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27: Dragonborn Conqueror, Rebellion pt.3
🕑 Added 2025-05-14 17:48:20 +0000 UTCDagon Hoare, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of the Isles and the Rivers, moved through the cavernous, unlit corridors of Harrenhal like a storm cloaked in flesh. The air was damp, thick with the scent of cold stone and rot. The walls—massive, black, towering—seemed to close in around him. The castle was simply too large, too empty in its sheer size, and parts of it sat in shadows nearly permanently. It took too many hands, too much time, too much wood to keep its thousands of hearths aflame. So most of the fortress lingered in silence and shadow.
Dagon’s jaw clenched.
A rebellion.
Blackwood. Frey. Mallister.
Traitors.
Greenlander filth.
The fury churned in his gut like seawater in a storm. He wanted to see their keeps in flame. He wanted their sons flayed, their daughters broken, their line ended. He wanted to watch the light leave their eyes.
But it wasn’t his decision. Not yet.
He was nearing the Hall of a Thousand Hearths. The echo of his boots on the flagstone was swallowed by the vastness of the space before him.
The throne room of Harrenhal was an architectural marvel and an abomination. Cavernous, towering as if built for giants, it stretched out before him with hundreds of cold, dark hearths spaced along the walls. The air within the hall was still and cold, carrying the faint scent of old smoke and forgotten feasts. Shafts of light struggled through high‑set slits in the stone, casting dim stripes across the chamber floor.
At the far end of the room, atop a high, black dais, sat the throne of the Iron Kings: a monstrous thing carved from the bones of a leviathan dragged from the depths of the Sunset Sea by the first King of the Isles. Its ribcage curved to form the seat’s arms, its jaws held aloft as a grim canopy above the king’s head. Fangs gleamed faintly in the dim torchlight. And seated within that horror, draped in shadow and silence, was King Harren Hoare.
Even in his old age, the king was imposing. The years had not made him frail. His long hair, streaked with iron‑grey, hung like seaweed over his shoulders, and his beard was trimmed with brutal care. His armor was dark, scaled like the skin of a deep‑sea serpent, and on his brow rested the Black Crown of the ironborn.
As Dagon strode silently toward the throne, his boots now hushed against old banners spread like rugs, he could hear the deep voice of First Captain Balon Goodbrother reverberating off the stone walls.
“... Lord Drumm has reported signs of gathering forces among the rebel lands,” Balon said, standing tall before the dais, one fist clenched behind his back in the Ironborn way. “He is preparing to raise the riverlords under his command. Scouts have been sent north. As for these... rumors…”
Balon’s voice hardened.
“...about some fire‑wielding, spell‑casting madman called the ‘Dragonborn’... my king, I say they are tales spun by greenlander cowards to stir peasant hearts. Nothing more than trickery and fear‑mongering. No sorcerer threatens the might of the great King Harren.”
King Harren said nothing yet. He leaned slightly, fingers tapping once against the leviathan’s fanged armrest, his pale eyes fixed ahead.
Dagon finally reached the foot of the dais and stood silently to the side, near the other members of the court—grey‑bearded captains, priests of the Drowned God, and a handful of Ironborn lords who lingered in the shadows like sharks circling blood.
The First Captain finished his report.
Then silence.
A heavy, bloated silence—one that suffocated, that coiled and waited.
Dagon’s jaw tightened.
This was what he feared.
His father sat motionless upon the bone‑carved throne: not a word, not a breath, not even a flicker in his cold eyes.
Dagon scanned the room, his gaze catching on the shadows at the edge of the dais, where his younger brother, Harren the Younger, leaned against a pillar. As always, his expression was blank, bored, empty—his eyes distant, disinterested.
‘Heretic,’ Dagon thought, turning his attention away in disgust. He had never understood how their father tolerated the boy’s insolence.
And then…
“Balon,” the king said.
The word rang like a dropped blade. Instantly, every eye turned toward the king.
“My king,” Balon Goodbrother answered, stepping forward with a slight bow.
“Where is my son?” Harren asked.
Balon hesitated. “My king?”
Harren’s voice came again—lower now, slower, calm. Too calm. “Where is my son?”
The stillness thickened like fog rolling in from the sea.
Balon blinked. “I…I do not understand, my king…”
But Harren was already rising.
The old king stood tall, his figure wreathed in shadow and torchlight, his cloak trailing across the bone of the throne. As he descended the steps of the dais, his boots rang out in perfect rhythm, each one like a war‑drum. The hall seemed to shrink beneath his presence.
“Let me tell you a tale, First Captain,” he said, his voice hollow and thunderous, each syllable coiled tight with fury.
Not a soul spoke. No one dared.
“This morning I awoke…everything was as it had been…until I noticed something different,” he said. “On the stone beside my bed was a parchment. A note.”
He paced, slow and deliberate, his presence like the tide vast, cold, inescapable.
“It was not from you, not from my scribes, not from the men sworn to my house.” His lip curled. “It was from this… Dragonborn.”
Gasps rippled through the hall. Dagon froze.
“He claims to have my son,” Harren said, his voice sharpening. “My dear Aeron. My boy.”
“Absurd,” Balon replied too quickly, too loudly. “It must be some…”
A thunderclap cracked through the hall: the sound of flesh striking flesh.
Balon staggered.
Another slap.
Then another.
The First Captain dropped to one knee, his cheek already red and bleeding.
“DO NOT INTERRUPT ME!” Harren roared. “He has my son, the rebels, the greenlander filth.”
“My king, it could be”
A boot slammed into Balon’s gut, iron clanging against bone. Another followed. Then another. Balon collapsed to the floor.
“They crept into my chambers into my Harrenhal,” Harren bellowed, spittle flying from his lips. “Into my fortress! They slunk in like rats and they left me a gift!”
He reached into his black cloak and hurled something across the hall. It skidded over the stone.
A finger.
Cleanly severed.
Upon it lay a ring: a black‑iron band etched with the Hoare sigil in gold. Aeron’s ring, the one Harren had given his second born the day he became a man.
Dagon stared. He remembered it well. They all did.
His father’s eyes burned. “They have my son,” he seethed.
Balon groaned on the floor, clutching his stomach.
“I will tear their towns down stone by stone. I will drown their children in their rivers. I will grind these rebels beneath my heel.”
The court stood frozen, paralyzed, none daring to speak.
“DAGON!”
Dagon flinched at the sound of his name, barked with thunderous fury.
“Dagon!” King Harren roared again, his voice bouncing off the walls of the Hall of a Thousand Hearths like a battering ram.
Dagon straightened at once. “Father,” he said, stepping forward.
“Come here, boy.”
He crossed the dark stone floor swiftly, his boots echoing in the vast silence. He climbed the steps of the dais, halting only when his father loomed directly over him, tall and monstrous in his heavy black cloak.
“Gather every man you can muster,” Harren growled. “Every sword. Every axe. March north—and destroy everything you see.”
Dagon nodded, his face set.
Harren’s hand shot forward, seizing Dagon by the jaw, rough fingers digging into flesh. He dragged his son close, their foreheads nearly touching.
“And find Aeron,” the king snarled. “Bring him back. Alive. Do you understand me, boy?”
“Yes,” Dagon rasped, his voice strained. “Yes, Father.”
“Alive,” Harren hissed again.
He shoved Dagon back; the prince lifted a hand to the aching imprint on his face.
“What are you standing here for? GO!”
Dagon bowed his head and turned at once, his heartbeat pounding like a war drum in his chest. Behind him, his father’s voice lashed the hall, now aimed at the broken First Captain:
“Send word to Wex. I want him to burn Seagard to the ground.”
=====
Dagon was nearly at the threshold of the vast chamber when he heard the voice.
“Brother.”
A soft, cold voice unbothered, playful.
Dagon turned sharply, teeth grinding. He already knew who it was.
From the shadows emerged Harren the Younger, the youngest son of King Harren. His face was unreadable, as always—lips curved in a faint smirk, eyes filled with unsettling calm.
“What do you want, boy?” Dagon spat, the last word dripping venom. “I’ve no time for your heretical nonsense.”
Harren tilted his head. “I have information.”
Dagon’s eyes narrowed.
“About the sorcerer,” Harren continued, almost lazily. “The one leading the rebellion.”
Dagon scoffed. “I’ve no time for your…”
“Suit yourself,” his brother said with a shrug. “Perhaps Father would like to hear it first. I’m sure he will call upon you afterward…”
Dagon froze.
“Fine,” he snapped. “Show me. But if this is any of your heretical nonsense again…”
“It’s not,” Harren said simply, already turning to lead the way. “Come.”
Every muscle in Dagon’s body was taut. He did not trust his youngest brother not for a heartbeat. But in that moment he followed; he had no wish to face their father’s wrath, and he knew the old king had his favorites.
They descended in silence, each step deeper into Harrenhal’s bowels twisting Dagon’s gut tighter. The torches along the walls grew fewer; the air was thick, damp and choking. Dagon recognized these lower halls. Once storerooms, crypts, and vaults, they were now something else, his brother’s playground, a sanctum of rot and whispers.
“What is that smell, boy? What have you been doing down here?” Dagon asked, catching the stench of carrion.
Harren the Younger only smiled and kept walking.
They reached a rusted iron door, and Harren led Dagon inside. The chamber beyond was circular; its walls were lined with books and scrolls. At the center stood a pedestal of black stone and upon it, a book.
A massive, pulsing tome of jet‑black leather. It shifted slightly, as though breathing.
Dagon’s steps slowed. “What is that?”
Harren turned to him, wicked glee lighting his face. “A gift,” he said. “From my master—the one who sees all, who knows all.”
He faced the pedestal again. “And now it will give you strength, brother. A gift to make things… more difficult for the ‘Dragonborn.’ He has displeased my master you see, and my master wishes to punish him.”
Dagon’s stomach twisted. “What the fuck are you talking about? What is this madness?”
The book opened—on its own.
And the tendrils came.
Black, glistening, writhing tendrils shot from its pages like vipers from the abyss. Before Dagon could move, they wrapped around his arms, his chest, his throat.
He tried to scream, but the tendrils were already inside.
Pain erupted. Vision blurred. His knees buckled.
The last thing Dagon saw as darkness swallowed him was Harren’s calm, smiling face and behind him, rising from the shadows, a shape: a being of swirling green eyes, writhing tentacles, and incomprehensible vastness.
A voice echoed not through his ears, but through his soul.
“You shall serve.”
Then Dagon knew nothing at all.
Comments
June Soriano
Crap! Hermaeus Mora! And here I thought this was going to be an easy fight. Now the Iron Born has the Daedric Prince of knowledge to back them up. This is going to be a good fight.
