention. I refuse to let our house dwell in an unfit castle and city like they did in that other world.”

“We will still create our Summerhall though, won’t we?” Rhaenys asked him, recalling the dream for their seat that he had shared with her all those years ago.

Harrenhal taken for their own from the ruin of the Hoares and renamed as Summerhall in the memory of the Lands of the Long Summer that were their ancestral homeland, as a representation of their promise to the people of Westeros to usher in the peace and prosperity of the legendary summer that never ends with their rule. And unbeknownst to all but the three of them, as a reference to a palace with the very same name that their alternate descendants had built in the Dornish Marches.

Like that palace, Summerhall would be a place of light and beauty and music. They would hire the finest Essosi architects, artisans, and artists, to remodel its halls and tower interiors with glass and marble to resemble the great manses and palaces of the east, and fill it with silks, velvets, tapestries, paintings, artworks, songs, gold, silver, and all the luxuries money could buy. Some of the stone courtyards they would break and fill with earth to plant trees and flowers and bring birds to sing and delight the people in fountains, gardens, and parks.

Their dragons would nest and lair in the godswood and they would build a great stone-domed Dragonpit for the unridden dragons and let the ridden roam freely through the woods and the skies above. He doubted that any ‘Storming of the Dragonpit’ could happen in any logical world but in case it could, the dragons would be safe and protected from thieves, attacking armies, and peasant mobs alike by the great curtains walls of the castle itself, the inner walls around the godswood, and a whole complement of Dragonguard and Dragonkeepers.

They would complete the towers, and renovate and paint some of the buildings and walls in redstone and crimson paint to go with the black so that the other of their house colors would be represented. The walls and towers would remain fortified and proud, manned by a garrison of the finest Dragonguard and Legionaries, with trebuchets and scorpions adorning the battlements and crenellations so that Summerhall would be strong and beautiful in equal measure.

He shook himself out of the vision in his head as his eyes met Rhaenys’ expectant expression. He caressed her face assuringly and she nestled into his touch.

“Yes, we will. We will do it all. We will make that dream real Rhaenys. Summerhall will soon be more than just a childhood fantasy.”

Rhaenys smiled adoringly and his heart skipped a beat at the lovely sight.

Aegon continued. “And as for your concern that our dragons shall lose their intimidating reputation if we do not destroy Harrenhal, there will be other castles that we will lay waste to utterly and allow not to ever be rebuilt. Until that time comes, we don’t need that reputation. We know the power of our dragons is real, and that is all that matters. Let the Westerosi find out the hard way if they have to. It will make it easier for us to justify attainting lands and titles so they might be given to those worthier and more loyal.”

“You’ve always said that we need more than just dragons to accomplish all of that and truly shape Westeros in our image. We need men on the ground. Thousands would die if we storm Harrenhal the conventional way, even with dragons to burn the battlements and through the gates. Won’t we need those men in the wars to come?” Rhaenys asked, a quizzical and cute confused look on her face.

“Not these men.” Visenya spoke at last. “There is a reason Aegon made the sellswords the vanguard, though I noticed that in the final battle lines, the Lost Legion is kept in the rear alongside all our other forces from Dragonstone, Driftmark, Claw Isle, as well as the Clawmen and the Duskendale levies. Perhaps you are still hoping the Legion will join us Aegon?”

Aegon smiled. He should have expected Visenya would clue in on his designs. “I have a feeling they will. Half have already expressed their interest and the other half will soon see the full scope of our power and ambitions and the rewards they stand to gain if they stay by our side,” he answered Visenya’s question before turning to his other sister.

“Visenya guessed right Rhaenys. The sellswords are indeed expendable, though of course one should not say such to their face, it would be unwise and uncouth. Frame it differently, flatter them a little, throw them some bones, and they’ll serve like loyal dogs. Lesser men would do much and more to satiate their greed and satisfy their egos.

“For such things they would throw themselves against even a fortress as mighty as Harrenhal and fight courtyard to courtyard, corridor to corridor, and tower to tower. And the more of them that die in that struggle, the less survivors we have to pay, and the greater the chance that the ruined unit cohesion from the loss of so many of their brethren and the proof that we will pay and pay well afterward would see many Free Companies disband and their members joining our nascent army.

“All the while our true strength, the Rivermen, the Clawmen, and the soldiers of Dragonstone and the other isles, remain unscathed for the most part. Rather than lose men by storming Harrenhal, we might ironically gain some if it helps to convince some sellswords to stay. In the worst case scenario, we don’t truly lose anything even if none of the sellswords stay. We don’t really need them anymore after this campaign now that we have the strength of the Riverlands behind us,” he finished, enjoying the look of dawning realization and understanding on Rhaenys’ face.

Smiling still, he kissed her softly and his sweet sister melted into his embrace, trying to deepen the kiss and almost whining when he pulled away instead. He clucked his tongue as he placed his finger upon her needy lips and she started licking and sucking at it instead of calming down.

He took her into his arms and held her firmly then, feeling her breath against his chest as she laid her head upon his breast to hear his heart beat. “There will be time for us to embrace again when the battle is won. For now, however, we have an army waiting for us.”

Reluctantly Rhaenys nodded. Aegon was almost about to leave when he noticed Visenya’s gaze. She rarely asked, perhaps that was why his alternate self had been so confounded and unable to connect with her as deeply as with Rhaenys, but Aegon knew her well enough to know that she expected something after he had embraced Rhaenys in front of her.

As Rhaenys watched, he kissed Visenya as well and she threw herself into the kiss with even more eagerness than Rhaenys had. While Rhaenys let him break away, Visenya forced him to stay and deepened the kiss, their tongues melding and twirling before they finally broke apart, gasping for air.

Visenya cleaved to him then. He felt her breath hot upon his neck as she wrapped her arms around his right and held him tight. It was not long before Rhaenys joined them and clung to his left arm, no doubt feeling left out.

His two sisters began kissing their way up his neck, with Visenya craning her neck slightly and Rhaenys on tiptoes before they found the spots they knew he liked from experience and began sucking and biting hard. Aegon groaned at the pleasant feeling before he wrapped his arms around them both and held them tight to try and stop them.

They stopped in the end but the smug smirks they both wore told him they had already succeeded in leaving their marks on him. The love bites might be hidden beneath his helm and plate today but they would be clearly visible for all to see over the coming days. He was tempted for a moment to return the favor before he heard the horns blow, each one signaling that a particular company or unit of men was waiting in position and ready for the assault.

Rhaenys sighed knowing that their fun was over while Visenya steeled her expression and readied herself for battle. As she made to break away from him however, Aegon held her tighter.

“How would you like to do the honors of executing our prisoners?” he asked her with a satisfied smirk.

The exceedingly pleased smile on his wife’s face mirrored his own. “It would be my pleasure.”

Aegon had been seeing red when Visenya had told him of how the Hoare brothers had spoken crudely of making her their saltwife. Only the thought of this day, of this moment had kept him from killing them himself the moment Visenya had first brought them before him. The look in Harren’s eyes was a wondrous sight to see.

“Harren claims to care little for them. He says that they are weaklings and we may do as we please with them. But I know his true thoughts; I could see it in his eyes for all the bravado and faux cruelty he showed. He might think them failures and weak but somewhere deep down in that twisted little black heart of his he cares for them still.”

“Is that so?” Visenya asked with a sweet smile. “Good. Then he can watch them die.”

Aegon’s smile was as sweet as his sister’s. “I’ll see to the arrangements.”

By the time the stakes had been readied and the brothers Othgar and Qhorwyn Hoare tied to them and screaming their pathetic pleas for mercy, the entire army had finalized its preparations and formed up in front of the gates waiting for the attack.

Harrenhal had only four gates, the enormous main gate, a smaller eastern gate, an even smaller postern gate, and a water gate. Before both of the two major gates on land, the cavalry components of each of the sellsword companies and some reinforcing Riverlander knights took point at the head of the vanguard while right behind them awaited thousands of sellsword and Rivermen infantry hungry for glory, gold, and vengeance.

The brothers Hoare had been tied to stakes diagonally to the main gate so that their pyre would not obstruct the impending charge but would still be within easy view of the defenders on the battlements and Harren in his tower. A warning of the fate that awaited all who defied the Dragon.

Mounted atop their dragons, Aegon and his sisters stalked round the stakes before Visenya finally had Vhagar set them on fire with a slight breath, the flames intentionally weak as his sister sought to make her would be rapists suffer. The screams they made as their flesh cooked and their skin charred was music to Aegon’s ears. Finally, Visenya tired of playing with her food and at her order Vhagar let loose a stronger blast of flame that instantly burned away the Hoares and the stakes into ash and ember blowing in the wind.

With that settled the three of them spurred their dragons into the sky, launching upwards at speeds that shocked all lesser men who beheld their ascent. They climbed up through the clouds, higher and higher until they were no bigger than flies upon the noon sun to those on the ground and even the great Harrenhal was naught but an anthill.

Only then did they descend, the wind seeming to whistle past their helmeted ears as their dragons dived, wings tucked in, snouts pointed straight down, and fires brewing in their bellies and maws. Until at last the great walls of Harrenhal appeared before them and they took aim and unleashed ruin and death.

Stone does not burn, Harren had said. And that was true enough. But Harrenhal did not have stone alone. Wood turned to cinders and metal into slag upon the ground as Balerion’s breath burned through the great gates. And even stone could crack and melt if the fire was hot enough. Whenever Aegon’s control slipped ever so slightly, Balerion’s flames would make the walls glow almost red as they warped, making him sigh at the damage to his new castle that he would have to repair.

Black flames met black stone walls as men screamed and smoked and died. The men in the courtyard before the main gatehouse died. The men about the eastern gate died when Vhagar and Meraxes fell upon them. All the men that manned the battlements burned and died as the three dragons soared overhead and bathed them in fire.

By the end of their onslaught, the curtain walls had been cleansed of all foes on its battlements and even those within the walls at the gatehouses manning the murder holes had likely been cooked to death by the sheer heat. The gates were broken and the courtyards on the other side had been laid waste and made empty.

Horns sounded through the entire army then as the cavalry charged for the two gates at a thunderous gallop, the infantry far outpaced as they ran up behind them. The remaining defenders scattered throughout Harrenhal had barely recovered and regrouped when Aegon’s cavalry fell upon them, their lances and swords tearing through them like a knife through butter. In some parts he even espied defenders and servants, especially Rivermen, surrendering to his army eagerly or turning their coat and joining them to attack the Ironmen in savage mobs.

As their infantry poured into the castle and fighting began in earnest within the towers, barracks, and halls, Aegon knew that their part in the battle was at an end. He took Balerion back to camp and when he made his way to his personal tent, he found his sisters abed and wanting, as naked as the days they had been born and eager to continue where they had left off earlier.

Their eyes dilated and darkened with lust as Aegon stripped off his armor and underclothes. He could see the want dripping off their bodies, the passion and need that had been stirred within them after they had laid waste to their enemies together.

Aegon smiled before joining them on the bed, and he took them both over and over again even as their army fought door to door to conquer Harrenhal through the day and into the night.

__________________________________

The Tyrant’s Fall

How did it come to this Harren wondered? Only yesterday he had thought his great castle impregnable and now he laid besieged in the highest levels of his own tower. They could not go any further up, for construction was not complete and even if they could, there was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide anymore.

His last remaining Ironmen guards barred the doors desperately with anything they could, pushing against it with their own bodies even as the horde outside rammed against it. Sellswords greedy for his gold and Riverlander knights thirsting for his blood. The barbarians were at the gates and there was naught that he could do about it!

This was all the fault of those accursed Targaryens! He rued the days that those sibling-fuckers had ever been born. If only they had never come his reign and line would have been secure until the end of time and the Riverlands would have never escaped the grip of the black blood.

He would not weep, for tears were for the weak, but in his heart Harren mourned his sons Othgar and Qhorwyn. They had failed him but they had still been his sons and a small part of him had died with them when he had seen them immolated by the Targaryens’ monstrous beasts. The very same beasts that had destroyed his gates and scorched his walls and allowed the demons of hell to enter his castle, slaughter his vassals, and steal his treasures.

How he cursed Bracken and all the other filthy Rivermen traitors! They had turned their coats as easily as they breathed lies and falsehoods and with their might combined with the invaders, his seven thousand good and loyal Ironmen hadn’t stood a chance. Slaughtered to a man until now only they in this tower remained.

The last doors began to give way and Harren’s remaining three sons drew their swords beside him as he called his guards back from the door to join them. They would die here, there was no doubt about that, but they could still die as proud Ironmen, weapons in hand as they faced down their foes until an honorable warrior’s death came for them. Oh how the bards back in the Iron Islands would forever sing of their legendary last stand!

But when the doors broke open at last, it was not the sellswords of Essos or the knights of Bracken and Tully or some other Riverlord like he expected. Instead it was mere peasants, dressed in nothing more than their smallclothes and wielding the most rudimentary of weapons, broomsticks sharpened to a point to serve as spears, smiths’ hammers, kitchen knives, cleavers, and even simple rocks. Even the servants of Harrenhal had turned against him and joined the usurping invaders it seemed.

Harren almost laughed at the pathetic sight of the rabble before him but their numbers soon grew as more and more them poured into the room, backing them into a corner. Harren growled. He would not let mere filthy servants who did not know their place be the end of him!

He surged into the mob before him, his black plate armor making him nigh impervious to their puny primitive weapons as he bloodied his sword with their lives, cutting through their unarmored bodies like a scythe through wheat. His guards and sons were right beside him and for a time it looked like they had almost pushed the mob back before dozens if not hundreds more stormed in to replace every single one they killed.

One by one their ends came, ignominious as it was to die to peasants, die they did all the same. The peasants bashed his guards’ helms in with rocks and slipped their knives into the gaps of their armor. They threw his youngest son Harrag out the window to fall to his death, strung his eldest Harwyn up by his entrails, and ripped the armor off his second son Harlan and stabbed him over and over again until there was nothing left of his body but a hole-riddled bleeding mess of flesh and blood.

But for him they gave no such mercy. For Harren they reserved the cruelest and most painful death they could think off, slicing off his cock and balls and crushing them furiously before they used their knives and their hands and their hammers and spears and tore him apart, piece by piece. And the pain, so much endless, excruciating pain. As the mob descended upon him, Harren died screaming until he could scream no more for his very throat had been ripped out.

When the Riverlander knights and sellswords Harren had thought to face finally arrived, they found only the bloodied carcasses of the Hoares and their guards surrounded by scores of dead servants and the cold, grim, and satisfied smiles of those that still lived to enjoy their victory. The light of the rising sun peeked in through the windows.

__________________________________________

Author’s Note: Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Stay tuned for Chapter 5! Let me know your thoughts and suggestions in the comments below or over on the Discord!