The Lango Highlands were not large by Westerosi measure, yet their fertile ridges fed half a dozen valleys, and upon those gentle slopes stood hundreds of modest estates, granaries, orchards, and wheat-fields tended by overseers and slaves. In another season the land would have seemed peaceful, almost pastoral.
Now it burned.
High above, Aegon Targaryen rode Sunfyre through a sky stained gold by the sinking sun. The dragon's radiant wings cast sweeping shadows over the hills as he circled estate after estate, his fire falling in bright, ruinous arcs. The granaries went first, timbered roofs blossoming into flame, then the wheat still standing in the fields. The dry stalks ignited in a breath, and soon the highlands smoldered like a single great pyre.
Money and steel might rouse a rebellion, but sustenance could shape it. Aegon knew it better than any lord in King's Landing. If he was to guide this rising rather than let it break free of him, he needed their hunger to rely upon him, and never allow them to grow strong enough to ignore his hand.
So he destroyed what they sought to claim.
Once he held their weapons and their food, he would hold them.
The sun dipped toward the west, the firelight deepening, shadows stretching long across the scorched estates.
Far below, the Rebel Army made its slow, exhausted push forward.
Hidolf had taken the Lango Mountain Pass by dusk, driving out the last of the local guards with a final surge of desperation. The victory should have lifted their spirits, yet the men looked hollow-eyed from hunger, their faces drawn tight over their cheekbones. They had almost nothing left in their carts. If they could not seize more food in two days, morale would shatter. Hunger could divide men more swiftly than swords.
After posting a thousand men to hold the pass, Hidolf marched with five thousand deeper into the highlands.
"Push forward!" he called, raising his arm high so those in the rear could see him. "Once we take the estates, there'll be wine and meat enough for every man!"
A thin cheer rose behind him, fear disguised as eagerness. They needed the promise as much as the food.
But when Hidolf crested the hill overlooking the first estate, his voice died in his throat.
Below, flames raged through the courtyard. Slaves ran wild like maddened animals, burning, killing, smashing whatever lay before them. A man's severed arm hung limp from a broken gate. The estate owner and his household guards lay ripped apart, strewn over the trampled earth. Smoke poured from the granary, its wooden beams collapsing inward as fire devoured the grain inside.
Yet the warehouse… gods, the warehouse was a riot of scrambling bodies, slaves brawling over chests of coin and stolen goods. A few had flung silver cups into the air, laughing as though drunk on their sudden freedom.
Hidolf stared, stunned. Then fury ripped through him.
"Idiots, fools!" he roared. "Put out that fire! We cannot lose the grain!"
His shout jolted his soldiers from their stupor. A dozen men dropped their spears and sprinted into the blazing granary, coughing through the smoke as they tried to haul out sacks before they burned.
"Spartacus!" Hidolf snapped. "Take your men, stop this madness. Seize whatever they've plundered and find out what happened here."
Spartacus inclined his head and turned sharply. "With me!" he barked, and the gladiators behind him, iron-armored, well-armed, grim-faced, charged down the slope.
The former gladiator moved like a blade through the chaos. His men struck with the flats of their swords, knocking rioters senseless. Others wrenched coin-filled sacks from clawing hands. A few kicked aside a slave still swinging a broken pitchfork. Within moments the frenzy buckled under the show of force, confusion giving way to sullen stillness.
Soon they dragged the ringleaders before Hidolf.
They were a sorry group, blood on their chins, eyes wild with drink and violence. One bald man stared defiantly at Hidolf, lips twisting as though itching to spit at him.
"Who are you supposed to be?" he sneered. "We were busy. You're interrupting."
Busy. The man's belt was still half-undone, and the woman cowering behind him bore the bruises of what he had forced upon her.
Hidolf's jaw clenched. He gave Spartacus a silent look.
Spartacus stepped forward and slammed his fist into the bald man's gut. The blow sank deep. The man's eyes bulged, and he collapsed to his knees, retching gold-dragon wine and half-digested meat onto the ground.
Hidolf turned his gaze to another, a short, twitching man who shrank beneath the force of it.
"Speak," Hidolf said coldly. "What happened here?"
He had assumed the slaves fought their masters in some final uprising of their own making. But no, these fools lacked the organization for such devastation. Something else had occurred.
The short man trembled so violently his teeth knocked together. "A, a gold dragon," he stammered. "It came from the sky. Destroyed the fields first, then the granary… then the master's hall."
Hidolf's face froze.
The man rushed on, fear spilling through every word. "It all happened so fast. Before a cup of wine could be drained, it was gone. Then, then Johnny killed the guards in the confusion, and everyone… everyone rushed the warehouse."
Silence fell.
Hidolf took a slow step forward and seized the man by the collar. "You mean," he said softly, far too softly, "the dragon deliberately burned the farmland and granary."
"I, I don't know if it meant to, I swear!" the man babbled. "But it looked like it."
Hidolf's teeth ground together. His hands shook, not with rage, but with something far darker.
Pure fear.
"Spartacus," Hidolf said hoarsely, "take men. Ride to the nearest estates. Now."
Spartacus blinked in surprise, then nodded sharply and sprinted off, his gladiator squad falling in behind him.
He had known Hidolf for years. The man had never shown fear, not even when they were trapped at the mountain pass with their bellies empty and the enemy closing in. But now Hidolf's eyes had held panic.
A cold knot tightened in Spartacus's stomach.
He and his men raced across the next stretch of fields. The smoke reached them before the screaming did.
When they crested the hill above the second estate, Spartacus felt his heart leap painfully against his ribs.
The sight was the same.
Flames roared through the courtyard. Slaves rampaged unchecked, burning, slaughtering, grabbing whatever they could carry. The farmland lay in ruins, fire racing along the dry furrows. The granary had already collapsed, vomiting sparks into the evening sky.
"Seven hells," Spartacus whispered.
Even his thick, battle-hardened mind grasped the truth now.
The dragon had done this. And if it had struck twice, it would strike again.
Why?
He glanced skyward instinctively, half-expecting to see golden wings cutting across the reddening sky. But the horizon was empty.
He clenched his teeth and forced himself onward. He had to be certain. The next estate, and the next after that, each brought only confirmation of Hidolf's dread.
Everywhere he went, he found the same chaos, fire, looting, dead masters, collapsed granaries, fields reduced to ash.
By the time he returned to Hidolf, the sun had dipped below the hills, leaving only firelight to paint the world.
Hidolf stood alone beside the smoldering ruins of the first granary, staring at the flames as though they spoke some prophecy only he could hear. His men had retrieved less than a tenth of the grain; the rest had burned.
Spartacus approached, boots crunching on charred grain.
"It's the same everywhere," he said quietly. "Every estate. Every field."
--------
A/N: Aegon's ambition has begun to stir.As his power grows, so do his foes, traitors, and enemies rising with blades already drawn.
Will he truly succeed… or be crushed before he can claim it all?
If you want to find out, read ahead on Patreon.19 advance chapters available, the first 2 are free.
patreon.com/Captain_Lag