“Anaxion,” Mortarion said.
The name left his lips in the language of Old Valyria, spoken clearly despite the sulphur burning at the back of his throat.
It travelled across the ruined terrace and disappeared beneath the dragon’s rumbling breath.
Anaxion did not respond.
The beast remained motionless before him, its enormous head lowered until one molten-green eye filled Mortarion’s vision.
Within that eye burned an intelligence older and more alien than anything he had encountered in his former life.
Karaban had possessed cunning.
The winged nightmare had gathered treasure, recognised danger and fought with the desperation of a creature unwilling to die.
Yet Karaban had still seemed like a beast driven primarily by hunger, territory and fury.
Anaxion was different.
The dragon studied him.
It did not merely see a pale youth standing amid the ruins.
It appeared to examine every weakness Mortarion attempted to conceal.
The trembling of his tired arms, the strain within his lungs and the scent of blood lingering upon Dreaded Deliverance would all be obvious to a creature whose senses had been shaped for hunting.
Mortarion kept his hand away from his sword.
Drawing the weapon would serve no purpose.
The Valyrian steel might cut Anaxion’s scales if driven with enough force, but Mortarion doubted he would reach the dragon’s flesh before being burned into ash.
A dull green light continued to glow within Anaxion’s throat.
Heat rolled over the terrace in suffocating waves.
The stone beneath Mortarion’s boots grew warmer, while the ends of his silver hair began to curl.
The fragments he had discovered within the ruined dragonkeepers’ hall returned to him.
Remain visible.
Avoid sudden movements.
Speak continuously.
Do not show fear.
The instructions sounded simple when written by men who had likely approached dragons from childhood.
Mortarion had faced armies, sea serpents and creatures that could tear through city walls.
He understood fear and had long ago learned how to prevent it from guiding his actions.
Yet standing before Anaxion was unlike facing any ordinary enemy.
An enemy could be studied.
Its armour, reach and formations could be understood.
Even Karaban had possessed a known weakness and a weapon specifically designed to exploit it.
Mortarion knew almost nothing about the dragon before him.
He did not know its age, temperament or history.
He did not know whether it had survived the Doom, descended from dragons born afterwards or emerged from some forgotten breeding pit beneath the city.
Death had given him a name and nothing more.
“Anāksion,” Mortarion repeated, using the older pronunciation preserved within the damaged texts.
“I am Mortarion Krieg.”
The dragon’s nostrils widened.
A cloud of dark smoke enveloped Mortarion.
The fumes carried the scent of scorched stone and something metallic.
He resisted the urge to cover his mouth, though his eyes watered and his lungs demanded cleaner air.
Anaxion inhaled.
The force of the dragon’s breath pulled Mortarion’s coat towards its jaws.
It was smelling him, searching for something within his blood that marked him as Valyrian.
Mortarion allowed the examination.
Death had promised him the blood of the dragonlords.
Whether that gift carried the same qualities as a natural lineage remained uncertain.
Anaxion would determine the answer more reliably than any scholar.
The dragon’s eye narrowed.
Mortarion felt pressure build behind his eyes.
It began as a faint ache before spreading through his skull.
Images flashed through his mind, too fast and fragmented to understand.
He saw black mountains beneath a red sky, dragons circling towers that no longer stood and countless figures dressed in pale robes.
A roar erupted inside his thoughts.
Mortarion staggered.
His hand nearly moved towards Dreaded Deliverance before he forced it back to his side.
The dragon had not physically touched him, yet something pressed against his mind with the weight of an invading army.
The knowledge Death had placed inside him shifted violently.
Memories of the Aurellian Empire collided with visions that were not his own.
Mortarion saw soldiers marching beneath black and dark-green banners, then dragonlords soaring above the Fourteen Flames.
He remembered cutting down a rebel king and, at the same time, felt the sensation of diving through clouds upon wings wider than a fortress.
Anaxion growled.
The terrace trembled.
Mortarion understood that the dragon was searching him.
Perhaps every dragon bond began with such an examination, or perhaps Anaxion possessed abilities unknown to the surviving Targaryens.
Either way, the beast was attempting to determine whether Mortarion was worthy, familiar or merely another intruder within its territory.
Mortarion pushed back.
He did not possess magic, nor did he understand the nature of the pressure.
He relied upon the same discipline that had carried him through torture, injury and death.
He focused on a single memory.
Karaban falling from the sky.
The image sharpened within his mind.
He saw the diamond blade sinking between the dragon’s scales.
He felt magma consume his body while the winged nightmare screamed beneath him.
Mortarion forced the memory towards the invading presence.
Anaxion recoiled.
Its head rose abruptly, and the mental pressure vanished.
The dragon’s roar shook the terrace with enough force to crack the weakened stone.
Mortarion stumbled backwards, his boots sliding across ash.
The glow within Anaxion’s throat intensified.
Mortarion had angered it.
Perhaps showing the death of another dragon had been a mistake.
The thought had been intended as a declaration of strength, proof that he would not break beneath the beast’s scrutiny.
Anaxion might have interpreted it as a threat.
The dragon opened its jaws.
Mortarion stood within a cavern of black teeth.
Green fire churned deep within its throat, brighter than wildfire and thick with sparks that burned holes through the falling ash.
He did not run.
There was nowhere to go.
The terrace ended in a sheer drop on one side, while the nearest doorway stood too far behind him.
Even if he reached cover, a dragon of Anaxion’s size could reduce the entire structure to molten stone.
Mortarion met the beast’s gaze.
“I killed Karaban because it stood between me and my mission,” he said in High Valyrian.
“Do not give me reason to judge you the same.”
The words were reckless.
They were also honest.
Anaxion’s fire brightened.
For several heartbeats, Mortarion believed Death’s champion would die within his first day in the new world.
The dragon’s jaws could close around him without effort.
Its flame would leave nothing behind.
Then the fire faded.
Anaxion closed its mouth.
The dragon lowered its head once more, though the movement lacked the earlier curiosity.
Its posture had become rigid, with the dark spines along its neck standing upright.
The creature remained angry, but it had chosen not to attack.
Mortarion considered that progress.
He slowly lifted one hand.
Anaxion followed the movement immediately.
Its claws flexed against the terrace, cutting into black stone.
Mortarion stopped.
The damaged texts had said that a prospective rider should allow the dragon to become accustomed to his scent and presence.
Physical contact often came later, once the beast no longer viewed the human as prey or a challenger.
Death had not given Mortarion the luxury of dragonkeepers, handlers or generations of inherited experience.
He had only instinct and fragments of writing.
Mortarion lowered his hand again.
“Very well,” he said.
“We begin with patience.”
Anaxion released another cloud of smoke.
The dragon moved around him.
Each step shook the terrace.
Anaxion’s body passed with the slow inevitability of a moving fortress, scales scraping against fallen masonry.
Dark green covered most of its sides, though the colour deepened into black along the spine and wing bones.
Old scars crossed its chest and forelegs, some wider than Mortarion’s entire body.
This was not a young dragon.
Anaxion had fought before.
The creature circled Mortarion until its tail rested across the remains of a collapsed balcony.
The tip alone was large enough to crush several men.
Mortarion turned gradually, never allowing the dragon to leave his sight entirely.
Anaxion watched every movement.
Mortarion began speaking again.
He recited his name, his former rank and the titles he had earned in another world.
The dragon would understand little of the Aurellian Empire, but the tone mattered more than the history.
Mortarion kept his voice steady and commanding without shouting.
“I was High Marshal of an empire that ruled every kingdom beneath its sky,” he said.
“I led a hundred thousand soldiers and brought crowns to my emperor.
I slew beasts whose names terrified nations.”
Anaxion’s head tilted slightly.
“I did not choose you because I required a pet.
I require a weapon, a companion in war and a creature capable of carrying my will across this world.”
The dragon gave a low growl.
“You may dislike the word weapon.
That changes nothing.
Kings are weapons.
Armies are weapons.
Even I was a weapon in my former life.”
Mortarion paused.
His conversation with Death returned to him.
Emperor Aurellian had used him until no mortal enemies remained, then sent him against creatures thought impossible to kill.
Mortarion had never objected.
A weapon existed to be used.
Yet he understood that Anaxion would not accept chains merely because Mortarion declared himself master.
A dragon capable of surviving Valyria had no reason to submit to a physically weakened boy.
The bond had to offer something in return.
“I will give you war,” Mortarion continued.
“Skies beyond this poisoned land.
Enemies worthy of your fire.
Cities that will speak your name with fear.”
Anaxion stepped closer.
The dragon lowered its snout until Mortarion could see each individual scale surrounding its nostrils.
Heat radiated from the beast’s flesh.
Fine cracks covered several scales, glowing faintly from within like cooling lava.
Mortarion lifted his hand again.
This time, Anaxion did not immediately recoil.
His fingers approached the dragon’s snout.
The distance narrowed.
A strange sensation moved through Mortarion’s chest.
It was not fear, though it possessed the same sharpness.
Anticipation, perhaps, or the instinctive understanding that one careless movement could decide his future.
His fingertips came within an inch of Anaxion’s scales.
The dragon snapped its head aside.
The movement created a blast of wind that threw Mortarion from his feet.
He struck the terrace hard, pain flaring through his shoulder as Dreaded Deliverance’s sheath dug into his back.
Anaxion roared.
Mortarion rolled away as one enormous claw struck the place where he had fallen.
The terrace shattered beneath it, sending slabs of black stone tumbling into the streets below.
The dragon had not attempted to crush him.
It had warned him.
Mortarion rose slowly, favouring his injured shoulder.
Anger simmered beneath his outward calm, directed less at Anaxion than at his own inability to control the encounter.
He had assumed the dragon’s stillness meant acceptance.
It had meant tolerance.
There was a considerable difference.
“You are testing the boundaries,” Mortarion said.
Anaxion hissed.
The sound resembled steam escaping a ruptured furnace.
Mortarion stepped forward again.
Pain travelled through his shoulder, but he ignored it.
Retreating too quickly might suggest fear, while continuing carelessly could provoke the dragon into genuine violence.
He stopped beyond the reach of Anaxion’s foreclaws.
The dragon extended its neck.
For one moment, Mortarion believed it would permit another attempt.
Instead, Anaxion opened its jaws and roared directly into his face.
The sound overwhelmed everything.
Mortarion’s ears rang.
His coat whipped behind him, and his weakened knees nearly folded beneath the force.
Spittle struck his face, hot enough to sting.
He remained standing.
Anaxion withdrew.
The dragon seemed almost disappointed.
Mortarion wiped his face with one sleeve.
“You will require more than noise.”
The beast’s wings unfolded.
They opened across the terrace and blocked out the crimson sky.
Wind surged around Mortarion as Anaxion lowered its body, preparing to launch.
Mortarion’s expression hardened.
The bonding attempt was ending.
He could try to stop the dragon, but no command he possessed would carry authority yet.
Grabbing at its scales would likely result in being thrown from the mountain or crushed beneath a wing.
“Do not leave,” Mortarion commanded in High Valyrian.
Anaxion stared at him.
For the briefest moment, something passed between them.
It was not obedience or affection.
It felt closer to recognition, the acknowledgement of one stubborn will by another.
Then the dragon leapt.
The terrace collapsed beneath the force of its departure.
Anaxion’s wings struck the air, sending stone and ash exploding in every direction.
Mortarion threw himself behind a broken pillar as fragments tore across the platform.
The dragon climbed into the smoke.
Its dark green body disappeared between the clouds, visible only when flashes of volcanic light illuminated its underside.
Anaxion circled the tower once before turning towards the northern reaches of the ruined city.
Within moments, it was gone.
Mortarion emerged from cover.
Half the terrace had fallen away.
Cracks spread through what remained, making the ground unsafe.
He moved quickly towards the entrance of the dragonkeepers’ hall before another section could collapse.
The encounter had not produced a bond.
Anaxion knew his face, scent and name.
It had examined his mind and chosen not to kill him.
Those were meaningful developments, but they offered no guarantee that the dragon would return.
Death had said Anaxion would come to him.
The skeletal creature had not said the dragon would remain.
Mortarion entered the shelter of the lower hall and examined his shoulder.
The joint moved, though raising his arm produced sharp pain.
Nothing appeared broken, but bruising had already begun beneath his pale skin.
His hearing gradually returned.
The dragon’s departure had left him with another problem.
Mortarion had assumed Anaxion might provide a means of escaping Old Valyria.
Without a completed bond, he remained stranded upon the island.
He would need an alternative.
Ships had entered Valyria since the Doom, though few returned.
Wrecks might remain along the coast, and one could perhaps be repaired if enough of its hull survived.
The lost army of Aurion Belaerys might also have brought vessels, although nearly two centuries of volcanic air would have reduced ordinary timber to rot.
Mortarion retrieved the texts on dragon bonding and secured them beneath his coat.
The hall had become unstable after Anaxion’s landing, and the creature behind the lower wall continued to scrape intermittently against the stone.
He left before either danger worsened.
The dragon had flown north.
Mortarion followed.
He did not expect to catch Anaxion on foot.
The direction merely gave him a reason to explore districts he had not yet seen.
If the dragon had a lair somewhere among the ruins, traces of its passage might eventually lead him there.
The road descended from the terrace into an older section of the capital.
Towers stood more densely together, connected by elevated bridges and enclosed walkways.
Many had collapsed into one another during the Doom, creating a maze of fused stone.
Mortarion moved cautiously.
His shoulder limited his ability to wield Dreaded Deliverance.
He loosened the Valyrian steel dagger within his coat, deciding it would be the more practical weapon if attacked within the narrow streets.
The air grew hotter as he travelled north.
Orange light shone through cracks in the ground, and several roads had become impassable where molten rock flowed between buildings.
Mortarion altered his path repeatedly, searching for intact bridges across the burning channels.
He passed the remains of a temple whose entrance was guarded by statues with human bodies and dragon heads.
Inside, hundreds of blackened skeletons knelt before a circular altar.
The dead had died in prayer.
Mortarion left them undisturbed.
Farther north, he found a district unlike the palaces and markets he had already searched.
The buildings were functional rather than decorative.
Long halls stood beside open courtyards, while broken stone posts marked areas where animals or prisoners might once have been chained.
Barracks.
The road leading into the district was covered in discarded weapons.
Most were ordinary steel or bronze, ruined by rust and heat.
Spearheads lay beside shattered shields.
Helmets had melted into distorted shapes, and pieces of armour remained fused to the black road.
Mortarion crouched near one shield.
A symbol had once been painted across its surface, though only part of it remained.
He recognised the outline of a purple sphinx surrounding a crown.
The emblem was not one used by the old Freehold.
It belonged to Aurion Belaerys.
Mortarion rose.
He had found the path taken by the self-proclaimed Emperor of Valyria.
The scattered equipment increased as he entered the district.
Broken wagons blocked side streets, their metal frames resting among ash where the wooden portions had long since vanished.
Pottery jars lay shattered nearby, suggesting the army had carried water and provisions into the city.
Some jars remained sealed.
Mortarion inspected one from a distance but did not open it.
Whatever rested within had spent nearly two centuries in Valyria’s heat.
Even if it had once contained water, it would no longer be safe.
The deeper he travelled, the more signs of battle appeared.
Sword marks scarred walls.
Spears protruded from doorways.
Several buildings had been burned from within, their entrances blocked by piles of stone.
Aurion’s army had not simply vanished.
It had fought.
Against what, Mortarion could not determine.
No enemy bodies lay among the equipment, although scavengers or the Doom’s lingering fires might have destroyed them.
A low wall had collapsed across the road ahead.
Mortarion climbed over it carefully, protecting his injured shoulder.
Beyond waited a broad field of blackened earth.
At first, he mistook the pale shapes covering it for stone.
Then he saw the armour.
Thousands of bodies filled the basin.
They lay in ranks, heaps and tangled masses extending from one side of the ruined district to the other.
Some had died together behind shields, while others appeared to have been thrown across the ground by an immense force.
Rusted swords remained clutched in skeletal hands.
Many corpses had not decayed properly.
Valyria’s heat had dried flesh against bone, leaving blackened faces frozen in terror.
Others were encased in layers of grey stone, suggesting greyscale had spread through the army before death claimed them.
Thirty thousand soldiers had marched into Valyria.
Mortarion had found their grave.
He descended slowly into the basin.
The silence felt heavier here.
Even the deep thrumming beneath the island seemed distant, muffled by the number of dead.
Banners lay among the bodies, their cloth reduced to scraps but their metal emblems preserved.
Mortarion recognised the purple sphinx repeatedly.
Aurion’s men had gathered in this place for a final stand.
The dead faced outward in several directions, proving they had been surrounded.
Some had raised shields above their heads, as if defending against something attacking from the sky.
Mortarion searched for signs of fire.
Many soldiers were burned, but not in the manner of men struck by dragonflame.
Their armour had melted from within.
In some places, groups of bodies had fused together around pools of black glass.
Sorcery might have killed them.
Something moved beneath Mortarion’s boot.
He stepped back and raised the dagger, only to find that he had dislodged a helmet.
It rolled down a mound of bodies before striking a large black shape partially buried beneath the dead.
Mortarion stared.
The shape was not stone.
It was a wing.
A dragon lay at the centre of the mass grave.
Its body was smaller than Anaxion’s but still large enough to dwarf most castles.
The creature had fallen upon its side, crushing hundreds of soldiers beneath it.
Most of its scales had turned dull grey, while great sections of flesh had hardened into stone.
The dragon’s skull rested near the far end of the basin.
One horn had shattered, and several spears protruded from its mouth.
Its wings were riddled with holes.
Mortarion approached.
The beast appeared to have died from dozens of wounds, yet no ordinary soldiers should have been capable of inflicting such damage upon a dragon of that size.
Deep cuts crossed its neck and chest, while part of its abdomen had been torn open.
Something had killed the dragon before slaughtering the army around it.
Near the base of the creature’s neck lay a single armoured figure.
Unlike the surrounding soldiers, the body had not been crushed.
It rested against the dragon’s scales, one hand still wrapped around the hilt of a broken sword.
The armour covering it was dark, almost black.
Rippling patterns moved across the metal.
Valyrian steel.
The dead man’s face had long since withered, yet silver hair remained attached to the skull.
Mortarion looked from the helmet to the rest of the armour, then towards the enormous dragon lying among the thirty thousand dead.
He had found the lost Emperor of Valyria.
Aurion Belaerys.