Chapter 25: The Mad King's End, The Hawk's Design
The victory at the Trident was absolute, the Targaryen dragon not merely wounded, but slain. A wave of grim triumph, mingled with exhaustion and the sobering reality of their losses, swept through the rebel host. Robert Baratheon, his warhammer still stained with Rhaegar's blood and the rubies of the fallen prince's armor, was the undisputed hero, his name roared by thousands. Yet, even in their elation, the more astute commanders knew that the war was not truly over until the Mad King Aerys himself was deposed and King's Landing secured.
After a brief period of regrouping, binding wounds, and absorbing the remnants of Rhaegar's shattered army (many of whom, seeing their prince dead, readily swore fealty to Robert), the rebel host began its inexorable march south towards the capital. Lord Vorant's contingent, though it had borne the brunt of some of the fiercest fighting at the Trident, remained the most disciplined and cohesive force in the allied army. Vorhax had seen to it that his Obsidian Guard and Brandon Snow's Wolf Brigade received the best of the captured supplies and medical attention (his own healers, using techniques and herbal remedies far in advance of common Westerosi practice, worked with chilling efficiency). His intelligence network, under Will and Anya, now operated with near-perfect precision, their agents fanning out ahead, providing Vorhax with constant updates on the mood in King's Landing, the state of its defenses, and any movements of remaining loyalist forces.
As they drew within a few days' march of the capital, startling news arrived: Lord Tywin Lannister, who had remained stubbornly neutral throughout the war, had arrived at the gates of King's Landing with a formidable army of twelve thousand Westermen, proclaiming his loyalty to King Aerys and offering to defend the city against the approaching rebels.
The rebel war council convened in haste. Robert, ever impetuous, was for immediately assaulting any force that stood with Aerys. Eddard Stark, his honorable nature making him wary of Tywin's sudden change of heart, counseled caution. Jon Arryn, the elder statesman, saw both opportunity and immense danger.
Vorhax listened, his Force senses probing the undercurrents of their debate. He knew Tywin Lannister was no loyal servant of the Targaryens; the Old Lion's pride had been too deeply wounded by Aerys for that. This was a power play.
"Lord Tywin is a pragmatic man," Vorhax stated, his voice cutting through the arguments. "His loyalty is to House Lannister first, last, and always. He would not commit his forces to a losing cause, nor would he openly defy a victorious army such as ours without a clear path to advantage. He likely intends to play the kingmaker, or at least, the king-saver, to secure Lannister influence in whatever new order emerges." He subtly suggested that Tywin might be convinced to open the gates, "sparing the city the horrors of a siege, and us the cost of it," implying a negotiated entry if Tywin was indeed looking to switch sides.
His words, though noncommittal, planted a seed. Before the council could decide on a course of action, however, events in King's Landing took their own bloody turn. Grand Maester Pycelle, a Lannister creature through and through, persuaded the increasingly terrified and unhinged King Aerys that Tywin Lannister was his salvation. The gates of King's Landing were thrown open to the Westermen.
What followed was not salvation, but betrayal and horror. Tywin Lannister's forces poured into the city and began a brutal, systematic sack. Rapine, murder, and looting erupted on a terrifying scale. Vorhax received the news from Nyx, whose aerial reconnaissance provided him with horrifying, Force-relayed glimpses of the chaos, and from his swiftest human scouts who had infiltrated the city's outskirts.
"The Lion has shown his true colors," Vorhax announced grimly to the rebel leaders, who were still encamped a few miles from the city. "He sacks King's Landing as we speak."
Robert roared in fury, not at the sack itself, Vorhax noted, but at being denied his own vengeance upon Aerys. Ned Stark was aghast at the reports of civilian slaughter. Jon Arryn's face was etched with grim resignation.
The rebel army now advanced with speed, not to relieve a besieged king, but to enter a city already falling to a treacherous new power.
Inside the Red Keep, as Lannister soldiers rampaged through the city, King Aerys Targaryen finally succumbed to his ultimate madness. Realizing he was betrayed, he commanded his chief pyromancer, Rossart, to ignite the caches of wildfire hidden beneath King's Landing, to "burn them all! Burn them in their homes! Burn them in their beds!"
It was Ser Jaime Lannister of Aerys's own Kingsguard who prevented this ultimate atrocity. Disgusted by his king's madness and cruelty, and unwilling to see hundreds of thousands burn, Jaime slew Rossart and then, in the throne room itself, plunged his sword into the back of the Mad King, earning himself the infamous epithet "Kingslayer."
News of Aerys's death, and Jaime's regicide, reached the rebel vanguard, including Vorhax, as they approached the city gates, now held by Lannister men who offered no resistance to their entry. The Targaryen dynasty, which had ruled Westeros for nearly three centuries, was over.
As Robert Baratheon and the main rebel host entered King's Landing, they were met with scenes of appalling carnage. Lannister soldiers, drunk on blood and plunder, were everywhere. The streets ran with blood, the screams of the dying and the violated echoing from every quarter.
Vorhax, witnessing this firsthand, felt a cold, intellectual contempt. This was the raw, uncontrolled barbarity of mortals left to their own devices. His own methods were brutal, yes, but they were always precise, controlled, aimed at specific objectives, not this indiscriminate savagery.
He issued strict orders to his own commanders. "The Obsidian Guard and the Wolf Brigade will maintain absolute discipline," he commanded Ser Gareth and Brandon Snow. "There will be no looting, no raping, no unauthorized violence. We are instruments of order, not agents of chaos. Secure a defensible perimeter around our designated quarter. Any man who breaks discipline will answer to me directly." His voice left no doubt as to the lethal consequences of disobedience.
While other rebel units, caught up in the frenzy or simply lacking discipline, began to join the Lannisters in plundering, Vorhax's forces stood apart – a grim, black island of order in a sea of anarchy. He directed them with surgical precision, not to join the sack, but to secure key strategic assets: the archives of the Guild of Alchemists (where wildfire secrets might be found), a section of the Red Keep's lower vaults rumored to hold Targaryen treasures and lore, and the approaches to the Great Sept of Baelor, preserving it from the worst of the desecration. These actions were carried out under the guise of "restoring order" and "protecting the city's heritage."
Eddard Stark, his face a mask of grim disapproval at the atrocities committed by the Lannisters, rode directly to the Red Keep. Vorhax, accompanied by a small retinue of his Obsidian Guard, followed, curious to witness the immediate aftermath of the dynasty's fall. He arrived in the throne room shortly after Lord Stark. The scene was iconic: King Aerys lay dead in a pool of his own blood at the foot of the Iron Throne, his throat cut. And seated upon the throne itself, his golden armor splattered with the Mad King's blood, his sword across his lap, was Ser Jaime Lannister, his expression a mixture of exhaustion and cynical defiance.
Ned Stark's horrified outrage was palpable. "Get up from that throne," he commanded, his voice tight with fury. "Have you no shame?"
Vorhax watched the exchange with detached interest, analyzing the characters of the two men: Stark, the honorable fool, bound by oaths and traditions; Lannister, the beautiful, faithless knight, driven by impulses Stark could not comprehend. The seeds of future conflict were being sown even in this moment of supposed shared victory.
Then came the news that truly showcased the depths of Lannister brutality and Tywin's ruthless pragmatism. Ser Amory Lorch and Ser Gregor Clegane, knights sworn to Lord Tywin, had stormed Maegor's Holdfast. Princess Elia Martell, Rhaegar's widow, had been raped and murdered. Her young daughter, Rhaenys, had been dragged from beneath her father's bed and stabbed to death. And the infant Prince Aegon had his head smashed against a wall.
When Lord Tywin Lannister finally presented himself to Robert Baratheon, laying the bodies of Elia and her children, wrapped in crimson Lannister cloaks, at Robert's feet as proof of his loyalty, the reactions were telling. Robert, his hatred for Rhaegar extending to his entire line, had reportedly grunted his approval: "I see no babes. Only dragonspawn." Eddard Stark, however, was filled with a cold, silent rage at the butchery of innocents, a rage that created an immediate, though unspoken, rift between himself and his closest friend. Jon Arryn, ever the pragmatist, was visibly disturbed but focused on the political necessity of accepting Tywin's "alliance."
Vorhax, informed of these events by his agents, felt a surge of cold satisfaction. The Targaryen line, as far as Westeros knew, was being systematically and brutally culled. This removed potential future claimants who might challenge Robert's nascent rule, thus prolonging the instability he needed. It also irrevocably alienated Dorne, ensuring future divisions within the realm. Tywin Lannister's methods, while crude and lacking finesse, were undeniably effective in achieving their aims – something Vorhax, as a Sith Lord, could appreciate on a purely pragmatic level.
In the days that followed, as a semblance of order was brutally imposed upon King's Landing (largely by Lannister and, in their designated sectors, Vorant forces), the victorious rebel lords began the arduous process of forging a new regime. Tywin Lannister, having "delivered" the capital, positioned himself as an indispensable ally. Robert Baratheon, by right of conquest, by the strength of his claim (however tenuous, through his Targaryen grandmother), and by the acclamation of his fellow rebels, was the undisputed choice for the Iron Throne.
Vorhax played his part in these high-stakes negotiations with consummate skill. He presented himself as Robert's most loyal and powerful Stormlord bannerman, his forces having been instrumental at Summerhall, Stoney Sept, and the Trident. He demanded little for himself overtly, focusing instead on securing tangible benefits: significant portions of the confiscated wealth from known Targaryen loyalists in the Crownlands, royal charters granting him sole rights to newly discovered (by him, of course) mineral deposits within his own expanded territories, and perhaps most importantly, privileged access to the Red Keep's libraries and any surviving Targaryen archives, under the guise of "preserving ancient knowledge for the good of the realm."
As Robert Baratheon was formally acclaimed King by the assembled lords, standing before the Iron Throne that had cost so much blood, Vorhax stood amongst the victors, a dark, enigmatic figure. His power base was secure, his treasury overflowing, his military formidable. The Targaryen dynasty was ash. A new, inherently unstable regime was taking its place. The Seven Kingdoms were fractured, filled with fresh hatreds and unresolved grievances.
It was a perfect scenario for a Sith Lord patiently biding his time. The War of the Usurper was ending. But for Darth Vorhax, the true conquest of this world was only just beginning. His gaze swept over the assembled lords – the triumphant Stag, the grieving Wolf, the calculating Lion, the wise old Falcon. They were all merely pieces in his grand design, a design that stretched far beyond their petty ambitions, towards a galaxy he still distantly remembered, and an empire he was now determined to forge anew in this lesser, but now wholly captive, star system.
(Word Count: Approx. 4300 words)