GOT: The Great Khal — Chapter 141 - The Death of Kevan Lannister
Drogo had ordered Jaqo to lead the fleet up the Wendwater, raiding deep into the Reach. Jaqo left a detachment behind to hold the stone bridge where the Kingsroad crossed the river.
The Dothraki scouts at that bridge had spotted Kevan Lannister's force days ago. Twenty thousand men, crawling south along the Kingsroad, drilling as they marched, slow as a funeral procession.
The scouts rode forest trails day and night to carry word back to Storm's End.
In the great hall, Drogo listened to the report, let the silence sit for a moment, then spoke. "Jaqo is fighting Highgarden, Dorne, and Jaime Lannister all at once in the Reach. He's already at a disadvantage."
Daenerys stood to the side in a silver-grey robe, belt cinched tight at the waist, her silver-gold hair braided and hanging down her back.
She frowned. "Should we pull Jaqo's troops back?" she asked.
Commander Hamund grinned, showing a mouthful of yellow teeth.
"Lordlings leading green boys. One charge from our riders and they'll shit their breeches." He patted the arakh at his hip, voice thick with contempt.
Wodevar Tamad shook his head. "You've seen Jorah Mormont and Barristan Selmy fight. They are no lordlings."
Commander Virgo crossed his arms. "We used to mock these knights for wearing iron clothes — thought them slow and clumsy. But their swordsmanship? We've always respected that. One on one, the outcome is hard to call."
The Dothraki commanders looked at one another. Some nodded. Others shrugged.
Drogo raised a hand and cut it off.
"The stormlands are hills and forest. Bad ground for cavalry. If Jaqo falls back, we play right into their hands — they'll pin us here." He paused. "Scouts say King's Landing has sent twenty thousand men down the Kingsroad from the north. The stormlords to the south are almost certainly moving too. They want me out of Storm's End."
Wodevar said, "I've had no word from the southern stormlands."
"To march on Storm's End from the south, they have to come through Griffin's Roost." Drogo's gaze sharpened. "Put men on it. Any movement at all, I want to know immediately."
"As you command, Khal." Wodevar nodded.
Drogo stood. "Virgo, Hamund — take five thousand each and reinforce Jaqo. Open plains are where we fight best."
"As you command, Khal." Both answered together, and there was no hiding the eagerness in their voices.
Drogo's finger traced the northern stretch of the Kingsroad. "This force of twenty thousand, marching and drilling at the same time."
He smiled. It didn't reach his eyes.
"I'll go deal with them first."
---
Kevan Lannister did not know death was coming for him.
His army of twenty thousand crawled south along the Kingsroad. The vanguard had already entered the edge of the Kingswood; the rear still straggled across open fields miles behind.
3,000 regulars led the column. These men had survived the Blackwater. Their breastplates were polished bright, catching the afternoon sun in flashes of light.
They marched in step, spearheads pointed skyward. From a distance, they looked like a river of steel.
The 17,000 recruits behind them were a different story. Their ranks were still crooked. Some shouldered their spears properly; some balanced them across their shoulders; others simply dragged them, spearpoints scratching shallow grooves into the road.
Kevan rode in the middle of the column, glancing back now and then at the farmers, tailors, cutpurses, and convicts carrying those spears.
Five days of crash training had taught them to form a square and point their spearheads outward. That was all it had taught them.
He was calculating whether to drill them another two hours after making camp tonight when he heard hoofbeats pounding toward him from up ahead.
A scout came charging through, horse lathered white, the rider's face drained of all color.
"M-m'lord!" The scout half-fell off his horse. "Dothraki! Thousands of them! And dragons, three dragons!"
Kevan's blood went cold.
No time to wonder why dragons were here. No time to think about how Drogo had dared split his forces. He drew his sword on instinct and bellowed back down the column: "Form square! Form square!"
Officers echoed the command. Shouts cascaded down the line.
The Dothraki burst from the treeline to the south, howling. The sound hit like a wave.
Then, 300 paces from the square, they reined in and scattered.
They did not charge.
Instead they circled the infantry formation at a gallop, loosing arrows in thick, continuous volleys. Shields bristled with shafts, but there were always gaps. Men kept dropping, their screams short and cut off.
Kevan's heartbeat had just begun to steady when a shadow swept across the ground beneath him.
He snapped his head up.
Three dragons were coming in over the Kingswood, their black scales catching the sunlight with a dark red sheen. Deep in their throats, something was already glowing.
A jet of black flame erupted from the nearest dragon's maw and drove straight into the front rank of the square.
Steel plate, steel shields, iron helms, all of it was paper. The armor went red-hot in an instant, melting, fusing to the flesh beneath.
A knight burst from the formation with his whole body on fire. He ran a few steps and pitched forward onto the ground and did not move again.
Another man knelt in the road, clawing at his own face, trying to peel the molten iron away from his eyes. He clawed and screamed, and the sounds coming out of him no longer seemed like anything a human throat should make.
Where the flame had passed, it left a charred corridor. No one stood in that corridor. Only twisted shapes and clothes still burning.
The other two dragons dove from the flanks, spewing long ribbons of fire. Thick smoke and the stench of scorched flesh swallowed the battlefield whole.
The recruits clenched their teeth. Spearpoints still faced outward. But when the second blast of dragonfire swept in from the flank and simply erased an entire row of men from the earth, the last of their will burned away with them.
They threw down their shields. They threw down their spears. They ran, north, east, west, anywhere without fire.
They crashed through their own men. They trampled the fallen. They scattered like panicked lambs, every man for himself.
That was when the Dothraki launched their real charge.
They came in from both flanks, cutting into the disintegrating mass, curved blades catching the sun in a white blur.
Arakhs fell. Arms flew. Arakhs swept sideways. Heads tumbled.
Some men fled into the Kingswood. Branches tore at their faces, thorns shredded their clothes, but they drove themselves deeper into the trees without looking back.
The Dothraki riders pulled up at the forest's edge. They loosed a few volleys into the dark between the trunks, listened to the screams and sobbing from within, and let them go.
Those who hadn't made it to the trees were not so lucky.
On the Kingsroad itself, the fleeing men had jammed into a crush, trampling one another underfoot. The Dothraki came up from behind at a canter, one stroke per man.
Some knelt and raised their hands and shouted "I surrender" in the Common Tongue. An arakh swept through and the voice stopped. Some lay facedown and played dead and had their spines crushed under hooves.
Kevan Lannister stood in the middle of a field of corpses.
A few dozen Westerlands veterans were all that remained around him. They had pressed back to back into a circle no more than 10 paces across, shields out, spears leveled at the Dothraki closing in from every side.
Arrows found the gaps between shields. A veteran grunted as one took him in the knee and he went down. The man beside him reached out to help. Another arrow punched through his neck.
A Dothraki rider spurred forward and hacked at the shield wall. Two veterans drove their spears into the horse's chest at the same moment. The horse screamed and reared; the rider pitched off and a third spear pinned him to the ground.
More riders swarmed in. Like wolves pulling down a sick ox.
The wall broke. Arakhs came through the gap. Blood hit Kevan across the face.
An arrow struck his left shoulder. He clenched his jaw, hacked the shaft off with his sword, and left the head buried in the meat.
A second arrow drove into his right thigh. He dropped to one knee and planted his sword in the ground to hold himself up.
A Dothraki rider dismounted. Walked toward him. Raised the arakh.
Kevan Lannister's head rolled across the flagstones of the Kingsroad, eyes still open, still looking toward Storm's End.
His body stayed kneeling. His sword stayed in the ground, holding him upright.
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