“Hey, eldest son, can you hear me?
Fine, even if you can, you can’t answer your old man, so I’ll just pretend you did.”
The moment the shadow-binding stone shattered, Lancel felt the shadow swallow him and Vermithor whole.
But it carried no killing force, no strange curse.
His blood gave no warning.
Vermithor sent back something like: What the hell just happened?
Doesn’t feel like anything.
Lancel had no idea how he could read such rich emotion from a dragon.
Maybe he was simply different.
He set that aside.
Right now he only wanted to know what his father had left behind this time.
Then he saw it.
The shadow blocking his vision faded.
The world opened wide.
Vermithor’s reaction came through again: What the hell is this now?
Vermithor flew steady and level through clear sky.
Below the clouds stretched broad plains and a rushing river.
A massive army marched along the riverbank.
Lancel squinted, trying to make out their banners and faces.
He adapted fast.
This was some kind of illusion, he realized, but nothing dangerous.
“Eldest son, this is a family heirloom.
Your grandfather and great-grandfather treasured it.
Your old man didn’t know what it was at first.
Later, a shadowbinder from Asshai recognized it.
I never expected mages who toy with life and shadow could make such a thing.
This shadow-binding stone holds the shadows of many Valezeth ancestors fighting on dragonback.
Some are men.
Some are dragons.”
Cleorius paused.
“If you were fortunate enough to tame an adult dragon, the stone would shatter at once and release those ancestral shadows.
You would experience an ancestor’s dragon battle, or take part in a noble dragon duel of Valyria.
Our ancestors used these magical objects to train the younger generations who had tamed adult dragons, so they could quickly become true dragonlords and warriors.
Heh, I never imagined you’d have such luck, to experience this in this world.
Ah, enough.
Prepare yourself.
Even when Valyria still stood, this was a precious treasure.”
Lancel pulled his thoughts free of his father’s rambling. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
The army along the river grew clearer.
These warriors had olive skin and black hair, slender builds, dark eyes steady and burning with endless fervor.
They wore iron armor, well armed, morale high.
Stranger figures in odd robes stood along the river, and powerful magic rippled over the entire host.
“A Rhoynar army?” Lancel recognized them.
Vermithor suddenly noticed something and roared.
Lancel looked back.
Dragon cries filled the sky.
One after another, dragons burst through the clouds.
Some matched Vermithor’s size.
Some were smaller but just as fierce.
Some were far larger.
The greatest among them was twice Vermithor’s bulk.
That giant dragon dove first.
The dragonlord on its back, face unreadable, raised a horn.
Lancel gripped the bone spur hard.
“Vermithor, dive.”
Vermithor folded his wings and plunged after the others.
The Rhoynar mages chanted.
The river surged backward.
A colossal column of water rose into the sky, a towering waterspout thrown up between the mortal army and the dragons.
“Dracarys.”
Countless voices roared the command at once.
The largest dragon spat pale white flame first.
It slammed into the waterspout.
The river boiled away.
A wall of white steam swallowed sky and earth.
Rhoynar longbowmen raised their bows and loosed arrows wrapped in water magic at the dragons above.
Lancel felt as if someone were guiding his hands.
He steered Vermithor smoothly around the arrows and poured dragonfire onto the waterspout.
Three hundred dragons breathed flame at once.
Not even the full River Lorne could have stopped that divine punishment.
Lancel watched Vermithor’s fire tear through the already vanished waterspout.
The remaining flames surged down and turned a line of Rhoynar beneath the mist to ash in an instant.
The same happened across the battlefield.
Yet the scattered, burning Rhoynar still raised bows and spears, still tried to teach the dragonlords above a lesson.
The answer was more dragonfire.
Lancel kept Vermithor circling carefully, spitting flame now and then, never drifting close enough to take an arrow.
Many dragons kept that same distance.
Only the true giants dared hunt the Rhoynar almost at ground level.
In that moment, Lancel’s vision blurred.
The scene shifted again.
Now they were above the towers of Valyria.
Another brown dragon, no smaller than Vermithor, circled across from them.
The rider on its back was shouting something.
Lancel heard nothing.
Then the brown dragon lunged.
“A dragon duel?”
The familiar guiding sensation returned.
Lancel smoothly pressed the bone spur he used as a saddle grip.
Vermithor dropped hard the instant the enemy pounced.
The brown dragon beat its wings frantically and halted.
Vermithor’s head snapped up.
Almost at the moment the brown dragon hung still, Vermithor shot vertically into the sky, then wheeled and dove straight at the brown dragon’s head.
His claws raked across its skull, leaving a long gash.
“Vermithor, dragonfire.”
The brown dragon refused to yield.
It took the claw strike, then twisted its head and spat flame.
The two torrents collided in midair and burst apart.
Burning rain fell onto the brown dragon’s rider below, forcing his eyes shut.
With its master briefly unable to command, the brown dragon still lashed out.
Its claws met Vermithor’s in a savage tangle, both beasts tearing at each other, leaving gashes almost at the same instant.
The two dragons spiraled downward, flames roaring at each other’s heads without pause.
“Vermithor, strike the belly.”
Then the brown dragon, forced lower, exposed a fatal opening.
It bared its chest and belly.
Vermithor knocked the brown dragon’s claws aside and struck.
The brown dragon’s belly split open in ragged wounds.
But its claws raked Vermithor too, leaving marks far less deadly than the ones it had received.
The wounded brown dragon screamed in agony.
Its rider shouted desperately.
“Vermithor, the throat.”
Vermithor roared and drove his head down.
Hot blood sprayed.
Vermithor’s jaws closed on the brown dragon’s neck.
Everything began to fade.
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