Chapter 53: POV - Aegon
The fires in the clearing showed a sea of dark ragged figures marching towards them, studded with gleams from steel swords and breastplates. His mouth suddenly went dry; there were still a lot more of them than he'd thought there would be. He and his army of die-hards and paid swords had already killed thousands, but there was still twice that remaining, snaking towards them and their camp though the maze of man-sized boulders. A dozen or more banners had to have gotten together for this, a rare degree of cooperation between various lords evident as they all worked together, who all normally hated one another with loathing born from generations of family conflicts. Then again, an invasion by outsiders from across the sea was far more unusual. None of them could let such a thing go without answering.
A massed yell rose up, washing over the lost Targaryen as a wordless roar and sending shivers down his spine despite the warmth of his armor.
The men of the Stormlands suddenly rushed forward, like beetles from under a rock when you lift it. Seconds later about half of them started hopping and screaming a high-pitched wail that carried over the drone of war, where they had run into the improvised field of caltrops his people had spread around the camp after the first charge failed. Lying nearly flat and camouflaged with sand and leaves, the razor-sharp, twisted spikes weren't noticed until they ripped through the feet of the enemy.
Some of the Stormlanders fell onto the points and slashed themselves open as they tried to get away. Others just charged forward, hitting the bare ground by luck or where in such a great frenzy they could ignore the hurt. A couple of his commanders shouted, "Fire!" Aegon didn't bother saying anything, everyone knew what to do and he preferred to let those who had seen combat before make such decisions, he just drew to the ear and shot into the mass of warriors and reached for the next arrow. The snap of bowstrings and the tung! of crossbows rang, quickly followed by shouts and curses from the Stormlanders as hundreds of arrows impacted through steel, mail and leather at point-blank range.
Even as drew arrows and sent them flying he realized the enemy wasn't stopping. "Swords!" he roared. Something whistled by his ear as he turned to draw the blade that hung from his hip, and he distantly realized it was an arrow aimed at him. It drove into the rocky ground with a dry crack, and he looked down to see a enough standing around him like the quills of giant porcupine. He slide the shield from his back and ran his left arm though the loops, just as the luckiest or fastest of the enemy were at the wall of swords his men carried.
"Targaryen!" he shouted as he ran towards the fighting, his friends and commanders following close beside him. Aegon swept his blade out and cut up with the same motion. A snarling face with a greasy dark hair and shaggy beard fell back in a splash of crimson. A sword crashed down his shield, clang, and a dagger probed at his suit of armor. He jerked the shield downward and broke both of the man's arms; then thrust across the thrashing body blade down, the steel skidding across steel in a faint show of sparks that ended with the Stormlander losing fingers.
A long snarling scrimmage unfolded around the edge of his camp. Steel glittering in the light of spreading fires, gasping breaths, banging and rattling and shrieks filling the air. Horses snorted and reared against the reigns and the smell of blood; a few hundred spearmen of the reserve came charging up in a line where some of the enemy had gotten through gaps in his infantry and thrusted them back with their long reaching weapons. A few more minutes, and the attackers realized that the odds of them storming what amounted to a fortress were not very good.
Then they ran. Aegon drove his blade point-down into the dirt and snatched up his bow once more to shot at their running backs. So did everyone else who wasn't wounded.
Silence mercifully fell as what remained of the enemy continued to run, and sentries followed behind them to make sure they kept running. Except for the pop of burning wood, panting breath, and the moaning of the wounded the silence only deepened. The sounds of night slowly began to return, which meant there weren't any humans running across the land. His men carefully went around the perimeter of the camp with spears and bows and lanterns, making sure any of the enemy too wounded were finished off and any too valuable were kept alive. A few others switched their weapons for bandages and went around the inside, taking care of the wounded and dragging away the dead to be buried or burned depending on their faith. Few of the injured were severe, only minor cripplings or cuts that needed to be cleaned.
That included himself; he hadn't noticed it at the time, and swore mildly at the sharp hard sting when boiled wine was bored across the scrap on his neck.
Lord Connington, his friend and long-time protector, soon found him, his own armor slathered in red but looking unharmed. "They won't try that again. Not anytime soon anyway."
"You think so?" Aegon asked, his always curious mind working out the reasons. "If they had pressed on a little harder, they may have taken us."
The Lord of Griffin's Roost grinned tiredly, "The boys are still counting the heads, but we probably killed off half the fighting men left in the Stormlands these last three days. And half of those left will most likely bend the knee. They'll be fighting each other for some time, settling old debts and pillaging one another to make sure none of them grow stronger than the rest."
"Good thing we were prepared for such a thing." Aegon mirthlessly laughed. "Fighting at night is always risky. I wonder why they tried it?"
By now the other commanders had arrived and nodded their agreement. If they had decided to attack during the day, pressed the attack a little longer, everybody here would have died. Quickly if they were blessed. Maybe one of the captured could tell him, but he decided that those questions could wait until morning.
Aegon suddenly stood, smiling as brightly as the lights that danced across his armor, "Well, with that many dead, and the living running the wrong way, we should be able to takes Storm's End by the end of tomorrow."
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