Chapter 96: The Dragon Above Harrenhal
Harrenhal, north of the Gods Eye, is a colossal fortress in the Riverlands that dwarfs all others in the Seven Kingdoms.
Riverrun of House Tully, Lords Paramount of the Trident, is scarcely a tenth the size of Harrenhal—let alone the keeps of the lesser river lords.
Though Harrenhal's curse is as famous as its vastness, knights and nobles still swarm to this land of blood, honey, and doom like moths to a flame. Nothing can stop their hunger for the mighty stronghold and its fertile fields; poverty is the only sin, and poor lords fear no curse.
Rhaegar rode the Silver Emperor at the fore, with a great black dragon and a purple-scaled dragon close behind. The young dragons frolicked in the air, surveying the broad land below.
Silver-gold, black-red, and violet shadows wheeled across the sky along the Kingsroad. Wherever he passed, Rhaegar saw only friendly folk who thrilled at the sight of the young Silver Prince astride his leviathan; they would never forget it. The land feeds the people, and the people sustain the realm.
The Riverlands are famed for flat, fertile soil and winding rivers—and for bleeding first whenever war comes to Westeros. They are the perfect battlefield for dragons.
Rhaegar gazed upon rich earth, vast strongholds, broad lakes, and tangled waterways. The Riverlands possess natural advantages, yet lack mountain barriers; their greatest fortress, Harrenhal, has changed hands time and again.
On the road below, Ser Barristan Selmy, Ser Brynden Tully, and Lord Corlys Velaryon led two hundred Eagle Guards toward Harrenhal—but dragons were swifter, and Rhaegar could scout the land from above.
From its central position, Rhaegar judged that Harrenhal and the Gods Eye formed the true heart of Westeros—a wedge driven into the continent.
More than once he had worried that King's Landing lay too far east, exposed to seaborne threats. When Aegon founded the city, he chose the site for its closeness to Dragonstone, the Targaryens' cradle; Dragonstone and Driftmark were loyal original holdings, and the island made an ideal lair for dragons.
As a continental pivot, however, Harrenhal seemed superior: hold it, and one could raise armies across the Riverlands—or choke every road.
"The Harrenhal region has seen many great wars," he mused while circling above the castle and lake. House Targaryen alone had fought three great battles here: first, Aegon the Conqueror burned the castle; second, cruel Maegor the Cruel slew Prince Aemon; and third, Prince Daemon Targaryen and Prince Aemond One-Eye perished together above the Gods Eye.
The first proclaimed the unstoppable rise of the Targaryen dynasty; the latter two were bloody civil wars—kinslaying within the same house.
From the sky Rhaegar saw endless green meadows and the boundless blue of the Gods Eye, yet nothing matched the sight of the accursed stronghold itself.
He felt its height, its vastness, its grandeur and decay—Westeros' most conspicuous wonder. It was said House Whent occupied only a fraction of the towers; the rest stood empty, crumbling into ruin for want of people.
Harrenhal's walls rose sheer as cliffs. Five mighty towers loomed higher than those of the Red Keep, their battlements studded with wooden and iron scorpions that looked like insects. Every tower bore scars—stone cracked and twisted, melted long ago by dragonflame.
"Wonders doom the realm," Rhaegar sighed inwardly.
Harren the Black had spent forty years gathering stone, timber, gold, and men, felling ancient weirwoods and working tens of thousands of thralls to death for this fortress he believed impregnable—until the Targaryens came. House Hoare became the first in Westeros to taste dragonfire full in the face.
They had earned it, Rhaegar thought; their tyranny had bled the Riverlands dry.
Rhaegar had his dragon fly low for a closer look at the five towers: Kingspyre Tower, Widow's Tower, Wailing Tower, Tower of Dread, and Tower of Ghosts. Each was grotesque, jagged and warped, cracked and leaning. When the Black Dread descended, dragonflame had run across the stone like molten wax.
As the dragon circled, Rhaegar sensed its distaste for the shadowed ruin.
Could the curse be real?
The castle was built of fear; legends claimed infant blood was mixed into its mortar. Every lord who ruled here had suffered ruin, and many swore Harrenhal was haunted.
There was no time to investigate now. His men had arrived, and he descended. The secrets of Harrenhal could wait.
Outside the walls, Lord Hoster Tully, Lord Paramount of the Trident, and Lord Walder Whent, Lord of Harrenhal, welcomed Rhaegar with their kin. The two were good-brothers by marriage—Hoster's wife, Lady Minisa Whent, was born of this house.
The welcoming crowd glittered with gold, silver, and steel, perfumes heavy in the air. Such gatherings always drew ladies and daughters in abundance.
Banners snapped in the wind: a silver trout leaping on red and blue for House Tully of Riverrun; nine black bats on gold for House Whent of Harrenhal.
"Prince, the Riverlands welcome you," said Lord Hoster, a broad, restless man. Lady Minisa was absent—Rhaegar already knew from Brynden that her health was poor.
"Your presence honors House Whent, my prince," Lord Walder said warmly. House Whent was wealthy and powerful, its hold on Harrenhal unchallenged.
Rhaegar returned their courtesies. After formal bows, Lord Walder presented his brother, wife, and children.
He proudly displayed his sons and daughters, House Whent branching wide.
His brother Ser Oswell Whent, a skilled knight, unmarried and without issue, spoke eagerly with Ser Barristan, sharing a longing for the white cloak.
Most awkward were the Tully brothers. Hoster was rigid and unyielding; he could not stomach Ser Brynden defying him to serve a "boy."
Rhaegar could not mend that rift—such wounds between brothers seldom healed.
Amid Lord Walder's enthusiasm, Rhaegar's party entered Harrenhal. Any other castle would have been crowded by their numbers; Harrenhal swallowed them whole.
Some soldiers paled at the sight of the walls—Harrenhal's ghost stories were known across the Seven Kingdoms.
"What curse?" Ser Oswell scoffed. "Look at my brother's healthy children—House Whent prospers."
Rhaegar gave him a quiet, pitying look.
Do not tempt fate.
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