“They say both of them hatched more than fifty years ago.”
Something uneasy crossed Daemon’s face as he spoke of the two dragons.
“One black, one silver.
The dragonkeepers didn’t even notice the black one at first.
By the time they realized it was hunting young dragons and stealing eggs to eat, it had already grown enormous, so they took to calling it Cannibal.”
“Then why hasn’t anyone dealt with it?” Quentyn asked, puzzled.
“No idea.” Daemon shrugged, looking almost innocent about it.
“Maybe Grandfather thinks someone might still tame it one day, and doesn’t want to waste a full-grown dragon.
Or maybe it’s because there’s another dragon keeping it in check.”
“Keeping it in check?” Quentyn latched onto the phrase.
“That’s right.
That’s the second dragon I meant.” Daemon’s face went wistful at the mention of it.
When he’d first learned the creature existed, he’d set his heart, for a time, on taming it himself.
But once Rhaenys claimed the Red Queen, Daemon had switched his own ambitions to “the Blood Wyrm,” Caraxes, instead.
“They say that silver-gold dragon is even fiercer than Cannibal.
My own mother wanted to claim it first, before anyone else, but the dragonkeepers talked her out of it.”
Something amusing occurred to Daemon as he said this.
“At first, since the dragon used to sing at night, and its call was rather lovely to hear, the dragonkeepers took to calling it ‘Moonsong.’ But later, once the keepers and the fishermen saw just how vicious it really was, after it very nearly tore the Whale Hunter apart, they all started calling it ‘Moon Crown’ instead.”
“Tore a dragon apart?”
“That’s right!”
Daemon carried on, following the thread of Quentyn’s question.
“Cannibal never dares challenge a dragon even a little larger than itself, but Moon Crown does.
And Moon Crown almost never turns on a weaker dragon at all.
The old dragonkeepers used to say Moon Crown once killed an even older dragon, one called Fury, a dragon Maegor himself had abandoned.
Back when old ancestor Visenya died, Dragonstone fell into real chaos, with the young dragons turning on each other.
Of what was left after that, Fury was counted the strongest by far, strong enough to claim a whole mountain on the Dragonmont for itself.
The fishermen say Jade is its mate.
They’ve seen the two of them hunting whales together more than once.”
The more he talked, the more excited Daemon grew, and with it, that unmistakable air of what a shame it is I never tamed that one only thickened further.
Quentyn listened quietly.
The Wandering Husk slipped slowly through Dragonstone’s narrow harbor mouth.
The volcanic island stood wreathed year-round in smoke, the reek of sulfur hanging thick over everything.
But whether it was Daemon, Quentyn, or Gael, who had come up carefully from below deck to stand close at Quentyn’s side, none of them found the place unpleasant in the least.
If anything, they seemed almost to enjoy it.
Queen Alysanne was already waiting at the dock, flanked by two noble ladies-in-waiting and Kingsguard Ser Harrold Westerling.
“Mother—”
The instant the gangplank touched down, Gael, still looking a little pale from the voyage, was the first to bolt from the ship, throwing herself straight into her mother’s arms.
Alysanne stroked her daughter’s hair fondly, then turned her gaze to Quentyn, and to Daemon, still limping along behind.
“Grandmother.” Daemon ducked his head, a little sheepish.
After all, whatever else was true, it was his own injury that had sent them all the way out to Dragonstone in the first place.
“Aunt Alysanne.” Quentyn bowed politely.
“That boy Baelon, honestly.” Alysanne drew Quentyn in and ruffled his hair.
“Couldn’t even let you spend a proper while with your own mother.”
Quentyn made no reply to that, only let Alysanne go on ruffling his hair, obedient as ever.
“What about me, Grandmother!”
Daemon hopped forward, none too pleased at being left out.
“You little troublemaker.” Alysanne freed her other hand and gave Daemon’s short-cropped hair a vigorous ruffle of its own.
“We’ll talk once that leg of yours is properly healed and not a moment sooner.
Ser Harrold, Ser Clement, my thanks to you both for keeping this little troublemaker in line.”
The powerfully built Ser Clement Crabb gave a nod.
“That is my charge, Your Grace.” Ser Harrold Westerling stood up straight, his tone grave, and had already positioned himself at Daemon’s side, as though ready to snatch the boy back the instant he tried to make a break for it.
Just as Alysanne opened her mouth to say something more.
Aboard the Wandering Husk, its gangplank already drawn back and the ship readying to leave port, the lookout suddenly cried out in raw terror.
“Dragon!”
Everyone flinched at the sound of it.
On the mountainside to the east, a dragon black as burnt coal fought to beat its own wings, its great ram’s horns unmistakable even at that distance.
A sickly green dragonfire spilled from the corners of its jaws, as though it had only just loosed a blast of flame that hadn’t landed the way it meant it to.
Scalding dragon’s blood came pouring down like rain, striking the sea below and setting off great sheets of boiling foam.
“Cannibal?”
Daemon recognized the black dragon at once.
Alysanne swept all three children into her arms together, though by now, both boys, Gael excepted, already stood a good deal taller than she did. You are reading on novelping.com, the official source.
“Take cover!
Everyone, take cover now!
Ser Harrold, Ser Clement, protect the ladies!”
Before Quentyn could even react, Alysanne had already shoved him behind the great boulder standing beside the dock.
The two white-cloaked knights threw themselves forward without a moment’s hesitation, shielding the two terrified noblewomen beneath their own bodies.
Cannibal lurched unsteadily toward the docks.
The black dragon’s tail was uncommonly long, ordinarily a fine aid to its balance, but now it only made escape all the harder.
The silver-and-moon-colored dragon spread wide its golden wings, and its furious roar rolled out across the whole of Dragonstone.
“Roooarrr—”
Quentyn couldn’t help clapping his hands over his ears.
Daemon curled in on himself, teeth bared.
Gael shook and trembled, huddled tight in her mother’s arms, while Alysanne kept murmuring under her breath, as though calling out to something.
Quentyn could make out well enough that the queen was calling for Silverwing.
He carefully lifted his head just far enough to see the silver dragon bearing down in pursuit.
It was a creature of breathtaking, almost suffocating beauty, pale silver from head to tail, six great, twisting horns curling upward, clustered around one thick central horn.
Its golden eyes burned with something like madness, and a fury so thick it left onlookers trembling just to see it.
Sunlight streamed through the gold patterning on its wings, catching the light and turning it to molten gold, its broad tail-fin cutting across the water’s surface and driving the great beast’s speed higher still.
Silver dragonfire streaked across the sky and caught Cannibal’s black tail-fin alight.
The black dragon shrieked and tumbled through the air, struggling to break free of the silvery beast’s pursuit.
But Moon Crown was larger by far, its wings wider still.
The great dragon’s tail-fin slammed down hard against the water, and the sea itself exploded upward.
Wind surged and filled its wings, and with a few powerful beats, Moon Crown rose into the air and clamped its jaws shut around Cannibal’s absurdly long tail.
“Hisssss—”
The black dragon shrieked in agony, straining to beat its wings free, but Moon Crown’s fangs had already crushed the scales along its tail, punching through into scalding flesh, and with every one of Cannibal’s own desperate struggles, tore the wound open wider and more horribly still.
The onlookers watched in horror as one dragon dragged another, larger still, struggling to stay airborne.
Cannibal alone was terror enough to behold, and yet here this monstrous beast was being wrenched bodily out of the sky by an even greater one.
“Hisssss—”
Cannibal seemed to realize, in that instant, that if it didn’t fight now with everything it had, there would be no chance left to fight at all.
Like a hyena cornered with nowhere left to run, the black dragon’s shriek climbed to a pitch that set every scalp on the docks crawling.
It twisted its neck around sharply, and sickly green fire came roaring down along its own body.
The dragon’s own black spines and scales split and cracked apart in its own flame, black blood boiling and rising in vapor, but Cannibal seemed to feel none of it at all.
The fire spread on, climbing straight toward Moon Crown.
Moon Crown showed no fear at Cannibal’s savagery.
It roared, talons lashing forward, its whole body bending in the air into the shape of a great bow, silver and gold together, and then, all at once, released.
Cannibal’s own proud, long tail, still wreathed in sickly green fire, snapped clean with a single wrenching pull.
Black dragon’s blood sprayed into the sea, staining a great swath of water a boiling, seething black.
Moon Crown flung the severed tail carelessly into the waves, spread its wings, and pulled clear of Cannibal’s own desperate thrashing.
Cannibal let out an agonized scream, its head thrown back, and sickly green dragonfire bloomed outward like some grotesque mushroom cap, spreading its cap wide beneath Dragonstone’s own darkened sky.
Green fire fell like rain.
The crowd on the docks scattered in every direction, and anyone, any building, that fire touched went up in raging flame within moments.
“Qrinuntās nākostagon” (Stop your attack)
The dragonkeepers stationed near the docks raised their long poles and dragon-goads, shouting loudly.
“Arlī jās!” (Go back!)
What answered them instead was a dragon driven mad with pain.
Cannibal’s agony poured out of it in an endless stream of sickly green fire, and the two dragonkeepers didn’t even manage a scream before the flame swallowed them whole.
The Wandering Husk tried to flee, but she was too large, too clumsy, and hadn’t managed to haul her anchor up before Cannibal’s fire came down across her.
Her deep blue sails caught fire in an instant, roaring into flame.
The wooden hull stood no chance at all against dragonfire, and in the blink of an eye, the whole flat-bottomed vessel had vanished into a sheet of flame.
Cannibal crashed down with a thunderous impact just behind the great boulder where Quentyn and the others lay hidden, while Moon Crown shrieked and came down atop the tax collector’s tower, its talons closing tight, crushing the marble-cast tower to rubble, stone and dust raining down.
Alysanne murmured under her breath even as she flung her arms wide without hesitation, sheltering all three children behind her like a hen guarding her chicks.
Gael let out a scream, then fought to swallow it back down.
Daemon ground his teeth.
Quentyn, though, felt his own blood burning fiercer than ever in that instant, as though fire itself were coursing through his veins, and he could barely hold himself steady.
Ser Clement Crabb, crouched in the shelter of a warehouse corner, gripped his longsword tight, casting glances toward the boulder now and then.
Ser Harrold Westerling had shoved the queen’s own ladies down into a harbor drain, keeping low, ready to throw himself toward the queen at the first opportunity.
Just a little longer.
Alysanne had no way of knowing whether Silverwing could even hear her call.
She found herself regretting, now, that she hadn’t gone to visit her own dragon that morning.
No, perhaps just a little longer, and Rhaenys would come flying in to see what had happened.
Just a little longer, only a little longer…
Pain and fury had already stripped it of whatever reason it had left, and, as ill luck would have it, Moon Crown had none left either.
Sickly green and pale silver dragonfire collided head-on in the sky above, flame scattering in every direction.
Neither Ser Harrold nor Quentyn and the others dared move an inch beneath that rain of fire.
Alysanne, even as she tried to soothe the terrified Gael, shouted at both dragons in High Valyrian, trying desperately to drive them off.
Neither dragon paid the queen the slightest attention.
Gael trembled in terror, but she glanced first at Quentyn, then at Daemon and her mother, and forced herself, obedient as ever, to curl in tighter against her mother, trying her best not to be a burden to anyone else.
“Daemon, this can’t go on.”
Quentyn gritted his teeth.
If this dragged on any longer, and the two beasts lost themselves entirely to their own fury, there’d be no chance left to wait for Silverwing, or for the Red Queen Meleys, to come to their aid.
“Seven hells, I told you we should’ve let me ride Caraxes out here…”
Whatever recklessness lived in Daemon’s bones, fear had finally driven it fully to the surface.
“Quenny, you’ve got dragon blood too.
One each.
Don’t tell me the blood of dragonlords can’t bring even these two to heel.”
“All right!”
That was exactly the answer Quentyn had been waiting for.
“Daemon, what are you doing?
Quenny, get back here!”
Before Alysanne could react, Daemon had already darted out from cover.
Quentyn vaulted over the boulder, raised his right hand, and pointed it toward Moon Crown, its head lowered.
“Lykemās” (Be calm)
Dragging his still-stubborn leg along, Daemon shuffled a few steps toward Cannibal, and began to sing, a little off-key, the old dragon-song.
“Drakari pykiros, Tīkummo jemiros.” (Beast who breathes and swallows flame, lord of all winged creatures.)
Cannibal arched its neck warily, coiled like a serpent ready to strike at any instant.
“Lykemās, umbās” (Be calm.
Hold steady.)
Quentyn had never learned the dragon-song himself.
He looked up into the dragon’s golden eyes, drew breath in through his nose and down into his chest, pressed it down into his belly, and let it burst out all at once.
He’d have wagered that, in his whole life, from birth until now, he had never once spoken this loudly.
“Qrinuntās nākostagon,” (Stop your attack)
The great silver beast, wild and frenzied only a moment before, actually fell still at the sound.
A low, rasping sound rose from its throat, and slowly, the dragon climbed down from the ruined tower.
Quentyn’s own reflection stared back at him from its golden eyes.
Is it studying me?
Quentyn walked toward Moon Crown, step by careful step, until at last only a single stride separated him from the dragon.
“Dohaerās udir!” (Obey this command!)
The savagery in Moon Crown’s eyes slowly faded.
Quentyn reached out and laid his hand gently against the dragon’s snout.
Under the stunned, disbelieving eyes of Ser Clement and Ser Harrold both, Moon Crown lowered its head to Quentyn.
Alysanne held Gael close, her own eyes gone wide with shock.
The boiling in Quentyn’s veins could no longer be held back.
He could barely command his own body anymore, and could only let it carry his own awareness forward, pressing his lips against the great dragon’s own snout.
Moon Crown raised its head slightly, lifting the boy clean off the ground.
Weightlessness struck him all at once, but in that moment, only a single thought remained in Quentyn’s mind.
It won’t hurt me.
In the space of a single breath, Quentyn felt something solid and firm settle beneath him.
He scrambled upright at once, and what met his eyes was a ridge of golden spines, sharp and gleaming.
Quentyn froze for a moment.
The dragon tilted its head, as though telling him to take hold of the spines along its back.
It was at that very moment that Daemon’s own song broke off.
“Hārossa letagon.
Aōt vāedan…
fuck” (Bind the three as one.
I sing for you—)
Sickly green dragonfire surged forward without warning.
Daemon’s own reflexes proved faster than the dragon’s fury, and he threw himself into a roll, narrowly, agonizingly, clear of the flame.
The young dragonrider lifted his head from the ground, dazed, and there, on the dragon’s back, he caught sight of Quentyn.
His face lit up at once, and he shouted at the top of his voice.
“Fuck, Quenny!
Get it!”