The Mountain of Ice and Fire

Jade and stone in ruin.

The Eyrie is the smallest of all the ducal lord castles in Westeros, and also the highest of all castles, considered an impregnable fortress.

The entire castle consists of a cluster of seven slender white towers closely connected, accommodating a maximum of five hundred people. In contrast, Littlefinger Petyr Baelish's Harrenhal can accommodate thousands in its dining hall alone; many dukes, marquises, and earls have dining halls that can accommodate hundreds.

The smallness of the Eyrie is imaginable!

The dragon's wings spread, blocking all sunlight, completely enveloping the Eyrie in the shadow of its massive wings.

The arrival of the Mountain and the dragon heralded the final moments of this remarkable castle, sentencing it to the same fate as Lysa Tully...

*

The seven narrow spires of the Eyrie are all built of magnificent white stone. The towers surround a garden that should have been a godswood, but due to the thin soil, weirwood trees cannot survive here, leaving only a small rockery and snow in the garden.

Limited by its geographical location, the Eyrie's barracks and stables are built directly into the mountainside. There is no place for horses to run, and they cannot go up or down, making it unclear why the mountainside was hollowed out to keep horses.

The lords of the Eyrie, House Arryn, do not enjoy eating horse meat, and due to the low temperatures and lack of exercise, the horse milk cannot compare to that brought up from below.

Although the Eyrie is a small castle, its granary is large, comparable to the granary of Winterfell in the North. The large granary in the North is to store more grain to withstand the winter.

Whether it is the Eyrie's spires, the nominal godswood garden, or the stables and granary, all are now shrouded in a sea of fire. The white stones used to build the castle began to melt in the golden-red flames, like soft tofu being baked and dripping water. The water began to carry away the debris of the tofu, quickly causing the tower to tilt. A loud rumble was heard as the Maiden's Tower fell first, its spire tumbling, rocks rumbling down, falling into the valley thousands of feet deep. The white tower struck rocks along the way, causing more loose stones to fall. Once the disaster began, it was like the sky falling!

Then, in a very short time, the Maester's Tower, the Lord's Tower, the Blue Eagle Tower, and the Moon Tower fell one by one. The cracking and rumbling sounds echoed throughout the Giant's Lance, shaking the earth. Cries of people and neighing of horses came from the spires and stables. The miserable cries of women and children were like candle flames in the wind, helpless, weak, and ready to be extinguished at any moment.

On the flower-filled plains of the Vale, working people looked up and saw a huge torch burning on the awe-inspiring summit of the Giant's Lance, like a giant god holding a blazing torch. The fire easily penetrated the thin clouds on the mountain top, accompanied by thunderous rumbling.

The Mountain rode the dragon, circling the summit of the Giant's Lance, the dragon's flames golden-red, burning in circles!

The people on the Vale's plains stood there in a daze, like wooden sculptures or clay figures.

The collapse of the castle shook the summit, and countless large and small stones fell. The first to be hit was the Stone, located six hundred feet below the Eyrie.

The guards of the Stone were completely terrified by the changes at the Eyrie above them. All the soldiers stood blankly on the walls and in the courtyard, everyone like a lifeless puppet, until the overwhelming, earth-shattering boulders roared down, and rubble splashed like rain. Only then did they wake up from their dreams and flee into the stables inside the mountain to hide.

The Stone is built in the most dangerous place, with roads exposed to the wind, and steps damaged by years of freezing. It is a towering tower, built in a crescent shape, all the towers built of rough stone. Inside the walls are a series of ramps and a pile of boulders ready to be thrown down. The boulders are prepared to be thrown at enemies attacking the Eyrie.

Inside the mountain, craftsmen carved out a huge cave, which contained the hall, stables, and was filled with living supplies. This huge cave inside the mountain saved the lives of most of the guards. Only a small number of unfortunate soldiers were swept away by the river of large and small rocks along with the entire tower. Life under the rolling river of rocks is as small as dust and as fragile as duckweed.

In the blink of an eye, with a cracking and rumbling sound, the entire Stone disappeared... The mountains carrying the castle were shaking, as if they would collapse in the next heartbeat. Even hiding in the cave, the ground was trembling, and the rumbling sound filled the space of the cave. The soldiers shouted in fear, but they could not hear their own voices at all. The bravery of the guards was powerless in the face of this man-made disaster, crushed into powder, and fear reached its peak...

The boulders stored in the Stone rolled down with the entire tower, hitting downwards, causing more loose stones to shake, loosen, and fall. Boulders collided with boulders, the power increased, and the rumbling sound was the collapse of the sky and the earth itself...

Snowstone was the second guard castle below the Stone. Unfortunately, Snowstone was located almost directly below the Stone. There was a fortified tower, a wooden fortress, and stables behind low stone walls. It was close to the Giant's Lance, allowing it to control the entire passage from the Bloody Gate upwards.

However, unlike the guards of the Stone, the guards of Snowstone did not wait until the last moment to avoid it, but acted from the beginning. They did not have a cave to hide inside the mountain, everything was on the open ground, but the warriors were very experienced and fled to the left and right before the disaster came, instead of downwards.

Unfortunately, the further down the mountainside collapsed and the boulders fell, the wider the impact. It takes a day for people to carefully walk down the mountain road, but the speed of the collapse, fall, and impact of the boulders was surprisingly fast, and formed a large-scale chain reaction. The rock storm fell in a fan shape, covering an increasingly large area, smashing almost all the guards of Snowstone to death.

But the disaster did not expand again. The Bloody Gate below Snowstone was the third guard castle from top to bottom. The small road up and down here was surrounded by trees. There was a heavy iron gate. The stone walls were covered with iron thorns, and two round towers surrounded the main fort. Fortunately, Snowstone was at the front of the Giant's Lance mountain range, with a considerable depth distance in the middle, and its position was perfectly unrelated to the rolling stone flow... But the overwhelming stone flow, just the sound of the earth-shattering collapse, made the guards of Snowstone never forget it for the rest of their lives...

*

The Mountain, riding the dragon Sheepstealer, hovered in the sky above the Eyrie. He watched the Eyrie collapse in the fire, watched the entire summit slowly overturn and eventually collapse with a bang, the white rock turning into white magma slowly flowing, until there were no more human voices or horse neighs in the stables deep in the mountains. Only when everything was silent did the Mountain drive the dragon away...

No one could survive in the Eyrie. There were no miracles here. The high temperature caused the materials in the granary and stables to spontaneously combust, and a raging fire spewed out thick black smoke...

The Mountain, alone with his dragon, burned down the Eyrie. This was equivalent to him launching a personal war, and the ending was one: jade and stone in ruin...

*

The Throne Hall.

At the gate, several gold-cloaked guards responsible for guarding were whispering.

"Have you heard? The Mountain burned down the Eyrie. That miraculous castle on the summit of the Giant's Lance will never exist again," one soldier said in a low voice. His eyes looked around cautiously, as if there were invisible and terrible listeners in the air.

Another soldier spoke in an even lower voice, his eyes flickering, with a guarded expression on his face, like a frightened little mouse sneaking out of a hole to forage: "Ivan, don't jump to conclusions too early. What if the Arryn family rises again in a few decades or centuries, and the new Lord Arryn rebuilds the Eyrie?"

"Rebuild?" the previous soldier sneered, "The summit of the Giant's Lance has been burned down, the mountain peak has been broken in the middle. You're telling me to rebuild? I'm willing to bet my life that the Eyrie will never appear again. It's a pity for that world-miracle castle, the only castle built in the sky."

The other soldiers all nodded, while looking around to make sure there were no 'ears on the wall'.

The third gold cloak approached the brothers in the middle, his voice low and hoarse: "Brothers, I heard that the Mountain didn't spare even the women and children. He burned down the Eyrie, the Stone, the Bloody Gate, Snowstone, and the Moon Gate."

"Rumors!" the first soldier asserted.

"How do you know it's a rumor? With the Mountain's evil, once he goes crazy, what can't he do? Huh?!" the third soldier said contemptuously.

"The Stone and the Bloody Gate are directly below the Eyrie, hit by the boulders formed by the collapsed mountain. It is said that in the blink of an eye, the two castles disappeared out of thin air."

"Hey, where did you get your news from? I heard that before burning down the Eyrie, the Mountain rescued Robert Arryn, a poor child who has never stopped breastfeeding."

"Brothers, there are all kinds of rumors now, but none of the news has been confirmed. After the Mountain burned down the Eyrie and returned to King's Landing, he never said any specific details."

"Didn't the Mountain even report to the Queen Mother and the King?"

"Yes."

"How dare he not even report to the King and Queen Mother?"

"Tch, are you just finding out about the Mountain's overbearing strength today? He is the Mountain, everything he does is fucking justified."

"Shh, the Mountain is coming," a soldier said in a low voice.

The soldiers who were gathered in a circle immediately dispersed, quickly lined up on both sides, their hands on their sword hilts, heads held high, and faces expressionless.

The Mountain arrived with his guard, a hundred-man team. The captain of this hundred-man team was the one-eyed Teem, a fearsome one-eyed general.

*

In Maegor's Holdfast, the Queen Mother's court manager, Oswell Kettleblack, lowered his head and said carefully: "Queen Mother, it's absolutely true. The Mountain rode a dragon to the Eyrie. He burned down the entire castle and collapsed the summit of the Giant's Lance."

"Everyone in the Eyrie is dead?"

"No one inside survived, regardless of gender or age. The Mountain is too cruel, jade and stone in ruin."

"Is the news definitely reliable?"

"Very reliable."

"I heard that the four guard castles of the Stone, Bloody Gate, Snowstone, and Moon Gate were all burned down by him..."

"The Mountain only burned down the Eyrie. The collapse of the Eyrie destroyed the Stone and the Bloody Gate. Snowstone and the Moon Gate are fine."

"The Arryn family has no one left?"

"There is still a branch in the Vale plains, with family blood relations to the Duke of Arryn."

"Then it seems we need to get to know a new Lord Arryn?"

"Queen Mother, the Mountain is the Warden of the East. He has already sent ravens, ordering the Vale nobles to mobilize troops in the name of the Warden of the East. No one from the Arryn family has come forward to say that they have inheritance rights."

"Did those nobles obediently mobilize their soldiers?"

"The reaction of the Vale nobles is not yet known."

"I bet they hate the Mountain to the bone, but they are also scared to death."

"I don't know, Queen Mother. The Mountain is too overbearing and strong. He burned down the Eyrie, did such a big thing, and then came back without saying a word. The news circulating in King's Landing was all sent out by the Vale nobles through many ravens. Queen Mother, the Mountain is too evil. His dragon is too evil."

*

The Tower of the Hand.

Mace Tyrell paced in the Hand's study, dictating a letter: "Let Willas mobilize the grain for an army of one hundred thousand, advance by land and water, and quickly transport the supplies to the North. The waterway will go to White Harbor, enter the White Knife River from the port, and transport the grain into the Northern interior. The land route will take the Kingsroad, and the supplies will be sent all the way to Winterfell."

The maester was writing furiously!

Hand Mace stopped and pondered for a moment: "Tell Willas, don't play tricks, honestly transport the grain. The Mountain has burned down the Eyrie, and none of the Arryn family's servants, guards, maesters, and courtiers, innocent traffic singers, Moon Boy and clowns, and comedians from the Free Trade City-States were spared."

The maester wrote it down swiftly.

"Also, the Mountain's dragon is two hundred and fifty years old. It is a true dragon. I have witnessed it with my own eyes. Let Willas understand this. Although we are not afraid of the Mountain and his dragon, remember that there is no need to provoke the Mountain. When the Mountain's dragon spreads its wings, it can cover a small town."

*

At the dock, the porters were working enthusiastically, and the sages were directing them to load jars of wildfire onto Dragonstone warships flying the kingdom flag and the Clegane family flag.

A group of dozens of sages were successively boarding another warship. Next to them, hundreds of monks from the Great Sept of Baelor were boarding another warship.

The Mountain's Dragonstone navy sent twelve ships to King's Landing to pick up people and supplies.

Jaime, with eight hundred Westerlands soldiers and two hundred King's Landing gold cloaks, formed a thousand-man army, and was also boarding the Dragonstone warship... The Mountain's guard battalion had also set off, rumbling out of the city and heading towards the Trident River crossing...

Littlefinger, as the royal army's chief administrator, in charge of military pay and food scheduling, and Melisandre had left in advance with a hundred-man team from the Vale and two hundred-man teams from the Mountains of the Moon, because their horses were slow!

*

The Mountain was dealing with some messy government affairs in King's Landing. Amidst the various rumors about the burning of the Eyrie that people were discussing, he was the last to leave the city. On the hills of Rhaenys, on the ruins of the Dragonpit, people saw the Mountain riding his dragon take off into the sky and fly north...

Thank you to [沧澜御宇] [Chau534] [一道之下万道之上] for the reward and support, thank you, handshake!