[ASOIAF SI] The Gilded Stag: A Ruthless Joffrey Uplift | Chapter 14: WAT (Public) (Patreon)

Date: Early 296 AC

Location: The Ruins of the Dragonpit, Rhaenys's Hill


The Hill of Rhaenys was a bad place. Every boy in Flea Bottom knew it. The Shepherd's ghosts still screamed there on moonless nights, and the rats that skittered in the blackened ruins were said to be as big as dogs, grown fat on the marrow of dead dragons.

Wat shivered, pulling his thin woolen cloak tighter. It was new wool, thick and scratchy, bought with the Prince's silver. It kept the wind out, but it couldn't keep the fear from gnawing at his belly.

"Stop shaking," a voice growled from the darkness.

Wat jumped. The Burned Man was a shadow detached from the night, a mountain of plate and chainmail that smelled of wet iron and old wine. He stood by the collapsed remains of what had once been the Great Gates, his hands resting on an iron crowbar as thick as a man's wrist.

"I ain't shaking, m'lord," Wat lied, his teeth clicking together.

"You're rattling like a bag of bones," the Burned Man grunted. "Get the others. The moon is high enough."

Wat did not whistle. Sound carried too far in the dead silence of the ruins. Instead, he clicked his tongue twice, a sharp sound like a cricket.

From the rubble, three other shapes detached themselves from the shadows. Jem, who had no ears; Toad, who could scale a sheer wall like a spider; and Pate, who was small enough to fit down a chimney. The Prince's "tunnel rats."

They gathered around the hole. It wasn't a door. It was a scar in the earth where the great dome had collapsed a hundred and sixty years ago, sealing the vaults below.

Two other men stood further back, away from the edge. One was the Walrus—a man with a nose like a smashed plum and hands the size of hams, wearing robes that looked like they'd been used to scrub a stable floor. The other was Him.

The Prince.

Joffrey stood with his arms crossed, wrapped in a plain grey cloak. He didn't slouch. He didn't fidget. He looked at the ruin like he owned every broken stone.

Even in the gloom, he was terrifying. He was only thirteen, but he stood tall, a tower of a boy who dwarfed the Walrus and Wat. He was broad-shouldered for his age, the heavy muscle of a man beginning to fill out the frame of a boy. His hair fell to his shoulders in waves of beaten gold, framing a face that had lost its childhood softness. He had high, sharp cheekbones and a jaw like a heavy shield, marred only by the thin, white memory of a training blade on his left cheek.

When he looked at the Burned Man, he did not have to look up far. The top of the Prince's head reached the knight's brow.

"The map places Ser Willum at the inner perimeter of the Great Gates," the Prince said, his voice carrying clearly in the stillness. "When the dome fell, the lintel shattered. He should be buried beneath the main archway debris."

"If the roof holds," the Walrus muttered, chewing on something that stained his teeth red. "If it don't, your rats become jelly."

"They know the risk," the Prince said calmly. He looked at Wat. "And the reward."

Wat nodded vigorously. The Prince didn't just give coin. He gave orders. For a boy who had spent his life dodging kicks and fighting for apple cores in the mud, orders were a comfort.

"We'll catch it, Your Grace," Wat rasped. "It won't hide from us."

The Burned Man jammed the crowbar under a slab of fused black stone. "Stand back."

With a grunt that sounded like a bear waking up, the huge knight heaved. The stone, weighing more than a cart horse, groaned and shifted. Dust—ancient, grey, and smelling of brimstone—puffed up in a choking cloud. A gap appeared, blacker than a sinner's soul.

"Go," the Burned Man commanded.

Wat took the lantern—a clever thing with a shutter to hide the light—and slipped into the crack. Toad followed, then Pate.

The air inside was stale and dry. It tasted of ash. Wat slid down a slope of loose scree, his boots scrabbling for purchase. The lantern light swung wildly, illuminating walls of melted stone. The dragonfire had been so hot here that the rock had run like wax.

"Seven preserve us," Pate whimpered behind him.

"Shut your mouth," Wat hissed. "You want the ghosts to hear you?"

They reached the bottom of the slide. They were in a pocket of space beneath a massive fallen pillar. The floor was littered with bones. Not dragon bones—men bones. Ribs crushed like wicker baskets, skulls grinning from the dust, rusted scraps of chainmail that crumbled when Wat kicked them.

"Spread out," Wat whispered. "Look for the bronze scales. Look for the big one."

They crawled over a mound of debris. The ceiling here was low, pressing down on them. Wat could feel the weight of the hill above, tons of rock waiting to finish what the dragons started.

"Here," Toad whispered, pointing.

Ahead, pinned beneath a slab of masonry, lay what was left of a man.

He was mostly crushed, a heap of bones inside a shell of rotted leather and metal. The iron ringmail beneath had turned to orange dust, but the scales on top... the scales were dull green, spotted with verdigris but uncorrupted by the red rot. Faint swirls were carved into the bronze, runes that looked like twisted roots.

The skull had been flattened, but the right arm... the right arm was stretched out, as if the knight had been reaching for something when the world fell on him.

The gauntlet was rusted shut, the fingers locked in a death grip.

And in that grip was a hilt.

"Is that it?" Pate asked, squinting.

Wat crawled closer. The hilt was plain iron, pitted and ugly with age. The leather grip had rotted away entirely, leaving the bare tang of the metal. It looked like trash.

But the blade...

The blade ran from the rusted gauntlet and disappeared under the rubble. Where the steel emerged from the crossguard, it wasn't orange with rust. It wasn't pitted.

It was dark. Smoke-grey. Even in the dim lantern light, Wat could see the ripples in the metal, like oil on water.

"Help me," Wat grunted.

Toad and Pate grabbed the skeletal arm. Wat grabbed the hilt.

"Pull!"

The skeleton resisted. The rust had fused the gauntlet to the crossguard. Wat braced his boot against the stone slab and heaved. There was a sickening crunch of old bone snapping, and the arm came free from the shoulder.

"Twist it," Wat ordered.

They hammered at the rusted fingers with a rock until the iron gauntlet cracked and crumbled. Wat peeled the dead fingers back. They were just dust and knuckle-bones now.

The sword came free with a soft hiss of shifting ash.

It was long—a bastard sword, heavy and wicked. Wat held it up. The lantern light played along the length of it. The edges were unblemished. While the armor had rotted and the knight had turned to dust, the sword looked as if it had been forged yesterday. It was cold to the touch, cold as the grave it came from.

"That's the one," Wat breathed. "That's the magic steel."

"It don't look magic," Toad sniffed. "Looks like old iron."

"That's why you're a fool," Wat said. He shoved the blade into the sack of burlap he'd brought. "Let's go. This place wants us gone."

The climb back up was harder. The scree slid under their feet. Wat clutched the sack to his chest, protecting it like a babe.

When they finally scrabbled out of the hole, gasping for the sweet, cool night air, the moon was overhead.

The Burned Man was waiting. He reached down and hauled Wat up by the back of his tunic as if he weighed nothing.

"Well?" the knight growled.

Wat didn't speak. He walked over to the Prince and knelt in the dirt. He offered the burlap sack with both hands.

Joffrey didn't grab it. He peeled the sacking back slowly.

The moonlight hit the blade. The ripples in the dark steel seemed to drink the light.

The Walrus let out a low whistle. "Lamentation," the big man murmured. "Ser Willum's grief. Look at the smoke in the steel. The rust took the man, but it couldn't take the dragon."

Joffrey stared at the sword. His face was unreadable, mask-like, but Wat saw his hands. They were steady. He gripped the pitted iron hilt—which was rough and uncomfortable without the leather—and lifted the blade.

He swung it once.

Thrum.

The sound was low and lethal. Joffrey stopped the blade an inch from the stone wall of the ruin.

"The balance is perfect," the Prince said softly. "Even with the hilt rotted to nothing."

He looked down at Wat. For a second, the green eyes seemed to pierce right through the dirt and the fear.

"You did well, Wat."

"It was... with the dead man, Your Grace," Wat stammered. "Under the big stone. His hand was still holding it. We had to break the fingers."

The Prince nodded slowly. "A good knight holds his blade until the end. And beyond."

He handed the sword to the Burned Man, who wrapped it quickly in a heavy wool blanket, hiding the dark steel from the world.

"Ironhand will have a new place for you and your boys by morning," the Prince told Wat. "A dry cellar near the River Gate. No more sleeping in a drafty hall with fifty other boys. And no more Septas telling you when to wake. You answer only to me."

Wat bowed his head, his forehead touching the dirt. "We are yours, Prince. The Pack is yours."

"Go," Joffrey commanded. "And speak of this to no one."

"No one," Wat repeated.

As he led his boys away down the hill, Wat looked back once. The Prince was standing on the ruins of the Dragonpit, looking out over the sleeping city. The Burned Man stood behind him, a dark shadow against the stars.

Wat touched the silver coin in his pocket, but his mind was still on the sight of that sword. It had come out of the earth clean. It wasn't right for something to be that clean in a place that dirty.

The Golden Stag had teeth now. Real teeth. And Wat was just glad he was one of the teeth, and not the meat.