"Your Grace!" Ser Meryn shouted. His warhorse screamed as someone drove a weapon clean through its belly. The horse fell, and Meryn dismounted, only for clubs and broken chair legs to come smashing and jabbing at him. Meryn hacked left and right until his strength slowly failed. His white cloak had turned entirely red with blood, and he no longer had the strength to protect Joffrey.
The Catelyn Black brothers were surrounded as well. They had fled quickly, but could not escape their fate.
Joffrey was dragged from his horse. The king tried to swing his longsword, only to be struck viciously on the head by cobblestone after cobblestone.
The rioters pulled Joffrey off his warhorse and took turns battering his head. The king's banner fluttered like butterflies, torn into a thousand fragments.
"Stop! You traitors!" People frantically snatched the valuables from Joffrey's armor. The king's helmet was smashed flat, followed by his handsome face.
"Mother, it hurts!" Joffrey wailed, then lost consciousness.
Chapter 297: King's Landing Unrestrained
In the year 299 after the Conquest, people fought bloodily around King's Landing and the Blackwater Rush. The battle lasted from morning all the way into the night.
The Battle of the Blackwater was the largest battle of the civil war in Westeros, with the added intervention of outside powers such as Volantis, Lys, and the slave city-state of Yunkai.
Downstream on the Blackwater Rush, dark currents surged beneath the surface, while bloody flames rolled above it. The sky was red, orange, and vivid green, and smoke billowed high.
The "bridge of ships" stretched strangely across the river. Anyone crossing it had to climb over gunwales and oars and traverse sloping decks covered in blood and burning green fire to attack King's Landing. The bridge was also perilous in the extreme. Some