The rain had stopped by the time the monstrous, melted silhouette of Harrenhal rose against the night sky.
It was a fortress built by a tyrant and broken by a dragon.
Tywin Lannister, being no fool, had not trusted the melted stone to keep the beast of fire at bay. Surrounding the massive outer encampment, his men had hastily erected a towering, thick wooden palisade, a spiked wall meant to break a ground charge.
I stood at the edge of the pitch-black treeline, my glowing eyes fixed on the torches flickering along the wooden barricade.
They thought a wall of dead timber could stop me. It was time to show this world exactly what I was.
A deep, vibrating growl began in my chest, heating the damp air until the grass beneath my paws began to smoke. The heat flared, flooding my muscles with pure energy.
I lunged forward into the dark, triggering [Extreme Speed].
I hit the heavy wooden palisade like a falling meteor. I didn't try to climb it; I channeled my momentum and a burst of [Flamethrower] directly into the point of impact. The thick timber exploded inward in a shower of splintered wood and blazing embers.
I landed in the center of the outer Lannister camp, a nightmare to the Lannister men.
Panic erupted instantly. Tents caught fire from the sheer heat radiating from my body. Men scrambled from their bedrolls, screaming as the camp turned into a furnace.
"Form up! Spears forward. You wretched beast!"
A shrill, vicious voice cut through the chaos. Ser Amory Lorch, the cruel, pig-eyed knight Tywin had left behind to command the outer defenses. He charged forward on a barded warhorse, rallying a line of heavy infantry.
I didn't let them finish their rally. I met their charge head-on.
The heavy warhorse started rearing up in terror. I leaped, my jaws opening wide. Lorch swung his broadsword, but I caught the castle-forged steel in my teeth using [Fire Fang]. The blade glowed white-hot instantly and shattered like glass. Before Lorch could even register the shock, I swiped my massive paw. The blow shattered his breastplate, sending the cruel knight flying backwards into the burning tents, dead before he hit the mud.
I ripped through the infantry line, my body a blur. I was death to anything that dared stand in my path.
Then, the heavy thud-twang of siege weaponry echoed from the high stone walls of Harrenhal.
Tywin's trap. Heavy iron scorpion bolts rained down from the battlements. I started dodging the lethal projectiles with impossible speed, but the sheer volume of energy spent was staggering. One massive bolt traced the very edge of my flank, slicing through my fur and leaving a stinging, burning graze along my ribs.
I skidded to a halt in the mud. The sting, though a minor inconvenience, infuriated me.
A blinding rage ignited in my chest. I turned my glowing eyes toward the towering, melted stone walls.
I charged the vertical face of Harrenhal. My heavy claws dug deep into the warped grooves, a gift from Aegon's dragon. I bounded up the sheer stone face like a mountain cat. Arrows rained down in swarms, but I was a dancer, dancing in this rain. I triggered [Extreme Speed] and [Ember] simultaneously, creating a vortex of thermal updrafts. The arrows veered off course, caught in the violent air currents, as I zigzagged up the wall, dancing with the flames.
I crested the battlements covered in flames. The scorpion crews abandoned their weapons, screaming in terror as I unleashed a sweeping arc of [Flamethrower]. The sheer devastation broke the Lannister vanguard entirely. The surviving men threw down their weapons and fled into the dark, trampling one another in their desperation to escape the demon of fire.
With the outer defenses laid to waste, I turned my back on the burning camp and walked slowly into the cavernous, dark interior of the castle.
The air inside Harrenhal was damp and heavy with terror.
As I stalked down the sprawling, vaulted corridors, the humans broke. Serving girls and squires huddled in the darkest corners, pressing their faces against the stone, weeping. I ignored them. They were not my prey. A squad of red-cloaked guards rounded a corner, their spears shaking violently. I let out a single, deafening roar, and they dropped their steel, fleeing down the hall. The two brave fools who dared to hold their ground were instantly consumed by a burst of blue-hot flame.
I followed the scent of the man I wanted and reached the heavy oak doors of the lord's solar and smashed them off their iron hinges with a single strike of my paws.
The room was bathed in the dim light. Standing by the window, his back to me, was the man draped in the iconic crimson cloak of the Lord of Casterly Rock, wearing his gilded armor.
I stepped into the room, a low growl rattling the cup and mug on the table.
The man turned slowly.
The scent beneath that finery struck my mind, and the realization hit me. It was not Tywin rather it was his brother, Kevan Lannister, pale and trembling, dressed in the old lion's clothes.
Tywin was gone. The ruthless pragmatist had calculated the high probability of his own death, realizing he could not hold Harrenhal against the variable, had retreated his main host to the Westernlands days ago.
And I had been played and made a fool of.
Kevan drew his sword, his eyes wide with the realization of his own doom. "Seven save me..."
The frustration boiled over in my chest. I let the fire of my rage completely off its leash as I opened my jaws and unleashed a cataclysmic torrent of fire.
The flames consumed Kevan Lannister and his brother's cloak and armour in a fraction of a second. The pressure in the room rising to an impossible extreme, turning the stone chamber into a white-hot crucible.
With a deafening roar, the sheer force of the [Flamethrower] blew the massive stone window frames completely out of the tower.
From the muddy camps miles away, the fleeing Lannister soldiers looked back at Harrenhal in absolute horror as a colossal, blinding pillar of fire exploded from the high windows of the Kingspyre Tower, painting the dark Riverlands sky the color of the sun.
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