“Sebastian, we’ve mostly finished searching the west.
Your team takes the northern ruins.”
Sebastian took the purified water Lancel handed him, drank deep, and nodded.
“Amos goes after Sebastian returns.
He’ll search the southern ruins.”
“Understood.”
Lancel reinforced Sebastian’s team with protective magic, leaving their armor glowing faint silver-red.
“Once Amos is back, Aslan, you take the men and search the dragon corpse again.
Valar, Raymond, Lynn, Argo, Master Malach, and I will enter the collapsed tower at the center of the ruins.
Everyone stay sharp.
Don’t get wounded.
The magical contamination here is extreme.
If your skin is broken, I can’t guarantee my magic will hold.”
Lancel had noticed early on that the ruins near where the great dragon fell were actually several towers, smashed by something and collapsed into a tangled heap.
Centuries of magical corrosion had fused some of the once-impenetrable building material into solid masses.
Other sections crumbled at a touch.
In the Freehold’s prime, the dragonlords had favored towers.
Dragons roosted on them, climbed them.
The dragonlords worked magic in them, feasted guests, schemed against rivals.
The spire without a roof was the signature of Valyria.
Based on Cleorius’s notes and maps, Lancel suspected this was the city his family had once governed: Valsor.
The forge-city of Valyria.
In the empire’s golden age, this city produced countless legendary weapons.
It also buried countless slaves.
Valyrian steel weapons, forged with deep magic, resisted corrosion far better than raw steel.
Lancel’s plan was simple: find finished Valyrian steel items first, as many as possible.
Raw steel ingots were a fallback.
Gold, silver, jewels mattered least.
If any books had survived the Doom, he would lead a search for those immediately.
Sebastian’s team returned exhausted as the black haze thickened overhead.
They had lost one man.
An unlucky Silverblood soldier cut himself while digging through rubble.
Lancel’s protective magic failed.
The soldier burned to ash from the inside out in the space of a blink.
But their haul was solid.
Sebastian and a young Silverblood warrior named Hagan Tar had found a collapsed mansion.
Its owner had long since turned to dust.
The mansion’s former glory was buried with him.
Still, it left something for those who came after.
A suit of Valyrian steel scale armor, its decorative fittings long gone, though flecks of gold still hinted at old opulence.
A Valyrian steel rapier set with moonstone and black diamond.
And a crescent axe, its haft rotted away, but its shape still clear.
Following Lancel’s orders, Sebastian and Hagan Tar left the scattered jewelry and coin.
They took only the armor, the rapier, and the axe.
Amos Fazer’s team went next.
He brought the Unsullied, vowing to bring back more than Sebastian had.
The black haze over the sky began to thin.
Amos’s team returned quickly.
The strong, quiet young man was as solid and silent as forged iron.
Lancel knew he could trust him absolutely, the same as a blood brother.
When that block of iron set his mind to something, he delivered perfectly.
“My lord.” Amos took the waterskin Valar offered and drank deep.
Beside him, a Silverblood soldier opened his pack.
A cascade of Valyrian steel clattered onto the ground.
A flame-patterned sword shaped like a serpent, its blade a strange grey-red that deepened toward the core, as if a fire burned inside.
Whether magic or forging, no one could say.
Two Valyrian steel daggers, their hilts lost.
The soldiers had wrapped them carefully to avoid cuts.
A massive greatsword, its crossguard of unknown material set with gems forming a burning sun.
A few dull grey Valyrian steel ornaments and a spiked spearhead, also Valyrian steel.
“Where did you find all this?” Sebastian, still resting, leaned in.
Amos shook his head.
He didn’t know what the place had been.
A smithy, maybe.
A dragonlord’s laboratory or private residence.
It held many Valyrian steel items, but most were ruined. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
They didn’t talk long.
Aslan Londer took the remaining men to search the dragon corpse.
Lancel led his brothers toward the collapsed tower.
“Lord Lancel.” The red priest Malach raised both arms as they reached the ruined tower, its original shape long lost.
“I feel the Lord of Light calling me.
My lord, you must understand.
My mentor and I were never like the ignorant masses.”
Malach had slipped into a strange state, speaking as if to himself.
Lancel signaled Valar and Raymond not to interrupt.
He kept digging through the rubble with Argo and Lynn, who worked in steady silence.
They ignored the fused sections.
The brittle spots, the ones that crumbled at a touch, were where they focused.
“R’hllor, Lord of Light, our one true god.” Malach’s voice rose.
“To us, He is a symbol.
What we truly worship is what lies behind Him.
Ice and fire.
Cold and heat.
Darkness and light.
We worship the supreme will behind all things.
You are that will’s favored child, and so He generously shows you the path ahead.
The great savior Azor Ahai shall be reborn amidst smoke and salt, draw the sword Lightbringer, end the Long Night, and bring eternal dawn.
The ancient prophecy will be fulfilled.
You are the force that sets it in motion.”
His voice grew louder.
Even when Raymond unearthed a Valyrian steel bastard sword set with a massive ruby, even when Valar pulled out a suit of Valyrian steel plate-and-chain armor worked with dragon heads, their shouts of triumph did not break his cadence.
“His prophecy will be fulfilled.
The path He has laid, you will walk.”
“Now, He delivers your payment.”
Lancel stared at the cracked black stone before him.
Five dragon eggs, each a different color, their surfaces scaled and petrified to stone, lay still in a bronze vessel wrapped in black stone.
Beside the bronze vessel, a small bone horn rested in silence, as if gazing back at him.