“Vhagar, Dracarys!”
Again and again, Vhagar rained dragonfire upon the Myrish soldiers fleeing in every direction below.
Baelon’s eyes were bloodshot as he mechanically repeated the same motions over and over.
Dive.
Burn.
Climb.
Then dive again.
Caraxes did the same, plunging from the sky alongside Vhagar.
The red dragon had descended into utter frenzy.
Dragonfire had transformed the earth into a boiling hell.
Vhagar and Caraxes burned the land black.
The lush greenery and fertile soil that had once covered eastern Tarth were gone, replaced by vast stretches of scorched, glassy crust.
Cracks split the blackened ground, breathing forth choking fumes of sulfur and ash.
The crude wooden fort the Myrmen had hastily raised after landing was already cinders.
Even the sea itself burned beneath the wrath of the dragonlords.
A handful of quick-witted Myrish soldiers tried to flee aboard small boats, only for Vhagar’s green flames to engulf them.
The thick dragonfire seemed almost alive.
In defiance of all reason, it clung to the sapphire waters and spread rapidly across the surface, raising enormous clouds of scalding white steam that blotted out the sky.
The survivors stared hopelessly toward the sea.
Their only path of escape was now sealed by a wall of green fire burning upon the water.
Across the visible expanse of ocean, not a single intact vessel remained.
Only a few thick planks of unrecognizable shape, their edges charred black, rose and fell helplessly with the waves.
They knocked against one another with hollow, empty sounds.
Smaller splinters and unidentifiable remnants drifted among patches of floating oil, forming filthy, iridescent stains upon the water.
The sea wind carried a stench it could not disperse.
Burning flesh.
Burning wood.
And death.
…
By the time Baelon climbed down from Vhagar’s immense body, Aemon had only one breath left in him.
Baelon had come ahead merely because his blood was hot for battle.
He had wanted to reach the camp early and join his brother.
Instead, he found this.
The feathered shaft of the crossbow bolt still protruded from his brother’s chest.
The bolt had passed straight through Aemon’s chest cavity.
Aemon lay upon a bed, his face deathly pale, each breath so faint it seemed it might be his last.
“My prince…
the bolt entered through your brother’s lung.
I dared not pull it free.
Doing so would have killed him at once.
I sawed away the arrowhead and poured boiled strongwine over the wound, but…”
The grey-robed maester swallowed nervously.
“Prince Aemon refused milk of the poppy.
He insisted upon waiting until Your Grace arrived.
My prince, I fear…”
The maester lowered his eyes.
“The Stranger has granted him only these final moments.”
Baelon fell into a daze.
His vision became nothing but shifting smears of color, flowing and blending together like melted candlewax.
Someone was speaking beside him.
The voice rose and fell.
Yet Baelon could not make out a single complete word.
The broken syllables struck his ears like loose stones, only to tumble into the hollow emptiness inside his chest.
How strange.
He ought to be weeping.
He ought to be screaming.
Why am I not crying?
The thought came to Baelon without warning.
He walked to the bedside. Read this novel at g.com for the best experience.
Then he sank to one knee and took Aemon’s hand in his own.
Aemon struggled to open one eye.
He looked at Baelon.
Brother…
Have you not even the strength to open your eyes anymore?
Aemon’s lips moved weakly.
He seemed to be trying to speak, but only broken wisps of breath escaped him.
No.
No, don’t.
Baelon bent closer.
He pressed his ear beside Aemon’s lips.
The voice was so soft that it might have been a feather touching the ground.
“Dae…
ron…”
Aemon’s eye remained open.
There was such sorrow in it.
Forgive me, Rhaenys.
I should have spoken your name first…
But I truly have no strength left.
Little sister…
I’m coming to join you.
Baelon forgot why he was standing there.
A strange sensation of weightlessness overcame him, as though his soul were slowly peeling free of his flesh and rising into the air.
He seemed to hover above himself.
Coldly watching the man kneeling beside the bed.
Watching the body lying upon it.
Time lost all meaning.
Perhaps only an instant passed.
Perhaps it was an eternity.
Then a gust of wind struck Baelon’s face.
He shuddered.
The thin sheet of ice beneath which his mind had hidden suddenly shattered.
And from below it erupted something boiling.
Something vast.
A fury hot enough to burn the whole world.
Daemion Velaryon stared at the dead prince in horror.
Cameron’s face was ashen.
All strength seemed to leave him as he collapsed to his knees upon the ground.
The soldiers of Tarth and the Sea Snake’s men who had landed with Daemion gathered silently outside the tent.
They stared at the two brothers within.
One dead.
One kneeling.
Baelon remained beside Aemon’s body.
His fingers tightened around his brother’s lifeless hand.
“Cameron.”
His voice was very quiet.
“You still have strength enough to hold a sword, don’t you?”
…
Boremund wore a warhelm adorned with antlers upon either side.
Mounted high upon his horse, he stared coldly at the Myrmen before him.
Cameron’s hand tightened around the hilt of his sword.
The last remnants of the Myrish force had been completely surrounded.
Soldiers had driven them onto a narrow patch of ground with a sheer cliff at their backs.
There was nowhere left to run.
The first man dropped his weapon.
Then a second.
A third.
They fell to their knees one after another, shouting desperately.
“We surrender!”
“Spare us!”
“Mercy!”
Baelon climbed down from Vhagar’s back.
A squire brought him a horse, and the prince mounted before riding to the front of the army.
He passed a man who had been burned by dragonfire.
If the thing could still be called a man.
The half-charred body had become embedded in the melted earth.
Its lower half had fused with the blackened ground so completely that flesh and soil could scarcely be distinguished.
As Baelon rode past, the creature’s eyes still moved.
Slowly, they turned within the burned ruin of its face.
They followed the prince.
Baelon stopped.
The kneeling Myrmen stared up at him.
Fear filled their faces.
Yet beneath that fear lingered the faintest trace of hope.
Baelon reached to his waist.
He drew Dark Sister.
The Myrmen watched in terror.
Baelon’s voice rang across the battlefield, high and cold, as sharp and unmistakable as ice breaking upon a frozen lake.
It drowned out every other sound.
“No mercy!”
Boremund lowered his visor.
He accepted a lance from his squire.
Behind Baelon, the surviving soldiers of Tarth roared.
The Baratheon men who had only just landed before force-marching to the battlefield joined them, the black stag upon gold flying above their ranks.
Velaryon sailors raised their voices as well.
Their fury merged into a single deafening torrent.
An unstoppable flood of rage.
Cameron drew his sword.
With tears in his eyes and his throat nearly tearing from the force of his cry, he roared alongside his men.
“For Prince Aemon!”
“Avenge the prince!”
This time, there was no rainstorm to save the Myrmen.
They had nowhere to flee.
Those who still possessed some shred of courage snatched up swords and knives, attempting one final, hopeless stand.
Most simply remained upon their knees.
They waited as the soldiers of the Iron Throne hacked off their heads or drove steel through their hearts.
The flames of two monstrous dragons had already burned every scrap of courage from them.
Along the cliff’s edge, some Myrish soldiers let out howls that scarcely sounded human.
Then they threw themselves into the raging sea below.
Many struck the jagged rocks.
Bones shattered.
Bodies burst.
Their agonized screams rose from beneath the cliffs.
The fortunate few who reached the water soon vanished beneath the waves, overcome by wounds, cold, or sheer exhaustion.
Prince Baelon charged at the very front, Dark Sister flashing in his hand.
A Myrman raised his sword and desperately tried to bar the prince’s path.
Baelon cut off his head.
“Take their heads.”
His voice was cold.
“Mount them along the shore.”
Baelon raised Dark Sister, its dark Valyrian steel wet with blood.
“Let vultures tear apart their corpses and their souls.
Let the sea winds gnaw their bones and the burning sun scour away their very forms.”
“Until not one trace remains to defile this land.”
For my brother.