Tension.
The gloom only made it worse.
King Argilac did not know why he felt so on edge.
The old king stepped out of his tent.
A king was never alone, and his was the company of the Storm Kingdom’s most famed knights.
Yet even these warriors, men who had carved their names into the tourney lists and the battlefield alike, now fidgeted like restless children.
The common soldiers beyond them were still fortifying the camp for the day’s battle.
From his vantage, the old king could see them clustered in twos and threes, whispering.
Dragons.
Dragons that had not shown their fangs to the world in nearly a century.
The old king still remembered being a boy with hair as black as a crow’s wing, drinking in those old tales every day.
Tales of Queen Nymeria’s bitter defeat at the hands of the dragonlords, her exile a grand tragedy.
Tales of Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, who tricked the dragon Urrax with clever words and won the glory of a dragonslayer.
Ah, a childhood steeped in longing.
The old king sighed inwardly.
The Storm Kingdom had reached its reckoning.
Before Argilac took the throne, the kingdom that had once swallowed the Riverlands and seemed poised to unite the Seven Kingdoms had lost its fire.
King Aleck Durrandon, called the Reckless, had underestimated the ironborn raiders and charged headlong into catastrophe.
House Durrandon never recovered its grip on the Riverlands.
After the rout at Fairmarket, three generations of Storm Kings, down to Argilac himself, had bled to reclaim what was lost.
Every campaign failed.
The Dornish and the Gardener kings of the Reach gnawed at the stormlands’ edges.
Exhausted and stretched thin, Argilac set aside the pride of his youth.
He abandoned the northern crusade and turned to driving the Dornish back into their mountains like the vermin they were.
Then he marched west and shattered a Reach host of sixty thousand at the Battle of Summerfield, killing Gyles VII Gardener on the field.
He had held his family’s birthright.
All for the Storm.
The old king steeled himself.
Joining the coalition against Volantis had brought rewards he could not afford to squander.
The commission would fill the kingdom’s empty coffers and fund a new standing army.
And the Tarth shipping route promised by Braavos would bring a steady river of gold.
He could only pray the dragons were as terrible as the stories claimed.
Rain began to fall from the leaden sky, the first sign of night yielding to day.
The old king caught a few drops in his palm.
His mood darkened.
A heavy rain was coming.
A bad omen.
Most of his fifteen thousand were cavalry.
The horses they had shipped across the sea had not yet recovered their strength, and the mounts provided by the Myrish resistance and the free towns were poor substitutes for stormland warhorses.
A downpour would blunt the Storm Knights’ charge and tear his battle plan apart.
The old king was confident he could thrash Volantis’s decrepit legions, but outnumbered as he was, the butcher’s bill would be steep without his cavalry at full force.
“Your Grace, it’s raining.
You should…” Earl Connington, his master of coin, hurried over with a cloak.
“Tell the lads to look after their horses.
The moment the rain stops, we make ready.” The old king took the cloak, his face hard as he studied the sky.
The rain fell harder.
Then a cry tore through the camp.
“The sun…
the sun…
no, wait, it’s…”
“A dragon!”
Voices tangled together.
Shouts of alarm.
Cries of fear. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Horses screaming in panic.
They all collapsed into a single word.
“Dragon!”
The old king rushed forward, one hand gripping a stake driven into the earth, his eyes locked on the vast golden form tearing through the dark clouds.
Rain struck scales that gleamed like burnished gold and vanished into steam in the same instant.
A savage grin spread across the old king’s face.
So this was a dragon.
So vast.
So terrible.
So…
wait.
The old king spotted the small dark speck on the dragon’s back.
It was fortunate his eyes were still sharp.
He would never have found the rider otherwise.
The wind from Raegor’s descent swept across the old king’s grey hair, though the dragon was still far off.
He narrowed his eyes, needing a long moment to recover.
A child?
The old king made out the small figure.
His grin faded, though he kept a smile for the dragon’s sake.
The faces of Earl Dondarrion and Earl Caron, who had come forward to receive the dragonrider, turned openly sour.
Why send a child?
A boy this young could barely manage a few sword drills.
Sending him into battle was a farce.
Even with a dragon…
Raegon straightened his aching back.
My back.
The boy groaned inwardly.
Even with the dual protection of Dragon’s Companion and Untainted Vessel, the aches of a long flight still demanded their due.
Aegon, how do you ride a dragon for hours and feel nothing?
Raegon resolved to wring the answer out of his brother the moment he returned home.
He raised his speaking horn again and called out, “I am Raegon Targaryen of Dragonstone, answering the summons of the Holy Alliance.
I seek an audience with His Grace, King Argilac Durrandon of the Storm.”
“Prince Raegon, are you alone?” Earl Caron, Lord of the Marches, bellowed at the top of his lungs.
The loud-voiced lord was among the most powerful nobles in the stormlands.
His seat at Nightsong commanded the marcher lords, who supplied the Storm Kingdom with the finest soldiers in all the Seven Kingdoms.
Raegon felt the slight.
The old dragon, bonded to Raegon through their shared senses, caught his partner’s shift in mood at once.
His neck arched.
Searing heat rippled along his tendrils, so fierce that the knights and lords gathered around the great dragon no longer felt the rain falling on them.
Earl Caron’s face went white.
The message Raegor sent was simple: displease us, and he can reduce everything here to ash in a heartbeat.
King Argilac shouted hastily, “Raegon of Dragonstone, I am Argilac Durrandon.”
Earl Connington at his side bellowed out the old king’s full titles: “Prince Raegon of Dragonstone, before you stands King Argilac of the Storm Kingdom, King of the Stormlands and the Riverlands, Grand Master of the Storm Knights, Protector of the Marches, Lord of the Rainwood, the Great Hunter, Scourge of Dorne, Garden-Destroyer…
these are all His Grace’s titles.”
Such a long list.
And there are not even that many people standing in front of me.
Raegon tilted his head to the side, bored.
Picking his ear in public would have been rude.
Raegor let out a thunderous growl.
The horses, panicked and thrashing since the dragon’s arrival, fell silent at once.
Perfectly still.
Perfectly docile.
Several knights wore expressions of raw pain.
Horses that endured such an ordeal would have their lives cut short, a cost that poorer knights and sellsword riders could ill afford.
They could only hope for a crushing victory.
The spoils of the battlefield, the ransoms of captives, and the Rika Raklon plunder license promised by the coalition against Volantis would have to cover their losses and keep them comfortable for a season.
Raegon nodded lightly from the dragon’s back and raised his horn.
“My brother, Aegon Targaryen, Lord of Dragonstone, has already scouted the Volantene positions.
Once the rain stops, we can attack at once.”
The old king blinked.
Something had slipped past his expectations.
He had not thought Raegon would be so…
decisive.
No dithering.
No ceremony.
The reason was simple.
Raegon was tired.
All he wanted was to get this over with so he could sleep.
On dragonback would do.
Strapped into the saddle, he would not fall.
Better to handle things cleanly and be done with it.
The climate of southwestern Essos in this season was much like the stormlands, though without the violent gales.
Rain like this usually passed quickly.
Attacking in the rain was not impossible, but riding out under clear skies was far more pleasant.
The old king’s maester was in his tent, scribbling furiously.
“Observation: the dragon’s body radiates considerable heat, sufficient to evaporate a measure of rainfall.
However, given present conditions, the dragon appears to dislike rain, or at least shows diminished combat inclination in wet weather…”
“Prince Raegon, we thank you for your aid.” King Argilac’s thoughts churned, but he settled on a smile.
“We will make ready at once.
We march when the rain stops.”
Raegon nodded and put away his horn.
Raegor drew his wings in slightly, letting the membrane canopy over the boy’s head.
The dragon’s blazing heat steamed the rain away.
Raegon took several deep breaths.
Untainted Vessel was taking hold, fresh strength filling his muscles, his energy slowly returning.
When Earl Dondarrion and Earl Caron returned to the old king’s side, their legs were still trembling.
“Well?” the old king asked quietly.
“That dragon could kill us all in the blink of an eye.” Earl Caron’s voice had rarely been so soft.
“If it were a third smaller, we might have a way to deal with it.
At this size…
the only target is the rider.”
The old king was silent for a moment.
“Where is Dragonstone?”
“Blackwater Bay, Your Grace,” Earl Dondarrion said.
“Look east from the mouth of the Blackwater Rush, and you will see the island.”
Blackwater Bay.
The Blackwater Rush.
Argilac suddenly laughed.
“Your Grace…”
“It is nothing.” The old king smiled.
“We will speak of it after the battle.”
A brilliant idea had taken root in his mind, one that might restore the Storm Kingdom to its former glory and settle old scores.
To the sound of warhorses whinnying and the bright clash of steel and armor…
The rain stopped.
30+ chapters are available now and daily updates!