"Screeeech..."
With Jenny's shout, a shrill, miserable cry echoed from the cracks in the stone wall—it was the wail of a dying rat.
Even Dany, the "imitation" version, could imbue her voice with a soul-binding or soul-destroying effect. How could the true, original Grand Sorceress not possess such power?
With just one shout, the "rat spirit" hiding in the stone crevice was annihilated—its soul scattered, its body bleeding from all seven orifices as it fell dead.
"Wretch! How dare you use such a trick to humiliate me!"
Jenny's face darkened, her once-beautiful features twisting into something monstrous—she looked like a demon ready to devour someone whole.
The others looked at one another, baffled.
The Ragged Prince spoke cautiously, lowering his voice. "What's wrong? It was just a rat. We're in the wilderness; it's normal for caves to have rats."
"That was a skinchanger!"
Jenny suddenly sprang to her feet, striding out of the cave. She climbed up to the top of the nearby hill and turned toward the direction of Volantis. Her mouth opened wide, and in her blue eyes flickered countless other irises—gold, violet, blue; old men's, youths', men's, women's—
"Kill…"
She whispered the word softly, almost like a lover's murmur, yet it was as if a nuclear explosion erupted from her lips.
The air before her rippled and twisted like a sheet of water. In the distance, the clouds trembled slightly—then burst apart with a booming roar.
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!"
Two kilometers away, in the allied army's encampment, every creature from sky to ground died instantly—a hawk, two ravens, a cat, a rat—all their heads burst open.
Their skulls exploded like fresh dung stuffed with firecrackers.
Except for Gisela, who was stationed at the rookery in Meereen, Dany's entire team of skinchanger scouts had been wiped out in one strike.
In Meereen's Great Pyramid, six skinchangers "died" on the spot, their bodies collapsing. The Dragon Queen was immediately alerted.
Hurrying up to the tenth floor of the pyramid, she entered the chamber and was greeted by the sight of six people lying side by side on the carpet, bleeding from their orifices, their chests barely rising. Dany pressed her forehead and sighed.
"This is bad. We've lost our intelligence advantage."
A skinchanger's mind cannot split; once their soul enters their animal companion, their physical body becomes unconscious.
For that reason, Dany had specially prepared a comfortable, safe, and quiet room within the pyramid—divided into seven private chambers, each for one of her seven skinchangers.
Now, Gisela stood there pale and trembling with terror, while her six companions lay motionless, their fate uncertain.
"Your Majesty, how are they?" the Spearwife asked nervously.
"Don't panic," Dany said calmly, soothing the wildling woman. "This isn't the first time. Watch—I'll heal them with Holy Restoration."
The skinchangers' souls were merely scattered, and the Dragon Queen specialized in dealing with such things.
Sure enough, by the next morning, even the most seriously injured among them—Hogg, the unlucky wildling who had used a rat's body to spy on Jenny—had awakened.
Dany didn't blame him. After all, when you walk by the river often enough, your shoes are bound to get wet.
As long as her skinchangers continued to spy on the enemy's high command, and as long as Dany sought to uncover their secrets, discovery by Jenny was inevitable.
Because she couldn't be avoided.
It wasn't as if you could simply choose not to cross paths with her.
If you wanted to avoid her, you'd first have to know where she was.
But the moment you looked at her, she would know.
Skinchangers were powerful—almost like a cheat code against ordinary mortals—but the supernatural world was like a game arena. No profession was invincible; each had its own strengths and weaknesses.
As long as a mage's soul was strong enough, it was easy for them to detect the presence of a skinchanger's spirit.
And if that mage also knew how to wield soul-based attacks, the skinchanger would be in serious trouble.
"Rest and recover for now," Dany told her team. "From now on, stay away from Jenny's camp—and don't all go online in the same area at once."
She then provided them with new animal companions.
Unfortunately, the allied forces were acting faster than she had anticipated. Less than a day after the skinchangers reconnected, another was gravely injured.
While gathering intelligence about the "Ghis Guerrilla Group" on the Isle of Jeen, the raven from Bolo's unit had been caught by the Dragonwife.
The wildling's soul was tainted by the power of a dark god, driving him nearly insane. Thankfully, Dany's soul-calming magic was effective enough to save him.
Beyond Jeen, in regions such as Tolos, Meereen, and the Lhazar River—anywhere under allied surveillance—within mere days, several mages skilled in soul attacks had been found.
The allied army didn't need to travel all the way to Asshai to find experts. Across Essos, every major city-state had its share of supernatural practitioners.
Take the Dragonwife, for example—she had been in New Ghis all along, breeding dragons for the allied forces.
In truth, Bu Cheng and Tamm could also effectively defend against skinchanger intrusion.
The reason the allied forces hadn't deployed such mages earlier was simply because they had fallen into a cognitive blind spot—not because they lacked the means to counter skinchangers.
Now deprived of her edge in intelligence gathering, Dany feared she wouldn't be able to stop the allied forces from airdropping plague-ridden corpses over Meereen. To counter this, she sent Drogon—her "loudspeaker"—to fly above Volantis and shout her warning to the heavens.
"If you dare to drop another corpse into Slaver's Bay," her voice thundered, "I swear by my blood that I shall become the Deathwing incarnate—and return tenfold the number of infected bodies to your cities!
Volantis, the allied camp, Meereen, Valantis's Black Walls, the rich districts of Lys, Myr, and Tyrosh, the Black Goat Temple of Qohor, the palace of Qarth, and the Isle of Elephants—these shall all burn beneath Deathwing's fury!
Hear this warning well—Daenerys Targaryen's word is her bond. Do not claim you were not forewarned!"
Dany meant every word. She did not wish to wage biological warfare against the slavers, for the slavers were rich, with the best medicine and sanitation.
In any epidemic, it was always the common people who suffered most.
But if the allied forces truly succeeded in dropping a single plague corpse into Slaver's Bay, she would have no choice but to open Pandora's box.
Dragons flew faster than wyverns and soared many times higher—their flight powered by both magic and aerodynamics, whereas wyverns relied solely on wings and air.
No city in the world could stop a dragon from delivering its "biological weapons."
Balerion's declaration had proved quite effective—afterward, no more corpse-bearing wyverns entered Meereen's airspace.
That day, Dany was performing rehabilitation treatment for Morona, whose soul had scattered for the third time.
The spearwife sighed. "The wars here are enormous. All the Free Folk beyond the Wall combined wouldn't even make up half of the Western Army.
And it's so cruel. I never imagined that even a corpse could be turned into a weapon."
Boar Boroq grinned viciously. "This world-shaking war really broadened my horizons. If we ever attack the Wall again, all we'd need to do is smear a plague victim's blood on a raven's beak, send it flying to Castle Black, and let it peck the Lord Commander. Heh heh."
Dany was startled. The simple-minded wildlings had learned bad habits in Slaver's Bay.
The tall Hogg shook his head. "Too troublesome. You could just coat a mouse's paws with poison and have a hawk carry it over the Wall. Under cover of night, one swipe per guard—by dawn, Castle Black would be a city of the dead."
Dany was even more shocked. The wildlings weren't just cunning now—they were innovative.
If these veterans, tempered by a world war, ever returned beyond the Wall alive and recorded what they'd learned in Slaver's Bay, their book The Art of War by the Skinchangers would spell disaster for the Night's Watch and the Northmen alike.
As that thought crossed her mind, the shepherder girl Gisela said, "The Wall is freezing, there's nothing to eat, and there are White Walkers. I don't want to go back."
"You're right," said Hogg, picking up a bottle of apple cider from the table and taking a long, satisfied swig. "Never thought I'd live to drink my fill every day—and with such fine wine, too."
"The land around Dragon Queen's Point is a lot like Slaver's Bay. You can stick a sweet potato cutting in the ground and have enough to eat.
Even if we took the Wall, what's worth raiding in that frozen wasteland?" added another wildling woman, Thorn, who had also come from Dragon Queen's Point.
Dany went silent.
She realized she'd worried about the Night's Watch for nothing.
"Screeeech—"
"Wroooar—"
As they spoke, the piercing roars of dragons sounded outside, followed by the long, ringing call of a horn.
After many days, little Rhaegal had finally returned.
Behind Meereen's Great Pyramid, the old fighting pit had been converted into a dragon pit. Dany's dragons—and others' wyverns—often hunted cattle and sheep there.
The dragons lived atop the Great Pyramid; the wyverns stayed in the pit. But during the day, little Viserion and little Drogon often trained in the wide arena—
Vertical bombing, aerial strikes, dodging bolts, and armored flight.Even Balerion, Viserion, and Rhaegal—the three elder brothers—would circle the arena now and then.
They needed to practice flying in heavy armor, and how to fight wyverns while wearing "belly guards."
Because of that, Kraznys's Dragon Guard had not been disbanded. In fact, its ranks had grown from ten to a hundred—all centaurs.
Besides the official members, there were many "auxiliaries," young boys from Dany's khalasar—eight, nine, eleven, twelve years old. They were gifted and skilled in combat but too young to become Roaring Warriors, so they joined the Dragon Guard as trainees.
The Dragon Guard had excellent benefits—dragon essence to strengthen the body and sharpen the mind. That was Kraznys's slogan among the khalasar.
Even without the "dragon essence," serving in the Dragon Guard was still an honor. They were the Queen's elite, working close to the dragons and to the Dragon Queen herself—truly a fine post.
At the moment, a round-faced centaur boy of about seven or eight was mopping down the bull-sized little Drogon.
In the sunlight, the soap bubbles on Drogon's scales shimmered in a rainbow of colors. The boy was hot and tired, his round face flushed and drenched with sweat, but he worked diligently without slacking off.
On the high walkway, Dany and Aemon stood by the railing, watching the boy at work below.
"You've spent two days with Simba now. What do you think of him?" Dany asked with a smile.
The Dragon Queen always kept her word. If she said Simba would be a stable boy, then he would be.
Only, in this case, her "horse" was the steed that rode the world—a dragon.
"It's complicated," Aemon said, his expression equally so.
"How so?"
"Simba's a good child—hardworking, honest, clever. He has a real gift for riding, archery, and the curved blade. His silver hair even gives me a sense of kinship. But when I think of who he really is… sigh." Aemon shook his head.
"Old man, I want you to start a maester training class. Choose a few of my most learned scholars—literature, arithmetic, history, politics, economics.
The first batch of students will be the most talented centaur boys and girls from the khalasar. Simba will be among them.
The others are just for cover—or perhaps not even that. They'll be Simba's future companions and aides.
Your real task is to train Simba. Keep it discreet. Don't let anyone suspect a thing," Dany said with a smile.
Aemon was no fool. Dany had made herself perfectly clear. If he still couldn't grasp her meaning, his hundred years of wisdom would be wasted.
"Who exactly is Simba?" he asked, eyes widening in shock.
Dany's lips curved with quiet pride. "Rhaego. Rhaego Targaryen."
"Rhaego… Targaryen?" Aemon furrowed his brow, searching his memory until the name surfaced.
Then he recalled how Varys had swapped young Aegon—
"By the Seven!" Aemon's old face flushed red. Trembling, he turned to Dany, disbelief and hope warring in his eyes. "Your son… Rhaego?"
Dany gave a gentle nod.
"Mother above!" the old man gasped. His eyes rolled back, and he collapsed backward.
Overcome with excitement, he had fainted.
(End of Chapter)
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