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SLW Chapter 71 : The Prideful Lion
🕑 Added 2025-05-12 19:48:52 +0000 UTCFrom the sky above, the dragon descended a herald of the apocalypse. Cannibal, the beast of the old world, roared with a sound that shattered glass and hearts alike. His wings cast a monstrous shadow over the fortress below, his descent was like judgment.
Aeron Grim stood tall upon his back, cloak trailing behind him like smoke from a battlefield. His violet eyes, now glowing with raw, unearthly light, swept over the keep cold, focused, without mercy.
Below, soldiers screamed. Some ran. Some froze. But none would survive.
Aeron leaned forward, whispering as if to the wind
“Dracarys.”
The Cannibal obeyed.
With a roar that made the very stone tremble, the ancient dragon unleashed black fire, shadow-wreathed hellfire, seething with hatred and age-old hunger. It poured like a tidal wave from his jaws, a river of death washing across the battlements.
The first blast struck the southern wall, and the iron gates screamed as they melted like butter, rivulets of slag pouring down onto screaming men. Arrows and shields caught fire where they stood. The flames curled like serpents around stone, crawling into cracks, bursting from windows.
A second pass Aeron pulled hard, and Cannibal banked right, gliding across the length of the wall. Another blast. Another scorching barrage of night-black fire. The stone sizzled and cracked as if the gods themselves were condemning the keep. Towers crumbled. Screams turned to silence.
From his perch atop Cannibal, Aeron didn’t shout. He didn’t gloat. He simply watched like death wearing a crown, letting fire speak for him.
The Cannibal descended, slamming onto the courtyard with an earth-shaking thud. The ground splintered beneath his talons, and several Lannister soldiers were thrown from their feet.
They barely had time to scream.
With a single, monstrous chomp, Cannibal opened his jaws and devoured a squad of men armor, weapons, flesh and all in one bite. Blood sprayed in all directions, their screams swallowed whole.
Then he tilted his head back and breathed fire directly into his own mouth.
BOOM!
Their corpses ignited from within an explosion of fire and gore erupted from Cannibal’s throat, like a furnace venting pure destruction. The resulting heatwave swept through the courtyard, igniting hay, crates, siege equipment, and men alike.
Aeron remained on his back the entire time motionless, back straight, cloak fluttering in the fiery wind.
His expression was unreadable. Not rage. Not glee. Just silence.
Below him, the keep was dying. Walls collapsed, eaten by shadowflame. Towers burst open like overripe fruit, soldiers within incinerated. The Lannister red turned to ash in midair, banners dissolving like parchment.
Another desperate crew manned the scorpion but before they could aim, Cannibal’s tail whipped sideways with a crack, smashing the entire platform and sending the weapon and men soaring into a wall, shattering bones and steel alike.
Aeron finally spoke his voice soft, but it echoed louder than the fire.
“This is the cost… of stupidity.”
The keep burned around him. No quarter. No mercy. No survivors.
The Cannibal reared back on his hind legs and roared into the burning sky, a sound of ancient fury and absolute dominance. Behind him, Drogon circled, Daenerys watching the destruction from above but even she seemed stunned by the scale, by the brutal efficiency of Aeron’s wrath.
The Riverlands would remember this day.
The Lannisters would whisper it in terror.
And the Red Keep would hear of it before the ash had settled.
Aeron sat atop his beast of shadows and flame, the Reaper of Fortresses, unmoved amidst the ruin.
****
Smoke bled into the sky, curling like black serpents over the ruined keep. The air stank of scorched stone, melting steel, and burnt flesh. Death was doing his work quickly.
Jaime Lannister was already gone from the walls, his hands gripping the reins of his horse as he rode hard down the back trail, away from the carnage.
His jaw was clenched. Eyes fixed forward.
“Let them have it,” he muttered to himself, voice low but sharp. “It's a shithole anyway.”
The hooves of his horse pounded over dry earth, flinging up dirt and ash. Behind him, the sky glowed red the dying breaths of Wayfarer's Rest lighting the horizon like a second sun.
“A keep’s not worth my life. Not worth anyone’s life when that thing is flying overhead…”
He didn’t say “dragon.”
He didn’t say “Cannibal.”
It was that thing, like some cursed nightmare from old stories and myths.
He shook his head, jaw tightening.
“I need to get back to Casterly Rock. Warn them. If that monster gets any closer…”
Jaime’s horse slowed without command, sensing his rider’s hesitation.
A part of him wanted to keep going. It was the logical thing, the smart thing. He’d seen it with his own eyes now what this man can do, walls melting like wax, Lannister banners disintegrating mid-air. There was nothing to be done.
But another part of him the damned stubborn arrogant and prideful lion twisted in his gut.
He tugged on the reins.
The horse stopped at the crest of a hill, giving him one last look back at the keep.
Flames rose high into the sky like pillars of judgment. What remained of the walls had collapsed entirely. The sounds were quieter now no more orders, no more scorpion bolts. Just chaos. And fire.
Jaime stared at it for a long moment.
His hand, hovered near the sword at his side not to draw it, but like an old reflex, like a man trying to remember what he used to be.
“Damn it, Jaime,” he muttered, lips twisting into a wry, bitter smile.
“Running like a dog… again.”
He spat to the side, then pulled the reins hard, wheeling the horse around.
“I’m not dying for this keep,” he said to no one. “But I’ll be damned if I let that bastard think I’m scared of him.”
****
The courtyard of Wayfarer’s Rest was nothing but a blackened grave now, charred beams, melted iron, and the smoldering corpses of the men who had dared to defy a Monarch. Aeron walked slowly through the ruin.
The Cannibal stalked beside him, tail swaying like a serpent, wings half-furled and smoking. His violet eyes scanned the ruin, lips parting slightly.
“Nothing,” he said to himself. “No survivors.”
He didn’t sound triumphant. He sounded… matter-of-fact. Inevitable.
A gust of wind blew cinders across the ground as Drogon landed beside them with a thundering slam. Daenerys dismounted, her boots crunched over scorched earth as she walked toward him slowly.
She was silent. Speechless, even.
She had commanded dragons that could cause such chaos But this was Judgment.
She looked around at the ruin, her face unreadable, but her voice soft
“They were soldiers,” she murmured. “Not civilians. They chose their banners. They knew the risk.”
Aeron turned to her, his face half-lit by fire and ash.
“Time to le..”
Suddenly, his eyes flared bright violet.
A sound. A tremor in the air. Death approaching.
With inhuman reflex, his hand shot out and caught a spear in mid-flight, inches from Daenerys’s face.
CLANG.
The force of it vibrated up his arm. Sparks flew where his fingers clutched the steel. Daenerys gasped, reeling back in shock, staring at the deadly point that would’ve been between her eyes.
The Cannibal roared. Drogon growled in answer. Both dragons turned, smoke curling from their nostrils, their fury mirroring their riders.
Aeron’s head turned next slowly.
From the archway of a shattered melted tower, a figure stepped into view.
Jaime Lannister.
With His Golden armor and sword in hand. His eyes screamed defiance.
He met Aeron’s glowing gaze with his own lion’s pride and smirked bitterly.
“You missed one… sorcerer bastard.”
The Cannibal snarled and stepped forward, smoke already rising from his maw, black fire dancing in his throat.
Aeron raised a hand.
“No.”
The beast halted.
Jaime exhaled, drew his sword with a sharp whisper of steel. He took one step forward, and squared his stance.
“Come on then,” he spat. “Let’s see how much of a man you are without that monster.”
Aeron didn’t move.
Then, slowly, his fingers curled in the air.
The sword twisted.
Jaime screamed. The blade snapped sideways in his grip, metal turning against his will. His arms bent unnaturally, and he dropped the weapon, falling to one knee as the pain forced him down.
Aeron stepped closer.
His voice was calm.
“You ran away didn’t you, and you came all way back just to die?”
Jaime gritted his teeth, sweat mixing with ash on his brow.
“Someone has to try.”
Aeron crouched, looking into his eyes. His violet gaze glowed brighter, shadows swirling around him like tendrils.
“We were just about to leave for the capital.”
He smiled faintly.
“And I was wondering… what sort of gift I should bring.”
His voice dropped to a whisper that cut through the air like a blade.
“Now I have my answer.”
