"I will not shout 'Long live Joffrey,'" Tyrion told his men, "and I will not shout 'Long live Casterly Rock.' The Storm means to sack your city and break down your gates. Come with me, and kill those bastards!"
Tyrion drew his battleaxe, wheeled his horse around, and charged toward the opening outside The King's Gate. They rode in a wedge, with Tyrion himself at the point.
The white knight Ser Mandon Moore rode on his right, his glazed white armor reflecting the firelight, his dull eyes as empty as ever. His warhorse was coal-black and armored in white barding, the pure white shield of the Kingsguard strapped to his arm. On Tyrion's left, to his surprise, Podrick Payne followed with a sword in hand.
"You're too young," Tyrion snapped at once. "Go back!"
"I'm your squire, Lord."
Tyrion and the white knight first fought through the tourney grounds and the area near The King's Gate. The ground was wet and slick, making every step unpleasant, but Tyrion kept his horse under control. If it slipped among the corpses and blood, that would be the end of him.
"Long live King's Landing!"
"Long live the Goddess of Love!"
"Long live the Three-Headed God!"
Steel rang against steel as the enemy Sellswords, all gaudy colors and hair dyed red and blue, shouted wildly.
Tyrion hacked left and right, and suddenly found himself missing his wildlings. They had probably all been killed by the Storm.
At the last moment, Ser Mandon lowered his Longspear and drove Joffrey's banner through the chest of an enemy in studded leather, lifting the man off the ground before the shaft snapped.
A helmetless Pentos swordsman appeared before Tyrion. Tyrion used every bit of his strength, adding the momentum of his horse to his swing, and brought his axe down into the man's face, splitting his head in two. The impact left his shoulder numb.
Fortunately, these men were a mix of Lyseni swordsmen, Pentos and Tyrosh Sellswords, and Yunkai slave soldiers, with no single commander holding them together. As soon as they saw Tyrion's charge come on with murderous force, they abandoned the catapults and scattered like birds before a hawk.
Tyrion led his men in driving down the routed soldiers. After that came killing and dodging. Tyrion rode down an Archer, then cut off a spearman's arm from shoulder to armpit. He carefully avoided the enemy's blows. Thrown spears and arrows struck his shield and visor, and he survived by the narrowest margin.
"To the Mud Gate!"
They turned east again, fighting their way toward the Mud Gate.
"Long live the half-man!"
"Long live the half-man!"
Hearing the voices calling out around him, Tyrion felt something inside him loosen. At last, he understood the frenzy of battle, just like his brother.
Fighting raged all along the riverbank. Enemies swarmed ashore from burning ships, while the white knight Balon Swann and the men of Tyrion's cousin Lancel Lannister fought desperately to hold them back.
"So much fire. No wonder the Hound ran." Smoke was everywhere, and nothing could be made out beyond the Blackwater Rush. Tyrion's assault force was slowly coming apart, and for a moment he could hardly tell who was who. He even felt he might not be able to gather his own men again.
Tyrion did not know what had become of the main Volantis force, but he would not allow anyone into King's Landing.
A moment later, Ser Balon Swann from the Mud Gate assault appeared beside him. He wore the same armor, but his horse's trappings bore his own sigil: a black swan and a white swan locked in combat. Ser Balon was covered in blood and blackened by smoke. He raised his spiked mace and pointed downstream, the head clotted with brains and bone marrow.
"Lord, look."
"That's..."
Worst of all were the half-formed, half-ruined bridges. Tyrion saw a ship bridge taking shape downstream on the Blackwater Rush.
Dozens of warships had jammed together, perhaps more than he could count. Their oars were tangled with one another, their hulls caught in ropes, their rams locked together, and fallen rigging had formed a net between them. Small boats held up the wreckage of larger ones, each bound tightly to the next until they formed something like a bridge across the chasm.
Some bold enemies had already begun leaping from one deck to another.
"We'll go kill them!" Tyrion ordered, and Balon led his men close behind. Tyrion was ready to put all his focus into holding that ship bridge and fighting there.
Yunkai slave soldiers came toward him, chattering in a language he did not understand. Tyrion swung his battleaxe, and steel rang with a hard, clean sound.
Chaos. Nothing but chaos.
Then one dreadful report after another came in. Tyrion heard the clatter of weapons being dropped on the walls behind him. Men were likely leaving the fight.
Green banners and soldiers had appeared to the north as well, and Highgarden's soldiers were joining the battlefield.
"The Old Gate has fallen!"
"The king has run!"
Each piece of news was deadlier than the last.
Tyrion finished a Yunkai slave soldier with his axe, then lurched several steps back.
Has it really collapsed? Tyrion thought blankly.
He looked at the ship bridge, and it too showed signs of coming apart. Then he looked at his own men. The Gold Cloaks on the walls of King's Landing had indeed begun to break. Many threw down their weapons and vanished.
"Joffrey! Cersei!" Tyrion's eyes nearly went red. Cersei was a fool, through and through.
"We go, Ser. Back to the Mud Gate!" Tyrion ordered.
"As you command, Lord!" Mandon looked at Tyrion gloomily, then his right hand began to draw his sword and slash downward.
"What are you doing?" Tyrion barely dodged, but a deep cut still opened across his face.
"No!" Tyrion's squire drew a dagger and drove it into Mandon's lower back.
"Why?" Tyrion asked in disbelief.
...
Blood and fire ruled King's Landing that day. Green wildfire exploded in the Blackwater Rush outside the city, rival forces fought for the gates, and within the walls the people of King's Landing had risen in revolt.
Arson, robbery, smashed doors, murder, rape. A river of voices rose from the people and raged through King's Landing. Prophets and bandit leaders moved among them. Some fleeing Gold Cloaks, seeing which way the wind was blowing, stripped off their cloaks and joined the chaos.
The mob attacked the goldsmiths, grain merchants, rich traders, bakers, and high officials they believed had starved them. Amid the pounding war drums and the thunder of hooves, it seemed the Doom of King's Landing had come at last.
The party escorting King Joffrey passed through the narrow, winding Hook Alley, then climbed Aegon's High Hill. By grim chance, they ran straight into the procession of one of the prophets. The prophet's followers carried cobblestones, broken chair legs, and wooden clubs, their anger surging.
"The king is here!"
"The little bastard is here!"
More and more people recognized the king.
Joffrey and his warhorse were impossible to miss, and were recognized at once. Both king and horse wore gilded mail and crimson enameled plate, each set of armor crowned with matching golden lions. Sunlight fell over them, and gold and red gleamed together.
Ser Meryn Trant trembled slightly. Falling into the hands of a mob was worse than death, and he knew exactly what that meant.
"Summer is over, and the bastard king has been struck by divine punishment!" the foul-smelling prophet shouted, wrapped in a sheepskin coat, and the people around him listened as though entranced. They glared at the king and his followers with vicious eyes. Hunger, curfew, and war had filled countless hearts with hatred for the Lannisters.
Joffrey's party was well armed and well armored, but before the raging crowd they seemed very small. There were Ser Osmund Kettleblack, the white knight Ser Meryn Trant, and Osney Kettleblack, the messenger Cersei Lannister had sent to order Joffrey away. Twelve veteran Gold Cloaks followed as well.
"I am Joffrey the First of House Baratheon and House Lannister! I am the king!" Joffrey shrieked, glaring at the reeking prophet.
"Go, Your Grace," Meryn said, his face pale, and the Kettleblack brothers were no better.
"You are a Lannister. You are the bastard of the Kingslayer and the whore queen. Your uncle is the half-man, the little demon monkey!" The prophet bared his yellow teeth and roared at Joffrey.
"Don't do it!" Meryn Trant's eyes flew wide as Joffrey seemed to draw a weapon. If he killed the prophet, every one of them would die here.
But Ser Meryn's warning came a moment too late. He had no chance to stop the king, whose temper had always been savage. Joffrey drew the crossbow mounted on his horse and shot the prophet straight through the chest. He was poor with a sword, but he used bows often enough.
"You bastard of the Kingslayer!" the prophet cursed, pointing at Joffrey as the bolt pierced his flesh, tore through muscle, and brought death with it. "Those who harm me will suffer divine punishment. We will meet again in purgatory!"
"Bastard! Beast!" With the last of his strength, the prophet spat a mouthful of bloody spittle. Then he collapsed to the ground, and the crowd grew even angrier.
"Die! Get out of my way, you scum of King's Landing. Move, or I'll have my dogs cut off your heads!" Joffrey shouted, his eyes bloodshot with shock and rage. He had killed rabbits and kittens before, and during the mob's nighttime petitions he had killed people too. This time, he was even more emotional, even more hysterical.
"No! No! No!" Ser Meryn screamed in terror, then stabbed hard at the haunches of the king's red warhorse and his own, hoping they could break through the encirclement.
Ser Meryn's hope was quickly crushed.
"The Lannister bastard killed the prophet!"
"The Lannister bastard is starving us!"
The crowd pointed, shoved, and cursed, cursing one another and cursing the king.
These people did not love Joffrey. They believed the war had come because of Joffrey and House Lannister. Many still remembered clearly how Tywin had drenched King's Landing in blood, how Rhaegar's children had been killed, and how the Kingslayer had murdered the old king. More than that, Joffrey had ordered killings in the Great Sept, carried out savage judgments in King's Landing, and even killed with his own hands.
The Gold Cloaks stretched into a Longspear formation, while the king rode in anxious circles. Ser Meryn and the two Kettleblack brothers kept whipping their horses to run, but they could not advance an inch.
The sounds of unrest turned into fury, a wave made of anger, fear, and hatred.
"Justice from the heavens!"
"Long live the Storm!"
"Avenge the prophet!"
"We want bread, bastard!"
"You starved us, bastard!"
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Uneven stones flew through the air, followed by more and more.
Joffrey and his men were swallowed by the crowd. Joffrey's face went pale. The riot when they had sent off the princess had been terrifying, but the king had had far more guards then. Now, there were too few men.
"No!" The Gold Cloaks were soon shoved to the ground. Then the crowd trampled over their bodies and surged forward.
Ser Meryn and the other two knights swung their swords, but cutting off one or two hands was useless.
"Go!" The craftiest of the Kettleblack brothers swung his longsword, no longer interested in protecting the king. He only wanted to escape.
One hand, two hands, then countless hands reached over the defensive line, pulling and grabbing at everyone they could reach.
"No!" Joffrey screamed. "I am the king! I am your master! My uncle Ser Jaime and the Imp will kill you!"
"You are the Kingslayer's bastard, the bastard who starved us," the people answered.
"Your Grace!" Ser Meryn shouted. His warhorse screamed as someone stabbed through its belly while it was still alive. The horse collapsed to the ground. Meryn dismounted, and wooden clubs and broken chair legs came smashing and stabbing toward him. Meryn cut left and right until his strength slowly failed. His white cloak had become a bloody cloak, and he no longer had the strength to protect Joffrey.
The Kettleblack brothers were trapped in the middle as well. They fled quickly, but they could not escape their fate.
Joffrey was dragged from his horse. The king tried to swing his longsword, only to be struck on the head again and again by cobblestones.
The mob pulled Joffrey down from his warhorse and took turns smashing his head. The king's banner fluttered like a butterfly, then tore into a thousand pieces.
"Stop! You traitors!" The valuable pieces of Joffrey's armor were torn away in a frenzy. The king's helmet was smashed flat, and then his handsome face.
"Mother, it hurts!" Joffrey wailed, and then he lost consciousness.
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