[ASOIAF SI] The Gilded Stag: A Ruthless Joffrey Uplift | Chapter 33: Interlude- "Brimstone" (Public) (Patreon)

The air tasted of frost and old pine sap.

It was a sharp, biting flavor that stung the nostrils and coated the tongue, but the great wooden box was safe. The thick, heavy timber walls of the long structure blocked the howling wind that scoured the northern hills. The floor was covered in dry, yellow grass that smelled of distant summer suns.

The beast stood in his stall, his massive chest rising and falling in slow, heavy rhythms. He was larger than the others in the herd, standing a full hand taller than the oldest mares. His coat was the color of a starless night sky, thick, coarse, and heavy against the northern chill.

The small two-legs came when the pale light broke over the snowy ridges. The small two-legs smelled of sweet oats, cured leather, and the crisp red fruit that snapped loudly between flat teeth. The two-legs wore a heavy wool covering over his chest, stitched with the shape of a silver fist upon a blood-red field.

The small two-legs brought the stiff brush. He dragged the bristles over the thick black coat, pulling away the dried sweat and loose hair, moving over the heavy haunches and the broad, muscular shoulders. It felt good. The beast stamped a heavy hoof, the iron shoe clinking sharply against the packed earth floor.

The small two-legs laughed, a soft, high sound that held no threat. He offered the flat of his pale hand. Upon it rested the crisp red fruit. The beast lowered his massive head and took it gently with his soft lips, crunching the sweet flesh, tasting the bright, cold juice.

This was the order of the world. The warm wooden box. The dry yellow grass. The sweet red fruit. The small two-legs who brought the brush and spoke in low, humming sounds.

Then the sun vanished, and the order of the world broke in blood and fire.

It began with the smell. A foul, heavy stench carried on the freezing night wind, slipping through the cracks in the wooden walls. It smelled of sour milk, unwashed fur, old fat, and frozen dirt. The beast tossed his massive head, his ears pinning flat against his skull. The whites of his eyes showed in the gloom. Down the line, the other horses in the long wooden box began to whinny, pacing nervously in their tight stalls, their iron shoes kicking frantically at the wooden slats.

Then came the noise. Shouts. Rough, guttural screams that did not sound like the songs of the men in the stone keep. There was the heavy, splintering crash of thick wood breaking. Then, the roar of a red-hot fire that ate the wooden roofs of the outer buildings, filling the freezing air with choking, black ash.

The small two-legs ran into the wooden box. He did not bring the brush. He did not bring the red fruit. He brought a long, sharp stick of grey metal. He was breathing fast, his chest heaving. He smelled of pure, suffocating terror, the scent rolling off his skin like a foul sweat.

The heavy oak doors of the stable burst inward. The bitter cold rushed in, carrying the smoke and the screams.

Men wrapped in dirty white bear skins and ragged wolf pelts stepped into the lantern light. They carried crude, jagged biters made of bone and scavenged, pitted iron, stolen from the frozen corpses of black-cloaked men in the deep woods.

The small two-legs thrust his sharp stick at the biggest fur-man. The fur-man did not flinch. He knocked the sharp stick away with a thick forearm guard. He swung a heavy stone hammer tied to a wooden haft with dried sinew.

The sound was a wet, heavy crunch. The small two-legs collapsed into the dry yellow grass, his limbs twitching wildly.

Hot, red water poured from his crushed head, soaking into the hay. The heavy, metallic smell of the red water filled the stable. It was the scent of death. It was the smell of the end. It triggered the oldest, deepest blood-urge in the beast’s veins.

Run.

The beast reared back in the tight stall, his front hooves striking the wooden gate, splintering the oak. He screamed, a high, panicked equine squeal that joined the chaotic din of the raid. The fur-men shouted in their rough, barking tongues. They rushed forward, throwing heavy, rough ropes woven from coarse hemp over the splintered gate.

The rough ropes bit into the beast's neck, choking the freezing air from his lungs. They dragged him. He fought, thrashing his massive head from side to side, his iron shoes kicking at the timber, but there were too many of them. Their combined weight pulled him forward. They dragged him out into the freezing night, out into the deep snow, away from the burning stone keep and the dead small two-legs leaking red water into the hay.

They marched for many suns.

The snow grew deeper, reaching the beast's knees, freezing the hair around his fetlocks into hard, icy clumps. The wind was a solid wall of ice that never stopped howling. The belly ached with a hollow, gnawing emptiness. The fur-men did not bring the crisp red fruit. They did not bring the dry yellow grass. They offered only frozen, bitter scrub torn from beneath the ice, tasting of dirt and rot.

The beast was tied to a long line with three other horses from the wooden box. The others were thin, shivering things. They walked with their heads low. They smelled of total exhaustion and fading warmth.

The biggest fur-man walked at the front of the line. He wore the skin of a great white bear. He had dark, flat eyes that surveyed the frozen landscape with the wariness of a hunted animal. But it was not his smell that made the beast's skin twitch.

On the fifth night, the wind howled through a jagged pass of black rock. The fur-men made a small, smoky fire that offered little warmth.

The man in the white bear skin walked toward the beast. He stood before the massive black head. Then, the fur-man stopped. He stared directly into the beast's eyes.

Slowly, terrifyingly, the man’s dark eyes rolled backward into his skull, showing only the pale, milky whites.

Suddenly, the world went completely silent.

The howling wind vanished. The crackle of the smoky fire faded into nothing. There was a pressure. It did not come from the hands or the rough ropes. It came from inside.

A heavy, suffocating weight pressed directly behind the beast's eyes. It was a ghost-touch, cold and utterly alien. The beast tossed his head violently, trying to shake the invisible fly from his ears. The pressure only worsened, burrowing deeper.

Obey. The thought was not his own. It was a human thought, carrying the sickening, metallic taste of cooked meat and the unnatural memory of walking upright on two legs. The fur-man with the milky eyes was pushing his own mind into the sacred space where the beast's mind lived.

The prey instinct screamed. Flee. Run until the heart bursts. Escape the invisible predator. The beast plunged backward. His massive chest surged with a strength born of pure, blinding panic. The frozen hemp rope, weakened by the ice and tied tightly to a thick pine tree, groaned under the immense tension. With the sharp crack of a breaking branch, the rope snapped.

He kicked his powerful hind legs, fighting the invisible weight in his skull, thrashing his head. But the pale-eyed man was already inside the walls of the mind. The human predator was throwing heavy chains over the beast's thoughts, wrapping cold, iron intent around the beast's rising panic.

The ghost-mind forced the beast’s front legs to stop moving. It forced the heavy, thrashing neck to lower.

The violation was absolute. The beast felt his own terror being swallowed by the pale-eyed man's cold, calculating will. The man intended to ride him, not with a leather saddle and a bit, but by stealing his very flesh.

Deep in the dark, panicked core of the beast, something ancient and incredibly violent snapped.

The prey instinct shattered under the immense, unnatural pressure of the intrusion. In the span of a single heartbeat, the blinding urge to flee was entirely overwritten by a sudden, volcanic surge of pure, unadulterated rage.

The beast did not run. He lunged forward.

The pale-eyed man blinked, the milky whites vanishing as his dark pupils returned. His physical body reacted to the sudden, violent rebellion within the mental link. He raised his hands, a shout of warning dying in his throat.

The beast reared high into the freezing air, his massive shadow blotting out the cold stars. He brought his front hooves down with the crushing, absolute weight of a falling boulder. The heavy iron shoes, nailed to his hooves by the smiths of the stone keep, struck the pale-eyed man directly on the top of the skull.

The bone caved in like a stepped-on fruit.

The mental pressure vanished instantly, snapping like a taut bowstring. The ghost-mind evaporated into the dark, leaving behind only the silence of the snow.

The beast stood over the ruined meat of the fur-man. The other men shouted, scrambling from the fire, reaching for their rusted biters. The beast did not wait for the sharp sticks. He spun, his powerful hind legs kicking out with bone-shattering force. A heavy hoof caught a second fur-man in the chest, shattering his ribs and throwing him backward into the snow.

The beast plunged into the thick, dark trees of the haunted forest, his long strides eating the distance, disappearing into the frozen gloom before the fur-men could notch their arrows.

He was alone.

He wandered through the deep snows for many days. The mental violation had left a permanent, ragged scar upon his mind. The air no longer smelled simply of pine and frost; it smelled of hidden threats. The rustle of a snow-laden branch was no longer the wind; it was an enemy preparing to strike. He did not feel like a herd animal. The ghost-mind had left a dark residue of the predator behind. He was angry. The gnawing hunger in his belly only fueled the hot, burning furnace in his chest.

The grey biters came on the fourth night.

They moved through the dark trees like drifting smoke. They were large, covered in thick grey fur, their yellow eyes glowing in the gloom. They smelled of old blood, wet dog, and desperation.

Seven of them. A pack.

They circled him in a snow-choked clearing. They did not bark. They communicated in low, rumbling growls, waiting for him to bolt. They wanted him to run. They wanted him to exhaust his massive muscles in the deep snow drifts so they could tear at his hamstrings and pull him down by the throat.

The old blood, the horse blood, screamed at him to gallop.

The scarred mind, the mind that had crushed the pale-eyed man, refused.

The beast turned his massive head. He tracked the largest of the grey biters. The leader. The one who hung back, directing the tightening circle with small flicks of his tattered ears.

One of the younger wolves lunged from the shadows, snapping its jaws at the beast's hind leg.

The beast did not kick blindly. He spun with a terrifying, unnatural agility for a creature of his massive size. He charged directly at the lunge, his heavy chest plowing through the snow. He trampled the younger wolf deep into the drift, feeling the satisfying crunch of the spine beneath his iron shoe.

The pack hesitated, confused by the sudden aggression. Prey did not charge. Prey ran.

The beast did not stop. He locked his dark eyes onto the large leader. He let out a shrieking, demonic whinny that echoed through the silent woods and surged forward. The snow exploded around his heavy chest.

The alpha wolf snarled, holding its ground for a fraction of a second before leaping upward, aiming its lethal jaws directly at the beast's thick jugular.

The beast dropped his heavy head, using his thick, muscular neck as a battering ram, swatting the leaping wolf out of the air mid-flight. The wolf’s teeth scraped hard against the beast's neck and upper chest, tearing the hide and drawing hot blood, but the impact sent the grey biter tumbling back to the earth.

As the alpha hit the ground, the beast reared. He brought both front hooves down in a rapid, pistoning barrage of iron and bone. He struck the alpha once, twice, three times, pulping the wolf's chest and skull into a bloody smear against the white snow.

The remaining wolves smelled the hot blood of their ruined leader. They were creatures of the hunt, but they were also creatures of survival. A broken bone in the deep winter meant a slow, freezing death. They wanted tired prey, not a monster that sought out the kill. The pack broke. They tucked their tails and fled whining into the dark trees.

The beast stood in the clearing, his sides heaving, his breath pluming in the moonlight. Blood dripped from the tearing bites on his neck and chest. He lowered his head and sniffed the ruined wolf. He did not eat the meat, but he remembered the lesson of the blood.

Kill the head, the pack runs.

The seasons turned. The snows slowly melted into freezing mud.

He wandered south, driven by the instinctual search for sweeter grass. The trees grew taller, the air warmer. He fought off shadowcats in the high passes. He trampled desperate, starving men in ragged clothes who tried to throw ropes over his scarred neck in the river valleys.

Then came the men with the long, stinging whips.

There were twenty of them. They rode fast, agile horses that darted like flies. They carried heavy nets woven of thick hemp and iron weights. He fought them in a grassy valley beside a roaring river. He bit one man, his flat teeth tearing a chunk of meat from the man's shoulder. He kicked a horse, breaking its leg with a sickening snap. But the whips bit into his flanks, tearing the hide, blinding him with sharp pain. The heavy nets fell over his head, tangling his powerful legs, pulling him down.

They dragged him into the mud. They bound his legs with thick iron chains that clinked loudly and bit deep into his flesh.

They forced him to walk. For moons, they walked. The air grew stifling, thick with an unnatural humidity. The green fields gave way to a hardened, packed earth that hurt his hooves.

Then the smell hit him. It was a solid wall of absolute foulness. It smelled of rotting fish, human waste, woodsmoke, and a million unwashed bodies pressing tightly together. It was a massive stone nest that choked the sky.

They dragged him through heavy wooden gates. The noise was maddening. Constant shouts, the clatter of wooden wheels on stone, the endless ringing of hammers on metal. They dragged him to a wide, muddy yard filled with the stench of animal shit and fear. They tied his heavy halter to a thick iron ring set deep into a stone wall.

He lunged at any two-legs that came near. He snapped his teeth, missing a man's face by a hairsbreadth. The men cursed him. They called him a demon. They beat him with heavy wooden sticks, but the pain only fed the hot furnace in his chest. He did not fear the sticks. He waited for them to step close enough to kill.

They left him chained to the wall. He stood in the filth, his black coat matted with mud and his own dried blood. The jagged silver scars from the wolves on his neck and chest, and the thick welts from the whips on his flanks, stood out starkly against his dark hide.

He waited.

(shifting to Joffrey's POV)

The stench of Flea Bottom was a physical, cloying weight in the back of the throat. It tasted of spoiled ale, rancid fish offal, and the sour sweat of absolute desperation.

Joffrey Baratheon strode through the narrow, twisting alleyways of the livestock market. He wore a heavy cloak of plain, dyed brown wool, pulled tight over his broad shoulders to conceal his sheer, unnatural size and the fine make of his dark leather tunic. The cowl was pulled low, shadowing the brilliant emerald eyes and the thick mane of golden hair. Sandor Clegane walked a half-step behind him, the Hound’s ruined face drawing terrified, wide-eyed stares from the cutpurses and beggars who quickly scrambled out of their path.

The Royal Stables of the Red Keep were filled to bursting with the finest horseflesh in the Seven Kingdoms. There were elegant Sand Steeds from Dorne, built for endless endurance under the scorching sun. There were massive, immaculately bred Andal destriers from the Reach, trained to prance and bow to the roar of the tourney crowds.

Joffrey had inspected them all, and he had rejected every single one.

They were soft. They were pampered beasts, accustomed to sugared oats, warm stables, and grooms who brushed their coats until they shined like polished coins. They possessed the strength to carry a knight, but they lacked the necessary, fundamental malice.

More importantly, Joffrey required absolute anonymity for his coming Name Day Tourney. If he rode a royal courser or a recognizable Lannister destrier into the lists, the Master of Whisperers or Littlefinger’s countless spies would identify the beast immediately. The carefully crafted disguise of the "Titan's Bastard" would be shattered before he ever couched his lance against the Kingslayer. Hedge knights were notoriously poor. They rode whatever heavy-backed plow horses or cheap rounseys they could afford. Joffrey needed a beast that looked common, yet possessed the monstrous strength required to unhorse the greatest knights in the realm. He needed a weapon pulled directly from the mud.

"This is a fool's errand, my prince," Sandor rasped, his deep voice barely audible over the chaotic din of the market. The Hound stepped over a rotting cabbage, his hand resting casually on the pommel of his broadsword. "The knackers and the dog-butchers buy their meat here. You will not find a warhorse among these swaybacked mules and broken-down cart-pullers. They are fit only for the glue pots."

"I am not looking for a pampered warhorse, Clegane," Joffrey murmured, his gaze cutting through the throngs of haggling merchants and filthy stablehands. "I am looking for a survivor. A beast that knows how to hate."

They turned a corner into a wide, muddy courtyard ringed by heavy wooden palisades. The air here was thick with the smell of horse sweat and fear. A Riverlands trader, a fat man with a greasy beard and a tunic stained with spilled wine, was shouting at a pair of terrified stableboys.

"Keep away from the jaws, you witless cunts!" the trader bellowed, cracking a long leather whip against the mud. "He took two fingers off the last boy who tried to check his teeth! Use the poles!"

Joffrey stopped. His eyes bypassed the rows of docile, unbroken rounseys and swaybacked plow horses. His gaze locked onto the far wall of the palisade.

Chained to a heavy iron mooring ring, standing ankle-deep in the foulest muck of the yard, was a behemoth.

The horse was a nightmare cast in midnight black. He stood easily nineteen hands high, a staggering, impossible height that dwarfed the standard destriers of the royal guard. His chest was incredibly broad, heavily muscled and corded with thick veins. But it was the ruin of the beast's hide that commanded attention.

The black coat was marred by dozens of jagged, silver scars. There were thick, raised welts from heavy whips across his flanks, but the scars upon his massive neck and chest were different. They were the unmistakable, tearing punctures of a predator's teeth.

"Gods be damned," Sandor muttered, coming to a halt beside Joffrey. The Hound’s dark eyes widened slightly. "That is not a horse. That is a demon trapped in horseflesh. Look at the scars on the neck. He’s fought off a pack in the woods and lived to boast of it."

"A pack of hounds?" Joffrey asked quietly.

"Wolves," Sandor corrected, his voice holding a rare note of professional respect. "Hounds don't have the jaw width to leave punctures that far apart. Only timber wolves possess that kind of bite. The beast must have crushed the pack to survive it."

The black beast was tossing his massive head, his ears pinned flat against his skull. His dark eyes rolled, showing the whites in a display of pure, unadulterated aggression. He strained against the thick iron chains that bound his halter to the wall, the metal groaning under the sheer, terrifying force of the animal's neck.

Joffrey did not speak. He stepped forward, leaving the shadow of the alley, his boots sucking softly in the mud.

The Riverlands trader spotted the approach. He saw the sheer, towering bulk of the hooded figure and the scarred, deadly presence of the man behind him. The trader swallowed his bluster, his greedy eyes calculating the potential coin.

"Looking for a beast of burden, m'lord?" the fat man asked, offering a yellow-toothed smile. "I have sturdy mules from the crossing. Strong backs, cheap to feed."

Joffrey ignored the man entirely. He walked straight toward the chained black giant.

The beast saw him coming. The horse stopped thrashing against the chains. He lowered his massive head, squaring his broad shoulders toward Joffrey. He let out a low, rumbling snort, a sound that vibrated deep in his chest. He scraped a heavy, mud-caked hoof against the cobblestones beneath the muck. It was a clear, unmistakable warning.

Step closer, and I will crush your skull.

"I wouldn't step into his reach, m'lord!" the trader shouted, genuine panic edging into his voice as Joffrey continued to walk forward. "The beast is mad! I brought him down from the Neck. He trampled a man to death on the Kingsroad. He won't take a saddle, he won't take a bit. I'm selling him to the butcher for dog meat on the morrow. He's unrideable!"

Joffrey stopped two paces from the beast.

He reached up and pulled the heavy wool cowl back from his head. The pale sunlight caught the brilliant gold of his hair. He stood at his full, imposing height, his broad chest rising and falling slowly.

The black horse did not flinch. The beast locked his dark, intelligent eyes onto Joffrey's emerald gaze.

For a long, silent moment, the noise of the Flea Bottom market seemed to fade away.

Joffrey did not see a dumb, panicked animal. He saw the cold, hyper-vigilant calculation of a creature that had been hunted, beaten, and bound in iron, yet refused to break. He saw the violent, predatory defiance that had driven the beast to crush the alpha wolf rather than flee into the snow.

The beast looked at the golden-haired two-legs. He did not smell the sweet, cloying scent of fear that usually rolled off the men who approached him. He did not smell the hesitation. He smelled iron, old blood, and absolute, immovable authority.

Joffrey took the final step forward. He did not extend a hand with sweet oats. He did not offer soft, cooing whispers to soothe the beast. He moved with sudden, overwhelming physical dominance.

Joffrey’s massive, calloused hand shot out, grasping the thick leather of the beast's halter just beneath the jaw.

The horse reacted instantly. He tossed his massive head upward with the force of a siege engine, intending to rip the two-legs off his feet and crush him into the mud.

Joffrey did not yield a fraction of an inch. He planted his heavy boots into the muck, locking his knees, his jaw clenching as the corded muscles in his shoulders and back strained against the immense, explosive power of the horse's neck.

It was a violent, silent collision of two immovable wills.

The iron chains clanked loudly as the beast tried to rear, but Joffrey’s grip was a vice of solid steel. The Prince exerted a terrifying, crushing downward pressure, forcing the massive black head to remain level. He did not strike the animal; he simply met its monstrous aggression with a superior, unbreakable physical presence.

They stood locked together in the mud, breathing heavily.

Joffrey stared directly into the beast's dark, furious eye. I am not your prey, the emerald eyes silently communicated. And I am not your master. I am the war you have been waiting for.

Slowly, the violent tension began to bleed out of the horse’s thick neck. The beast recognized the sheer, unyielding strength holding him. He stopped pulling against the halter. He let out a long, heavy breath, the hot air blowing against Joffrey’s face. He did not submit out of a sudden, magical affection; he yielded out of the profound, instinctual recognition of an apex predator far more dangerous than himself.

Joffrey released the halter. He reached up and placed his bare hand flat against the beast's scarred, muscular neck. The horse stood perfectly still, accepting the touch.

Sandor Clegane let out a low, rasping breath behind him. "I'll be damned."

Joffrey turned his head slightly, his gaze fixing on the pale, trembling trader.

"He is not dog meat," Joffrey said, his baritone voice ringing with absolute, terrifying finality in the foul yard. "He is Brimstone."

Joffrey reached into the leather pouch at his belt. He drew out a heavy, glittering golden dragon and tossed it casually into the mud at the fat man's feet.

"Unchain him, trader," the Prince commanded. "And if you ever speak of this transaction to another living soul, the Hound will return to remove your tongue."

Joffrey turned back to the massive black stallion. The beast lowered his massive head, bumping his heavy velvet nose firmly against Joffrey’s chest in a quiet acknowledgement of submission. The Golden Stag had found his nightmare steed, and the realm would soon learn to fear the thunder of his hooves.

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