The Red Keep, the royal palace of the Seven Kingdoms, sat atop Aegon's High Hill in King's Landing.
Unlike Rhaenys's Hill, where the Dragonpit was located, Aegon's High Hill was the tallest of the three great hills of King's Landing.
From here, one could look out over the entire city and the river bay.
That included Visenya's Hill, with the Great Sept of Baelor standing atop it, facing the Red Keep across the city.
Why so much introduction? Because what surprised Kal was that Kevan Lannister's flight had not been an attempt to escape King's Landing.
All along the chase, Kal discovered that the small force Kevan had rallied showed no intention of leaving when they passed by the Iron Gate.
On the contrary—
Without hesitation, without a backward glance, Kevan pushed past the Iron Gate and kept going, until he reached the Red Keep itself.
And in the course of his desperate flight, he even managed to pull together one last Lannister host.
That force freed him from the pursuit of a small party of clansmen on his heels, then plunged headlong into the Red Keep—and slammed its gates shut.
Because this war was unlike any other, different from the usual sieges, the fighting over the walls was not especially fierce this time.
So, there were not many who had chased Kevan Lannister up on the ramparts.
Seeing no chance left, they had to give up.
Kal's order not to let Kevan Lannister escape had not spread quickly enough amid the chaos, so this small band of clansmen had no choice but to retreat before the Lannister troops Kevan had scraped together.
"My manpower still isn't enough—"
Noticing this, Kal clearly realized where the problem lay.
But at this moment, the problem could only be set aside.
Meanwhile, Kevan Lannister, fleeing along the wall toward the Red Keep, never realized that with the collapse of the Lannister host, the whole of King's Landing was now engulfed in flames of war—and that someone was still chasing after him.
Beneath Rhaenys's Hill lay King's Landing's most infamous slum: Flea Bottom.
Here, the streets were narrow, the alleys as twisted as a labyrinth, crammed with beggars and the city's poorest folk.
With the battle at the Dragon Gate over, and the Lannister host broken, the slum, naturally, was swept up in the chaos, becoming both shield and refuge.
The already broken, frenzied Lannister soldiers ran for their lives, scattering in every direction.
Behind them came the clansmen, hungry for merit—and for the wealth on their bodies—hunting them down.
Flames, slaughter, blood, rape, pillage.
Every word tied to war was vividly playing out here.
Kal chased Kevan Lannister up on the wall, but his gilded sword kept swinging as well.
The scene before him slowed his pace, and he never found the right chance to climb the wall.
Inevitably, Kal failed to cut Kevan Lannister down before he slipped into the Red Keep.
The chase carried Kal onto a cobbled plaza before the Red Keep's massive outer bailey.
Here, the war had not yet reached.
He watched as Kevan Lannister's last remnants disappeared into the Red Keep and slammed its gates shut.
Standing before the Red Keep's gate, Kal halted, silently observing.
From the shadows of a narrow alley, he lifted his head. Before him loomed the fortress, its thick walls of pale red stone ringed with countless battlements and arrow slits.
His brow furrowed, expression hardening.
Massive stone parapets guarded the wall's edge.
The walls held great bronze gates and iron portcullises, with several narrow side doors.
On the merlons between gatehouses, iron pikes had been driven through severed heads.
Some were fresh, others had hung there for days.
Flies buzzed thick around them, while fat, black-glinting crows plucked out their eyes, leaving only empty sockets.
The birds had stripped away patches of flesh from their cheeks as well, exposing white bone still clinging to scraps of brownish-red tissue.
One look at those heads, lined up in threatening rows, was enough. Kal didn't need to think—any fool could guess where they had come from.
But for now, he swallowed his anger and set the thought aside.
What tangled him was this: why, faced with defeat, had Kevan Lannister not chosen to flee, to save his skin and live to fight another day?
Why had he instead rallied one last force and hidden inside the Red Keep, as if planning to make a stand?
Kal couldn't make sense of it.
For a moment he was baffled. What purpose could Kevan have? What was he trying to do?
It couldn't be that he meant to threaten Kal with the people inside, could it?
Impossible. What connection did they have to him? And how could he ever be swayed by such threats?
As long as the Iron Throne remained, as long as the Baratheons ruled the Seven Kingdoms, whatever Kevan tried within the Red Keep would be useless.
Even if madness drove him to burn the castle down, it would change nothing.
And Kevan Lannister hardly seemed a fool—or a coward afraid of death.
So if he had made this choice, there had to be some deeper scheme.
Unable to fathom it, Kal chose not to charge in after him right away.
Cornered foes are not to be chased, and one must never rush blindly into the woods.
Now, he wanted to see exactly what Kevan Lannister intended.
His head was already Kal's by right, but for now Kal would let it stay on his neck.
He had already crushed and buried the power Tywin Lannister had cloaked in smoke and shadows, that last desperate gamble for revival.
The old lion's final card to hold the Iron Throne hostage—turned over, destroyed by Kal.
With the crisis in King's Landing broken, Kevan's retreat into the Red Keep left Kal transformed—from urgency to utter calm.
Still in the alley's shadow, he cast one last glance at the heads impaled on the iron spikes, then turned away in silence.
The clash of battle in the distance was slowly drawing nearer.
Kevan Lannister's head could wait.
What mattered now was quelling this chaos with the fastest hand.
After washing himself clean, Kal changed into fresh garb and fetched the antlered greathelm Jon had specially scrubbed spotless.
He brought out the banner of the crowned stag, the very one Robert had sent north to him when he went to Winterfell.
Clad in gleaming plate, the antlered greathelm upon his head, Kal, in King Robert's name, finally quelled every last skirmish in King's Landing before nightfall.
Once the stranger-like figure of Kal Stone appeared, the hill tribesmen no longer cut down every soul they saw.
Apart from the few Lannister deserters who fled beyond capture, the rest—most of them broken in spirit and seeking survival—surrendered and became prisoners.
Kal's orders, that those who yielded would not be slain and that taking prisoners still counted as war merit, curbed the endless bloodshed.
No one is born a doomed outlaw; the desire to live is a brand seared into every being's heart.
And as the war's havoc ebbed, the commoners and nobles of King's Landing—who had lived in constant dread, never knowing if their lives might be snuffed out at any moment—finally saw that the sudden war was truly over, and they too realized they had been saved.
Though they did not know these troops, the familiar banner and the leader's helm told them plainly it was King Robert Baratheon's men who had delivered them.
When rumor spread in clumps through the city, word reached all: they now knew the name of the one who had saved them.
In that moment, the name Kal Stone resounded through King's Landing.
On the white marble plaza before the Great Sept of Baelor, beneath the towering statue of Baelor the Blessed, countless commoners gathered of their own accord to pray to the Seven.
They prayed their cries had been heard, prayed the Seven had sent Kal Stone to deliver them.
And beyond that holy place, still more thronged the streets and alleys, crowded the taverns, raising cheers to celebrate their survival and that of their kin.
They sang praises of Robert Baratheon the First—and of his bastard son, Kal Stone.
He was the man who uncovered the Lannisters' treasonous plot, the merit that sparked the war of the crown against House Lannister.
But what was beyond dispute was this: after the deeds of recent months on the battlefields of the Riverlands and the North had spread, everyone now knew Kal Stone had become an undisputed legendary knight.
And this legendary knight, wearing upon his head the helm the king had gifted him for his valor, bearing the king's banner aloft, had descended like a host of heaven's soldiers to deliver King's Landing.
With victory secured, the city, swept by a wave of rejoicing, was easily steadied.
Kal was glad he had not shown them the blood-soaked side of war, choosing instead to soothe these common folk who had spent so long quaking under the threat of death.
It had not been in vain that he had taken time to wash himself clean.
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